La Vengeance des mères

by Jim Fergus

  “You know, Lulu,” I suggested, “kicking the stars may be setting rather too high a goal for us at this point. Everyone is exhausted from working all day, stooping and bending and carrying. What about if we just imagine kicking one of the mean dogs who prowl the village. Would that not be more realistic?”

  It is true that there are a number of dogs in the camp, and some of them quite large shaggy animals. We understand that they are kept primarily as beasts of burden when the tribe travels, carrying small parfleches, and sometimes young children, also as watchdogs and as a source of food, the Cheyenne being particularly partial to tender young puppies, either boiled or roasted over the coals. For the most part, the dogs are friendly enough, but perhaps because we are still perceived by them as outsiders with a different scent than that of the natives to whom they are accustomed, some growl threateningly at us when we pass the lodges in front of which they sleep. They sometimes even make little feints to snap at our heels, which is when a good kick comes in handy.

  Perhaps the most fun at our rehearsals is had by Astrid, who, because she is not participating, has the luxury of watching our foolishness and critiquing it. I should mention that the Kelly twins have not yet reappeared. Nor have we had any further news or sight of them, or of Martha for that matter. We have also not yet had the pleasure of meeting the negro woman, Euphemia, or Nexana’hane’e, Kills Twice Woman, as the Cheyenne call her due to her exploits on the battlefield. We catch a glimpse of her about camp now and then … truly she is a majestic being.

  In the matter of music for the performance, trombones and tubas being clearly out of our reach, we have, thanks to the assistance of Pretty Walker, managed to secure the services of two tribal flute players, a pair of renowned drummers, a fellow who is gifted in the use of rattles, another a master of whistles, and yet another who blows an instrument made of a buffalo horn. It is a strange kind of orchestration, to be sure, but as with everything here, we make do with that which we have.

  The flute is proving to be our most versatile instrument. It is widely used by the Cheyenne, for the pure pleasure of its tone as well as for romantic conquests. Indeed, there is a renowned flute maker in the camp said to have the ability to imbue his instruments with the power to make any woman fall in love with the respective flutist. Nearly every evening, we hear the music of a lovelorn suitor wafting gently over the village, sometimes romantic, sometimes even with a touch of tragedy in its tones. It is, after all, springtime, the season of love.

  Lulu has assembled the musicians and is trying to teach them the 2/4 time signature, at the same time as she is trying to teach us the correct steps. Besides the high kicks she asks of us, the dance itself is a fairly simple concept, for similar steps are employed in many international folk dances. Most of us are picking it up rather quickly … with the exception of Lady Hall, who, as she readily admits, has two left feet. At the same time, she does not seem to recognize her own lack of natural rhythm, nor does it prevent her from having a wonderful time at it. “Ever since my Helen and I witnessed the scandalous performance,” she said, “I must admit that I dreamed of the sense of abandon dancing it myself might give me … although I never imagined that I should have the opportunity, least of all in a setting such as this.”

  The music is rather more complicated than the dance steps themselves, for the natives employ a decidedly different beat and rhythm than do we, a pulsing, hypnotic sound overlaid by what to our ear seems at first a wildly discordant chorus, a descending stair-step pattern, repetitive but oddly melodic. It is the music of nature and the wilds, of the landscape itself—the rolling plains, the rushing rivers and burbling creeks, the wind sighing through the grass, shrieking across the winter prairie, the wolves howling, the buffalo hooves pounding the earth. It is the sound of the seasons passing generation after generation, the ancient history of the land and of the people palpable in the beat. The delicate job of choreography for poor Lulu is to somehow meld these very different styles while still allowing the particularities of each to come forth.

  Then, of course, there is the not inconsiderable problem of costumes for our dance troupe. Those that Lady Hall described from the performance she and Helen had witnessed in London are clearly not to be replicated here. In addition, out of respect and gratitude to the Cheyenne women, we are obligated to wear the beautiful deer hide dresses and beaded moccasins they made for us with such exquisitely painstaking workmanship. Indeed, we very much wish to wear them, both because they are lovely and as a further sign of our desire to assimilate into their world.

