A Gypsy’s
Life
“Now we move out again, the horses slipping down off the knoll, following the People, who follow the buffalo, who follow the grass, which springs from the Earth.”(from the journals of May Dodd)
We have been on the move for
weeks—thank God for the calendar I brought to mark off the days or
surely I would have lost all sense of time, for, of course, the
savages do not observe our calendar, and time itself passes
differently among them—impossible to explain this … only that there
is no time …
We have been traveling mostly westward
and sometimes north—that much I know for certain—hunting and
moving, we follow the buffalo herds.
At present I sit atop my horse Soldier
on a slight rise overlooking the green plains below. The sweet
child, Horse Boy, light as a feather, his brown skin warmed like a
biscuit in the sun, rides up beside me on the saddle as he
frequently does. I have grown ever fonder of the boy. He is my
little man, my protector, and I his.
Several of us women ride abreast; in
this case, I, Martha, Phemie, Helen, and Feather on Head. This
traveling time is our best, and in some cases only, opportunity to
visit and catch up on each other’s news—because, when we are in
camp there is too much work for all to do.
For the same reason, I shall try to
keep this poor record while on the move, and have taken to
strapping my notebook to my back so that when I have a moment to
pause thus I can make a few scribbles on the page. Presently I rest
my notebook against my little man’s back as I write.
Now we watch as the entire band,
possibly two hundred lodges strong with the southerners among us,
moves out across the prairie, horses and dogs and travois, some
people afoot, others riding, with the warrior guards appearing now
and then on the distant horizons, before disappearing again into
the folds of the land like ships at sea into the swales—it is a
sight to behold! How many white people, I wonder, can lay claim to
having witnessed such an exodus? Have ever participated in
it?
The Cheyennes are a wealthy people
and, particularly since the raid against the Crows, we have many
horses. Some of the women and older children walk alongside the
packhorses or alongside those that drag the travois, occasionally
snapping their quirts to move them along. Others ride atop the
packs themselves—two or three little girls together on one horse,
they play games and chatter away like chicks in the nest. Some of
the smaller children ride the huge camp dogs, others ride ponies.
From the time that they are able to walk, Cheyenne children are
comfortable on horseback, and their little hammerheaded prairie
ponies, which are quite distinct in appearance from our own, are
superbly even-tempered, well trained, and biddable. Some of the
older people, especially if they are ill or in any way infirm, and
some of the youngest children who still need to be tended to by
adults ride atop the travels—while the infants ride on baby boards
strapped to their mothers’ backs. Sometimes the baby boards are
hung from the pack saddles or the travois poles themselves, where
they dangle and bob gently with the movement of the horses much to
the comfort and amusement of the infants themselves, who smile and
gurgle, and, when they are not sleeping, watch all of the
proceedings with wide-eyed interest. In this manner they absorb the
nomadic prairie life as naturally as sunlight. The Indian children
rarely cry. They are superb, perfect little creatures—but then what
children aren’t? I think constantly now of our own babies—for many
of the others have announced their pregnancies. Our government may
have lost faith in our mission, but how can a prospective mother
not be filled with hope for the future?
I am in a bright mood today. The
constant travel of the past weeks, though hard and frequently
exhausting work, rather agrees with me. It occurs to me in response
to the conversation I once had with Captain Bourke in which he
asked, rhetorically, “Where is the savage’s Shakespeare?” that
possibly the reason the aboriginals have made scant contributions
to world literature and art, is that they are simply too busy
living—moving, hunting, working—without the luxury of time to
record the process, or even, as Gertie suggested, to ponder it.
Sometimes I think that this is not such a bad state … and yet here
I am, trying to steal a few moments whenever possible that I may
faithfully report these events.
I take this opportunity to study the
four of us—representatives of our group as it were. Such a ragtag
assembly we make! We are nearly natives now, all but
indistinguishable from our fellow Cheyenne women, and finally,
almost as dark of skin (and Phemie, of course, darker!). Even my
fair complexion has gone brown as a chestnut though I am still
careful to wear the greasepaint as much as possible.
Weather permitting Phemie dresses
still in men’s breechclouts and little else, the scandal of her
bare breasts long since accepted.
With the increasingly warm weather
Helen has given up her heavy knickerbockers and has had our
seamstress Jeanette Parker fashion a buckskin suit for her, with
fringed blouse and trousers. It is a decidedly eccentric outfit for
a lady, but suits Helen perfectly—she looks every bit the
frontiersman, especially with her ubiquitous pipe clenched between
her teeth.
Like me and my friend and fellow wife,
Feather on Head, Martha wears the simple loose-fitting antelope
hide dress that the native women favor.
Now we move out again, the horses
slipping down off the knoll, following the People, who follow the
buffalo, who follow the grass, which springs from the
Earth.
However peripatetic our wandering of
the past weeks may seem, there is a genuine method to it. The camp
organizes and moves with marvelous efficiency. I am reminded of
Mother’s stories of the gypsies of Europe. Of course, now I
understand why my bridal lodge had to be dismantled—I could hardly
have managed it by myself. This is communal life in the purest
form. Like a hive of bees, or a colony of ants, all participate for
the good of the whole.
The women do all the work of packing
the parfleches, dismantling the lodges, rigging and loading the
horses and travois, and at the end of the day’s travel, remaking
the camp in exactly the same formation as the last. In our lodge,
the old crone Crooked Nose oversees this process, squawking at us
like a cranky magpie while brandishing, at the slightest
infraction, a willow switch from her arsenal of weapons. On the
morning of our very first move she actually lashed me across the
back of the legs with her damnable switch; I was, presumably,
packing incorrectly.
“Ouch!” I hollered, leaping at the
sting; she’d hit me hard enough to raise a welt. I turned furiously
on the old woman, who, instantly recognizing my wrath, began to
shrink away from me. I moved toward her, shaking my finger; I put
my cupped hand on my throat and pointed at her again and said: “You
may be in charge of this operation, you old hag, but if you ever do
that to me again, I’ll wring your damn buzzard’s neck!” I was
speaking English, of course, but I was also speaking the universal
language of women, and the old crone understood me well. She has
not lifted her switch against me again.
The men devote themselves to the hunt,
the various military societies to guarding the camp and protecting
us as we travel. So far we have had no encounters with enemies nor
seen any sign of them but for a few abandoned campsites. It is said
that we have recently entered Crow and Shoshone country, and all
have noticed an increased vigilance on the part of the warrior
societies.
Altogether, having more or less
accepted my woman’s lot, I would admit that the division of labor
among the aboriginals is an equitable one. Far from being a casual
pastime as it was for Father and his friends, hunting is quite
literally a matter of life and death—extremely difficult and,
frequently dangerous, labor. Already this summer we have had one
man trampled and killed when he fell off his pony in the middle of
the chase. Another was severely gored by a buffalo bull, but
survived (the fellow’s name has now become Buffalo Not Kill Him),
and a third was badly injured when his pony stepped into a badger
hole at full gallop and broke its leg (this man now known as Horse
Breaks Leg). Still I have not failed to notice that the men embark
upon their hunting expeditions with a somewhat keener sense of
anticipation than we women are sometimes able to muster for our
camp chores and moving activities. Although even these are
generally accomplished in a spirit of good cheer and
cooperation.
To her own and to the savages’ credit,
our Negress Phemie, Mo’ohtaeve’ho’a’e, which translates
interestingly to Black White Woman, is permitted to accompany the
men on the hunt. Although women are not allowed membership in
council, the Cheyennes are surprisingly egalitarian in recognizing
special talents, and Phemie has clearly proven her venatic
prowess.
At the same time, women in the tribe
wield a great deal of influence in daily affairs and are regularly
consulted on all subjects that concern the welfare of the people.
My own Little Wolf, for example, values the advice of a prominent
medicine woman, Woman Who Moves Against the Wind, above that of all
the other medicine men, and, while he hardly agrees with my views
on all subjects, he nevertheless listens to them with great
respect. Perhaps our own society might learn something from the
savages about relations between the sexes.
The scouts have consistently found
good-sized herds of buffalo at nearly every place we have been.
Thus the men have had excellent hunting, and the larder is full.
