Scarlet Plume, Second Edition

by Frederick Manfred

  When Ted and Johnnie were fed at last, Judith managed to nibble down a piece of hardtack. It was like eating a shingle. It took a tin of river water to get it down.

  She made a bed for herself on the bare ground, Ted and Johnnie on either side of her, a smelly red-and-black horse blanket over them for covering.

  A man spoke in the dark. “We will make them pay the forfeit with their lives yet, you can bet your sweet life on that.”

  “Yes,” another man said, “but curse them, there are not lives enough in the whole Sioux nation to pay it.”

  Toward midnight some friendly Indians brought in yet another lot of captive white women and children. The newly rescued wretches were shown a place where they could sleep. They cried and prayed through the night.

  The next morning, Judith saw to it that Ted and Johnnie were fed, that they got acquainted with a couple of other white children for playmates, then was off to see what had been done with Scarlet Plume.

  She first tried to find him on her own. In vain.

  Soon she ran into a cluster of little Sioux children. She asked them if they knew what had happened to Scarlet Plume. They stared at her, then at her doeskin tunic, with the blank eyes of caged muskrats. She couldn’t get a word out of them.

  At last she came upon a newly erected log jail in the middle of the encampment. It was near where the horses were kept.

  Corporal Deloss blocked her way. “Sorry, ma’am, but we’re under orders not to let anybody see him. But nobody.”

  “Ah! Then it’s here you’re keeping him.”

  “Mmmm. Perhaps.” Corporal Deloss quirked square eyes at her.

  “Why isn’t he kept with the rest of the Sioux?”

  “Gen’ral’s orders.” A stream of brown tobacco juice erupted out of the side of Corporal Deloss’ whiskery mouth. “And as you may know by now, Gen’ral Sibley is boss here in Camp Release.”

  “Why was this done?”

  “I dunno. All I know is, he’s sittin’ in chains in thar and starin’ at the ground. He probably knows by now that his life ain’t worth a gooser.”

  Judith screamed, she was so angry. “But why the chains?”

  “Dunno.” Corporal Deloss stared at her Indian dress, then at her loose, flowing hair. “Didn’t any of the sackin’ fit ee?”

  “Where’s General Sibley’s headquarters?”

  Corporal Deloss pointed a casual hand. “That way. It’s the tent with the Union flag there.”

  Judith took measured steps across the trampled gray grass. Scarlet Plume in chains?

  A boyish sentry blocked her way. “Who did you wish to see, ma’am?”

  “General Sibley, please.”

  “And what mought your business be with him, ma’am?”

  “I want to see him on a matter of great urgency.”

  The boy sentry stared her Indian clothes up and down. “Wait here, miss.” The boy sentry ducked inside the tent.

  Judith started. Miss? To that . . . that boy?

  The wind was rising again and slowly the sky began to darken over with flying black soot off the burned prairies. Tents became more black than white. White men began to resemble actors made up as Negroes in a minstrel show. Horses and cows were being led down to the bottoms for water and for what little grass was left. There was a slow, continuous uproar in the captive Sioux sector, with the squaws howling like wild wolves and the braves barking like bears caught in a trap, and the Sioux children still skirling through the whole camp, free and wild, crying incongruously, “Sibilee! Sibilee!” All the while white captives drifted about like eyeless oxen.

  “This way, miss,” the boy sentry said at her elbow.

  She bowed through a peaked opening. At first she found the interior of the tent quite dim. There was an instant smell of trampled grass and dust. As her eyes adjusted, she made out a folding cot, a soldier’s foot locker, a pole rack, and oddly enough a blue carpet on the bare ground.

  There were two men, both seated on canvas folding chairs, one beside a small table, the other with a writing board on his knee.

  The man at the table, after a glance at her face and hair, stood up in a courtly manner. The other man was a little slower getting to his feet.

  “Yes?”

  “Are you General Sibley?”

  “Yes?”

  “My name is Judith Raveling and I’ve come to inquire—”

  “Raveling?” General Sibley broke in.

  “Yes. And I would like to know—”

  “Hmm.”