  The fire burns low, exhausted, time to sleep …

  23 May 1876

  The Irish twins have resurfaced at a most timely moment, coming to our rescue with what we think will be an acceptable compromise costume. They arrived at our lodges this afternoon, just after we had returned from our labors, which today, in addition to our daily water hauling duties, consisted of digging tubers with the other women in the meadows surrounding the village. This is accomplished with a wooden spadelike instrument, and is not such easy work. However, it was a beautiful day, clear with a deep blue sky, and we were thankful to be out of the timber, and not having to bear our burdens. As we dug our tubers, we sang in the spring sun, and our fellow Cheyenne workers joined us, teaching us some of their own tunes. The singing does help the time to pass faster, and to make the work go a bit easier.

  “Where have you go, girls?” asked Lulu of the Kellys upon their arrival. “What is in the bag you carry?”

  “We heard you girls were puttin’ on a dance performance,” Meggie answered. “It’s the talk a’ the village. So we’ve been pluckin’ prairie chickens for ya.”

  “Mais pourquoi?… why? For what?”

  “For your costumes, lass, what else?” said Susie. “We saw the handsome dresses the Cheyenne made for you while they were workin’ on ’em. But they ain’t exactly cancan outfits from the way you’ve described them. So Meggie and me figure you could all make little tutus with these feathers and throw ’em right over the dresses just for the performance. Quick change a’ costume, you theater folks might say.”

  “But that is a splendid idea!” said Lulu.

  “Course it is,” said Meggie. “And what’s more, the People love feathers. Maybe it’ll even make your dance look a wee bit less peculiar to ’em.”

  “Mais non,” said Lulu, “it is not peculiar. It is very nice and the girls are getting better … they can now kick as high as a tall dog’s nose.”

  “Meggie an’ me are goin’ to dance with you,” said Susie.

  “But you have missed the first two rehearsals.”

  “Don’t you worry about us, Lulu. We are a pair of dancin’ fools. Show us how it’s done right now. We’ll catch on.”

  And so Lulu held an impromptu rehearsal, and it’s true that it did not take long for Meggie and Susie to reach our minimal level of skill. They are a welcome addition to our troupe—athletic little things, their natural energy and elfin grace encouraging us all to greater heights. I think we even dared to hope that perhaps our performance might not be such a disaster, after all.

  For the tutus, we have all of us cut lengths of fabric from our old “white women” dresses, fashioning a kind of wrap-around skirt to which we have been busy for two nights sewing feathers. When it is time for our cancan, which Dog Woman has officially added to the dance program, we will simply tie the feathered skirts around our waists on top of the hide dresses. These we will grasp in hand and flip up during the dance, mimicking the action of the real cancan dresses, though in far more modest fashion. The leggings and moccasins beneath our dresses are considerably less titillating than stockings and heels, and very little in the way of flesh will be exposed during the performance. We have, however, drawn the line at wearing the chastity strings.

  “You’ll get rope burn dancin’ in those damn things,” Susie advised us. “We didn’t wear ’em, either. For one thing, Meggie and me didn’t have any chastity to protect. And for ano
ther, the Cheyenne boys are real gentlemanly toward the girls.”

  “That’s right,” said Meggie, “Cheyenne women are famous among all the plains tribes for their chastity … which is a funny thing because the tribe has long been great friends and allies of the Arapaho, whose lassies are notorious for bein’ loose with their fannies. They say that when a Cheyenne lad starts to polish his knob under the buffalo robes, his father sometimes sends him off to visit the Arapaho for a bit, for he’s almost assured of finding a lass or two there who will take care of his needs. Whereas, on the rare occasion that one of the Cheyenne lasses lets her castle be breached before marriage, it will never be forgotten by the tribe. She will be disgraced for life. No man will ever marry her … except maybe an old widower who needs someone to do the housework. And see, that makes most of the lads real respectful toward the lasses, makes ’em behave themselves until they’re married … aye, sometimes the boys won’t even go at it on their wedding night. They’ll wait four, five days, sometimes even a fortnight ’fore they finally get around to chargin’ their weapons. Up to then they just like to lie under the buffalo robes and chat it up with their bride by way of breakin’ the ice.”

