The Vengeance of Mothers

by Jim Fergus

  Poor Hannah’s lower lip began to tremble as the tears flooded her eyes. Quite matter-of-factly, Lady Hall strode to the side of the horse she had chosen for the girl, and whose halter I held. “Enough of your nonsense,” she said. “Come here right now, young lady.” As Hannah timidly obeyed her, Lady Hall bent over, lowered her arms, and interlocked her fingers to make a little stirrup of her hands. “Put your dainty little foot right there,” she said, “take hold of the horse’s mane with your left hand, put your other hand on its withers, and I shall give you a leg up. Go ahead, girl, do not hesitate, I will not make this offer a second time. You are already holding us up, the wolves are gathering behind you … quickly now.” Hannah did as she was told, and Lady Hall boosted her onto the horse’s back, and with a small cry the girl grasped it around the neck, as if even at a dead standstill, she needed to hang on for her life. She wept openly now, whether out of relief or fear, it was hard to say.

  “Splendid!” said Lady Hall. “Well done, Hannah! You see, this horse is going to be your best friend. And never forget, he is the only thing that stands between you and the wolves.”

  * * *

  And now, something else that seems to bode well has occurred. This afternoon a contingent of five Lakota women, escorted by Gertie and the Kelly girls, came to our tipi. The women bore bundles of native attire, deerskin shifts, moccasins and leggings, additional buffalo robes and trade blankets. They did not look us directly in the eye, which we have noticed is the manner of the natives, but seemed to focus their gaze somewhere in the middle of our foreheads, or just off to the side, and one by one, they began to relieve of us our own clothing. Only Lady Hall did not submit to this, for she already wore practical attire—riding boots and jodhpurs, a flannel blouse with a moleskin vest and a waxed cotton coat, while the rest of us were dressed like “ladies,” in attire and footwear that all quickly recognized did not in the least lend itself to travel through this country on horseback. For my part, I wore the dress in which I had arrived at Sing Sing, and which had been given back to me upon my release. Like the rest of our girls, I had tried to wash certain items in the creek when we were allowed, but this was problematic at best. All these weeks here we had worn the same set of clothing, and so we did not object when the Lakota women ceremoniously undressed us, bundled our filthy attire, washed us from a pouch of water scented with sagebrush, and redressed us in native costume. Indeed, it felt quite liberating to give ourselves over to their gentle ministrations. And our comfortable new clothing of soft animal hides and fur gave us the sense of having left behind at last this limbo state in which we have lived these past weeks, and of being reborn into the new world.

  The Kelly girls tell us that we ride out tomorrow morning. I write these words at night by the fire’s faint light of embers. All are suitably apprehensive about our departure, and I think will sleep fitfully. None of us can know, of course, what is to come in these next days and weeks, or even if we will survive this journey. All we know for certain is that something is coming to an end, and something new is beginning …

  11 April 1876

  Having been six days on the trail thus far, we “greenhorns” are all still in the full agony of saddle soreness. Even Lady Hall and I are suffering though we rode more than the others before departure. The muscles used for riding seem exercised in no other activity, and this discomfort is inevitable. Nor should we complain, for at least we have the use of excellent new cavalry saddles that were in the freight cars of our train for delivery to Fort Laramie, and which were Hawk’s to keep as the spoils of war.

  I must write of the country through which we are traveling, as if by describing it, I might somehow be able to contain its sheer immensity. I think most of us are rather stunned and intimidated by the huge scale. It was one thing looking out the window of our train car, for that vehicle served as a kind of cocoon in which we felt encapsulated and protected … until, of course, that false sense of security came to a rapid halt of screeching wheels and gunfire.

  We do not know our exact location, for we simply follow the Cheyenne, who seem to be taking a circuitous route, headed generally west and north. The Kelly sisters tell us we are somewhere between the Powder River, upon which the village of Crazy Horse is situated, and the Tongue River, where they were formerly encamped with Little Wolf, and attacked in February. However, sometimes we turn to the south, then back to the north, then south again, which deviations, say the twins, are taken to avoid other travelers whom we might encounter, as well as with the hope of cutting Little Wolf’s trail.

