One Thousand White Women (38 page)

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Authors: Jim Fergus

BOOK: One Thousand White Women
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Good God, I can hardly believe the turn of events …
After my last entry I drifted off to sleep with my notebook propped against my enormous belly. I woke several hours later, woke with a jolt—the unmistakable tightening of a labor pain. “It cannot be,” I whispered to myself. “I am weeks early.” And I knew that something must be wrong. Little Wolf sat beside me, and Horse Boy curled against me. I touched the child’s shoulder gently, and he woke with perfect animal-like alertness. “Please,” I whispered to him, “run and get Martha.” And to my husband I said, “The baby comes.”
The women came quickly to lift me on my bed and transport me to the birthing lodge—where all Cheyenne babies are born and which gratefully had already been erected in preparation for our group parturition.
The skies were clear as they carried me there, the night air windless and frigid. I lay on my back, borne aloft by the others, looking up toward the heavens at the millions of stars. A shooting star blazed across the sky at that moment. I took this to be a good omen, and I prayed upon the shooting star, prayed that my baby would be born healthy and strong.
A fire already burned in the birthing lodge, tended by Woman Who Moves Against the Wind. The tipi was very clean and beautifully appointed with fine, newly tanned, and exquisitely embroidered hides and blankets, the walls freshly painted with various symbols and a number of Helen Flight’s lovely bird designs. “In this way,” she had said while painting them, “each of you may choose in turn your own medicine bird for your child.” For mine I chose the mighty wren—
ve’keseheso,
little bird—for its beautiful song, its industriousness and courage.
Now the women laid me gently down on a bed. The Medicine Woman came to my side to examine me, much like one of our own doctors.
“Eanetano,
” she said to the others.
“Yes, I’m in labor!” I said. “And is the baby healthy?”
“Etonestoheese’hama?”
the woman asked, turning to Martha.
“Why don’t you ask me that question?” I demanded. “I can tell you perfectly well how far along I am. Just as the others.”
“Enehestoheese’hama,
” Martha answered.
“No, that is not correct, Martha,” I said, sharply, “I’m early. I can’t possibly be full term yet.”
“Close enough, dear,” she said, all efficiency now. “You’ve always been a leader among us, and now you lead us into motherhood. Perhaps your fever has brought on the labor early.”
I was still very weak from my recent illness and feared that I had little strength left to spare for the rigors of childbirth. But now the pains came sharply and regularly. The sweat poured from my face. I was certain that something must be wrong with my baby.
The women bathed my brow with damp cloths and spoke their encouragement to me while trying to make me as comfortable as possible. But when at last the time came, I was too exhausted, too weak, I had not the strength left to push; I felt myself fading away, losing consciousness, slipping back into the same wonderful dream I had had before … I longed so to go back there, where it was peaceful and green, to be with my little Sara …
I found myself in the same beautiful river bottom in the springtime, with the cottonwoods leafing out and the sweet clover blooming yellow in the meadows and up ahead my little Sara, waving to me. “Not yet
Mesoke,
” she called back. “You must stay a little longer, for your baby needs you.”
And coming from a great distance away, I heard the voice of Woman Who Moves Against the Wind.
“Ena’tseane,
” she said calmly.
“She is dying in childbirth.”
And I wondered who she was talking about.
Ahead of me Sara smiled and waved me back. I wanted so desperately to join her.
“No! No! She cannot be dying,” screamed Martha from the distance, “May, your baby is coming, May, you must wake up, you must help!”
And Sara said to me, “It is still not time,
Mesoke.
Another time I will bring you to
Seano.
But now you must go back and bring your daughter into the world.”
And then I came awake with a choke and I felt my baby’s struggle between my legs as she fought to gain the light.
“Oh, God,” I said, gasping for breath, “Oh, my God,
name’esevotame, name’esevotame
…”
“Yes, May!” Martha cried. “Yes, your baby is coming! Push, push hard, now, here it comes!”
