One Thousand White Women

by Jim Fergus

  Captain Bourke was far more interested in our group, and asked many penetrating, if delicately phrased, questions of us. He is clearly privy to the true nature of our mission—which is not to say that he approves of it. Having spent a good deal of time among the aboriginals during his former posting in Arizona Territory, the Captain prides himself on being something of an amateur ethnographer and seems quite knowledgeable about the savage way of life.

  Apropos of nothing, I shall, by way of personal aside, mention my observation that the Captain appears to have rather an eye for the ladies. I confess that he is a most handsome fellow, with fine military bearing and a manly build. He is dark of hair that falls just over his collar, wears a moustache, and has deep-set, soulful, hazel eyes, with a fine mischievous glint to them as if he were perpetually amused about something. Indeed his eyes seem less those of a soldier than they do those of a poet—and are shadowed, somewhat romantically, by a slightly heavy brow. He is a man of obvious intelligence and sensitivity.

  It amused me and pleased my vanity to notice further that Captain Bourke directed more of his conversation to me than to any of the other women at the table. This fact was not lost on his fiancée and only served to make the poor thing prattle on ever more inanely.

  “John, dear,” she interrupted him at one point just as he was making an interesting observation about the religious ceremonies of the Arizona savages. “I’m sure that the ladies would prefer conversation about more civilized topics at the dining table. For instance, you have very cavalierly neglected to compliment me on my new hat, which just arrived from St. Louis and is the very latest fashion in New York.”

  The Captain looked at her with a distracted and mildly amused air. “Your hat, Lydia?” he asked. “And what does your hat have to do with the Chiricahuas’ medicine dance?”

  Her efforts to turn the conversation to the topic of her hat thus rebuffed, the poor girl flushed with embarrassment. “Why, of course, nothing whatsoever, dear,” she said. “I thought only that the ladies might be more interested in New York fashion as a topic of dinner conversation than in the frankly tedious subject of savage superstitions. Is that not so, Miss Dodd?” she asked.

  I could not help uttering an astonished laugh. “Why yes, Miss Bradley, your hat is perfectly lovely,” I said. “Tell me, Captain, do you think that we women might be able to impart to our savage hosts a finer appreciation of New York fashion?”

  The Captain smiled at me and nodded gallantly. “How very deftly, madam, you have married the two topics of ladies headwear and savage customs,” he said, his eyes sparkling with good humor. “Would that your upcoming missionary work among them be accomplished as smoothly.”

  “Do I detect a tone of skepticism in your voice, Captain?” I asked. “You do not believe that we might teach the savages the benefits of our culture and civilization?”

  The Captain adopted a more serious tone. “It has been my experience, madam,” he said, “that the American Indian is unable, by his very nature, to understand our culture—just as our race is unable fully to comprehend their ways.”

  “Which is precisely the intended purpose of our mission,” I said, treading rather closely to the subject of our “secret.” “To foster harmony and understanding among the races—the melding of future generations into one people.”

  “Ah, a noble notion, madam,” said the Captain, nodding in full acknowledgment of my meaning, “but—and I hope you will forgive me for speaking bluntly—pure poppycock. What we risk creating when we tamper with God’s natural separation of the races will not be one harmonious people, but a people dispossessed, adrift, a generation without identity or purpose, neither fish nor fowl, Indian nor Caucasian.”

  “A sobering thought, Captain,” I said, “to a prospective mother of that generation. And you do not believe that we might exert any beneficent influence whatsoever over these unfortunate people?”

  The Captain reddened in embarrassment at the boldness of my admission, and Miss Bradley looked confused by the turn in the conversation.

  “It has been my unfortunate experience, Miss Dodd,” he said, “that in spite of three hundred years of contact with civilization, the American Indian has never learned anything from us but our vices.”

  “By which you mean,” I said, “that in your professional opinion our mission among them is hopeless.”