The buffalo have been further supplemented by elk, deer, pronghorn,
a variety of small game, and trout—the streams hereabouts so choked
with fish that if one is quick about it one can scoop them up on
the bank by hand—another job for the women and children. We have
already amassed an abundance of hides, both for the comfort of the
tribe and to trade later at the agency trading post for the
precious commodities of coffee, sugar, tobacco, cloth, gunpowder,
trinkets, cooking utensils, and what other white man luxuries
strike the savages’ fancies.
Some days I actually find myself
hoping that the hunters will not locate game, for its very
fecundity makes more labor for everyone. At the expense of my hands
which begin to look prematurely like the hands of a crone, I have
become competent in all aspects of skinning, butchering, scraping
and tanning hides, drying meats, and cooking over the fire—although
as to this last, not all members of our family have fully
appreciated my culinary efforts.
I have also made a tenuous peace with
the old wife, Quiet One—we are hardly friendly, but she tolerates
my presence and no longer do I fear for my life at her hands.
However, she still becomes sullen every time I insist on taking a
turn at the fire—obviously she feels that I am trying to usurp her
position as first wife and head cook. Frankly, I should think that
she would be grateful for relief from the chore.
If sometimes I find myself complaining
about our daily labors, others among our group are shirking their
fair share of work altogether. Since her unsuccessful attempt to
“escape” Narcissa White has made it plain to our host/captors that
she is here against her will and refuses to cooperate in any way
whatsoever. The grand scale of her missionary efforts has been
similarly reduced. Having largely given up on saving the souls of
the savages, whom she has deemed as yet too crude and unformed to
be properly Christianized, she has now turned her attentions to
teaching them to be obedient servants to their future white
masters.
“She wants to teach them to be slaves,
first,” Phemie has observed. “Then, as my people have done, they
will turn to the white God for spiritual salvation. It is the
manner in which conquerors have always created a force of
laborers.”
Toward this end, Narcissa has taken
two savage girls under her wing and is trying to teach them certain
“civilized” domestic duties—to curtsy and carry her possessions for
her, to say “yes, ma‘am” and “no, ma’am” and other such things
which appear comical, and even mildly insane, in the middle of the
wilderness.
Many of the People do own
utensils—pots and pans, tin dishes, and even some poor silverware
obtained at the trading post, though some still eat with their
fingers.
“After they are settled on the
reservation,” Narcissa explains, “my instruction in such matters
will serve them well. For they will always be able to find
employment at the forts in the homes of the officers, and in the
white towns and settlements that spring up after the frontier is
once and for all secured from the heathens that civilization may
extend her noble boundaries without constant fear of their vicious
depradations.” (Speaking of which, Narcissa has never forgiven her
husband for the “involuntary” consummation of their marriage—does
not allow him in the lodge, and refuses to say whether or not she
is pregnant.)
I have no idea why her “servant girls”
go along with this treatment, perhaps simply out of curiosity, or
mere politeness, for the savages are both curious and polite in
abundance. However, I predict that as a rule these people will make
poor domestic help.
Now we have reached our afternoon destination, chosen by an advance guard of scouts, and announced by the old camp crier who rides the length and breadth of our procession, spread out by the end of the day over a distance of several miles.
Regardless of whether our new campsite
is intended to accommodate us for one day or several, the women set
up each as a perfect replica of the last—with every family and each
lodge in the same position relative to the whole. The full tribal
circle opens always to the east, to face the rising sun, as does
each family circle, as does each individual lodge entrance. This is
both a religious and practical consideration, for one awakens to
the warmth of the morning sun, and by leaving the lodge flap open
in the morning the sun lights, warms, and freshens the whole tipi.
The symmetry and order is quite lovely—a kind of art
form.
Well before sunset, we have the entire
village in place and settled—just as if it had been here for weeks
or months. Fires burn, food cooks, children play, men smoke and
hold their councils—and, as always, women work …
We have been camped for the past six
days along the Tongue River, the single longest encampment since we
began traveling. It is a lovely spot situated in a natural bowl at
the base of the mountains, well protected from the wind and
elements. The small valley is green and lush, with ample grass for
the horses, surrounded by low hills and bluffs, the river lined by
huge cottonwoods whose leaves rustle softly with the slightest
breeze.
I walk down to a pool on the river
each morning at first light, my favorite time of day, before the
camp is fully awake, to fetch the morning water. The wrens have
just taken up their lusty morning songs and warblers flicker like
bright yellow flames in the green willows’ branches. Often ducks,
geese, and cranes flare off the water at my approach, and sometimes
a doe deer with a fawn bounds away, tails flagging through the
undergrowth. At the river’s edge, swallows swoop from their nests
in the sandy cliffs to skim insects from the surface, and rising
trout make concentric rings upon the pool. I drop my paunch vessel
into the cool, moving water and as it fills to tug heavily
downstream, I feel a part of this world, pulled like the vessel
itself to fill up with this life.
This is the best time to make these
scribblings in my journal, a few minutes stolen from the beginning
of the day, before the bustle and commotion of camp life begins. I
sit on my rock overlooking the pool on the river, the air cool and
still, the bluffs still shadowed, the sun not yet risen above them,
the constant prairie winds not yet come up …
Sometimes Helen Flight joins me at
dawn on my rock to sketch the bird life. If we sit very quietly,
sandhill and whooping cranes might come back into our pool, blue
herons and night herons, geese and ducks of many varieties. She
holds her sketch pad open on her lap, pipe clenched firmly between
her teeth, eyebrows raised as always in delighted anticipation, as
if something perfectly extraordinary is taking place. Periodically
when I pause in my writing she gently lifts my notebook from my lap
and makes a quick study of a bird in the margins of the page—a
swallow swooping for insects on the water, or a Kingfisher perched
on a tree branch, holding a fish in its beak. “Perhaps
Mesoke,” she says, handing
it back to me, “you and I should consider a collaboration of our
own, ‘A Woman’s Life among
the Savages of the Western
Prairies’ we might entitle it, letterpress by Mrs.
May ‘Swallow’ Dodd Little Wolf, with illustrations by Mrs. Helen
Elizabeth ‘Medicine Bird Woman’ Flight Hog.”
“A splendid idea, Helen!” I answer
lightly. “Certain to become a classic in frontier
literature!”
“Unfortunately human figures have
never been my artistic forte,” Helen says. “That is to say, I’ve
always been more comfortable drawing animals—specifically birds.
Once I undertook a full-length portrait of my companion Mrs. Ann
Hall of Sunderland, who, gazing upon it for the first time,
exclaimed: ‘Why, Helen, you’ve got me looking exactly like a
roseate spoonbill!’”
Besides Helen’s company, if I sit long
enough on my rock, we may be joined by Gretchen, Sara, Martha,
Daisy, or Phemie—often a number of us get together here—a kind of
morning girls’ club, I, its self-appointed president.
Daisy is happily much recovered from
her night of terror at the hands of the drunken savages, and
considerably softened around the edges. Oddly (although under the
present circumstances of our lives what can any longer be
considered odd?) she has become quite close friends with Phemie
since her “accident.”
“Did y’all hear the news about my dear friend,
Euphemia Washington?” Daisy asked us this morning, holding her
little poodle Fern Louise in her lap. “She has just been asked to
join the Crazy Dogs warrior society—an event without precedent
among the savages. And Ah
do not mean as a ceremonial hostess at social events.
Ah mean as a
full-fledged warrior
woman. The very fuust
taame in the history of the tribe that a woman has
been so honored—and a whaate woman to boot. Aren’t
y’all so proud? Fern
Louise and I are, aren’t we, darlin’? We believe it is a great
honor to us all, havin’
come about naturally due to Miss Phemie’s prowess on the games
field and in the huuunt.”
Now little Sara beams and chatters
away in Cheyenne, laughing with Pretty Walker, the daughter of
Quiet One and Little Wolf, who often accompanies me to the fetch
the water. The Indians call Sara Little White Girl Who Speaks
Cheyenne, for she has been the first among us to learn their
language fluently; they can hardly appreciate the full irony of the
fact that prior to speaking Cheyenne she was mute! Now she has
blossomed like a wild rose under the prairie sun—happier and
healthier than I’ve ever seen her. I can hardly believe that she is
the same frail and frightened child who clung so desperately to me
on the long train ride west. She and her slender young husband,
Yellow Wolf, are inseparable, thick as thieves—two people have
never been more deeply in love.
