by Jim Fergus
So Little Wolf and I rode back to the main camp on the Powder River, this morning, our last. I have tried to keep my bearings with the help of a compass and an Army map which Captain Bourke presented to me before our departure—I do not know how accurate the map is and I am far from being skilled as a cartographer, but I know at least the major water courses. The Chief and I rode side by side now—as equals, as it should be—and I chattered as we went, remarking on this and that, pointing to the birds and animals and plants, babbling away as is my wont.
Sometimes the Chief answered me, giving me the names for these things, and sometimes, I suspect, just talking himself, as has become our manner together. I think that I am finally beginning to absorb a bit of the language, though I am yet shy about attempting to speak it.
Now as we came in off the vast silent prairie, the village suddenly seemed by comparison to our last few days of solitude to be a veritable city, bustling with human energy and activity. Indeed, a whole new village had sprung up the opposite bank of the river from ours during our absence—nearly one hundred new lodges had been erected since we left.
The camp dogs came out to bark at us as we approached, and then to sniff and nip harmlessly at our heels as we rode through camp. Packs of small children followed us excitedly; some of the little imps I recognized and was happy to see again. How I love the children! How I look forward to having another of my own!
Several of our ladies greeted me by their lodges as we rode in. I was amused to see that in only the few days of my absence it was becoming more and more difficult to tell some of “our” brides from the natives. Since the wedding ceremony many others have adopted savage garb, and indeed some of the Cheyenne women are now wearing “civilized” attire given them by our women.
Gretchen, attired in a buckskin dress, was carrying a pail of water to her lodge, and she stopped to greet me and to admire our game-laden packhorses. “Yah, you got a goot man there, May!” she said. “I can hardly get dat lazy bum of mine to leave de tent,” but she spoke with some genuine affection in her voice. “All de big galloop wants to do is ‘wrestle’ with me on de buffalo robes. Yah, you know what I mean, May? Dat damn savage of mine can hardly get enough of it! I come see you later, yah? I wish to speak to you.”
Now we rode past Reverend Hare and Dog Woman’s lodge, just in time to witness the latter exit the tipi wearing one of our white women’s dresses. He is really rather a sweet old fellow and I couldn’t help letting a bark of astonished laughter escape at the sight of him. Hah! Dog Woman glared at me, tugging on his bodice with which he seemed to be having some difficulty. I covered my mouth. “Je suis désolée,” I apologized, for the hermaphroditic medicine man speaks a bit of French. “Alors vous êtes très belle! You look perfectly beautiful.” This seemed to placate Dog Woman somewhat, and indeed, he/she looked rather proud of her new attire. “Dites-moi, où est le grand lapin blanc?” I asked.
“Reverend,” I called out, “if you are inside there, you must help your roommate arrange her new dress.”
“Is that you, Miss Dodd?” the Reverend’s oracular voice boomed from inside the tent. “May I remind that you have missed Sunday services again this week. We’ve got half the camp coming now. We’ll make Christians of the heathens yet!”
“Good for you, Reverend!” I answered. “But you’d best hurry before they make heathens of us. I’ve been thinking myself of converting to the religion of the Great Medicine. It’s beginning to make great good sense to me.”
Now the Reverend thrust his bald head, pink as a newborn baby, through the opening of his lodge and blinked in the sunlight. “You are a Godless young woman, Miss Dodd,” he scolded me. Then he spoke in Cheyenne to Dog Woman, who answered him.
“Reverend, please ask Dog Woman to tell you the new Cheyenne name the Chief and I have given you,” I called mischievously as we rode away. “It came about, as these things do, quite naturally on our trip when I was trying to explain to my husband in the sign language the literal meaning of your Christian name.”
The Reverend spoke again to Dog Woman, who again replied. In this way, Reverend Hare first learned his new Cheyenne name, which I predict will spread like a prairie fire through the village.
