It must have been the lead dog. The bark was more like an assertion of dominance. I knew the pack was hungry. The dogs were undersized. They had few options. They needed food.
“Oh, so you want to play. Okay, let’s play.”
I cocked the shotgun. I fired. There was a yelp. I must have hit one of them. I fired a second shot for insurance. The wolves began barking excitedly, but did not flee.
I began climbing a hill to find higher ground. The pack yelped and snarled and growled after me. The wolves were a good twenty yards behind, but I could see the outline of the pack against the snow. I knew the dominant position was on higher ground. I ran, my feet clopping awkwardly. I could hear the snarling pack getting closer. I turned to face it, backpedaling as I climbed, careful not to trip over the snow.
Suddenly, the wind and snow stopped. The clouds fled the sky, so the moon was showing. Now, I could see the pack clearly. It was made grey by the moonlight against the snow drifts. I could also hear the snarling.
The wolves were getting ready, planning the strike, the pounce. I still couldn’t tell how many dogs were in the pack. They were running uphill towards me.
I triggered the shotgun. The blast seared through the pack, igniting panic. There was yelping and barking and pleading and confusion, and then the pack scattered, disappeared into the grey of the snow and the night.
“Good choice, you bastards. I got more lead on me, trust me.”
I figured the wolf pack might return. If it did, the wolves would return in greater numbers. I had to prepare myself for the worse. It was the open prairie.
The sound of the wind returned, whispering, pleading. It wasn’t a strong wind, the kind that makes it snow sideways. It was a gentle wind, the kind that reminds you it is in charge. I climbed higher.
I wasn’t sure if the wolves would return. I discovered bare apple trees on the hillside. The trees grow straight up there. I felt the trunks for moss. The moss grows on the north side of trees. I wanted to find North to orient myself.
Apple trees are hardwoods. I knew from my days on the plantation in Tennessee that hardwood trees are difficult to chop down, so I looked for dead branches. There were quite a number of fallen twigs and branches on the snow at the base of the trees. I gathered as many loose twigs and branches as I could into a pile. I tore part of my dress to make strips of cloth. I used the strips to tie the twigs and branches into bundles.
I started chopping anyway. The trunk was narrow, but the hardwood didn’t chop easily. I had to lean into the axe handle to make any progress. When I put my full might into it, the wood chips began to fly. I worked and worked and finally got the tree to yield. It started to lean, but did not fall. I sent the final blows of the axe head into the wood.
Still, the tree would not fall. I pushed it the rest of the way over with my bare hands. Then, I chopped part of the trunk into precise sections. I split the sections into chunks. There was only a limited amount of wood I could carry in one load. I would return for more later.
I hauled two bundles, one with twigs and branches and the other with the logs I split. I didn’t carry the bundles over my shoulders. I left them on the ground. I made a sled of cloth and dragged the firewood back to the cabin.
The cabin was hot. The elderly nun had followed instructions. The flames were leaping in the fireplace.
I dropped the wood on the dirt floor and screamed in pain.
“What’s wrong?”
“Frostbite,” I said.
“Frostbite?”
“Get me water. My fingers are swelling. I can’t feel them. There is so much pain.”
“What?”
“Water!”
The nun brought a bucket of hot water.
“No, I need ice cold water! Dammit! Warm water will make it worse. You have to start with cold water and gradually bring my fingers back to body temperature with cold water,” I said. “Hot water will cause the worse pain in the world.”
The nun acquiesced. I immersed both hands in a pan of cold water.
“I have to put my hands in cold water. I hope the pain stops soon. I have to gradually get the temperature back in my hands. I can’t feel nothing now. In the meantime, make Sister Amadeus tea. Wake her up. Make her drink.”
The elderly nun was getting good at following instructions. She held the cup to Sister Amadeus’s slips.
“Now, get a glass, put a couple of pinches of salt in warm water, and make the sister gargle and spit, even if she doesn’t want to do it,” I instructed.
The feeling was coming back to my fingers. The pain was going away. I got a pan of water that was standing at room temperature. I worked my fingers in the warm water. The feeling was coming back.