Speaking of which, dear Gretchen,
Moma’xehahtahe, she is now
called, or Big Foot, has reconciled with her foolish husband, No
Brains, whom she has well cowed and completely under her thumb—or
her foot, I should say—since the dark night of whiskey drinking
earlier this summer.
He is an indolent, vain fellow with a
well-deserved reputation as a poor provider for his family. Often
Gretchen must heave him out of the tent with strict instructions to
“Brink home dinner you
bick lazy dope!” and on
the all too frequent occasions when No Brains has returned from the
hunt with an empty packhorse, we have witnessed a bizarre, albeit
not unamusing spectacle: a contingent of angry family members, led
by Gretchen herself, followed by the man’s mother and any children
who happen to join in, chasing the fool through the camp with
sticks. “Yah! You great
bick stupit idiot,”
Gretchen, red-faced with Swiss wrath, hollers at him, kicking him
in his buttocks and smacking him roundly about the head and
shoulders with her stick, as the children lash at his legs. “How
you expect to support a family if you can’t even brink home meat to put on da table? Vee must depend on your gottdamnt brudder and your
udder friends to feed and
clothe us. I vill not be a
charity case! I always vork
hart for my own living and I not take handouts now!
You stupit silly jughead!
Look at you, you all drest
up, you got all dat fancy
stuff, and you could not bring home meat if the da gottdamnt buffalo falls dead at your
feet! You great stupit
nincompoop!”
And poor No Brains stumbles through
the camp, trying to escape Gretchen’s Big Foot, while warding off
the others’ battery of blows until inevitably he stumbles and falls
to the ground where he is set upon by the smallest children who
strike him with their little sticks and shout insulting epithets at
him, laughing gaily all the while. Let it not be said that the
hunter’s life on the prairie is an easy one.
And yet in quieter moments, when we
meet, as now, on our rock above the pool of the river in the still
of the morning, Gretchen, as placid as a dairy cow, expresses her
great fondness for this same buffoon. She is, I think, grateful to
have a husband at last, and only wants him to make something of
himself.
“I admit dat he is not da brightest fellow, in da whole vorld,
dat is true,” Gretchen says in his defense. “But
before da children come, I
vill teach
da big ninnyhammer how to
be a goot hustband and
provider. I know I yam not
a pretty girl myself, but I always vork
hart and I make a nice home for my family
vedder dey be Indian
people or white people—it don’t matter to me. I am a
hartvorking, tidy person,
and I vill be a
goot mudder to my
children—and a goot vife
to my hustband. Dat is how
I was taught by my own mudder. And, you know girls,
dat fellow of mine he may
be da biggest pumpkinhead
in da whole tribe, but he
is still my man … you know, and he likes me … yah!” she covers her mouth and giggles. “He
likes me lots,” she adds striking her robust breast with a flat
hand. “He loves my bick
titties! All he wants to do is to roll in da buffalo robes with me!” And we all laugh.
Bless her heart.
Now the camp begins to stir, and
others come down to the water’s edge to fill their water paunches,
and the men, the members of the Savage Men’s Bathing Club arrive at
the water for their morning dip, and we can hear them splashing
about up- or downriver, and the birds begin to lift off, flushed by
the human congress in their domain, the deep sounds of hundreds of
heavy wings all along the river, the cacophonous cries of the
rising birds like a discordant natural orchestra—yakking and
honking and wailing and warbling—fading away to be replaced by the
voices of women, children, and men. In the distance, the camp crier
begins his rounds … calling his messages in a high shrill voice,
marking the end of this quiet, best time of day …
Sometimes I send Pretty Walker back
with the water paunch while I stay on writing or visiting with my
friends. She is a lovely thing—the boys can hardly keep their shy
eyes off her—slender and long-legged like her father, moves with
the grace of a dancer, is not so sullen and suspicious as her
mother—an eager, open-natured child, with bright, intelligent eyes.
She enjoys the company of us white women, and we have been teaching
her a few words of English, while she, in turn, helps us with our
Cheyenne. Most of us are less self-conscious about speaking the
language now, and can make ourselves understood on a rudimentary
level—which, as these people are hardly given to complicated
philosophical discourse, is usually quite sufficient. Pretty Walker
has been most useful to us in this regard, and we have great fun
with her, although I’m afraid that our budding friendship has not
entirely met with the approval of her mother.
I have avoided this next topic for the
fact that it so exceeds the bounds of propriety, but I must here
make mention of one of the most difficult adjustments that we have
had to make. That is in the matter of toilet facilities.
Fortunately, ours is a very cleanly tribe—unlike some of the
others. One might well imagine the stinking mess that would
accumulate in a camp of two hundred people if everyone simply went
off to do their business at random in the bushes. We have in our
recent travels come across the vacated campsites of other
tribes—the stench announcing their location from miles
away.
The Cheyennes have devised a
relatively hygienic solution to this—although one that does not
afford a great deal of privacy. In each camp a central area is
established, always placed downwind of the village, where all are
expected to do their business. Young boys are assigned to guard
these communal latrines and to make sure that waste is immediately
buried. This is a boy’s first job after which he graduates when
older to guarding the horses. Latrine duty and the burying of feces
is done not only for reasons of basic sanitation, but also because
there are many dogs about the camp and, given the opportunity, dogs
will … forgive me, please, for this is a vile subject … roll in,
and even eat, human excrement.
For our part, we white women have made
certain improvements on the latrine system. Little Marie Blanche,
our French girl (who has, after all, “married” her murdered
husband’s brother), was quite appalled by the whole thing. The
French being accustomed to irregular bathing, have devised many
clever means of hygienic compensation, and thus Marie Blanche has
insisted that water vessels, to serve the function of “bidets,” be
installed and maintained by the “B.M. boys,” as we call them. Thus
in this one small—but to a woman, essential—area I think perhaps we
have taught the savages something useful. But surely I’ve said
enough on a subject which requires no more graphic description
…
Despite my present acceptance of our
lot, even a certain contentment, I have had an uneasy premonition
of late—an indefinable sense of gloom lurks in the background of my
general good spirits. I wonder as I strain to see the page in the
silvery half-light of dawn, if something were to happen to prevent
my return to civilization, who would ever read these words? What
would become of my dear children, Hortense and William, should I be
unable to make my way back to them? I pray that the letter Gertie
took for me will reach them, but how can I know that Father and
Mother will ever show it to them when they are old enough to read?
Such thoughts fill me with unease. Whatever is to become of me, I
should be greatly consoled by the knowledge that my children might
one day learn something of their mother’s life among the savages,
might understand that however eccentric she may have been—however
stubborn, foolish, and impetuous—she was not insane …
My recent gloomy premonitions have
come more horribly true than ever I could have imagined, for the
worst catastrophe possible has befallen us. On this, our darkest
day yet, I and several of my compatriots find ourselves in a
desperate predicament.
The day began as peacefully and
uneventfully as any other. At dawn I sat upon my rock overlooking
the pool on the Tongue River near our camp. I was just preparing to
unstrap my notebook from my back. Helen Flight sat on one side of
me, waiting for the light of day to be favorable for sketching;
Martha, Sara, and little Pretty Walker sat on my other side. The
Kelly twins, too, had joined us and were squatting on the water’s
edge about to toss a hook and line into the pool after trout for
their breakfast. Gretchen had just lumbered down to fill her own
water paunch and squatted now beside the stream.
We all sensed, I think, at exactly the
same moment that something was amiss, for the birds which had
already taken up their morning song went suddenly silent—a lull
broken by the sound of several dozen ducks and geese getting up all
at once off the water just downstream from us. We looked up from
our respective tasks but no sooner had we done so, than in a
heartbeat’s time we were each descended upon at once, filthy hands
clamped over our mouths, knives held at our throats, arms like iron
bounds rendering us immobile. The single sound that could be heard
over the wingbeats of the rising waterfowl was a heavy thump from a
stone war club and a miserable groan as our friend Gretchen
collapsed in a heap at the water’s edge.
So well orchestrated was our
abduction, that, as I look back on it now, I believe our attackers
must have been watching us, perhaps for several days—assessing our
comings and goings, gauging the force necessary to carry us off.
And Gretchen, with her great size and obvious strength, must have
appeared more to them than they believed one or even two men could
comfortably handle, and thus they had rendered her, and her alone,
unconscious.
