La Vengeance des mères

by Jim Fergus

  We ask Grass Woman for water and a cloth and she brings us a tin trade pan full from beside the fire and a strip of calico cloth that must be a remnant from fabric she got at the trading post. Martha sits quiet as we wipe the grease, mud, and blood from her face.

  “Just out of curiosity, Martha,” says Susie, as we are doing so, “why is it so important to you that we clean your face now? We been tryin’ to get you to stop wearin’ the damn paint since first you came to us. What’s the big rush now?”

  “I don’t remember when I first came to you,” she answers softly.

  “So why is it so important, then?”

  Martha looks puzzled, seems to struggle a moment to find an answer. “Well…” she begins slowly, “… well … I don’t know exactly … I suppose … I suppose I just want my little boy to recognize his mama.”

  LEDGER BOOK VI

  Adapt or Perish

  We have been informed that a feast and a dance is to be held in our honor, this in order to formally welcome us to the village, and so that the young men can have a look at us as prospective wives. “Let us think of it as a kind of savage debutante ball,” said Lady Hall when we heard the news.

  (from the journals of Molly McGill)

  9 May 1876

  I need not elaborate on the several days we passed near the burnt-out Cheyenne village mentioned in my last entry, other than to say that it was a harrowing experience. All in our group were deeply affected by this haunted place, the charred remains of which offer incontrovertible evidence of the massacre these people endured. We witnessed firsthand the excruciating pain the return caused the Kellys and the Cheyenne, who had been there on that terrible morning. At the same time, it gave us a chilling sense of the dangers we ourselves face.

  During our time there, I watched Hawk sit on the burial scaffold of his wife and son, next to that of his mother, for three days and nights. I would awake several times during the night and leave the rough little tent I share with Carolyn Metcalf to see if he did not sleep at last. And each time I looked, he was still sitting there under the stars in the same position, cross-legged, his back rigid.

  On the fourth day, we took again to the trail. I’m not sure why … perhaps simply because our pace quickened, but I had a sense that we were nearing our destination, whatever that might be. Later that afternoon and much to the chagrin of the Kelly sisters, I decided that I must speak with Hawk, and I rode forward to the head of our procession, taking my place beside him.

  “I only came to tell you that I am sorry about your family,” I said. “… No, no, forgive me, that is not what I wish to say … how meaningless that sounds. I wish to say that because I bear one myself, I know that there are wounds we suffer … wounds so deep and permanent that no solace can ever be offered in words or expressions of sympathy, wounds that never heal, never scar over, but remain raw and open forever. I saw in your eyes when first we met on the train … well, if you can call that a meeting … I could see that we share this common bond. Now I understand a bit more about what happened to you, and someday perhaps I might be able to tell you a little of my own story … though it is not something I have spoken of to anyone else before. Until then, I wish for you to know that when we find Little Wolf’s village, and the time comes that we white women are to be given as brides to Cheyenne warriors … I wish for you to choose me. I wish to be your wife.”

  Hawk turned his head then and looked me directly in the eyes, the first time, it occurred to me, he had done so since that very first moment on the train. He did not respond to my proposal, but did I not perhaps detect a slight nod of his head as he regarded me … or is that simply wishful thinking on my part?

  We rode on in silence for a time, side by side, our horses in step. I wondered at the absurdity of falling in love with a man who didn’t even speak to me. And I wondered if it was even possible to fall in love with a man because I had held on to him as a captive on the back of his horse for hours … and I liked the feel of his body against mine … and I liked how he smelled. I wondered if this experience we were all having, in which everything familiar to us on earth has crumbled away under our feet, leaving us with a sense of falling into a chasm, has not caused me to grasp hold of this man in order to break the fall. Or perhaps I hold on simply because how else could I continue to live after having lost all that was dear to me?

