Strongheart: The Lost Journals of May Dodd and Molly McGill

by Jim Fergus

  “What kind of signal do you think Pretty Nose will send,” Martha asked, “if she needs us to come with the horses?”

  “I don’t know, but whatever it is, I’m sure we’ll recognize it.”

  “How many soldiers do you think they will kill?”

  “I have no idea, Martha … I’m just glad now that we don’t have to do it.”

  She nodded. “As am I.”

  “Now all we can do is wait … and hope to see them running back toward us.”

  Horse Boy kept the mounts gentled. We seemed far enough away that if they became nervous and whinnied, it would not carry to the Army camp, but then again, sound, like light, travels great distances in the plains, and horses can communicate farther apart than we can. He sat in their midst now. He had been identified at age five as having an affinity with the animals. They were so accustomed to and comfortable with him that he was like a member of the herd, which is why Pretty Nose had wanted him along with us tonight.

  We waited … an hour or so passed. Martha announced that she had to relieve herself. There was not much cover here, and we have little need to be modest with each other in such situations, but she rose and went into a shallow depression just behind us. Her movement seemed to make the horses suddenly restless. Horse Boy stood to calm them. Martha, I have to say, is one of those people who has never had a strong relationship with equines; she makes them nervous, with the exception of her little donkey, upon whom she dotes.

  But it was not Martha who had caused the restlessness among the stock, for when I heard her behind me and turned in my seated position to look, I saw that Jules Seminole walked beside her. He wore a brown cavalry hat with the top cut out, a feather protruding from it, and the brim turned up in front, a tattered navy blue Army coat, with sergeant’s insignia, and filthy light blue cavalry pants. A holstered pistol hung at his right hip, and a sheathed sword on his left.

  Seminole had his arm around Martha’s shoulders, his head bent toward her, speaking to her softly, intimately, like a lover. “That terrible woman took you away from Jules, ma chérie,” he said, “but Jules never lost faith that you would escape and return to him.”

  I had come quickly to my feet. Martha’s face was fixed in a kind of blank stare, as if she was in shock, or, God forbid, had returned to the state Molly had described to me after her rescue from Seminole. Now Seminole, as if he had just noticed me, turned his regard in my direction. “Ah … mais … but … but who is this lovely vision that stands before Jules? Is it possible? Have the two great loves of Jules’ life returned to him together? Is it not his uncle Chief Little Wolf’s lovely bride, May Dodd, upon whom Jules is gazing?” I saw that in his other hand he held Martha’s knife. I drew my revolver from the holster, cocked the hammer with my thumb, and pointed it at him. He gathered Martha closer against him so that he was standing half behind her, and raised the knife to her throat.

  “Let go of her, Seminole.”

  “Ah, non … non, non, non,” he said, shaking his head. “It is you, ma chérie, my darling girl, who must very slowly and very gently release the hammer and lay the gun down at your feet.”

  “Don’t,” Martha said. “Don’t do it, May. Take your shot. I know you can. Or let him kill me, I don’t care, and then shoot the bastard dead.”

  “Now that would not be wise,” Seminole said, and then he called out, “Mes amis, viennent, come out now.” From the tall grass in the depression behind him, seven Crow scouts stood, all armed with Army-issue gun belts.

  I wouldn’t have fired, even if I could have made the shot, for I knew that would wake the entire Army camp and jeopardize our warriors. I did as Seminole told me and laid the gun down.

  Our horses now were increasingly unsettled … I believe that they can smell evil … Horse Boy was trying to calm them.

  “But what in the world are you doing here, my loves?” Seminole asked. “Did you just come in search of Jules? And who do these horses belong to?”

  “None of your business,” I said.

  Now he threw Martha aside and she fell to the ground. Three of the scouts quickly surrounded her as Seminole approached me, drawing his sword and placing the tip of the blade beneath my chin. “That is where you are quite mistaken, ma petite. For Jules is now an honorary sergeant and chief scout for Colonel Ranald Mackenzie’s force of eleven companies of the Second, Third, Fourth, and Fifth United States Cavalry regiments. The sooner you answer Jules’ questions, my pet, the sooner we shall enjoy our petit ménage à trois … bien sûr, of course, Jules will be forced to bind you both, and he knows from our previous erotic adventures how that excites you.”