So quickly, stealthily, and powerfully
were we overcome, that there was no question of resisting. We knew
that if we dared struggle or tried to cry out, our throats would be
instantly cut. Now each of us, helpless and paralyzed with terror,
was half-dragged, half-carried, downstream from whence our
abductors must have come. One particularly large and
fearsome-looking fellow hoisted Gretchen over his shoulder and
carried her as if she were a sack of potatoes. I did not know yet
to what tribe these men belonged, but they were as a rule taller
and rather fairer-skinned than our own Cheyennes, were dressed some
of them in flannel shirts of white man manufacture, and several
wore black Army hats with the tops cut out and the sides wrapped in
feathers and variously colored cloth.
At a shallow ford downstream they
carried us across the river, where several younger boys waited in a
grove of cottonwood trees, holding a string of horses. Among these
I recognized a number of our own mounts. Here our hands and feet
were bound with rawhide thongs and cloth gags tied over our mouths,
and we were very roughly thrown across the pommels of the saddles
like so many fresh-killed deer carcasses. One of our savage
abductors then climbed up behind each of us.
I do not know exactly how long we
traveled thus—it must have been several hours at least, but seemed
far longer so great was our pain and discomfort. I was certain that
they had killed poor Gretchen for she remained unconscious, and,
from the little I could turn my head to look, appeared lifeless
where she lay across the pommel. Not until what must have been a
full hour had passed was I relieved to hear a moan of life issue
from her.
After the hard and agonizing ride,
during which we could do nothing but reflect helplessly upon our
situation, we arrived at last at a small camp of a half dozen or so
makeshift lodges—little more than stick lean-tos covered with
canvas—clearly the temporary encampment of a hunting or war party,
for there were no women about, only several more young men who met
us when we rode in. Now once again we were handled with extreme
roughness, thrown off the horses’ backs to sprawl in the dirt. This
seemed to excite the savages to much laughter and taunting in their
unfamiliar tongue.
At last they untied our hands and feet
and removed the gags from our mouths. Mine had been so tightly
bound that my mouth was split and bleeding at its corners. When
free I scrambled on my hands and knees to attend to little Pretty
Walker, the youngest and most terrified among us. The Cheyenne
children are brought up on tales of being captured thus by other
tribes—like the boogeyman stories of our own culture—and this was
clearly the girl’s worst nightmare come true. “Ooetaneo’o,” she wailed in terror.
“Ooetaneo’o.”
So frightened was she that I could not
understand what she was trying to say, until Sara spoke up. “Crow,”
she translated. “She says that these men are Crow.” Only later did
I realize that it was the first, and the last, time that I would
ever hear our Sara speak a word of English.
We all knew the Crow to be the
archenemy of the Cheyenne—and a loutish-looking bunch at that with
their half-white man clothing and preposterous Army hats, they
swaggered and gloated and made merry at our despair. Poor Martha,
scared witless herself and in a state of evident shock, began
repeating: “They’re going to kill us, they’re going to kill us all.
I know they’re going to kill us … they’re going to kill us all
…”
Finally, Meggie Kelly spoke sharply to
her. “Showt up, Martha,”
she said. “If they were plannin’ to kill us, they’d a
doon so by now. They’d not
have gone to all the trouble of carrying us away loyke this.”
“Aye, Meggie’s right,” said her sister in a
low voice, “They’ll not moorder us yet. First they’re going to
folk us. Look at that one
there. He’s sportin’ a
wood, he is.”
It was true that one of the men was in
a state of erection beneath his breechclout, and the other men, now
noticing his condition, laughed and urged him on.
Now the wretch grabbed my little Sara
by her hair, and began to drag her toward one of the crude huts. It
was less a conscious selection of the girl than that she happened
to be in the nearest proximity to him. “No,” I screamed, and I
grasped the attacker’s leg, “not her, please, not her. Take
me.”
“Aye, ya filthy beggar,” said Susie Kelly,
taking ahold of the man’s other leg, “or me! Let that child go,
goddamn ya!”
Our pathetic entreaties seemed to
elicit much further merriment among the man’s cohorts. After a
short struggle the savage shook loose of Susie’s grasp and then
caught me square in the jaw with a kick that sent me sprawling. All
but Martha, who was too frightened to move, and poor Gretchen, who
lay upon the ground half-conscious and groaning, tried to come to
our aid, but the savages held them back.
The fiend who dragged her now released
his grasp on Sara’s hair, fell atop her, and began to force apart
her legs. The girl wept and struggled against him. Never as long as
I live will I forget the look of silent intensity on her young
face, the tears of sorrow that ran down her cheeks. I knew in that
instant that this same unspeakable fate must have befallen her as a
child growing up in that awful asylum—that her muteness had been
her final strength, her final testimony to the cruelty of this
world. Held on the ground now by another of them and helpless to
stop the crime, I began to weep myself, to plead, to beg, to pray
to God …
I do not know where the knife came
from. Some said later that it belonged to the Crow and that Sara
took it from his belt, others that she had it concealed all along
beneath her dress. But I saw the flash of steel as it came up in
her hand and she plunged the blade into the man’s neck as he lay
atop her. He made a surprised gurgling sound and clawed wildly at
the knife handle, finally pulling the blade free as a great geyser
of blood shot like a fountain from his neck. But with his last
breath before he bled to death and fell lifeless atop her, he drew
the knife across our dear Sara’s throat, and in a terrible instant
the life drained from her eyes.
Now darkness falls and we sit huddled together upon the ground inside one of the rude stick shelters. Here we try to console one another, weeping softly and whispering together. Several of the younger savages squat in front of the entrance, guarding us, but they have not bothered to bind our hands again for all fight has left us. After they murdered Sara, the filthy brutes violated the rest of us in turn … we all simply endured, silently, their vicious assaults … I managed only to save the child Pretty Walker from this fate, distracting her would-be assailant by offering myself a second time in her stead … I have my notebook, strapped all along to my back, open in my lap and here I make these wretched and perhaps final entries …
“Why do you still write in your
journal, May?” Martha asked me a moment ago in a small, hopeless
voice. “What difference does any of it make now?”
“I don’t know, Martha,” I said.
“Perhaps I write to stay alive, to keep us all alive.”
Helen Flight laughed bleakly. “Yes,”
she said, “I understand perfectly, May. Your pen is your medicine
and as long as you’re exercising it, you are elsewhere engaged, you
are alive. In spite of everything, we are all still alive … that is
to say, except, of course, for dear little Sara.”
We all looked at the child’s body,
which lay cold and stiffening, where we had dragged her to the rear
of the hut.
“I do not wish to live any longer,”
Martha said. “Perhaps Sara was the lucky one. Surely death would be
a blessing after what has befallen us … and what we have to look
forward to.”
“Aw stop yer damn whinin’, Martha,” said Meggie
Kelly. “Susie and me are going to ’ave our babies, and we plan to be alive for
that event. Isn’t that so, sister?”
“Right, Meggie,” said Susie. “We’re
goin’ to be mothers we are. The lads are goin’ to come for us, I
just know they will.”
“Yes, I believe so myself,” said
Helen. “Chin up, Martha. We’ve been used abominably ill, it’s true,
but our husbands aren’t going to allow the Crows to just walk off
with their wives. Your own husband, Tangle Hair, is, after all,
head man of the Crazy Dog soldiers—May’s husband, Little Wolf, head
man of the Elk warriors, of which society my own Mr. Hog is
second-in-command—and a most capable fellow he is, too, if I may
say so. I’m quite certain the chaps have already set out to rescue
us. That they will swoop down at any moment and exact their
vengeance against these criminals.”
Brave Gretchen, who was still barely
sensible from the terrible blow she took, and whom the savages had
at least spared in their ravishment, now raised her head weakly
from where she lay beside us. “Yah and don’t forget my hustband No Brains, either,” she said. “He
come for me. I know he vill.”
We are allowed no fire and the night
air is chilly and so we close in together for warmth and what
little comfort we can offer one another …
Yes, thank God! Helen was correct, we
have been saved, delivered to safety, returned to our own people!
The Crow thieves—kidnappers, murderers, rapists, fiends—are dead.
Our warriors killed even some of the young men among them … of that
I am sorry, for they were little more than boys, though I believe
that several escaped in the ensuing melee …
The attack came just at dawn after the
darkest twenty-four hours of our lives. The Crow guards must have
first been silently eliminated, for our other captors were still
asleep inside their huts when our brave warriors stormed the camp.
