The Lost Ones

by Michaela MacColl

  “She’s stronger than you think. She’s not going to die.” Casita’s protest sounded weak to her own ears. Wishing for something did not make it so. “Dr. Granger will take care of her.”

  “But what if the Indaa medicine doesn’t work?”

  “It has to,” Casita said. They both turned to look at Eyota’s empty bed. Her walls and chest were bare, because she had never wanted to treat this place like home. If she died, it would be like she had never been there.

  “What if we found an Indian medicine man?”

  Casita shook her head. “Lieutenant Pratt would never agree to that.”

  “I wish we knew healing,” Nelly said.

  “Me, too,” Casita said. “My mother would have taught me after my Changing Woman ceremony.” She caught her breath. The ceremony! She’d always been told that if she honored the Changing Mother Goddess, the Goddess would grant her healing powers. She could cure Eyota. Before she saw those letters in Miss Mather’s office, Casita would never have thought of the Changing Woman ceremony. But now, it felt necessary, and natural, to return to the Ndé ways. To become one with the Ndé’s goddess seemed to be the only way to fight the school’s campaign to kill the Indian in all of them.

  “What if I do the ceremony?” Casita asked. She knew Nelly’s people, the Mescalero, had a similar ritual, although her people called the Goddess the White Painted Woman.

  “Then you could heal her!” Nelly said, suddenly optimistic. “But she is Sioux—will the White Painted Woman help her?”

  “Of course. Eyota is an Indian and she is our friend.”

  “But you are already a woman . . .” Casita could hear the doubt mixed with hope in Nelly’s voice.

  “I started the bleeding a year ago,” Casita said. “But if the tribe had been at war or moving hunting grounds, we would have had to wait to do the ceremony anyway.”

  “Could we really do it?” Nelly looked at her with eyes that reminded her of Juanita. If Casita did the Changing Woman ceremony, it would not just be for herself and Eyota—it would be for Nelly too. The ceremony might help her remember that she was really Lenna of the Mescalero Apache.

  “Why not?” Casita said. “I can ask Hazel to be my attendant.” The attendant was usually an older woman who guided the young woman through the elaborate ceremony. It was an honor to be asked. They would be punished if they were caught, but Casita thought Hazel might welcome the chance to perform the ancient duty. “But we’ll have to find all the things we need.” She pulled out a piece of paper and pen to list them, then thought better of it. If someone found the list, it would be used against her and her friends. Instead she drew a cane. A cattail with a dusting of pollen. Eagle feathers. What could be more innocent than a page of idle sketches? Then she drew the outlines of a dress; it should be yellow. It brought back powerful memories of her mother’s strong hands rubbing the buckskin over and over for hours.

  “The other Apaches will help,” Nelly said confidently. “And I’ll ask your brother.” She hopped off the bed and went to Eyota’s trunk. “And look!” She pulled out a dress that Eyota had just made. It was dark blue, but she had found some bright yellow fabric to trim the collar and the cuffs. “Don’t we need a seashell, too?”

  Casita smiled slowly. “We have one.” She pulled out her necklace from the trunk and fastened it around her neck. “My necklace is abalone.” How had Mollie known that Casita would need this one day? Casita was pleased that Mollie could play a small part in this ceremony.

  “Maybe we can do it!” Nelly hugged Casita.

  “If the school catches us, we’ll all be punished,” Casita warned. She might have decided the school was the enemy, but Nelly loved it here. Casita couldn’t let Nelly get into trouble.

  “Then we won’t get caught,” Nelly said. “I like eating, but I’ll starve if we can help Eyota.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  ONCE CASITA HAD DECIDED TO DO THE CHANGING WOMAN ceremony, it became a conspiracy involving many people, even some strangers.

  First Casita had to persuade Hazel to be her attendant. Hazel was the oldest Apache at Carlisle and Casita’s friend. But she was still reluctant at first. “I don’t know how to do everything the attendant does,” she worried. “I might get it wrong.”

  “You are the best we have. You are the only one who has already done the ceremony.” Casita was adamant. “Besides, we have to trust the Goddess. She knows where we are and how the school is against us. She will forgive the shortcuts we have to take.”

