Strongheart: The Lost Journals of May Dodd and Molly McGill

by Jim Fergus

  She is dark haired, very dark of skin, and has a broad, strong face, with high cheekbones and a prominent, slightly hooked nose, and the most piercing pair of eyes, the color of which I cannot well describe for they seem to change shade depending on her mood, the time of day, the weather, and the light—running the full gamut from a kind of deep yellow that brings to mind the color of the harvest moon, or perhaps the eyes of a wolf, to black as a billiard ball. She is of above-average height for a Cheyenne woman, and possesses a certain stature that makes her seem even taller. She has broad shoulders she carries proudly, strongly muscled arms that have clearly done more than their share of hard labor, and shapely, muscular legs that have just as obviously traveled many, many miles. It is impossible for me to guess her age. She is, of course, older than I, but not by any means an old woman … she could be anywhere from thirty to forty, perhaps even fifty years old. Her dignified bearing and calm, wise countenance perhaps makes her seem older than she really is, and lends her a certain air of permanence … All I do know is that she is an imposing figure, who, depending upon the situation, could either appear to offer a safe haven or be terrifying to encounter.

  Let me see, for my own amusement, if I might be able to create a kind of allegorical means of describing this strong, resourceful woman … Imagine for a moment that you are a white man of the working class, in, say, my long-ago hometown of Chicago … and I think of my common-law husband, Harry Ames, as I concoct this scene …

  You are walking down an alleyway, taking a shortcut home from the corner tavern on a dark night. You know better than to take the alleys at night, for dangers lurk there, but you stayed at the tavern for an extra few beers and are late returning to your family. You hear a noise behind you and you turn to see a pack of the city’s ubiquitous feral dogs following you. Their eyes glow in the dark, they growl threateningly and bare shiny white teeth that are quite capable of tearing out your throat. Now you must consider an immediate escape route. You turn back, and suddenly this woman I describe, Woman Who Moves against the Wind, steps out of the shadows ahead of you. Now … your first reaction will undoubtedly be one of surprise … I should perhaps say fearful surprise. Is she friend or foe? Impossible to tell, but you have no time to ponder the matter, and she bears such a presence of implacable fortitude that your next reaction is one of relief. You know instinctively that this woman has the ability to save you from the pack of dogs, and so you hurry toward her. Just as you reach her, they charge, snarling and yipping viciously. You act the coward and slip behind her (yes, Harry, I am, indeed, thinking of you), but when the dogs see her they suddenly stop, casting their eyes away from the force of her gaze; they whine, tuck tails between their legs, and wheel in nervous circles until all disperse and run off. She has faced them down; she has saved you.

  Yes, this is the woman to whom I unfavorably compare myself as we stack rocks upon our would-be sweat lodge, which is taking shape in a circular form, the construction of which she learned as a child on a trip to the Southwest with her mother’s people, the Southern Cheyenne, who traded occasionally with the Pueblo tribes. Perhaps she is even older than I know, or find her to be, for she seems to own the strength and wisdom of the ages.

  undated entry

  Aha, we have completed the sweat lodge and take today our first sweat, at the beginning of which Wind blesses the structure and sprinkles a special medicine she has mixed for that express purpose upon the fire. She says it will protect us. I hurt all over, but it is true that these days of hard labor have benefited me; from my feet to my neck, I am all muscle and sinew, and stronger than ever. We sit naked inside with the plumes of steam swirling about us as Wind throws handfuls of water upon the fire-heated rocks, the sweat glistening on our skin. I can’t help but admire my new physique … yes, I know, “vanity of vanities…” And I must admire and still envy hers, as well: her perfectly muscled body a rich, burnished bronze. Afterward we run down the trail to the creek and leap into the frigid water. It is magnificently invigorating.

  undated entry

  During the construction of the sweat lodge, Wind had continued my education in hunting and warrior tactics, but now that we have completed the task and I have gained strength, the real training begins. I am gradually becoming proficient in the use of the bow and arrow, and am sufficiently strong enough now that rather than having my arrows bounce harmlessly off the trees as they had in the beginning … that is, on the rare occasion that I actually hit the tree, now they stick regularly and firmly with a satisfying twang. And I have killed my first deer.

