Strongheart: The Lost Journals of May Dodd and Molly McGill

by Jim Fergus

  “I believe that one must travel through the storm,” Howls Along Woman answered, “to return as one arrived.”

  “Yes, but you see, there are storms all the time; can you be any more specific about which particular storm one must travel through, or at least what kind of storm?”

  The girl considered this for some time before answering: “A big storm with snow and wind. Grandmother said that some people wander off the trail and die trying to get here through the storm, and so it must be to return.”

  “Which is not to say that all big storms with snow and wind will lead one back, is that correct?”

  Again, Howls Along Woman thought this over for a moment before nodding. “Yes, not all big storms.”

  “Do you know how your grandmother chose the storm that brought us here?” Ann asked.

  “My grandmother knew such things, she saw them in visions.”

  “And do you know these same things, do you see them in visions?”

  “I do not know yet.”

  “Well, then,” said Ann, addressing the rest of us, “this is not terribly helpful, is it?” She passed the pipe back to Pretty Nose, who handed it to Hawk as the other ranking member of the council. He took a puff on the pipe and, to my surprise, handed it to me. “I will let my wife speak,” he said.

  I was not prepared for this, and it took me a moment to compose my thoughts. I took a long, slow drag on the pipe to give me time to do so. That is the nature of Indian council meetings, which proceed in a traditionally leisurely fashion, and do not usually begin as directly as Ann had done.

  “Of course, I cannot speak for all of us white women … or men,” I finally said, Gertie also translating for me, “but I believe it is safe to say that as we followed Holy Woman none of us actually believed we were going to find the real world behind ours. Our highest hope was to find a good place to make winter camp, which we have surely done … although I think we expected it to be in our own world. During the course of the games with the Shoshone, and particularly last night at the feast and dance, we seem to have received some confirmation of the fact that we now reside in a different … and unfamiliar place.”

  “Molly,” said Gertie, “I know it ain’t correct for me to interrupt ya in council, but I need to say that even though you count me as a white woman, I been around these folks so long that I did kinda believed Holy Woman was goin’ to get us here. You remember that I didn’t think you’d been rescued by Phemie and Pretty Nose back on the cliff, because I didn’t see it with my own eyes, I saw you jump. That’s a white man way a’ lookin’ at the world. But now I got my Injun mind straight again, and I know that ya don’t need to see everything to believe in it.”

  “Thank you, Gertie,” I said with a smile. “I stand corrected.

  “Perhaps it is too early to ask this,” I continued, “but I’m wondering how many of you have already decided that you wish to return to where we came from? I am not going to ask for a show of hands, I would just like to hear the thoughts of each of you who choose to answer. Ann, I think we know your feelings, so why don’t we start with our chief, Pretty Nose.” I handed the pipe back to her.

  She took a puff. “I, too, believe that we have found a good valley to make our winter camp,” she answered. “But I was not made a war chief to play games. I have family where we came from that I must protect. The war is not over yet, and, win or lose, I must return to fight the soldiers.”

  She handed the pipe to May, who took a drag. “My husband and I have spoken at length about this,” she answered, “and as lovely as it is here, we need to live in our own world. I have two children there with whom I hope one day to be reunited. We are going back if that can be managed. Feather on Head will accompany us, for it is her world, too, and my daughter is as attached to her as she is to her mother.” May handed the pipe to Woman Who Moves against the Wind, who sat beside her.

  “Yes,” said Wind, nodding, “I come with you. Those many moons ago, Chief Little Wolf sent me to make you well, and bring you back, and now I will.” She passed the pipe to Phemie.

  “I am nothing in that world,” Phemie said, “not even considered to be a human being. They say my people are free since the war, and to that I say, not even close. I am known now on the plains as a warrior, and I have killed soldiers. If I go back they will surely hang me. Black Man and I are going to have a child. We will stay here and are happy to do so.” She passed the pipe to Maria, seated beside her.

