La Vengeance des mères

by Jim Fergus

  Tonight as I make these poor scribbles, I watch Molly doin’ the same on the other side of the fire ring. Hawk and the rest of the Cheyenne with him make a separate camp every night a little away from us, but we can see their figures seated cross-legged around their own fire, and that offers us some sense of security, too.

  I showed Molly how to strap the ledger book to her back with rawhide thongs while we’re traveling, the way our May did. She’s a real different kind of girl than May, both in the way she looks and acts. But to see her ridin’ with that book strapped on, or writing by the fire like she is now, me and Susie can’t help but think of our own group traveling across the plains with the Cheyenne people in happier times. ’Tis a real bittersweet memory, and after all that’s happened … seems already like another lifetime ago.

  We ain’t quite altogether figured out this Molly lass just yet, but we’re workin’ on it. Tough as she seems on the outside, we think maybe it’s just a suit of armor she wears to hide something soft and wounded on the inside.

  “So what are you writin’ about then, Molly McGill?” I ask her across the fire.

  “Nothing much, Meggie,” she answers. “Just a few impressions of our travels so far. And you?”

  “Aye, same here,” says I, “like you say, impressions … I was wonderin’ if maybe every now and again, we should trade notebooks to see how the other is thinkin’ about things. Might help me and Susie’s vocabulary and spelling, too, to see how an educated girl like you writes. How would you feel about that, Molly?”

  “I would not be in favor of it, Meg,” she answers. “Isn’t that the whole purpose of a journal, so you can write things no one else is ever going to read? It frees you up to be completely honest. If you and I knew we were going to share each other’s notebooks, we’d be cautious about what we wrote. And being cautious means you’re not telling the whole truth.”

  “Aye, we admit you’re right about that,” says Susie. “But you know, me and Meggie are a nosy pair of foxes, no one ever said we wasn’t. We was always trying to sneak a peek at May’s journals, but she wouldn’t let us, either, though sometimes she would read passages aloud to us. She had a real nice way a’ puttin’ things, our May did, but she never read us the juicy parts we knew were in there somewhere. We figure her journals got burned by the soldiers along with everything else … leaving no trace of us behind, like none of us ever even existed, and no one would ever know we had … May always told us she was keeping those journals for her two children back in Chicago, a boy and a girl, who her father took from her when he committed her to the asylum. She said she wanted them to know the truth of what became of their mother … course now they’ll never know, either … In light of that, would you do Meggie and me a favor, Molly?”

  “What’s that, Susie?”

  “When we get killed, which is sure to happen, if you’re able to, will you try to keep our notebooks safe? And we’ll do the same for yours if it happens the other way.”

  “Yes, of course, I’ll try,” says Molly. “But why? You say May was writing to her children. But I don’t care if my notebooks survive me, because I’m not writing to anyone but myself. Who are you girls writing to?”

  “No one in particular,” says Susie with an embarrassed shrug. “We don’t have anyone to write to, either. We just … you know, we just want someone to know what it was like … what happened … what they did to us … what became of our friends … and our babies…”

  And then Susie says: “Aye, sister, but maybe we’re really writin’ to our babies, after all … and to our friends. Tellin’ them a story they didn’t get to live.”

  Molly, still scribblin’ away as we talk, raises her head from her journal and looks at us across the fire, flames flickerin’ in her blue eyes, a haunted look on her face that is all too familiar to us. She nods. “Yes, I think you’re right, Susie,” she says. “And maybe I’m keeping this journal for my daughter. She may be gone, but she’s still all I have left…”

  16 April 1876

  Well, then just when we got finished saying that things have been quiet, we’ve had a wee bit of excitement of a strange nature. Travelin’ north along what the Cheyenne call Crazy Woman Creek, we stop to water the horses and all of a sudden the head scout, Red Fox, lets out a whoop and kicks his horse into a run, splashin’ into the river—Little Buffalo and Pretty Nose, who also serve as scouts, right behind him. And there a bit downriver on the other side we see what looks to be a lone soldier, squattin’ on the bank, filling a canteen with water. He doesn’t appear to have a horse, or a gun or anything else. Seein’ three of our people comin’ across the river toward him, he turns and starts runnin’ quick as a cat chased by a pack a’ dogs. Hawk has given everyone instructions not to fire guns as we travel unless it’s a matter of life or death because the noise will alert others in the area to our presence. For the same reason, even the hunting parties when they go out to find game only take bow and arrow with ’em.