“I need ginger, peppermint, turmeric, and any other herb you got here. Got any here?” I asked to nobody in particular, as I searched, using my frostbitten fingers.
“We have peppermint candy and ginger in the jars on the shelf over there,” said the elderly nun.
“Good, I will grind it up and make a strong medicinal tea.”
I made the tea. I asked Sister Amadeus to drink. I dismissed the nun and stoked the fire myself. I fed wood to that fire all night. I wrapped an onion in a cloth and applied it Sister Amadeus’s chest. We were alone all night in that cabin.
Every time Sister Amadeus stirred under the quilt, I made her sit up and drink tea. The cabin was brutally hot. The quilt was wet with sweat.
I reassured Sister Amadeus that I would cut the fire before she drifted back to sleep. I lied. I wanted her to think that relief was near. The only thing that was near was death.
She coughed and spat.
She was weak with fever. She fell asleep again. I made the fire even hotter. We needed plenty of heat to get through the night. I knew she could sweat the devil out of her. I had seen it done back on the plantation. This battle went on all night.
By daybreak, the fever was gone.
Sister Amadeus sat up in her bed. The elderly nun returned. The elderly nun was shocked by the transformation. It was truly a miracle!
In the coming days, Sister Amadeus got stronger. There was less coughing and spitting. Then, there was none. Sister Amadeus was free of pneumonia!
I couldn’t help but compare how my beloved Sister Amadeus’s recovery from pneumonia felt similar to my liberation from slavery. We both had been given a second chance in life. We both were free.
I figured my work in Montana was done. I would return to Ohio. I thought it was wise to take Sister Amadeus back to Ohio, too.
She was asthmatic; she was frail; and she was possessed of historic missionary zeal, the zeal to bring the Heart of Jesus to all of Montana, including, with particularity, the children of the tribal nations. In other words, I knew the holy woman simply would not quit. Conversely, the wilds of Montana were unlikely to quit either, the sudden blizzards, the sub-zero temperatures, the drifting snow, the hungry winter wolves, all of it. This was not a good combination. Furthermore, I knew that if a nun so much as needed a needle and thread, not to mention food, supplies, and medical attention, she would need to hitch a team and suffer a two-day carriage ride to Helena to get it.
“Sister, this place is wild as all Hell. It is unsettled. What in the living Hell are we doing here? It is not safe to stay in this crazy wilderness, especially with you coughing and wheezing with asthma. The winters are full of blizzards and temperatures below zero. How long do you think it will be before you get a second bout of pneumonia? Let’s just get a coach to Miles City, catch the Northern Pacific, and get the hell out of here. What do you say?”
Sister Amadeus didn’t seem disturbed by the raw vulgarity of the plea. Instead, the soft spoken and eternally pious nun took my plea to the Risen Savior in prayer. The outcome was predictable.
“Heko el hamsto,” she whispered.
“For Christ’s sake, shit! I don’t know what that means, but if I know you it is probably not good, it probably means no,” I thought my saucy reply must have made eve
n the Risen Savior’s cheeks burn.
Sister Amadeus ignored my intemperate manner. She said in the king’s English, “Heko el hamsto means, ‘I stand firm like the mountains.’”
She further explained that she had been called to Montana by the Risen Christ. She would never forsake that calling, and the idea of failure was abhorrent to her. Speaking with authority as the Rev. Mother Amadeus of the Heart of Jesus, Foundress of the still unbuilt Ursuline Mission of Montana, she would never yield to the temptation to return to the comfort and safety of civilization in Ohio if it meant abandoning her Mission. She invited me to stay in Montana and help her build the Mission stone by stone. I could see the twinkle in this powerful Christian woman’s eyes, and I knew her spirit was pure.
Sister Amadeus was known worldwide for her missionary zeal, patience, leadership, intellectual command, erudition, and, above all, her pureness of heart in the Christian faith. She was a giant. Her unique qualities would eventually allow her to do it all.
