Strongheart: The Lost Journals of May Dodd and Molly McGill

by Jim Fergus

  Our mounts, equally relieved, begin moving again, and from our women now arises a sweet trilling. Mouse extricates herself from her blanket and laughs lightly, and we both join the others in thus welcoming the sunlight. At the same time, as I look ahead for Hawk, I see several horsemen dismounted just off the trail, kneeling beside a figure prone on the ground. I break ranks with the others, press my heels to Spring’s flanks, and ride toward them. As we approach, I understand suddenly the wail of grief, and from whom it arose. Holy Woman is lying on the ground, young Howls Along Woman kneeling beside her, keening in a low voice of despair. I quickly dismount, Mouse slipping in unison off Spring’s back, and go to Hawk, resisting my natural impulse to embrace him, an act that became so commonplace when we were camping alone but is considered impolite behavior between couples in public. In any case, despite my enormous release from anxiety at finding him safe again, this is clearly not the proper occasion.

  “What has happened?” I ask in a whisper.

  “As we broke out of the storm and into the sunlight, Holy Woman fell dead from her horse.”

  “My God … we have been following her in circles all these weeks, and now she is gone?” I am ashamed as soon as this leaves my mouth, at how utterly insensitive it is to the poor dead woman at our feet, a respected seer, and her grieving granddaughter. I did not know Holy Woman, other than by sight, but I owe her some modicum of respect at this time, even though, in my more rational moments, which admittedly seem to come and go these days, I believed her to be a charlatan, leading us on the ultimate wild-goose chase.

  “Do you see where we are?” Hawk asks. “Have you looked around?”

  “No, I have only been worried and looking for you.” But at his suggestion, I scan the surrounding countryside, taking in the broad valley in the same autumn season we enjoyed before the tempest, the mixed prairie grasses tall and yellowing as in our last encampment, the river bottom below lined by a wide forest of mature cottonwood trees, and, in the distance, across gently rolling hills, a herd of buffalo grazing.

  “Amahtóohè’e tells me that her grandmother knew from her vision that she would die when we arrived here,” Hawk says. “And so she has.”

  “Here?”

  Hawk looks at me with the slightest wry smile.

  Recognition of the death has now traveled among the band, which has stopped moving again, the women’s trilling having faded away to join Howls Along Woman in a rising keening of grief for their fallen medicine woman.

  “We make camp here,” says Hawk.

  This is the real world we live in, constantly moving between keening and trilling, heartbreak and joy, war and peace, blizzard and sunshine. Yet, I have to say, this does appear to be an agreeable valley in which to pitch our winter village.

  THE LOST JOURNALS OF MAY DODD

  Love and War Games

  Then I saw two mounted women with baby boards strapped to their chests cantering toward us, the one in the lead raising her arm and waving, smiling. As she came closer, I recognized her; good God, how is it possible? We both slipped from our saddles at the same time and approached each other. I stared at the infant in the baby board and shook my head in denial. “No, it is not possible,” I whispered to myself, “but of course, I’m having a dream—the storm, the clearing, the valley, the dead woman, the trilling, the keening, the horses running, everyone safe. Wake me, Chance,” I said, moving my arm out to touch him beside me at our sleeping place, “please, wake me.”

  —from the lost journals of May Dodd

  12 September 1876

  I do not know exactly how Wind knew that the destination fate intended for us was not too far down the trail, but after the cowboy Chance left us so abruptly, and angrily, she said it was a good thing he was gone, and we spoke no further of it. We rode largely in silence for the next few days. I was stung, I admit, humiliated, and angry myself at his vicious renunciation of me. So much for the grand words of love he had whispered in our intimate moments together. I was angry, as well, at myself, for having let my guard down, for having come to believe in someone for just a moment. God knows, my experience should have taught me better by now.

