Strongheart: The Lost Journals of May Dodd and Molly McGill

by Jim Fergus

  Once again we sneaked silently into the remuda. A few of the horses reacted nervously, as they had the night before, stepping sideways and turning their heads to look at us. We stopped then and stood motionless until they calmed again. It was not enough of a disturbance to cause worry or wake anyone up, just the normal night sounds and shifting of picketed horses, the more distant sounds of the cattle herd also providing cover noise. We separated, Wind going one way to gather her two, and I the other way. I quickly located my mare, stroked her and untied her lead rope, led her to the bay, and untied him. Our plan was simply to lead them away some distance before we mounted. But as I turned, my heart skipped a beat, for I was looking directly into the eyes of the young wrangler who should have been sleeping beside the remuda. Instinctively, I raised my index finger to my lips in the universal sign of silence, hoping he wouldn’t call out to his compatriots. And he didn’t, he simply regarded me with a puzzled expression. “What are you doing, ma’am?” he whispered, evidently respecting my raised finger. I had no answer to this but to tell the truth. “Taking these two horses. Please don’t give me away. I beg you.” Now he looked me up and down. “You’re dressed like a savage, but you’re a white woman.” I did something strange then, and as much as I’ve thought about it since, I’m still not exactly certain why. I held both lead ropes in one hand, and the other hand I placed affectionately on the boy’s cheek, and I kissed him directly on his lips, a real kiss like a lover. And he kissed me back. “Thank you,” I whispered, in his mouth, “thank you so much.” And then I led the two horses away, turning only once to see him staring after me with a look of utter astonishment on his face, as I disappeared into the darkness beyond.

  I did not believe he would follow me, or alert the others, and maybe, after all, that was the instinctive reason I had kissed him. But perhaps, mixed up with that instinct, was a simple longing on my part to have physical contact with a man. He was a handsome boy, and I have to confess that I enjoyed the kiss myself … I felt a certain sense of intimacy, a long dormant stirring of … what?… lust? Susie and Meggie always used to tease me about being “a bit of a tart” as they put it, and maybe they were right. Or perhaps I am simply lonely …

  Wind joined me, leading her two horses, and after we had walked them far enough away in silence I told her about the boy, and what I had done.

  “That was a wise thing, Mesoke,” she said, “for you gave him something else to think about. But it was also dangerous because young men can act recklessly when the blood rushes to their vétoo’otse. He may try to follow you for more than a kiss.”

  I laughed lightly. “The last I saw of him, he looked too stunned to move.”

  We had both wrapped lengths of rope around our waists, which we each now rigged on one of our horses’ halters, to make of them rudimentary hackamores with two reins, a trick Wind had taught me. We mounted bareback somewhat gingerly, for one can never be certain if a horse can be controlled without a bit in its mouth, but my mare responded beautifully, as did Wind’s palomino gelding. We rode, each leading our second horse.

  It was a full hour or more before we reached our own camp in a secluded coulee where we had left our panniers and picketed our four other mounts. We didn’t think that the cowboys, assuming by now that all had learned of the theft, would try to track us in the dark, but they might do so at first light, which was only a few hours away. And so we loaded everything and moved out in the dark, headed back toward the foothills in order to put as much distance between us and the cattle drive as possible. I wondered if the boy I kissed would even mention that four horses had disappeared on his night shift, for fear of being punished, in which case it would take the others some time to realize they were missing. Perhaps they would simply absorb the loss, and not even try to follow us, which would only slow down the drive. But that was not something we could count on.

  We traveled through the dawn and then for a half day before making an early camp alongside a creek in a small, secluded valley Wind led us to, a place she said she remembered as a child that would be a safe place for us to rest for a day or two. We were tired, for we hadn’t slept in over twenty-four hours and before that our late-night excursions to get the lay of the cowboy camp had cost us further sleep. I was learning that horse rustling is hard work.

