by Jim Fergus
I walk down to a pool on the river each morning at first light, my favorite time of day, before the camp is fully awake, to fetch the morning water. The wrens have just taken up their lusty morning songs and warblers flicker like bright yellow flames in the green willows’ branches. Often ducks, geese, and cranes flare off the water at my approach, and sometimes a doe deer with a fawn bounds away, tails flagging through the undergrowth. At the river’s edge, swallows swoop from their nests in the sandy cliffs to skim insects from the surface, and rising trout make concentric rings upon the pool. I drop my paunch vessel into the cool, moving water and as it fills to tug heavily downstream, I feel a part of this world, pulled like the vessel itself to fill up with this life.
This is the best time to make these scribblings in my journal, a few minutes stolen from the beginning of the day, before the bustle and commotion of camp life begins. I sit on my rock overlooking the pool on the river, the air cool and still, the bluffs still shadowed, the sun not yet risen above them, the constant prairie winds not yet come up …
Sometimes Helen Flight joins me at dawn on my rock to sketch the bird life. If we sit very quietly, sandhill and whooping cranes might come back into our pool, blue herons and night herons, geese and ducks of many varieties. She holds her sketch pad open on her lap, pipe clenched firmly between her teeth, eyebrows raised as always in delighted anticipation, as if something perfectly extraordinary is taking place. Periodically when I pause in my writing she gently lifts my notebook from my lap and makes a quick study of a bird in the margins of the page—a swallow swooping for insects on the water, or a Kingfisher perched on a tree branch, holding a fish in its beak. “Perhaps Mesoke,” she says, handing it back to me, “you and I should consider a collaboration of our own, ‘A Woman’s Life among the Savages of the Western Prairies’ we might entitle it, letterpress by Mrs. May ‘Swallow’ Dodd Little Wolf, with illustrations by Mrs. Helen Elizabeth ‘Medicine Bird Woman’ Flight Hog.”
“A splendid idea, Helen!” I answer lightly. “Certain to become a classic in frontier literature!”
“Unfortunately human figures have never been my artistic forte,” Helen says. “That is to say, I’ve always been more comfortable drawing animals—specifically birds. Once I undertook a full-length portrait of my companion Mrs. Ann Hall of Sunderland, who, gazing upon it for the first time, exclaimed: ‘Why, Helen, you’ve got me looking exactly like a roseate spoonbill!’”
Besides Helen’s company, if I sit long enough on my rock, we may be joined by Gretchen, Sara, Martha, Daisy, or Phemie—often a number of us get together here—a kind of morning girls’ club, I, its self-appointed president.
Daisy is happily much recovered from her night of terror at the hands of the drunken savages, and considerably softened around the edges. Oddly (although under the present circumstances of our lives what can any longer be considered odd?) she has become quite close friends with Phemie since her “accident.”
“Did y’all hear the news about my dear friend, Euphemia Washington?” Daisy asked us this morning, holding her little poodle Fern Louise in her lap. “She has just been asked to join the Crazy Dogs warrior society—an event without precedent among the savages. And Ah do not mean as a ceremonial hostess at social events. Ah mean as a full-fledged warrior woman. The very fuust taame in the history of the tribe that a woman has been so honored—and a whaate woman to boot. Aren’t y’all so proud? Fern Louise and I are, aren’t we, darlin’? We believe it is a great honor to us all, havin’ come about naturally due to Miss Phemie’s prowess on the games field and in the huuunt.”
Now little Sara beams and chatters away in Cheyenne, laughing with Pretty Walker, the daughter of Quiet One and Little Wolf, who often accompanies me to the fetch the water. The Indians call Sara Little White Girl Who Speaks Cheyenne, for she has been the first among us to learn their language fluently; they can hardly appreciate the full irony of the fact that prior to speaking Cheyenne she was mute! Now she has blossomed like a wild rose under the prairie sun—happier and healthier than I’ve ever seen her. I can hardly believe that she is the same frail and frightened child who clung so desperately to me on the long train ride west. She and her slender young husband, Yellow Wolf, are inseparable, thick as thieves—two people have never been more deeply in love.
