One Thousand White Women (20 page)

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Authors: Jim Fergus

BOOK: One Thousand White Women
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Good God! The flippancy of my entry of two days ago did not presage the coming night’s reign of terror … a passage through Hell … our slender faith in this mission has been shaken to its core … our group is in complete disarray, many have vowed to leave here, to return immediately to the safety of civilization—a safety that is, for now at least, to be denied us.
Let me recount, as plainly as I am able, the events that have led us to this dire state. My husband and I attended the aforementioned feast at the lodge of Alights on the Cloud. I was aghast to see upon our arrival that among the half dozen or so other guests was none other than the half-breed wretch Jules Seminole, who was in company with his own wife, a frightened and surely much mistreated girl whom they call by the name Howling Woman … yes, well is it any wonder? The poor thing is probably tortured to a state of howling by the miserable lout.
My blood ran cold when first I laid eyes upon Seminole, who leered at me with his disgusting expression of insinuating familiarity, as if we are intimates. Truly, the man makes my skin crawl. My husband hardly seemed to notice, or if he did, said nothing. It is true, I now know, what Seminole told me of the selfless nature of Little Wolf’s position among the People.
Because I wished to get out of sight of the wretch as soon as possible, immediately after the feast I told my husband through the sign talk that I could not accompany him to the dance, that I must return to our lodge. However, I was not able to leave immediately, for no one is allowed to enter or depart the lodge while the men are smoking their damnable pipe. It is another of the savages’ endless “rules.”
While they were smoking, and as usual taking their sweet time over it, Jules Seminole produced a bottle of whiskey. In spite of that which he had lost to Gretchen, he now boasted that he still had several full kegs of the stuff which he had procured at the trading posts en route here. He passed a tin cup around and allowed all the men present one sip of the whiskey. I was disgusted to see that my own husband accepted a drink when the cup was handed to him. And as Little Wolf drank, Seminole looked at me and whispered, “Tonight, my beauty.”
All immediately wanted another drink of the stuff, but Seminole only laughed at them, and said that the first taste was free but now they would have to pay for it.
Never have I witnessed a more rapid transformation among the men. Captain Bourke was right on that score, as well—the savages are slaves to whiskey, and have a pitifully low tolerance for it. Many already appeared drunk after the first “free” drink and became immediately belligerent and bellicose. I told my husband again that I was returning to our lodge; I did not care whether the men were finished with their smoke or not, and I began to crawl toward the lodge entrance. There was much
houing
of disapproval from the men at my impropriety, and Little Wolf, acting in uncharacteristically rough fashion, caught me by the ankle and dragged me back. All of the men seemed to find this most amusing and fairly shook with hearty laughter.
But my husband looked at me in a way that I had never before seen, with an expression so debased that it chilled me to the bone. I suddenly no longer knew this man. I wrenched free from his grasp and scrambled as fast as I could out of the lodge and ran back to our own tipi.
Soon the music from the dance began, but it had a different and strangely discordant tone. We began to hear from our lodge all manner of loud shouting and cursing. Our old tipi crone, Crooked Nose, looked at me, shook her head and said,
“ve’ho’emahpe.”
Then she made the sign for drinking with her thumb.
Worried for the others I decided to go out again. But when I tried to leave the tent, the crone blocked my way with her club. “Please,” I said, and I made the sign for “friends” and for “search.” “Please let me pass.” The old woman seemed to understand me; she muttered disagreeably, but finally she removed her club from my path.
I skirted the immediate area in which the dance was being held but paused long enough to see that Seminole had set up a kind of makeshift “saloon” there with a keg of whiskey and that a line had formed of men and women holding all manner of drinking vessels and goods with which to trade for the whiskey. These included bows and arrows, carbines, hides, blankets, household goods, beads, clothing, and many other items. It appeared that by the end of the night the wretch would own the entire camp!
