The Ghost of Blackfeet Nation

by Eva Pohler

  “Oh, I’m so glad you called. I was just about to phone you with some exciting news.”

  “Really? What?” Ellen glanced at her friends as she put her phone on speaker.

  “The Ursuline Convent has no records about a baby arriving in 1909 from here; however, Officer Jackson called a moment ago with a DNA match.”

  “What do you mean?” Sue said. “What kind of DNA match?”

  “Oh, hello, Sue,” the priest said.

  “I have you on speaker, Father,” Ellen explained. “I’m here with Sue, Tanya, and Karen Murray, a woman of the Blackfeet.”

  “Hello,” Father Gonzales said.

  Ellen paced the room within the circle of protection. “So, tell us about this DNA match.”

  “The authorities ran DNA from both remains through their various data bases and found someone in New Orleans, still alive today, who has a 75% match to both bodies.”

  “What does that mean?” Sue asked.

  “That means that we’ve found a descendant of Sister Alma and the second body, which I’m determined to prove is Rabbit,” the priest explained. “The descendant’s name is Sidney Longfellow, and he lives in New Orleans.”

  “Did you say Sidney Longfellow?” Karen asked as she climbed to her feet.

  “Yes,” Father Gonzales said. “That’s right.”

  Karen frowned. “That’s the name of the CEO of Solonex, the oil and gas company that’s suing the U.S. government for rights to drill on the Badger-Two Medicine.”

  Ellen’s mouth fell open. “Can’t there be more than one Sidney Longfellow?”

  “In New Orleans?” Karen asked.

  “It’s a big city,” Ellen pointed out.

  “Father, how accurate are those DNA findings?” Sue asked.

  “Very accurate, according to Officer Jackson.”

  Tanya stood up and brushed off her knees. “What do we do now?”

  “Do you have any contact information for Mr. Longfellow?” Ellen asked.

  “No phone number or email address. I’ve searched the Internet every which way I know how. I may have to leave it to the authorities to get ahold of him.”

  “We have exciting news, too, Father,” Ellen said. “I’ll explain later, but would you also ask the Medical Examiner to check if one leg is longer than the other on the second set of remains?”

  “Of course. I’ll get back with you soon.”

  “Thank you, Father,” Ellen said. “Goodbye.”

  “Goodbye, ladies.”

  Ellen hung up the phone.

  Then Tanya turned to Karen. “If Sidney Longfellow really is a Blackfoot descendant, maybe he’ll change his mind about the Badger-Two Medicine.”

  “I doubt it will make a difference to the man,” Karen said. “He only cares about one thing: money.”

  “Well, there’s nothing more we can do until Father Gonzales hears back from the authorities,” Ellen said. “Would you mind if we finish Crow Woman’s memoir?”

  “I don’t mind,” Karen said. She turned to Tanya and Sue. “Should I keep going?”

  “That would be great,” Tanya said.

  Karen sat back down on the floor beside Tanya as Ellen took the metal chair across from Sue. Then Karen picked up from where she had left off:

  This was the happiest time of my life.

  I strapped Rabbit to my back and rode out nearly every day with my husband to hunt or to fish or to shop for supplies in the village. Talks to Buffalo was full of Sun power. That is what our people said of him. He was full of the Sun power because he was good with hunting the buffalo. Some of our people paid him to shoot on their behalf.

  Our wealth increased. I played a small part in it by tanning hides for others. I used the method I learned from the Crow. Only two good things came from my time with the Crow: Cute Fox and my skills in tanning hides.

  We had many visitors come to our lodge. We fed them meat, along with vegetables we grew behind the house. After our meal, we sat with our guests before the warm hearth and engaged in storytelling, singing, or dancing. Sometimes a medicine man or woman came with a sacred pipe, and we smoked.

  Rabbit had other children to play with every day. After we finished our daily jobs, he played with them at our house or at the lodges of our friends. We were always with our people. We were with them for the ceremonies and the rituals. We were also with them for visiting and good times.