Speaking of which, dear Gretchen, Moma’xehahtahe, she is now called, or Big Foot, has reconciled with her foolish husband, No Brains, whom she has well cowed and completely under her thumb—or her foot, I should say—since the dark night of whiskey drinking earlier this summer.
He is an indolent, vain fellow with a well-deserved reputation as a poor provider for his family. Often Gretchen must heave him out of the tent with strict instructions to “Brink home dinner you bick lazy dope!” and on the all too frequent occasions when No Brains has returned from the hunt with an empty packhorse, we have witnessed a bizarre, albeit not unamusing spectacle: a contingent of angry family members, led by Gretchen herself, followed by the man’s mother and any children who happen to join in, chasing the fool through the camp with sticks. “Yah! You great bick stupit idiot,” Gretchen, red-faced with Swiss wrath, hollers at him, kicking him in his buttocks and smacking him roundly about the head and shoulders with her stick, as the children lash at his legs. “How you expect to support a family if you can’t even brink home meat to put on da table? Vee must depend on your gottdamnt brudder and your udder friends to feed and clothe us. I vill not be a charity case! I always vork hart for my own living and I not take handouts now! You stupit silly jughead! Look at you, you all drest up, you got all dat fancy stuff, and you could not bring home meat if the da gottdamnt buffalo falls dead at your feet! You great stupit nincompoop!”
And poor No Brains stumbles through the camp, trying to escape Gretchen’s Big Foot, while warding off the others’ battery of blows until inevitably he stumbles and falls to the ground where he is set upon by the smallest children who strike him with their little sticks and shout insulting epithets at him, laughing gaily all the while. Let it not be said that the hunter’s life on the prairie is an easy one.
And yet in quieter moments, when we meet, as now, on our rock above the pool of the river in the still of the morning, Gretchen, as placid as a dairy cow, expresses her great fondness for this same buffoon. She is, I think, grateful to have a husband at last, and only wants him to make something of himself.
“I admit dat he is not da brightest fellow, in da whole vorld, dat is true,” Gretchen says in his defense. “But before da children come, I vill teach da big ninnyhammer how to be a goot hustband and provider. I know I yam not a pretty girl myself, but I always vork hart and I make a nice home for my family vedder dey be Indian people or white people—it don’t matter to me. I am a hartvorking, tidy person, and I vill be a goot mudder to my children—and a goot vife to my hustband. Dat is how I was taught by my own mudder. And, you know girls, dat fellow of mine he may be da biggest pumpkinhead in da whole tribe, but he is still my man … you know, and he likes me … yah!” she covers her mouth and giggles. “He likes me lots,” she adds striking her robust breast with a flat hand. “He loves my bick titties! All he wants to do is to roll in da buffalo robes with me!” And we all laugh. Bless her heart.
Now the camp begins to stir, and others come down to the water’s edge to fill their water paunches, and the men, the members of the Savage Men’s Bathing Club arrive at the water for their morning dip, and we can hear them splashing about up- or downriver, and the birds begin to lift off, flushed by the human congress in their domain, the deep sounds of hundreds of heavy wings all along the river, the cacophonous cries of the rising birds like a discordant natural orchestra—yakking and honking and wailing and warbling—fading away to be replaced by the voices of women, children, and men. In the distance, the camp crier begins his rounds … calling his messages in a high shrill voice, marking the end of this quiet, best time of day …
Sometimes I send Pretty Walker back with the water paunch while
I stay on writing or visiting with my friends. She is a lovely thing—the boys can hardly keep their shy eyes off her—slender and long-legged like her father, moves with the grace of a dancer, is not so sullen and suspicious as her mother—an eager, open-natured child, with bright, intelligent eyes. She enjoys the company of us white women, and we have been teaching her a few words of English, while she, in turn, helps us with our Cheyenne. Most of us are less self-conscious about speaking the language now, and can make ourselves understood on a rudimentary level—which, as these people are hardly given to complicated philosophical discourse, is usually quite sufficient. Pretty Walker has been most useful to us in this regard, and we have great fun with her, although I’m afraid that our budding friendship has not entirely met with the approval of her mother.
