by Jim Fergus
“You must convince Little Wolf,” said Bourke, “that after the savages are peacefully settled on the reservation, they will receive the remainder of their brides.”
“Now you ask me to lie for the government, John?” I said, my temper flaring. “To lie to my own husband in order to cover your vile deceptions?”
“Not my deceptions, May,” Bourke said quickly, “nor those of General Crook. As you know, we were never consulted by the government and would never have sanctioned this program if we had been. I do not apologize for our role in this affair. We have been charged with protecting those of you who are already afield and at risk. I will arrange for General Crook to meet with your husband. The General is a man of honor who has always dealt fairly with the savages. He will make no promises about delivery of the brides, but he may use the issue as a carrot-on-a-stick. It remains to you to help convince your husband to turn his people in to the agencies before next winter. There they will be given everything they need—food to eat, a roof over their heads, and their children—your children —will be educated by Christians; taught to read and write, to farm—to plow and hoe and subdue the Earth as the Bible teaches us we must. Whatever political situations may have changed, May—however you may have changed, do not forget that this was your original mission. To assimilate the savages—to bring them to the bosom of Christian civilization.”
“You have heard, perhaps, how our portly Episcopalian brought the children to his ample bosom?” I said.
“I have,” said Bourke, coloring, and I could see his temper rising again like water coming to a fast boil. “The Reverend Hare has been recalled by Bishop Whipple, who promises a full investigation of the charges.”
“A full investigation is quite unnecessary,” I said. “We all know what happened. Are you aware that such acts with children are unknown to the Cheyenne culture? Not just rare—but unknown. As an amateur ethnologist, I should think that you might be interested in this fact. We have much to teach the savages, don’t we, John?”
“The Church Missionary Society is looking into finding a Catholic priest to return with you to serve as your spiritual advisor among the heathens. Your husband has, very sensibly I might add,” the Captain added with a sly smile, “specifically requested a ‘Black Robe’ this time.”
“Excellent,” I said in deadpan tone. “Then our little boys will be safe.”
“Good God, May!” Bourke said, shaking his head, and uttering an involuntary laugh. “You’re the most irreverent woman I’ve ever known!” But he laughed again, a deep, delighted belly laugh. And I laughed with him.
We hugged each other quickly before parting, not daring to linger in the other’s embrace, lest we allow ourselves once again to become one.
18 September 1875
Little Wolf had his audience with General Crook. None of us white women were allowed to attend or even to leave our camp as several members of the press, including a Mr. Robert E. Strahorn of the Rocky Mountain News in Denver had recently arrived at the fort. It was deemed undesirable by the authorities that we be seen by the press, or identified as affiliated in any way whatsoever with the government or the military. In any case, after our initial reception by the fort residents, we have most of us avoided further contact with the whites. It is rarely spoken of, and the newspapers avoid the subject like the plague, but there are other white women, most of them alcoholic, who have taken up residency among the hangs-around-the-fort Indians. These unfortunate souls are referred to as “fallen whores”—and as such, we are passed off.
All I know of the meeting with Crook is what little I have learned from Little Wolf himself and from Gertie, who eavesdropped beneath the window outside. As Captain Bourke had suggested, the General would make no assurances about delivery of the remaining brides. He could only say that if the Cheyennes agreed to come into the agency before winter, the matter would be taken up again with the proper authorities. This was the kind of white man talk that confused and angered Little Wolf, for in his mind the matter had already been agreed upon, the deal struck.
The General further promised that if the Cheyennes came in to the agency, they would be generously cared for by the Great Father.
“Yes,” replied Little Wolf, “I have been to the Red Cloud Agency, and I have seen there the generosity of the Great Father. There is no game left in that country and, like the brides that were pledged to the Cheyennes, only a small portion of the provisions that were promised has been delivered to them. So the Sioux have been forced to slaughter their own horses to eat. We have lived free all summer on our own land and we have plenty of meat to see us through the winter. Why should we go to the agency when we have everything we need and live as free people on our own land?”