  “What other travelers are we avoiding?” I asked as we were riding.

  “All of ’em,” said Susie, “other than our own people. Soldiers first off and the Indian guides and scouts who travel with ’em—mostly Crow, Shoshone, and Pawnee—all mortal enemies of the Cheyenne. Then there are the white prospectors, settlers, land speculators, miners, and ranchers, who are flooding into the region and who are also often guided by Indians of these same tribes friendly to the whites. Finally, you have the general riffraff that always follows such a boom—bandits, murderers, petty criminals—who prey on the weak and vulnerable like a pack of wolves trailing a herd of buffalo … Aye, it may seem empty to you lasses, Molly, but the country is being invaded, especially since the discovery of gold in the Black Hills last year. Gertie told us that the local newspapers are full of editorials recommending that the savages be exterminated once and for all. And the government tells settlers and travelers to be well-armed, and to shoot every Indian they come across. Bounties are offered for scalps. So you see, all of these are the people we avoid.”

  Thus we make our way through a complicated network of canyons, draws, and coulees. Through many of these run rivers, creeks, or springs in which to water the horses, and ourselves, and small stands of cottonwoods and willows, their buds just beginning to swell with a flush of green.

  Then suddenly our horses climb a swale of land like the crest of a wave at sea and lying before us as far as the eye can see is an endless vista of plains and rolling hills, punctuated by dramatic rock formations that seem to erupt violently from the earth, running to mountains on the distant horizon, a landscape of unimaginable, even terrifying grandeur, so that some in our party draw a deep inhalation and exclaim in astonishment. Here, visible for miles around, we feel exposed, as if naked, both to the elements and to those whom we wish to avoid, indeed to any or anything that may come upon us. This is the biggest, the emptiest, the most forbidding country we have ever seen, and how tiny and helpless we feel in the midst of it. So that when finally Hawk leads us back down into the folds of land we feel a great sense of relief to be secreted thus again.

  A word about the wind … it is a nearly constant presence in this country, and has a broad range of moods—everything from a warm gentle spring breeze like a soft caress, to a howling, angry maelstrom that stings our eyes and faces with grit. In between that there is a grumpy wind that comes in brief, whining gusts, and then subsides, like the complaints of a querulous old man; and an ominous wind, heavy and deep-toned that you hear first arising out of dark clouds on the distant horizon, and you know is headed your way with its cargo of rain, snow, or sleet, or sometimes a combination of all three. The wind also seems to own a palpable corporeal presence in the formation of the landscape itself; it molds the plains in its image like a painter’s brush, gouges the rock outcroppings like a sculptor with hammer and chisel. When it blows hard, the only protection from it can sometimes be found in the deep gulches, or the small, narrow river valleys, where it sails overhead like a flock of birds winging by. But even there, you can’t always hide from it; just when you think you have escaped, and are safe at last, it seeks you out like an insidious warrant server, curling over the crest of a hill and diving down to intrude upon your haven.

  In this way our party travels, we, the white women, bringing up the rear, following our Cheyenne guides, and happy to be doing so, for how could we possibly negotiate this countryside alone? I
will never admit it to them, but Meggie and Susie were right, we would have lasted about a half day out here alone.

  LEDGER BOOK III

  The Long Road Home

  By now we’re all real worried that Molly ain’t come back yet. But we can’t afford to be left behind, and we have to make the hard decision to follow the Cheyenne and have faith that Molly and the chaplain can pick up our trail … Goddammit all, didn’t me and Susie tell you not to go off like that?