  “I have said before that Chucho el Roto will kill me if I go back to Mexico … or worse. Rock and I do not believe that we can win the war against the soldiers; we will either die fighting or be put on a reservation. We do not wish to live in such a place. We like it here and we stay.” The pipe went to Martha.

  “Most of you probably know my answer already. If May and her daughter Wren leave, so do I and my son Little Tangle Hair. I speak also for Grass Girl, who will come with me for the same reason that Feather on Head will go with May. They brought our babies here, and we shall all return together.” She passed the pipe to Hannah.

  The poor thing looked at Ann with a stricken expression, as if she were betraying her. “I am sorry, milady, but Little Beaver and I are happy here. If you leave, I must give my notice now.”

  Ann smiled at her. “That’s quite alright, dear, I understand, and I should very much like for you to be happy. I shall find another suitable maidservant. However, you are not rid of me yet. We do not even know if we can leave this bloody place.”

  Hannah handed the pipe to Bridge Girl, who spoke up in her perfect English with a British accent learned from Helen Flight and further advanced by Ann. “Lady Ann, although you have not invited me, I am staying here with Dog Woman. I do not wish to cross the sea, for that is not my land on the other side.”

  “Of course it isn’t, my dear girl,” Ann said, “and I did not invite you simply because I knew you would not come. You are quite right, you will be much happier here. You would at best be an object of curiosity in Great Britain, like a zoo animal, and the two of us together would be scorned.”

  The pipe went to Warpath Woman now, who puffed and then drew her knife in response, holding it up for all to see. “I go home to fight the soldiers,” she said. “That is why they call me Vé’ otsé’e. I am a Strongheart.”

  And to Lulu. “Mes chers amis, vous me connaissez, assez bien,” she said, “you know Lulu well enough. I am not a warrior. Mon petit écureuil, my little Squirrel and I are in love, and we are going to stay here and have a family together. Bien sûr, I must give up my dreams of becoming an actress … but I have an idea to form a little traveling dance and theater company, and take my troupe to perform in front of the different tribes here. We will soon start auditions to entertain us through the winter.”

  To Méona’hané’e, Kills in the Morning Woman: “I stay with the Strongheart society, wherever they go,” she said. “It is my duty to fight the soldiers.”

  Both Hawk’s friend Red Fox and the Arapaho warrior High Bear expressed similar allegiance to rejoining the war.

  The pipe now made its way to Astrid. “We have not yet decided,” she said, handing it to Christian.

  “While I was among the Shoshone these past days,” he said, “I witnessed a very similar kind of society to my own, one that follows the nonviolent teachings of Jesus.”

  “Except that they know nothing about Jesus, Christian,” said Astrid, “so don’t spoil it for them.” We all felt the friction between them.

  “Astrid wants to go back with those who want to make war against the soldiers,” Christian said, “while I personally would prefer to stay. At the same time, it has occurred to me that as the people who live here appear already to embrace the path of Jesus”—he looked now at his wife—“even if they know nothing about him, I can serve a higher purpose by returning to what the Shoshone so aptly refer to as the ‘dead world’ and try to spread his word there … where it is most needed. And by the way, just so that you all know, I am not unawar
e of the irony of a man who does not believe in raising his hand against another human being, even in self-defense, being married to a woman Viking.”

  He handed the pipe to Gertie. “Aw, goddammit to hell,” she said, “I seen a lot a misery in that ole dead world … saw my own babies slaughtered by Chivington’s soldiers at Sand Creek … ya think I can ever get that outta my head? I’m tired now and I’m too old to fight, and I don’t want to kill those young fellas that the Army sends out to the plains … they’re just kids, they don’t know no better … I wouldn’t mind killin’ some a’ the politicians and generals who send ’em, though … Phil Sheridan, for one … but I’ll have to leave that job to someone else. I like this country, I don’t give a damn if it’s in another world … looks like a better place to me. Ole Gertie is goin’ to live out the rest a’ her days right here.”

  Now the pipe had made the full circle and been repacked with tobacco three times as it did. “So I think that’s everyone, ain’t it?” Gertie said, “’cept for you, Molly.” She handed it to me. “You started this, so let’s hear what do you and Hawk got in mind to do?”

