by Tatjana Soli
THE TENTH REMOVE
Buffalo work camp—Cavalry raid—Massacre—Rescue
Another two years had passed when Anne was again at a riverbank with her group of fellow buffalo skinners. The village, several miles away, was peaceful; the warriors prepared for a hunt. Neha was large with her first child. While Anne was unable to escape the bondage of Snake Man, Running Bear had petitioned that she be allowed to sew for all the members of the tribe. Anne was now the master seamstress and had apprenticed Neha so that she, too, would have a degree of independence.
One of Running Bear’s daughters would soon marry a warrior she loved, and Anne had agreed to make the bridal dress, one that would be the finest thing she had ever attempted. She wanted to specially prepare the hide herself, lightening it to a pale cream and making it as supple as heavy silk between the fingertips.
Although Neha and Anne could have forgone the butchering camp with their new status, they enjoyed their time away from their regular chores. The group of outcasts had found a camaraderie over the years.
It being the Moon of the Juneberries, Anne guessed it was close to her Christian birthday. She celebrated it by picking a large bag of berries to share with the other skinners. They all helped prepare a modest “feast” and then stayed up late into the night telling stories. Such times made Anne feel almost happy, and she only wished her children were there to complete it. They had stayed at Snake Man’s teepee, now that they were old enough to be away from her for prolonged periods.
Knowing the white tradition, Neha presented her with a gift, in this case the Spanish icon of years before, its frame partly melted.
“Where did you find it?”
“Oldest wife bragged of pulling it from the fire. When I was cleaning her things I found it hidden away. It belongs to you.”
“I found it the day Solace was born. It was a good birth. You have it now.”
Neha looked at it skeptically. “White man’s medicine does not work for Indians.”
It was more precious than anything Anne had ever owned. She would sew a special pocket, leather this time, which would hang around her neck, secreted away under her dress. It would never again be far from her.
* * *
AFTER HER ESCAPE to the fort had been foiled, something shifted within Anne. It seemed too exhausting to devise a new plot. She surrendered to her captivity, taking on faith that with the encroachment of settlers it would be only a matter of time before she would find a way out.
Since she was now given even more freedom and time alone with her children, she taught Solace her first English words in preparation for the future, swearing her to secrecy. The child was still young and could easily be tricked for information, but this was a risk Anne determined was worth taking. She scoured her memories for details of her growing up for her daughter’s benefit, but found her recollections grown vague as if they were details in a book, the life she was now leading so far removed from the other as to not suggest the slightest kinship.
Neha had told of her own mother, taken from a town in Colorado Territory. Still in captivity seven years later, she had died of cholera when Neha was a child. Secretly over the years her mother had taught her enough so that she knew it was not Indian blood alone that ran through her.
You have the streams of two warring peoples in your veins, her mother said. It will give you double the strength.
Her words empowered Neha.
If she perished, Anne wanted Solace and Thomas, young as they were, to have at least this much of their heritage. As they grew older, she would tell them more. The thought startled her that she was making accommodation for the possibility of spending her life in the tribe.
* * *
ON THE LAST AFTERNOON of preparing the hides, the skinners loaded up the horses with bundled teepees, meat, and rolled skins for the trip back to the camp. Anne went off to pick the berries that were Solace’s favorite, with which she would bribe her to learn her English numbers.
Suddenly, over the ridge, cavalry soldiers appeared riding full out. So loud and fast they appeared, Anne stopped, unable to react to what was happening before her. Her heart burst with joy even as her women friends ran in panic to the river while the old men mounted a feeble defense.
They are here to rescue us, Anne thought, yet even as she put up her hands to halt Neha’s flight, the soldiers opened fire with their weapons, and two women on a fleeing horse were shot down. One was Hawk Woman, who the night before had given her a red-bead necklace for her birthday. The other was Adahy, the best dancer in the tribe, who taught the young people traditional steps. Four Bears, who was blind in one eye and talked to the horses, was stringing an arrow into his bow as he was sliced through with a saber. The realization came to Anne that to the soldiers they were all the enemy, including her, to be cut down. Instinct took over as she turned away and ran.
The smoke of guns, the dead bodies of her companions, the flying hooves of the horses, metal hammering the earth unlike the soft thud of unshod pony feet, the swinging blades of the sabers terrified Anne. She did not know where to find safety, following the old artist Yansa, who drew the history of the tribe on teepees, to a mesquite tree where he wrapped his thin arms around the trunk. It appeared as if he were asking the tree for protection. A soldier pursuing on foot shot a bullet into Yansa’s head from behind. Anne put the trunk between the soldier and herself, a false comfort as she felt the hot sting of a bullet penetrate her right arm. The soldier came around to get better aim at her body, and she sank to the ground.
“Don’t shoot! American,” she said. She pointed to her eyes with her left hand. “Blue eyes. American.” She felt cowardly doing such a thing and yet continued when it had the desired effect.