The Crows had barely time to exit their shelters before they were
struck down, butchered amidst their own cries of surprise and the
bloodcurdling shrieks of our men. My husband Little Wolf himself
led the charge, seemed not like a man at all but like a God of
vengeance, an animal, a bear, fearless, without mercy. He carried a
shield and a lance as he rode, striking down the enemy like the
wrath of God itself. Truly he was, at that moment, my knight in
shining armor.
We women stayed huddled in our shelter
but could see the terrible carnage from the open entranceway.
Riding right alongside the men, but for her breechclout naked atop
her white horse, was our own brave Phemie. The Crows must have been
paralyzed with terror at the sight of this howling warrior woman
bearing down upon them, drawing her bow like a mythic goddess of
war to drive an arrow through the heart of an enemy and then with
another bloodcurdling cry, to smote a second with her club. Good
God, what a vision …
All of our husbands had come for us,
just as Helen had predicted, yes, even No Brains, who was finely
dressed for battle in an elaborately ornamented war shirt but whom
I feel certain held back until the initial charge was over and then
came in to count coup upon the already dead and stricken
enemy.
The boy Yellow Wolf was the very first
to enter our hut and when he saw his beloved bride laid out there
cold and dead, a more piteous howling of grief I have never before
heard. He went to her, gathered her corpse in his arms, and pressed
her to his chest. All of us wept anew for our friend and for her
young husband’s splendid grief.
Leaving the boy to his private
mourning, we exited the shelter to search out our own husbands
amidst the chaos of death and dying. The scalps of enemies were
being taken … other mutilations occurring … the scene had an
unreal, dreamlike quality to it—as if we were there and yet not
there … truly we are all of us savages now … anointed together in
this bloody sacrament of revenge … for we took pleasure in our
enemies’ death and mutilations, and shall never be the same for it
… we have seen the savagery in our own hearts … have exulted in
blood and vengeance … have danced over the scalps of enemies … all
that we have done, God help us …
The Cheyenne men tend not to be
demonstrative in matters of conjugal affection, but when the Kelly
girls saw their own twin husbands they ran to them in joy, leapt
upon their ponies like sprites, wrapping their legs about the young
men’s waists, hugging them about the shoulders and kissing them
wildly on their faces and necks. “God bless ya, lads,” they said. “God bless
ya. We knew
ya’d come for us. We knew
you’d save yore dear
blessed wives.”
Gretchen, much recovered from her
injury, but still wobbly and weak-kneed, found her own buffoonish
husband, who was afoot leading his horse. No Brains was all puffed
up like a cock with his recent coups and himself waved a bloody
enemy scalp for all to see.
My husband Little Wolf sat his mount,
quiet and still as is his way, watchful and surveying the scene
like the dominant wolf of the pack. When he spied me with his
daughter Pretty Walker beside me, he rode directly to us and
slipped from his horse.
The child began immediately to weep,
threw herself into her father’s arms.
“Neve’ea’xaeme, nahtona,” Little Wolf said, holding her.
“Neve’ea’xaeme, nahtona.
Do not cry, my daughter.”
And then he looked over the child’s
shoulder at me. “Ena’so’eehovo,
Mesoke? They raped her, Swallow?”
I shook my head, no, and to the next
question in my husband’s eyes, I cast my own eyes to the ground,
and began to weep myself, “Nisaatone’oetohe, naehame, I could not stop
him, my husband. Nasaatone’oetohe.”
Little Wolf smiled gently at me, and
nodded and when he spoke, I think, it was for the comfort of us
both. “Eesepeheva’e,” he
said. “Eesepeheva’e. It is
all right now.”
Riding back into our camp this
afternoon, we were greeted by the joyful trilling of our women as
all ran out to meet us. But when the family of Yellow Wolf saw him
bringing up the rear, leading a horse with the body of
Ve’ho’a’o’ke laid across
it, a high keening arose from some of the women, and spread
throughout the camp.
This morning we buried Sara and the
unborn child she carried. Her body was dressed in her Cheyenne
wedding gown and wrapped in a white buffalo hide, covered with
rocks in a shallow grave on the prairie.
There had been much discussion among
all concerned about whether the girl should have a Christian or a
traditional Cheyenne burial. Of course, Reverend Hare and Narcissa
White argued for the former. But others of us believed that the
only true happiness our Sara had ever known in her short life on
this earth had been among these people. And we wished for her soul
to go to the place the Cheyennes call Seano— the place of the dead—which is
reached by following the Hanging Road in the Sky, the Milky Way.
Here the Cheyennes believe that all the People who have ever died
live with their Creator, He’amaveho’e. In Seano they live in villages just as they did
on earth—hunting, working, eating, playing, loving, and making war.
And all go to the place of the dead, regardless of whether they
were good or bad on earth, virtuous or evil, brave or
cowardly—everyone—and eventually in Seano all are reunited with the souls of
their loved ones.
“Heaven,” I said to the Reverend Hare.
“Seano, is just like our
own Heaven. What difference is there, Father?”
“A substantial difference, Miss Dodd,”
said the Reverend, “for it is not a Christian heaven and any soul
can gain entrance there without regard to baptism, without reward
for virtue or punishment for sin. Such a place does not exist,
cannot exist, for how can there be a heaven unless there is a
hell?”
“This earth, Reverend,” I said, “is
both a heaven and a hell. No one knew that better than our Sara.
She should be allowed a simple heathen burial by her
husband.”
But the Reverend remained, as I knew
he would, implacable on the subject. “The child was baptized in the
only true church,” he said, “and her body must receive the holy
sacraments so that her soul may enter the Kingdom of Our
Lord.”
And so, finally, both services were
conducted, one by Reverend Hare and the other by Yellow Wolf and
his family, who carried Sara’s body to its final resting place,
leading her saddled horse, which to all of our shock the boy killed
there beside her grave, drew a knife across its throat—just as his
young wife had died herself—so that the horse fell to its knees
with a pathetic trumpeting of air escaping its severed windpipe.
“Ve’ho’a’o’ke must have
her horse,” Yellow Wolf explained as the horse toppled over on its
side and the light faded from its eyes, “to ride the Hanging Road
to Seano.”
Thus Sara’s soul rode her horse
wherever she wished to go—a choice of heavens—and all were
satisfied.
Our funeral procession left Yellow
Wolf sitting cross-legged beside the grave of his bride. For two
days and two nights, we have heard the boy’s wails of mourning
carried on the wind.
I need hardly say that it has been a
difficult time for us all … not only dear Sara’s tragic end but our
own debasement at the hands of the Crows has changed things among
us, and within us, things that we can as yet only faintly
comprehend.
But for hollow platitudes, the
Reverend offers us scant comfort and we have, as always, only each
other for solace … and thank God for that.
And so we have made a pact together,
each of us, never to speak of that night, or the following day,
neither among ourselves, nor with any of the others. We cannot
change what has happened and so we must go forward away from
it.
Our Cheyenne families have taken us
back into their generous bosoms, caring for us with great
solicitude and kindness, without a hint of reproach —which seems to
be the domain of a few of our own women alone. Of course, Narcissa
White treats us as if our little group had somehow enticed the
Crows to carry us away, that whatever humiliation we may have
suffered at their hands was just punishment for our sins and
confirmation of her own righteousness.
Since our ordeal I have hardly let my
husband out of my sight—truly he is my savior and protector, a
good, brave man. I feel a greater attachment to him now than ever,
though in a strange way more as a daughter than as a wife. I have
taken, the past few nights since our return, to slipping under the
buffalo robes with him, after all in our tent sleep—not, of course,
for the reason of sexual intimacy, but only to feel him beside me,
to curl next to him and take comfort in the smooth warmth of his
skin, the fine wild smell of him. The old wife Quiet One has been
extremely kind to me; I know that she is aware of these nightly
visits but does not begrudge me them. I believe that she knows of
my efforts to protect her child, Pretty Walker, who since our
return, has herself slept in her mother’s bed. The child and I have
both now seen the boogeyman in the flesh and are more than ever
afraid of him.
By my estimation I am now approaching
the third month of pregnancy. I do not believe that my baby has
been injured and for that I am grateful. Martha and the Kelly
girls, too, seem healthy in their terms. As does Gretchen. Thank
God.
