by Sadie Conall
Other men came riding in as word spread there were more visitors from the Expedition party. Women and children came running from the woods and the riverbank to look at them.
Most of the men were heavily tattooed, their faces and bodies covered in elaborate designs of varying colours. Others wore unusual bonnets, decorated with eagle feathers and elaborate beadwork which fell about their shoulders.
Madeleine searched the crowds for Deinde'-paggwe, even as a burst of thunder split the heavens above them. But there were too many faces. When Ryder was invited to sit with the Chiefs in a lodge close to the lone man pole to smoke a ceremonial pipe, known by the Mandan as the Calumet, a young woman approached Madeleine and invited her to another lodge. Like all Mandan women, she wore her hair in two plaits down each side of her face and wore beaded and plaited rawhide jewellery. Her clothing was also decorated with dyed seed beads, plaited rawhide and rawhide cut into deep fringes on her clothes which moved when she walked.
Yet as Madeleine followed the girl, she felt a sudden overwhelming sense of loss. And knew in her heart that Deinde'-paggwe wasn’t here. She would have seen her by now. Or sensed her. But there was nothing. Just a terrible feeling that they had come too late. And Madeleine felt the loss of her to the marrow of her bones and knew she had brought Ryder and Te’tukhe all this way for nothing.
*
As soon as she stepped down inside the earth lodge, Madeleine felt trapped and claustrophobic. It was a gloomy place, although warm from the large fire pit in the centre of the room. Furs and buffalo and deer hides covered the fresh grasses on the floor and the raised banks of earth built around the edge of the chamber obviously used as beds, were also covered in fresh grasses and herbs and furs, giving the lodge a fresh, not unpleasant smell.
Madeleine was offered a place by the fire, joining a group of women and children who she understood to be the wives and children of the Chiefs who were entertaining Ryder. She was offered a clay bowl of succotash, corn cakes, slices of smoked meat and a piece of fried bread along with several pieces of melon. The bread had been made with piñon nuts and she ate hungrily, wondering if Ryder were also being offered such a feast.
The young woman asked Madeleine about her journey and how she came to be at the Mandan village, communicating using Plains sign talk and the Mandan dialect. But the girl spoke too quickly for Madeleine to understand her meaning and it soon became hopeless trying to be understood.
“Do any of you have French?” she asked.
The young girl shook her head and after another frustrating few minutes of trying to communicate, she excused herself, stood up and left the lodge. Another of the women said something, and Madeleine caught the words girl and French but the rest was spoken too fast for her to grasp. But when the young girl returned some minutes later, a teenage girl followed her inside the lodge. She was clearly frightened. They sat down opposite Madeleine and once again the Mandan girl spoke, but now she directed her questions to the teenage girl, who looked confused. When the younger girl turned to Madeleine and spoke in halting French, Madeleine could see her trembling with fear.
“I am Zintkala of the Crow nation. I have lived here for four months but when my husband returns from trapping in the wild, we return to the Crow. He is a halfblood from the north, so I speak some French. They want me to translate for you.”
Madeleine leaned forward and explained they had come up from St Louis. The girl understood this, for she had also been to St Louis with her husband and his partners to sell furs.
“We have come to join the explorers, to head west,” Madeleine said, waiting for the girl to translate back into Sioux. She saw the Mandan women smile and nod. “But I am looking for a girl to accompany me, to help me on our journey. Is there a girl here from a north-western tribe, someone who knows the route north?”
The girl once again translated, but her French was halting, awkward. The Mandan women spoke rapidly then shook their heads. Zintkala turned back to Madeleine. “There were some girls here from a western tribe, but they have all gone. There is no-one else here.”
Madeleine didn’t know what else to ask without naming Deinde'-paggwe. And she dared not reveal her own connections to the Bannock.
“We hope to meet up with the explorers in the next few weeks. Did they take any girls from the village to help them?”
There was another rapid discussion in Sioux before Zintkala nodded. “Only one. She and her young son followed her husband when he left with the explorers as their interpreter.”
Madeleine dared to hope this might be Deinde'-paggwe. “May I know her name? So that I might speak to her when I meet her?”
The girl glanced back at the Mandan and asked the question. One of the older women nodded and said a name which meant nothing to Madeleine.
“The Mandan knew her as Gi’zica.”
Madeleine felt a crushing blow at this. But as she wondered how else to ask a question about Deinde'-paggwe, she felt a sudden shift in the mood among the women. It was obvious they were becoming uncomfortable with her questions regarding girls who had been slaves here, so she stopped asking.
She knew Deinde'-paggwe wasn’t here. And after another hour of talking, of answering questions from the Mandan women, she made an excuse to leave. No-one stopped her.
It was cold and miserable outside away from the gloomy warmth of the earth lodge for it had begun to rain, just a drizzle, not yet a downpour, but it promised to come later. And as the wind whipped her hair about her face, as leaves and dirt blew about the village, Madeleine shivered as she watched the dark clouds swirl menacingly to the north.