  “So if I don’t answer you sooner,” I asked, “but rather later, does that mean we would have to postpone our ménage à trois?”

  He pressed the blade tip harder under my chin, piercing the skin, and, as I raised my head, I could feel the blood trickling down my neck. “Are you making fun of Jules?” he said. “Do you not know how much Jules detests that? No, it does not mean postponement, it means that one member of our ménage à trois will participate as a corpse. Now Jules would find that very, very exciting … but perhaps less so for you, whose role that would be.”

  “Martha and I no longer live with the Cheyenne,” I said, making this up as I went along … “Could you please lower your sword?” He did so. “We are traveling with a group of Shoshone,” I continued, “and they left their horses here to approach the Army encampment. They went on foot and unarmed so as not to be mistaken as hostiles. The Shoshone are allies of your Army, and many of them scout for you, do they not?”

  “What are their names, these Shoshone?” he asked.

  “Neither of us speak their language, so we have not learned their names. We’ve only been with them for a short time.”

  “Très bien,” he said, sliding his sword back into its sheath, “very well, that is excellent information. Jules and his scouts are headed to the bivouac ourselves. Of course, Jules will have to hide you, for if the Army discovers that he has taken two white women captive, they will take you away from him, as they did with the big fair-haired white girl I captured, the one who stole Jules’ bride. Do you know her?”

  “No, I don’t.”

  “She mocked Jules, too. She is dangerous, that girl. Jules was going to have to kill her first so that he could make love to her, but your old lover, Captain Bourke, took her away before he could.”

  We heard then our warriors’ unmistakable distress call coming from the camp, in the form of the ululations of a pack of coyotes.

  At the same instant, we heard behind us pounding hoofbeats and the rustle of dry grass, and a moment later, Ann, Astrid, Chance, and Christian appeared in the faint moonlight, their horses in a line, galloping down upon Seminole’s scouts. All but Christian rode without holding their reins. Chance, face painted and wearing his Comanche attire, carried his sheathed sword at his side, and was raising his knife to throw; Ann held her double-barreled scattergun to her shoulder; Astrid drew an arrow back in her bow, releasing it at the same time as Ann fired her first barrel, and, immediately after, the second; Chance threw his knife. Astrid’s arrow struck one of the Crow in the chest. He went down, as did the two men Ann shot. The blade of Chance’s knife buried itself up to the hilt in the neck of the fourth scout, who tried to pull it out but collapsed before he managed to. Astrid pulled another arrow from the quiver on her back, set it in her bow, drew, and released, as Ann opened her scattergun, loaded two fresh cartridges, and fired one after the next, taking three more of the scouts down. The last Crow scout standing had drawn his revolver, cocked it, and raised it, aiming at Chance, who now rode down upon him, and with a mighty slash of his sword severed the man’s arm at the elbow, the revolver still in his hand firing when it hit the ground. Chance reined up, turning his horse in a tight circle and in the same motion, sword spinning over his head as if he were twirling a lasso, he lopped off the Crow’s head. So perfectly choreographed, the whole bloody attack had taken no more
than fifteen seconds.

  Seminole, cowardly as always, was running to his horse. He had one foot in the stirrup and was about to swing into the saddle when Martha, chasing behind him, leapt onto his back, her arm around his neck, and with a war cry of vengeance and the superhuman strength of rage, pulled him off, the two of them tumbling to the ground. I was running right behind her, my knife already drawn from the sheath. I reached them as they were wrestling fiercely on the ground. Aiming for Seminole’s throat as I stabbed, I missed my mark, my knife blade glancing off his jawbone. It was not a killing thrust, but blood sprayed from the wound, and Seminole stopped struggling. I put the blade firmly against his throat. “Ah, non, non, mes chéries, do not hurt Jules. You know that no one has ever loved you as much as Jules.”

