Strongheart: The Lost Journals of May Dodd and Molly McGill

by Jim Fergus

  “Yes, ma’am, I can sure do that,” he said. “I own the saddlery, and it’s right around the corner. But we sell used tack here, too, in case that’s of interest to you. Got a good selection of it, as you can see. As to the horses, I’d be happy to have a look at them. They outside?”

  “Yes, sir, they’re tied up to your hitching rail.”

  “Let’s do that first.”

  We went outside and P. J. Bartlett looked over the horses, all three of them geldings, one a bay, the other a buckskin, the third a paint. “Buyer’s pick of two out of the three,” I said. “My horse with the bridle is not included. And the third that you don’t take, I need to pack some goods with. You’ll find that they are all sound.”

  He opened the horses’ mouths to check teeth and gums, picked up hooves, ran his hand down their flanks. “Where did these horses come from, Mrs. Ames?” he asked.

  “My husband and I bought them off a trader in Grand Island, Nebraska.”

  “And why are you selling them?”

  “It’s our business, that’s what we do, we buy and sell horses. We have a good string right now, and it’s time to divest ourselves of a few. All three of these are broke to saddle and pack, they have soft mouths, and they’ve been trained to neck rein. Of course, you’re welcome to ride all of them, or your boys can.”

  “Why isn’t your husband here to make the sale, if I may ask?”

  “He broke his leg. He’s laid up for a while. But I’m quite capable of making the deal myself, Mr. Bartlett.”

  He looked now at the horse I ride. “Where’s your saddle?”

  “Stolen, both our saddles. That’s why I need to buy new ones.”

  “By Injuns, I’ll wager … thievin’ bastards … pardon my language … surprised they didn’t get your horses.”

  “You’d lose that wager, sir,” I said. “They were stolen at gunpoint by a gang of outlaws, not Indians. They took some of our horses, too. You ask a lot of questions, Mr. Bartlett. Are you interested in buying, or not?”

  He looked at me with a wry smile. “Yes, ma’am, I can see that you are quite capable of making the deal.”

  He called the two boys out and introduced them as his sons—Clive, the elder, roughly fourteen years old; and Cooper, the younger, perhaps twelve. He told them to fetch three saddles and bridles. When all the horses were saddled, they mounted and rode around the ring, putting them through their paces, then switching so that each of them rode all three. I already knew what these horses could do, for Wind has been working with all of them, fine-tuning those that required it. While some are, by nature, wilder, more skittish, or less biddable than others, she is a master at smoothing out their faults and refining their skills.

  Before dismounting, P. J. Bartlett and Sons gathered in the middle of the ring to compare impressions. The father kept a good poker face when he rode over to me at the railing and dismounted, giving nothing away. “We’ll let the boys take care of the horses,” he said. “Why don’t you and I go back to the office, look at some tack, and see if we can’t come to terms.”

  I sold the two horses to P. J. Bartlett, and he wanted to buy the third as well, but I repeated that I needed it to carry the supplies I hoped to purchase at the mercantile, and the tack I was buying from him. This included two used McClellan saddles of the same style used by the cavalry, both with saddle blankets, saddlebags, rifle scabbards, two additional lariats, and a pair of used canvas pack panniers in which to load my goods. I told him that we had lost our currycomb on the trail, and he gave me one at no charge. After a good deal of haggling, the price of all these items was deducted from the purchase price of the horses, and I still walked away with just over four hundred dollars in cash. I didn’t mind a bit that the tack wasn’t new, for it was all in good condition and well cared for, the used saddles broken in and more comfortable for both rider and horse than new ones, and the leather on the other items equally softened and pliable with a little age and saddle soap. In addition to costing a good deal more, I knew that had I purchased all new tack, Wind and I would look like greenhorns, or more likely be taken for thieves.

  “You mentioned that you and your husband have a good string,” Bartlett said, after we had closed our deal. “I might be interested in buying a few more horses from you. How many head do you have left?” He was being casual about it, careful not to be overly eager, but I could tell he was impressed with our horses.