  The Captain looked at me with his intelligent soulful eyes, the furrow between his eyebrows deepening. I thought I detected in his gaze, not only concern, but something more. He spoke in a low voice and his words chilled me to the bone. “It would be treasonous for an officer to speak against the orders of his Commander in Chief, Miss Dodd.”

  A hush fell over the table, from which all parties were grateful to be rescued finally by Helen Flight. “I say, Miss Bradley,” she said, “were you aware that the feathers on your hat are the breeding plumes of the snowy egret?”

  “Why, no, I wasn’t,” answered Miss Bradley, who seemed relieved and somehow vindicated by the fact that the conversation had come back, after all, to the subject of her hat. “Isn’t that fascinating!”

  “Quite,” Helen said. “Rather a nasty business, actually, which I had occasion to witness last spring while I was in the Florida swamps studying the wading birds of the Everglades for my Birds of America portfolio. As you correctly stated, the feather-festooned hat such as the one you wear is very much the vogue in New York fashion these days. The hatmakers there have commissioned the Seminole Indians who inhabit the Everglades to supply them with feathers for the trade. Unfortunately the adult birds grow the handsome plumage that adorns your chapeau only during the nesting season. The Indians have devised an ingenious method of netting the birds while they are on their nests—which the birds are reluctant to leave due to their instinct to protect their young. Of course, the Indians must kill the adult birds in order to pluck the few ‘aigrettes’ or nuptial plumes as they are more commonly known. Entire rookeries are thus destroyed, the young orphaned birds left to starve in the nest.” Miss Flight gave a small shudder. “Pity … a terribly disagreeable sound that of a rookery full of nestlings crying for their parents,” she said. “You can hear it across the swamp for miles …”

  Poor Miss Bradley went quite ashen at this explanation and now touched her new hat with trembling fingers. I feared that the poor thing was going to burst into tears. “John,” she said faintly, “would you please escort me back to my quarters. I’m feeling a bit unwell.”

  “Oh, dear, did I say something wrong?” asked Helen, her eyebrows raised expectantly. “That is to say, I’m frightfully sorry if I upset you, Miss Bradley.

  I was anxious to speak to Captain Bourke at greater length, and in private, about his obvious objections to our mission among the savages, and after dinner I spied him sitting alone in a chair on the veranda of the dining room, smoking a cigar. The bald truth is, I am undeniably drawn to the Captain, which attraction perforce can come to naught … but what harm can there be in an innocent flirtation?

  I must have startled the Captain, for he fairly leapt from his seat at my approach.

  “Miss Dodd,” he said, bowing politely.

  “Good evening, Captain,” I answered. “I trust that Miss Bradley is not too ill? I’m afraid Helen’s remarks upset her.”

  The Captain waved his hand, dismissively. “I’m afraid that Miss Bradley finds many things upsetting about life on the frontier,” he said with an amused glimmer in his eye. “She was sent here last year from New York, where she has lived most of her life with her mother. She is discovering that army forts are hardly suited to young ladies of refined sensibilities.”

  “Better suited, perhaps,” I said jokingly, “to we rough-and-ready girls from the Middle West.”

  “Not well suited, I should say,” answered the Captain, his brow knitted thoughtfully, “to womankind in general.”

  “Tell me, Captain,” I asked, “if life at the fort is difficult for women, how much harder will our life b
e among the savages?”

  “As you may have guessed, Miss Dodd, I have been fully briefed by my superiors about your mission,” he said. “As I suggested in our dinner conversation on the subject, I would prefer not to express my opinion.”

  “But you already have, Captain,” I answered. “And in any case, I do not ask your opinion. I merely ask you, as an expert on the subject of the savage culture, to describe something of what we might expect in our new lives.”

  “Am I to understand,” said the Captain, his voice tightening in anger, “that our government did not provide you ladies with any such information when you were recruited for this mission?”

  “They suggested that we should be prepared to do some camping,” I said—not without a trace irony in my tone.

  “Camping …” the Captain murmured. “ … madness, the entire project is utter madness.”

