by Mark Wildyr
We came across Lone Eagle’s dead pony less than half a league from the Mead. Injured in the ambush, the brave was making his way to me when he saw the troopers in the meadow. Wounded, probably dying, he made one last desperate attempt to take some of the enemy with him. A death song on his bleeding lips, Lone Eagle charged into the troops firing his rifle and raising his hatchet.
We almost tore the wagon to splinters reaching the massacre site. My poor people had not got half their journey done. The vast horde of vultures brought home the reality of James’s story more than the sight of the bodies themselves. The troopers spread over the countryside, firing weapons to scare off the carrion birds. I found Cut Hand first, and a cry escaped me at the sight of his flesh torn by army bullets and rapacious birds. He was handsome even in death. I wrapped him in a blanket and left him where he lay. Then we went about the grisly task of collecting the bodies of my fallen people and burying them in a huge common grave in a natural hollow.
At first neither Otter nor I would allow the soldiers to touch them. James let us discover for ourselves the enormity of the task and then quietly ordered his men to help. We examined each still form, seeking to identify everyone. The little tots were the worst because of the damage done by the birds and the bullets. I found Bear Paw near his friend and chief. Lone Eagle’s wife and children were there. Badger lay near his family, but nowhere could I find Morning Mist and Dog Fox. I hoped by some miracle they survived.
We returned to the Mead in the dark of night. Otter had said nothing to me all afternoon. He was discombobulated, as was I. James and his troopers paced us, refusing to allow us to proceed without them. At the Mead, he ordered a new grave dug, and we laid Cut Hand to the right of his sister. Now this little yard held two husbands and a wife.
James stayed the remainder of the night, although he remained outside with his men. Otter held me to his breast while I wrestled with the certain knowledge I had slain my beloved and his people as assuredly as if I unleashed the volleys that felled them. Cut Hand trusted his person to the military. He delivered his tiospaye into their hands because I had preached peace, peace, peace! For eighteen years, I told him to make his intentions known and trust to the honor of the military. Now he was dead. They were dead.
When I recovered consciousness the next morning, James was preparing to move out. He entered the house and located me at the kitchen table. Otter was nowhere to be seen.
“Are you all right, Billy?” James laid a hand on my shoulder.
“No, but there’s nothing either of us can do about it. Where’s Otter?”
“He is down at the river. We talked a little this morning. He’s a good man.”
“One of the best. They all were, my Yanube.”
“I’m going to file a report,” James said. “That whoreson won’t get away with this!”
I rose and faced him. “You will ruin your career. Nobody wants to hear about an army officer killing Indians.”
“Career be damned! This is a matter of what’s right. I’m going to send a report to Major Wallston. He’s about to get his silver leaf. He knew Cut Hand, respected him. He’ll listen. And the captain who led the Fort Ramson troop went back with me. He saw the scope of the slaughter with his own eyes. Not all the troopers will lie for Smith. We’ll raise a stink about this, Billy. Might not do us any good, but they’ll hear from us.”
“I’ll write letters,” I said immediately. “The president and Congress and the War Department. What about Jamieson? Can we count on him?”
“I doubt it,” James answered slowly. “I’m afraid you were right about him. He’s not a bad man, just not very strong. Smith was acting under his command, so he might feel his neck is on the line too.”
“Then I’ll put it there. Copies of all my letters will go to him. Maybe he’ll give us Smith to save his own career.”
“Perhaps, Billy, but don’t count on it. Don’t count on anything.”
“Thank you, James. Congratulations on your promotion. It was good of you to come tell me in person and then help to… do what needed to be done.”
I surrendered to a deep despair after the troop left, grieving alone for a time before going to the door. I spotted smoke half a mile away at the edge of the river and knew Otter was purifying himself after handling all those corpses.
I gave him privacy until well after high sun and then succumbed to my need for him. I walked to the small brush-covered hut he constructed for his inipi, his sweat lodge. Shucking my clothing, I crawled through the opening. He was at prayer. I waited until he opened his eyes before speaking.
“Are you all right?”
He peered through thick banks of steam. “How can a man be all right when his whole world has been destroyed?” Then he moved to my side and put an arm around me. “I am sorry. So long as I have you, an important part of my world still exists. I am yours, and you are mine. Nothing else matters.”
“Except to see that the pimp who destroyed our family pays. And he will pay, Otter. I swear this. From this moment on, I exist for two things—your love and our revenge.”
“He will not pay. All he killed were some red dogs.”
“Red dogs with voices! Red dogs with friends who have voices. You will see. You will see!”
He, the young man who endured the medicine lodge’s enervating steam for hours, pulled me out of the mists and led me to the river, where we washed the last of the poisons from our bodies and came alive again in the pure, frigid waters. We collected our clothing and walked home naked in the cold autumn air. He sat me before the fireplace and brushed the circulation back to normal in my limp body.
I returned the favor and discerned this was not the Otter I slept with the night before. To that moment I viewed him as a mere youth. But a strong, fit man of twenty and nine snows submitted to my touch now. I knew just as certainly that our relationship had altered. He proved me right when he became the proud Yanube warrior, and I, his win-tay wife. It was a welcome change. I accepted his seed gratefully, gaining momentary respite from our tragedy and discovering anew how deeply I loved him.
