The Removes

by Tatjana Soli

  Rain was known to be a big talker. He raged on about revenge against his captor. He bragged that he had drawn a bloody heart on a piece of buffalo skin and sent it to Tom as bad medicine, yet the latter never received it. It was at this point that Custer started to have doubts about the earlier confession. Both brothers guessed that if Rain’s braggadocio extended to claiming the two deaths, perhaps his escape was the best justice for all.

  Knowing that returning to the Standing Rock agency would mean certain recapture, Rain went to join the fierce Chief Sitting Bull. After performing a Sun Dance, the whole tribe moved to their ultimate destination in the valley of the Little Bighorn. Both brothers contemplated this news in silence.

  When Custer left New York that February it was with a sense of finality. The city’s lures had proven illusory, and he was ready to embrace the only life that had always been true to him. He longed for the familiarity of the frontier.

  THE FOURTEENTH REMOVE

  Neha’s return—The voyage home

  Josiah’s decision to push straight to Neha’s homestead without stopping meant two days of grueling travel crushed into one. The two women were in mourning, numbed by the previous night’s ordeal. They rode meekly in single file, with little talk. When prodded to eat, Neha mumbled, “I am Mary.” She moved as if everything around her was a dream she hoped to wake from soon.

  As they came close to her kin’s homestead, Anne was shocked when Josiah stopped and offered to make coffee for them. Previously he had treated them as less than human.

  “Perhaps you should make her more presentable? For her relatives’ sake,” he said.

  Neha was far past the state of being able to be cleaned up. The gash along her ear had crusted black, while the rest of her face purpled as bruises formed. One eye was almost closed shut.

  “Maybe we’ll explain she fell off her horse,” he suggested.

  “I will not,” Anne answered.

  His face loosened with the return of his habitual temper.

  “Do you insist on revealing her shame first? Before there is a chance for a slip of affection to be formed?”

  He taunted Anne with his wrongdoing.

  “Perhaps you should have considered that last night,” she said.

  “Ungrateful girl.”

  * * *

  WHEN THEY ARRIVED at the homestead, a crowd of relatives and neighbors formed. A great-uncle, who only remembered Neha’s mother from childhood, had agreed to take her in, and he greeted her like a long-lost daughter. As he opened his arms, Anne recalled her own father and felt the bitterest of tears. She could not recall the feeling of happy innocence she’d had in her own family. Such emotions had withered away. For the first time she felt the size of her loss.

  Neha resisted the man’s embrace, believing this was her new chief until Anne explained the family relation. When the uncle’s wife came out and wrapped a shawl around Neha’s shoulders, she clung to the woman, sure that the crowd of onlookers intended her harm. Anne had to patiently explain that these were kindly, Christian people, who treated their own well.

  “But I am an Indian,” Neha wailed, and Anne could only give thanks that her words were not spoken in English so they could be understood.

  They were invited to spend the night. Anne greatly desired to stay and help settle Neha in her new surroundings. A loving family, which this one appeared to be, was a gift after all these years. She wished time to savor it. Josiah, however, frowned. He insisted loudly to onlookers that they must press on, that he had been away from his parish and his fields far too long and would be sorely missed.

  It did not escape Anne’s attention that before they left he transacted business with Neha’s uncle. Money passed hands. As they said their goodbyes, the realization came to Neha that she would be left with these strangers, and she clung to Anne. At last two male cousins were forced to restrain her. Josiah hastily mounted and bade Anne do the same, as if the relatives might change their minds at the worth of their transaction and refuse the girl.

  “Take care, Mary,” Anne said. “I will come to visit soon.”

  After they had ridden a distance, Anne could stay quiet no longer.

  “We were not ransomed. You paid out no monies.”

  “Time and effort are not without their value,” he answered.

  “That is the reason you would not allow her to escape?”

  “You are a bright girl. It must run in the family.”

  “Honesty was supposed to be a prime virtue in our family also.”

  “Speaking of. You will say nothing of the existence of your children when we reach home. You will deny your ruination. We will say that you are untouched, unsullied.”

  Anne rode in silence, his ploy of shaming her effective.

  Josiah studied her as he sucked his teeth. “You are a sly boots. In case any bright ideas are forming, don’t even think of attempting to flee. In your case it’s the family honor that is at stake. My honor. You have been rescued from the heathen inferno. You are saved, your soul redeemed. Rejoice, child!”

  He laughed to himself as at a great joke, never sharing the cause of his hilarity.

  THE FIFTEENTH REMOVE

  Return home—Recuperation—Heartsickness

  Josiah’s wife, Lydia, was so unlike her husband it was hard to see how they had become a couple. Kind and long-suffering, she undoubtedly had been tempered by her long years of marriage to him. On their arrival, she put her arms around Anne as tenderly as a mother.

  The members of the family, Anne’s extended kinship of cousins and friends, were as solicitous of her as she could have hoped. Josiah faded into the background of daily life, and after a time it was hard to recall his harsh treatment in light of the Christian charity and goodwill she now enjoyed.