  “I find that quite charming,” I said. “I’ve never asked you sisters this, but are you planning to remarry now?”

  “No, we already told the old cock twat Dog Woman not to be wastin’ her time makin’ matches for us,” said Meggie. “We’re way done with romance. We got more important business to attend to.”

  “What kind of business?”

  “Killin’ soldiers. We’ve joined the women’s warrior society Pretty Nose and Phemie set up. We’re in training. That’s what we been up to these past days.”

  “And you really intend to go to war?”

  “War is comin’ to us, Molly, we don’t need to go to it. And when it does, me and Susie are goin’ to be ready this time. Right, sister?”

  “Right as rain, Meggie. Two fiercer warriors than the howlin’ Kelly twins the soldiers have never before witnessed. When they see us ridin’ down upon them those boyos will shite their pants.”

  24 May 1876

  The Kellys’ talk of war has made me realize that I have barely mentioned our good Chaplain Goodman since his misadventure upon our arrival … so busy have I been with our own affairs. My neglect is also partly due to the fact that we have seen very little of him, for he is installed in a lodge in the village itself, whereas we, due to a matter of protocol, were forced to locate on the edge of it.

  We catch glimpses of Christian on the way to and from our labors, and sometimes we manage to exchange a few words. He seems already to have taken exceptionally well to this way of life. The same women who beat him with sticks have sewn him several handsome native outfits, and due to Hawk’s recounting to the village of the chaplain’s desertion from the Army and his long vision quest alone in his cave, he has been accepted by the Cheyenne as a holy man. The natives are great admirers of such behavior. In addition, Christian catches fish in the river each day and distributes them to poor and elderly people in the village, and anyone else who wishes to have them.

  There is a distinct economic hierarchy here we are discovering, for a family’s wealth is based upon the man’s abilities as both hunter and warrior. Prowess in the hunt provides the obvious sustenance required to feed the family, as well as the accumulation of hides for trade, for covering tipis, making clothing, bedding, and the other accoutrements of comfort; while a successful warrior is one who is both fearless in battle and adept at stealing horses during raids upon other tribes, and in capturing wild horses. The more horses one owns, the more lodge poles one can transport, therefore the larger and more comfortable are one’s tipis. Inevitably, there are men in the tribe less gifted, less brave, or simply less lucky in life, and their families lead a relatively poorer existence. In this manner, it is not so different than our own society and economy, just considerably wilder.

  The wealthier Cheyenne also take care of their less fortunate tribal members; they take in or at least support the families of warriors felled in battle, and they provide for the elderly and the infirm. In this way, the selfless actions of Christian Goodman are greatly respected. He is a simple, earnest boy … I don’t know why I call him a boy, as he is nearly my same age, but his ingenuous good nature has such a childlike quality to it, which, finally, I think, is what allows him to adapt so apparently effortlessly to this new life. Of course, he also has the luxury of not having to worry about being married off by Dog Woman to the suitor of her choice, as do we girls. Should he decide to take a bride, he is free to choose his own. Nor, of course, is he required to dance the cancan with us …

  It occurs to me that I have hardly mentioned Hawk in these last pages, either, for the simple reason that I have not laid eyes on him since we arrived … and here I thought we were unofficially engaged … Still, I harbor a small hope that I will see him at the dance … Good Lord, does that not sound like the diary entry of a lovelorn schoolgirl?

  LEDGER BOOK VII

  The Strong-heart Women’s Warrior Society

  Violence begets but more violence, and from it we learn that there are no limits, no boundaries to the savagery, the butchery of which human beings are capable. Nor can there be any understanding of it, or coming to terms with it. I hope it is true that the meek shall inherit the earth, but in the meantime, sadly, this is the world we have inherited.