  After Rabbit’s third summer, Cute Fox crossed the Rainbow Bridge. When we visited to the Two-Badger Medicine for prayer, I felt his spirit there. I thanked him for being my only friend at one of the lowest times of my life.

  During Rabbit’s fourth summer, the Holy Family Mission Boarding School came and took many of the children on the reservation away. The parents were angry. They spoke with the Indian Office, but nothing could be done. I became frightened that one day, the priests would take my Rabbit away from me. I told Talks to Buffalo that we should run away, but he said there was no place for us to go.

  They came for Rabbit during his fifth summer. Talks to Buffalo and I refused to let him go. The Indian Office withheld the rations they supplied to our people from those who refused to give up their children. Many depended on the rations because the land on which we were allowed to hunt and farm had become smaller and smaller. Our people were no longer self-sufficient.

  But my husband and I did not need the rations. Because we were self-sufficient, we managed to keep our son from being taken away until his ninth summer.

  That summer, the men came to us with guns. They were not the priests but the officers from the Bureau. They threatened to imprison us and hang us if we broke the law, the law requiring that all Indian children go to school.

  I screamed and cried when they took our Rabbit away. After that day, I was never the same. Neither was my husband.

  We were promised that Rabbit would return every summer for a visit. They lied. We saw him once. They had cut his beautiful hair and had forbidden him from speaking our language or practicing our religion. They had told him he would burn forever after death if he disobeyed. They had burned his clothes and had made him wear an ugly uniform. They had even changed his name to Randal Smith.

  He cried and begged us not to let them take him from us again, but the officers had guns, and we were afraid that they would kill our son if we disobeyed them. After that, we never saw Rabbit again.

  I wept for many moons. Talks to Buffalo spent more and more time away from me. He came home drunk on the liquor he bought from the shady white men that preyed on our people on the borders of the reservation, tempting them with hard liquors to forget their pain and loss.

  My husband stopped hunting and fishing. I found it hard to tend the garden. We came to rely on the government rations. The summers and winters went by in misery. Our house fell apart around us, but my husband and I no longer cared.

  One day the white men came looking for Rabbit. I was confused.

  “He’s at school,” I said.

  “He ran away,” one of the men said.

  At first, I was happy. I imagined Rabbit free of the white men. I hoped he might find his way back to me. My happiness did not last long. When the white men said that Rabbit had misused a nun and was a fugitive of the law, I knew they were lying. Dread filled my heart. My sweet Rabbit was doomed.

  That summer, Talks to Buffalo participated in the blood ritual of the Sun Dance. I prayed daily. But when the winter came and went and we still heard nothing of our Rabbit, we fell into despair.

  I don’t know how we lived. We might as well have been dead. Talks to Buffalo turned to his drink. I wanted to kill myself but the thought that Rabbit might one day need me prevented me from following through with my plans.

  Talks to Buffalo died three summers ago. Before he died, he told me to sell the white buffalo hide, so I could have food to live. I told him it is against our ways to sell a white buffalo hide. He said I should do it anyway. I told him it was the only thing I had left of him and the happy times.


  I would die today but for one thing: Rabbit may need me someday.

  Karen looked up and closed the book. “That’s the end.”

  “How sad,” Tanya said. “The mistreatment of your people needs to be more public. It should be taught in schools.”

  “Instead, they teach your children about a friendly relationship between pilgrims and Indians. But it wasn’t like that.”

  “History is white-washed,” Ellen murmured with tears in her eyes.

  “We have to make things right for Crow Woman,” Sue said. “If the second set of remains are proven to be those of Rabbit, we should bury him here on the property with a special crossover ceremony.”

  “What do you think, Karen?” Tanya asked.

  “I don’t want to get my hopes up,” she said. “Let’s take this one step at a time. First, we need to find out if you’ve really found Rabbit. Those remains could belong to someone else.”

  Ellen left the circle of protection and crossed the room to the old bench where the dusty white buffalo hide lay. Gingerly, she reached out and touched the fur. As had happened before, a jolt of electricity shot up her arm.