She wished Ryder would come so they could leave this place before that storm hit. And as she turned and wandered around the village, taking one last look to see if she could find Deinde'-paggwe, a flash of lightning blazed across the sky to the north followed by a clap of thunder. People ran to their lodges seeking shelter, even as the wind picked up and howled way out on the prairie.
Madeleine continued to look around the village. Except for a few youths on horseback riding towards the herd of horses, it was almost deserted compared to the hundreds who had welcomed her and Ryder just a few hours ago. And had Deinde'-paggwe been here, Madeleine knew the girl would have found a way to contact her by now for everyone knew that she and Ryder were here.
At a loss to know what to do, unwilling to return to the women and knowing she couldn’t go to Ryder, not while he was in Council with the Chiefs, she threaded her way back through the village towards the river where their horses were hobbled. The storm wasn’t so bad yet that they couldn’t ride in the rain, but if Ryder didn’t come soon they would have no choice but to seek shelter here for the night.
She pulled the blanket closer around her face and shoulders but as she went to step away from the earth lodges and out into the meadow, as the wind buffeted her, someone reached out and grabbed her arm.
Two
It was an old woman. Her teeth were almost gone and she was tiny and hunched, as though she had seen too much of the world and could no longer face it head on. Her hair, grey and streaked with white, fell in one long braid to her waist. Her face was deeply lined.
At first, I thought her to be some twenty years older than Paddake’e, but as I stopped before her, I realized she was much older. This woman was well into her seventies, her worn body stooped with age, her hands callused with most of her finger joints swollen and twisted with arthritis.
She was clearly ill. Her eyes were sunken and framed with dark circles, her skin was sallow, her body emaciated as though she had not eaten well for many weeks. But I almost stumbled when I saw the shadows flickering around her, spirit beings between this world and the next, waiting for death to claim her. Although there was nothing malevolent about them, or indeed this woman. In fact, she appeared a gentle soul, a woman easily used because of her goodness, yet I stepped away from her as she bent to cough, a rattle that came from deep within her lungs.
She held a corner of th
e blanket she wore around her shoulders to her mouth, then looked up at me, before speaking in the Sioux dialect. Her voice was aged and soft. And although she spoke slower than the young Mandan woman, I still found it hard to understand her and in frustration, seeing my bewilderment, she began repeating herself, saying the same words over and over again, little girl and safe and being with the men but they meant nothing to me.
Again, I stepped away from her because of her illness, but quick as a young girl she reached out to take my arm. I pulled away, having no care for her to touch me, for her hand was like a claw, withered and emaciated like the rest of her. She spoke again with that husky breathlessness, the urgency and desperation of her words unnerving. I glanced at the worn state of her blanket and buckskin clothing and patched moccasins and knew this woman had reached the end of her life with no-one to care for her. I turned back, feeling compassion for her.
“I do not speak your language,” I said, the tips of my fingers and thumb going to my lips to show her I didn’t have the words to communicate. “I don’t know what you want from me.”
And at last, seeing my frustration, she stopped and pointed to the fort way behind us, repeating the words over and over, safe and being with the men.
I was bewildered by this meeting, even as the woman once again put a corner of the blanket to her mouth and coughed, a deep hacking sound. Repulsed by it I turned away and headed towards the horses, just as the woman uttered a low cry of distress. I saw her fall, the earthen lodge behind her taking her weight as she came to rest at its base, cowering in her blanket and closing her eyes in misery. Distressed to leave her like this, I moved back to crouch beside her, using my hands to once more try and communicate with her in Plains sign talk. I asked her if she had family. She watched me, her eyes bloodshot and sad, her thin lips trembling. She nodded and made the sign for a small babe then pointed at me, once more talking about a child and taking her to be safe with the men. I stood up, resolved to end this strange conversation and walked away, leaving her behind me. I was trembling by the time I reached the horses, not only from the meetings I had endured with the women in the lodge and the old woman, but in my heart I knew we had come here on a fool’s errand. I had left my son to come here, I had separated Ryder from his brothers and the Comanche, precious weeks they would never have again. But Deinde'-paggwe wasn’t here and probably hadn’t been for some time. I didn’t even know if she were alive or dead and now I would never know.
*
By the time I reached the horses the wind was pulling the blanket off my shoulders. I leaned into the big solid mass of my horse, seeking his warmth against the cold and chill of the wind for the clouds on the distant horizon were now threaded with patches of deep black. I watched it, enthralled by the power of it and was reminded of another time I had seen a cloud as dense and menacing as that. Some fifteen years ago I had been sheltering in a cave with an old man, a being I came to know as the ancient one, when clouds like the one I now saw looming on the distant horizon had turned my world upside down.
I looked back towards the village, hoping Ryder would come soon, for we needed to get out of here and find shelter. I unhobbled our horses and mounted my own and took them under cover of some trees and waited. I could see the old woman still sitting where I left her, watching me. And just as I was beginning to feel unnerved by her, I saw Ryder come at a run, leaving the village behind him. No-one followed him and I kicked the horses out from under the trees and rode across to meet him. I felt the urgency in him as he mounted his horse.