  “Are you sure about this, Casita?” Hazel asked. “You know what could happen.” She didn’t mention the beating, because Nelly was there.

  “I’m sure,” Casita said. “I have been away from the Ndé for too long.”

  “And it might help Eyota,” Nelly added.

  “Then I will help.”

  Normally the ceremony would last four days, but they could never manage that. The students were constantly watched by the teachers and they weren’t allowed to leave the school grounds.

  “We have to find a way to slip away,” Casita insisted. She turned to Nelly. “Is there a teacher dinner coming up? A special guest? Anything that would keep the teachers busy for a little while?”

  Nelly worked in the kitchen—the perfect place for her, since she was always hungry—so she always knew about any special meals that were coming up. Nelly considered. “Mrs. Pratt’s birthday is next Saturday,” she said. “All the teachers are invited to the lieutenant’s house for cake.”

  Casita glanced at Hazel. “They’d be there for what, an hour? Would that be enough time?”

  “I suppose it will have to be,” Hazel said.

  “Then next Saturday,” Casita said. “And we can go to the cherry grove. That’s out of sight of Pratt’s house.”

  “We’re going to do it!” Nelly jumped up and grabbed Casita’s hands and twirled with her around the small room.

  All her friends had a picture list of items they needed. The way her friends had come together reminded Casita of El Remolino. The women in the band would work so hard to prepare an agave roast or harvest the corn.

  First on Casita’s list was the dress. She had visited Eyota in the infirmary. She had told her friend everything about the ceremony except the healing part. Although she was weak and pale, Eyota had been eager to help.

  “I only wish I could be there, too,” Eyota said. The effort to talk was almost too much as a cough racked her body.

  Casita had to cut a morning star and crescent moon from yellow cloth and sew them onto the skirt of Eyota’s dark blue dress. The morning star represented the Goddess as she first appeared in the East, as a beautiful young woman. Then she moved westward, to disappear as she grew old, like the moon thinning until it faded away.

  Nelly was in charge of the cane and the bells. “What are the bells for?” Nelly asked. “I never knew.” Her people were not allowed to have the ceremony on their reservation.

  “I’ll sew them into the hem of the dress and we’ll decorate the cane with them. They sound like rain, which gives life,” Casita said. “Not that we ever had much rain in El Remolino. Nelly, have you found a cane yet?”

  “Jack asked one of the Nez Perce boys to carve one in the woodworking shop,” Nelly said. “The teacher there sleeps half the time and he won’t notice.”

  “Ask him if he has any friends in the tinsmith shop who can make the bells,” Casita said.

  “It sure is lucky for us that Carlisle has all these workshops,” Hazel said slyly. They all burst into laughter, loving the idea that Carlisle—a place dedicated to stamping out their beliefs—would provide the tools for the Apache ritual.

  One of the most important ingredients for the ceremony was cattail pollen. Hazel and Nelly had woken early for three mornings in a row to sneak out to the pond to collect the pollen.

  “How much is enough?” Casita asked, as she scraped the pollen off a cattail into a mason jar.

  “We need as much as we can to bless
Eyota,” Hazel answered.

  Casita was particularly grateful to Jack. She had wondered if he would help. He had embraced life at the school and prided himself on following the rules.

  At first he had balked. “You’ll get us all in trouble, Sister,” he had said.

  “So?” she challenged. “Jack Castro of the Lipan Apache would not have hesitated.” She saw his forehead crinkle in a frown and she pressed the argument. “Do you remember at Fort Clark how much you wanted to continue your warrior training?”

  “Yes,” he said slowly. “But I found a way to do it without breaking the rules.”

  “The ceremony is just as important to me as your training was to you. But I don’t have any other way to do it.” She explained how sick Eyota was. “What if the Changing Woman Ceremony is her only hope?” She laid her hand on his. “I need your help.”

  Looking embarrassed, he said, “I didn’t know you even wanted the ceremony. You never said anything.”