  “Rabbit’s spirit is in this fur,” Ellen said. “I can feel it.”

  “He and his mother should dwell with the rest of our ancestors at the Badger-Two Medicine,” Karen said. “They’re trapped here because of the trauma they endured in life.”

  “I hope we can help them,” Tanya said.

  “Me, too,” Karen said.

  Chapter Thirteen: Change

  Saturday evening, Ellen decided to eat her dinner alone in her room at Glacier Park Lodge. She made an excuse to Tanya and Sue about needing to elevate her ankle, but what was really bothering her was the story of Crow Woman. Ellen ordered room service and then sat in front of the television to wait for her meal.

  Even Downton Abbey couldn’t pull Ellen from her racing thoughts. It wasn’t just the horrendous treatment that Crow Woman and her people had endured at the hands of the U.S. government. It was also the loneliness and despair that had dominated the woman’s life. When Ellen imagined a lonely, heart-broken widow waiting for her child to return, she saw her own future.

  Of course, Ellen’s children weren’t dead at the bottom of some river. But Crow Woman hadn’t known about her son’s demise. She had gone from having her son there in her life every single day, as important as the food she ate and the air she breathed, to not having him at all.

  Ellen felt guilty for comparing herself to Crow Woman, for feeling sorry for herself when she lived in luxury and had wonderful children and friends. Even so, she longed for the days when she and her children and husband lived under the same roof, the happiest time of her life.

  Now, her children rarely called. Nolan was busy with his new residency and his new girlfriend. Lane had graduated and was working his first real job in Austin. And Alison was finishing up her graduate degree. When she called them, she felt as if she were interfering, detaining them from something more important. They didn’t need her anymore. But she needed them.

  Thank goodness for Tanya and Sue and for their willingness to immerse themselves in these paranormal investigations. However, Ellen dreaded the possibility that this could be their last adventure. Tanya nearly hadn’t come. And Sue was only interested in the property because she wanted a vacation home. She’d had dozens of requests on her blog to investigate haunted properties. Neither she nor Tanya had been interested in pursuing those leads. Sue and Tanya didn’t need to be a part of Ghost Healers, Inc., anymore. For whatever reason, they were ready to move on, which left Ellen wondering what she would do with her life.

  And then there was Brian. He’d asked her to travel the world with him and then accused her of holding him at arm’s length. He’d been right. She hadn’t intended to keep her distance. She’d wanted to love him as fully as—and perhaps even more fully than—she’d loved Paul. Why couldn’t she? Why couldn’t she let go of whatever it was that was holding her back?

  She gazed through the tall windows at the lovely mountain view, where the sun was setting in all its brilliance. Ellen wondered if the simple answer to her question was that she was afraid of change. Rich Falcon had said that the one constant in life was change. The mountains were constantly cut and reshaped by the shrinking glaciers, melting ice, and tumbling water. Nothing ever stayed the same, not even the earth. So why should she?

  She took out her phone to call Brian but was interrupted by a knock at her door. It was room service with her salad.

  Maybe she’d call Brian another time.

  The following morning, Ellen still didn’t feel like leaving her room. She made an excuse to get out of breakfast with Sue and Tanya, even though she knew that isolating herself from her friends would only make her feel worse. She felt like she needed someone to tell her what to do. She felt as if she’d fallen overboard and was sinking to the bottom of a river.

  She took out her phone, intending to call Brian, but as she scrolled through her contacts, her eyes fell upon Eduardo Mankiller, one of the psychics she and her friends had worked with in Tulsa. She hadn’t spoken to him in nearly four years, but she clicked on his number and called him.

  “Oh my, Ellen! I was just thinking about you!” he said into the phone.

  Ellen laughed. “I bet you say that to everyone who calls.”

  “Is that shade you’re throwing at me? You know me better than that!”

  “I’m just teasing,” she said. “How have you been?”