“I made my excuses to leave by telling them we would ride on in the hope of catching the explorers. They think us mad to ride out in this weather and indeed, had the storm not come, I don’t think we could have refused their invitation to stay the night,” he said as we kicked our horses on, heading northwest. “Te’tukhe was right, we needed him to speak for us for it was impossible to hold a decent conversation. I found it hard to communicate and even when I asked if they had seen him, I don’t think they understood what I was talking about, let alone the whereabouts of Deinde'-paggwe. Although I did manage to discover something at least. Do you remember a young Shoshone girl called Saca-tzah-we-yaa?”
I turned to him and nodded.
“Well, it appears she has gone north with the explorers, although I couldn’t quite grasp why.”
I looked at him incredulous, wondering if this was the girl the Mandan women had called Gi’zica. I thought it more than likely and suddenly remembered the little girl who had befriended Deinde'-paggwe and Poongatse, the three of them running around the Shoshone and Bannock village as children, often accompanied by Wannge’e. And then I thought of something which Poongatse had told me, over a year ago.
Saca-tzah-we-yaa is wife to a Frenchman, a Canadian fur trapper and although some say he won her in a card game, I believe she chose him, for she was always the smart one. They both still live at the Mandan village and sometimes he leaves her there alone, when he returns to the wild to hunt.
I said nothing to Ryder as we rode on in the rain for there was little point. Saca-tzah-we-yaa was as lost to us as was Deinde'-paggwe.
Three
As they rode away from the Mandan village, their heads bowed against the wind and rain, Madeleine and Ryder never saw the old woman stand and watch them ride off. They never saw her turn and hobble back to the village, nor did they see her enter one of the earth lodges which lay close to the central square, where a few women sat close to the fire nursing infants.
The old woman glanced at them, but they took little notice of her as she made her way up to her bed. She had to hurry. She had precious minutes left to take what she wanted before the family returned, seeking the warmth of the lodge. Panting, trying not to cough and draw attention to herself, the old woman pushed herself to move as fast as she could. For she knew if she stumbled now, if she failed in her quest, she would have lost her only chance. She took two blankets off her bed along with two leather bags. These were filled with herbs and some smoked meat she had stolen when no-one was looking. Then she took her waterskin and rolled everything up within the blankets before pulling the buffalo robe off her bed and throwing it over her shoulders. The dense mass of it hid the blankets under her arm although one of the young women glanced up as she passed them by, but said nothing.
Stumbling under the weight of the buffalo robe, the old woman weaved her way through the village to the woods at the rear, her face obscured beneath the robe. The rain was falling heavier now, but few people looked her way, for they ran with their heads down against the wind, eager to reach the village and the warmth of their lodges.
When two men on horseback came riding through the trees, herding half a dozen horses to shelter under a stand of thick oak, the woman stepped back behind an elm, to avoid being seen. The men didn’t bother hobbling the horses, but left them to graze within the trees, a long rawhide rope attached to their bridle which was left trailing on the ground, allowing them to catch the animals with ease. When the men turned and rode away, the woman moved on, whimpering as the wind whipped the trees around her and thick grey clouds bore down on the village. When she heard the thunder of hooves coming towards her, she once again stepped back under the trees just in time to avoid some thirty riders as they thundered past, a dozen carcasses of deer strapped down on the back of their packhorses. A few of the men glanced over at her but took little notice, for an elderly woman alone in the woods was of little consequence to them. There were always women and girls gathering and setting snares in the woods.
When the last of the riders and horses had passed, she hurried on until she met a large group of women and children ahead of her. The elderly woman quickly stepped out of their path and dropped her buffalo robe and blankets under some ferns to hide them. When she stepped back on the path some of the women acknowledged her, others swept past, eager to reach the village and get out of the storm. Yet their progress was hindered by their wet clothes and the heavy baskets of wood and kindling they
carried, along with leather bags full of herbs and seeds.
Towards the rear of the group a woman in her twenties stumbled along, not only because of the heavy basket of kindling she carried but because some way behind her, a small child was struggling to keep up. The older woman’s eyes narrowed with anger and dislike as the younger woman turned once more to yell at the little girl to hurry.
Yet the child was clearly in trouble. Not even two years old, her thin arms were full of kindling and she could barely see over the top of the load she carried. Her thin legs were bruised from falling over, as she desperately tried to keep up. She was pretty, although her face was now creased with fatigue and stress, the tears running down her cheeks leaving stains on her dirty face, despite the rain which made her hair cling to her small head and the buckskin shift to her thin body.
The elderly woman hurried forward until at last she stood in the path of the younger woman. A look of surprise and then annoyance crossed the younger woman’s face. “Hanyewi’winyan! What are you doing out here? You should be inside, not out in this weather.”
The older woman smiled but her eyes were cold as she looked at her grandson’s wife. Yes, she knew well enough she should be inside making a meal for this lazy young woman as well as taking care of her other chores. The only reason she was no longer collecting firewood and kindling was because she was too frail. She turned and nodded towards the child stumbling towards them, her small soft sobs of distress clearly heard even from the distance which separated them.
