La Vengeance des mères

by Jim Fergus

  When her eyes adjusted to the dim light inside, Owl Girl saw that she was not alone; there was a mother grizzly bear with a cub curled up against the back wall of the cave. Grizzlies are considered to possess supernatural powers and are greatly feared by the Cheyenne; there is a taboo against killing them. In the early days, before they were largely hunted out by the fur trappers, the big bears weren’t confined to the mountains but often roamed the open plains and were a great risk to travelers. They could run a short distance as fast as a horse and would chase down people on foot and devour them.

  Now the cub began whimpering and poking at its mother, and Owl Girl could see that there was something wrong with her, for she did not move. Perhaps, for this reason, the girl was not afraid of the mother grizzly, and she crawled back to have a closer look. The mother bear only watched her and did not appear to have the strength to attack or even to move. Now Owl Girl saw that she had a deep wound on her chest around which flies buzzed and inside which maggots crawled. She nearly vomited from the smell.

  The sudden cloudburst was over quickly and Owl Girl left the cave and went down to the river, where she filled her water bladder, and filled another pouch she carried with mud. Then from the bank she gathered various grasses and wild herbs the Cheyenne know to have healing power, and she returned to the cave. First she poured water on the mother bear’s wound and picked out all the maggots. Then she made a poultice of the mud, grass, and herbs and gently applied it to the wound. All the while she talked to the mother bear, who flinched in pain at her touch but did not struggle; she just kept her small yellow eyes, like shiny marbles, focused on the girl.

  Later Owl Girl told the People that the mother grizzly thanked her, told her that a fur hunter had shot her with a musket rifle, the ball from which must have passed all the way through her shoulder. No one doubted that the bear had spoken to the girl, due to the grizzly’s well-known powers.

  When she had finished dressing the wound, Owl Girl told the mother bear that she was going to return to her family’s camp and bring food for her and her cub. This she did, carrying the haunch of an elk one of her brothers had killed. She did not allow any of her family to accompany her back to the cave, nor did they wish to, for they recognized that the girl had come to some kind of understanding with the bear, which their presence might upset. Also, of course, they were terrified of grizzlies.

  For three days, Owl Girl fed the mother bear and the cub, and each day she changed the poultice. On the fourth day when she returned, they were gone. Over the next two years as the cub grew, the girl would see them periodically by the river, or near the cave when she walked to visit her relatives in the nearby village. Owl Girl knew that they were following her, and she had the sense that the mother bear was watching over her. After two years, grizzly cubs leave their mothers, but the girl continued to see the bear now and again, and the last time she saw her, she had two new cubs with her. And that is how Owl Girl got her new name, Bear Doctor Woman.

  Náhkohenaa’é’e has been kind to me these few days … at least she presents a kindly demeanor. Although the old woman does not speak very much, I have found that she knows some rudimentary English, perhaps learned over the years from listening to Hawk and his mother. This was the first time the two of us had actually been alone together, and as we worked she spoke to me in a mixture of English, Cheyenne, and sign talk, so that between the three languages, and by watching her work, I was able to sort out what I was supposed to do.

  This involved first packing all the contents of the lodge into leather parfleches, a kind of primitive suitcase. These are then strapped to a travois, a sort of primitive wagon without wheels, made from two poles between which are stretched a piece of canvas or leather, one end of the poles then attached to a harness which in turn is attached either to a horse, a large dog, a woman, or a child, depending on the size of the load.

  Next we began unstitching the leather thongs that connected the stretched buffalo hides covering the lodge poles themselves, then folding and bundling the hides, which we also packed in parfleches. I was grateful for the old woman’s gentle instruction and her patience with my own relative awkwardness at this work. Clearly, it is a function she has performed many thousands of times in her life, a primary duty of the women, and she worked quickly and efficiently, as did all the others who were dismantling and packing up their lodges around us. Some hummed or sang softly as they worked, and I learned that there are specific songs connected to this particular labor, which create a certain odd harmony, a kind of steady, pulsating musical hum hovering in the air above the village.