The faith she exhibited at the Ursuline Convent in Toledo would eventually lift her to extraordinary heights. She would establish a Convent in Miles City, Missions in Montana at Cascade and Tongue River, and a Mission in faraway Alaska. She was honored to be the first to receive the Holy Communion with a Flathead girl from Montana ahead of the multitudes at the Basilica in Rome. She evangelized the Blackfeet, Cheyenne, Sioux, Flathead, and Eskimos. She educated the daughters of mighty chiefs, like White Bull.
At the time, the railroads and telegraph wires had only recently begun to crisscross the prairies, and some tribal nations were still hostile to the United States agents and the ideal of the Western expansion. They still harbored mistrust for the “weo,” which is Cheyenne for the “white man.” As a writer, her eloquently composed letters were openly compared to the work of St. Theresa. Sister Amadeus was one of only a few distinguished religious figures to receive papal correspondence directly from Pope Benedict XV at the Vatican. She saw the Pacific Ocean at Coronado Beach. Indeed, she was among the prominent Jesuit missionaries credited with opening doors to the Western expansion. I knew that such a woman was unlikely to take no for an answer from the likes of me.
“Shit,” I mumbled and agreed to stand by her side. “Before you know it, she’ll have me wearing a full buckskin suit, dammit.”
Buckskin suit aside, the two of us, Sister Amadeus and a formerly enslaved colored woman standing six feet tall, would come to confront the perilous wilds of Montana together, the blizzards, the sub-zero temperatures, the hungry winter wolves, the bandits, the hostile Indians, all of it. The reason was simple. Our bond of friendship was indelible, possibly indomitable. Why not? It had already cheated death. What could the snarling teeth of a hungry wolf pack possibly do to threaten our resolve? However, the question of whether our resolve would withstand the rigors of building a stone Mission with scant resources and little, if any, dependable help was quite a separate matter.
The work of transforming the cluster of cabins into a real Mission, one with a stone chapel, a bell, and a flagpole, one with dormitories and a legitimate schoolhouse, hadn’t even begun. There was no garden or henhouse. There wasn’t even a stable for the horses. The Mission was a pathetic cluster of cabins with mud floors in the middle of an open field. The weeds had even taken root on the mud roofs.
The Mission needed a foreman to oversee the transformation. The Church would look to hire someone with a whole range of skills from carpentry, masonry, gardening to tending the horses, standing watch over the grounds, and warding off random attacks by hungry wolves, hostile Sioux, drunken Irishmen, and Mexican banditos. Even with helpers, wagons, and mules, the work of carrying building stones from nearby Square Battle Quarry to the Mission would be arduous. It was a tall order, indeed. In short, it was considered a man’s work. Sister Amadeus had other ideas. She had her mind set on still another miracle.
Chapter Six
The draft snatched at Father Damiani’s black robes as he walked purposely from his cabin across the open field to Sister Amadeus’s cabin. The way the wind clawed at the priest’s robes was precisely the same way it had clutched at Sister Amadeus’s lungs that winter.
We spent the entire winter alone together in that cabin. It was now spring. The priest suspected all along that Sister Amadeus and I were more than just good friends. He believed we were actually lovers. Now, he was determined to catch us in the act.
Father Damiani banged furiously at the cabin door.
“Open up, open up this minute,” he demanded.
“Yes, what is it?” Sister Amadeus said, opening the door slowly.
Sister Amadeus, as an Ursuline nun, was known as the “Spouse of the Crucified.” She was fully dressed in her habit, including tunic, belt, scapular, and veil. She was fresh and ready for the day’s work to begin. The habit made it easy to see why the Indians called the Ursuline nuns the “Black Gowns.” In concert with the Christian faith, she refused to judge the priest for the wrongful accusation or the indiscretion. On the other hand, I did.
I didn’t wear black. It wasn’t one of my favorite colors. Instead, I wore a white apron over a floor length grey dress. Unlike Sister Amadeus, I wasn’t ready for the day’s work to begin. I couldn’t care less what Father Damiani thought of our situation. So, I lounged on a chair before the cabin’s open window, puffing away on a homemade black cigar.
