Winter
“When the end of the village was reached we were to charge at full gallop down through the lines of ‘tipis’, firing our revolvers at everything in sight. Just as we approached the village we came upon a ravine some ten feet in depth and of varying width, the average being not less than fifty. We got down this deliberately, and at the bottom and behind a stump saw a young boy about fifteen years old driving his ponies. He was not ten feet off. The youngster wrapped his blanket about him and stood like a statue of bronze, waiting for the fatal bullet. The American Indian knows how to die with as much stoicism as the East Indian. I leveled my pistol …”(John G. Bourke, from his memoir, On the Border with Crook)
We arrived at winter camp in timely
fashion, for two days ago the first snows came. Fortunately, we had
nearly a fortnight of mild weather previous to this and the men
made a number of successful hunts. Now the larder is full with all
manner of game—fresh, dried, and smoked, and we seem to be
exceptionally well supplied.
A frigid wind blew down from the north
for an entire day before delivering the full brunt of the blizzard.
And then the snows marched across the plains like an approaching
army, blowing horizontally, at first lightly but soon so thickly
that even going outside to do one’s business was to risk becoming
disoriented and lost in the maelstrom. Fortunately the camp itself
is situated so as to be partially protected from the worst of the
wind and drifting snow. After another day, the wind began to
subside, but the snow continued, falling straighter now, until the
air was windless and the flakes, as big as silver dollars, fell
steadily. For two days and two nights it snowed thus. And then the
wind came again and blew the skies clear and as suddenly stopped.
The mercury plunged and the stars in the sky glittered coldly off
the fresh snow, which had drifted in huge sculpted mounds across
the rolling prairie so that it appeared as if the earth itself had
shifted, reformed itself with the storm.
Of course we were very much
“housebound” during the storm and there was no visiting among us
for those several days. All stayed as much as possible in their
lodges; and though ours was warm and snug, the confinement became,
finally, quite tedious. After the wind abated I did venture down to
the river one morning for a bath, which cold as it is, I do not
intend to give up—this activity, at least, allowing me to get out
of the “house” however briefly.
The weather continues clear and cold,
but at least we are able to get about now to visit. I should
mention that an inventory of our numbers since our band’s return
from Fort Laramie reveals that well over half of our women chose to
move with their husbands and “families” to the agency for the
winter—good timing on their parts as a move now with the snow would
be virtually impossible. Gretchen and her doltish husband No Brains
are still among us, as are Daisy Lovelace and Bloody Foot, of whom
Daisy has grown even fonder. “Ah nevah would have believed mahself,” she says, “that I could fall in
luuuve with a
niggah Injun boy, but
ah’m afraid that this is
exactly what has happened. I don’t care if he is daaaak as naaaght, Ah luuuve the man, and I am proud
to say that Ah am carryin’
his chaald.”
As to Phemie, especially since our
visit to Red Cloud, she and I have been in some conflict about the
matter of enrolling at the agency, and have had several heated
discussions on the question. For my part, I argue that such a move
is inevitable and in the best interest of the People—while she
equates the reservation system with the institution of slavery
itself.
“My husband Mo’ohtaeve ho’e and I have discussed the
matter,” Phemie says. “He does not remember our people’s slavery
for he has lived most of his life as a free man. Thus we have
decided that we will not surrender to the agency. My days of
enslavement to white folks are behind me.”
“Phemie, there is no slavery on the
reservation,” I argue. “The People will own the land and will earn
their livings as free men and women.”
To which Phemie answers in her
melodious and imperious manner. “I see,” she says. “Then the
Cheyennes will enjoy complete equality with the whites, is this
what you are telling me, May?”
“That’s right, Phemie,” I answer, but
I hesitate just long enough that she senses my lack of conviction
on the matter.
“And if the People are equal to the
white tribe, why then are they being restricted to reservations?”
Phemie asks.
“They are being asked to live
voluntarily and temporarily on reservations as a first step toward
assimilating them into our own society,” I answer, and already I
know that I am walking right into the trap she lays for
me.
Phemie laughs her deep, rich chuckle.
“I see,” she said. “And if they do not ‘volunteer’ to live on the
reservation? Then am I to understand that they may remain on this
land which belongs to them and upon which they have been living for
many hundreds of years and where some of them, myself and my
husband included, are quite content to remain?”
“No, Phemie,” I answer, abashed,
assuming the role now, involuntarily, of Captain Bourke, “they
cannot live here any longer. You cannot. If you try to stay here
past the February deadline, you will be breaking the law and you
will be punished for it.”
“The law made by the whites,” Phemie
says. “The whites being, of course, the superior race, who make
these laws in order to keep the inferior in their place. That, May,
is, by definition, slavery.”
“Dammit Euphemia!” I answer in
frustration. “It’s not the same thing at all.”
“No?” she asks. “Explain to me then
the difference.”
And, of course, I cannot.
“My people were once forcibly removed
from their homeland,” Phemie continues. “My mother was taken from
her family when she was just a child. All my life I have dreamed of
going back for her. Now, living among these people, I have in a
sense done so. This is as close as I will ever get to my mother’s
homeland, to my family. And I have promised myself, May, that one
way or another I will live from now on as a free woman, and I will
die, if necessary, to protect that freedom. I could never tell
these people that they should surrender and go to live on
reservations or at agencies, because to do so is to take from them
their freedom, to make of them slaves to a higher order. That, my
friend, is my position on the matter and nothing you can say to me
will change my mind.”
“But Phemie,” I plead, “why then did
you sign up for this program? You are an educated woman; you must
have understood that the process of assimilation that we are
facilitating is, inevitably, a process whereby the smaller native
population is absorbed into the greater invading one. It is the way
of history, has always been.”
“Ah, yes, May,” Phemie chuckles,
seemingly amused at my distress, “your version of history, the white man’s
version. But not mine, certainly, not the history of these, our
adopted people. My history, my mother’s history, is one of being
torn from homeland and family and enslaved in a foreign land.
Theirs is one of being pushed from their own land and slaughtered
when they refuse to give it up. Absorbed? Assimilated? Hardly. Our
common history is one of dispossession, murder, and
slavery.”
“Perhaps you’re right, Phemie,” I say.
“Which is precisely our purpose here. To see that history does not
repeat itself, to prove that there is another way, a peaceful
solution in which both races learn from the other, learn to live in
harmony together. Our children will be the final proof of this
commitment, and the true hope for the future. Let us say, for
example, that my son were to grow up to marry your daughter. Think
of it, Phemie! Their offspring would be part white, part black,
part Indian. In this way we are pioneers, you and I, in a great and
noble experiment!”
“Oh May,” Phemie says with real
sadness in her voice. “The plantations were full of mulattos—people
of mixed blood and of all shades of color. I myself am one. I am
half-white. My father was the master. Did this make me free? Did
this make me accepted by the ‘superior’ culture? No, I was still a
slave. In many cases our lives were more difficult for being of
mixed blood, for we were considered neither black nor white, and
resented by both. Your Captain was right. You’ve seen the
half-breeds around the forts. Do they appear assimilated to
you?”
“They come and go among the two
races,” I said, without conviction. “But they were all born to
women of the exploited culture, fathered by the exploiters. We
women hold the key, Phemie, we mothers. We couple with the
Cheyennes of our own free will; we bear their children as gifts to
both races.”
“For the sake of your children I hope
you’re right,” Phemie said. “You asked me a moment ago why I signed
up for this program. As I told you months ago on our train ride
here, I signed up to live as a free woman, to serve no man, to be
inferior to no one. I shall never give up my freedom again, and I
shall choose to have children only when I know that they may live
as free men and women. If I have to fight first for their freedom,
so be it. And to be born on a reservation is not
freedom.”
And thus Phemie and I go round and
round … I, advocating peaceful surrender in the interest of future
harmony, an idealistic vision of the future perhaps … and one, it
is true, without precedent in human history. And Phemie advocating
resistance, intransigence, militancy—in the process inflaming her
husband and her warrior society against the idea of going into the
agency, against the invading white man, against the
soldiers.
But we have time yet—a long winter to
grapple with these questions—to reach some consensus. As always
sentiment among those remaining in the camp runs decidedly mixed on
the matter of going in. Some of us are making small inroads
persuading our own families that this is the only reasonable course
of action. Due to the great influence that women hold in the
Cheyenne family, I have been concentrating my own efforts on my
fellow tentmates. I describe to them the many marvelous inventions
of the whites—with some of which they are already familiar—the many
comforts they will own in civilization, the conveniences and
advantages which are so dear to a woman’s heart … . For win the
women’s hearts and those of the People will soon
follow.
Today Gretchen and I have broken yet
another barrier between the sexes. If only temporarily
…
We have all long envied the custom
that the men observe of the “sweat lodge.” This is a special tipi
which serves the same function as a steam house in our own culture,
except that this one seems also to hold special religious
connotations—and women are strictly verboten, as Gretchen puts it. A large fire
is built in the center of the sweat lodge, upon which rocks are
laid until they are heated nearly red-hot and then water poured
over the rocks to create steam—this whole process attended to by a
medicine man who also frequently speaks some ceremonial mumbo jumbo
and passes a pipe for the men to puff contentedly upon. The
participants themselves sit in a circle around the outside of the
fire, until they are perspiring freely and when they can bear the
heat no longer run outside and roll around in the snow or leap into
a hole chopped into the now frozen river. They then return to the
sweat lodge to begin the process anew. This strikes me as both a
healthful and a hygienic recreation—particularly in the
wintertime.
The other day I was visiting with
Gretchen in her lodge and she happened to mention—somewhat
longingly I thought—that her husband, No Brains, was presently
performing a sweat-lodge ceremony. She told me that in the old
country her people observed exactly this same practice through the
long, dark, northern winters—without the religious overtones, of
course, and with no prohibitions upon the sex of the participants.
Gretchen’s own family had brought the custom with them to America
and built a sweat house on their farm in Illinois—which they
enjoyed all year.
“Oh, May,
der is nutting bedder dan a goot steam bath, I tell
you dat,” Gretchen said,
shaking her head mournfully.
“And why should we not be able to take
steam baths ourselves?” I asked.
“Oh, no May,” she said,
“de men not allow women in
de sweat lodge here. My
husband he tells me
dat.”
“Why not?”
“Because, it is only for
de men,” Gretchen said.
“It is just de way
de People says
so.
“Gretchen, what good reason is that?”
I said. “Let’s you and I march right over there now and have a
sweat bath ourselves!”
“Oh, no I don’t tink so, May,” Gretchen said, “I don’t
tink dat be sech a
goot idea …”
“Of course it is, it’s a wonderful
idea,” I insisted. “And think how invigorating it will be! It is
time we taught these people that any activity that is suitable for
the men should also be enjoyed by the women. What’s good for the
goose is good for the gander!”
“Vell, OK, May, vhat de hell,” said Gretchen.
“Vatch you going to wear
in de sweat house,
May?”
“I’m going to wear a towel, dear,” I
answered. “What else would one wear in a sweat lodge?”
“Yah, May, me too,” said Gretchen, nodding.