  From the rawhide belt at her waist, Martha pulled out her stone tomahawk, one end of which was tapered to split skin and skulls, the other blunt for bludgeoning. “I counted first coup, May,” she said sternly, warning me off the kill.

  “Of course you did, Martha, I wouldn’t presume to take that away from you.”

  “Ah oui, mes filles, c’est ça!… you have both counted coup upon Jules, first and second coup. I felicitate you both for your skill and bravery as warriors, and for the magnanimity of your hearts in letting Jules go free. Such admirable sportsmanship! Now we shall be able to amuse ourselves like this another time.”

  “Good God,” I said, “you really are out of your mind, aren’t you, Seminole?”

  “My coup and my kill,” Martha said. From the beaver hide pouch she wears at her waist, Martha pulled a sharpened wooden stake. “Wind told me that the only way to kill a sorcerer is to drive a stake through his black heart. I have carried this ever since, knowing that one day I would have this chance to use it.”

  With one hand, she held the sharpened end against Seminole’s left breast, and as she did so, to prevent him from struggling, I pressed the knife even more firmly against his throat, until I pierced the skin and a thin line of blood appeared.

  I heard the others ride up behind us, but I raised my other hand to stop them. This was Martha’s moment.

  Seminole began to weep. “Ah, non, je t’en supplie, ma chérie,” he said, “I beg you, please don’t kill Jules.”

  Martha raised her tomahawk, and, using the blunt side of the stone, she struck the stake a terrific blow, driving it into his chest, her second stroke of the club piercing his heart, the wood splintering. Seminole’s back arced up, the blood spewing from the wound as black as oil, his eyes opening wide as if they would leap from their sockets, and then he fell back, dead.

  It was done. We ran to our horses and mounted, Horse Boy already in the saddle, with the six saddled but riderless mounts under his control. Chance conferred with the boy and would help drive them. We set out.

  Halfway to the soldiers’ camp, we saw Pretty Nose and the others running toward us. A dozen or so soldiers were riding out behind them; they had obviously been alerted to trouble when they heard the reports of Ann’s shotgun. We reached our warriors, who swung onto their horses’ backs as they were still moving, and we turned and galloped back, taking the same path we had ridden out, following Chance in the lead. He knew that the soldiers would be slowed when they came upon the bodies of Seminole and the scouts. We rode right through the dead men and kept going. Plans had been made for us to meet the rest of our band on the trail and travel through the night, putting as much distance between us and the soldiers as possible. This had been arranged as a wise precaution, but Pretty Nose and Chance, who now rode together, agreed that it was unlikely the soldiers would try to follow us. They had no scouts to read our sign at night, and not only did they have Seminole and the dead Crow to deal with, they had their own dead in the encampment. Not knowing how many of us there might be, or where we were, it would be folly for them to pursue.

  And so after a short time, we slowed from a gallop, not wanting to exhaust our horses by pushing them too hard. I was riding beside Ann. “What made you decide to follow us?” I asked her.

  “Well, dear, it was a rather simple decision for us to reach,” she answered. “We may not have been enthusiastic about killing soldiers ourselves, but we bloody well didn’t want you to be killed by them, either. Chance employed his considerable tracking skills to follow you. We weren’t planning to interfere in your mission, just to back you up, in case you needed help … which you clearly did.”

  We rejoined the band in less than two hours, all of us traveling together for another hour or so before making camp for what little was left of the night. I learned from Wind that between them they had killed seventeen of the soldiers. Although Martha and I had peripherally participated in it, I was more than ever relieved that Pretty Nose had not called upon us to go into the camp with the others. Nor was I comforted by the news of the dead soldiers, which I realized could only lead to more reprisals from the Army. Whether Jules Seminole was a sorcerer, as Martha believed, or simply an evil lunatic, as Molly and I considered him to have been, I felt we had accomplished something far more important by killing him, rather than soldiers in their beds.

  At dawn we move out again.

  12 November 1876

  Today, due to a communication between Wind and her sister … and by communication, I mean the sort that happens between twins but cannot be explained by natural laws … we found Little Wolf’s winter village on the upper Tongue River. It was a moving homecoming for me, to be so well received by old friends and acquaintances.