  “You wouldn’t have heard me even if I had,” Casita said ruefully. “You were too busy with the soldiers. And now you are called Jack Mather.”

  After a moment, he nodded. “No matter what my name is, I’ll always be Ndé and I’ll always be your brother. I’ll do whatever’s needed now.”

  He had already helped by recruiting his friends in the workshops to make what was needed, but there was a traditional role he could play in the ceremony.

  “Guard us and keep us from harm during the ceremony,” Casita told him.

  “I can do that,” he said with a grin.

  Finally Saturday evening came. Casita was strangely calm as Nelly and Hazel dressed her. She couldn’t help thinking of how this should have been—her mother and aunts with her. Jack and the other boys standing guard outside the tent. The entire band waiting to honor her journey into adulthood. That version of her life had been shattered by that first gunshot at El Remolino, but she believed that somewhere her mother’s spirit knew what Casita was about to do and approved.

  Hazel brushed Casita’s hair, parted it in the center, and let the rest hang loose down her back. Then she lifted the jingling dress over her head. Next, she smeared white clay on her face.

  “You see why we call her the White Painted Woman?” Nelly said.

  Casita tried to smile, but the clay was already hardening on her skin. Hazel tied Casita’s necklace around the top of her head so the abalone shell lay flat on her forehead. It felt right that her father’s gift be used today. That reminded Casita of an important part of the ritual—giving gifts to her attendants. “I have something for both of you,” she said. Casita didn’t have much at Carlisle, but she had drawn each of them a picture. Hazel’s was a landscape with a lone rider silhouetted on a mountaintop.

  Her voice choked, Hazel said, “It looks like home.”

  For Nelly, Casita had drawn a picture of her and her new friends. A wide smile rewarded her efforts.

  “Now before it is time to go, you must eat,” Hazel said. She opened a pot from the kitchen and took out a strawberry. “It really should be a cactus fruit, but they’re hard to find in Pennsylvania.”

  “You brought food into the dorm?” Casita teased. She’d never forgotten that first night when Hazel had scolded Nelly for bringing an apple back to the dorm.

  “It’s part of the ceremony,” Hazel said sternly. She sprinkled pollen on the strawberry and offered it to Casita. Casita reached to take it, but Hazel snatched it away. She did this three more times, then placed the strawberry on Casita’s tongue. “This will make sure you always have an appetite.”

  “I’m always hungry,” Nelly said. “Are there any more strawberries for me?”

  Their laughter spoiled the solemnity of the moment, but Casita didn’t mind. It seemed right that she should laugh with friends as she moved into adulthood.

  A small rock hit their window. “That’s Jack’s signal,” Nelly said. “The teachers are arriving. Hurry!” She rushed out to fetch the others. Hazel led Casita down the back stairs, slipping out the back door. They had invited only a few Apaches they could trust. Casita moved as gently as she could, but she still jangled loudly as she walked. No one appeared and Casita knew the Goddess must be on her side tonight.

  When they came to the cherry tree grove, there were ten children waiting in the circle. To Casita’s delight and surprise, Eyota arrived a moment later. Jack was pushing her in a wheeled chair.

  Hazel instructed Casita to kneel in the center. She carried a little sack, and from it she took a jar of pollen. “This is for the strength a Ndé woman needs to bear children and protect the tribe,” she said, smearing pollen on Casita’s scalp where the hair was parted and then across the bridge of her nose.

  Then she pulled out three eagle feathers.

  “Where did . . .” Casita began, but she shushed when Hazel put a finger to her lips.

  “Your brother borrowed them from Miss Mather’s collection,” she whispered. Maybe that was why Usen and the Goddess had brought Miss Mather into Jack’s life. The ways of the gods were mysterious, Casita thought.

  Hazel displayed the feather to the audience and said, “This feather will hover over her for all of her life, protecting her from evil.” She fixed that one to Casita’s head. “And these shall grant her strength to carry the tribe’s burdens.” She placed one feather on each shoulder.

  Hazel held out her hand. Jack stepped forward and presented her with a wooden cane decorated with little bells. Hazel handed it to Casita.