  (from the journals of Margaret Kelly)

  14 May 1876

  Me and Susie have left the greenhorns to their own devices. We figure we’ve babysat them long enough, have done our job by bringing ’em this far. After all, that’s what we said we would do, and we weren’t all that thrilled about the idea in the first place. Now it’s time for them to start sortin’ things out themselves, makin’ their own way in the village. Aye, and we must say, it’s a relief not being any longer responsible for ’em.

  So we’re turnin’ our attention to our own business … the important business of war, of vengeance, preparin’ to kill soldiers, which moment me and Susie have been living for since they took our wee babies from us. Because they proved themselves in battle during the Mackenzie attack, our Phemie and Pretty Nose were both named war chiefs by the tribal council, and have been given permission by the elders to form a women’s warrior society. It is said that there have only been a handful of women chiefs in the long history of the tribe, and only occasionally in times of need when the number of men warriors has been reduced, or when a special woman, or two, comes forward to fill the role … Aye, and this is such a time, and Pretty Nose and Phemie are such women.

  The men themselves have seven such warrior societies, each with their own specialty and way of bein’: the Kit Fox Men, the Elk Soldiers, the Dog Soldiers, the Red Shields, the Bowstrings, the Chief Soldiers, and the Crazy Dogs—this last mostly young warriors, known for their recklessness and the need to prove themselves in battle … it is with them our lads rode on that terrible day they took the Shoshone baby hands … and brought the vengeance of gods down upon us.

  Given the right to name their own society, Pretty Nose and Phemie call us Imo’ yuk he’ tan à’e—it’s a mouthful in Cheyenne, to be sure, but in English it means Strong-heart Women. Me and Susie went to our first meeting today, held in a special ceremonial lodge Phemie put up near her and her husband Black Man’s tipi. Only we members of the Strong-heart Women, or those personally invited, are allowed to attend these meetings. And everything said or done there is to be kept secret. It is explained that if we even speak of it to others outside the society, we risk bringin’ bad fortune upon us when we go into battle.

  When the meeting is over, we ask Phemie in private whether she really believes this or not, for it seems to me and Susie a wee superstitious, though we’re gettin’ more and more that way ourselves. “It does not matter whether I believe it or not,” she answers, “or whether you girls do. All that matters is that the Cheyenne believe it, and in so doing it becomes our re
ality. In order to attract the best women and to keep them, we must respect their traditions, their beliefs and taboos … their superstitions, if you like. If we start talking around the camp about what happens here, even to your friends, word will get out that there has been a breach in our secrecy, and once that happens the Cheyenne women in our society will begin to lose faith in our power, they will begin to think we are going to fail in battle. And then we surely will fail.”

  Still, me and Susie figure it’s OK for us to write down what happens in our meetings, for these pages are private and if ever they are read by anyone else, which is not likely, that means we’re dead, and the story itself will be as cold as our corpses.

  All the men in their warrior societies have bird or animal spirits upon whom they count to protect them in battle, to make them strong and victorious, and, in some cases, even bulletproof. Figures of these they paint on their war shields, or on their horses, or on their own bodies, our dear Helen famous among the warriors for decorating them with her artwork. Most warriors carry amulets associated with their chosen bird or animal, and attached to their war costumes or their hair—a wing or bird skin, a tail, a tuft of fur, a bone—and some, like Hawk, learn to speak the language of their creature. Phemie has adopted as her animal spirit protector the sandhill crane, for the female of the species is considered the bravest of birds, and if wounded and unable to fly, will fiercely stand her ground to defend her young, will even attack a man. Phemie has learned to make the strange warbling cry of the crane, and we can well imagine how eerie that must sound to the enemy as she rides into battle, for it is damned chillin’ even to our ears. She has encouraged each of us to choose a bird or animal as our protector, and me and Susie are discussin’ the matter. We wish Helen were here to help us make our choice, for she knew more about the animal world than anyone. We’re thinkin’ a’ askin’ Lady Hall if she has any such advice, because she knows her stuff, too.