  When we had finished packing the lodge, Bear Doctor Woman, in a mixture of English and sign talk, said: “Happy me Little Hawk”—he has told me that his grandmother still calls him affectionately by his childhood name—“has new wife.”

  “Thank you. And happy me you happy,” I responded in kind.

  She nodded and smiled at me. “I see Little Hawk mother you,” she said, touching my hair, which I translated to mean that I reminded her of Hawk’s mother, due to our common fair hair. And perhaps this is one reason she has been so kind to me … and one reason Hawk has fallen in love with me … yes … there, I have said it. I believe that he does love me.

  I put my hand over my heart, nodded, and again said: “Happy.” I remembered the one piece of romantic advice my own mother gave me, which tragically I did not take, and that was to marry a man who loved his mother, which clearly Hawk had.

  By midmorning, the entire village of over three hundred lodges had been completely dismantled, and the travois, pack horses, dogs, women, and children fully loaded for travel. Mounted on Spring, I hoped as we began to move out that I would find some of my friends to join as we rode, although given the sheer number of people, and the fact that our tipis had been so spread out, this seemed rather unlikely. For precisely this eventuality, we had appointed our Lulu and any of the other girls who might be riding with, or near her, to begin singing a French song called “Frère Jacques,” one she had not yet taught our Cheyenne women. In this way, if we were within earshot, we might at least have a general idea of their location in the mass of travelers, which must number well over a thousand, and all departing at slightly different intervals. It had struck us that having spent so much time together these past months, and become so interdependent, with this sudden separation, we missed each other. Indeed, it was the simple comfort of friendship, the knowledge that we were in this together, that had sustained us throughout the entire ordeal.

  We were traveling north along the foothills of the Bighorns, roughly following the Tongue River below. Of course, other than our general direction, we white women had no idea where we were headed; as always we simply follow. At some point later that morning, we turned slightly east, dropping down out of the foothills and entering the plains, moving due north again. It was easier traveling over the flatter terrain, especially for the pulling of the travois, and as we spread out, we had a clearer view of the immensity of this expedition—men, women, children, young, middle-aged, and old, some walking, some pulling travois, some on horseback. The members of the various warrior societies traveled loosely together, mounted on their fleet, fast-stepping ponies, wearing their war headdresses and carrying their painted shields and lances. The Lakota warriors who had joined us rode with their people, a little apart from us, also wearing headdresses and other accoutrements of their profession. Bands of scouts from both tribes fanned out in all directions, and in the midst of the main body of travelers were two vast herds of horses, which represent the true livelihood of these people, driven by men, women, and boys, some mounted, some afoot and with the help of dogs. Here in the plains the effect of this massive migration was a breathtaking spectacle of fluidity, colorful waves of man and animal following the contours of the land, alternately rising on the hills and disappearing into the swales, a natural living single organism moving across the plains.

  Finally, from a distance, I heard the faintest sounds of
Lulu singing, then as if being relayed, came the same tune from different locations in the expedition, some distant, some closer, as others of our group heard and joined in. I, too, began to sing and as always the act brought me a sense of joy, hope, and strength. I peeled Spring off from those beside whom I rode and headed toward what sounded like the nearest other singing, and so did my friends, and in this way we began gradually to converge. And delighted we were to see one another, until we all rode together again in reunion, singing our hearts out, the Cheyenne who were traveling around us smiling, laughing and nodding at the antics of the white women whom they still find as strange and exotic as we do them.

  As we rode together, we caught up with everyone else’s news, and our respective marital situations. Lulu has been claimed by a young man named, charmingly, No’ee’e, Squirrel. “I never know a boy who treat me so gentle, so sweet,” she said, “who be so polite with me. He treat me like a precious thing he is afraid to break. He believe my horse not yet leave the barn, because no good Cheyenne girl lets it out before marriage. So I pretend that is so … why not?”