Little Wolf’s logic, simple and childlike, is at once relentless and irrefutable. Even General Crook, an old hand at negotiations with the savages, was somewhat at a loss to explain to what advantage it was to the Cheyennes to come into the agency before winter. The meeting was thus concluded unsatisfactorily.
In the matter of trade negotiations—and in a somewhat brighter vein, Big Nose Little Man had met his match in our Kelly twins. The little wretch’s own greed for our hides finally undermined his tenuous alliance with the military who hoped to see us sooner destitute, and we made out rather favorably, after all. At the same time, a flourishing illicit trade and any number of unscrupulous dealers operate outside the fort grounds and from these Little Wolf obtained the rifles, ammunition, and gunpowder we required.
My husband is not stupid and understands that the decision by the Great White Father to withhold arms and ammunition from the Cheyennes is meant to render the People defenseless. As in the matter of the brides due him, it is clear that Little Wolf “smells a rat.” Perhaps not incidentally, among the contraband munitions acquired from the illicit traders, our band has purchased a full case of new carbines.
19 September 1875
Yesterday several of our prominent medicine men went into the fort to take up a challenge offered, I was deeply ashamed to learn, by Captain John G. Bourke and several of his Army compadres. The Indians call Bourke “Paper Medicine Man,” for as Crook’s adjutant he is seen always scratching away in his books.
Had we not been avoiding the fort we white women might have known sooner about the nature of this disgraceful business, and put a quick end to it. As it was I did not learn of it until a boy came running to Little Wolf’s lodge to say that the Sweet Medicine Chief must come to challenge the white man’s “medicine box,” that he must come immediately to save face for the People, for none of our medicine could defeat the box.
I had no idea what the child was talking about but I decided to accompany my husband to the fort to find out. We arrived just in time to witness the latest defeat of yet another of our medicine men at the hands of this so-called “medicine box.” This was little more than an old discarded electrical battery that the idle soldiers had rigged up so that when turned by a hand crank it would send a shock through whatever fool was holding the poles. Next to the battery the soldiers had placed a pail of water and in the bottom of the pail a shiny silver dollar.
Now they much amused themselves by challenging any takers to reach into the pail and remove the silver dollar—with the stipulation, of course, that the contestant be holding the pole from the battery in one hand when he did so.
One after another, our medicine men, chanting their medicine songs, attempted to reach into the pail and remove the dollar. As the soldiers merrily sang their own “medicine song”—the Irish ballad “Pat Malloy”—one of them, John Bourke himself, cranked the handle of the damnable machine, which of course shocked the poor savages into submission with a terrible charge of electricity. Thus the medicine men were each, in turn, humiliated in front of the spectators. Some bravely tried a second time, but of course, were helpless against the thing.
At first Bourke did not see me among the crowd, and I pleaded with my husband. “Do not do this,” I said. “This is no
t ‘medicine,’ it is another white man trick. You will be hurt and disgraced in front of the people if you try.”
But others of the tribe urged Little Wolf forward to prove the power of the Sweet Medicine, and the Chief felt obligated to do so.
Still Bourke had not spied me, and when my husband stepped up to the machine, the Captain said: “Ah, and does the great Chief Little Wolf himself wish to challenge our medicine box?” In Bourke’s tone of merriment, I detected an undercurrent of malice, which deeply disappointed me.
I could resist no longer and now came forward myself. “Is this how you gentlemen amuse yourself, Captain?” I asked. “By humiliating innocent people? Perhaps you should run along and find some puppies to torture.”
Several of the soldiers laughed, but in slightly embarrassed tones, like children caught misbehaving. “Or to eat like the stinkin’ heathens,” one of them snickered under his breath.
“We’re just having a little fun, ma’am,” another said. “It’s the heathens themselves who keep asking to try their medicine against ours. No harm intended. It’s only a game.”