And then I felt her come free, the wet slickness of her head sliding across the inside of my thigh, the sharp unbearable pain followed by the sweet release as Woman Who Moves Against the Wind took hold of the infant and brought her forward into the world. She lifted my daughter and smacked her on the rump, and my little Wren gave a hearty wail of indignation. Thank God, thank God …
I fought to remain conscious, but I felt myself slipping again into a deep exhausted slumber, too weak to raise my head, too weak even to look at my child.
“Ve’ho’me’esevotse,”
said the woman with a tone of wonder in her voice,
“Ve’ho’me’esevotse.”
“What does she mean, Martha?” I whispered, so spent that I was barely able to speak. “Gertie, tell me what does she mean? Why does she say that? Is my baby healthy?”
“Ve’ho’me’esevotse,”
repeated Woman Who Moves Against the Wind, as she wiped and swaddled the baby. The other Cheyenne women gathered curiously around and inspected the baby.
“Hou,
” they said in voices filled with astonishment,
“Hou, ve’ho’me’esevotse, ve’ho’ka’kesoas!”
“Tell me!” I gasped with my last bit of strength. “Why do they keep saying that? What’s wrong with my baby?”
“Take it easy, honey, your baby’s just fine,” Gertie said, “a great big healthy girl baby. But, honey, the medicine woman is right, she ain’t no Indian baby, she’s a
ve’ho’me’esevotse,
just like she said, a white baby, like them others is saying—
ve’ho’ka’kesoas
, a little white girl if ever I seen one.”
“’Tis God’s own truth, May,” said Susie Kelly, “the lass is as pale and rosy-cheeked as an Irishman.”
“Scots-Irish, I’d say,” added her sister Meggie, wryly.
“That is to say, dear,” Helen Flight whispered, “your baby appears to be Caucasian.”
“Oh, my God,” I murmured, giving myself up at last to the death of sleep that dragged me down—and grateful for it I was, too. “Good God, I’ve had John Bourke’s child …”
For nearly two more days I slept, waking only long enough to nurse my baby, though sometimes I woke and the child was at my breast already, placed there by Woman Who Moves Against the Wind or one of the others. She was a beautiful child, and from the moment I first laid eyes on her there was never any question in my mind of her parentage. She had Bourke’s nose, Bourke’s deep-set intelligent eyes. She was John Bourke’s daughter, of that I was certain.
The women fed me broth until I had regained some of my strength, cared for me again as they had before, and finally today I am able to sit up for a time and record this experience in my journal.
Only minutes ago my husband Little Wolf came to see his daughter for the first time. It was a moment that, for obvious reasons, I have been dreading. He sat beside me and looked for the longest time at the baby in my arms. I could only imagine what he must be thinking; I was filled with shame and remorse at my infidelity to this great, kind man—although we had not yet even met at the time of my indiscretion with John Bourke.
Finally Little Wolf reached out and with the greatest tenderness put the back of his fingers against the baby’s cheek.
“Nahtona,
” he said, and it was not a question, but a simple statement.
“Hou,
” I answered in a tiny, tentative voice. “Yes, my husband, your daughter.”
“Nahtona, emo’onahe,
” Little Wolf said, smiling at her, his face filled with fatherly pride.
“Yes, she is, isn’t she?” I said. “Your daughter is very beautiful.”
“Epeheva’e,
” he said, nodding with great satisfaction. “It is good that
He’amaveho’e
has given to me, the Sweet Medicine Chief, a white baby to teach us the new way. Woman Who Moves Against the Wind has explained this to me. It is just as the monk said it would be. This baby is the
vo’estanevestomanehe,
our Savior.
Maheo
has sent the white baby Jesus to lead our People to the promised land.”