  “Would this be a personal or a professional opinion, Captain?” I asked with an attempt at a laugh. “President Ulysses S. Grant himself has dispatched us on this noble undertaking, and you call it madness. Perhaps this is the treason to which you referred.”

  The Captain turned away from me, his hands crossed behind his back, the fingers of one still holding the smoldering cigar. His strong profile with long straight nose was outlined against the horizon; his nearly black hair fell in curls over his collar. Although this was hardly the time for such observation on my part, I confess that I could not help but notice again what a fine figure of a man the Captain is—broad of back, narrow of hip, straight of carriage … the breeches of the soldier’s uniform displayed the Captain’s physique in a most favorable light … watching him now, I felt a stab of something very like … desire—a sensation which I further attribute to the fact that I have been, for over a year, confined to an institution without benefit of masculine company, other than that of my loathsome tormentors.

  Now Captain Bourke turned around to face me, looked down upon me with a penetrating gaze that quite literally brought the blood to my cheeks. “Yes,” he said, nodding, “the President’s men in Washington sent you women here, consigned you to marriage with barbarians as some sort of preposterous political experiment. Camping? The very least of your worries, Miss Dodd, I assure you. Of course, the Washingtonians have no idea what sort of hardships await you—and probably don’t care. As usual, they have not bothered themselves to consult those of us who do know. Our orders are simply to see that you are delivered safely to your new husbands—offered up, as it were, as trade goods. To be traded for horses! Shame!” said the Captain, whose anger had come up now like a fast-moving squall. “Shame on them! It is an abomination in the eyes of God.”

  “Horses?” I replied in a small voice.

  “Perhaps they neglected to mention that the savages offered horses for their white brides,” the Captain said.

  I recovered my composure quickly. “Perhaps we should be flattered,” I said. “I understand that the savages hold their horses in the very highest esteem. Furthermore, you must remember, my dear Captain, that no one forced us to participate in this program. We are volunteers. If there is shame in our mission, then some of it must rest with those of us who signed up of our own free will.”

  The Captain looked at me searchingly, as if trying to ferret out some possible motive that might make such a thing comprehensible to him. His broad brow cast a shadow like a cloud over his eyes. “I watched you at table tonight, Miss Dodd,” he said in a low voice.

  “Your regard did not escape my attention, Captain,” I said, the blood rising again in my cheeks … a certain tingling sensation.

  “I was trying to understand what had possessed a lovely young woman like yourself to join such an unlikely enterprise with such a motley assortment of cohorts,” he continued. “Some of the others … well, quite frankly it is easier to speculate why some of the others had signed up. Your British friend, Miss Flight, for instance, clearly has a pressing professional need to visit the prairies. And the Irish sisters, the Kelly twins, why they have the look of rogues about them if ever I’ve seen it—I’ll wager that they were in trouble with the police back in Chicago. And the big German girl—well, surely her matrimonial prospects among men of her own race are somewhat limited …”

  “That is most unkind, Captain,” I snapped. “You disappoint me. I took you for too much of a gentleman to make such a remark. The fact is that we are none of us any better than the next. We all entered into this for our own personal reasons, none of which is superior to that of the others. Or necessarily any of your concern.”

  The Captain straightened his back and clicked his heels together with smart military precision. He inclined his head in a slight bow. “You’re quite right, madam,” he said. “Please accept my apology. My intention was not to insult your companions. I only meant that a pretty, intelligent, witty, and obviously well-brought-up young lady such as yourself hardly fits the description of the felons, lonely hearts, and mentally deranged women that we had been notified by the government to expect as volunteers in this bizarre experiment.”

  “I see,” I said, and I laughed. “So this is how our little troupe was billed; no wonder that we have been treated with such disdain by all we encounter. Would it salve your conscience, Captain, to know that you were handing over only such misfits and riffraff to the savages?”