Captain Bourke had himself blanched at my words, more in surprise at seeing me there, I think, than at my reprimand. For when he spoke, he did so with no trace of apology in his voice, but with a kind of cocksure defiance.
“We are teaching the savages, in a relatively harmless manner, that their superstitions are helpless against our own superior powers,” he said. “It’s a lesson better learned here, madam, than elsewhere, I can assure you.”
“I see, Captain,” I said. “And now you will teach this lesson to my husband, Little Wolf, the Sweet Medicine Chief, the Cheyennes’ most esteemed leader and fearless warrior. And the People will learn for certain how powerless they are against the white man.”
“Only if the Chief wishes to test his medicine against ours, madam,” the Captain said, his dark, shadowed eyes boring into mine.
Little Wolf took one of the poles in hand, and the soldiers began to sing their ditty—“Pat Malloy.” My eyes never left those of John Bourke, as he began to turn the crank on the battery and took up the song himself. Little Wolf did not chant but only touched the Sweet Medicine pouch that he wears against his breast, a kind of talisman, and began to put his arm into the pail. Just as he did so, the Captain, still staring at me and singing in a hearty voice, left off turning the crank, and my husband reached into the pail and with impunity removed the silver dollar from the bottom. Now all those assembled began to cheer wildly, as I and the rest of the women made our joyful trilling noise.
John Bourke stood from his seat at the machine, nodded to me with a slight smile, and walked briskly away.
20 September 1875
A change of weather is in the air, and we prepare for departure. The mild early-fall temperatures which we have enjoyed these past few weeks have fallen precipitously overnight. Lying in our lodge last night I could hear the north wind blowing down; it made an ominous rumbling sound like a freight train. And though I was warm under my buffalo robes, I felt the chill of winter in my bones.
This morning my friend Gertie came visiting a last time. “You heard the news of your compadre, Narcissa?” she asked.
“I have not,” I answered, “but nothing would surprise me.”
“She’s in the fort hospital,” Gertie said. “They say she lost her baby, miscarried, but I know one a the nurses, and she says the doctor pulled it for her.”
“Pulled it?” I asked. “You mean to say she had her baby aborted?”
“That’s what I’m hearin’.”
“I was wrong, Gertie,” I admitted. “I am surprised. None of us even knew she was with child.”
“Nurse says that Narcissa begged the doctor to do it on account a her husband forced himself upon her,” Gertie said, “an’ she couldn’t stand the idea of givin’ birth to a heathen’s baby.”
“And she will no doubt be stayin’ at the fort to recuperate,” I said, “rather than returning north with the rest of us.”
“You got it, honey,” Gertie said with a nod. “Medical leave. Says her mission can be better served anyhow if she stays here to prepare the way for the heathens’ settlement on the reservation. You get my meanin’?”
“Perfectly,” I said. “A rat from a sinking ship. That’s the part that doesn’t surprise me. We all knew the woman was a hypocrite. I just never thought that she would go to such great lengths.”
“Somethin’ else you might want to know, honey,” Gertie said. “She’s tellin’ folks that you an’ some a the others has been on the warpath, that you gone plumb wild yourselves, took some Crow scalps, maybe even … maybe even … relieved some Crow fellas of some body parts, if you get my meanin’ …”
“I see,” I said. “And to whom is she spreading these rumors?”
“Anyone at the fort who’ll listen,” Gertie said. “You want to talk about it, honey?”
“No,” I answered. “I cannot, Gertie. Only to say that while we were encamped on the Tongue this summer, a group of us were abducted by Crow horse thieves. It must have been shortly after you left. I didn’t want to tell you about it because I knew that you’d blame yourself for not being there to look after us. Young Sara was killed in the incident. The rest of us were rescued by our husbands. That’s all I can tell you,”
Gertie nodded. “Sure, I understand, honey,” she said. “I won’t ask ya about it again. I just thought you should know what the missionary gal was tellin’ folks. It don’t make a damn bit a difference to me, see? I been there myself. I know what it’s like.”