“Dat’s a
goot idea.”
Many of us had brought cotton towels
with us when we first came here, a luxury that the Indians have
also discovered, and which item is now available at all the trading
posts. Thus I fetched my towel from my lodge and went back to meet
Gretchen so that we might make our assault on the male bastion of
the sweat lodge together.
Truly, living in such close proximity,
a sense of modesty regarding our physical bodies is hardly at issue
among most of us any longer—and no one pays the slightest attention
whether one is clothed from head to toe or half-naked. Going about
with one’s breasts free seems quite natural. And so Gretchen and I
stripped off our dresses, giggling like schoolgirls plotting a
prank, wrapped our towels around our enormous pregnant waists, and
dashed through the snow to the sweat lodge. We scratched on the
covering to the opening. “Hurry up, it’s freezing out here!” I
cried in my best Cheyenne. I believe now that the medicine man was
so shocked to hear a woman’s voice demanding entrance, that he
opened the flap just a crack out of pure curiosity to see who might
have the audacity to challenge this “men only” institution. And
when he did so, we did not hesitate for a moment but burst through
the opening into the wonderful humid warmth of the sweat lodge,
laughing and quite pleased with ourselves. At our sudden
appearance, there arose from the men seated around the fire a great
grunting of alarm. The medicine man himself, old White Bull, whom I
find to be a tiresome and humorless old bag of wind, was not in the
least bit amused by our uninvited entrance, and began to speak
sternly to us, waving at us a rattle that the Cheyennes use to ward
off evil spirits. “You women go away,” he said. “Leave here
immediately. This is a very bad thing!”
“Not bad at all,” I answered. “It’s
perfectly delightful. And we’re staying until we have ourselves a
good sweat!” With which Gretchen and I sat ourselves down right in
front of the fire.
Several of the men, the most stringent
traditionalists, stood and left the sweat lodge, grumbling and
grunting indignantly as they did so. Gretchen’s husband spoke
sternly to her. “What are you doing here, wife? You shame me by
coming here in this manner. This is no place for women. Go
home!”
“You gest
be quite you bick dope! she answered (we have all
remarked on the fact that Gretchen even speaks Cheyenne with a
Swiss accent!), shaking her finger at her husband, her enormous
naked breasts flushed pink as scalded suckling pigs in the steamy
heat.”A man don’t talk to his wife like dat, mister! You don’t like
dat I come here
dat gest too damn bad,
den you can
gest go home yourself!”
The man was instantly cowed by his wife, and fell silent, much to
the evident delight of a number of the other sweat bathers.
“Hemomoonamo!” someone
hissed. (“Henpecked husband!”) “Hou,” said another, nodding.
“Hemomoonamo!” And they
all nickered softly in amusement.
This bit of humor helped to settle the
men, and the sweat-lodge ceremony continued much as if we were not
there. Indeed, I think it served the men’s purpose simply to
pretend that we were not there. After Gretchen and I had both
broken into heavy perspiration, and the heat inside the lodge had
become nearly unbearable, we crawled to the opening where old White
Bull let us out and then we ran buck naked to the river, squealing
like crazed children, Gretchen running with her heavy lumbering
gait, her massive breasts swinging like well-loaded
parfleches.
A thin skin of new ice had already
formed on the opening of the water hole and through this we
plunged, gasping and trying to catch our breaths, exiting again as
quickly as we could and running back lickety-split to the sweat
lodge. An ill-advised activity perhaps, for pregnant women, but
Indian babies must be hardy to the elements.
But this time, of course, stodgy old
White Bull did not answer our entreaties at the entrance, would not
untie the lodge flap. “We are freezing out here!” I cried. “You,
old man, let us in there right now!” But he did not answer and
finally, lest we really did freeze, we ran back to Gretchen’s
lodge, where we dried ourselves by her fire.
“You know what we shall do, Gretchen?”
I suggested. “We shall build our own sweat lodge for the women.
Yes, it promises to be a long winter, and we have plenty of hides
and nothing but time, so we shall all band together to sew our own
sweat lodge, and when we are finished, there will be no men
allowed! It will be strictly a girls’ club.”
“Goot idea, May!” Gretchen concurred.
“Dat’s a damn
goot idea. No men
allowt! Girls
only!”
And so this is how we shall pass the winter. Making what diversions for ourselves that we can, pranks and make-work projects like our sweat lodge, anything to keep ourselves active. For the days, shorter each in their stingy measure of daylight, can seem interminable if one spends them sitting in the dim lodge. We have our chores, of course, going for the living water in the early morning, and gathering firewood—neither of which activity I object to as at least they get me out of the damn tent. And there is always cooking to be done and food preparation and cleaning and sewing and all the other, sometimes dreary projects of wifedom. But these, too, also serve to prevent idleness.
We remaining white women have become,
if anything, even closer in our sisterhood. Without the constant
activities of traveling—dismantling and reassembling the lodge,
packing and unpacking—we have more time to meet regularly in one or
another of our lodges, where we consult each other on the progress
or lack thereof that we each make in our efforts to convince our
families to go into the agency before February.
In our daily meetings we also compare
our respective pregnancies, plan our upcoming births, and offer
each other what moral support we can. We gossip and argue, laugh
and weep, and sometimes we just sit quietly together around the
fire, holding hands, staring into the flames and embers, and
wondering at the mystery of our lives, wondering what is to come …
happy that we have one another, for the winter promises to be long
and lonely …
We are all much comforted by the
presence of Brother Anthony of the Prairie and frequently meet with
him in his own spare lodge, which he has erected on the edge of the
village. It is a very simple, immaculately clean affair, as befits
a monk, and often we sit by his fire and recite the daily liturgy
with him.
“In this place I shall build my
hermitage in the spring,” says Anthony in his soft soothing voice.
“In these hills above the river I shall be blessed to have
everything I require, for a man needs little to commune with God,
but a humble shelter and a pure heart. Later with my hands I shall
begin the work of building my abbey. I shall be blessed to have
other men of humble minds and simple hearts follow me here, and
here we shall pray and study and share the word of God with all who
come to us.”
It’s a lovely image and often we all
sit together in contemplative silence and imagine it. I can almost
see Brother Anthony’s abbey in the hills, can imagine us all
worshiping quietly there, can imagine our children and our
children’s children after us coming to this place … it is a fine
comforting thought.
Beside reading, reciting the liturgies
and instructing us in his Bible, Anthony is teaching us and the
native women to bake bread—a fine occupation in the winter and one
that fills our tents with wonderful aromas.
The weather continues mostly clear and
crisp, with thankfully little wind, and when the sun is up and
shining off the pure white prairie, all is very
beautiful.
Nearly a month has passed since my
last entry. Time, of course, is not the issue, rather the general
torpor of the season and the corresponding lack of interesting
occurrences has caused me to rest my pen—to husband and store what
little I have to report. Would that we could hibernate like the
bears! How wise they are to take their long winter naps and not
awake until spring.
The Cheyennes themselves do not appear
to suffer from boredom. How lucky they are, for they possess a kind
of unlimited patience so that if we are tentbound for days in
blizzards, they wait them out without complaint, with a kind of
perfect animal-like stillness. Besides simple games that they play,
and a bit of gambling among the men, there is little in the way of
entertainment—other than storytelling, from which we learn
something of the history of these fine people. Of course, they do
not read books.
We white women have all read countless
times the few volumes that we brought with us or were able to
obtain on our last trip to Fort Laramie. I have nearly reduced the
Captain’s cherished volume of Shakespeare to tatters from my many
readings of it, and, of course, much as I may have wished to hoard
it for myself, I have made it freely available to the others.
Besides our daily visits with Anthony one of our few recreations
has been to meet in groups in one or another of our lodges and read
the Bard together, passing the book around the circle, each of us
reading a different part. But the light is poor in the lodges,
especially with the days now so short.
Our women’s sweat lodge is now
complete and in full operation! It is a perfect delight and we
white women have been holding our “councils” there. Hah! We have
even encouraged some of the younger and bolder Cheyenne women to
join us. Both my tentmates, Pretty Walker and Feather on Head, have
attended, with extreme shyness at first, but now more
enthusiatically. We have a little girl who tends our fire and keeps
a supply of water in the buckets to pour on the hot rocks, and all
are welcome—if they are women, that is! We sit, for the most part
naked, sweating freely and then dashing for the river. Helen Flight
often smokes her pipe and sometimes passes it among the others in a
kind of pantomime of the men’s dour councils. The Cheyenne women,
when they join us, consider this smoking to be quite scandalous,
even sacriligious, and will scarcely touch the pipe let alone
partake of it.
I am huge with my baby! Big as a
house! I believe that mine is by far the biggest belly in our
group! Even Gretchen, herself a hefty woman to begin with, does not
seem nearly as large as I. Surely this savage baby of mine is going
to be a giant! Fortunately, in spite of the additional bulk I am
carrying, I have had a very uneventful pregnancy, almost no illness
and, other than the simple act of packing the enormous thing
around, very little discomfort. The Cheyennes have all sorts of
remedies—teas which they brew from various roots, herbs, flowers,
leaves, and grasses—some of which are not disagreeable to the
taste; these they give to pregnant women—who are doted over and
cared for by the other women, really to the point of
distraction.
Much game remains in the vicinity, and
the clear weather has been conducive to the hunt, so that we
continue to have a steady supply of fresh meat. All of which makes
for plenty of work for both men and women so that at least there is
less idleness among us—there is always skinning and butchering and
tanning to be done.
I have learned to embroider hides with
trade beads, and this activity I enjoy—It is a pleasant,
time-consuming craft, often peacefully pursued in a group. We sit
by the fire, chatting and gossiping and passing the time. Now that
most of us white women are so much more proficient in our use of
the native tongue, we have achieved a greater intimacy with our
fellow Cheyenne wives. Although they have a quite different way of
looking at the world than Caucasians, I find that as women we have
nearly as much in common as separates us by culture; every day we
learn more about one another and have a greater mutual appreciation
and respect. Thus we all share the same daily cares and worries,
the same labors. And with our pregnancies—for some of the Indian
wives are also pregnant—we share the burdens, the responsibilities,
and the joys of impending motherhood.
And in our increasing ability to
better communicate we also share the fresh glue of humor. At first
the Cheyenne women found our white women’s irreverence toward the
men to be quite scandalous. But now our small jests and banter
about the male race in general seems to delight them, seems to
unite us all in a new bond of sisterhood. Together we nod and
“how” and giggle
enthusiastically as, with a little prompting from us, the Indian
women discover … no, not “discover” … I mean to say, “acknowledge”
the female’s natural superiority to the male.