  “After this sale, we have four left to sell, not counting our two mounts and the two we pack, but I think we’ll hang on to all of them for now.”

  “I can see why your husband lets you make the deals, Mrs. Ames. You drive a hard bargain, but you won’t get a better price from anyone else around here. When people want to buy and sell horses, including the stock buyers at the fort, they come to P. J. Bartlett and Sons.”

  “It’s not that my husband lets me make the deals, sir,” I said. “We’re full partners and he trusts me to do it. I don’t have to ask permission.” I have never been a shrinking violet and have often been accused of being headstrong, which quality, indeed, landed me in the lunatic asylum at the hands of my father. My time living with the Cheyenne, and fending now for myself with Wind in this treacherous country, has further emboldened me, and the bloody act of killing the outlaw Three Finger Jack made me even less tolerant of being treated like a girl. And so here I find myself defining and defending my relationship with my nonexistent husband.

  P. J. Bartlett smiled wryly at me, again. “My apologies, Mrs. Ames,” he said, nodding. “I didn’t mean to imply anything. I can see that you are more than capable. Your husband is a lucky man to have you as a partner.”

  I liked P. J.; he was fair and honest, and not afraid to treat a woman as an equal. “We might be willing to sell you a few more of our string, Mr. Bartlett.”

  “Where are you quartered?” he asked. “With your husband laid up, I could come out and have a look at them myself.”

  “We have no fixed location right now. But we have a Cheyenne woman with us who is a gifted horse trainer. She and I might be able to bring the horses to you. However, she is afraid to come into a white-man town. And who can blame her? You would have to provide some assurance that she would be protected from harm.”

  Before I made any commitment, I needed to speak to Wind, and to consider the risk of making another trip to town. I left my purchased tack and the horses at the stables and walked the short distance to the mercantile to try to buy suitable riding attire. It goes without saying that they had no breeches or any other style of trousers for women, nor did I even bother asking. Indeed, in Chicago it has long been against the law for women to wear trousers in public. Instead I asked the owner if they sold riding pants for small men that might fit me, and he showed me a pair of blue denim trousers that he said ranchers wore, and which I bought in the smallest size he had in stock. I also purchased a pair of leather chaps that were not unlike our Cheyenne leggings, a pair of riding boots sized for boys that fit me well enough, a pair of socks, a boy’s canvas shirt, a fringed leather frontiersman jacket, and a wide-brimmed felt hat of a style worn by cowboys on the prairie, with a stampede string—that is to say, a string that secures the hat under the chin so as not to be lost to the wind or at a gallop. I also purchased sewing needles and thread, so that I might be able to alter my clothing to fit, or patch them when necessary. I may be dressing like a white man in the days to come, but I am still vain enough to wish to appear with a modicum of feminine style. And in that same spirit, I purchased a mirror.

  In the way of supplies for Wind and me, I bought a tin coffeepot and two cups, two tin plates, utensils, an iron skillet and a Dutch oven, a sack of sugar, one of flour, a bag of salt, and the all-important bag of coffee. Of course, the Cheyenne themselves had traded for such items for decades, but it felt strange to me stepping back into the world of white commerce, and having money in my pockets with which to pay for it. I also bought a small canvas tent to facilitate our evening bivouacs. Finall
y, I purchased two secondhand 1873 Winchester carbines with a box of cartridges for each. These rifles are light and short-barreled, making them easier for Wind and me to handle on horseback.

  Now, from beneath the counter, the proprietor withdrew a wooden box, which he set before me, opening it and turning it around for me to view the contents. “As long as you’re buying arms, madam,” he said, “perhaps you might be interested in this for personal protection. It is the new Remington Model 1875 Single Action Army revolver. It just came out last year. The fort placed a large order with me, and I had a few left over. This is my last one.” And that was my last purchase. I felt as though Wind and I would be well stocked for some time.