Even from a distance I could see that a general state of drunkenness already prevailed and that the
he’emnane’e
had lost all control so that the usually orderly dancing was degenerating into a kind of mad gyration. Those who had been prudent enough not to have imbibed the alcohol were quickly retiring to their lodges, and relatives hurried to cut loose the young girls who are tied together at these affairs with a common rope—a peculiar, but effective, savage custom designed to prevent the girls from being lured away from the fire by young men whose romantic ardor has been inflamed by music and dancing. Or tonight, as was the case, by the devil whiskey.
I hurried on with the idea in mind of finding first Martha, and then as many of the others as possible, so that we might seek refuge at Reverend Hare’s lodge—in the same way that one seeks sanctuary in a church. The camp is greatly spread out, and there were several separate dances in progress as I made my way, but it appeared that the whiskey had infected them all.
I reached Martha’s lodge and found her there alone in, as I had expected, a state of near panic.
“Good God, what’s going on out there, May?” she asked. “It’s madness!”
Martha and I made our way to the Reverend’s lodge. The situation was deteriorating by the moment—all control appeared to be lost. Bonfires burned everywhere. There was gunfire and brawling, and dancing of the most depraved sort accompanied by a demented music that seemed to issue from the bowels of Hell. We were sickened to witness men dragging their screaming wives and daughters to trade for a drink of whiskey. Fearing for our own lives, we dared not intervene.
When we arrived at the Reverend’s lodge, we found that a number of our women were already there, many huddled together, holding each other and weeping in terror. The
he’emnane’e,
Dog Woman, was in the rear of the lodge trying to console and minister to the Reverend, who seemed himself to have suffered a complete breakdown. The latter was in a state of great agitation, and cowered under his buffalo robes like a giant child just awakened from a bad dream. He rocked himself back and forth, wild-eyed and perspiring heavily.
“
Qu’est que
se passe avec le Reverend?”
I asked of the hermaphrodite.
“Il est malade?”
“Il a perdu sa médecine,”
said the man/woman sadly.
“Comment?”
“Sa médecine, elle est partie,”
Dog Woman repeated. He was very sympathetic and now passed a piece of burning sage under the Father’s nose. This was presumably designed to help him find his lost medicine again—or as I would have it, his courage.
I knelt beside the giant, trembling, white-robed priest. “Are you ill, Reverend?” I whispered. “Please, what’s the matter with you?” I grasped him by his fleshy arm and shook him hard. “Please, these women need you.”
“I’m sorry, Miss Dodd,” he said, wiping his brow, and trying to collect himself, “the situation is hopeless, it’s the worst possible thing that can occur. I have been among the savages before when they were drinking whiskey. It is Satan’s tool to possess their soul. It makes them insane. You cannot imagine the atrocities of which they are capable. You cannot imagine. They know no restraint. The only hope, the only defense, is to hide oneself completely from their sight.”
“Good God, man,” I said. “This is no time to lose your faith. Pull yourself together. Can’t you see that the women need you to be strong?”
“Hide yourself,” the Reverend said, pulling a buffalo robe over his head. “Hide yourself. It’s the only hope.”
Even though the Reverend was clearly incapable of defending them, those women already present chose to stay in his lodge, and others soon joined us until it was quite crowded there—all were too fearful to venture forth again into the mad chaos that prevailed throughout the camp.
Jeanette Parker was there, as was the little French girl Marie Blanche, and the strange quiet Ada Ware dressed as always in black, her bleak vision of the world seeming to come true. “A lucky thing for us that the church sent the Reverend to look after us, isn’t it?” she said darkly. “I feel so much better for having him here.”
Now Narcissa White entered the lodge, disheveled and muttering to herself in a kind of self-absorbed hysteria. “There you see, I told them so, we have failed,” she said, “Satan rules the night, I told them, I told them so …”
“Told them what for God’s sake, Narcissa?” I asked.