  Now I heard little Mouse call to me, and I turned to see her running up behind us, fleet and light-footed as a deer. Strangely enough, she calls me by the same name by which Hawk’s mother was known, Heóva’éhe, Yellow Hair Woman, which I assume she has learned from the Cheyenne women. I put my left arm out and down, in the motion we have adopted for her to mount while I’m riding—she grabbed hold of it with both hands, at the same time springing off the ground like a quail launching into flight, and I swung her aboard, light as a bird. Hawk glances over and smiles at Mouse, and says something to her. She answers … I must learn their language, and teach her mine.

  “When we marry,” I said to him, “I would like this child to come live with us.”

  Hawk looks at me again with the same bemused expression with which he greeted my gun, just the hint of a smile at his mouth. We ride on in silence for another half hour or so, I indulging myself in an absurd fantasy of the three of us as a happy family on a leisurely horseback ride in the country.

  Finally, I reined Spring around to drop Mouse back with Good Feathers and return to my group. “One day I hope you might speak to me again,” I said to Hawk, then touched my heels to the horse’s flanks until she broke into a lope.

  I knew well that I was in for an interrogation by Meggie and Susie, and surely yet another lecture about savage etiquette. But I did not give a damn. I decided to tell them the truth. That would give those Irish scoundrels something to think about.

  14 May 1876

  At last … Hawk has led us to Little Wolf’s village, in a lovely secluded valley on a tributary of the Tongue River in the foothills of the Bighorn mountains. After all the trials these beleaguered people have experienced, it was wonderful to witness the joyful homecoming our Cheyenne and the Kelly girls received as we rode into the camp. It brought back certain memories of our own strange arrival into Crazy Horse’s village, riding behind our abductors, fully two months ago now … with the rather substantial difference that in this case, we are no longer captives … or perhaps, in a different manner, we are.

  We rode in three days ago, having climbed all that morning from the edge of the foothills, gaining altitude into forests of mixed aspen and pine, the former not leafed out yet, traveling at times through snow midway up our horses’ forelegs, all of us wrapped in buffalo hides or trade blankets against the chill mountain air. Through a high pass and down the other side, losing altitude quickly, the temperature warming in the sunlight. It was then that we heard in the hills around us the wild echoes of birds whistling, an eerie sound that seemed to issue from all directions, as if the birds were communicating with one another. We looked at Meggie and Susie, upon whom we so depend to interpret this world for us. They were clearly made anxious by the song of the birds. “Get ready, girls,” Meggie warned, but for what she did not say, nor could we guess.

  Then Hawk answered himself, in his distinctive raptor cry, and our horses pricked their ears forward alertly and quickened their pace with no prompting from us. We rode up a long grassy slope, just beginning to green up in the sunlight, the Cheyenne riding ahead of us already disappearing over the crest. When we reached the summit ourselves and began to descend on the other side, we saw the village in the valley down below. It appeared to be considerably smaller than Crazy Horse’s winter encampment from whence we had come.

  As if they had been expecting us, the people began to come out of their tipis, and those women who were seated, working in front of the lodges, stood. The women and girls took up the trilling they make that is also not possible to describe … a kind of melodic warbling, an orchestration in varying tones and notes, a beautiful
, welcoming music that clearly also has its origins in the avian world, and that like birds singing in the spring makes one feel part of the earth, grateful to be alive.

  Into this village we rode, the twins clearly delighted to rejoin their people, waving and greeting friends, which was heartening for us to witness, as we are so much outliers of this world, and it gave us small hopes of our own future.

  Reminding us again of our status as curiosities, the impish young children, small, brown, and healthful, chattering and giggling like strange little elves, ran up to touch us, as they had upon our arrival in the Lakota village—counting coup, the twins tell us it is called, an act of courage that they can then recount proudly to their friends.

  We had a moment of distress when a group of Cheyenne women, mistaking our chaplain Goodman for a captive soldier, dragged him from his horse and began to beat him with sticks. I managed to intervene on his behalf, and the matter was settled to everyone’s satisfaction when Christian stripped off his boots and uniform and offered them to the woman who had led the assault.