  I paid for all the items and asked the owner of the mercantile if I could go into his back room to change my clothes, as I would be riding this afternoon. I told him that I would like to leave all my other purchases here, and return later with my horses and panniers to pick everything up. He was an agreeable fellow, grateful for my purchase, and said that he would see that everything was put aside and ready for me upon my return.

  In the back room, I dressed in my new clothes, folded my dress, and carried it and my canvas shoes back into the store; I saw that two soldiers had entered and stood at the counter, speaking to the proprietor. They turned at my entrance. I had my hair pinned up and was wearing my broadbrimmed hat, beneath the rim of which I looked directly into the dark, deep-set eyes of Captain John G. Bourke. I quickly averted my gaze and strode directly out the front door, uncertain as to whether he had recognized me. There was no reason he could expect me to still be alive, and dressed as I was, with only that short glance between us, he may not have made the connection.

  I returned to the stables. My two horses were tied again to the hitching rail. The boys had saddled mine, fixed the panniers on the other, and loaded them with the rest of my tack. I went directly to the office.

  “I have a small problem, Mr. Bartlett, and I wonder if you and the boys might be able to do me a small favor?”

  “We are at your disposal, Mrs. Ames. What can we do for you?”

  “I purchased a number of goods at the mercantile, and I told the proprietor that I would return shortly to pick them up. I’ve paid my bill in full. I’d like you to ask one of your boys to lead my pack horse over there, load the goods in the panniers, and return here with them. I would be happy to pay him for his time.”

  “That is easily enough arranged, Mrs. Ames,” he said, “I’ll send the boys together, and no further payment is necessary. Of course, they know the proprietor, Henry Bacon, quite well, and he will certainly release your goods to them. And while they are on this mission, perhaps you and I can conclude our conversation about your other horses.”

  “I was thinking similarly, sir,” I said, “which is why I hoped the boys could run that errand for me.”

  Upon their return, I asked the boys, as casually as possible, if anyone else had been in the mercantile when they picked up my goods.

  “No, ma’am,” said Clive. “Only Mr. Bacon. He was real curious to know who you were.”

  “And how did you answer?”

  “We said you were a horse trader, ma’am, and that’s all we knew. Weren’t we supposed to?”

  “No, that’s fine, of course, thank you, boys,” I said, relieved. Had he recognized me, Bourke would have surely questioned Mr. Bacon and waited at the store for my return, or come looking for me. Although, as the captain was presumably there on Army business, perhaps he did not have the time to do either. Regardless, I was anxious to be on my way, and in short order I mounted and said my good-byes. Only after I had left Tent City behind and entered the foothills did I finally relax. And then, although it would have caused me nothing but trouble, I felt a sudden absurd pang of regret, even a faint, distant longing that Bourke had not recognized me … and come looking for me.

  THE LOST JOURNALS OF MOLLY McGILL

  Reunions

  Today, as we traveled across the prairie, I heard the distinctive cry of a hawk overhead and looked up to see it circling high in the air. I know that cry, I know that pattern of flight. I scanned the horizon and saw a lone horseman in the distance, dragging a travois. Without another thought, or a word to my friends, I turned Spring, touched my heels to her flanks, and galloped toward him.

  “Be careful, Molly!” Christian called after me. “You have no idea who that is!”

  “Of course I do!” I called back.

  —from the lost journals of Molly McGill

  5 August 1876

  Having filled with the tiniest handwriting I could muster all the remaining space left to me in Meggie and Lady Ann’s ledger book, I confess to having put my pencils to work on the mostly empty pages of soldier Josh Miller’s diary, the only source of paper available to me. What shame I still feel, and always will, for having essentially robbed the boy’s corpse … or at least that of his horse, thereby denying his mother the chance to read her son’s last words.