The soldier, with effort, held still long enough to process her words, puzzled, then jerked his head back.
“Captain?” he yelled.
After the captain came and verified she might indeed be a captive, he held out a hand to help her up, but she refused it. Finally another soldier lifted her up by the waist. She smelled the burn of alcohol on his breath. All the soldiers reeked of it. When she struggled out of his grip, biting his hand, he shook her hard like a husk doll.
“Try that again, and you won’t like what you get.”
They walked her through the carnage, every tribe member who had not managed to run and hide under the riverbank’s overhang now dead.Her soul sickened. The soldiers calmly and systematically moved from body to body, scalping them and at the same time looking for souvenirs—pouches and sheaths that Anne had sewn—as the captain asked her questions and filled out his report.
“There won’t be a record of your abduction. It will have been forgotten. We’ll have to send for it to Washington.”
He spoke so fast Anne could hardly understand him. It had been long since she’d conversed in her own tongue. It pained her, the stilted quality of her words. How could the words stick like paste in her mouth when they pertained to something as important as her own survival?
A woman’s scream came from the riverbank. Neha. Two soldiers had her pinned down and were struggling with her skirt. Anne pulled away from her keeper and ran even as a bullet grazed just above her head. One of the soldiers had unbuckled his pants, showing the sickly white gleam of his thighs as he took a last swig out of an almost empty bottle. Anne charged into him, knocking him over despite the searing pain from her right arm. She stood over her friend, brandishing a buffalo scraper she’d grabbed. A circle of soldiers surrounded her, their attention piqued to give her a good drubbing.
“Captain,” she screamed. “Bring the captain!”
When he came running, she again pointed to her eyes. “American.” Then she pointed to Neha. “She is American, too.”
The captain looked skeptical.
“Colorado mother,” she insisted.
He shrugged, already worried at explaining away the killings.
“You two have been liberated and are now under the protection of the Seven
th Cavalry, commanded by General Custer, courtesy of the United States government.”
This would be the way Anne was at last rescued.
* * *
THE SOLDIERS TIED their hands behind their backs so tightly the skin was raw. They put Neha and her on horses, for good measure tying them to the saddles. A soldier led the horses by the reins.
Custer of the long golden locks, her armored knight, had come too late.
Anne was humiliated to be made so helpless. Neha’s face had become a mask, all expression drained. The two rode in silence. Although Anne’s arm throbbed, no one offered to doctor it. It was bound in a dirty piece of cloth they offered her. Neha’s shift was torn and filthy, and none offered to replace it.
When they stopped for the night, they were laboriously untied from their mounts. Although separated from the men by a short distance, they were not given any other special privilege. Placed in front of a small campfire, they were under the watch of an armed guard who did not seem pleased by the duty. Plates of beans and hard bread were brought them from the mess, but they were not invited to sup with the men.
Later each was thrown a blanket, expected to sleep in the open on hard ground, something Anne knew they would never dare do to white women. When they had to go to the bathroom, they were directed to move a short distance away, and not even for modesty’s sake were they allowed the privacy of a bush or boulder. In all respects, a new captivity.
The next morning as they were told to ready themselves for a long day’s ride, Neha refused to get up. When prodded, she began to wail.
The captain came, outraged at the delay.
“She does not want to leave what she knows. Can she return to her people?” Anne asked.
“That would be us,” he answered. “Unless you misled me.”
“I told you her mother was white, but the Cheyenne raised her. She knows nothing else.”
“I have much to ready for the march … We must leave immediately. Warriors will soon be after us. In case you need the reminding, the Indians are our enemy.”
“Leave her behind,” Anne said softly.
“Answer me one question, Miss Cummins. Are you friend or enemy?”
His address confused her for a moment, having not heard her surname in such a long while.
“Friend, I believe. I am white. Neha also. We are the same as you. Except that you treat us otherwise.”
The captain’s face went dark. He said nothing, making an effort to substitute each desired blow with a breath instead.
“From my experience, captives are grateful for their rescue. They do not threaten soldiers with teeth and knives. They most certainly do not wish to return to the brutes that savaged them.”
“We cannot leave without my children.”
“Your children are Indian, yes?”
“A girl, Solace, and a boy, Thomas.”
“Regulations … unless they are white … it will risk us all. We must reach the fort as soon as possible for reinforcements. We shall return later to avenge ourselves and remove them from harm.”
Her words fell on deaf ears and so she quit trying. She walked away, and when she saw the armed guard was distracted she began to run. Quickly she was apprehended. This time ropes were applied with a vengeance.
“If you try again, next will be chains.”
Anne felt empty. She did not mourn or feel sorrow or feel anything in particular. Picturing Thomas and Solace waiting for her return was like a knife driven in her side. Unfathomable that her family would be torn from her once more. She was all wisp, permeable, as if the wind might blow straight through her. Any resistance she offered was doomed.