  She was treated as a prodigal who had come from far away, and whose rest and recuperation were of utmost concern. After a few days, it began to resemble the treatment enforced on an invalid. Anne was allowed to do nothing but sit in the house all day. Suggested pastimes beyond prayer included reading, sewing, and playing music, for none of which she had the slightest inclination.

  The younger girls brought their castoffs, it being decided that those best suited Anne’s extreme thinness as opposed to the fuller dresses more appropriate to a women her age. A mother of two, Anne felt foolish in the virginal, bright-colored calicos and florals, yet a part of her coveted this part of her youth that had been stolen. She felt keenly how great chunks of her life had been torn away, never to be recovered.

  For the first time in over six years she had leisure to contemplate what had happened to her. She spent long hours in a rocking chair by the window with the decoy of needlepoint to keep busy, her idleness otherwise arousing worry. She longed to take strenuous walks outside, but her time out of doors was curtailed until it became hardly any at all. Her skin again paled, the calluses on her hands softened, but what should have been a time of healing became instead a time of fretting.

  Although Anne could not experience it viscerally as when living outdoors, she felt the waning of summer by the changing slant of light, the sun setting sooner, the coolness creeping into the late afternoon air. It was a time of harvest. The tribe would be busy drying berries and meat for the long months of lack that lay ahead. How did Solace and Thomas fare? Had the tribe escaped the harsh punishment of the army? If so, where were they now? Did they miss her or was she already in the process of being forgotten? How could she enter this white world again when they had been left behind in that other one?

  Uncle Josiah kept a hawkish watch over her. It was as if he were privy to her innermost thoughts. She had the uncanny feeling he read hers. Although he had suggested it, she was loath to keep a journal, knowing he would scour her writings for hidden meaning. The only way to gain her freedom was to lull her uncle into a belief that the Indian influence on her had been exorcized, that she had indeed put the desire for her children in the past.

  Shyly she asked Lydia if she could begin
helping with chores, as her unproductive hands were a curse to her. Soon she was cooking in the kitchen, bringing in the milk and eggs from the barn, sandwashing the floors, and sewing—in all ways making herself of service. Artfully she let slip that she wished to progress with her life, to marry and start a family. A parade of young men began to appear at the dinner table.

  When any of the grown daughters came with their own young children, Anne insisted on playing aunt with the little ones, dandling them on her lap, feeding them sweets. It took only a small kiss to remind her of her own babies surviving in privation.

  Lydia noticed her downturned mouth.

  “Are you sad?”

  “I think of my little ones,” Anne whispered.

  Lydia’s face tightened at the unwanted revelation, but she did not seem greatly surprised. Either Josiah had divulged it, or she had guessed her husband’s lie.

  “They are passed?”

  Anne bit her lip.

  “Solace. Thomas. They are unclaimed. Abandoned by their mother. With all my heart I long only to retrieve them.”

  She cursed herself for confessing her longing, undoing months of the careful planting of lies.

  “I suspected.”

  “Forget I said anything,” Anne said.

  Lydia folded her hands in her lap. She bowed her head. The toll of long years as Josiah’s obedient wife made her hesitate, weighing her words carefully.

  “Your uncle explains to me that they are a sin … I do not agree. In my eye every child born is blessed. Truly, my heart bleeds for you.”

  Her words loosed a flood of tears from Anne. She unraveled.

  Lydia continued, “I could never have the strength to shun my own blood. You have been chosen for a grave trial. Josiah says so. The Lord must have determined you strong enough to bear it.”

  “I am the weakest of women.”

  “After all, they are Indians. Perhaps they could not adapt happily to our life? Could it be God’s wisdom that they are better left to their lot?”

  “I do not believe so,” Anne answered, too sharply for politeness. “If your babes were torn from your arms, would you say it was for the better for them to be without you? To live in such harsh circumstances, in such heathen ways? Children thrive on happiness, goodness, all of which you have shown me in abundance.”

  For several moments neither woman spoke.

  “Would you tell me something?” Lydia whispered, leaning closer.

  “Surely, Aunt.”

  “During your time there, did they ever force you to scalp a man?”

  THE SIXTEENTH REMOVE

  Rejoining the fold—Josiah’s sermonizing—Letters of Neha

  It was spring. All in the town spoke of Anne’s remarkable transformation from gloomy and brooding victim into the energetic woman they assumed she would have been, minus her captivity. They congratulated themselves on having erased the effects of the previous seven years as if they had never been.

  Her baking and her embroidery became famous. Every local celebration brought a request for her cakes and pies. Her vanity was kindled by the attention she received from the eligible young men in the area. For the first time in years, she took an interest in her appearance and put on weight, nicely filling out the stylish dresses she now sewed herself. At social gatherings, she became a great favorite, singing and dancing with more grace than any girl there, arousing considerable enviousness.

  The jealousy thus engendered kept alive conjecture over her time in captivity, how she had bartered with an Indian chief to retain her purity. They gossiped that she had dressed as an Indian woman and participated in massacres of white people. One homely girl went so far as to claim that in her room she kept scalps hidden in the bottom drawer of her dresser that she intended to sew into a dress.