  We continue to collect strays—several more families, and a few small bands of young warriors—mostly those who sneaked away from one or another of the agencies to participate in the grand coming-together of tribes on the Little Bighorn and have decided to enjoy their freedom a while longer, as well as the last chance to hunt the fast-diminishing herds of buffalo. Better that than becoming wolves for the blue soldiers, hunting down their own people. And so we welcome them to join us. This is the last trace of the only world they have known and been prepared for in their short lives, the only world a hundred generations before them has known. As winter comes on, they will return to their families at the agencies, where they will barely subsist through the cold season on the starvation rations of food and supplies the government provides them, after the agents in charge of distributing them have stolen their share. This is the new world the white man is making and which they must enter, for all feel the door to their own world closing behind them. As do we, who having already lost one world seem about to lose another. We continue to flee toward an unknown destination, blindly following a blind woman.

  Today, as we traveled across the prairie, I heard the distinctive cry of a hawk overhead and looked up to see it circling high in the air. I know that cry, I know that pattern of flight. I scanned the horizon and saw a lone horseman in the distance, dragging a travois. Without another thought, or a word to my friends, I turned Spring, touched my heels to her flanks, and galloped toward him.

  “Be careful, Molly!” Christian called after me. “You have no idea who that is!”

  “Of course I do!” I called back.

  I could not yet make out his face as I approached, but I could see that he wore a single feather in his headband, as is his way. Hawk has always eschewed the sartorial trappings of other warriors before they go off to battle—the elaborately beaded shirts, the painted faces and decorated braids, the bone chokers and sundry totems they attach to themselves and their horses, and the majestic headdresses whose feathers trail nearly to the ground. The warriors believe in looking both magnificent and fierce when they go to war, both to impress and to strike fear in the hearts of their enemies, as well as to protect themselves from harm … and, just in case their medicine fails them and they are killed in the fight, so that they will enter Seano in all their full splendor. Hawk, on the other hand, whether it be in war or in peace, always wears simple, unadorned deer-hide shirts, leggings, and moccasins, his hair unbraided and with a single red-tailed hawk feather in his headband, to honor his spirit animal.

  As I drew closer, I saw that the travois Hawk’s horse pulled bore his grandmother, Bear Doctor Woman. I reined up sharply before them, leapt from Spring’s back, and ran to him as he, too, dismounted. We looked in each other’s eyes, my entire body flooded with love, with joy, with passion. We embraced tightly, kissed deeply, and held on for a long time, as if afraid to let go for fear of losing each other again.

  “I wondered if I would ever see you again,” I whispered in his ear.

  “
And I you. Pretty Nose told me the soldiers had taken you away.”

  “They did, but I have come back. And now you are home.”

  I went to greet Bear Doctor Woman on the travois. Her eyes were closed and I leaned down and whispered to her. She opened them and looked up at me blankly for a moment, as if she didn’t recognize me. But then she smiled, and whispered one of the names by which the Cheyenne call me, Heóvá’é’ke, Yellow Hair Woman, the same Indian name as Hawk’s mother, the little white girl Bear Doctor Woman had raised from a young age after the child was kidnapped from her family.

  “Heóvá’é’ke, it makes my heart glad to see that you have returned to us,” she said in Cheyenne. “I am dying and Little Hawk needs you.” I wondered if perhaps the old woman did not think I was his mother, her daughter, rather than his wife.

  “As I need him,” I said.

  “I told him to leave me by the side of the trail and let me die in peace. But he is afraid to lose me, as he lost you.”

  We had already witnessed the way of the elderly Cheyenne, who, when they become sick or simply too weak from age to travel, go off by themselves to die so that they do not slow the tribe, or, if camped in a long-term village, become a burden to their family. It is a brutal life, but one lived to the rhythm and rules of nature.

  “You must tell him to let me die, Heóvá’é’ke,” Bear Doctor Woman said. “I am ready. And you must take care of Little Hawk now that you have returned.”

  Hawk and I decided that for the sake of privacy after our long separation, we would ride roughly parallel to the band, but separate from it, and that we would camp with some distance between us. My friends will not worry about me, for they will know that I am with him. As we rode on that afternoon, I brought up the matter of his grandmother, and I told him what she had said to me.