  “Not in the least,” said the Captain. “That isn’t at all what I meant.” And then Captain Bourke did a peculiar thing. He took me by the elbow, grasped my arm lightly but firmly in his hand. The gesture was at once oddly proprietary and intimate, like the touch of a lover, and I felt again the pulse of my own desire. He stepped closer to me, still holding my arm, close enough that I could smell the aura of cigar smoke about him, could smell his own rich manly odor. “It would still be possible for you to refuse, madam,” he said.

  I looked into his eyes, and stupidly, as if in a kind of trance, as if paralyzed by his touch, I took his words to mean that it would still be possible for me to refuse his amorous advances.

  “And why would I do that, Captain?” I asked in a whisper. “How could I refuse you?”

  And then it was the Captain’s turn to laugh, releasing my arm suddenly and pulling away, clearly embarrassed by this misunderstanding … or was it? “Forgive me, Miss Dodd,” he said. “I meant … I only meant that it would still be possible for you to refuse to participate in the Brides for Indians program.”

  I must have turned very red in the face. I excused myself then and returned forthwith to my quarters.

  18 April 1875

  Captain Bourke was noticeably absent at the dining table yesterday, as was his fiancée Miss Bradley … I suspect that they must have dined privately, perhaps in the Captain’s own quarters … Hah! It suddenly occurs to me that my journal entries—like my entirely inappropriate romantic longings of the past twenty-four hours—begin to sound like those of a lovesick schoolgirl. I seem quite unable to get the good Captain out of my mind. I must be insane! … betrothed to a man whom I have not met, infatuated with a man whom I cannot have. Good God! Perhaps my family was correct in committing me to the asylum for promiscuity …

  19 April 1875

  Dear Hortense,

  It is very late at night, and I write to you by the dim light of a single candle in our spartan Army barracks at Fort Laramie. I am unable to sleep. A very strange thing has happened tonight of which I can not breathe a word to any of my fellow brides. Yet I am bursting to confide in someone, and so I must write you, my sister … yes, it reminds me of when we were little girls and still close, you and I, and I would come into your room late at night and crawl into your bed and we would giggle and tell each other our deepest secrets … how I miss you, dear Hortense … miss the way we once were … do you remember?

  Let me tell you my secret. At dinner this evening I was seated once again, and I think not by accident, at the table of one Captain John G. Bourke, who has been chosen to escort us to Indian territory. Indeed, we are scheduled to depart
tomorrow for Camp Robinson, Nebraska Territory, where we are to meet our new Indian husbands.

  Although he is only twenty-seven years of age, Captain Bourke is a very important officer, already a war hero, having won the Medal of Honor at the bloody battle of Stones River, Tennessee. He comes from a good middle-class family in Philadelphia, is well-educated and a complete gentleman. He is at once extremely witty, with a mischievous sense of humor, and truly one of the handsomest men I’ve ever set eyes on—dark with intelligent, piercing hazel eyes that seem able to gaze directly into my heart. It is most disconcerting.

  Under the circumstances you might think that there is little opportunity for gaiety or flirtation among our group of lambs off to slaughter, but this is not so. Dinnertime especially offers us some diversion from the boredom and inactivity of fort life, and in the manner natural to any group of unmarried women, all have been vying for the Captain’s attentions. And all are green with envy that he only has eyes for me.

  Our mutual, and perforce, perfectly innocent attraction and good-natured banter has not been lost on Miss Lydia Bradley, the post commander’s pretty, if vapid, daughter, to whom Captain Bourke is engaged to be married this summer. She watches her fiance like a hawk—as I would if he were mine—and misses no opportunity to divert him from his attentions toward me.

  As a painfully obvious tactic toward this end, Miss Bradley goes to great lengths to cast me in an unfavorable light in the Captain’s eyes. Unfortunately she’s not a terribly clever girl, and her efforts so far have been distinctly unsuccessful. Tonight at table, for instance, she said: “Tell me, Miss Dodd, as a member of the church missionary society, I am curious to know with which denomination you are affiliated?” Ah, so her first gambit would be to expose me as a Protestant in front of the Captain who, is himself, as he had just informed us, Catholic, having been educated as a boy by the Jesuits.