In spite of her reserve, I am
sometimes even able to elicit a tiny sly smile from Quiet One. Like
many who speak sparingly she is keenly observant of all that takes
place around her. The other day, for example, Little Wolf was
holding council in the lodge with several other heads of state in
attendance, including the old Chief Dull Knife, and a fellow named
Masehaeke, or Crazy Mule
(he was named this by our Sioux neighbors because one time he rode
into their camp on a mule, and one of them said, “Here comes that
crazy Cheyenne who rides the mule.”). Crazy Mule is a tiresomely
long-winded fellow and I always dread when he attends the councils
because on he drones—on and on—the only good thing about it, I
suppose, being that his voice has the effect of a sleeping potion
and instantly puts the children into a deep slumber. I have even
sometimes observed Little Wolf and others among the council dozing
off while the man is speaking. In any case, the other day, Crazy
Mule was going on in his usual fashion and I noticed that Quiet One
was looking at me in the shy way she has of observing people from
the periphery. I smiled at her and held my hand up to the fire to
cast a shadow puppet on the lodge covering above old Crazy Mule’s
head. Opening and closing my thumb and fingers I made my shadow
puppet to be yakking on like the man himself. This woke up the
assemblage! There was much stifling of laughter from those who
could observe my chattering shadow puppet, and even Quiet One
allowed herself a smile large enough to warrant covering her mouth
demurely with her hand.
According to Captain Bourke in an
opinion expressed to me during our brief meeting at Fort Laramie,
the only true hope for the advancement of the savage is to teach
him that he must give up this allegiance to the tribe and look
toward his own individual welfare. This is necessary, Bourke
claims, in order that he may function effectively in the
“individualized civilization” of the Caucasian world. To the
Cheyenne such a concept remains completely foreign—the needs of the
People, the tribe, and above all the family within the tribe are
placed always before those of the individual. In this regard they
live somewhat like the ancient clans of Scotland. The selflessness
of my husband, Little Wolf, for instance, strikes me as most noble
and something that hardly requires “correction” by civilized
society. In support of his own thesis, the Captain uses the
unfortunate example of the Indians who have been pressed into
service as scouts for the U.S. Army. These men are rewarded for
their efforts as good law-abiding citizens—paid wages, fed,
clothed, and generally cared for. The only requirement of their
employment, their allegiance to the white father, is that they
betray their own people and their own families … I fail to see the
nobility or the advantage of such individualized private initiative
…
A disturbing accident has occurred.
Yesterday our Quiet One invited several people to our lodge to
partake of a feast of bread that she had just baked. Somehow she
confused a bag of arsenic powder for that of baking soda. The
Cheyennes obtain the arsenic from the trading post and use it to
poison wolves.
The results of this mix-up can be
readily imagined. By the grace of God, or perhaps, the grace of the
Great Medicine, no one died—but for a pair of hapless dogs who were
given bites of the bread in order to confirm the fact that it was
indeed poisoned. By then several of the guests had already been
stricken. I sent Horse Boy to summon Anthony and some of the
others, and together we prevailed upon the afflicted to vomit.
Thank God I and none of the other pregnant women had ourselves
partaken of the bread, for it would surely have cost us our
babies.
All have now recovered, although for
everyone, it was a long and painful ordeal. Little Wolf himself
became deathly ill. I feared deeply for his life and sat up all
night with him. Of course, poor Quiet One was completely distraught
at her part in the near catastrophe; and I have tried to comfort
her as much as I could.
The event has served as a catalyst to
a council being called to discuss this question of poisoning the
wolves—a practice the Cheyennes only recently learned from the
white agents, who have advised them that by poisoning the wolves,
there will be more game for the people. Since its use has become
more widespread among the Indians, all have noticed across the
prairie the carcasses not only of wolves, but also of coyotes,
eagles, hawks, ravens, raccoons, skunks, and even bears, for the
poison kills everything that partakes of the arsenic-laced meat or
that feeds off the carcasses of its victims.
Our lodge was crowded with a number of
prominent chiefs, dignitaries from the various warrior societies,
esteemed medicine men, and our own Brother Anthony. Several of our
women were also in attendance, the latter, along with a number of
Cheyenne women, seated as usual outside the council circle of
men.
After the ceremonial pipe had been
smoked by the men, the first fellow to speak up was an old medicine
man, Vo’aa’ohmese’aestse,
whose name, unless my Cheyenne is worse than I think, translates to
something like, Antelope Bowels Moving.
“It is unfortunate,” began the old
man, “that Little Wolf’s wife confused the wolf poison with the
soda for making bread.” At this there was much assorted
“houing” from the
assemblage.”Wolf poison is not something that the People should eat
in their bread,“he continued with a great deal of
pomposity.”However, properly used, the poison is a good thing, for
it kills the wolves so that there will be more game for the
People.“Now the old man nodded smugly, and looking extremely
self-satisfied with this reasoning, as those assembled
”houed”
enthusiastically.
I could not help myself, and although
I knew it was unseemly to do so and would possibly even embarrass
my husband, at this point I jumped up from my place and said: “If
it is true that there will be more game after we kill the wolves,
why is it that our relatives at the agencies who have been using
the arsenic for some time now, have no game in their own country?”
(Of course, I offer this far more fluent English translation of my
remarks.)
Now there arose a small uproar of
grunting among the assemblage expressing general
disapproval—whether specifically of my remarks or at the fact that
a woman had spoken in council at all, is hard to say.
“Vehoae
…” Little Wolf said with a smile to the assemblage,
“eohkesaahetseveoxohesaneheo’
o.” Which roughly translated means, “white women …
nothing stops them from saying whatever they are
thinking.”
At this point the “little chief,”
Black Coyote, spoke up. He is a fine-looking fellow, but with a bit
of a reputation as a hothead, and a warmonger, and particularly
known for his dislike of white people. “Mesoke is right,” he said now. “Instead of
using the arsenic to poison wolves, we should use it to poison
white people. We should make many loaves of poison bread and
distribute these among all the whites. We have much more to fear
from them than we do from the wolves.”
“Well, I didn’t say that exactly,” I
tried to interject over the mixed houing of approval from Black Coyote’s more
militant followers, and the grunting of dissent from his
detractors.
“The People have always lived with the
wolves and the little wolves (coyotes),” Black Coyote continued.
“It is true that sometimes we kill them with arrows or rifles, but
there has always been enough game for all of us to share. It was
not until the arrival of the white man that the buffalo and the
other game began to disappear. The wolf is not our enemy. The white
man is our enemy.”
This time the young warrior’s words
were greeted with more houing than grunting as he seemed to be
winning over the audience.
“I should like to hear what
Maheoneeestseve’ho’e has
to say on the subject,” Little Wolf said. This is one of the names
the Cheyennes use to refer to Anthony, and means something like
“holy-speaking white man.”
Anthony spoke softly. He has learned
basic Cheyenne in a remarkably short time. “Christ gave the
blessing of bread to provide sustenance, not to kill men,” he said
to Black Coyote. And to the assemblage in general he said, “God put
all of the beasts on the Earth for His own divine purpose. He gives
abundantly for all to share.”
A long silence ensued as all soberly
considered Anthony’s simple but eloquent remarks.
Finally my husband, Little Wolf,
raised his hand and spoke in his usual thoughtful way—without
flourish or fanfare, but with plain reason and good sense.
“Mesoke, Mo’ohtaveo’kohome
and Maheo’neestsevebho’e
are all correct,” said the Chief. “We have always lived with the
wolves, and it is true that far more Cheyennes have been killed by
the white soldiers than have ever been killed by the wolves.”
(There was a smattering of houing here.) “The wolves and the little
wolves have always followed the People wherever we go; eating the
offal and cleaning the bones that we leave behind from our hunts.
This is not a bad thing, for all thus returns to the earth, and
nothing is wasted. Sometimes, it is true that the wolves kill
buffalo calves, and deer and elk calves. They kill old and weak
animals, this is also true. But the wolves must have meat. If the
Great Medicine intended that only the People should be allowed to
eat meat, why would he have put wolves upon the earth? With this
poison we not only kill the wolves and the little wolves but many
other animals who have been our friends and neighbors. I have eaten
the poison myself and almost died. I believe that the Great
Medicine himself gave me the poison to eat so that I might know
that it was a bad thing. It is the white man way to kill all the
animals, to drive them away. It is not the way of the People, for
we and all the other animals have lived here together, we have
always shared, and until the white man came there has always been
enough for everyone. Therefore, we will no longer permit the
arsenic in this camp. That is my decision.”
Christmas morning! I awoke thinking of
my children, feeling the pull of memories … the remembrance of
Christmas past … when I was a child myself and the day still held
such promise … with St. Nick in his reindeer-drawn sleigh on the
roof of our family’s house … and he would bring me a doll and some
sweet candy … I had only two Christmases with my dear daughter,
Hortense, and only one with sweet Willie before they took me away
from them …
I woke this Christmas morning, vowing
again that one day we would all be reunited, that I will tell my
children the stories of their mother’s life and
adventures.
It has begun snowing again, snowing
and blowing, and again we find ourselves tipibound by the weather.
But I refused to be so restrained on Christmas Day, and so I rose
quietly, dressed warmly, and managed to slip from our lodge before
anyone else stirred. All of us sleep more with the snow and cold
and short days—in which sense, I suppose, we do hibernate. I took
my notebook—strapped to my back—and off I went to visit Martha this
Christmas morning.
The wind blew fiercely as I made my
way to Martha’s lodge, the snow enveloping me in a whirlwind of
white that stole my breath away. I could barely see beyond my own
nose and at one point I became disoriented, lost all sense of
direction, and felt a rising sense of panic. For that moment I was
a prisoner of the white wind. But then the driving snow parted just
enough that I could make out Martha’s lodge coverings—for all of
our lodges are painted with different and distinctive
paintings.
Martha herself met me at the entrance,
surprised to see me so early and out in the storm. “Merry
Christmas!” I shouted to her, but she could hardly hear me over the
howling of the wind.
“Merry Christmas,” I repeated
breathlessly after I had entered. It was dark, warm, and snug as a
cocoon inside. I shook the snow from my buffalo coat and Martha
helped me out of it. The two of us facing each other were like a
pair of matching bookends, our protruding bellies touching beneath
our antelope skin dresses.
“Christmas?” she said. “Dear God, May,
I had completely forgotten. Christmas … Come sit by the fire, I’ll
make coffee for us.”
Martha’s husband, Momebexaehe, still slept in his place before
the fire. I have come to know the fellow rather well as Martha and
I spend so much time together and his head of frighteningly
disarrayed hair notwithstanding, he is a very pleasant, easygoing
fellow.
Now Martha and I both sat ensconced on
robes, leaning against backrests, which position at least relieved
some of the discomfort of our conditions. She stoked the fire with
sticks and set a small pot of coffee to boil.
I had made a small gift for Martha—a
pair of baby moccasins that I had sewn myself from a butter-soft
antelope hide. “I’ve brought you a little Christmas present, my
dear friend,” I said, handing her the baby boots which I had
enclosed in an embroidered deerskin pouch.
“A present?” Martha said in a small
heartbroken voice. “But May, I have nothing for you. I had
completely forgotten the day!”
“It makes no difference, Martha,” I
said. “What’s important is that we are together on this day, safe,
warm, and healthy.”
And then poor Martha began to weep
softly—she wept and wept, and I could not make her stop, could not
console her.
“What’s the matter, Martha,” I asked.
“Why are you crying?”
But she could only shake her head and
weep; could not catch her breath to speak between her pitiful sobs.