I was deeply touched by Little Wolf’s naive acceptance of the child as his own, and I could not help but smile at his muddling of Biblical affairs. After months of listening first to Reverend Hare’s sermons, and then to Brother Anthony’s quiet explanations, the People have ended up with a strange hybridized religion based partly on their own beliefs and partly on those of Christianity. Perhaps this is as it should be and, surely, makes as much sense as any other.
“My husband,” I said gently, “the baby Jesus was a boy child, not a girl. This is not the Savior, this is only our little baby girl. Our daughter. Your daughter and my daughter.”
“Hou,
” he agreed, “I understand. This time the Savior is a girl child. That, too, is a good thing.”
I laughed then and spoke in English. “I’m not exactly the Virgin Mary,” I said, “but if that’s the way you want it, my husband, why the hell not!”
 
And so it is that my baby girl, John Bourke’s daughter, is considered throughout the camp to be a sacred child—
vo’
estanevestomanehe,
the Savior—given by
Maheo,
God Himself, as a gift to the Cheyenne people, a white baby who will lead the next generation of Cheyennes into the new world. A steady stream of visitors have come to see her, to marvel and
hou
approvingly at her milky white skin; many bear gifts for her. Surely Captain Bourke himself would appreciate the irony!
I had not intended to encourage the deceit, but neither have I disabused my husband of his superstitions. I have spoken to Brother Anthony at some length about this, having confessed everything to him. He agrees, as do the others, that to tell Little Wolf the truth of our daughter’s parentage would serve no purpose, and that, indeed, this great event can only further encourage the remaining free Cheyennes to go into the agency. “There are no accidents in the Kingdom of God,” Anthony said. “Perhaps your child, May, has been chosen to continue His work on Earth, to spread the word of God among the heathens.”
“Don’t tell me you believe it yourself, Anthony?” I said, with a laugh. “Can’t she just be my daughter? That’s enough for me.”
Of course, some of my white friends, especially the always irreverent Gertie and Daisy Lovelace, tease me mercilessly about the child, upon whom all dote. Any speculation among the general population about the nature of my relationship with the Captain has been finally laid to rest—but none seem to hold it against me, or even be particularly surprised.
Daisy, herself very pregnant, came the first time to see the child, looked at her with her wry hooded eyes, smiled slyly, and said in her purring Southern voice,
“Why
if it
idn’t
the
lil’
baby Jesus, herself.
A’ve huurd
so much about you,
mah deah. Everyone
in camp is talkin’ about you.” And she shook her head in amusement. “May, you are the only
guuurl
I have
eveh
known, who after havin’ committed, if not exactly
udultery,
at least an act of
waaalld
and passionate promiscuity on practically the eve of
hur weddin’ naght,
is rewarded for
hur
sins by givin’
buuurth
to a
bastaaad whaate chaald
believed
baah
all to be the baby Jesus. This is an
extraordinary
stroke of good fortune,
mah deah.
How did you
eveh
manage it?”
“Just lucky, Daisy,” I admitted with a laugh. “Pure, dumb luck.”
“And are you goin’ to
infohm
the good Captain that he is a daddy?” she asked.
“If ever he has occasion to see this child, he will certainly know,” I replied. “But I am married now to the great Chief Little Wolf, and as far as I’m concerned this child is officially his daughter … In any case, imagine how the situation would embarrass the good Catholic Captain among his military friends and cohorts?”
“
Idn’t
that just the way of
alll
men?” Daisy said, and she let loose a bark of raw laughter. “It
nevah
occurs to them that they are the very ones who damaged the
guuuuds
in the
fust
place, does it? That was
jest
exactly the attitude of the cad Mr. Wesley Chestnut … and all along I thought we were goin’ to be married …”
“You became with child by him, Daisy?” I asked. “I never knew that.”
“Yes I did, and gave her away for adoption,” Daisy said, “a decision I’ve regretted every day of
mah
life since. But this baby
Ah’m
carryin’ now? This little
niggah
baby.
Ah’m
keepin’ this one come Hell or high water.”

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