  “Me bloke, too, is a sweetie,” said Hannah, “Hotóáso is his name, Little Buffalo. I was so nervous … but blimey if he wasn’t also, because he had never been with a girl before. It took three nights for him to get up the courage … and then when I just barely brushed his willy with my hand, he got so excited he shot his spunk all over me.”

  “Bloody hell, Hannah!” said Lady Hall. “Must you really discuss such vulgar matters? Just the sort of filthy business that disgusts me about relations with men … rendered all the more revolting in your wretched Liverpudlian vernacular.”

  “I’m sorry, m’lady, but as you know, I have brothers. It is from them I learn such things.”

  “Astrid, tell me,” I said. “I saw you dancing with the chaplain. Did Dog Woman not arrange a union for you with a Cheyenne boy? Where are you living?”

  “I am living chastely in Chaplain Goodman’s lodge,” she answered. “We have fallen in love, but because of his religion, we must wait until we can be married in a proper ceremony by a minister ordained in his faith. Dog Woman could not interfere with our arrangement, because Christian is considered to be a holy man, with certain rights of his own.”

  At this Lulu laughed. Although they seem closer since the dance, she clearly still enjoys teasing Astrid. “Mais ma petite amie norvégienne, my little Norwegian friend, you have long wait to find a minister out here to make a marriage for you. We live with the Cheyenne now, you must make a Cheyenne marriage like the rest of us … all you need do is touch by accident his … how you say, Hannah?”

  “His willy.”

  “We maintain separate sleeping places to avoid such temptation,” said Astrid.

  “Ah, but do you not see that is exactly your problem? You who have already been married, whose horse is long gone out of the barn. Some night after he falls asleep, you must slip under his buffalo robes with him. He is a good Christian boy … they are very … how you say, frustré … very frustrated?… I know this from the gentlemen’s club where I worked. Some of my clients bring their sons to me to learn them the pleasures of the body. The boys say their mothers tell them they will go blind if they play with their willies. Can you imagine? Oui, it is certain, Christian will not be able to resist when you touch him there. But one more advice, ma petite amie: take off your mittens first!”

  At this we all had a good laugh … except poor Astrid. “I do not wear mittens, Lulu,” she said. “I don’t know why you always say such things about me.”

  “You know I just say for fun.”

  “I must agree with Lulu, Astrid,” said Carolyn. “After my long and astonishingly tedious marriage to the pastor, I find the simplicity of the Cheyenne arrangement to be quite liberating. Indeed, I have had more marital relations with my young fellow, Vó’hó’k’áse—Light, we would call him, isn’t that charming?—in three days than I had in ten years with my first husband, with whom the act, free of even the pretense of pleasure, was undertaken strictly for the purpose of propagation. As Lulu suggests, do not wait for the blessing of God to sanctify your marriage, my dear, for out here in the wilderness, that may never arrive.”

  Simply due to the fact that we are able to discuss these formerly taboo matters with such good-humored frankness and directness, it was hard not to recognize how much we have all changed in these past months. Surely this big country has opened us up to a new way of being, while at the same time binding us ever more tightly together. We have little left to hide from one another, and no pretenses. How unladylike, how unthinkable it would previously have been to admit aloud to the taking of physical pleasure, how shocked women of polite society would be were they to overhear us. Yet to us it is a perfectly natural conversation among friends, one without shame or embarrassment. Life in the wilds allows certain freedoms not available to the so-called civilized world.

  As the day wore on, riding together, chatting away, surrounded by the other tribal members, borne across the plains in this giant wave of man and animal, it eventually occurred to us that we had completely lost our bearings. Although we had thought it a splendid idea to locate each other by song, we had made no similar arrangements to find our way back to our own families. We had also begun to understand that as informal as our procession appeared at first, it possesses a certain inherent form and function, clearly passed down through the many generations of this nomadic existence. Everything and everyone have their designated place and order. Clearly we had not yet learned the key to this form.