Finally, when she had calmed herself enough, she said in a tiny
choked voice, “I’m sorry, May, I don’t know what came over me.
Learning that it is Christmas today made me suddenly so desperately
homesick and lonely. Not that I have not been happy with my
husband, for truly I have, but sometimes I do so miss home. Don’t
you ever wish that we were home, May? Don’t you ever think of
it?”
“Every day, Martha,” I admitted. “I
think of my children, every day of my life. But I do not have a
home any longer except for the one that I have right here. Open
your gift now, Martha.”
She did so, and touched the baby boots
lightly with her fingers, tracing the beads, lovingly. “Oh, May,
they’re absolutely beautiful. These are the most beautiful baby
shoes I have ever seen. Thank you. I’m sorry that I have nothing
for you on Christmas.” And she began to weep anew.
“Hush,” I said. “I’m glad that you
like them, dear. But please don’t cry anymore.”
“Do you think that Santa Claus is
going to come down the smoke hole in the tipi today?” Martha said,
smiling and wiping the tears with the back of her
hand.
“I feel certain of it!” I said. “And
why shouldn’t he? Weren’t we always told that Santa visited all
children all over the world, wherever they lived. Next year he will
visit our new babies, Martha. Think of it! Their first
Christmas!”
“I hope that we go to the birthing
lodge together, May,” Martha said, “that we have our babies at
exactly the same time, you and I. But if I go before you, will you
promise to come and be with me?”
“Of course I will,” I said, “and if I
go first, which judging from the size of this enormous belly of
mine, I surely will, then you must promise to attend to
me.”
“I promise,” she said. “Oh, May, what
a fine friend you have been. Merry Christmas!”
“Merry Christmas to you, Martha,” I
said. “Let us sing a Christmas hymn together, shall
we?”
And so the two of us began to sing …
while outside the blizzard raged, the wind moaned and howled like a
living being, the snow roiled around the lodge, hurtled against it,
spinning past to drift out across the prairie. Martha and I sat
warm by the fire; we had much to be thankful for on this Christmas
morning and we sang with full hearts, with hope and courage for the
future:
Oh come all ye faithful,
joyful and triumphant,
Come ye, oh co-ome ye to Be-ethlehem …
And now I write these notes by
Martha’s fire, as she dozes contentedly beside me. Mr. Tangle Hair
also sleeps, as does their crone at the entrance. All is quiet and
warm inside, and we are safe … perhaps I too shall sleep
…
I have done something very foolish and
in the bargain, risked not only my own life but also the life of my
unborn child—and of all those who ventured out to rescue me in the
storm. It has been nearly a month since my “accident” and only now
am I strong enough to sit up and write. God, how could I have been
so careless!
After visiting with Martha on
Christmas morning, I dozed off for a time as I reported in my last
entry of that day. When I woke, Martha and the others were still
asleep. I did not know what time it was and so I crawled to the
lodge entrance and peered out to find that while the storm still
blew, there was light yet in the sky. I decided that I would make
my way back to my own lodge, before darkness fell. I tore a piece
of paper from my notebook and wrote a note to Martha and then I
bundled myself up in my buffalo coat and slipped out into the
storm.
If anything the storm had intensified.
But stubbornly I told myself that our lodge was only a short
distance away, that if I simply walked slowly in a straight line I
would certainly come upon it. After all, I had made it here this
morning, had I not? But after only a few steps, a strange and
terrifying phenomenon occurred. The maelstrom of wind and snow
enveloped me in its own world of chaos. Suddenly I knew no
direction—not east or west, north or south, not left or right, not
even up and down. I was completely disoriented. I shall turn back,
I thought to myself desperately, I can’t have come far. But, of
course, I did not know where “back” was. Now I felt the panic
overcome me; I fought against it, tried to put one foot in front of
the other, but in my state of mental confusion even that proved
difficult to do. The snow stung my face and eyes, felt like a
million tiny lashes of a whip, cut through my buffalo coat as if I
were naked. I had an overpowering urge to lie down, to curl up for
warmth until the storm passed, but I knew in what was left of my
disarranged mind that if I did so I would surely die there. I
staggered on, holding my arms out before me like a blind woman,
hoping that I would come across another lodge—any lodge. I tried to
cry out but I could barely hear my own words over the screaming of
the wind. Tears of terror and pain from the stinging snow streamed
down my face to freeze on my cheeks. Finally, I could no longer
draw breath from the wind and my own panic; I had no strength to go
on. I sank helplessly to my knees in the snow, grasped myself with
my arms and rocked back and forth. “Forgive me, child,” I whispered
to my unborn baby, “forgive me.” I fell onto my side, curled up in
a tight ball, and felt the sleep of death stealing over me. I knew
then that I was going to die … but suddenly I was warm and
comfortable and I began to have the most extraordinary
dream.
I dreamed that I was walking in a
beautiful river bottom in the spring, the cottonwoods were in full
leaf and the sweet yellow clover was in bloom and the grass across
the prairie was as green as the fields of Scotland. I was following
a young girl who walked ahead of me, and in a moment I recognized
her—it was my dear Sara. I began to weep with joy at seeing her,
and I hurried to catch up. Sara turned to wave to me, and I could
see that she, too, was pregnant. She smiled and called back to me
in Cheyenne. “It is so beautiful in Seano, Mesoke,” she said. “I shall have my baby
here and later you will join me. I will meet you and show you the
way here along the Hanging Road. But it is not quite time yet for
you to come. You must go back now.” And she turned and began to
walk away from me again.
“Wait, Sara,” I called out. “Wait for
me, dear, please …” But I could not catch up to her and she
disappeared ahead of me …
I do not know how long I slept, but
when I woke at last I was in my own bed in my own lodge. My little
Horse Boy sat beside me, my little man, his small hand warm as a
biscuit upon my cheek. I reached out to see that he was real,
cupped his cheek in my own hand. “Mo’ehnoha hetaneka’eskone,” I whispered to
him.
The boy regarded me solemnly when he
saw that my eyes were open, then smiled down at me.
“Mo’ehnoha
hetaneka’eskone,” I whispered.
“Mesoke,” he said.
And then the others gathered excitedly
around me and I was startled to see among them my old friend
Gertie.
“Name’esevotame?” I asked, speaking
unconsciously in Cheyenne.
“Your baby’s fine, honey,” Gertie
said, “but he’s mighty lucky and so are you. What the hell were you
doin’ wanderin’ around out there in the blizzard, anyhow? Are you
plumb crazy?”
I smiled weakly. “Some people used to
say so. How did I get home?” I asked.
“Your little friend here found you,”
Gertie said, indicating Horse Boy, “found you half-covered in a
snowdrift and drug you home all by hisself, although I don’t know
how the skinny little bastard managed it what with the extra person
you’re packin’ along in there.” She placed a hand lightly on my
stomach, smiled, and stroked my belly gently.
“Did you ever have children, Gertie?”
I whispered weakly. “You’ve never said.”
“Never did, honey,” she answered,
“never much cared for the little bastards.” But I could tell that
she didn’t mean it. “This little Horse Boy, though, he’s OK, and he
sure enough saved your fool butt.”
“He’s my little man,” I
said.
For days I faded in and out of
consciousness. I had contracted pneumonia from my ordeal, with the
attendant fever and delirium. I woke and slept, woke and slept,
with no sense of time. Through it all I was aware of the steady
stream of people who came and went from the tipi, old Crooked Nose
overseeing the visitors like a stern head nurse.
My little man Horse Boy hardly left my
side, and sometimes curled up on the robe to sleep beside me.
Medicine men chanted and passed burning sage under my nose, rattles
and other totemic objects around my head. Anthony read passages to
me from the Bible, my friends and family were there—their faces
blurring one into the next. Martha sat with me, and Gertie, Feather
on Head, Helen, Euphemia, the Kelly twins, Quiet One, Gretchen,
Daisy, Pretty Walker—all were there. And in my dreams I saw little
Sara.
Sometimes the women sang softly to me.
Feather on Head and Pretty Walker sang Cheyenne songs, the white
women and the Indians taught each other their songs, and my sickbed
became a place of joyous singing—until the old crone chased
everyone off with her stick.
Always when the others had left, my
husband Little Wolf was by my side, sitting silently, motionless as
a statue so that when I woke, I was never alone, and when I saw him
there I felt always safe, knowing that nothing bad could ever
happen to me or to my child as long as my husband was here to
protect us. If I was cold and shivering from fever, he would lie
down beside me and fold me in his arms to warm me.
I slept and I woke and I slept, I
thought that I should never be able to keep my eyes open for more
than a few minutes at a time.
But after a time the fever passed and
slowly I began to regain my strength. Now I feel the baby move
inside me, and I tell myself that all is well.
At the moment I sit propped up against
my backrest, scribbling these notes by the dim light of the fire.
Feather on Head sits quietly beside me … my eyes grow heavy again
…
Good God, I can hardly believe the
turn of events …
After my last entry I drifted off to
sleep with my notebook propped against my enormous belly. I woke
several hours later, woke with a jolt—the unmistakable tightening
of a labor pain. “It cannot be,” I whispered to myself. “I am weeks
early.” And I knew that something must be wrong. Little Wolf sat
beside me, and Horse Boy curled against me. I touched the child’s
shoulder gently, and he woke with perfect animal-like alertness.
“Please,” I whispered to him, “run and get Martha.” And to my
husband I said, “The baby comes.”
The women came quickly to lift me on
my bed and transport me to the birthing lodge—where all Cheyenne
babies are born and which gratefully had already been erected in
preparation for our group parturition.
The skies were clear as they carried
me there, the night air windless and frigid. I lay on my back,
borne aloft by the others, looking up toward the heavens at the
millions of stars. A shooting star blazed across the sky at that
moment. I took this to be a good omen, and I prayed upon the
shooting star, prayed that my baby would be born healthy and
strong.
A fire already burned in the birthing
lodge, tended by Woman Who Moves Against the Wind. The tipi was
very clean and beautifully appointed with fine, newly tanned, and
exquisitely embroidered hides and blankets, the walls freshly
painted with various symbols and a number of Helen Flight’s lovely
bird designs. “In this way,” she had said while painting them,
“each of you may choose in turn your own medicine bird for your
child.” For mine I chose the mighty wren—ve’keseheso, little bird—for its beautiful
song, its industriousness and courage.
Now the women laid me gently down on a
bed. The Medicine Woman came to my side to examine me, much like
one of our own doctors. “Eanetano,” she said to the
others.
“Yes, I’m in labor!” I said. “And is
the baby healthy?”
“Etonestoheese’hama?” the woman asked,
turning to Martha.
“Why don’t you ask me that question?”
I demanded. “I can tell you perfectly well how far along I am. Just
as the others.”
“Enehestoheese’hama,” Martha
answered.
“No, that is not correct, Martha,” I
said, sharply, “I’m early. I can’t possibly be full term
yet.”
“Close enough, dear,” she said, all
efficiency now. “You’ve always been a leader among us, and now you
lead us into motherhood. Perhaps your fever has brought on the
labor early.”