“You’re a Godless young woman, May Dodd!” called Ma’vohkoohe ohvo’omaestse—the Big White Rabbit—as we rode on through camp. “A Godless young woman! I shall pray for your salvation! And for that of your artist friend Helen Flight, as well. I urge you go to see her immediately, for she has become in your absence Satan’s disciple and beguiles the savages with her wicked arts of conjuring, witchcraft, and thaumaturgy!” I began to wonder if perhaps the Reverend hadn’t been getting too much sun on his bald pate.
How disappointed I was to discover that my wedding lodge had been dismantled during our absence, and my possessions moved back into the “family” tipi. Thus the honeymoon really is over. Having already grown accustomed to the privacy of my own lodge, I can hardly abide living in such proximity to all the others again.
As I had expected, Martha was the first to come visit me at the lodge, arriving just after I had made this unhappy discovery. She was full of excitement, inquiries, and news.
“Thank God you have returned safely!” she said, breathlessly. Our Horse Boy appeared at that moment, true to his name, to lead my horse away. He’s a dear little thing, brown and lithe as an elf. I patted him on the head, and he grinned at me lovingly. “I have so much to tell you, May, but first I must hear about your honeymoon. How was it? Where did you go? Was it terribly romantic?”
“Let’s see …” I mused, “ … we traveled by first-class coach into the city where we stayed in the bridal suite of the finest hotel … took all of our meals by room service, made love on a feather bed …”
“Oh, stop teasing me, May!” Martha said, giggling. “Where did you go, really?”
“We simply roamed the countryside, Martha,” I answered. “We camped for several days in a cottonwood copse along a creek, where we bathed in a pool formed by a hot springs … in which we made passionate love—”
“Truly?” Martha interrupted. “Is that true? I never know when you are only teasing me, May.”
“Tell me news of the camp, dear,” I asked. “To whom do the lodges on the other side of the river belong?”
“To the Southern Cheyennes,” Martha said, “our ‘relatives’ who have come visiting from Oklahoma Territory.”
“Yes, that would explain the appearance of the wretch Jules Seminole,” I said. And I told Martha of my encounter.
“The southerners have got our men all puffed up and strutting about like roosters,” Martha said. “Soon they’re off to make war against their enemies the Crows. They’ve enlisted Helen Flight to paint birds on their bodies and on their horses in preparation. She’s become very ‘big medicine,’ quite the Artiste-in-residence.”
“Ah, so that’s what the Reverend was referring to,” I said.
We determined to go straightaway to Helen Flight’s lodge, where we found the artist sitting outside on a stool in the sun painting the image of a kingfisher on the chest of a young man. The kingfisher was exquisitely rendered just in the act of diving into the water. Seated cross-legged on the ground next to Helen, watching her work, was an elderly fellow with long white braids and a dark, deeply furrowed complexion that resembled ancient, cracked saddle leather.
Helen beamed at our arrival, pausing in her work and removing her pipe from her mouth. “Welcome home, May!” she said, enthusiastically. “We’ve missed you. My goodness, how pleased I am that you’ve both come! Do sit down. You must keep me company as I work … I’ve been at it all day. I seem to have been ‘discovered’ by the savages! I can hardly keep up with the demand for my services.
“Ah, but do please excuse me for failing to make proper introductions,” she said. “Have you ladies had the pleasure of meeting the esteemed medicine man, Dr. White Bull?”
“I’m afraid we haven’t,” I said. “Please don’t get u
p, sir,” I joked. The old fellow was much unamused, implacable, rather grumpy, in fact. Both he and the young man wore deathly serious expressions on their faces, and barely glanced at us.
Helen popped her short, beautifully engraved stone pipe back into her mouth and took up her brush again. She has fashioned for herself a very cunning palette made from a rawhide shield, upon which the stretched leather has dried as hard as wood. Here she mixes her colors from an assortment of powders and emulsions made from pounding different-colored stones, earth, grasses, berries, clays, and animal bones, according to ancient savage formulas about which Miss Flight could scarcely be more enthusiastic—for she has available to her nearly the entire color spectrum.
“A fine likeness, Helen,” I said with true admiration. Indeed Audubon himself would have been envious, for Helen’s kingfisher was a work of art, the colors iridescent, flashing from the boy’s taut brown skin as if the bird itself were alive.