  He told her about his most recent project with Carrie French and Miss Margaret Myrtle involving an old building that had served as a flophouse during the 1800’s.

  Ellen told him what she and Sue and Tanya were doing in Montana.

  “Are you asking me to fly up there?” Eduardo said. “Because you know that I would in a heartbeat.”

  “No, though I wouldn’t stop you if you wanted to,” she said. “I just think we’ve done all we can at this point.”

  “I get it.”

  “I called because I was wondering if you’d do me the favor of reading my cards over the phone. I could Paypal you the fee.”

  “Of course, girlfriend! You know I’m always happy to be of service. Let me shuffle my cards while you think on your question. Is there anything in particular you want to know?”

  She sucked in her lips and fought back tears. “Not really. I guess I’m looking for guidance. Where do I go from here—you know what I mean?”

  “I know exactly what you mean. Okay, I’m cutting the cards, and I’m laying them out. Oh, yes. This is very clear to me, Ellen.”

  “Lay it on me. What do you see?”

  “The first card is about intuition. You haven’t been listening to yours. You’ve been avoiding it. Embrace it, Ellen, Stop fighting it. You know what to do. You just aren’t listening to yourself.”

  “I suppose that’s fair.”

  “The next card is about sacrifice. It’s good that you want to sacrifice your time and energy for others, but you can’t do it at the price of your own well-being. You need to take time for yourself, to save yourself. You know the saying about when you’re on a plane, you have to put the oxygen mask on yourself first, right?”

  “Right.”

  “And the last card is about awakenings, about a new rite of passage, about a death and a rebirth. It’s time for you to let something go so that you can begin a new chapter of your life.”

  Tears flowed down Ellen’s cheeks. He wasn’t telling her anything she didn’t already know. She had to let go of her past and embrace her future, but, damn, if it wasn’t the hardest thing she’d ever had to do.

  “Thank you, Eduardo. That’s just what I needed to hear.”

  Instead of phoning Brian, Ellen decided to write to him. In the letter, she was completely raw with him, admitting that she didn’t know what she was doing, but she knew that she needed to do something. She couldn’t go on like this. She loved him and didn’t want to lose him, but she had to take
things slow. She asked if he could give her another chance, even if it would take her a while to allow him to be any closer to her than arm’s length.

  Before she could change her mind, she went to the business office downstairs, bought an envelope and postage, and dropped the letter into the mail. As soon as she did, she felt much better.

  She was about to knock on Tanya’s door when her phone rang. It was Father Gonzales.

  “I don’t have time to talk,” he said. “I’m about to serve mass. But I was wondering if you and Sue and Tanya might be able to come by the rectory later, perhaps around three o’clock? I have news, but it’s mixed, and I’d like to discuss it in person.”

  “Of course, Father,” Ellen said. “We’ll see you at the rectory at three.”

  Ellen arrived with her friends by taxi to the rectory at three o’clock sharp. Father Gonzales welcomed them inside, to the sitting area where the two of them had spent the night after falling overboard the Sinopah. Ellen took her wingback chair as Sue and Tanya shared the couch facing the empty fireplace.

  “Can I get you ladies some coffee or tea?” Father Gonzales offered.

  The ladies declined, having just eaten a late lunch together at the Rock-N-Roll Bakery.

  “But I have something for you,” Sue said. “This is the best cinnamon roll you’ll ever eat.”

  Father Gonzales accepted the bag from the bakery before taking a seat in the wingback opposite Ellen. “It’s my favorite. Thank you. I’ll have it for breakfast tomorrow.”

  “Out with it,” Ellen finally said. “We’re dying to know what you’ve heard.”

  Father Gonzales blushed. “First of all, the medical examiner confirmed that one of the legs belonging to the second body is indeed shorter than the other.”

  Sue clapped her hands. “I knew it!”

  Father Gonzales glanced toward the hall. “I expect Father O’Brien’s naptime is over.”

  Sue covered her mouth as the blood rushed to her face. “I’m sorry. I didn’t know.”