I was still very weak from my recent
illness and feared that I had little strength left to spare for the
rigors of childbirth. But now the pains came sharply and regularly.
The sweat poured from my face. I was certain that something must be
wrong with my baby.
The women bathed my brow with damp
cloths and spoke their encouragement to me while trying to make me
as comfortable as possible. But when at last the time came, I was
too exhausted, too weak, I had not the strength left to push; I
felt myself fading away, losing consciousness, slipping back into
the same wonderful dream I had had before … I longed so to go back
there, where it was peaceful and green, to be with my little Sara
…
I found myself in the same beautiful
river bottom in the springtime, with the cottonwoods leafing out
and the sweet clover blooming yellow in the meadows and up ahead my
little Sara, waving to me. “Not yet Mesoke,” she called back. “You must stay a
little longer, for your baby needs you.”
And coming from a great distance away,
I heard the voice of Woman Who Moves Against the Wind.
“Ena’tseane,” she said
calmly. “She is dying in
childbirth.” And I wondered who she was talking
about.
Ahead of me Sara smiled and waved me
back. I wanted so desperately to join her.
“No! No! She cannot be dying,”
screamed Martha from the distance, “May, your baby is coming, May,
you must wake up, you must help!”
And Sara said to me, “It is still not
time, Mesoke. Another time
I will bring you to Seano.
But now you must go back and bring your daughter into the
world.”
And then I came awake with a choke and
I felt my baby’s struggle between my legs as she fought to gain the
light.
“Oh, God,” I said, gasping for breath,
“Oh, my God, name’esevotame,
name’esevotame …”
“Yes, May!” Martha cried. “Yes, your
baby is coming! Push, push hard, now, here it comes!”
And then I felt her come free, the wet
slickness of her head sliding across the inside of my thigh, the
sharp unbearable pain followed by the sweet release as Woman Who
Moves Against the Wind took hold of the infant and brought her
forward into the world. She lifted my daughter and smacked her on
the rump, and my little Wren gave a hearty wail of indignation.
Thank God, thank God …
I fought to remain conscious, but I
felt myself slipping again into a deep exhausted slumber, too weak
to raise my head, too weak even to look at my child.
“Ve’ho’me’esevotse,” said the woman with a
tone of wonder in her voice, “Ve’ho’me’esevotse.”
“What does she mean, Martha?” I
whispered, so spent that I was barely able to speak. “Gertie, tell
me what does she mean? Why does she say that? Is my baby
healthy?”
“Ve’ho’me’esevotse,” repeated Woman Who
Moves Against the Wind, as she wiped and swaddled the baby. The
other Cheyenne women gathered curiously around and inspected the
baby. “Hou,” they said in
voices filled with astonishment, “Hou,
ve’ho’me’esevotse, ve’ho’ka’kesoas!”
“Tell me!” I gasped with my last bit
of strength. “Why do they keep saying that? What’s wrong with my
baby?”
“Take it easy, honey, your baby’s just
fine,” Gertie said, “a great big healthy girl baby. But, honey, the
medicine woman is right, she ain’t no Indian baby, she’s a
ve’ho’me’esevotse, just
like she said, a white baby, like them others is
saying—ve’ho’ka’kesoas, a
little white girl if ever I seen one.”
“’Tis God’s own truth, May,” said
Susie Kelly, “the lass is as pale and rosy-cheeked as an
Irishman.”
“Scots-Irish, I’d say,” added her
sister Meggie, wryly.
“That is to say, dear,” Helen Flight
whispered, “your baby appears to be Caucasian.”
“Oh, my God,” I murmured, giving
myself up at last to the death of sleep that dragged me down—and
grateful for it I was, too. “Good God, I’ve had John Bourke’s child
…”
For nearly two more days I slept, waking only long enough to nurse my baby, though sometimes I woke and the child was at my breast already, placed there by Woman Who Moves Against the Wind or one of the others. She was a beautiful child, and from the moment I first laid eyes on her there was never any question in my mind of her parentage. She had Bourke’s nose, Bourke’s deep-set intelligent eyes. She was John Bourke’s daughter, of that I was certain.
The women fed me broth until I had
regained some of my strength, cared for me again as they had
before, and finally today I am able to sit up for a time and record
this experience in my journal.
Only minutes ago my husband Little
Wolf came to see his daughter for the first time. It was a moment
that, for obvious reasons, I have been dreading. He sat beside me
and looked for the longest time at the baby in my arms. I could
only imagine what he must be thinking; I was filled with shame and
remorse at my infidelity to this great, kind man—although we had
not yet even met at the time of my indiscretion with John
Bourke.
Finally Little Wolf reached out and
with the greatest tenderness put the back of his fingers against
the baby’s cheek. “Nahtona,” he said, and it was not a
question, but a simple statement.
“Hou,” I answered in a tiny, tentative
voice. “Yes, my husband, your daughter.”
“Nahtona,
emo’onahe,” Little Wolf said, smiling at her, his
face filled with fatherly pride.
“Yes, she is, isn’t she?” I said.
“Your daughter is very beautiful.”
“Epeheva’e,” he said, nodding with great
satisfaction. “It is good that He’amaveho’e has given to me, the Sweet
Medicine Chief, a white baby to teach us the new way. Woman Who
Moves Against the Wind has explained this to me. It is just as the
monk said it would be. This baby is the vo’estanevestomanehe, our Savior.
Maheo has sent the white
baby Jesus to lead our People to the promised land.”
I was deeply touched by Little Wolf’s
naive acceptance of the child as his own, and I could not help but
smile at his muddling of Biblical affairs. After months of
listening first to Reverend Hare’s sermons, and then to Brother
Anthony’s quiet explanations, the People have ended up with a
strange hybridized religion based partly on their own beliefs and
partly on those of Christianity. Perhaps this is as it should be
and, surely, makes as much sense as any other.
“My husband,” I said gently, “the baby
Jesus was a boy child, not a girl. This is not the Savior, this is
only our little baby girl. Our daughter. Your daughter and my
daughter.”
“Hou,” he agreed, “I understand. This time
the Savior is a girl child. That, too, is a good
thing.”
I laughed then and spoke in English.
“I’m not exactly the Virgin Mary,” I said, “but if that’s the way
you want it, my husband, why the hell not!”
And so it is that my baby girl, John
Bourke’s daughter, is considered throughout the camp to be a sacred
child—vo’estanevestomanehe,the
Savior—given by Maheo, God
Himself, as a gift to the Cheyenne people, a white baby who will
lead the next generation of Cheyennes into the new world. A steady
stream of visitors have come to see her, to marvel and
hou approvingly at her
milky white skin; many bear gifts for her. Surely Captain Bourke
himself would appreciate the irony!
I had not intended to encourage the
deceit, but neither have I disabused my husband of his
superstitions. I have spoken to Brother Anthony at some length
about this, having confessed everything to him. He agrees, as do
the others, that to tell Little Wolf the truth of our daughter’s
parentage would serve no purpose, and that, indeed, this great
event can only further encourage the remaining free Cheyennes to go
into the agency. “There are no accidents in the Kingdom of God,”
Anthony said. “Perhaps your child, May, has been chosen to continue
His work on Earth, to spread the word of God among the
heathens.”
“Don’t tell me you believe it
yourself, Anthony?” I said, with a laugh. “Can’t she just be my
daughter? That’s enough for me.”
Of course, some of my white friends,
especially the always irreverent Gertie and Daisy Lovelace, tease
me mercilessly about the child, upon whom all dote. Any speculation
among the general population about the nature of my relationship
with the Captain has been finally laid to rest—but none seem to
hold it against me, or even be particularly surprised.
Daisy, herself very pregnant, came the
first time to see the child, looked at her with her wry hooded
eyes, smiled slyly, and said in her purring Southern voice,
“Why if it
idn’t the
lil’ baby Jesus, herself.
A’ve huurd so much about
you, mah deah. Everyone in
camp is talkin’ about you.” And she shook her head in amusement.
“May, you are the only guuurl I have eveh known, who after havin’ committed, if
not exactly udultery, at
least an act of waaalld
and passionate promiscuity on practically the eve of
hur weddin’ naght, is
rewarded for hur sins by
givin’ buuurth to a
bastaaad whaate chaald
believed baah all to be
the baby Jesus. This is an extraordinary stroke of good fortune,
mah deah. How did you
eveh manage
it?”
“Just lucky, Daisy,” I admitted with a
laugh. “Pure, dumb luck.”
“And are you goin’ to
infohm the good Captain
that he is a daddy?” she asked.
“If ever he has occasion to see this
child, he will certainly know,” I replied. “But I am married now to
the great Chief Little Wolf, and as far as I’m concerned this child
is officially his daughter … In any case, imagine how the situation
would embarrass the good Catholic Captain among his military
friends and cohorts?”
“Idn’t that just the way of
alll men?” Daisy said, and
she let loose a bark of raw laughter. “It nevah occurs to them that they are the very
ones who damaged the guuuuds in the fust place, does it? That was
jest exactly the attitude
of the cad Mr. Wesley Chestnut … and all along I thought we were
goin’ to be married …”
“You became with child by him, Daisy?”
I asked. “I never knew that.”
“Yes I did, and gave her away for
adoption,” Daisy said, “a decision I’ve regretted every day of
mah life since. But this
baby Ah’m carryin’ now?
This little niggah baby.
Ah’m keepin’ this one come
Hell or high water.”
Yesterday offered me the first
opportunity since my recovery to speak privately with Gertie, to
ask her the question I have been pondering since the first night I
saw her here after my accident.
“You rarely come to pay strictly
social calls, Gertie,” I said, coming right to the point, “and as
this is dead of winter, reaching us must have been extremely
difficult for you—and a matter of some urgency. Tell me what news
you bring.”
“Honey, I was just waitin’ for things
to quiet down some before I was goin’ to tell you,” Gertie said.
“You know, what with your sickness and then the baby comin’ the way
it did … maybe you lost sight of it, but you folks have come right
up against the Army’s deadline.”
“I’ve had other things on my mind,” I
said.
“Course ya have, honey,” she said,
“an’ that’s why I ain’t said nothin’ about it. I got news from the
Cap’n. I brung you a letter from him. Before you read it, I’d
better explain what’s up. Crook’s army left Fort Fetterman at the
beginnin’ of the month, headin’ for this country. Of course, the
Cap’n is with ‘em. No telling where they is right now on account of
the poor weather, which probably caused them to bivouac up
somewhere, but even so they can’t be more’n a few weeks away from
here. It’s a big detachment, honey—this time they ain’t foolin’
around. They got sixty-one officers with’em, and over fourteen
hunert enlisted men. And
they’re well provisioned, too—they got four hunert pack mules, sixty-five packers, a
hunert and sixty-eight
wagons, and seven ambulances. Not only that but they got better n’
three hunert and
fifty Injun scouts
with’em—‘wolves’ the Injuns call’em when they go over to the other
side. You never seen nothin’ like it, honey. It’s an army itself.