“Why thank you,” Helen said, pipe clenched firmly between her teeth. “Last night young Walking Whirlwind here had a dream. In his dream he was struck by bullets in battle, but his flesh closed up around the bullet holes and he remained unscathed. The boy has never before been to war, and he is naturally anxious about his prospects. Therefore, this morning he went directly to the medicine man, Dr. White Bull, to tell him of his dream—the interpretation of dreams being a major function of the medicine man.” At this point Martha and I both looked again at White Bull, who watched intently and rather critically, as Miss Flight applied her paint to the boy’s chest.
“Dr. White Bull,” Helen continued, “told the young man that his dream was intended to inform him that the kingfisher was his ‘medicine’ animal. For when that bird dives under the surface of the water, the water closes up behind it, just as in the boy’s dream, the wounds in his flesh closed up after the bullets entered. Bloody ingenious concept, isn’t it? Thus this painting, which I am presently executing upon the boy’s chest, is intended to protect him from harm. Of course,” Helen said, pausing from her work, and removing the pipe from her mouth, her eyebrows raised in ironic surprise, “I offer no guarantees of magic properties with my work!”
“I should certainly hope not!” I said. “Why it’s pure superstition, Helen. And quite useless against real bullets.”
“I expect so, May,” Helen said. “But I am only an artist fulfilling a commission. Guarantees of magic properties are strictly the province of Dr. White Bull here.”
At just this point, and as if on cue, the old medicine man started chanting in a low, rhythmic voice.
“There, you see!” Helen said, delighted. “As we speak my collaborator is imbuing my kingfisher with a full complement of special powers.”
Hanging from Helen’s tent were dozens of bird skins of every species imaginable, many of which she had collected herself in the course of our journey here and others of which have been brought to her by the savages as specimens for the likenesses which she is being “commissioned” to paint on their bodies, and on those of their war ponies. On the ground around her lodge were piles of gifts which the savages have bestowed upon her for her services—articles of finely embroidered clothing, animal hides, an assortment of “medicine” pipes, jewelry, braided horse bridles, and saddles.
“I do encourage you ladies to carry away any of my goods which might be of interest to you,” Helen said now. “I hardly have room for them all. I now own a string of a half dozen horses which I have given to my husband, Mr. Hog. Suddenly I find myself a woman of means. I must say it strikes me as frightfully ironic that I’ve had to come to the middle of the wilderness to achieve economic success as an artist. Ah, and here comes my next commission,” Helen said, as another young man rode up on a horse laden with hides.
“Another crane, I’ll wager,” Helen said, “a perennial favorite among the savages. Which is of particular interest in view of the fact that many other cultures throughout history—both Eastern and Western, primitive and civilized alike—have been known to ascribe special qualities to the noble crane. In the case of our savages, the bird is highly prized for its courage. For even when wounded and unable to fly, it stands its ground and fights heroically. So you see, by wearing these images upon their breasts the warriors believe that they assume these same characteristics.”
“But doesn’t it concern you, Helen,” I asked, “that in spite of the good doctor’s assumption of responsibility for magical properties, you may still be held accountable when your art fails them—as it inevitably must?”
“Ah, but Art never fails anyone, May,” Helen said cheerfully. “Magic and ‘medicine’ may certainly fail, but never Art.
“Furthermore,” she said, taking a long, thoughtful puff on her pipe, “is it possible that if a warrior believes in his ‘medicine,’ he can make it come true? A fascinating concept, is it not? And one that lies at the very core of pagan religion.”
“And perhaps of our own,” I pointed out, “for now you speak of faith, Helen.”
“Quite!” said Helen, with customary good cheer. “That is to say, faith in the power of God, in the power of Art, in the power of medicine men and medicine animals—it’s all one, finally, don’t you agree, May?”
“Your paintings are magnificent, Helen,” I said, “but if I had to wager, I’d still put my money on the power of bullets.”
“Ah, ye of little faith!” said Helen, in a light tone.