  When he has nearly caught up to the soldier, with a neat sidearm motion Red Fox twirls a weapon in the air made from a length of rawhide with a stone tied at either end and slings it at the fella’s lower legs, tripping him up. The soldier cries out as he hits the ground hard, Red Fox already off his horse and on top of him, knife drawn and about to slit his throat and take his scalp with two fast slashes of the blade like only a savage knows how to do. The two other scouts have caught up now, and from their horses they each touch the soldier with their coup sticks. Just then Hawk makes his screeching whistle that sounds exactly like the cry of a bird of prey, and what’s more sounds like it’s comin’ from overhead rather than on the ground, so that people look up rather than at him. It’s an odd talent we’ve witnessed before in our time among the Cheyenne, and that no one even questions because there are things that happen among these folks that just can’t be explained, and there’s no point in tryin’. But as if taking a signal from Hawk’s cry, instead of killing the soldier, Red Fox hauls him to his feet, takes a rope off his saddle, throws a loop over the fella’s head, pulls it tight across his chest, pinning his arms, remounts his horse and drags the soldier—stumblin’ and fallin’ down and gettin’ up, sputterin’ and gaggin’—back across the river. Hawk, who no matter what Molly says on the subject has never uttered a single word of English to me and Susie, now asks us in Cheyenne to question the soldier, find out where the rest of his company is, so we can be sure to make a wide berth of ’em. Then Hawk tells Red Fox he can kill and scalp the soldier after we get our information, and the two of ’em lead their horses down to the creek to water, and we are left to interrogate the soldier.

  Now this is one scared laddie, I can tell you, breathin’ hard and blubberin’ like a baby, blowin’ river water and snot out his nose, so skinny he looks like he’s starvin’ to death. “What’s your name, cubby?” I ask him, and he seems real surprised, and relieved, that I speak English. “That’s right, we’re white girls even if we don’t really look it. Pull yourself together. If you cry like a sissy, like you’re doin’ right now, they’ll kill you real slow, make you suffer more. There ain’t nothin’ they hate more than a crybaby.”

  This kinda gets his attention. “They’re going to kill me?” he asks, sniffling.

  “Well, what do you think, boyo? You wear the uniform of a soldier in the United States Army, or at least what’s left of a uniform, ragged though it be, and these folks are Cheyenne, at war with your government. What the hell you think they’re gonna do, hold a feast in your honor?”

  “Why are you with them?” he asks.

  “That’s a long story you don’t need to know,” says Susie. “Where’s the rest of your company? Tell us everything, maybe they’ll go easy on you.”

  “I don’t have a company, I’m all alone.”

  “What are you doin’ out here, then?”

  “Hiding.”

  “Well, you’re not doin’ a real good job a’ that at the moment, are ya, sonny boy?” says I. “You look like you be
en out here for a good long while. You a deserter?”

  “Yes.”

  “How long ago?”

  “I’m not sure,” says he, “what month are we in, I’ve lost track.”

  “Mid-April.”

  “Well, then I guess I have been here since early March.”

  “Where’s your horse and the rest of your kit?” Susie asks.

  “I had to kill my horse to eat. The rest of my gear is in a cave where I have been camped not far from here. I do not have much, just standard Army issue.”

  “Where did you desert from?” I ask.

  “I was with the Fourth Cavalry under the command of Colonel Ranald Mackenzie,” says he. “We attacked the winter camp of the Lakota warrior Crazy Horse at dawn on the morning of March first.”

  Me and Susie exchange a look as our blood runs cold. “Did ya … did ya now?” says I. “And did ya manage to kill some savages yourself then, boyo?”