They got big bands of Shoshone, Crows, Pawnees—they got Sioux,
Arapahos, Cheyennes. Yup, some a your own folks is with’em. Take a
wild guess who’s head a the Cheyenne wolves.”
“Jules Seminole,” I said, without
hesitation.
“None other, honey,” Gertie confirmed,
“an’ he’s got others with him who are right from this here camp,
that got family still here. You know some of’em on accounta some
of’em just came into the agency this past fall with their white
wives. You know that little French gal that was with you, Marie
Blanche?—well her husband is one of the wolves, and so is the one
they exiled, you know the fella who’s married to the gal who always
wears black.”
“Ada Ware,” I said.
“Yup, that’s the one—her husband, the
one they call Stinkin’ Flesh. A course, they won’t have no trouble
finding you here. They know right where you are. Like I say, honey,
the Army don’t send out a force like this unless they really mean
business. Too many miners and settlers have been getting picked off
in the Black Hills, and folks is startin’ to really holler for
military protection from the Injuns. They been sendin’ petitions to
General Sheridan in Chicago and to the President hisself in
Washington. Crook’s orders are to clean out any hostiles they find
in this country. And any Injun who ain’t enrolled in the agency as
of the first of February is a hostile Injun. And that means you,
honey.”
The irony of having gone from being a
volunteer in the service of my government to being considered a
“hostile Indian” did not escape my attention. “But with the weather
we couldn’t have complied if we’d tried, Gertie,” I said. “You know
that. Especially with all of our pregnant women.”
“Sure, honey, I know that,” Gertie
said. “But what I’m tryin’ to tell ya is that this has all been set
in motion already. Listen to me on this: A military campaign, once
it’s set in motion, has a life of its own.”
“We can’t leave now,” I said. “I have
a newborn infant. The others are about to have their babies. These
are innocent people. We are innocent people. We haven’t done
anything wrong.”
“Honey, I was at Sand Creek in ‘64,”
Gertie reminded me. “Those folks weren’t doin’ nothin’ wrong,
neither. Last year Captain Henely and the buffalo hunters jumped
the Southern Cheyenne on the Sappa, burned the camp, killed
everyone in it. Threw the bodies of the smallest babies in the
fire. The Army’ll do anything it wants. You put a bunch of raw
recruits together in hard conditions in winter, fightin’ an enemy
they don’t understand an’ that scares the piss out of ‘em—anything
can happen. Especially when they got orders.”
“That’s madness, Gertie,” I
said.
“I know it is, honey,” Gertie said
softly. “Cap’n knows it is. But it don’t make no difference. That’s
what I’m tryin’ to tell you. Them settlers that the Injuns are
killin’, those are innocent folks, too. What it all comes down to,
honey—always comes down to—is that there ain’t enough room for the
Injuns and the whites in this country. One thing you can be sure of
is that the whites ain’t goin’ to go away. And the other thing is
that the Injuns ain’t goin’ to win this one, either.”
Gertie dug into the front of her shirt
and brought out Captain Bourke’s letter. “Here, honey,” she said
handing it to me, “I imagine this letter’ll tell you pretty much
the same thing as I have.”
Fort Fetterman, Wyoming Territory
26 December 1875
Madam: I pray that this correspondence finds you in good health. I have news of the most urgent nature to convey to you, and to the other women with you. Thus I have once again dispatched our loyal intermediary “Jimmy” as messenger.Your people must decamp with as much dispatch as possible and move immediately south toward Fort Fetterman. You must fly a white flag at all times so that your band may be identified as peaceful by Army troops who will intercept you en route. You will be provided safe escort the remaining distance to the fort where arrangements for your future settlement will be made. As I pen this correspondence, General Crook prepares to dispatch the largest winter campaign in the history of the Plains Indian wars. As a member of the General’s personal staff, I myself will be traveling with a force that included eleven companies of cavalry under the command of Colonel Ranald S. Mackenzie. Taking into account vagaries of weather and engagements with hostiles along the way, we expect to reach the Powder River country no later than the middle of February. We have been advised by our scouts of the general location of your camp and the number of people contained within it.I can not too strongly impress upon you the fact that there is not a moment to spare. Under the direction of General Crook, Colonel Mackenzie and the other commanders have orders to proceed in the clearance of all Indians between the Bighorn and Yellowstone rivers to the Black Hills of the Dakotas. No quarter will be given. All Indians encountered by Colonel Mackenzie’s troops are to be considered hostile—with the sole exception of those traveling south toward Fetterman and flying the white flag of surrender. DO YOU UNDERSTAND ME? I urge you to depart immediately. Do not delay.
I am your humble servant,
John G. Bourke
Captain, Third Cavalry, U.S.A.
Of course we all of us were deeply
shaken by Gertie’s news and the tone of urgency in Captain Bourke’s
letter—which the others have also now read. Even with the Army
delayed by weather for several weeks it is inconceivable that we
will be able to comply with their preposterous
demands.
I scribbled a quick note to this
effect to Captain Bourke and insisted that Gertie depart
immediately to intercept Mackenzie’s troops with whom he rides. And
I have also prevailed upon Little Wolf to fly a white flag on a
lodgepole in the middle of our camp. Surely for all their orders
and dire warnings, the Army will not attack a peacefully encamped
village in the dead of winter? A village in which, they are fully
aware, a dozen pregnant white women reside.
More than two weeks have passed since
Gertie’s hasty departure. Still no word back yet, but the weather
has remained abysmal, with wind and driving snow. As if in a chain
reaction, the others’ babies are coming in such rapid succession
that the birthing lodge operates at nearly full capacity. Martha
and Daisy had theirs on the same day—two strapping boys, beautiful
little nut brown infants whose parentage requires less divine
explanation than does mine. Indeed, the little fellows make my
milky white Irish-Scot daughter look even paler and more exotic by
comparison!
“Oh my goodness!” Martha said when
first she saw her own son. “Look, May, he’s inherited his father’s
hair!” And it was true, her son was born with a head full of matted
tangled black hair! Tangle Hair Jr. we have thus named
him.
These were quickly followed by the
Kelly girls, who true to form had their labor and births in perfect
synchronization—twin daughters both. Twin mothers, twin fathers,
twin babies—thus the twins multiply in kind. How extraordinary!
“Roons in the family,”
said Susie. The Kelly babies are strange-looking little things,
tawny of skin but with deep red hair.
All the children so far seem healthy;
we have been extremely fortunate to avoid anything resembling
complications during birth. The Cheyennes themselves are quite
pleased with these new additions to the tribe and all the women
dote on them. Feather on Head loves my little Wren like her own; I
can hardly wrest the infant away from her when it is time for her
feeding, so attached has the girl become. Indeed, were it not for
my milk-swollen breasts I’m not certain that the child would know
which of us was her mother. Quiet One, too, seems fascinated by the
baby, and Little Wolf still acts the proud father.
Still no sign of the Army. We have all
prayed that Gertie was able to deliver my message to the Captain,
and we remain confident that all will end peacefully.
Little Wolf has held a council and
most of the chiefs of the remaining warrior bands have agreed that
as soon as it is practical to travel we will begin the move toward
Fetterman—this decision made, at least partly, as a result of the
birth of our daughter. I am very relieved. And proud, for truly we
are fulfilling our mission here, after all—facilitating a peaceful
resolution. Our anchorite Anthony of the Prairie has also been very
helpful toward this end. The People recognize a holy man by his own
actions, and the monk’s simple faith and self-denial, his fasts and
penances are something the Cheyennes well understand and themselves
practice as a means of drawing closer to their God.
Anthony has baptized each of our
babies thus far and has counseled the People toward the path of
peace and harmony. He is a good, pure man, with God in his heart.
We had hoped that he might accompany us back to Fetterman, but he
remains firm in his pledge to make his hermitage here—to one day
found his monastery in the hills above the river. We will greatly
miss him. Indeed, a part of me wishes I could remain with him, and
I intend to be a regular visitor here, after we are settled on the
reservation.
Yesterday, Gretchen had her baby, an
oddly small and delicate little thing with none of her mother’s
bulk. The child’s Christian name is Sara.
These past days have seen a midwinter
thaw, with temperatures mild again and the snow rapidly melting.
Our scouts have been able to venture farther away from camp and
returned today with reports of the movement of Army troops at a
distance of several days riding—which means at least a week’s
travel for the more ponderous military forces. We still fly our
white flag over the medicine lodge, and I am now convinced that
Gertie safely delivered our message.
However, much to our dismay we have
also learned that some of the restless young warriors of the Kit
Fox society have taken the opportunity of the springlike weather to
slip away with the intention of making a raid upon the Shoshone
tribe to the west. This war party was first exposed by the Kelly
twins, whose husbands are themselves members of this particular
band and who stole off with the others early one morning—telling
their wives that the raid was being undertaken in honor of the new
babies, and that many horses would be brought back as gifts to
them.
“We couldn’t stop the lads,” said
Meggie. “We tried, but they got their damn blooowd up. Ya think it’d be enooof that they got new babies in the
house, wouldn’t you, but they got to go off an’ steal some ponies
to prove their damn manhood.”
The raid is utter folly, for the
Shoshone, like the Crows, while bitter enemies of the Cheyennes,
are close allies of the whites. Evidently the recent councils which
resulted in the decision to give ourselves up have also caused some
of the young men to embark upon this imprudent action as a last
opportunity to taste battle, to prove themselves as warriors. Once
again the independent nature of Indian society and the lack of
central authority acts against their better interests.
On a personal note, I have been
recently discussing with Little Wolf our own future at the agency.
General Crook has promised that the Cheyennes will be given their
own reservation directly upon giving themselves up. Having signed
documents, as did all the others, at the outset of this adventure
agreeing to stay with the Indians for a minimum of two years, our
real work among them will begin in this next year on the
reservation—teaching the People the ways of our world.
“One of the first things you will be
required to do,” I explained to Little Wolf, “is to give up two of
your wives. It is against the white man’s law to have more than one
wife.”
“I do not wish to throw away two of my
wives,” Little Wolf answered. “I am pleased with all of my
wives.”
“This is the white man way,” I
explained. “You must keep only your first wife, Quiet One, and give
Feather on Head and me up. She is young enough that she can find a
new husband for herself.”
“Perhaps she does not wish to have a
new husband,” Little Wolf said. “Perhaps she is happy to stay with
our child in the lodge of her present husband and her sister, Quiet
One.”
“It does not matter what she wishes;
this is the law of the white man,” I said. “One man, one
wife.”
“And you, Mesoke?” Little Wolf asked. “You, too, will
find another husband?”
“I do not know what I will do,” I
answered truthfully. “But I could not hope to find a more
satisfactory man than you, my husband.”
“You will perhaps leave us and take
our daughter into the white world where she belongs—as a member of
her mother’s tribe,” Little Wolf said proudly. “If the Great White
Father had given us all of the one thousand brides they promised to
us, all the children would belong to the white tribe and the People
and the whites would thus become one.”
“General Crook has promised you that
when we go into the agency,” I said, “we will take this matter up
once again with President Grant.”