  Having grown accustomed to skinning, dressing, and butchering the buffalo, deer, and elk the men killed in the hunt, I am not squeamish about blood and innards. Indeed, from my days working in a factory in Chicago that processed prairie chickens, I was already well prepared for this work. However, I must admit that the killing of a large mammal has a different effect upon me. I remember the mare I killed with my knife and whose stomach I split open in order to thrust Martha’s baby son into its warm intestines during our flight from the attacking soldiers that terrible morning. But in that case, I was acting unconsciously out of life-and-death instinct, having been previously told of this method by my fellow wives.

  I did not kill my first deer cleanly with the arrow, but struck him through the neck and had to track his blood trail for twenty minutes or so before he fell, still alive. I knelt beside his heaving flank, saw the terror in his wild eyes, and before I plunged the knife into his heart, I wept and told him, as I had the mare, that I was sorry. And I thanked him for his sacrifice, as I knew the People did with all the animals they killed and ate so gratefully.

  We have been running to strengthen our lungs and legs, up and down the hills, in the rocks and in the river bottom. I can rarely keep up with Wind. It is one of the great talents of these people, who can run all day and night at a steady pace if they need to. When camp is made in one place for a long period of time, races are held, the warriors challenging each other, both in short and long distances. Our dear, departed Phemie, majestic in the field with her long legs and graceful stride, was the fastest runner in the tribe, undefeated by man or woman at any distance … Good God, how I miss my friends …

  Wind has made a pair of stone clubs for us, using rawhide straps cut from the hides of our game to fix the smooth, oblong river rocks to sturdy wood handles she carved. It is virtually impossible for me to imagine striking another human being’s head with such a deadly instrument, but she says: “You will be surprised, Mesoke, how easy it is, when that person is trying to kill you.”

  Now we both have knives, bows and arrows, and clubs. “The next thing we must do is to find horses,” she says. “That means we must leave here on foot, and try to find them as we travel.”

  “But where do we find horses, and if we do, how in the world do we catch them?” I ask.

  “The catching is easy,” she says. “It is the finding that is hard. If we come across a herd of wild horses, I have the lariat, with which I can catch a horse. If I catch one, I can catch a second. If we come upon a camp of our own people, or Arapaho or Lakota, and they have a good herd, it is possible that they would make us a gift of horses. We have nothing to offer in trade, except my medicine if they are in need of it. If we come upon a camp of enemies, Indian or white, we should be able to steal horses in the night. In our youth, my sister and I were among the best horse thieves in the tribe. We collected so many that we became rich. We neither of us married, but the men in the warrior societies traded hides, meats, the spoils of war, and anything else we needed to pick mounts from our string. And we gave many of the horses to those who were poor, or old, or unable to steal them for whatever reason. But there is always the risk of being caught, and then we will either be killed or taken captive.

  “Now, Mesoke, we must begin to break camp. We take only what we can carry on our backs, and the rest we bury.”

  “Why don’t we just leave what we can’t carry in the cave?” I asked.

/>   “Because someone may find it and steal what we leave. If we bury it, and ever need to come back here, we can dig it up again.”

  And this we have done. We have kept blankets, a supply of dried buffalo meat, the skillet, knives, clubs, and bows and arrows. Having prepared for this day, Wind has fashioned two parfleches with straps from deer hides, so that we can carry our modest goods on our backs. In order to become accustomed to the load, we have run with these in place, as well.