  Upon our arrival, the sentries escorted us into the village, the full length of which we rode. I had been so long believed dead that people came out of their tipis, simply to confirm that I was really alive, and not a ghost. Some touched my legs just to be certain. Satisfied upon that score, the women took up the joyous trilling sound of welcome. Quiet One and Pretty Walker stood in front of Little Wolf’s lodge as we approached, and they, too, were trilling. We reined up our horses and Feather on Head, with Wren on her baby board, dismounted and went to them. The sisters, fellow wives, embraced tenderly, and then Feather on Head and Pretty Walker made a similarly warm greeting. I was riding beside Chance, who wore his Comanche outfit, for it would hardly do for him to ride into an Indian village as a white man. He had let his hair grow long these past months; his skin, which had a little original native pigmentation inherited from his great-grandmother, darkened from constant exposure to the sun and elements, and the fact that he rarely wore his cowboy hat any longer; his features strong and angular enough that he could reasonably pass for a mixed breed.

  I let Quiet One, Feather on Head, and Pretty Walker have their moment, and to give Quiet One and Pretty Walker time to fuss over Little Bird, before I dismounted and went to greet them. I hugged Pretty Walker, to whom I had always displayed more white-woman affection than I allowed myself with her mother, who was both more reserved and as “first wife” accorded a more formal respect. But now Quiet One took both my hands in hers. “I am happy you are home, Mesoke,” she said to me in Cheyenne, which touched me deeply.

  “I, too, my old friend,” I answered, “but I will not be able to stay here long. Is your husband, Little Wolf, well?”

  She looked at me curiously, due to the fact that I had not said “our” husband, as we had always referred to him together. “Yes, he is well … but for the worries he carries for the People. Would you like to speak with him, Mesoke?”

  “I will return later, after we have made our camp,” I said. “And I will leave your sister and our baby with you while we are here.”

  We made camp on the outskirts of the village. Of course, when I told Chance that I needed to walk back to Little Wolf’s lodge to speak with the chief alone, he understood the delicacy of the situation.

  “What will you tell him?” he asked.

  “The truth. What else is there?”

  “This would not sit well with a Comanche chief. He may want to challenge me.”

  “I don’t believe so,” I said. “As I’ve tol
d you, I came to think of Little Wolf more as a father figure than a husband, and I think he came to think of me more as a daughter than a wife.”

  I returned to the chief’s lodge just before the sun set behind the hills and scratched on the flap. To my enormous surprise, Crooked Nose, the crone, opened it. It was she, when first I arrived here, who so tormented me with her stick while trying to teach me correct tipi etiquette. Yet we had finally made our peace and become quite fond of each other. The last time I had seen her was on the morning of the attack, when instead of fleeing with the rest of us out the back of the lodge she had stood her ground, armed with her club and stepping out the front of the tipi to face the invaders.

  “Vohkeesa’e!” I said in my surprise. “I thought the soldiers killed you.”

  She smiled her toothless grin. “The soldiers can’t kill me, Mesoke. I kill them. I thought they killed you.”

  “They can’t kill me, either, my old friend.”

  She invited me in, and I saw that Horse Boy had already taken up residence again. He played with Little Bird, who was out of her baby board and crawling on the buffalo robes. Little Wolf was in his regular position, reclined against his backrest like an emperor on his throne. He nodded and smiled at me. I sat down to the left of the opening as is expected of arriving guests—one of the first things I was taught by Crooked Nose’s stick. Quiet One tended the fire and prepared dinner; Feather on Head and Pretty Nose were chatting, clearly catching up on each other’s news. How strange it felt to be back here after all these months, inhaling the familiar scents of the tipi and its residents … but comforting, as well. The only thing that was missing, to remind me that I no longer lived here, was my old sleeping place.

  Little Wolf signaled me to come to him. When I did, he spoke to me in a low voice. There is little privacy in an Indian lodge, but they manage to create as much as possible with their soft manner of speech. “Woman Who Moves against the Wind has been to see me,” she said.

  “Which one?” I asked, as a small attempt at humor.