  I looked at Hawk beside me, who smiled and nodded. I took a deep drag of smoke and exhaled. “I believe I have the skills to be a warrior,” I said, “but as all my Strongheart friends here know, my heart’s never really been in it. I don’t want to kill soldiers, I never did … I just want to have my baby in a safe place. I left my first little girl with her drunk, crazy father … and like you, Gertie, do you think I’ll ever get that out of my head? I couldn’t bear to lose another child, and I’m not going to have one in Sing Sing. That’s why I jumped off the cliff. You saw it right, Gertie. I let myself fall off that cliff … we were both going to die there, my unborn baby and me … and I got rescued. Both those things happened, I don’t know how, and don’t expect I ever will, but they did. Hawk lost his whole family to the soldiers, and his grandmother is gone now. We’ve decided to stay in whatever this place is. We’re happy together; we think we can make a good life and raise a family here. Why would we risk that by going back to where we were trying to escape from in the first place?”

  “Well, goddammit, then, honey,” said Gertie, slapping her knee, “you just remember, and you other gals, too, who are stayin’ put, you remember that as long as she’s still kickin’, you got ole Auntie Gertie to babysit for ya when the time comes. Ain’t nothin’ I love better than little Injun babies, an’ that’s what they’re all gonna be, no matter what color they come out.”

  It occurred to me then that the one person whose plans we hadn’t asked yet was young Howls Along Woman. “You came here with your grandmother, Amahtóohè’e,” I said. “Now do you wish to stay or to go home?” I tried to pass her the pipe but she waved it away. As the successor to her grandmother, and after hearing everyone speak, she seemed to feel a heavy burden of responsibility.

  “Tomorrow I leave on a vision quest,” she answered. “Perhaps when I return, I will know.”

  “Which would you prefer?” I pressed.

  “Whichever my vision quest reveals. If I learn the path home, I will go, and I will lead those who choose to go with me there.”

  “And if it reveals nothing, and you do not learn the path home?” I asked.

  “Then I will wait until I make another vision quest.”

  “Is there anything at all,” asked Ann, “which might precipitate a successful quest … anything, for instance, that I might be able to do to help you, child?”

  The girl shook her head. “One makes a vision quest alone.”

  28 October 1976

  The fine autumn weather has held, though the nights have turned cooler. The skies are a clear deep blue, and the leaves in the mountains that surround us have changed colors but are now falling rapidly from the trees. The fall rutting season of the elk in the high country is coming to an end and the bulls have mostly stopped bugling, a lusty bellowing sound that travels all the way to our village. Hawk tells me that the adult bulls seduce the cows in this manner, gathering a harem that they guard jealously from other interloping bulls, with whom they frequently fight, their antlers clashing sometimes to the death of one of them, and occasionally both, especially if their horns become locked and they cannot separate, in which case they die slowly together. Which points up the fact that it is not only the men of our species who behave foolishly during women’s estrus.

  Ann Hall, still much agitated, has announced that she is planning to leave during the first serious winter storm, and if that doesn’t lead her out, in every storm thereafter, assuming she survives those that don’t. She seems terrified now of this vast virgin landscape, although it hardly seems different than that which we left, except for the fact that we rarely see anyone but those in our band, there are no railroad tracks, and we have no need to worry about running into soldiers or enemy bands, a fact that those of us who have elected to stay find of great comfort. But I think it is that which most disturbs her, finding herself in a place by all appearances untouched by civilization, a fear of open space, and the sense of being trapped here. We try to calm her anxiety, but to no avail; even her friend Bridge Girl is unsuccessful in these efforts.

  Hawk and I have finished preparations of our winter camp—the spacious lodge erected and well supplied with buffalo robes for our sleeping places, backrests built, all the wood and buffalo chips we might need for the fire stacked outside, and a good stock of cut grass for our string of horses. We know it won’t be long before we are tipi bound for the long cold season, and so we have decided to take advantage of the still-temperate weather and make a three-day tour of the surrounding countryside. We left Mouse in the care of Martha and Grass Girl and rode out on an invigoratingly crisp fall morning.