  “No, no, I do not kill people. You see, I am a noncombatant. I am the company chaplain … or I should say, I was … It was my first campaign, I had only recently been conscripted. I am Mennonite, we do not bear arms against others, we do not kill, we follow the way of Jesus Christ. I was sent to Camp Robinson because the Army was experiencing a shortage of chaplains on the plains. When our troops attacked the Indian village and I saw what was happening … I saw women and children being killed … shot in the back as they tried to escape … I … I panicked … I ran away … I abandoned the soldiers to whom I was supposed to provide spiritual guidance, and I abandoned the victims of their terrible wrath … I lost my courage … I abandoned my faith…”

  “Holy … mother … of Jaysus…” whispers Susie under her breath. “I was just about to cut his throat, Meggie, and take his bollocks and scalp as our first trophies of war, and I know you were thinkin’ the same … but somehow … ya know, cuttin’ the bollocks off a damn chaplain don’t seem like such a grand idea now, does it sister?”

  “Hawk has already told Ma’hóóhe that the soldier belongs to him, sister,” says I. “Which relieves us of the responsibility of killin’ him.”

  Meanwhile the greenhorns have been sittin’ their horses real quiet, near enough to hear all this, watching kind of wide-eyed, and now Molly and the Englishwoman, Lady Ann Hall, confer for a moment, dismount, and walk over to us.

  “Our group is of the unanimous opinion,” says Lady Hall, in her hoity-toity way of speakin’, “that this young man’s life should be spared.”

  “Well, now ain’t that just lovely, Meggie?” says Susie. “The greenhorns have decided to save the poor lad. The only thing is, m’lady, no one cares what your unanimous opinion is, because you don’t have any say in this matter. You may be a suffragette where you come from, but you ain’t got the vote here, either. Hawk is in charge, he does what he wants with the lad. And we don’t interfere. That’s how it works with these folks, see?”

  “You girls talk tough,” says Molly, “but I don’t think you want to see this boy killed, either.” She looks at the chaplain now. “It appears to me that he’s suffered enough just staying alive out here.”

  “He is kinda pitiful,” says Susie. “What’s your name, anyhow, sonny?”

  “Christian.”

  “Well, that figures,” says Susie. “What’s your family name?”

  “Goodman.”

  “Christian Goodman? Jaysus Christ, you make that up?”

  “No, it’s an old family name,” says he, “a not uncommon one among my faith.”

  “I’m going to speak to Hawk about this,” says Molly. “I don’t mind interfering. As you girls keep telling us, we’re greenhorns and we don’t know any better.”

  Me and Susie don’t try to stop Molly. In fact, we’re glad she volunteered, rather than us havin’ to do it, because she’s right, there ain’t much honor in killin’ such a pathetic little fella as this one. We give her one piece of advice and that is to tell Hawk that the boy is a holy man, that he’s got big medicine. We know that makes a real impression on the Cheyenne. It was enough to keep them from killing Brother Anthony when he first came among us. “And you tell him the boy quit the Army because they were killing Cheyenne babies,” says I, “that he’s been livin’ for weeks in a cave on a vision quest. You tell him he wants to help our people.

  “Now ain’t that the way it is, cubby?” I ask him.

  “In fact, it is,” says he. “I do not know what a vision quest is, but it is true that I have been praying to God since I came here to show me the way.”

  “That’s close enough. Aye, you tell Hawk all that, Molly.”

  So Molly walks down to the river where Hawk is squattin’ on his haunches as his horse takes a long drink. We watch as she sits down right beside him, practically touchin’, like they’re old pals. It’s true this lassie’s got a lot to learn about Cheyenne etiquette, for it is not a woman’s place to behave so familiar like that with a man she hardly knows. Still, we gotta admit, the girl’s got a pair of bollocks on her.

  Also … and we would never say this to her face … but me and Susie think Molly is sweet on Hawk. We catch her lookin’ over his way all the time, though he doesn’t pay a bit of attention to her. Now, it ain’t like we think she doesn’t genuinely want to save the chaplain’s scalp … but at the same time we’re thinkin’ maybe the way she was so quick volunteerin’ to speak to Hawk was partly an excuse to get next to him.