  Hazel beckoned to Casita to stand. “Now do what I do,” she said. Hazel lifted one foot and then stomped it on the ground. Casita followed. “When you put your foot back on the ground, hit the cane in the dirt.” For the next twenty minutes, Casita stomped in time with Hazel. The only sounds were her feet hitting the ground and the jingling of her dress and cane. Her brother and friends danced, too. This was the dance she had practiced long ago that morning in El Remolino. It had taken over three years, but she was finally doing the Changing Woman dance.

  At the end of the dance, Casita stood panting at one end of the grove. Hazel handed her the jar of pollen. The others lined up, Jack first. He dipped his finger in the pollen and then touched her face. She returned the blessing. “Good luck and long life.” She hated that he would go soon to Florida; she hoped he would be happy. But now she didn’t worry that he would be lost to her; he was still Ndé.

  Nelly was next. She was so proud of herself for helping Casita perform the ritual. Casita hoped she could do the same thing for Nelly one day when it was her turn.

  Eyota was the last one to come to Casita. Instead of speaking her blessing, Casita embraced her. She had saved most of the pollen to smear on her friend’s thin arms and face.

  “For good luck and long life, my friend,” she said. “Be well.” She felt something swelling in her heart. Maybe it was the Goddess filling Casita and letting her heal Eyota. Or it might have been gratitude to her friends, who had risked so much to help her become a woman in the ancient tradition of the Ndé. In either case, she felt as though she had finally come home.

  AUTHOR’S NOTE

  WHEN I STARTED RESEARCHING THE CARLISLE INDIAN INDUSTRIAL School, I was looking for a compelling story. Since over 11,000 students came through Carlisle, I felt confident I could find one. I got lucky right away when I found a documentary called The Lost Ones: Long Journey Home on YouTube. It told the story of two children, Casita and Jack, who had been torn away from their Lipan Apache family during a massacre in the 1870s and eventually brought to be “civilized” at the Carlisle boarding school. It was a great story and I really wanted to tell it. But even though Casita and Jack are long dead, I knew this story was important to their surviving family. I needed their permission before I could start.

  I reached out on Facebook to Richard Gonzales, Vice Chairman of the Lipan Band of Texas, and asked if he would talk with me. Richard is a retired policeman from San Jose and he is spending his retirement researching his people. We met in person
at a powwow in Georgetown, Texas. We talked for hours about Casita and Jack—but also about the other strong women in his family. Richard had pictures mounted on poster board in his pickup truck, and we looked at images of his family as he related to me their stories. I was delighted when he gave me his blessing to write about his ancestors. (Actually, Casita and Jack aren’t his direct ancestors—he is the descendent of their cousin, Juanita.) He suggested I call his cousin, Daniel Romero, the Chairman of the Lipan Band of Texas. Daniel is the official historian of the family and he also gave me his blessing. Both gentlemen answered many questions as I wrote, giving me confidence to tackle Casita’s incredible story.

  LIPAN APACHE OR NDÉ

  Apache Indian is a general term that encompasses several groups, including the Lipan Apache. The Lipan also called themselves Ndé. I preferred to use their own name for themselves in The Lost Ones because that is how Casita would have identified herself. The Lipan were composed of many bands. A “band” was several extended families traveling and living together. Lipan Apache occupied southeastern Texas and northern Mexico. They were fierce fighters, but also survivors. They hid when they needed to and were excellent at blending into their environment.

  All their skills ultimately were no match for the over whelming American forces sent against them in the 1870s and 1880s. The new state of Texas seized lands that had traditionally been held by the Lipan and then brought in the US Army to protect the settlers.

  One Lipan band retreated across the Rio Grande into Mexico and established a base along the San Rodrigo River near the village of El Remolino in the early 1860s. They conducted raids on the Texas side of the border, stealing horses and often killing Texas settlers. Over a ten-year period, they caused an estimated $48,000,000 worth of property damage (measured in today’s dollars). Whenever they were chased by US troops, they simply crossed the Rio Grande and taunted their pursuers from the Mexican side of the border.