“Told them to cast Satan from their hearts,” she said. “Told them not to copulate with the heathens until the church had done its proper work and God possessed their miserable souls.” She looked at me as if seeing me for the first time. “Did I not?” she asked. “Did I not tell you so? Now look, look what you have done, you Godless whore. You have taken up Satan’s ministry, and this … this is the result!” She hiked her dress up and I saw the thin rivulet of blood that ran down the inside of her thigh. Evidently, Narcissa’s husband had decided, presumably under the influence of the whiskey, to exercise his conjugal privileges after all.
“I’m sorry, Narcissa,” I said. “Truly I am. But I don’t see how you can blame me or anyone else for this. Have you seen any of the others? Have you seen Phemie or Daisy Lovelace? The Kelly twins? Gretchen? Have you seen little Sara?”
“Sinners, each and every one of them,” said Narcissa shaking her head. “You’ll all burn in Hell.”
“Look around,” said Ada Ware. “We’re already there.”
Worried for the others and for my tentmates, I elected to return to my own lodge. Martha, too fearful to let me out of her sight, accompanied me. We hurried as quickly as we could, keeping to the edge of the dance circles and never looking directly at anyone—trying our best to appear invisible.
There we found my other tentmates cowered together on their robes. As I had expected Little Wolf had not returned. The Chief’s daughter, Pretty Walker, who is a lovely girl only a few years younger than myself, had also attended the dance, tied to the others. Thankfully she had been freed and now huddled next to her mother, weeping softly. The young wife, my friend, Feather on Head, anxiously clasped her baby to her breast. I knelt beside the frightened girl, and tried to console her. The old crone, Crooked Nose, sat cross-legged on the ground at her designated place just inside the entrance to the tent, holding her club vigilantly across her lap. For once I was very happy to see her on guard there.
An inhuman howling and wailing rose above the camp—gunfire and savage shrieks, the heartbreaking cries of wives and children. How I worried for our women.
“I must at least find Sara,” I said. “Just to know that she is safe. You stay here, Martha,” I said. “You’ll be fine here.”
But when I tried to leave the lodge Crooked Nose again laid her club across the entrance and this time she was implacable. I pleaded with her to let me pass, but finally lost patience and said in English, “Alright you old witch, go ahead and strike me down then. I am going out to look for my friends.”
I pushed past her club and opened the flap. As soon as I did so my heart caught in my throat, for there standing in front of the entrance to our lodge was Jules Seminole. I heard Martha scream behind me as Seminole grasped me roughly by the arm and dragged me outside. He pulled my face close to his with an iron grip … and then … then he licked me like a dog … he put the tip of his tongue into my nostril … it was like a maggot crawling into my body … I was certain I would vomit.
“Yes, now show me your tongue, my little
salope,
” he said. “Give me your tongue.”
“Oh, no,” I whimpered, trying to pull away. “Oh God, please no.”
And then Crooked Nose caught the wretch a terrific blow behind the ear with her club, which made a hollow cracking sound like a gourd splitting. Seminole collapsed on the ground like a dead man, blood running from his ear.
“My God, you’ve killed him,” I said to the crone. But I said so triumphantly.
Martha, useless in her terror, sobbed as Crooked Nose and I each took ahold of one of Seminole’s legs and with great effort dragged him some distance away from the lodge, where we left him lying upon the ground. God help me, I wished him dead, but when I bent over him I could see that he was still breathing, his ear beginning to swell like a mushroom.
When we were back inside the tipi I took the old woman by her forearm; it was as hard and sinewy as an old tree root. “Thank you,” I said. “You saved my life, thank you.” Crooked Nose smiled her toothless crone’s smile, her eyes crinkled shut. She nodded and made the sign for “wait,” and then she dug about in her parfleche by the head of her bed until she pulled another smaller, stone-headed club from beneath her headrest. Clearly the crone takes her job seriously and is well armed for the task. She waved the club in the air and said something to me in Cheyenne, and then handed it to me. I knew exactly what she was saying:
If anyone bothers you again, knock them over the head with this.
I said,
“Hou,”
to show her that I understood her meaning.

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