  After he had remounted, wearing nothing but his skivvies, to the delight of the natives, I asked him, “Why did you not fight back or at least try to defend yourself?”

  He thought about this for a moment … “I suppose because I felt I deserved it,” he finally answered. “And also because I have never had to fight against a woman … or a man for that matter. I’m a pacifist after all, taught to turn the other cheek. I do not know how to fight back.”

  As we continued our ride through the village, Susie and Meggie suddenly leapt from their horses and ran to greet a magnificent, statuesque black woman, dressed in native attire, the rims of her ears pierced in four or five places, and decorated with small metal rings. Euphemia Washington is her name, we have learned, an escaped slave and one of the Kellys’ own party of white women. They say that Phemie fought the soldiers in the Mackenzie attack and was reported to have been killed. Thus upon finding her here alive, the twins were overwhelmed with joy. Their reunion was a moving thing to behold.

  We have other wonderful news: Martha’s infant son is here in the village, in the care of his father, the Cheyenne warrior Tangle Hair. No one seems to know yet exactly how or why this came about. She has been reunited with her child, and although it cannot be said that this has entirely set her mind right again, she did recognize him on first sight, which seems, at least, to have brought her out of her trance state.

  15 May 1876

  We greenhorns have been installed in two temporary tipis on the edge of the village, but not yet incorporated into it … evidently until the matter of matrimony has been resolved. Once they had settled us here, Meggie and Susie announced that they would be moving back into the village and making themselves scarce for a time.

  “When our group of brides arrived,” said Susie, “we didn’t speak the language, either, we didn’t know shite about the customs of savage life, we had to figure things out on our own. Now it’s time for you lassies to do so, as well. Ain’t that right, Meggie?”

  “Right as rain, sister,” said Meggie. “Our babysittin’ days are over, girls. We’re lettin’ the Cheyenne take over now. This is their place, their world, and they’ll teach you all you need to know about it … if you’re willin’ to learn, that is. And the fastest way that’s goin’ to happen is if we’re not around to hold your hands anymore. We’ll check in on you from time to time, but right now we got business of our own to attend to. We’re just goin’ to leave you with a’ coupla pieces of advice. First: if you haven’t already done so given what you’ve been through so far, forget everything you ever knew about the way things work in the white world. Nothing you may be hangin’ on to from your old lives applies here, and the sooner you understand that, the easier things’ll go for you. This is a different world, with different people who have different beliefs and different ways a’ doin’ things. And by the time they get done with you, you’re goin’ to be different, too. All you need do is look at me and Susie to know the truth a’ that.”

  “Aye, and the second thing is,” said Susie. “Just remember that for quite some time you will be looked upon as interlopers here, especially by the women. If you hope to be accepted, you need to cozy up to them first. It’s true that the men don’t let the lasses sit in council, but that’s only because they have their bleedin’ male pride to protect, and they like to pretend they run the show. But they don’t really. You’ll find that out. It’s the women who have the final say here. The fact is, the husbands go to their wives on all family and tribal matters, and the lasses are free to disagree with ’em, argue with ’em, persuade ’em, cajole ’em, and when that fails, they put their foot down. They got the power. Don’t forget that. Make friends among ’em.”

  “Well, I must say,” remarked our suffragist, Lady Hall, “we may consider them savages in other regards, but in this respect, they are certainly more civilized than we.”

  “Molly McGill,” said Meggie then, “if me and Susie may just have a word with ya in private…”

  We stepped away from the others.

  “We just wanted to mention,” said Susie, “that even though you ain’t any longer the official leader of your group, and they are in the quite capable hands of Lady Hall, you are still the unofficial leader … if you understand our meaning. It ain’t goin’ to be easy here for any of you.”

  “Will it be harder than what we’ve already been through?” I asked.