  Anne docilely turned her cheek to such maliciousness. She attended each and every church service, sometimes twice a day, and sat in the front pew with her attention riveted on Josiah’s words, so much so that he found it unnerving. Often he would lose his train of thought until he stood dumb on the podium, conscious only of the blinding sun streaming through the windows, and the expectant, upturned faces of the congregation, most especially Anne’s steady blue gaze, which made a mockery of his shepherding.

  He sensed a dark, cold spine of rebelliousness in her that needed to be broken. It could almost be described as diabolical, how even as he complained of her recalcitrance to his wife and others, they protested that she was the very embodiment of an angel.

  The town was aflutter with gossip of two cowboys who ran a ranch outside the settlement coming across an Indian boy wandering the plains. Horseless, dehydrated, he did not seem to know where he was. They hailed him and asked him his purpose in crossing such a desolate area as they grazed their herd on. He glanced at them and without reply continued on his way. Outraged, the men lassoed him and dragged him behind their horses for sport till he died. Only a few days later did his mother and brothers appear, claiming him deaf and mute.

  Anne betrayed no emotion on hearing the story, although Josiah studied to find out her sympathies. When Lydia later found her crying, she attributed the tears to the girl’s natural softheartedness, never guessing it was due to horror at such barbarity.

  Her latest outrage was to resist his plan to take her to the state legislature to seek restitution after being ignored by General Custer. He had read in the papers how other captives had grown prosperous in such manner, yet she showed no interest in pursuing this, somehow feeling superior to it and him.

  “You can’t expect to rely on my charity forever,” he said.

  “I work for my keep,” she said quietly. “If it is not enough, let me go elsewhere.”

  There it was. Tacit acknowledgment that the desire to remove herself from the homestead lingered still. The capricious child wished to return to her savage state.

  “Your mind has been so defiled you do not know what you say.”

  Josiah closed his eyes and began to pray. Unable to hold his tongue, he blurted out his provocation.

  “You are blind. Your Mary is on her way to be turned out into the wilderness to fend for herself.”

  He would not tell her the details and give her satisfaction. During the last months he had exchanged letters with the uncle of the half-breed Neha/Mary. Mostly they were letters of pleading that Josiah take the girl and allow her to live with Anne.

  Dear Pastor Josiah,

  … She is impossible. We believe she is quite out of her mind. Whenever she is loose, she attempts to run away. It is so bad we have resorted to the un-Christian act of tying her to a tree. And she much prefers it! She begs to be left outside the entire night. Cooks her bit of meat herself over a small twig fire. She then smudges soot on her face till it is black. She sings and chants, yells in her unintelligible tongue. My wife fears that she is possessed by the devil.

  More practically, do you know the meaning of her tribe’s customs? We gave her a knife to cut her meat, but when we turned away she cut off half her hair with it before she could be stopped. The other night, her face blackened, she plunged the sharp end of a stick into her breast and allowed the blood to drip into the flames. Regularly she eats dirt. She repeats a dirge that depresses us all. Simply put, we are afraid. Do you think these satanic rituals or merely the expression of aboriginal sorrow?

  When I was a young boy I was a great collector of wild animals and brought all manner of birds and varmints home: swallows, quail, frogs, turtles, field mice, and prairie dogs. I was quite the trial to my parents. A young boy does not understand the concepts of life and death, suffering and imprisonment. The outcome was always the same. The animals fought for their freedom for a long while until they finally resigned themselves to their confinement and then inevitably death quickly followed. My father, our Mary’s grandfather, told me it is in the nature of a wild thing to remain free. Take away that nature, and you have taken away their very being. Could it be the same for our Mary? We could not bear her death on
our conscience. I have prayed fervently and come to entertain the unthinkable. Should we give the girl her heart’s pleading and release her to return whence she had come? The very idea saddens us, and yet we must trust the Lord to guide us to the right decision. We anxiously await your council on these matters.

  Sincerely,

  Edward Mulford

  LIBBIE

  The last summer could only be described as a darkening.

  It began with another planned winter campaign to attack the Indian when he was snowbound and his horses depleted. Finances depleted, Autie and Libbie ended their leave of absence in New York and headed back to Dakota Territory, running straight into yet another blizzard. The Northern Pacific, grateful to the army, had outfitted a special train with a plow to get them back to Fort Lincoln despite the heavy snows that had immobilized the plains all winter.

  Drifts stranded them in a gully outside Bismarck for a week. Marooned in boxcars, they shared their rations with a small group of soldiers traveling with them, but the cold had to be endured singly. Autie bundled her up in blankets and buffalo robes, and she lay bound like a papoose all the miserable long day.

  By the end of the week they were reduced to dried biscuits and hardtack carried in the soldiers’ rations, washed down with melted snow. With Autie in charge, Libbie did not exhibit the same stamina to go through a blizzard again, happy to let him shoulder the burden. She made peace with the idea that this absurd predicament might be their end, but at least they would be together.