“What’s going on in here?” the priest said, neglecting to close the door.
The priest had arrived from Helena the night before and had been told of my immense physique, but coming face to face with it startled him.
“Close the damned door.” I blew a puff of blue smoke. “Were you raised in a barn?” I said, not bothering to put out the cigar. I was already liquored up, having thrown up a flask of whiskey a time or two at sunrise.
“You will refrain from using vulgarity while on church premises,” the priest said, sheepishly.
“I told her the exact same thing,” Sister Amadeus agreed.
“I’ll give you the same answer,” I interrupted. “I’m not a slave. I am through with slavery, thanks to Mr. Lincoln. I will say whatever I please to whoever I please wherever I please whenever I please. What, do you think the Indian girls here will mind? They barely speak English.”
I felt slighted. The priest seemed to have very little regard for exactly how sick Sister Amadeus had been or the enormity of the miracle that was needed to save her. I felt unappreciated. I had come all the way to the Mission by stagecoach, performed the miracle of restoring Sister Amadeus’s health and saved the Mission’s founder, its Mother Superior, and I planned to leave Montana in the spring the same way I had arrived, by stagecoach.
“Jesus will mind,” the priest said.
“Here we go with that shit again,” I said.
“Shhhh,” Sister Amadeus insisted.
“Hell, why do you have a Mission for Blackfoot Indian girls anyway? Why teach Blackfoot Indians English out in the middle of Godforsaken Montana? Do you want to make them translators? If Jesus knows everything, don’t you think he’s figured that one out, too?” I was upset and drunk.
“We teach them English, madam, so they can read the Bible,” the priest said, confidently.
“Why not simply write the Bible in Blackfoot, mister, and call it a day. That way they can read it on their own?” I chuckled.
“Let’s not have a debate,” Sister Amadeus said.
“There will be no debate,” the priest said.
“Mary helped me get over my sickness. She’s visiting. We grew up together back on my family’s plantation,” Sister Amadeus said.
“She will refrain from vulgarity or I’m afraid this little visit will be canceled, and the medicine bought to you by the military doctor from Ft. Shaw more than likely deserves the credit,” the priest said.
“There’s plenty she can do for us. She’s an excellent carpenter, gardener, blacksmith, cook, coachman, and we have a need for all five,” Sister Amadeus said.
“Five?” I laughed. “That sounds more like fifty-five.”
“Coachman?” the priest said, placing emphasis on the word “man.” “This is no man. You came all the way here by coach from where?” the priest asked.
“Toledo, Ohio,”
“And you have the audacity to call Montana Godforsaken?”
“She can harness a team faster than any man, swing a hammer better than any man, travel by horseback farther, fight better…” Sister Amadeus said, excitedly.
“Fight better?” the priest said, curiously. “How on earth would one know that?” he asked, mumbling.
“That, too,” I said.
“Curse better, too, I’ll bet,” the priest said. “Well, she is certainly bigger than any man in Cascade. I can tell you that, so I’ll put it to the test. I have interviews set up for this afternoon to add a foreman to the staff to run our projects. Albert, who is our only hired helper, is only a janitor. We have a need to build a school, and I have to send the wagon regularly to pick up supplies. I’ll tell you what: I have a competition set up for this afternoon to see which man in town can harness and hitch a two-horse team to a coach the fastest. It is a real test of skill. That seems like the fairest way to decide who gets the job. Albert will try, and if he wins, he gets a promotion. If someone else wins, they get the job. I’ll let your Mary, here, enter, and if she wins, she’ll get the job, but the chances of her beating a man out here in Montana are dim—dim, indeed.”
“Perfect,” Sister Amadeus said.
“I’ll win,” I said, dismissively.
The priest closed the door, and when he did, I turned up the flask I had been hiding beneath my apron, took another slug of whiskey, and saluted the spot at the door where the priest had been standing. “And it’s a good thing I’ll win. The goddamned place is falling apart. I mean there are weeds literally growing on the roof.”
Stagecoach Justice Page 5