  Eight days ago, we rode into the camp of the Cheyenne warrior Hawk and his unlikely wife, a fair-haired white woman by the name of Molly McGill, one of the second group of women sent mistakenly by the government as members of the already defunct Brides for Indians program. She is a tall, strong, large-boned girl, who looks like she would be quite at home on a farm somewhere, milking cows. No, that is a bit unfair; perhaps I’m jealous of her, for she’s a pretty girl as well, who exudes a certain competence and self-confidence, and she and Hawk are clearly very much in love … Did I also experience a twinge of envy of the happy couple?… Yes, of course.

  However, as it happens, Molly and I get on quite well together. She has a good grasp of the desperation of our respective situations, tied so inexorably to that of the natives, but she seems rather accepting and unafraid of it. She is going to have Hawk’s child. That same afternoon of our arrival, she led me across a broad valley on the far side of which was camped the larger band formed after the battle of Greasy Grass, a battle she said she had missed, for reasons she did not disclose. With the acceleration of events here, there is much we have not yet had the chance to discuss, though she told me briefly a chilling story of her own reasons for joining the brides program. She is a girl who has known more than her share of tribulation and heartbreak.

  On our way across the valley, we were briefly chased by a war party of Crow, but Molly rides as well as I do, and the chase ended as quickly as it had begun, due to the intervention of our own warriors who poured from the camp as we were approaching, to engage the Crow in battle.

  Shortly thereafter, I was reunited with my dear friends Martha, Phemie, and my little Horse Boy, whom I have believed to be dead all this time, shot by Captain John Bourke at the beginning of the Army’s attack on our village. What joy, astonishment, and incredulity I experienced in these reunions, the latter emotion especially, when I first laid eyes upon the formerly meek, unathletic … I must say, even uncoordinated, Martha Atwood. Such a personal transformation I have never before witnessed … Martha, a warrior woman? Good God! But, yes, that is exactly what she has become, returning upon her warhorse from the engagement with the Crow, bloodied and bearing a scalp belonging to an enemy she had vanquished in battle. It is a scenario I could not have invented in my wildest imaginings.

  Later, at the feast and dance to celebrate the victory, Martha recreated her victory in battle, in a dance so profoundly evocative that she had the crowd on the edge of their seats (if I may be forgiven the metaphoric use of that phrase, for, of course, we were all seated on the ground).

  I have gotten slightly ahead of myself here, because before the feast had even begun, as the game animals were still roasting and the People still gathering at the circle, who should arrive in the camp but my dear old friend Gertie, in the company of an Englishwoman by the name of Lady Ann Hall—yes, the one and same paramour of my dear, departed Helen Elizabeth Flight—accompanied by her maidservant, a spunky little Liverpudlian girl named Hannah Alford.

  It had not yet occurred to me that this coming together of us all, here and now, must have been … I cannot say divinely arranged, for I do not believe in such nonsense … but perhaps it did have some indefinable purpose we are yet to learn. I was so overwhelmed to find again my old friends, and in the case of Phemie and Horse Boy, those whom I even believed to be dead, that I had no time to consider anything, only to react and gratefully accept this grand gift … which is the way of life with the Indians … one lives in the moment and asks no questions.

  A sobering time for us followed the festivities, for after the dancers had largely dispersed, our group remained on the buffalo robes to chat and catch up. In this frank middle-of-the-night conversation, we confronted head-on the dark reality of our future among these people, and their own future. Exhausted, and emotionally drained from it all
, Martha and I bid the others good night, and retired to her lodge where she had offered to take me in.

  * * *

  I was awakened the next morning by Molly McGill, who scratched on the cover of the tent opening. Martha, already up and dressed, stepped outside as I tried to bury myself again in the warmth of the robes. But when I heard Molly ask for me, I rose quickly and covered myself with a trade blanket before going out to greet her.

  When I came through the opening, I was confronted by yet another sight I could not have imagined. In that half-awake state, my vision blurred by the morning sun, I squinted and looked at him for a long time, just to be certain … I spoke to him … I do not remember exactly what I said … and he spoke back to me, and in that moment, my anger and humiliation fell away, and, almost against my will but unable to stop myself, I leapt into the arms of the Comanche cowboy, Chance Hadley, and as I did so my blanket fell away from my body.