  “What’s wrong?”

  “Nothing, madam. Nothing. Won’t you be seated?” General Sibley picked up another folding chair, broke it open for her, and set it on the raw earth so that it faced him. “Please.”

  Judith sat down, slowly. She crossed her moccasined feet. Her heels rested on the edge of the blue carpet. It was the first time in months that her feet had touched one of the comforts of civilization. It gave her pause.

  General Sibley asked, “Have you had breakfast, Mrs. Raveling?”

  “I have.”

  General Sibley stood over her, slim and handsome in blue military dress. He was a good six feet tall, muscular and vigorous-looking despite his fifty years. His hair was black, his brown eyes piercing, his small black mustache severely clipped. Mingled in with his military bearing was also the air of the much-traveled man who was weary of it all. “I trust you’ve been treated well?” He spoke in a drawling, cultivated voice. “I am sorry that our accommodations are not of the best.”

  “I have not come to complain in my own behalf.”

  “Good.” General Sibley gestured toward the other man. There was gracious dignity in the General’s every move. “And this is my friend Isaac Heard. A lawyer from St. Paul. You may have met.”

  Judith nodded toward Heard. “Sorry, but I’ve not had the pleasure.”

  Heard nodded in turn. He was shorter than General Sibley and was a trifle portly. He had beady, glittering eyes. His attention seemed more taken up by her Indian garb than by her person.

  “Isaac is my aide in camp as well as my recorder. And, I might add, the one friend I have here in these wilds with whom I can talk books.” General Sibley let his eyes rest on the table, where the works of Blackstone, Coke, and Kent, as well as Cooper, Gibbon, and Hume, stood. “Were it not for Isaac, and these books, this chase far into enemy country would indeed be most intolerable.”

  Judith resented Heard’s staring at her Indian clothes. She could guess what his thoughts were.

  General Sibley also looked at her doeskin tunic with some interest. “I’m sorry we don’t have decent dress for you. We didn’t know what to expect, therefore could not prepare for it. But I have given orders to issue blankets to those white captives who were brought in nearly naked. Did you not receive your blanket?”

  Judith recalled the snub Mrs. Sibley had once given her in a St. Paul millinery. “I am not nearly naked, thank you, and I prefer this dress.” Judith sat primly on her canvas chair. “I came here not for myself, as I said, but for my red benefactor. Why was Scarlet Plume put in chains?”

  General Sibley sat down and his brows came up. Heard also seated himself. It was plain that General Sibley was taken aback by her attitude. “But, madam, you are not in sympathy with these red vermin?”

  “I was among friends when I lived with the Indians, and as soon as I am certain that my nephews will be properly taken care of, I intend to return to my friends. And I also intend to return with my savior, Scarlet Plume.”

  “But, madam, the Indians are not prepared to keep you as a white woman expects to be kept.”

  “Nevertheless, I intend to return. They are now my people.”

  “But the Indian is a monster. A devil in human shape.”

  “I did not find him so.”

  “Then you were not one of those who suffered brutal and fiendish violation of her person?”

  “I have come to know this: the old-line Yankton never molested women, red or black or white
. It is only the renegade Indian and the backslid Christian Indian who did this.”

  General Sibley regarded her with faintly amused eyes. “I take it then that you do not wish to be restored to your husband’s arms?” His eyes lingered on her trailing gold hair.

  “No.” Judith’s eyes caressed the silken surface of the blue rug.

  “Nor see your dear children again?”

  “We had but one child. And she suffered, as you say, brutish and fiendish violation of her person . . . by the renegade Indian. As well as by your Christianized Indian.”

  “Then you do not hunger”—General Sibley’s eyes caught the movement of Judith’s toes stroking the surface of the blue rug—“then you do not hunger for the sweets of civilization?”

  “I miss them, yes. But I shall miss them less than something else.”

  General Sibley regarded her with twinkling scorn. “I suppose you prefer an enemy husband to a white husband?”

  “In this one instance . . .” Judith paused. She saw the trap he had led her into.