Of my closest circle of friends only
Phemie and Helen Flight seem not to be with child. Helen, of
course, has already confessed to me about having lied to the
medical examiner regarding the matter of her fertility in order to
be accepted into this program.
“Mr. Hog is really a most agreeable
fellow,” she says now, “but he has since our marriage been
possessed of the unfortunate male notion that unless he impregnates
his wife he is something less than a man. He used to inquire of me
almost daily, by rubbing his stomach hopefully, if I was yet with
child, and when I answered in the negative … well, then he would
wish to try again! I must say, it got to be a dreadfully tiresome
business. However since our abduction and safe return he has made
no further overtures toward me. I am able henceforth to concentrate
my efforts solely on improving my ‘medicine.’”
For her part Phemie is still wearing
her chastity string, and merely chuckles deeply. “Like you, Helen,
I have an occupation,” she says. “I am a hunter, and now a warrior,
which is hardly a suitable profession for a prospective mother.
Moreover from the time that I was a child men have forced
themselves upon me whenever they so desired. I am very fond of my
husband, Mo’ohtaeve’ho’e,
and one day perhaps I shall have his child. But I shall decide when
I am ready.”
As for the rest of us, we have the
comfort of all being pregnant together, so that we may share the
experience, commiserate, make plans. By our estimation our babies
will be born next February, and although we worry about the
prospect of being far along in our terms throughout the cold winter
months, hopefully we shall be more permanently encamped then. We
may even expect to be living at one of the agencies with a doctor
and hospital nearby—for there has been talk among some of the men
in council recently about going in this year.
A very ugly thing has occurred today,
the repercussions of which will be felt for a long time to come.
Hearing shouts of distress from Reverend Hare and angry cries from
a mob of savages, a number of us hurried in the direction of the
Reverend’s lodge. There we came upon a shocking scene.
A man named Hataveseve’hame, Bad Horse, was driving the
naked Reverend from his and Dog Woman’s lodge with a quirt. The
Reverend—huge, pink, and hairless—was sobbing and trying to protect
himself from the man’s lashes, which were raising angry red welts
all over the fat man’s body. A number of people had gathered,
including other members of Bad Horse’s family. Bad Horse’s wife, a
short, squat woman named Kohenaa’e’e, Bear Sings Woman, came from the
Reverend’s lodge carrying their young son—who was also naked,
although, especially among the children, such a natural state is
not in the least bit unusual. Still it became clear what had
occurred, for the Reverend in his confused blubbering combination
of Cheyenne and English was trying to explain that he had only been
giving the boy instruction in his catechism. Which explanation did
not placate the furious father, who continued to drive the Reverend
with vicious blows of his quirt.
I stepped up beside Susie Kelly who,
with her sister, had joined the small crowd of onlookers. “Should
we do something to help him?” I asked, for my dislike of the man
notwithstanding, it was a pathetic sight.
“’Tis a family matter, May,” Susie
said. “The old hypocrite got caught booggerin’ the boy. ’Appens all the time, you know, amongst the
Catholics. When Meggie an’ me was growin’ up in the orphanage, the
old priests used to boogger the lads bloody. Isn’t that so, Meggie?”
“Right, Susie, a sad thing, it’tis,
too,” said Meggie. “For lads that take it up that chute that way
become angry men, that’s been my experience. I don’t believe
they’ve ever seen such a thing among these people. Even the old
Nancy Boys amongst them like the Father’s roommate don’t fool with
the young lads. They say the old he’emane’e are celibate.”
“He’s a lost soul,” I said of the
pathetic Reverend, “who may not deserve, but still requires,
mercy.”
“Noothin’ to be doon for him, May,” said Susie. “They won’t
kill the old booger.
They’re just goin’ to teach him a goood lesson.”
And indeed, the outraged parents’ fury
soon abated, the family went home with their son, and the crowd
dispersed. Then the twins and I went to our fallen spiritual
advisor, who lay curled upon the ground, reduced to a quivering
mass of torn red flesh. We helped him back into his lodge, where
old Dog Woman, clucking his concern, ministered to his
wounds.
I’m afraid that the Big White Rabbit’s
disgrace among the People is final, and irrevocable. I must say,
beyond the fact that some of us have fulfilled our end of the
bargain by becoming pregnant, we do not seem to be having much
success in instructing the savages in the benefits of civilized
ways.
We are on the move again. This time
and for the first time since our arrival we are dividing into
several groups and heading off in different directions. The game
has dispersed and so must the People, for it is easier for smaller
bands to feed themselves than one large band all
together.
This separation has caused a great
deal of anxiety among our women. Martha is nearly hysterical with
worry as she and her husband Mr. Tangle Hair belong to a different
band than my family, and as a consequence we will be
separated—possibly for weeks … possibly longer.
“I cannot leave you, May,” the poor
thing said this morning when we learned of our imminent departure.
“Oh, dear God, what shall I do without you?”
“You’ll be fine, Martha,” I tried to
console her. “You’ll have others in your group.”
“For how long are we to be apart?”
Martha asked. “I cannot bear the thought. What’s to become of
us?”
“You must stop worrying so,” I said.
“You worry yourself sick and then everything turns out fine after
all, does it not?”
Martha laughed. “My friend,” she said,
“if you call the events of the past months, and especially those of
the past weeks, ‘fine,’ truly you possess a serenity that will
never be mine. I cannot survive without you to give me
strength.”
“Don’t be silly,” I said. “Of course
you can, dear. We will be together again soon enough.”
“How can you know that, May?” she
asked. “How can we know that we’ll ever see each other
again?”
“There you go worrying again,” I said,
trying to be lighthearted. “You are soon to be a mother, and I have
always been a believer in the old saw that anxious mothers give
birth to anxious babies.”
“Of course you’re right, May,” she
said. “But I cannot help myself. I am anxious by nature. I never
should have come here to the wilderness … I’m too much of a mouse,
terrified of everything …”
“After what you have been through,
Martha,” I said, “you have every right to be
terrified.”
“But you are not, May,” she said. “I
would give everything to be like you—intrepid and unafraid. I know
that we are not to speak of that night, but I must tell you this …
I must tell you how proud I was of you … and I’m sorry, I’m so
sorry I didn’t help you when they murdered Sara …” Now Martha had
begun to weep. “I was so frightened, May. I wanted to come to your
aid, but I could not, I could not move. Perhaps if I had been able
to help you the wretch wouldn’t have killed her …”
“You must never think that, Martha,” I
said, sharply. “And you must honor our pact not to speak of that
night. There was nothing any of us could have done to save the
child.”
“Yes, but you protected Pretty
Walker,” Martha said. “I would never have had the courage to do
what you did, May.”
“Nonsense,” I said. “Enough of that,
Martha.”
And then she put her arms around me
and hugged me with all her might. “Tell me something to give me
courage, May.”
“I can tell you one thing only, my
dearest friend,” I said. “And then we will not speak of it again.
You must promise me that.”
“Yes, of course, I do.”
“I was just as terrified as you that
night, as everyone else,” I said. “I have been from the beginning
of this experience. But I’ve learned to disguise my fear. I made
the vow to myself on our very first day, that whenever I was most
afraid for my life I would think of my babies, my Hortense and
Willie, and I would find peace in knowing that they are safe, I
would seek serenity in the image of their little hearts beating
calmly. That’s what I thought of when the savages set upon me that
night. I realized that the worse thing that could happen to me was
not that I should be killed—but that this baby I carry would die.
And thus I submitted. And I endured. Just as you and the others
endured. Because we are women, because we are mothers some of us,
and others mothers to be. And some, like Helen Flight, are just
plain strong. Do you remember what Helen said once in our
discussion on the subject of a warrior’s medicine? That if they
believed strongly enough in their own power, perhaps they are
protected by it?”
“Yes, I remember,” Martha said, “and
you said it was pure poppycock! Pure superstition!”
“Yes, I did,” I admitted, and I
laughed. “And truth be known, I still think so! But you must
remember, Martha, that you survived that night yourself, you
submitted and endured, and by doing so you saved your baby. Your
power as a woman, as a mother, is your medicine, and it saved you.
Take your courage from that. Do not be afraid of our separation.