  Molly diplomatically suggested that Martha come to her lodge for a visit, and the two of them made off with dispatch. I broke free of Chance, grabbed my blanket, and covered myself again, grateful as I looked around that no one from other tipis in the vicinity was about. I ducked back in through the opening and held the skin flap up for him to enter.

  “Sit here,” I said, indicating my sleeping place. He did so. “Before we go any further, we must talk.” He nodded. “I want to tell you that if ever again you call me a whore, or anything like it, I will kill you, Chance.”

  “‘Kill’? That’s a real strong word, May,” he answered.

  “So is ‘whore.’”

  He hung his head then, unable to look me in the eye. “I never spoke to a woman like that before,” he said. “My mama would be so ashamed a’ me, and I’m ashamed a’ myself. I am so sorry, May. I came here to beg ya to forgive me. I know I don’t deserve it, and I got no excuse for what I said. I guess … I guess … maybe I thought I was the first…” he said, sheepishly. “I know I shoulda known better … but I ain’t had much acquaintance with women, at least not the kind you and me had. I ain’t never been in love … and when I heard what you had to say, I went a little crazy … I went a lot crazy.”

  “Listen, Chance,” I said, more gently, putting my hand upon his. “I should have told you more about my past. But everything happened so fast between us, and I wasn’t ready for that. I wasn’t ready to tell you the truth, because I knew it would disgust you.”

  “You don’t have to tell me a damn thing, May,” he said, “and I won’t never ask ya, neither.”

  “But I have to tell you … and I want you to know that in a way you were the first … in the sense of the feelings I had for you. You see, my common-law husband, Harry Ames, was the foreman in my father’s business. I was so young and impressionable, and I believe now that I got involved with him in rebellion against my father’s controlling nature. I had two babies, a son and a daughter, by Harry, and so I can never regret that.

  “One night my father came to our house with others. They took my children away, and he put me in a lunatic asylum. The only possible way I could get out of there was to join a secret government program to go out West to marry an Indian warrior and have children by him. It was a means by which the government thought they could convince … we could convince … the Cheyenne to surrender, and bring them into the so-called civilized world. But you know how that turned out … I told you about the attack, and that was the truth …

  “And, yes, right before the Cheyenne warriors were coming to Camp Robinson to take us away, I had relations with an Army captain who had befriended me at Fort Laramie, and who brought us to Camp Robinson for what was called the ‘exchange’ with the Indians—a trade of horses for white women. I make no excuse for what happened with the captain, either. He was a good man, I was afraid, and I clung desperately to him … I am, after all, a city girl, and I was terrified of what was to come … all of us were … terrified to go into the wilderness among savages … to marry them and have children by them, for God’s sake … it scares me now when I think about how it was for us at the beginning.… But at the time, I put on a good front of courage for the benefit of the others.

  “The Cheyenne chief Little Wolf chose me to be his bride … It is not as if we had any choice in the matter, but I was lucky for he is a great man, a great leader and warrior, and he was good to me. When I gave birth, it was obvious to all that my daughter was not Little Wolf’s but John Bourke’s. However, Little Wolf accepted the child as his own, and I have to this day never known if he knew or even suspected the truth.

  “That is my story, Chance, and I should have told you before, but to be honest, I didn’t think we’d ever see each other again after the first time we parted. When you rescued us from the bandits, I thought I owed it to you … but it came out all wrong, and that wasn’t the right time, either. Still, though I may decide to forgive you, I do not excuse what you called me.”

  “I ask for your forgiveness, May,” he said. “I don’t ask to be excused. I told ya there ain’t no excuse for what I said. But now I want to tell ya somethin’ else. If you do decide to forgive me, an’ we get outta this mess somehow, together, I’ll take ya to Chicago, an’ we’ll get your little ones back. I always wanted to see a big city in the east.”