  General Sibley went on. “I suppose you are going to claim that your man shot up?”

  “He never took part at all.”

  “That is not our report on him.”

  “General Sibley, tell me, what is he accused of? Why does he sit in chains?”

  General Sibley turned to Heard. He said in a tired voice, “Read her the charge, will you, Isaac?”

  Heard blinked, then opened a gray ledger. He ran his finger along some lines of writing. “‘The Indian known as Scarlet Plume is accused of belonging to Whitebone’s band. Whitebone’s band was in the vicinity when Pounce and Mad Bear were massacring the settlers at Skywater.’”

  Judith gasped. “Then he is being sentenced to death for merely being present?”

  “Accomplice to the fact,” Heard said primly.

  Judith had to work for breath. “Who accused him of this?”

  “A boy named Theodore Codman,” Heard said.

  “You mean, our Ted?” Judith cried. “When?”

  “This morning.”

  “Where was I?”

  “I don’t know.”

  Judith spoke in white outrage. “Sneaks! Spiriting Ted out from under me while my back was turned.”

  “Not at all,” Heard said, “not at all. When we went to get your testimony you were not about.”

  “But I was out looking for Scarlet Plume. You know this.”

  “Besides, we have several confessions from members of Pounce’s band to confirm the boy’s report.”

  Shivers moved under her skin.

  General Sibley spoke in a drawling voice. “You deny then that he was present?”

  Bitingly, Judith told of how Scarlet Plume had given her a wild swan with a broken neck in warning, how he had been gone on an errand when the attack started, how when he returned he had persuaded Whitebone to stop the carnage.

  General Sibley’s lips curled in an imperial sneer. “I take it then that you do not wish to testify against your dusky paramour, Mrs. Raveling?”

  “Never. Even amongst the whites I have not seen a greater man. And I’m afraid this includes you, my fine sir.”

  General Sibley flushed to his eyeballs.

  “Tell me, General Sibley, tell me, what were Scarlet Plume’s first words when you met him? Was he not the gentleman?”

  General Sibley’s shoulders came up with a jerk. He made a heroic try at keeping his temper and aplomb. “Why . . . uh . . .” General Sibley turned to Heard. “You made record, did you not, Isaac, of what was said?”

  Heard paged back through the gray ledger. “Er . . . ‘The Indian Scarlet Plume stepped up to General Sibley and held out his hand. He said, “I look at you. My heart is glad to see the friend of Sunned Hair. I wish to shake the hand of this friend. I have brought Sunned Hair and her little children back to her people.” He said, “My friend, I have never seen you before. I have heard my people talk about you for many winters. Now I see you and my heart feels good toward you. My heart tells me that you are a true friend to Sunned Hair.” With his left hand raised, he said, “Let the war trail grass over. That is all I have to say now.”’”

  Judith saw the scene completely. A sob escaped her. In a broken voice she asked, “And what did you say in response, General Sibley?”

  “What did I say, Heard?”

  “You said, sir, ‘Does the red man come in peace? Have you come to bury the hatchet so that we may end this harvest of blood?’”

  “Oh, Lord, not that, not that!” Judith hid her face in her hands. “I knew it. I just knew it. You’re no better than your mangy soldiers, General Sibley. Begging your pardon. They too were full of such asininities. Japery.”

  General Sibley held himself very stiff inside his blue military jacket.

  Judith stood up. Her golden hair hung to her shoulders. Her eyes flashed glows of blue fire. “General Sibley, I have just this to say. If Scarlet Plume is hung, I’m going to shoot you or anybody else who may be responsible for bringing him to the scaffold. And I shall do this just as sure as the sun rises in the east and sets in the west. And then I shall go back to my people, the Yanktons.”

  General Sibley stood up too. Heard sat. General Sibley said with pinched asperity, “As you will, madam. But remember, you in turn must expect me to do my duty and my whole duty as leader of this expedition.”

  “Good-bye!”

  Two days later, in the evening, the encampment having been removed from Camp Release to the Lower Agency site near Redwood Falls because of impending winter storms, Judith made up her mind to see General Sibley again.