OTTER CRAWLED over me in the dead of night. A small fire flickered in the fireplace grate so I was able to see him dimly.
“What is it?” I asked. I was not so much sleepy as dim-witted from lack of sleep.
“Somebody’s outside,” he whispered.
We drew on clothing, claimed our weapons, and slipped the bars on the front door. My hinges are always oiled, so we made no noise as we gained the porch.
“Over here!” Otter hissed and disappeared around the west end of the porch. Fearful for his safety, I laid a rifle barrel across the corner, keeping it high so as not to harm him. In moments he was back, leading a woman trailed by a shadowy figure. From their tattered dress, they must have been survivors of the massacre.
Spiriting them inside before stirring the fire, I was shocked to behold the drawn countenance of Morning Mist in the dim light. The slender youth behind her was Dog Fox. Happy to see any survivors of that dreadful slaughter, I clasped her arm. “Are you all right?”
“Y-yes,” she gasped and about collapsed. I led her to a chair and forced both of them to sit. Otter was already warming food. “Oh, Teacher,” she wailed. “It was awful! They cut him down while he rode out with open hand. They killed them all!”
“How did you escape?”
“After they killed the men, they came for us, shooting the women and children. Dog Fox was with me because I asked for his help. He grabbed a rifle, but I saw it was hopeless. I—”
“She struck me with a rock so I fell down and lay senseless while my friends and relatives were shot down,” the youngster said bitterly.
“She saved your life,” I told him gently. At the moment that meant less than nothing to him, but in time he would come to appreciate her action.
Morning Mist continued. “And then Bear Paw’s wife fell against me. I lay beneath her until the Blue Bellies passed. As soon as I could, I got Dog Fox to his feet,
and we escaped. We… we went to Stone Knife’s camp, but he had already moved. I did not have any other place to go.”
“I’m glad you came,” I assured the woman who wrecked my life. The time for all that was past. Now it was survival.
“The army has already come and gone, so you are safe here for the moment, but I am doing something that will make it more dangerous. I am going to the fort to seek justice for Cut Hand and our people. There are those who will listen.” I studied the two sad figures. “There is one thing. Your husband… your father is out there lying beside Butterfly. As is Lone Eagle.”
The old enmity lighted her narrowed eyes. “So you have all of your husbands and your wife with you!”
“Yes, because I would not leave them in a common grave where the rest of the People lie. You may visit him tomorrow.”
After they were settled in beds on the west side, sleep was impossible. Otter and I sat at the table drinking coffee. His deep voice interrupted my thoughts.
“She hates you. You hate her. So now we will live in a house of hate.”
“You are wrong, my love. I do not hate her, because she saved the most precious thing in the world to me, except for you. She saved—”
“The boy,” he finished. “Cut Hand’s son. He who would be yours if you had woman’s parts.” Otter looked at me. “He is a good boy. He has more of his father than his mother, I think. He would have rather died, you know.”
“Yes, and like Lone Eagle, he may yet find a way to do so. But that will pass as his juices flow and he learns life is good to have even in difficult circumstances.”
“This makes your life harder, I think.” Otter nodded his handsome head.
“Yes. I have always sought to be a truthful man. Now I must learn to scheme, cozen, flam. If he is to survive… if you are to survive, I must do so. And the first lie I tell will hurt you, I’m afraid. If anyone comes to the Mead, I will refer to you as my servant, as one who is invisible.”
He smiled wryly. “Just like I used to be.”
“You were never my servant!”
“No, but I was invisible.”
I sighed acknowledgment of that fact. “Otter, I need some time at Fort Yanube. I hope the weather holds off, as I must go before winter. If I can’t get back, will you see to them?” I nodded my head in the direction of our sleeping guests.
“They will be safe with me.”
Chapter 22
I LEFT at dawn without disturbing the two exhausted sleepers. I had not gone far before an armed warrior blocked my way. Given that word of the murders would have spread far and wide, I did not know what reception to expect, even though I recognized the man as a Pipe Stem. He gave the empty-hand salute, and we nudged our ponies forward.
“Carcajou would speak to you,” he said quietly. “We are preparing to move to winter quarters, so he was unable to come himself. It is not far.” He wheeled his horse, and I followed him.
My friend sat on the ground before the skeleton of his tipi and invited me to join him while his wives completed the task of taking down the lodge. He waved his warriors away after our medicine smoke.
“Teacher,” he asked when we were alone, “are you well?”
“No, not well, but I am alive.”
“We heard what happened.”
“Then you know I killed him.”
Despite his usually stoic demeanor, he started. “What do you mean?”
“All these years, I preached peace in his ears… yours too. And what did peace gain him? Three bullets in the chest! If he hadn’t listened to me, he would be alive today.”
“Are you so maddened by misery you cannot know what drivel you speak? Cut Hand walked his way through soldiers and white settlers because of the knowledge you gave him. I have done the same. Because one criminal with the double bars on his shoulders murders him on the plains does not make you responsible. Cut Hand and I were not friends, but I respected him. I respected him because he had the intelligence to listen with open ears and decide what was best for his people. He knew what came from your mouth was best, so that is the way he took.”