“Ah, yes,” said Little Wolf, nodding,
“I am familiar with the promises of white men …”
… horror … butchery … savagery … where
to begin to tell of it … with Meggie Kelly’s whisper perhaps,
alerting us: “Oh Sweet Jesus,” she said as her young husband danced
proudly around the fire, displaying to her his unspeakable trophies
of war. “Oh Sweet Jesus, God help us all … what ’ave ya done, lads? What ave ya done? …”
And Martha’s bloodcurdling scream of
recognition as my own blood ran cold, a chill so profound that my
heart shall never warm again. John Bourke was right …
The Kit Foxes returned this morning
from their raid against the Shoshones, rode into camp howling like
banshees, herding before them a herd of horses stolen from the
enemy. On the surface a harmless enough act, for the tribes steal
horses back and forth, a game of boys and often no one on either
side is injured or killed. And so we believed it had been on this
raid, for the men returned triumphant, with no keening of mourning
and leading no horses bearing the bodies of fallen comrades. They
drove the herd of Shoshone horses through camp for all to see,
followed by the camp crier who announced the requisite celebratory
dance.
Our scouts came in just behind the Kit
Foxes to report that Army troops are in the immediate vicinity. I
suggested to my husband that he dispatch a courier with a message
to Colonel Mackenzie to reiterate our peaceful intentions. Little
Wolf answered that before turning his and the council’s attentions
to other tribal matters, he, and I, were first obligated to honor
the Kit Fox raid by attending the feast and dance to be held at the
lodge of their leader, a man named Last Bull. This is a bellicose,
swaggering fellow of whom I have never been fond.
Thus off we went to a tiresome feast
with much loud boastful talk from Last Bull. After the meal was
finished all repaired to the bonfire, where the Kit Fox warriors
each in turn danced their victory, and told their war
tales.
It had snowed last night but now the
skies were clear and winter’s icy grip was again tightening, with
temperatures beginning to plummet. But even the cold weather did
not deter the proud warriors from their celebration.
I had left the baby in our lodge with
Feather on Head caring for her, and after the feast I went back to
check on her and to give her a feeding. “You go to the dance,
naveó a,” I told Feather
on Head, as I held my ravenous little Wren to my breast. “I would
rather stay here with my baby tonight.”
“No, Mesoke,” she answered. “You must take your
baby to the dance with our husband; it was said by the crier that
the new babies must all be present to witness their first victory
dance—a victory in their honor. Our husband will be displeased if
you do not return with his daughter for such an act would be very
impolite to the Kit Foxes.”
And so, reluctantly, I took my baby
and met the others at the dance circle.
All of the other new mothers had also
been invited, with the Kelly girls seated in the place of honor.
Evidently their own young husbands had performed some great deed to
honor the miracle of the birth of twin babies, the miracle of all
the babies.
So huge was the fire that it cast
sufficient warmth to offset the chill, and, of course, we had our
babies well wrapped in furs and blankets. Flames leapt toward the
heavens as the warriors began to dance, to recount their tales … to
raise the first bloody scalps, tied to poles and held aloft and
shaken at the Gods for all to admire … And some among us cast our
heads down, recalling with shame the vengeful satisfaction we had
taken in the death and mutilation of the Crows, at whose hands we
had suffered so … now this memory and its bloody aftermath seemed
like a bad dream, not something that had really happened, not
something that we had not actually done … for we are civilized
women …
Meggie and Susie’s twin husbands
danced before them as the girls both held their twins bundled in
their laps. Between them the men passed a rawhide pouch, and sang a
song of their great deed: “In this bag
is the power of the Shoshone tribe,” he sang.
“We, Hestahke,
have stolen this power to give to our
children and now it is theirs. The Shoshones will never be strong
again for we own their power. Tonight we give this power as a gift
to our own babies so that they may be strong. For the children of
our white wives are the future of the People. They own the
power.”
And Hestahke held the pouch aloft and shook it
and none could take their eyes from it; surely it held some great
treasure, some great Shoshone medicine. The man danced and waved
the bag in the air, and handed it to his brother who sang again the
same power song, and as he did so, he reached into the pouch and
took from it a small object and held it out to his wife Meggie as
if offering her a precious jewel. I strained to see what it was
that he held in his hand, all of us did, unable to look
away.
At first I could not identify the
object, but then my curiosity began to turn to stone, my blood to
run cold for I knew instinctively that it was some ghastly body
part or other, some unspeakable trophy of barbarity.
“Oh Sweet Jesus,” whispered Meggie
Kelly, “Oh Sweet Jesus, God help us all … what ’ave ya done, lads? What ’ave ya done …”
And now the tears began to run from my
eyes, to wash cold across my cheeks. “Please, God, no,” I
whispered. I looked toward the heavens, the flames from the fire
towering into the night sky, its sparks becoming the stars. “No,” I
whispered, “no, please God, let this not be …”
And the man danced and sang, proudly
holding his grisly trophy aloft. A soft houing of approval and an excited trilling
from the Cheyenne women began to rise above the drumbeat.
“In this bag are the right hands of
twelve Shoshone babies, this is the power of their tribe and now it
is ours. I give this as a gift to our daughters. Our children own
this power.” He held the little hand aloft, and I
could just make out its tiny curled fingers …
Martha screamed, a scream of anguish
and condemnation that penetrated the night sky like a siren, cut
through the drumbeat and the soft musical trilling of the others. I
gathered my baby against my breast and stood, weak-kneed with
nausea and horror, from my place beside Little Wolf. My husband
himself sat impassively watching the performance …
Tears ran from my eyes as I clutched
my baby to my breast. “Me’esevoto!” I hissed at him like an insane
person. “Babies! Your
people butchered babies! Do you not understand?” I said pointing
with a trembling finger. “Do you not understand that one of those
innocent babies’ hands could just as well belong to your own
daughter? Good God, man, what kind of people would do such a thing?
Barbarians! You will burn in Hell! Bourke was right …”
And I fled, running as fast as I
could, cradling my child in my arms as the fresh cold snow squeaked
painfully beneath my feet.
I ran back to the lodge, weeping,
burst in and fell to my knees. I held my baby to my breast, sobbing
and rocking her. “My baby, my baby,” were the only words that I was
able to speak. “Naneso, naneso
…”
Feather on Head and Quiet One gathered
beside me to see what was the matter. Desperate for an answer,
sobbing, I asked them please to explain to me how the women of the
tribe could permit their husbands to commit such terrible crimes.
At first they did not understand my question, for it is not a
woman’s place to ask such a thing.
“Babies!” I cried. “The men killed and
mutilated babies. They cut babies’ hands off. These could have been
your babies, our babies. Don’t you understand? It is a bad thing, a
very bad thing that the men did.” I wished to say “wrong,” but
there is no word for such a concept in the Cheyenne language …
perhaps here lies the difficulty.
Quiet One answered softly, “The
Shoshones have always been the enemies of the People,
Mesoke,” she said. “For
this reason the Kit Foxes stole their horses and captured their
power to give to our children. The men did so in order that the
Shoshones could not use their medicine against us and against our
babies. In this way the men protect the People, they protect your
baby, Mesoke. Our warriors
stole the power of the Shoshone babies and gave it to your
daughter—Vo’estanevestomanehe, the Savior—to make her
strong and safe.”
“You really don’t understand, do you?”
I said helplessly, finally too drained of strength to weep any
longer. “There is no power in a baby’s hand.” I reached beneath the
covering and pulled my daughter’s hand free. She clutched my finger
in hers. “Look,” I said, “look how tiny and frail it is. You see?
There is no power in a baby’s hand …”
There was no question of sleep on this dark night. Like me, the others had immediately left the dance and, as I suspected, many made their way to Anthony’s lodge on the edge of the village, seeking whatever sanctuary and comfort the monk might be able to offer.
The celebration itself had continued
after our departure, and now we all sat around Anthony’s fire
holding our infants and listening to the throbbing drumbeat, the
music and singing as the Kit Fox warriors told again and again of
their great triumph over babies.
We tried to make some sense of it, to
console each other, to give reason to the madness, to make
understandable what was simply not. The Kelly girls were the only
among us whose husbands were members of the Kit Foxes, who had
themselves committed the crimes, and the twins were most
inconsolable of all. Gone was all their cheeky Irish
bravado.
“I want to go home, Meggie,” Susie
said. “I can’t ever bear to look at the lads again, after what
they’ve dooone.”
“Aye, Susie,” said Meggie.
“Thar’s nooothin’ else to
be doone, we’re finished
here, that’s for shoooore.
We’ll take the gaarls and
leave faarst thing in the
morning. Maybe we can find the Army and give ourselves
ooop.”
But we all shared their guilt and
their failure, and even Anthony’s quiet strength, calm counsel, and
the prayers we said around his warm fire could not take the chill
from our frozen hearts.
“What kind of God allows such things
to happen?” I asked the young monk.
“A God who demands faith,” he said,
“who gave His only son upon the cross that mankind might be
saved.”
“Aye, and we aven’t learned a goddamned thing since,
’ave we now?” said Susie
Kelly with a bitter laugh. “We’re gooood Catholic gaaarls, Meggie and me, Broother, but such a tarrable thing as this stretches our faith
mighty thin.”
“Now your work among the pagans truly
begins,” Anthony said. “To these innocent souls we must spread the
word of God.”
It is nearly dawn now … some of the women have returned to their own lodges, others doze fitfully with their babies here in Anthony’s lodge. Unable to sleep all night myself, I sit here by the fire, recording these grim events. I look forward now to the arrival of the troops, so that they might escort us safely back to civilization …
And even still the drums and the music
from the dance continue, the People have danced all through the
night … a night none of us will ever forget. I prepare now to
return to my own lodge …
Yes, truly it is finished now, it is
over, the soldiers have come with the breaking light of dawn like
the vengeful hand of God to strike us down. I am shot, I fear that
I am dying, the village destroyed and burning, the people driven
naked into the hills to crouch like animals among the rocks. I have
lost track of most of the others, some still alive, some dead, I
have taken refuge in a shallow cave with Feather on Head, Quiet
One, and Martha. Here we huddle together with our babies as the
village burns below, a huge funeral pyre upon which the soldiers
pile our belongings, everything that we own and all that we
have—hides, furs, and blankets, meat and food supplies, saddles and
ammunition—and upon these piles they place the bodies of our dead,
and with burning torches set all aflame, they ignite our lodges
which burst into flames like trees in a forest fire, the ammunition
and kegs of gunpowder inside popping and exploding like fireworks …
all that we have. Gone. It is the vision of Woman Who Moves Against
the Wind come true … mankind is mad, all of us savages … are we
punished for the babies? I cannot find Anthony to ask. I must ask
Anthony … Anthony will know …
I am shot, I fear that I am dying, the
breath rattles in my chest, blood bubbles from my mouth and nose. I
must not die … forgive me my dear William and Hortense for
abandoning you, I would have returned to you, truly I would have …
if I die I pray that you may one day read these pages, know the
truth of your mother’s life … know that she loved you and died
thinking of you …
I must be quick now, I am so cold I
can barely move the pencil across the page, my teeth chatter, the
women and children and old people are scattered out among the rocks
above the camp, Martha is with me, Quiet One, Feather on Head, our
babies … I do not know where the others are, some are dead … many
are dead …
As long as I have the strength, I
shall continue to record these events …
This morning at dawn, just hours ago,
I left Anthony’s lodge. I took my baby back to our own where I left
her under the robes with Feather on Head. Then I went down to the
river to where my little man Horse Boy tends the herd. The music
from the dance had at last stopped, all had gone to their beds,
silence had finally fallen over the camp. From a distance I heard
the horses nickering nervously, I sensed that something was
terribly wrong. I began to walk faster, dread rising like bile in
my throat, faster, I began to run toward the river …
I stopped short when I saw him: Horse
Boy stood wrapped in his blanket, stood straight as a statue of
stone and there before him, mounted and leveling his pistol at the
boy like an executioner, was Captain John G. Bourke. Beside him a
lieutenant sat his horse, both their mounts as still as stone
themselves but for the clouds of vapor they exhaled in the frozen
dawn. Behind them, slipping like quicksilver down the draws and
coulees, scrambling over the rocks, sliding down the embankments
and bluffs, came dozens, hundreds, of mounted soldiers and Indians.