  (from the journals of Margaret Kelly)

  5 April 1876

  It is a fine morning, clear but chilly when we saddle up and head outta Crazy Horse’s village. We are small in number, only twenty-two altogether—includin’ me and Susie, the seven greenhorns, and thirteen Cheyenne—four men, four women, and five children of different ages. Of course, there’s our leader Hawk (Aénohe), the warrior Red Fox (Ma’hóóhe), his wife Singing Woman (Némené’héhe) with their two boyos … maybe seven and nine years old or so … whose names at that age keep changing, so we can’t ever keep track. Then there’s the lad Little Buffalo (Hotóáso) and his wife, a wee young lass named Lance Woman (Xomóó’e), who got the name during the Mackenzie attack when, fleein’ with her babies, she picked up the lance of a fallen warrior and speared a soldier right out of his saddle as he was bearin’ down on ’em with his sword drawn. Their baby boyo is about a year old, their daughter about three. There’s an old couple named Bear (Náhkohe) and his wife Good Feathers (Påhávééná’e), tough old birds the two of ’em, who have taken in the little orphan girl, Mouse (Hóhkééhe), maybe six years old, whose parents were killed in the attack. Finally, there’s the Arapaho lass, Pretty Nose (Ma’evo’óna’e), who is herself a warrior chief due to her accomplishments on the battlefield.

  It is good to be small in number so we can move quiet through the country without attracting attention—not so good if we run into the wrong folks and have to fight with so few warriors, and so many women and children. The Cheyenne, with Hawk at their head, ride in front. Me and Susie ride just behind, on either side of Gertie on her big gray mule, but she’ll split off shortly to head back south toward Fort Fetterman. The greenhorns ride behind us.

  “You know, Gertie,” says Susie. “It ain’t too late for you to change your mind and come with us—fight the good fight.”

  “I told you gals,” says she, “I can be of more service to you if I go back to the fort and keep my ear to the ground. If your people got any chance at all of winnin’ this war … which, I gotta tell ya … you ain’t … you’re gonna need all the inside information you can get about what the Army is up to. I’m gonna do what I can for ya. You might be fightin’ the good fight, but you gals have seen the soldiers in action, and I think you know in your hearts that you’re also fightin’ the losin’ fight. They’re better armed, better equipped, better mounted, and there are a hell of a lot more of ’em than there are of you, and more comin’ all the time. More soldiers, more settlers, more miners. The whites are like a plague of locusts, and they’re gonna chew up this countryside like nothin’ you ever seen before. You know why they’re killin’ all them buffalo, don’t you—shootin’ ’em from trains, leavin’ ’em to rot where they fall, soldiers told to kill every one they come across, whether they need it to eat or not? May told me you seen it from the trains yourselves when you first come out here last year. They ain’t just doin’ that for fun, though most of ’em are havin’ a pretty damned good time at it. They’re doin’ it because it’s part of War Department policy to finish off the tribes. Take away their commissary, their way of makin’ a livin’, their main source of food, and what do they got left? Nothin’, that’s what. Without the buffalo, they can’t feed and clothe themselves, or make their tipis, and they got no hides to trade. Course, that’s why most of your people have already surrendered, turned themselves in to the agency. Those like Sitting Bull and Crazy Horse, who refuse to come in, and Little Wolf who tried it but couldn’t tolerate it, still believe that they can somehow keep livin’ the way they always have … well, the truth is, they don’t stand a chance against the plague of locusts. I wish things was different, girls, truly I do, but you know as well as I do that they ain’t.”

  Aye, to be sure, me and Susie ain’t stupid, we do know in our hearts that Gertie is right. We’ve come upon the killing fields ourselves during our travels with the Cheyenne—the plains littered with the rotting carcasses of buffalo, in some places just the bones left, already bleached white by the sun. Aye, we are a destructive people, we whites …

  “The thing is, Gertie,” says Susie, “Sitting Bull, Crazy Horse and Little Wolf, don’t really believe they can beat the whites. But that’s not why they won’t surrender. Little Wolf tried, and you saw how long that lasted. No, they’re fightin’ on, because they’d rather die than give up their way of living. And if you believe everything is so damn hopeless for ’em, why are you helping us? I’ll tell you why, because win or lose, we’re fightin’ the good fight, and you know that.”

  “And you gals, then? You’re willin’ to die for a people who ain’t even your own?” asks Gertie.

  “Aye, we are, Gertie, for you know yourself that as soon as we had our babies with ’em, they became our people.”