  I am oddly nostalgic, as well as apprehensive about leaving the safety of our cave—here, where, like a helpless infant, I was reborn, nurtured, and crawled out into the world to begin again my life, nourished and instructed by this fine Woman Who Moves against the Wind. I am ready, I feel strong. I have decided to leave in the cave, as a kind of offering, the sheet I tore out of my last ledger book before Quiet One, Feather on Head, and Pretty Walker took it away with them. Perhaps some weary traveler will seek refuge here one day, find it, and take some solace in the knowledge that another has been here before, and left this strange word for him or her to discover.

  early May

  We have been under way for six days, traveling on foot, keeping to the river bottoms when possible, where there is cover in case we need to hide. We try to find game trails to help ease our passage, avoiding, for obvious reasons, those that show too much sign of human traffic. Wind is an accomplished tracker and especially keeps an eye out for the prints of horse hooves, those shod belonging either to white travelers or soldiers, neither of which we are eager to run across. The horses of Indian scouts and wild horses, of course, are without shoes, though occasionally they will fit a horse with sore hooves with a kind of rawhide moccasin that leaves a different track. Sometimes we take game trails into the foothills, but we have not gone high into the Bighorns as they are still well covered with snow. The spring grass in the flatlands is just tall enough for the wild horses to graze, though we have yet to come across any.

  It feels good to me to be part of the landscape again, and I am still sometimes amazed that having been city born and raised, I have adapted so thoroughly to life in the wilderness. Wind seems to have a firm idea in mind of where we are headed, and I do not question her, I simply follow. She knows this country in the intimate, instinctive way of nomads who have traveled it for too many generations to count, and whose sure sense of direction and recall for place seems bred into their blood. She is a fine traveling companion, by all appearance as liberated as I to be out of the cave, and moving again. At the same time, no matter how well prepared we may be, a sense of vulnerability haunts me, for we are, still, two women alone in this vast countryside, surrounded by enemies.

  three days later

  Good God, I recognize now, too late, that my last entry was a premonition … my sense of vulnerability has been confirmed … Wind and I were bathing in the creek just below our evening campsite, as we try to do first thing every morning before eating and resuming our travels. We heard horses approaching and men speaking in English. We realized that they had ridden directly into our camp. We quickly got out of the water, strapped our knives to our calves in the sheaths Wind had made for them, and I my ledger book to my back. We slipped into our leggings and moccasins and slid our hide shirts over our heads. Our parfleches and all the rest of our meager possessions—bows and arrows, clubs, lariat, blankets, iron skillet, tin cups and utensils, and my supply of ledger books, we had left in the camp. We had no way of knowing who these men were, and there was no question of going back to find out. All we could do now was to try to hide ourselves, or run. If they had a guide with them, he would easily track us no matter which we did. Using sign talk, Wind indicated that we should get back in the creek and walk or swim downstream, where we would leave no sign. We were just entering the water again when he spoke behind us.

  “Ah, mes filles, quelle belle surprise! Hasn’t Jules always said that he is the luckiest man on earth?” The voice alone chilled my heart, sent gooseflesh rippling across my skin. We turned around to face Jules Seminole standing on the bank with a rifle trained upon us.

  “Ah, oui, not just one,” he said, “but two … imagine … two of Jules’ long-lost lovers returning to him together. C’est incroyable, it is unbelievable, no matter where Jules goes, no matter what Jules does, his women always manage to find their way back to him. For they are unable to forget the tender caress of his breath upon their breast.” He pointed the rifle at me. “But you, ma petite, surely you must be a ghost, non?” He laughed. “Ah, yes, you see, even the dead come back to haunt Jules, so irresistible are his charms. They said you died of a gunshot wound in the rocks, and when Jules heard the news, he came looking for you, for Jules has always appreciated the affections of dead lovers. He searched and he searched, but Jules could not find you.”

  “What the hell’s going on down there, Seminole?” a man’s voice called. “Who you talking to?”

  “Do not worry, mon capitaine,” Seminole called back. “I have found wonderful gifts for you and your men. I will return with them immediately. I believe you will wish to bestow a small supplementary bonus upon Jules for his excellent guiding services.

  “Come out of there now, ma petite.” He waved the rifle barrel and spoke to Wind in Cheyenne: “And you, too, woman of the wind, for Jules must introduce you both to his distinguished colleagues. They are gentlemen, all, of that Jules can assure you, and how delighted they will be to enjoy the company of two such beautiful women.”