  “It will be different. The others count on you to be strong, which we know you are, and you will continue to be. But you’re also headstrong, and you don’t take real well to authority, Molly, if we may say so. So we just want to suggest that you don’t try to break the rules here, or encourage the others to do so. You’ll soon find out that the Cheyenne got their own way a’ doin’ things. It’ll go a whole lot easier for all a’ you to just go along with the way things are, and don’t try to change ’em.”

  “Alright, I’ll do my best.”

  And with that the twins took their leave of us.

  17 May 1876

  We have been put immediately to work by the Cheyenne women. Having grown up on a farm myself, I do not object to physical labor in the open air, and much prefer it to the kind of work I did when we moved to the city … which employment, as the Kelly girls suggests, is unavailable where we find ourselves now.

  These last two days our primary occupation has been to collect and bring in firewood. This involves climbing into the timber in the hills above the valley, gathering sticks and branches, bundling them with rawhide straps, and transporting them on our backs down to the village. It is not an easy task, and I am fortunate to be rather tall and quite strong. However, it is especially difficult labor for the smaller, slighter members of our group—Hannah Alford and Lulu LaRue, for instance, who are unable to bear the same size loads as I and Lady Hall, the latter who, though not especially tall, is quite muscular. Astrid Norstegard, too, having lived a life of physical activity on the sea and the Great Lakes, hauling nets and baskets full of fish, is a hearty girl, while Maria Galvez, with her Indian blood, and solid little frame gained during her hardscrabble childhood in the Sierra Madre, is surprisingly strong for one of her small stature. Carolyn Metcalf, on the other hand, whose life as a preacher’s wife was, by her own admission, quite sedentary, is perhaps the physically weakest member of our group.

  For this reason, we decided to form the bundles in varying sizes that could be borne comfortably by each of us. Curiously, the Cheyenne women themselves make little such accommodation, except for some of the older women who appear to be reaching the end of their wood-hauling days and bear lighter loads. Everyone else carries roughly the same weight. Thus when they saw our different-sized bundles, the women were quite disapproving, scolding the girls who carried less; we did not have to understand their language to know that they considered them slackers.

  We tried to explain the reason in our still-rudimentary sign language, but finally, I am glad to s
ay, it was Lady Hall who resolved the issue. She simply smiled and told the Cheyenne women in her forthright and slightly imperious manner: “You see, ladies, this is how we choose to do it.” Though they, of course, equally did not understand what she had said, due to her natural authority of character they seemed to get the point. And with only a bit more reproachful grumbling they left us to our own devices.

  When all were loaded and we began to make our way single file down the trail, out of the woods and back to the village, Lady Hall said, “Lulu, I think what we all need is a little song while we work, to lighten the load. Might you have something appropriate for the occasion?”

  “But of course, madame,” she answered. “Lulu has a song for all occasions.” She began to sing a charming little French children’s song called “Let’s Go Walking in the Woods,” a simple, sing-along ditty with a refrain—a story about children reassuring themselves against the danger of the wolf in the woods, just as we perhaps needed a little reassurance. Because of their aforementioned understanding of French-Canadian patois, the Cheyenne women quickly picked up the refrain. Even those of our group who spoke no French began to catch on, and soon all were joining in. It was a lovely moment that seemed to bring us together, and even made the burdens on our backs feel a bit less weighty.

  18 May 1876

  Lady Hall and I went today to see Martha in her lodge, and we were heartened by the sight of her happily doting upon her baby. However, she did not recognize us and remains terribly confused; she appears to remember very little of what has happened to her … perhaps this is a blessing, the mind’s way of dealing with the terrible violence and abuse she has experienced. To her great credit, Grass Woman, a girl who appears to be no older than sixteen years, has relinquished the role of mother to the boy, and serves, rather, a secondary role as a sort of aunt or nanny.

  It is clear, as the Kellys warned me, that the Cheyenne take very seriously their tribal rules and customs, the place and responsibilities of men and women in their society. Being here in the village even this short time, I more fully understand why the twins are so disquieted by my breaches of etiquette. Having brought us into their village to live among their people, they expect us to behave correctly, and I cannot fault them for that.