“That may be so, Carcajou, but the words I speak now are to trust no one. Assume no one comes in peace.”
“Listen to your own tongue, Billy.” He had mastered my name by now. “They are words that have always been there, words I have always heeded.”
“I must be on my way. I am going to the fort to see if I can stir up trouble for the captain who murdered my people. I am going to stir it all the way to the Big Father in Washington if I have to.”
“You do so at your own risk. Teacher’s Mead may no longer be safe.”
“Then so be it. This thing must be done. Carcajou, once again I ask a boon. If any inquire about me, tell them I live at Teacher’s Mead with my Indian wife and son and my servant, Otter.”
His eyebrows climbed. “Your wife?”
“Morning Mist… Cut Hand’s wife… escaped. His son is with her. And if Otter is seen as my servant, perhaps he will become invisible.”
“How long will she stay?”
“Until I find someplace safe for her.”
“She will likely go to the Sioux. Or perhaps remain with you.”
His words haunted me the rest of the way to the fort. Surely she would not want to remain, but if she did, I must suffer it because of the boy.
YAWKTOWN HAD grown to the point where the city fathers saw fit to change the name to Yanube City. My friends from the old days were now men of substance, and I was about to use their influence to the full extent of my ability. Since it was late when I arrived, I took a room at the Rainbow Hotel, as the establishment was now called, and bathed in one of their new baths. Each floor had a fully equipped bath with a zinc-lined tub.
Early the next morning, I called on the land office and made certain the title to Teacher’s Mead and the one hundred sixty acres around it was correctly entered. The government surveyed some years back, permitting me to exercise my right of purchase under the 1841 Pre-Assumption Act. Now I made a bid for contiguous land. If no one contested my offer, I would own four thousand acres of land lying astride the Yanube River. I bid the minimum provided for by the compromise, virtually destroying my account at the bank. It seemed politic to pacify Banker Crozier, whose influence I would need, by agreeing he could draft most of the cost from my account with the bank at Fort Ramson. Beyond this, I had to surrender a portion of my gold and silver coins to satisfy the bid.
The most crucial part of my scheme rested with the next call. Abraham Kranzmeier, the Jewish tailor, now had four young seamstresses and two sons working for him. Despite his age, he arrived at the shop each day to inspect every stitch that went into garments made in his name. I had given him custom over the years, and we held one another in esteem. He flicked a bushy gray eyebrow when I asked to speak in private but wordlessly led me back to a room furnished like a comfortable parlor in a home. He offered a cup of expensive imperial tea with lemon and settled back to stroke his long beard and listen.
“Abraham, I come to you because if anyone in this town understands the yoke of oppression, it is you. I intend to do something not exactly proper, not for my own personal gain, but for the protection of people who will need it in the years to come.”
I paused for him to volunteer some comment. “I heard what happened to your Indian family. You come on behalf of the survivors.”
“I have a beautiful piece of ground at Teacher’s Mead. When my time comes, I want to make certain it goes to my intended heirs.”
The old man took out a crooked, elaborately carved pipe, and for one minute I thought he was going to offer it in ceremonial observation. “So you see the same future I do,” he said, settling the pipe comfortably in the corner of his mouth.
“Indians are going to become the Jews of America,” I answered. “They will be denied ownership of their own land, citizenship in their own country, and forfeit their very lives if no protection is offered. I seek to provide this protection t
o a few of them.”
“You want to leave them your property.”
“And my testament will not be honored unless I fix things a little. So I come to a respected member of a community with a long history of surviving hostile systems.”
“In other words, you come to an old Jew. An old Jew whose nephew, although he bears a gentile name, is the clerk for this territory. Tell me what you need.”
I wanted a record of a marriage between me and Butterfly, a woman of the Yanube band, in the spring of 1834, some two years before the actual event, and a marriage license to go with it. I wanted a record of birth and a birth certificate for William Cuthan Strobaw as issue from this marriage for any day in December 1835, plus a baptismal certificate in the Methodist Church, one of the more active in the area. The old man listened and then named a sum, explaining it was not payment to him but the cost of having the items created. I handed over some of my hoarded gold coins and asked him to expedite the process. I wanted as much time between this and my own demise as possible. Time often perfected titles.
This business completed, I retired to my room and began writing letters. They were difficult to compose, not only because of the emotion behind their content, but also by reason of needing them to be documents of a logical, educated mind that would not be put off by delay and frumpery.
James knocked on my door after the evening dinner hour and told me of the rumors flying about the fort. Captain Smith’s account of the Battle at Hampton’s Homestead, as it was being billed, was already forwarded to the War Office. I showed James my efforts to date, and he handed over a working copy of his own report lodged with Major Jamieson only that morning. There were minor discrepancies between the two, but that lent credence that each made his own independent observations.
The next fortnight was not pleasant. My letter of accusation, together with copies of missives posted to the White House, the Indian Bureau, the Territory’s Congressional Delegate, and the War Department, were delivered to Jamieson. I remained in town and held myself available to answer questions.