  She walked across burned desolate earth. Dust and grass soot in darkening clouds drove across the prairie and poured off into the deep valley of the Minnesota River. The black wind filled the eyes, nose, ears. The faces of soldiers had the look of men having suddenly been resurrected from dirty graves. Even the captive Sioux warriors, linked together in pairs by chains forged at the ankles, had darkened faces. The squaws still wailed in grief for their condemned fathers and husbands and sons.

  General Sibley granted Judith immediate audience. With him in his field tent was recorder Heard again. The three sat as before, feet on the edge of the blue rug.

  Judith broke the ice. “General Sibley, I have just seen Scarlet Plume. From a distance. Your proper guards will not let me get close.”

  General Sibley spoke with weary urbanity. He fingered his crisp mustache. “I am sorry. Do not blame them. They keep you away in obedience to my orders.”

  “Why?”

  “And I in turn have my orders from General Pope. You see, madam, this is what General Pope has written.” General Sibley picked up a letter from his desk and read from it. “‘It is my purpose to utterly exterminate the Sioux. They are to be treated as maniacs or wild beasts.’” General Sibley put the letter aside. “So, go in chains and isolation they must.”

  “Then I cannot see Scarlet Plume?”

  “Madam, you cannot.”

  “Then you would rather believe the words of a confused little boy just recovered from terrible starvation than the words of a grown person who saw it all? And a woman who was supposed to have been outraged, at that?”

  “Madam, were you not nearly deranged by this same starvation?”

  “Then what we both say is flimsy evidence, is it not? And if that is true, on what charge do you hold him?”

  General Sibley sighed. “Scarlet Plume has admitted being present in Skywater during the massacre, just as certain captured members of Pounce’s band have testified.”

  “Has he been tried yet?”

  “The military commission is sitting now.” General Sibley pointed through the open flap of his tent toward one of the few remaining log buildings left after the fire. It was a cabin owned by François La Bathe. “His turn comes shortly.”

  “What!”

  “My dear lady. Listen to me now. White women of good family, whose word can be completely trusted, have told us of seein
g their children nailed to trees while young braves practiced their marksmanship on them until they died. They have told us of white women being shot in the back so that the arrow came out by the point through the breast. They have told us of repeated sexual assaults at the hands of filthy bucks. One young white girl was ravished seventeen times within the hour. We have heard this sort of thing over and over again. The gravity of these hell-roaring times . . . Well! What do you wish us to do—excuse all these atrocities?”

  Judith allowed herself an unladylike snort. “Within the hour, ha. Are you trying to tell me that that young girl really bothered to count all seventeen attacks? That she made a mark or a notch somewhere for each one? And watched the clock while it was being done to her?”

  General Sibley’s face hardened. “As I say, when one hears of such dreadful things—yes, monstrous things—one’s blood is stirred to madness.”

  “Hmmf. And I have heard the other side of that story. I have visited the Indian refuge camp here many times. One Indian mother told me with tears in her eyes that to save her children she’d had to go one hundred miles on foot to Fort Ridgely and degrade herself. Because she and her children were starving. She no longer could come up with milk for her baby. Her husband was dead and neither the annuities nor the food had yet arrived. This happened only a month before the uprising.”

  “Oh, I know, I know, our hands are not altogether clean either. Yet, nevertheless—”

  “—Not clean!” Judith sat with stiff, arched back on the edge of her chair. “General Sibley, was it honorable of you to invite the Indian chiefs to a council in a newly built log house and after they were assembled to imprison them? And promptly make a log jail out of the log house?”

  “One cannot put trust in their word and it was for that reason that it was done.”

  “General Sibley, I have also talked to our own white captive women many times. From them I hear that a good share of the atrocities done to them were done by our own soldiers, by some of those scavenger half-breed volunteers you have in camp. Also that it was our own whites who did most of the scalping and not the Indians. As it was always done. You know, of course, don’t you, that it was from the Dutch in New York that the American Indian learned scalping in the first place? Of course you do. Some of the Dutch were human bounty hunters.”