Have faith that it is only temporary, that you will be well
protected by your husband, your family, and the friends who
accompany you, and that you and I shall be reunited again in due
time.”
Our band heads south. We are told that
we are returning to Fort Laramie to trade at the post there for
sufficient provisions to see us through the coming winter. Little
Wolf also wishes to discuss with the fort commander the matter of
the remainder of the white brides that have been promised to his
young warriors by the Great White Father. I have neither tried to
disabuse him of this notion nor said a word to him of Gertie’s
report to me on the subject. There have already been disgruntled
murmurings of late among some of the Cheyennes that once again the
whites are reneging on a treaty provision, for, of course, no more
brides have been sent since our arrival—and clearly no more will
be.
This will be our first contact with
civilization since we were given over to the People in May … only
five months. But it seems a lifetime. After all that we have
endured I am filled with a strange trepidation about the prospect
of returning to the fort. Of course, I cannot help but wonder if
Captain Bourke will be still stationed there with his new bride. I
have had no more word from him since Gertie’s visit earlier in the
summer. And since that time we have been almost constantly on the
move.
Presently we are extremely well
supplied with buffalo robes and hides, elk, deer, and antelope
skins, so much so that nearly all of our horses are fully packed
and more of the People are afoot. There is talk among the young men
about launching yet another horse-stealing raid against the Crows.
Others talk of stealing horses from some of the white settlements
we pass on the way to the fort. The “old men chiefs” such as my
husband council against this, for they believe that we are at peace
with the whites.
I, myself, am largely afoot, for my
own horse Soldier has been pressed into duty carrying parfleches of
household goods. And so I walk to lessen his burden. I do not mind
to walk, in fact in some ways prefer it. Whatever one may say about
the hardships of this nomadic life, we are all of us women in
magnificent physical condition. I had hardly realized how sedentary
and soft of muscle I had become during my long incarceration in the
asylum; one begins to take the inactivity for granted and nearly
forgets the joys of healthful outdoor exercise. The first weeks
among the savages every muscle and every bone in my body ached with
fatigue. But now I am fit as a fiddle. So it is with the other
women, some of whom I hardly recognize any longer. Almost all have
lost weight, and are darker of skin and sleek as racehorses. I
believe from this experience that Caucasian women should also
discover the healthful benefits of this open-aired life of physical
activity.
I’m happy to report that Helen Flight
and her husband are included in our little band as are Phemie and
the Kelly girls. Of my closest friends Gretchen, Martha, and Daisy
Lovelace are all headed off in separate directions. Poor Ada Ware
has loyally remained with her murderer husband and continues to
live on the periphery of the Dull Knife band, who themselves are
off, God knows where. It is much like keeping track of separate
flocks of geese, and while not wishing to alarm poor Martha on the
subject, I have no idea how or when we will be
reunited.
Both the unfortunate Reverend Hare and
Narcissa White have elected to join Little Wolf’s band—presumably
because ours is headed to the fort. After the former’s disgrace, he
trails some distance behind us on his white mule, like a penitent
or an outcast himself. I never cared for the man, but I feel some
pity for him now. I won’t be surprised if, after we reach the fort,
we will be seeing the last of him. As to Narcissa, after the
conspicuous lack of success of her own mission, I have a suspicion
that she, too, may be plotting a defection.
Most of the southern Cheyennes have
already departed back to their own country, while a few accompany
us to Fort Laramie and from there will continue south. I am deeply
distressed to report that after a much welcome absence of nearly
two months the damnable wretch Jules Seminole is again among us. I
hope that we will have seen the last of the lout after we reach
Fort Laramie, when he will surely continue on south with the rest
of his people. After my experience at the hands of the Crows I am
less able than ever to tolerate his presence.
“Exoxohenetamo’ane,” I finally said to my
husband the last time the man came skulking around our lodge. “He
talks dirty to me.”
Little Wolf’s face darkened in rage.
And there the matter rests.
Our smaller group is able to move with
even greater dispatch, breaking camp early every morning and
traveling hard until nearly dusk. I do not know how many miles we
cover each day. The country itself is quite pretty—rolling prairie
grassland cut periodically by river courses, the water low now
after the dry summer, the whorled grasses already beginning to turn
their autumnal shades of yellow. A chill fall wind blows down out
of the north reminding us all of the coming winter.
Keeping the Bighorn Mountains to the
West, we move roughly south by southeast, across the Tongue, where
Hanging Woman Creek flows into it, to the junction of the Clear
River and the Powder, following the Powder down to the Crazy Woman
Fork and then east and south toward the Belle Fourche. At least
this is how I mark the watercourses on my Army map, though some
have different names among the whites than the Indians. Beyond the
Belle Fourche, the buffalo-grass prairie gives way gradually to a
series of desolate, arid buttes, rocky canyons, and dry creek
bottoms. We hurry across this inhospitable desert for the only
water to be found here is brackish and alkaline, and impossible to
drink.
One day we were just able to make out
the faint outline of the Black Hills rising up on the eastern
horizon, and the next day we were close enough to see the
pine-studded slopes but these we kept to our left as we headed
south on the prairie’s edge.
A war party of Oglala Sioux has ridden
down out of the Black Hills to intercept us. Fortunately these
people are close allies of the Cheyennes, and members of the party
have relatives in our own camp. Even though they had identified us
as friends, the warriors made a spectacular entrance, quite clearly
designed to impress us—which it most certainly did—with their faces
painted like demons, they were dressed in all manner of elaborately
beaded and adorned attire, yipping and wheeling their horses—a more
ferocious-looking bunch I have never before seen.
It has been my observation that the
savages are showmen of the first order who spend a great deal of
time on their personal toilet and appearance and no more so when
they prepare for war. The old medicine man, White Bull, has
explained to Helen Flight that a warrior must always look his best
when going off to wage war in the event that he is killed in
battle. For no warrior wishes to embarrass himself by being
underdressed when he goes to meet his maker, the Great Medicine.
“So you see, May,” said Helen Flight with perfect delight, “it’s an
artist’s dream come true, for not only do I adorn the warrior for
his protection in battle, but I adorn him so that he might make a
good impression on the Great Medicine. That is to say, what more
can the artist hope for than to have her work viewed by God in his
heaven?” I hardly need mention that Helen, although she professes
to be an Anglican, is nearly as irreverent as I.
Although there is much intermarriage
between the Sioux people and the Cheyennes, Little Wolf does not
speak their language, and does not generally care for them. He
believes that their women are unvirtuous. Truly my husband is very
much of a tribalist and has kept himself and his family separate
from these allies, almost as much as he has from contact with the
whites.
Nevertheless, after the
warriors—perhaps thirty in number—had finished their display of
horsemanship and fierce posturing before us, the Chief emerged
briskly from our lodge to speak the sign language with the leader
of their party—an enormous fellow named, as I understood it,
Hump.
Naturally, before anything important
could be discussed between the two Chiefs, the entire Sioux
contingent had to be invited to eat and smoke. Not to extend such
an invitation would be considered impolite. Several families opened
their lodges to the warriors, after which a general council was
held in the Medicine Lodge. When all the formalities were
completed, and the ceremonial pipe lit, the Sioux at last explained
that the intent of their war party was to launch a series of raids
against the white gold seekers and settlers who were invading the
Black Hills.
Speaking through a Cheyenne
interpreter, the Sioux Chief, Hump, then asked Little Wolf if the
Cheyennes would join them in a war against the whites. The Black
Hills, Hump said, belonged to both the Sioux and the Cheyennes, had
been given to them “forever” in the last great treaty
talks.
Little Wolf listened politely to this
request and then answered that he was quite familiar with the terms
of the treaty but that, as the Sioux could plainly see, ours was
only a small band with more women and children among it than
warriors and that at present we were on our way to do business at
the trading post, not to wage war against white
settlers.
“Perhaps the Cheyennes will not fight
the whites because the soldiers have given you these pale women,”
Hump said, waving his arm toward us. “Perhaps the white women have
made you soft and afraid to fight.” At this evident
bon mot some of the Sioux
warriors present made insinuating snickers.
My husband’s face darkened and I could
see the muscle in his jaw rippling, a sure sign of his well-known
temper rising. “The Sioux are certainly aware of the Cheyennes’
ability to make war,” Little Wolf said. “We claim that we are the
best fighters on the plains. It is a foolish thing for the Sioux to
say that we are afraid. Ours is not a war party, but a trading
party. I have spoken. And that is all I have to say on the
subject.”