I stepped forward. “John, what are you doing?” I cried out. “Put
down your gun. He is only a boy. We are all prepared to surrender.
Have you not seen our white flag flying.”
Bourke looked at me as if he had seen
a ghost, with an expression of shock, giving way to horror, and
then uncertainty. He hesitated, the gun trembled in his hand. “Good
God, May, our scouts have told us that this is the village of the
Sioux, Crazy Horse,” he said. “What are you doing
here?”
“This is the village of the
Cheyennes,” I said, “Little Wolf’s village. My village. Didn’t
Gertie tell you? Good God, John, put the gun down. He’s only a
child.”
“It’s too late, May,” the Captain
said. “The village is surrounded, the attack begins. Gertie is with
another detachment. Our chief scout Seminole assured us that this
is the village of the Sioux Chief Crazy Horse. Run the way we have
come and hide yourself in the hills. I will find you
later.”
“Shoot the boy, sir,” said the
Lieutenant, impatient beside him. “Shoot him now before he cries
out to warn the others.”
“Fools!” I cried, “Your shot will warn
the others! John, for God’s sake, don’t do this thing. It is
madness. This is the village of Little Wolf. We are prepared to
surrender peacefully. We fly a white flag of
surrender.”
Captain Bourke looked at the boy and
then back at me. His dark, shadowed eyes went black as coal. “I am
sorry, May,” he said. “I tried to warn you. We are at war, the
attack begins, I have my orders. I am a soldier in the service of
my country. Run and hide yourself.”
Bourke steadied the gun with a
terrible cold certainty and pulled the trigger. Horse Boy crumpled
like a rag to the ground, a bullet hole through the center of his
forehead.
For a moment there was no other sound
but that of the shot, echoing against the rocky bluffs; as if the
earth itself stood still in disbelief. As if God in His Heaven had
suspended time … John Bourke had murdered an unarmed
child.
“Charge!” the Lieutenant beside him
hollered, and then the gates of hell opened before us.
I ran, stumbling, slipping, falling in
the snow, back to our lodge, just as the troops entered the village
from both sides; I could think now only of my baby, I must save my
child. All were by now alerted to the presence of the invaders
whose horses thundered through the camp. Everywhere was gunfire,
the screams of terror and death. My husband Little Wolf ran from
the front entrance of our lodge carrying his carbine, he stopped to
fire, ran, and stopped to fire, as did many of the other men,
trying to draw the soldiers to them that the women and children
might escape out the back of the lodges.
I ran into our lodge and scooped my
baby into my arms. Quiet One slit the back of our tent with a
knife, and held it open for Pretty Walker and Feather on Head, who
carried her own child on its baby board. Before I went myself
through the opening, I turned to old Crooked Nose. “Come,
Vohkeesa’e, hurry!” I said
to her.
But she bared her gums in a smile and
shook her club and said in a calm voice, “You run,
Mesoke, save your baby. I
am an old woman and today is a good day to die.”
The old woman stepped out through the
front entrance of the tipi and as I ran out the hole in the back, I
turned to see her swing her club at a soldier riding past. The
soldier lost his seat and flailed the air for purchase before
hitting the ground with a thud as the old woman set upon
him.
I turned and ran for my life.
Clutching my baby to my breast, I followed the others toward the
rocky bluffs that surrounded the village. All was mayhem and
insanity, screams and gunfire, the hollering of soldiers, the cries
of our warriors and wails of terror from our women; I cried out for
Martha, for Gretchen, for Daisy, but none could hear me over the
general din, nor I them.
I caught one glimpse of Phemie,
mounted on a white soldier’s horse, completely naked, black as
death against the whiteness of snow, galloping down upon a soldier
who was afoot and trying to extract his bayonet, which was lodged
in the breastbone of one of our women. Phemie carried a lance and
gave a bloodcurdling shriek that seemed not human and when the
soldier looked up at her his eyes widened in terror as she bore
down upon him. I turned again and ran following the others into the
hills. As I ran I was suddenly knocked down from behind, sent
sprawling as if swatted by a lodge pole; I pitched forward, trying
to cushion my baby from the fall. But I regained my feet and ran
on.
It was very cold, many of the women
and children had run naked from their lodges, without time even to
put on their moccasins, some of the women carried infants, trying
to shield them from the cold with their bodies. Now in the bluffs,
old men and women crouched shivering among the rocks. All looked
for caves or depressions in which to hide themselves. Stampeded
horses from our herd scrambled wild-eyed through the rocks, their
hooves clattering in the dry frigid air. Some people had managed to
catch a few of the horses and to slit their throats and then open
their bellies to plunge their own frozen feet into the steaming
entrails.
It was so cold that I feared for my
daughter’s life. I held her against my skin inside my coat. Thank
God that I had been dressed. I caught up at last with Pretty
Walker, Feather on Head, and Quiet One, and together we came upon
Martha; she, too, was nearly naked, crouched squatting like a
trapped animal in the rocks, holding her son to her breast and
rocking him back and forth. The baby was blue with cold. I knelt
down and took him from Martha and placed him under my coat. He was
like an icicle against my skin. Martha was so cold herself and
shivering that she was unable to speak. I removed my coat and
wrapped it around her and handed Wren to Feather on Head and also
placed Martha’s child in the girl’s arms. “Hold her against your
skin,” I said. I took the knife from the sheath at Quiet One’s
waist and together we caught a mare by the mane as she clattered
by. I swung onto the horse’s back as Quiet One tried to calm her.
The mare slipped sideways and tried to keep her feet, and as she
did so I leaned forward onto her neck and drew the knife quickly
across her throat. There came a deep moan of escaping air and the
mare dropped heavily to her knees. I leapt from her back before she
toppled, the snow already darkening black with blood beneath her.
Then she rolled onto her side, her flanks heaving, the terror in
her eyes fading with the light. I slit open her belly with the
knife, her steaming entrails spilling forth, and she tried once to
rise but fell back dead and I took Martha’s son from beneath the
robe and thrust him into the hot belly of the mare. “Thank you,” I
whispered to her, “thank you, mother.”
Now Feather on Head and I helped
Martha to the horse and we thrust her icy feet, too, into the
entrails and at last she stopped her shivering and was able to
speak. “My God, May,” she said looking at me, “you have been shot.
You have been shot in the back.”
Now I knew what had knocked me down,
and I unstrapped the notebook from my back; it must have absorbed
some of the force of the bullet, which had passed completely
through it and was now lodged in the flesh between my shoulder
blades. “Oh May,” Martha said, and she began to weep, “you have
been shot. Dear God!”
“Stop it, Martha,” I said sharply. “We
must find shelter, we must build a fire.”
“There is no fuel,” Martha cried. “No,
we shall all die here in these rocks. Oh my God, May, you have been
shot. Our babies, our babies …” and she wept.
“Your son is fine, Martha,” I said.
“Look how little Tangle Hair recovers in the warmth of the mare’s
innards.” It was true. The baby was slick with blood and entrails
so that he looked again like a newborn in a strange reverse birth
process. But he was regaining his color and now he squalled
lustily. “Look at him! How strong he is,” I said. “He will stay
warm for hours there. But we must find shelter.”
My hands are nearly frozen now, my
fingers cramp … I make these last notes from this shallow cave … we
have no fire … we all freeze to death … my breath comes painfully
in shallow rattles … bloody bubbles run from my lips.
Down below the flames from the burning
village crackle in the cold dawn. From these rocks we envy the
warmth of flames we see but cannot feel. All that is left when the
fires burn down are smoldering piles of ash and rubble, the
half-cremated bodies of those who did not escape. Surely some of
our friends are down there among them, and their babies … God,
forgive us all … God forgive mankind …
From these cold rocks we can see the
camp dogs beginning to slink back into the village to pick among
the ruins for scraps of meat. The still frigid morning air bears
the odors of roasted meats, spent gunpowder, scorched hides, burnt
flesh. There are still dozens of soldiers about in the village so
that we are unable to go back down to scavenge with the dogs,
perhaps find a scrap of meat for sustenance, a flame for warmth … a
blanket …
The soldiers continue to pile our last
remaining goods, and atop them place the bodies of our dead,
setting each pile afire … the funeral pyres blaze cold and fast and
burn down quickly to their charred remains.
Now and then from the hills around a
puny shot rings out … from our warriors, but they are poorly armed
and have little ammunition to waste.
“Good brave girl, May,” Martha says
now, her teeth chattering again with the cold. “Good brave friend,
you keep writing in your journal, you keep us alive as before, I
love you so, my dear Friend.”
“And I you, Martha.”
“It is over, isn’t it?” she says in a
small chattering voice. “All over, and for what?”
“For these children,” I answer. “Our
babies must live. They will be all that remain of us, and they will
be enough.”
“Let us go down now,” Martha says,
“and give ourselves up to the soldiers. When they see that we are
white women they will take us in.”
“They’ve killed us all, Martha,” I
say, “whites and Indians. But perhaps their lust is sated now. You
go if you like. Go now, my friend, take your son. Tell them who you
are and beg the soldiers for mercy.”
“I’ll find Captain Bourke,” Martha
says. “I’ll bring him back. He’ll help us. You wait for me here,
May.”
“Yes, you go, Martha. I’m finished
writing in my notebook now, and I must close my eyes for a moment …
I am very tired … our little friend Sara lives in the most
beautiful place you’ve ever seen, Martha, a beautiful river bottom
in the spring where the sun shines warm and the birds sing … go
now, my dear, dear friend … . Pretty Walker, Feather on Head, and
Quiet One will sit here with me for a while … . I shall wait right
here for you to return with Captain Bourke …
“Yes, go now. Hurry. Take your son.
Tell the soldiers who we are and what they have done. Tell them
that this is not the village of Crazy Horse, that this is the
village of the great Cheyenne Chief Little Wolf. And tell Captain
John Bourke this from me—he will recognize it: tell him ‘It is a
wise father that knows his own child …’”