I have avoided this next topic for the fact that it so exceeds the bounds of propriety, but I must here make mention of one of the most difficult adjustments that we have had to make. That is in the matter of toilet facilities. Fortunately, ours is a very cleanly tribe—unlike some of the others. One might well imagine the stinking mess that would accumulate in a camp of two hundred people if everyone simply went off to do their business at random in the bushes. We have in our recent travels come across the vacated campsites of other tribes—the stench announcing their location from miles away.
The Cheyennes have devised a relatively hygienic solution to this—although one that does not afford a great deal of privacy. In each camp a central area is established, always placed downwind of the village, where all are expected to do their business. Young boys are assigned to guard these communal latrines and to make sure that waste is immediately buried. This is a boy’s first job after which he graduates when older to guarding the horses. Latrine duty and the burying of feces is done not only for reasons of basic sanitation, but also because there are many dogs about the camp and, given the opportunity, dogs will … forgive me, please, for this is a vile subject … roll in, and even eat, human excrement.
For our part, we white women have made certain improvements on the latrine system. Little Marie Blanche, our French girl (who has, after all, “married” her murdered husband’s brother), was quite appalled by the whole thing. The French being accustomed to irregular bathing, have devised many clever means of hygienic compensation, and thus Marie Blanche has insisted that water vessels, to serve the function of “bidets,” be installed and maintained by the “B.M. boys,” as we call them. Thus in this one small—but to a woman, essential—area I think perhaps we have taught the savages something useful. But surely I’ve said enough on a subject which requires no more graphic description …
Despite my present acceptance of our lot, even a certain contentment, I have had an uneasy premonition of late—an indefinable sense of gloom lurks in the background of my general good spirits. I wonder as I strain to see the page in the silvery half-light of dawn, if something were to happen to prevent my return to civilization, who would ever read these words? What would become of my dear children, Hortense and William, should I be unable to make my way back to them? I pray that the letter Gertie took for me will reach them, but how can I know that Father and Mother will ever show it to them when they are old enough to read? Such thoughts fill me with unease. Whatever is to become of me, I should be greatly consoled by the knowledge that my children might one day learn something of their mother’s life among the savages, might understand that however eccentric she may have been—however stubborn, foolish, and impetuous—she was not insane …
7 August 1875
My recent gloomy premonitions have come more horribly true than ever I could have imagined, for the worst catastrophe possible has befallen us. On this, our darkest day yet, I and several of my compatriots find ourselves in a desperate predicament.
The day began as peacefully and uneventfully as any other. At dawn I sat upon my rock overlooking the pool on the Tongue River near our camp. I was just preparing to unstrap my notebook from my back. Helen Flight sat on one side of me, waiting for the light of day to be favorable for sketching; Martha, Sara, and little Pretty Walker sat on my other side. The Kelly twins, too, had joined us and were squatting on the water’s edge about to toss a hook and line into the pool after trout for their breakfast. Gretchen had just lumbered down to fill her own water paunch and squatted now beside the stream.
We all sensed, I think, at exactly the same moment that something was amiss, for the birds which had already taken up their morning song went suddenly silent—a lull broken by the sound of several dozen ducks and geese getting up all at once off the water just downstream from us. We looked up from our respective tasks but no sooner had we done so, than in a heartbeat’s time we were each descended upon at once, filthy hands clamped over our mouths, knives held at our throats, arms like iron bounds rendering us immobile. The single sound that could be heard over the wingbeats of the rising waterfowl was a heavy thump from a stone war club and a miserable groan as our friend Gretchen collapsed in a heap at the water’s edge.
So well orchestrated was our abduction, that, as I look back on it now, I believe our attackers must have been watching us, perhaps for several days—assessing our comings and goings, gauging the force necessary to carry us off. And Gretchen, with her great size and obvious strength, must have appeared more to them than they believed one or even two men could comfortably handle, and thus they had rendered her, and her alone, unconscious.