  We set up the canvas tent I had purchased, which seemed such a luxury, and hobbled the horses to let them graze on the new spring grass. Wind entered the tent and fell immediately asleep, while I went down to the creek, stripped off my clothes, and waded into a pool to wash off the dust and sweat of our efforts. The mountain water was icy but felt wonderful. I floated on my back for a moment to wet my hair, and rubbed my face and body as clean as I could. But my skin was already beginning to go numb, and I couldn’t stay much longer in the pool. I roused myself and stepped back up on the bank. The sun was still high and bright, and I lay down in the warm grass. It was then that I heard a horse whinny down-valley from whence we had just come, and one of ours answered it. I sat up to watch a lone rider coming out of the trees at a brisk trot, breaking into a gentle lope. Good God, Wind was right, the foolish young cowboy I kissed had somehow managed to follow us.

  Wind scurried agilely out of the tent, as alert and fully awake as are animals suddenly roused from sleep. She held her rifle in one hand, stood, shouldered it, and pointed it at the boy.

  “Don’t shoot him, Wind,” I called to her. “At least not yet. Let us see what his intentions are.”

  “We already know what his intentions are, Mesoke,” she answered. The natives tend to be a literal race, but when she said this I couldn’t help thinking that I detected a rare hint of irony in her voice. I wondered if she had perhaps picked this up from me during our time together.

  “Then let us hear him express them,” I said.

  I did not wish to put on my dirty hide shift over my still wet and relatively clean body, and was planning now to dress again in my white-woman outfit, having slept. And so I stood naked in the sun, making no effort to hide myself. I have largely abandoned conventional notions of modesty … and perhaps I wished, as well, to further titillate the boy.

  He slowed his horse to a walk when he saw Wind aiming the rifle at him, raised both hands in the air, and called out: “I don’t mean ya no harm, I come in peace, you can keep the horses, I don’t even want ’em back. That ain’t why I came.”

  Roughly halfway between me and Wind, he reined up and dismounted, his horse raising its head and whinnying again, answered by my mare, who was hobbled and grazing with the others. Clearly, they knew each other. The boy wore a wide-brimmed hat tilted back on his head, leather chaps and a vest, a cartridge belt and holstered pistol. He walked partway toward me, with his hands raised, his head comically tilted down and away from me, averting his eyes from my naked body.

  “Awful sorry, ma’am, to interrupt your bath,” he said. “Does your friend speak English? If she don’t, will ya tell her she can lower that rifle? I come as a friend.”

  “She speaks English, but it’s unlikely that she’s going to do that,” I said. “If you don’t want your horses back, what are you doing here? How did you find us?”

  “I been trackin’ you the whole way, ma’am.”

  “You must be a good tracker then. I thought only Indians owned that skill.”

  “That I am, ma’am, I learnt to read sign as a boy from my grandpa. He was half Comanche.”

  “And why have you come?”

  “To ask you why you kissed me like that, ma’am?”

  I laughed. “You followed us all this way just to ask me that question?”

  “Yes, ma’am … I guess I did.”

  “You can stop calling me ma’am. I’m not an old lady.”

  The boy allowed himself a small, wry smile. “Yes, ma’am, that I can surely see.”

  “I don’t know how, if you won’t look at me. Go ahead if you want.” But he shook his head. I laughed. “Shy fellow, aren’t you?”

  “No, ma’
am, just respectful of womenfolk, that’s all … the way my mama taught me. Wouldn’t be Christian of me to stare at ya after I rousted ya outta your bath.”

  “You really needn’t concern yourself with being unchristian here, we’re heathens.”

  “So why did ya?”

  “Why did I what?”

  “Kiss me like that?”

  “To distract you, to keep you from calling out to the others.” I could see from the shadow crossing his face that he did not find this answer entirely satisfactory. “What did you think? That I’d fallen instantly in love with you?”

  “No, ma’am, I did not think that … but you sure kissed me like you had.”

  “Have you never been kissed by a woman before?”

  “Not like that, ma’am. And you were right … it sure did distract me. Ya know that sorrel mare you took? See, she belonged to me, an’ her name is Lucky. I was just lookin’ in on her when I came upon you. And then when ya kissed me like that … well, darn’t … I thought I must still be dreamin’ … ya know how sometimes you have those dreams where you think you’ve woke up and gone about your business, but ya haven’t really and you’re still dreamin’?”

  “Yes, I do.”

  “It was like that. That’s why I didn’t holler to the others. It was just like in a dream, where I try to holler, but nothin’ comes out.”

  “I’ll give the mare back to you.”

  “I don’t want her back. I want ya to keep her. But ya gotta keep her name, so she stays lucky for ya.”