  Seminole herded us at gunpoint up to our campsite. Sitting their horses indolently were five of the most disreputable-looking white men I have ever laid eyes upon. “May Jules present to you, gentlemen,” said Seminole with a flourish of his arm toward us, “la belle May Dodd, from Chicago, Illinois, and her compatriote, the personal medicine woman of the great chief Little Wolf—Woman Who Moves against the Wind.

  “Et mes filles, please allow Jules to introduce you to the distinguished members of the Three Finger Jack gang, recently relocated to our territory from the Southwest, where they were being unfairly harassed by overly zealous officers of the law. This,” he said, gesturing to the first mounted outlaw, “is the bold leader of our band, Three Finger Jack himself; to his left, Curly Bill Brody; behind him, Wild Man Charlie Beaman; to his right, Mad Dog Mac Jackman. Et enfin, and, finally, our holy spiritual advisor, known simply as the Deacon. You lovely ladies will come to know each of these fine gentlemen … dans le sens plus intime, in the most intimate way, that is to say, with the possible exception of the Deacon … due to the obvious religious prohibitions he observes.”

  “Seminole,” said Three Finger, spitting a stream of tobacco juice to the ground, “shut the fuck up, would you please?” Slouching on the back of his horse, he appeared to be a tall, long-legged fellow. He was dressed like a ruined banker, wearing a dusty bowler hat, a filthy shirt that had once been white, buttoned high on his neck, and a dingy silk tie and vest under a ratty topcoat with small frayed lapels ringing his shirt collar. Now he touched the brim of his hat with thumb and forefinger and smiled. He clearly fancied himself as a gentleman bandit. “Howdy, ladies, so pleased to meet you both. Not often do we have the good fortune of running across a pair of charming women traveling alone, who clearly require the protection of gentlemen. And, of course, my associates and I will be grateful to enjoy the company of the fairer sex.”

  Gentlemen, indeed … now three of his associates dismounted, they, too, spitting tobacco juice through rotted teeth as they came over to us. The one called Mad Dog approached me. He was of stocky build, with short arms and legs, an enormous head, and his teeth set in an underbite, and tobacco juice dribbled from the corner of his mouth. Indeed, he looked like nothing so much as a drooling bulldog. He was no taller than I, and put his face up close to mine, spread his lips in a revolting grin, and said: “Why, you may be dressed like one, but you ain’t a savage, are ya, honey? Damn, you pretty enough to eat.” Then he stuck out his tongue, stained brown, and waggled it back and forth in fron
t of my face, causing me to recoil in disgust. I thought I was going to vomit from the sight of it and the stench of his breath.

  The bandit introduced as Wild Man approached Wind. He was perhaps the dirtiest of the lot, and one of the hairiest individuals I’ve ever laid eyes on, with a tangle of greasy hair over a low brow, thick black eyebrows, his beard crusted with tobacco juice and God knows what other filth. To say that he resembled an ape would be an insult to the simian. Standing now before Wind, he said: “This one looks like she’d bust your balls, you give her half a chance,” and as if on cue, she kicked him a vicious blow between the legs. He fell to the ground, grasping his testicles and howling in agony. The others laughed as if it were the funniest thing they’d ever seen. “I guess you done gave her half a chance, Wild Man,” said Three Finger.

  “I’ll kill you,” cried Wild Man as he writhed on the ground, “I’ll kill you, you fuckin’ squaw bitch.”

  Seminole poked the barrel of his rifle under Wind’s chin and lifted her head up with it. He spoke to her in Cheyenne, a rough translation of which would be: “Woman of the wind, Jules cannot protect you from these fine gentlemen, and neither can your medicine. But you know that if you wish to live, you must give yourself to them in every way they ask, the same way you once gave yourself to Jules … with love and tenderness. Yes, of course, ma belle, you do remember our magical time together … But as you can see here, I am only in their employ, and even after you submit to them, they may still kill you.”