“Thank you, Gertie,” I said, grateful that she would not press me on the matter.
“Mostly I come to say good-bye, honey,” Gertie said. “We’re fixin’ to head out ourselves. I don’t know where, they never tell us nothin’. But it must be a mighty big expedition, because they give me back my job skinnin’ mules, and if they’re desperate enough to hire known gals as muleskinners, they must be takin’ every damn mule and every damn wagon in the whole country. We’re supposed to be ready to march tomorrow morning. My guess is Crook is repositioning some a his troops further north on account a the trouble in the Black Hills. Word is that the Sioux under Crazy Horse and Sitting Bull has been harassing the miners and settlers in that country. I don’t know where your folks are headed, honey, but if I had any choice in the matter, I’d sure want to avoid that country. Thing is, when it comes to identifyin’ Injun bands, the Army can’t tell the difference between buffalo shit and sirloin steak. Even their Injun scouts half the time can’t tell the different bands apart. At least not from a distance, and by the time they get up close enough, it’s almost always too damn late. So the Army takes the position that any Injuns they come across in hostile territory is a hostile—guilty’til proven innocent.”
“And the Captain hasn’t told you anything more specific, Gertie?” I asked.
“I ain’t seen him, honey,” she said. “When it comes to the movement of troops he’d be skating on awful thin ice to be tellin’ military secrets to an old muleskinner, if you get my meanin’.
“But I did hear about that business with the battery,” she continued. “You know it took some balls on the Cap’n’s part not to juice old Little Wolf when he had the chance. The Cap’n lost face with his own men when he backed down.”
“He didn’t back down,” I said. “He just didn’t turn the crank on the machine.”
“All the same to the soldiers, honey,” she said. “It was their chance to whup the big Chief with their stronger medicine—to teach him a lesson—and the Cap’n let’em down.”
“It was a damn battery, Gertie!” I said. “That’s all it was. It was just a damn electrical apparatus!”
“Sure, honey, I know what it was,” she said, “but that’s just how men are—‘I got a bigger battery than you.’ He did it for you, honey. You know that, don’t you?”
“I know that,” I said, “and it was a decent thing for him to do. If you see the Captain, G
ertie, will you thank him for me.” I laughed. “And if he needs reassurance on the matter, you may tell him that his battery is every bit the equal of the Chief’s.”
Gertie grinned. “That’s what they like to hear, ain’t it, honey?” she said.
22 September 1875
On such short notice the authorities failed to locate a priest to take the place of our disgraced Reverend Rabbit, but somehow they managed to find a Benedictine monk to accompany us. We have no idea where the strange fellow came from and know nothing about him except that he rode into our camp yesterday evening on a burro and introduced himself as Anthony—explaining that he had taken his name from Saint Anthony of the Desert, the fourth-century Egyptian hermit monk, and that, like his spiritual namesake, he was seeking a remote spot in the wilderness in which to found his own monastery, and that if we didn’t mind, he would be pleased to accompany us.
“Good God,” I said under my breath to Helen Flight beside me, “first they send us an overweight Episcopalian pederast on a mule, and now comes a gaunt Benedictine anchorite on a donkey. I think we can see how the authorities value our spiritual needs.”
“Ya’ve come to the right place, if you’re lookin’ for remote, Broother Anthony that’s for shooore,” said Meggie Kelly greeting the fellow. “Me an’ Susie are a couple a good Catholic goorls ourselves. An’ we’re ’appy to ’ave ya along—right, Susie?”
“Right as rain, with me,” said Susie.
“Quite,” said Helen. “Anthony of the Prairie we shall dub you! Splendid addition to our little group, I should say.”
It is just dawn now as I make this entry. We are to break camp later this morning. I am presently huddled under my buffalo robes and blankets as Quiet One stokes the morning embers. “Eho’eeto,” she whispers when she notices me watching her. “It is snowing.”