  “Sure, I know … Alright then, but I got one last plan to propose to you. I been thinkin’ real hard on it. I been thinkin’ we could all—all you gals could go to the newspapers, and I’ll go with you though it’d surely cost me my job. We could blow this brides program wide open, maybe that’d slow the Army and the government down if the public got wind of all this.”

  “Ah, Jaysus Christ, Gertie,” says Susie, “imagine what a circus that’d turn into, will ya? Imagine what fun the press would have with a bunch of girl criminals, lunatics, and whores takin’ up with savages. Why, we’d be a damn freak show, the laughingstock of the whole fooking country. The public wouldn’t blame the government, they’d blame us. Look, we told ya, me and Meggie already got a plan, a real simple plan. We’re gonna kill some soldiers, cut off their bollocks and dance over their scalps, and we don’t give a good goddamn if we die while we’re at it, which we expect we will … it’ll probably be a relief for us from the pain. Don’tcha see, Gertie, that’s all we got left to do on this earth—to avenge our murdered babies.”

  We ride now in silence, all of us lost in our own thoughts. It feels fine to be out of the village and back into the open country. Because me and Susie were city girls when first we came out here, it used to kind of scare us, all this land lyin’ so big and quiet in all directions. All we can hear is the faint whisper of a breeze in the air, and the singing of morning birds wakin’ up, and the soft creak of saddle leather. That’s a grand way to begin the day.

  After another hour or so passes, Gertie reins up. “Well, this is where I leave you all,” she says.

  Now Molly breaks off from her group of greenhorns and canters up to us. “I wanted to say good-bye to you, Gertie. And to thank you for everything you’ve done for us.”

  “Don’t you mention it, Molly McGill. You just take care of yourself and your gals, best you can.”

  “Sure, Gertie, I’ll do that.”

  “As to you two Irish scamps, I got only one last thing to say to ya.”

  “Tell us, Gertie,” Susie says.

  “You know all those young soldiers you’re plannin’ to kill, cut off their nuts and dance over their scalps?… I just want you to remember that those boys got mamas, too.”

  Gertie swings her big jake mule south, and without turning to look back at us, raises her hand in the air and kicks him into a lope. We watch her until she disappears over a far rise.

  12 April 1876

  Now truth be told, me and Susie can’t say we’re all that charmed to be traveling with the greenhorns. We did our best to convince ’em to go with Gertie, but this girl Molly is a tough nut, and I have to say they picked themselves a good leader for she took the decision right out of our hands and into her own. Aye, and because we been in their
shoes, we couldn’t object too strongly to bringin’ ’em along. We know better than most how it is to have no place to go home to, and in our hearts we didn’t want to be responsible for sending ’em back where they came from. It’s a funny thing how for me and Susie home now is with Little Wolf and with what remains of his band, and we’re excited to be headin’ that way … assuming we can find them.

  Having only been on the trail now for a few days, we can report that so far the trip has been uneventful, which is just the way we want things. I’ll say this for the greenhorns, there’s only been a wee bit of whinin’ from a few of ’em, mostly because they’re real sore from ridin’, which is to be expected these first days out. No telling how long we’ll be on the trail, but by the time we get wherever we’re going, they’ll all be saddle-hardened veterans. As me and Susie and the others found out a long time ago, it’s amazing how fast you learn this life when there ain’t another one available to you.

  One thing for sure is we’re lucky to have Hawk leadin’ our party, for he’s a real competent lad, and no one knows this country better. He keeps a scout ridin’ ahead, another behind, and one to either side of us, and if there is any sign of even the possibility of runnin’ into anyone, he diverts our path so that we seem to be taking a kind of zigzag route. Because Hawk was the head of the war party that attacked the train, along with horses, he got to keep some of the Colt .45 pistols and Springfield carbine rifles taken off the dead soldiers, as well as other guns, ammunition, and saddles found crated on the train and meant to resupply the Army at Fort Laramie … so it’s a comfort to know that at least we’re well armed, and we got good tack.