  “I dare say,” offered Lady Hall as we considered our predicament, “it would not do us a bit of good to ask directions of our fellow travelers, would it now? For there is no fixed point in a fluid movement such as this. Indeed, I think it quite possible that we might never find our way back.”

  We finally decided that our only option was to stay together and wait for the movement to finally halt when it came time to pitch camp for the night. And when that happened, one by one, as we hoped they would, our mates managed to locate us—exactly how, of course, we have absolutely no idea. These people own an inexplicably precise sense of such matters … like homing pigeons … or in my case, in the way a hawk flying high in the sky locates a mouse on the ground. When Hawk himself appeared to fetch me, he wore that wry smile on his face with which he frequently greets me. I have come to appreciate his sense of humor. I find it oddly refreshing that he does not take me entirely seriously, for this creates a good-natured lightness between us that helps to prevent me from taking myself too seriously.

  4 June 1876

  Of course, our traveling night bivouacs are considerably rougher and simpler than our full village encampments. Bear Doctor Woman has also been helping me to set up our temporary lodge each evening, and to commence food cooking, and by dusk Hawk rides in from whatever position in the procession his warrior society has taken up that day.

  Two days ago, after Hawk had located me with the other girls and led me “home,” I found, to my great embarrassment, that Náhkohenaa’é’e had already set up our camp alone and started our dinner cooking. Yet she smiled gently upon our arrival and did not seem to hold it against me. Even before I could thank her she slipped discreetly away, as she did last night and again this evening. The old woman is clearly being respectful of our newlywed status; in each other’s presence we are still frequently shy, awkward, tongue-tied, love-struck, while full of an inchoate passion that can hardly wait to be released under the buffalo robes where we are able to divest ourselves of our timidity. It is difficult for me to write of this … just to think about it brings a hot flush of blood to my chest and face.

  5 June 1876

  I rode today with Mouse seated in front of me, as we often do. She is such a slip of a thing that Spring does not mind at all bearing us both upon her back. Indeed, the child seems to bring forth the equine’s own maternal instincts, for she nickers softly when Mouse appears, and nuzzles her affectionately with her nos
e, which makes her giggle delightedly.

  As we ride, we give each other language lessons, pointing at various objects, parts of our bodies, the sky, the horse, each of us identifying them in our respective tongues. Sometimes we just chatter away to each other, hoping the other might understand a word or two of what we each say. And sometimes we sing one of Lulu’s little ditties in French. She is a bright, alert little girl, with a certain impish manner about her, and I can see already that with a child’s natural facility to absorb language, she will learn English considerably faster than I will Cheyenne … although I feel that I am making modest progress.

  As we were riding thus today, Phemie joined us atop a tall, white prairie stallion, which she explained was a new addition to her and her husband’s string of horses. It is a snorting, prancing, long-legged, wild-eyed, high-spirited beast, upon whose back Phemie looks more regal than ever.

  “How did you find me in this mass of travelers, Phemie?” I asked.

  “I know where to look,” she answered simply. “You have not come to my women’s warrior society meeting yet, Molly.”

  “I have not, Phemie. As I told you, I have no interest in being a warrior.”

  “Do you have interest in protecting your life and that of your friends?”

  “Of course.”

  “Of protecting our Cheyenne people, particularly the mothers and their children? Of protecting this child?”

  “Yes, of course, I would do everything I could toward that end.”

  “Then to fight with us is everything you can do, Molly. Our scouts have located a massive force of Army troops moving in our direction, clearly the Crook expedition that Gertie told us of. Relays have sent word that Crazy Horse and Sitting Bull, as well as other Lakota bands, are on the way to join us. They recognize the strength in numbers, and the necessity of fighting together. Like us, the warriors travel with their families, who can no longer be left behind in unprotected villages. The Army has well learned that this is our greatest vulnerability, the easiest way to defeat us … rather than fighting our warriors, the generals prefer to attack our women, children, and elders, and to destroy our villages. I need you in our society, Molly. Don’t you see? We require all the soldiers we can enlist … men and women.”