So quickly, stealthily, and powerfully were we overcome, that there was no question of resisting. We knew that if we dared struggle or tried to cry out, our throats would be instantly cut. Now each of us, helpless and paralyzed with terror, was half-dragged, half-carried, downstream from whence our abductors must have come. One particularly large and fearsome-looking fellow hoisted Gretchen over his shoulder and carried her as if she were a sack of potatoes. I did not know yet to what tribe these men belonged, but they were as a rule taller and rather fairer-skinned than our own Cheyennes, were dressed some of them in flannel shirts of white man manufacture, and several wore black Army hats with the tops cut out and the sides wrapped in feathers and variously colored cloth.
At a shallow ford downstream they carried us across the river, where several younger boys waited in a grove of cottonwood trees, holding a string of horses. Among these I recognized a number of our own mounts. Here our hands and feet were bound with rawhide thongs and cloth gags tied over our mouths, and we were very roughly thrown across the pommels of the saddles like so many fresh-killed deer carcasses. One of our savage abductors then climbed up behind each of us.
I do not know exactly how long we traveled thus—it must have been several hours at least, but seemed far longer so great was our pain and discomfort. I was certain that they had killed poor Gretchen for she remained unconscious, and, from the little I could turn my head to look, appeared lifeless where she lay across the pommel. Not until what must have been a full hour had passed was I relieved to hear a moan of life issue from her.
After the hard and agonizing ride, during which we could do nothing but reflect helplessly upon our situation, we arrived at last at a small camp of a half dozen or so makeshift lodges—little more than stick lean-tos covered with canvas—clearly the temporary encampment of a hunting or war party, for there were no women about, only several more young men who met us when we rode in. Now once again we were handled with extreme roughness, thrown off the horses’ backs to sprawl in the dirt. This seemed to excite the savages to much laughter and taunting in their unfamiliar tongue.
At last they untied our hands and feet and removed the gags from our mouths. Mine had been so tightly bound that my mouth was split and bleeding at its corners. When free I scrambled on my hands and knees to attend to little Pretty Walker, the youngest and most terrified among us. The Cheyenne children are brought up on tales of being captured thus by other tribes—like the boogeyman stories of our own culture—and this was clearly the girl’s worst nightmare come true. “Ooetaneo’o,” she wailed in terror
. “Ooetaneo’o.”
So frightened was she that I could not understand what she was trying to say, until Sara spoke up. “Crow,” she translated. “She says that these men are Crow.” Only later did I realize that it was the first, and the last, time that I would ever hear our Sara speak a word of English.
We all knew the Crow to be the archenemy of the Cheyenne—and a loutish-looking bunch at that with their half-white man clothing and preposterous Army hats, they swaggered and gloated and made merry at our despair. Poor Martha, scared witless herself and in a state of evident shock, began repeating: “They’re going to kill us, they’re going to kill us all. I know they’re going to kill us … they’re going to kill us all …”
Finally, Meggie Kelly spoke sharply to her. “Showt up, Martha,” she said. “If they were plannin’ to kill us, they’d a doon so by now. They’d not have gone to all the trouble of carrying us away loyke this.”
“Aye, Meggie’s right,” said her sister in a low voice, “They’ll not moorder us yet. First they’re going to folk us. Look at that one there. He’s sportin’ a wood, he is.”
It was true that one of the men was in a state of erection beneath his breechclout, and the other men, now noticing his condition, laughed and urged him on.
Now the wretch grabbed my little Sara by her hair, and began to drag her toward one of the crude huts. It was less a conscious selection of the girl than that she happened to be in the nearest proximity to him. “No,” I screamed, and I grasped the attacker’s leg, “not her, please, not her. Take me.”
“Aye, ya filthy beggar,” said Susie Kelly, taking ahold of the man’s other leg, “or me! Let that child go, goddamn ya!”