  “Thank you, Chance, if only that could happen. And by the way, I wouldn’t really kill you … but considering what I would do to you if ever you call me that word again, you might wish that I had.”

  * * *

  Two days ago, for some reason I did not fully understand, we broke camp and traveled all night through a ghastly blizzard, a kind of whirling tunnel of wind and snow, in which I was certain the entire band would die, and if any did survive, our precious herd of horses would surely be lost. When first we set out into it, which seemed utter folly to begin with, I insisted that my dear Horse Boy stay close to me, for one could barely see beyond the head of one’s own mount. Surely, without such attention, many would scatter in the maelstrom, and those lost left wandering with no visibility and no sense of direction would be forever lost. But the little scamp disobeyed my command, peeling off on his prairie pony to tend to the herd. I screamed futilely at him against the wind, weeping tears that froze instantly on my face, certain that I would never see the boy again.

  Now the snow, driven by wind, was beginning to accumulate in drifts where we rode, through which the horses struggled valiantly. I expected that in the spring, when these began to melt, someone would find us all beneath the snow, the frozen corpses of men, women, children, dogs, and stock, spread out across the full length of our path.

  It was within the dark depths of these imaginings that the wind began to abate, and the snow to fall straight in identifiable flakes, instead of horizontally like tiny pellets of stinging ice, and the unseen sky lighten incrementally. As we rode out of the mist, we saw the sky again, the dark storm clouds parting and drifting behind us, revealing the sun. The women began to trill. But suddenly we heard the most ghastly howl of grief, followed by a terrible keening, the shrieks of which were taken up by our women, a sound that always raises gooseflesh on my skin. We had regained the autumn, ridden into a valley, and I saw ahead Hawk and Molly, dismounted, bending over the body of the medicine woman I had so cursed, who lay dead at the feet of her horse.

  I looked around and behind me, and saw with relief that the band seemed largely intact, and in the valley below, our horse herd was running free, joyously spreading out, some kicking up their back legs in exuberance, Horse Boy and the others riding beside them, an incongruous scene to the death sounds of keening.

  I looked at Chance, who smiled back, and at Wind on the other side of me, and Martha, next to Chance, all alive. Turning, I saw the Strongheart women, native and white alike, Phemie and Pretty Nose included, who had all somehow managed to stay together, as they were meant to be.

  Then I saw two mounted women with baby boards strapped to their chests cantering toward us, the one in the lead raising her arm and waving, smil
ing. As she came closer, I recognized her; good God, how is it possible? We both slipped from our saddles at the same time and approached each other. I stared at the infant in the baby board and shook my head in denial. “No, it is not possible,” I whispered to myself, “but of course, I’m having a dream—the storm, the clearing, the valley, the dead woman, the trilling, the keening, the horses running, everyone safe. Wake me, Chance,” I said, moving my arm out to touch him beside me at our sleeping place, “please, wake me.”

  “Do you not recognize your daughter, Mesoke?” said Feather on Head, looking at me strangely. “Do you not recognize me?”

  I tried to answer, but I couldn’t, my voice frozen as is sometimes the way of dreams. I put my hands on my forehead and managed to nod, and then I began to bawl, my body trembling uncontrollably.

  The second horsewoman with the baby board had reached us now and dismounted, as Martha came up behind me. “Pull yourself together, May, it’s just Feather on Head, and Grass Girl, my husband Tangle Hair’s second wife,” Martha said, as if this were the most normal thing that could possibly happen. “But perhaps you never knew Grass Girl. After all, she’s barely more than a child. But really, dear, why in the world are you crying so, don’t you see, they’ve brought our babies back to us? You know, I’ve always had this idea that perhaps when our children grow up, they will fall in love and get married. Wouldn’t that be such fun to be grandmothers together, you and I?” Now I knew from Martha’s nonsensical talk that this was not a dream. “But what is the matter with you?” she said. “I do not remember the old May Dodd behaving like such a baby.”