With this Little Wolf stood and left
the Medicine Lodge. I followed him home. The next day the Sioux
were gone.
Yesterday we reached Fort Laramie. A
more distressing return to the bosom of civilization, I can hardly
imagine … we are all left now to ponder the question of which world
we really inhabit … perhaps neither.
We struck our camp as far away as we
could from the hangs-around-the-fort Indians, whose appearance and
behavior was, if anything, even more shocking to us after living
among the Cheyennes these past months. Truly contact with our white
civilization has caused nothing but ruination and despair for these
unfortunate souls. A number of them, ragged and thin, came
straightaway to our camp to beg from us.
After we made camp, Little Wolf
himself led our trade contingent to the fort grounds to conduct our
business at the trading post there, our packhorses well laden with
hides. A few among our group chose to accompany their husbands to
the fort, but others had grown suddenly shy faced once again with
the prospect of confronting civilization after these many months in
the wilderness.
As I look back now with the luxury of
twenty-four hours of hindsight, I realize that I, myself, was
impulsively bold in my own insistence upon going to the fort with
my husband. So anxious was I to catch a glimpse of civilization
that I had hardly given a thought to how we would appear to
civilized people. I think, too, that in the back of my mind, I must
have hoped to catch sight of John Bourke, or at least to hear some
word of him.
Phemie and Helen, equally
unselfconscious, also elected to go into the trading post, as did
the Kelly girls—whose swagger is undiminished by any circumstances.
Both the Kellys and Helen Flight, I should mention, have become
rather wealthy women by savage standards—the former by the
ill-gotten gains of their gambling empire, and Helen for artistic
services rendered. Helen hoped to trade her goods for gunpowder and
shot for her muzzle loader, as well as for additional painting
supplies and sundry “luxuries” of civilization.
“And I intend to post a letter at last
to my dear Mrs. Hall!” she said, with great excitement. I, too, had
prepared a letter to send to my family, although I felt certain
that we would be forbidden still by the military from posting these
communications.
Our old crier, Pehpe’e, identified us to the fort sentry,
and after some delay the gates swung open and a company of Negro
soldiers galloped out to meet us. With snappy military precision,
they formed lines on either side of our little trade contingent to
escort us inside. For all their soldierly discipline, the black men
could hardly take their eyes off our Euphemia. Nexana’hane’e (Kills Twice Woman) as she is
called since our rescue from the Crows, rode her white horse beside
her husband Black Man, who rode a spotted pony. It was a mild day
and she was bare-chested as is her summer habit, wearing nothing
but a breechclout, her long legs, bronzed and muscled, adorned with
hammered copper ankle bracelets. She wore copper hoops in her
pierced ears, and a necklace of trade beads around her neck and
looked as always perfectly regal—more savage than the savages
themselves.
Although it must certainly have been
in violation of military regulations, one of the soldiers nearest
Phemie couldn’t resist whispering. “What you niggers doin’ with these people?” he asked.
“Are you prisoners?”
Phemie chuckled deeply. “We live with
these people, nigger,
that’s what we’re doing,” she said. “These are our people. My
husband is Cheyenne and does not speak English.”
“Cheyenne!” said another soldier
behind the first. “Whooo-eeee, woman! You is one crazy
nigger!”
As we entered the fort we could see
that a small crowd of curious onlookers, civilians and soldiers,
had gathered to observe our procession. Little Wolf rode at the
head, followed by a half dozen of his warriors in a tight cluster,
followed by the string of packhorses led by the women and some
boys, several more warriors bringing up our rear. I, too, was
afoot, leading Soldier and two other of our packhorses, walking
abreast with Helen Flight, who led her own four horses in a string.
I was dressed as usual in my antelope hide dress with leggings and
moccasins. I usually wear my hair braided in the Indian fashion
now—having found this to be more practical. My fellow wife Feather
on Head is very adept at the process. For her part, Helen had her
pipe clenched firmly between her teeth, wore her English shooting
hat, buckskin trousers and jacket, and carried her muzzle loader in
a sling over her shoulder. The Kelly twins sauntered boldly behind
us, leading their own string of horses equally well laden with
hides.
Only now, incredible to say, does it
fully occur to me what a bizarre spectacle we must have presented
to those assembled, and even now I flush with embarrassment in
recounting the scene.
What other reception we might have
expected, I do not know. My own foolish pride blinded me to the
fact that far from looking the part of heroic explorers returning
in triumph to civilization, we must have appeared in truth not
merely comical, but utterly ludicrous.
A number of the soldiers’ wives were
included in the group of curious onlookers and there arose among
them an astonished murmuring which gave way to an excited
chattering and pointing as our procession moved past.
“Look, look there, those are a pair of
the white girls, the redheads,” we heard them say.
“Look how filthy they are! Why they look
like savages themselves!”
“Good Lord,
that niger girl is half-naked!”
“And look
at the outfit the Englishwoman wears, the painter, doesn’t she look
like a buffalo hunter!”
“Isn’t that
fair-haired girl with the braids the one that was so saucy with
John Bourke last spring? From the look of her, she’s gone
completely wild!”
“Wait until
the Captain sees her now!”
These last remarks were like an arrow
to my heart; and just as suddenly I knew that I did not wish to see
Captain Bourke … prayed not to see him … How could we have been so
proud, so foolish? My cheeks colored, I burned with shame, I cast
my eyes to the ground.
“Tiny minds, May,” said Helen Flight
with her usual good cheer, having obviously witnessed my distress.
“They have no sense of manners or decorum whatever. And they are to
be paid no attention whatever. Tiny, tiny little minds. Let them
not concern us, my dear friend. Why you’re the smartest little
picture of a lady here! And don’t you forget it. Keep your head up
now, my dear! An artiste
must never bow her head to the tiny minds. This is a lesson my
dearest companion, Mrs. Ann Hall, taught me long ago. Never bow to
the tiny minds!” And then Helen, God bless her, her eyebrows raised
in delight actually took off her hat and waved cheerfully to the
astonished crowd of onlookers.
Her words gave me strength, and I
lifted my head again. Still, I continued to pray that the Captain
was not here at Fort Laramie after all to witness my humiliation,
to see me “gone wild.”
But then, for some reason, the mood
seemed to change among the onlookers, as if their barbed curiosity
spoken in tones loud enough for all of us to hear was not
sufficient reproof for our transgression of all things wholesome
and Christian. We had almost reached the trading post when someone
hissed, “Whores!”
And someone else: “Dirty whores!”
“Why do you
bring your filth here among decent God-fearing
Christians?” another said.
Perhaps because she has lived with
such intolerance and prejudice for most of her life, the
unflappable Phemie knew just how to react to it; she began to sing
one of her “freedom songs,” as she calls them. Her rich, melodic
voice rose above the ugly epithets, covered and finally silenced
them:
“I‘ve been buked and I’ve been scorned,
I’ve been buked and I’ve been scorned, children
I’ve been buked and I’ve been scorned,
I’ve been talked about sure’s you born.”
And though I am certain now that they
must have been punished later for it, several of the Negro soldiers
who escorted us joined her in the next verse. They shared the
community of racial memory and knew the song well. And they sang as
if to protect all of us in their charge:
“There’ll be trouble all over this world,
There’ll be trouble all over this world, children,
There’ll be trouble all over this world,
There’ll be trouble all over this world.”
We were all of us heartened by the
singing, given courage by the deep men’s voices in harmony with our
own Phemie’s contralto which rose above the others like that of an
angel—a black angel. And we all sang the third verse, which we had
heard Phemie sing countless nights in her lodge:
“Ain’t gonna lay my religion down
Ain’t gonna lay my religion down, children
Ain’t gonna lay my religion down
Ain’t gonna lay my religion down”
Now we had reached the post store and
our procession halted as the trader, with a half-breed interpreter
in tow, came out to confer with Little Wolf. As we waited, and for
the first time, I took the opportunity to look back at them, to
gaze into the crowd at some of the individuals who had witnessed
our arrival here in such low mean spirit. They had fallen silent
now and regarded us with sullen looks of suspicion and …
hatred.
Hardly had I begun to peruse their
faces than my eyes met those of Captain John G. Bourke
…