The soldiers woke in the dark and were riding before dawn, covering large distances. Soon, Anne lost all compass of which direction her home could be found. At night when they rested, Anne squatted by the fire and sang the death song, even though she was not sure who she mourned. She was frightened for her children. If only they had been in Running Bear’s care her heart would have rested more easily, but she did not trust Snake Man’s wives to not take advantage and neglect them.
At suppertime she was apathetic over her dinner, once even sweeping dirt into her mouth.
The soldier guarding them looked on in disgust. A report was made to the captain, and he came to chastise her.
“If you do not stop this behavior, we will stuff food down your throat like a goose.”
Anne looked at the ground.
He raised his voice. “Do you understand me?”
She had turned into a ghost of herself. Her resistance, her defiance, her constant scheming to escape the Indians was over. The thing she had most desired had come, but she could not reconcile that these men were the rescuers she had so fervently prayed for. Even her father’s hero, her own knight, the Boy General, was culpable in orphaning her children.
If possible Neha was even more despondent than she. Anne had not considered whether her friend chose to be rescued or not. But if the rescue was indeed a kind of grace, why were they being treated as prisoners? What had Anne done wrong, except to have been made captive against her will? She eyed the soldier who rode in front leading her horse, the selfsame one who had shot her, his gun now resting prominently in its holster around his middle. On his saddle was tied a pair of fresh scalps—long flowing black hair on curling hanks of skin. Did they belong to her fellow buffalo skinners, treated as sport and now trophied? She turned away, sickened.
When they reached the camp, Neha and she were escorted to a large tent at its center. A soldier came out. He was her own height and had long curling blond hair, his skin flushed to pinkness. He wore a leather-fringed coat over military pants and riding boots. He appeared rushed and thrown together, excitable. Only his eyes were steady, cold, and predatory as a hawk’s. It was only by the deference of the other soldiers that she guessed this was General Custer.
“Welcome home,” he said.
Anne nodded, unsure of what was expected of her, while Neha looked away.
“We have searched long and hard, and your rescue today—”
Another soldier stepped up and whispered to him. “Here comes the journalist, General.”
“Damn, he should already have been here. Is the photographer here?”
“He’s coming.”
The general turned away as if he had forgotten them, and Anne made to move off, when she was quickly stopped.
A heavyset man jogged to the scene, already scribbling in his notebook. After years spent with the Indians it was strange to see a man so overweight, so weak in physical shape, one who would not naturally withstand the rigors of the wilds. Sweat rolled down his face, and he mopped at it with a handkerchief, barely looking at the two women. Another man, the photographer, came wrestling a pile of equipment.
General Custer now turned around, filled with new life, his face a mask of kindness.
“As I was saying, it is my profoundest happiness to return you to your homes. We grieve for what you have suffered.”
Anne did not know what to make of this change but knew it could disappear again as quickly as it had come.
“The soldiers came and killed us. We did not fight.” English stuck in her throat, came out thick and sluggish, but it thinned and became pliable the more she spoke. “Please, General, we need to go back for my children.”
General Custer’s eyes gazed above her head and to the left so that she was tempted to turn to see what he looked at.
“The suffering that you endured and that we had the great fortune to rescue you from…” His voice and attention trailed off.
“Ready for the picture,” the photographer said.
A clumsy machine was set up in front of them. For the first time, General Custer stepped near her, and when the machine had been readied, he smiled and shook her hand, not letting go till the exposure was complete. Neha appeared as a blurred image in the background. It would be the only recorded image of her during her lifetime.
General Custer moved
away as soon as the photo was taken.
“My children,” Anne pleaded.
He squinted his eyes.
“You are overwrought. You must be patient with yourself.”
“We must go back for them now!”
She grabbed his hand and pulled at him as if she intended to drag him back to the tribe herself. Quickly and with great force he swatted her off.
“We will do everything in our power,” General Custer answered. “But it is in the Lord’s hands.”
With that he returned to his tent. He did not speak to her again until they reached the fort.
At the time of her rescue, Anne had been held in captivity six and a half years.
LIBBIE
During their separation, while Autie hunted the last of the Cheyenne, there was a long period of no correspondence, as if he had fallen off the edge of the earth. On his return, he dared to chide Libbie for her coldness. Their marriage had become so strained it hardly mattered if they were together or apart. Perceived inattention, jealousy over causes both real and imagined; more absences by his traveling back east, leaving her alone; rumors of women both while he was away and right under her nose at Leavenworth, one a married woman no less. Her one surety—their love—taken from her, making it less easy to endure other difficulties.
Then, suddenly, rescue came in the form of a new assignment.
The Plains tribes had been satisfactorily settled on their reservations, and the army was no longer needed. The happiest days of their marriage began when Autie was assigned out of the States to Dakota Territory, one of the most severe, forbidding outposts that existed. None of that mattered to Libbie because it was just the two of them on a train, headed on a grand adventure like in the beginning. The War had formed in them an appetite for movement and activity despite its dangers. Open space was a lure they couldn’t resist.