  “OK, so now that you know why I kissed you, you’re going to turn around and go back to your drive, right?”

  “No, ma’am, I was just gettin’ round to that part … I want to ask you if I can throw in with you and your pardner?”

  “What?”

  “I think you heard me, ma’am.”

  “Why would you want to do that?”

  He shrugged. “I left the drive a little after you did, and I didn’t tell no one, neither. I just packed my kit, saddled up, and hit the trail. They’re gonna think it was me who stole those horses. Ya know what they do with horse thieves in this country, don’tcha, ma’am? They hang ’em from the nearest tree. Anyhow, I was gettin’ tired a’ drovin’ all day, suckin’ dust, listenin’ to cattle bawlin’. See, I got a little money saved up, because every time we passed near a town on the way here from Texas, the trail boss, he give us some of our pay. All the other boys took turns goin’ into town, spendin’ their money on whiskey at the saloon … and … and on the gals who work there … ya know…” I swear he blushed beet red when he referred to the working girls in the saloon. “But, see, I saved my pay, so I got a little nest egg. I been thinkin’ on it all day. I wouldn’t get in your way, and I could help protect you from outlaws, and Injuns, too … well, I guess ya are Injuns, aren’t ya … sorta, anyhow.”

  “I would have to talk to my partner about that,” I said, “for she, yes, is an Indian, as I think you could see. And even if we let you ride with us for a time, you’d have to understand that there would be no more kissing involved.”

  “Yes, ma’am, I understand that … I sure do … that was just in my dream.”

  “I told you to stop calling me ma’am. My name is May Dodd, what’s yours?”

  “Chance Hadley, ma’am. Tascosa, Texas. Real pleased to meet ya, May Dodd.” He touched the brim of his hat as he said this, but still kept his head cocked to the side, his eyes averted.

  “We’re not really meeting unless we look at each other,” I pointed out, “so if naked women embarrass you, Chance Hadley, you just look me in the eyes.”

  “Yes, ma’am … I mean, yes, May.” Finally, he looked up at me, took off his cowboy hat, and blushed again. I’m not sure I’ve ever seen a man blush so much as that. I wondered if he had ever seen a naked girl before. I have to say that he did seem harmless enough, but also I suspected that he was competent. I rather liked the boy … I keep referring to him here that way, but in the daylight, up close, he didn’t actually seem any younger than me, maybe even roughly the same age, or older. He was tall and slender as he stood straight, trying to look me directly in the eye, though he was having some difficulty in keeping his from straying, his own dark eyes crinkled in what looked something like amused wonder. His light brown hair was long, matted and unruly, and as the blush began to fade, his skin took on a leathery saddle-brown hue, weathered but taut on his face, his features more manly than boyish—a broad forehead, straight nose, well-formed chin, and strong cheekbones. He wore at least several days of light beard stubble that I remembered from our kiss. He was a handsome fellow, as I had even noted in the dark, and I wondered if perhaps that was also part of the reason I had kissed him so enthusiastically. And now I was thinking that it might be a relief to have a man along with us. Wind and I have been alone for a long time, first in the cave, and now since traveling. I love her, and owe her my life, but she is hardly what one would refer to as loquacious, and we have long since exhausted our conversational topics that don’t revolve around weather, food, horses, and hunting. In addition, ever since separation from the tribe, we have lived in a state of constant vulnerability. I rather hoped she would agree to letting the cowboy join us.

  “OK, Chance, we’re going to walk over now to my partner. Her full name is Woman Who Moves against the Wind, but I call her simply Wind. I will introduce you two. If she says you can ride with us, so be it. If she says no, then you’ll have to leave. And if that happens, I’ll give you back both the horses I stole. But in our world, her two belong to her, and those I can’t give to you.”

  “That’s fair enough, May. And I told ya, I don’t want the horses. I want you to keep ’em. Specially Lucky. Keep her as a special gift. You chose well, she’s a real good horse.”

  “That’s good of you, Chance, thank you. And I won’t change her name. It’s nice to know she’s a gift and no longer stolen property.”