“So the Reverend says of us both, Helen,” I answered.
“Quite,” she said. “The Episcopalian accuses me of encouraging the worship of false idols. I’ve explained to him that I’m only a poor artist trying to make my way in the world.”
“By encouraging a finer appreciation of art among the heathens,” I added.
“Just so, May!” Helen said. “Art being a cornerstone of civilization. And, in any case, what could be false about a kingfisher? There,” she said to the boy, sitting back on her stool to inspect her efforts. She made the sign for finished. “All done. Be a good chap, and run along now. He’ll do well in battle, that one,” she added with satisfaction.
“Ah, the artist begins to believe her own notices!” I teased.
Helen smiled around her pipe and looked down at the old medicine man, White Bull, who appeared to be dozing in the sun. “Wake up, you old charlatan. Here’s our next patient.”
3 June 1875
With the presence of our visitors from the south the entire camp has been abuzz with activities for the past several days and has much the festive atmosphere of a large family reunion or a county fair.
I have passed my time calling at some of my friends’ lodges and watching the various contests of skill that are everywhere being held between the different bands and warrior societies. These include tests of horsemanship, accuracy with bow and arrow, rifle and spear, running events, etc. Nearly everyone in the camp turns out either to spectate or participate.
As Bourke had warned, the savages are relentless gamblers and brisk wagering takes place at every opportunity. Prior to their arrival at our camp the southerners had been to the trading post, and they have brought with them many items of civilization—blankets, utensils, knives, beads, and trinkets—and with these they wager on games of chance and contests of all kinds.
Right in the thick of things I was not surprised to find those scamps the Kelly twins. I can’t help but admire their spirit but truly they are a pair of scoundrels! Hestahkha’e the savages call them—Twin Woman as if they are one, for it is so difficult to tell them apart. (Martha tells me that a scandalous report is circulating about the camp that the two switched husbands on our wedding night.)
The girls seem to have set themselves up as something like professional bookmakers, and have themselves made a small fortune in trade goods, hides, and horses by organizing and betting upon various games. Yesterday, for instance they put our own Phemie up against several of the Southern Cheyenne men in a running race. Our statuesque Negress offered a great shock to all, Caucasians
and savages alike, when she strode to the starting line wearing nothing more than a man’s breechclout.
“Good God, Phemie,” I said when I first saw her, “you’re practically naked!” Truly she was something to behold, her long gleaming black legs muscled like a colt’s, her breasts hard and small as a girl’s.
Phemie laughed richly. “Hello, May!” she said, greeting me warmly, for I had not seen her since my return. “Yes, when I was a little girl I always ran footraces naked against the other children. I was the fastest child on the plantation. My mother told me this was how our people raced and fought in Africa. Why carry the extra weight of clothing to slow you down?”
“Right ya are, too, Phemie,” said Meggie Kelly. “They say that the Irish lads of olden days always did battle naked themselves for that very same reason.”
“Aye, and for the fact that it struck terror into the hearts of their enemies!” added Susie. “And which of you brave laddies’ll run against this poor little goorl then?”
Several warriors had stepped up to the line by then. Among the Southern Cheyennes were a number who spoke passable English, this branch of the family having had more contact with the whites than ours. With their assistance as translators the Kellys haggled with the other bettors over the odds—a new concept to the savages.
“Aye, but she’s only a poor goorl, you see,” Meggie explained through the translator. “It hardly seems fair does it now that she should compete with equal odds against the big strong men? On account of which disadvantage all who bet on Phemie need only put up half as much as those who bet on one of the lads. And those are excellent odds we’re givin’ ya, too, if I may say so.”
“I’ll take a piece a that action mahself, you rascals,” said Daisy Lovelace. “Ah don’t give a damn if she’s a guuurl or not. Mah Daddy always did say that nobody can outrun a niggah. Daddy said they got those long legs from runnin’ through the jungle bein’ puursued by lions and other waahld creatures. Yessir, Ah’m taking all wagers on my dear friend Euphemia Washin’ton.”