  Aye, he’s a good-lookin’ lad, Hawk, no denyin’ it, with all the best qualities of both races, Cheyenne and white. He’s got a real noble expression of countenance … in the same way Molly does, except on the manly side. He’s a little taller than most of the others, his skin a real nice shade about like that of brand-new saddle leather, his hair a fine chestnut color. He walks light across the earth, movin’ with the soft, easy gait of a man who would be flyin’ if he had wings.

  When the tribe holds their footraces for fun, Hawk almost always wins when he wants to. About the only one who ever beat him was our Phemie once or twice—aye, could that lassie ever run!… God rest her soul—they was always neck and neck, cut from the same cloth, that negro lass and the Indian lad, both half-white, both of ’em with a kind of native grace, exceptional at all they did, whether it be ridin’, runnin’, huntin’, or makin’ war, and they had a good, friendly competition, too.

  Me and Susie don’t know how really to explain it, but we seen it in most members of the tribe, as well, no matter what their blood—Little Wolf, for example—these are men and women who fit so natural into this savage world, and live with a kind of deal they made with the other animals, eatin’ and being eaten, killin’ and being killed. What they can’t tolerate is the way the white world tries to close ’em in, make slaves of ’em, lock ’em up on the reservation and throw away the key. I suppose it’s the same way me and Meggie were born smart about the streets of the city where we came up … but different, too, of course …

  Anyhow, Hawk is not old enough yet to be a chief, but he already has the bearing of one, has proved himself as a warrior, and commands respect from the others. Sure, it’s easy to see why Molly might have a hankerin’ for him, especially after spendin’ all the time she did in prison. Course, we don’t know what wound she carries herself, and maybe me and Susie are just writin’ a story here, trying to soften our stony hearts by imaginin’ romance between others, because those days are long gone for us …

  We have to admit that what Molly says about us is true. Aye, it’s funny … all this time, we been dreamin’ of findin’ the soldiers who attacked our village and takin’ our revenge on ’em. And here the very first one we run into was actually there, but he’s a damned skinny Mennonite chaplain named Christian Goodman … for Christ’s sake … who got scared and ran away. Aye, we don’t want to see him killed, either. I wish we could tell Brother Anthony about this. We know what he’d say, too, he’d say this was God’s way of revealin’ himself to us. Well, me and Susie ain’t quite ready to believe that … For God
had plenty of time to reveal himself by savin’ our babies, but he surely came up short in that regard, didn’t he?

  To pass the time while we wait on Molly, we ask the lad how he managed to survive out here in the dead a’ winter. He tells us the Mennonites are a simple people and live close to the earth, self-sufficient country folk, who make their way farmin’, raisin’ animals, and huntin’. He says the only tool he has is an Army-issue knife, a fork and a tin plate and cup, and that he carried a small bag of salt, some hardtack and bacon in his saddlebags, long since used up. He doesn’t know exactly how many days he traveled after he deserted, eatin’ just enough to get by, not even knowing where he was headed, and not caring. Finally, he came upon a cave hidden in a rocky bluff, where he was able to get in outta the weather and make a fire. By then his horse was already half-dead from hunger, because with the ground frozen and covered in snow, there was little forage. So he killed the animal, butchered him, and was able to keep much of the meat frozen so it lasted a good long while. He made snares with strips of rawhide, and managed to trap small rodents and rabbits, and others he hunted with stones. He says he was plannin’ on stayin’ out here until he died, or until God spoke to him, givin’ him some sign about what he should do next to make penance for his sins—for being a coward, for losin’ his faith, for not tryin’ to stop the soldiers from their bloodlust.

  “You see, I had never seen war before,” says he. “We are a peaceful people, I had never experienced violence, or seen human beings behave in such a fashion. I had never seen a person killed by another, let alone a child. I did not flee because I was afraid for my own life, I fled because I could not bear to witness such sins against humanity, against Jesus Christ our Lord. And in so doing, I became complicit in those sins. I know I should have stayed and tried to stop them, to save both the children and the souls of those who killed them. And I did not … I did not.”

  “If it is any small consolation to you, sonny,” says I, “you could not have stopped them.”