  We walked over to Wind, who still stood at the entrance of our tent, holding her rifle, though she was no longer pointing it at the cowboy. While observing our conversation, she had clearly identified the fact that he was not threatening. I told her in Cheyenne that he hadn’t come to take back the horses we had stolen, he just wanted to talk to me, and I explained about his grandfather being half Comanche, as I thought it might soften her a little to know that he had Indian blood himself. I felt she must already be impressed by the fact that he had been able to follow our trail, even starting out in the dark as he had. I said he seemed like a decent fellow, and she admitted that for a white man he was polite, and had behaved properly by not staring at me. However, when I told her about his request to ride with us, she scowled and shook her head. “No, Mesoke,” she said. “I do not trust him.”

  “Why not?” I asked.

  “Because he is a white man, and is moving his stinking cows into our country, to take the place of our buffalo brothers they are killing.”

  I tried to explain that they weren’t actually his cows, he was just working for the people who owned them, but this distinction made no difference to her. “But doesn’t it count,” I asked, “that he has one-eighth Indian blood?”

  She looked directly at Chance now, and she said something to him in a language I wasn’t familiar with, but that I assumed was Comanche. I was not even aware that she spoke it. To my enormous surprise, he smiled and answered her back in the same language.

  “You speak Comanche?” I asked him.

  “I lived with my grandfather when I was a boy. He wanted me to learn his mother’s tongue. He took me among his Comanche family. He knew it would be useful if ever their warriors attacked our ranch.”

  He said something to Wind that sounded like a question, and she answered.

  “What did you just say?”

  “I asked her how she learned Comanche.”

  “How did she answer?”

  “She says that her mother was Southern Cheyenne, and she grew up in the south. The Comanche and Southern Cheyenne
are allies. They speak different languages but they roam some of the same country and they trade together. She said that she, too, has distant Comanche relatives.”

  Wind spoke again to Chance, and he answered, and then she answered him back.

  “Now what are you talking about?” It did not escape my attention that the cowboy was translating for me. And I was a little ashamed that after all this time together, I did not know these things about Wind’s life. How odd to learn them now from a random stranger from whom I had stolen a horse.

  “She asked me the name of my Comanche family, and when I told her, she said that she knows them. I think maybe she’s going to let me ride with ya.”

  I couldn’t help but laugh at Wind’s sudden change of heart. “It is agreeable to you,” I asked Wind in Cheyenne, “for the cowboy to join us?”

  “I trust him only a little,” she said. “He may ride with us for a time, but he is still by blood mostly a white man, and he lives as one, so we must keep close watch over him.”

  “She doesn’t trust white men,” I said to Chance, “so your invitation is provisional.”

  “I don’t know what that word means, ma’am.”

  “It means you can come with us, but she’ll be watching you, and you still have to prove yourself trustworthy.”

  “I can sure do that, ma’am.”

  “Right now Wind and I need to get some sleep, and I expect you do, too. Turn your horse out with ours, and pitch your camp a bit away from us.”

  “Yes, ma’am,” he said, happily … “I mean … sorry … yes, May, thank you. And I will surely do that. You and your partner will have all the privacy ya want, and I promise not to get in your way. You just let me know if you need anything. I’m a pretty fair hand, and I know how to do plenty a’ real useful things.”

  “I’ll just bet you do, Chance.”

  27 July 1876

  I have neglected my journal these past weeks, and have much to tell. We have encountered scattered bands of Cheyenne, Arapaho, and Sioux, and have learned of battles fought, victories won by the People and our allies. One on the Rosebud last month, in which the combined forces of Crazy Horse’s Lakota warriors and Little Wolf’s Cheyenne defeated General George Crook’s army, a second several weeks ago on the Little Bighorn, where our archenemy George Armstrong Custer and his entire command were destroyed. Thus, now we have confirmation that Little Wolf has indeed left the agency, free again, although we do not know where he is. We are told that all the bands have split off in different directions, in order to evade the many soldiers who have converged here. With the Army, we have had encounters, as well … have raided their horses and given them to the Indians, all of which I must record before it is overwhelmed in the melee of events that have transpired and continue to unfold. Suffice it to say, for now, that we are in the middle of it all, over the border in Montana Territory, near the Tongue River again, our tribe’s home country. For the moment and with the dispersal of the Indian bands and the soldiers, we seem to be experiencing a lull, a strange quiet in the tumult, as at the end of a violent storm, when the sky finally clears and the sun returns. Good God, the havoc the human species wreaks upon each other, upon the earth …