  Hawk has an innate sense of direction and perfect recall of the touchstones of landscape to guide him as surely as a printed map, even in country with which he is unfamiliar. As we ride, I remember the story I had been told of him as a boy, running away from the hated Indian school to which he was sent in Minnesota, after he and his mother were captured by soldiers. Twelve years old and he walked alone all the way back to Chief Dull Knife’s village over a thousand miles away, finding it with the unerring instinct of a homing pigeon … or rather a hawk soaring high, with a perfect view of the world beneath him—the path home.

  He carries still as his own remembrance of his trials the scars on the backs of his hands, where he had been beaten repeatedly by the Jesuit schoolmaster for refusing to speak English. I sometimes take them in my own hands and kiss him there, as if this act of tenderness might heal them … and perhaps it has in a way, these small gestures of love. To me his quiet confidence in moving so gracefully through the natural world gives me a sense of security and completeness I have never before known.

  I remember how lost I was in bitterness and despair when first we met, as I think was he. It was during those hours after the attack on our train, captured and riding behind him on his horse, my arms around his waist, my head against his back, breathing in the scent of his wildness I have always loved, that we found each other, and our hearts began to fill again. He has since taught me to defend myself, to read the signs of flora and fauna as a means of survival on this earth. He even taught me how to behave if ever confronted by a grizzly bear, a skill passed down to him by his grandmother, Bear Doctor Woman.

  I believe he respects me for the constant questions I ask him, and my eagerness to know everything he knows, and he treats me as an equal, not as a possession. What do I bring to him? Perhaps some womanly skills that for a man are also worth knowing—tenderness, affection, the pleasure of erotic acts given, received, shared … although I am surely no expert in that field, and those things we learn together.

  Now Hawk looks up in the air and smiles. I follow his eyes and see a pair of hawks soaring high, their wings set and catching the wind, so that they seem to tilt in unison from side to side. “Are they hunting or just flying for pleasure?”

  “For pleasure.”
<
br />   “Tell me what it’s like to fly.”

  “Have you ever dreamed about it?” he asks.

  “Yes, many times.”

  He nods. “It’s like that.”

  “After I returned from the cliff, I dreamed day and night of riding on the back of a giant raptor, my face buried in its feathers. I was naked and the feathers were soft, and smelled like you. I became aroused. I thought I was going crazy.”

  He looks at me, smiles, and nods again. “Yes.”

  “What does that mean, yes?” I ask. “Was it you in my dream?”

  “Yes.”

  “Good, I thought so.”

  “Do you know how Phemie and Pretty Nose saved me? I can’t remember.”

  “Yes.”

  “OK, my man of few words, that’s enough yeses. How did they save me?… I remember falling.”

  “Yes, you fell, but I caught you and lifted you back up, and Phemie swept you away.”

  “Why have you never told me this before?” I ask.

  “Because you’ve never asked me,” he answers.

  “Yes, that’s true,” I admit. “I think I was afraid to find out … because it’s so bizarre … Sometimes, it seems to me that it’s better just to let things like that happen, be grateful for them, and not ask questions. Gertie told me that a long time ago about living with Indians.”

  “Gertie is right.”

  “It’s funny that Ann saw what happened, and she was the most skeptical of all about anything without rational explanation. Yet Gertie, who lived among your people, and had children by them, saw nothing.”

  “I did not wish for her to see,” Hawk surprises me by saying, “because she was working for the soldiers and I did not fully trust her.”

  “So you get to decide what other people see, and what they don’t?”

  “Sometimes. You cannot be a shape-shifter without knowing how to do that.”

  This was the conversation we had not yet had … and I realized as we spoke that it was because I didn’t want to have it, I didn’t want to be a nonbeliever, in the same way that I resisted believing in the real world behind this one. I did not want to be forced to believe something unbelievable. And somehow Hawk had known this all along, learned surely from his own experience. Such things scare people, shake the foundations of our beliefs, make us think we must be insane.