One Thousand White Women (39 page)

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Authors: Jim Fergus

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Yesterday offered me the first opportunity since my recovery to speak privately with Gertie, to ask her the question I have been pondering since the first night I saw her here after my accident.
“You rarely come to pay strictly social calls, Gertie,” I said, coming right to the point, “and as this is dead of winter, reaching us must have been extremely difficult for you—and a matter of some urgency. Tell me what news you bring.”
“Honey, I was just waitin’ for things to quiet down some before I was goin’ to tell you,” Gertie said. “You know, what with your sickness and then the baby comin’ the way it did … maybe you lost sight of it, but you folks have come right up against the Army’s deadline.”
“I’ve had other things on my mind,” I said.
“Course ya have, honey,” she said, “an’ that’s why I ain’t said nothin’ about it. I got news from the Cap’n. I brung you a letter from him. Before you read it, I’d better explain what’s up. Crook’s army left Fort Fetterman at the beginnin’ of the month, headin’ for this country. Of course, the Cap’n is with ‘em. No telling where they is right now on account of the poor weather, which probably caused them to bivouac up somewhere, but even so they can’t be more’n a few weeks away from here. It’s a big detachment, honey—this time they ain’t foolin’ around. They got sixty-one officers with’em, and over fourteen
hunert
enlisted men. And they’re well provisioned, too—they got four
hunert
pack mules, sixty-five packers, a
hunert
and sixty-eight wagons, and seven ambulances. Not only that but they got better n’
three hunert
and
fifty
Injun scouts with’em—‘wolves’ the Injuns call’em when they go over to the other side. You never seen nothin’ like it, honey. It’s an army itself. They got big bands of Shoshone, Crows, Pawnees—they got Sioux, Arapahos, Cheyennes. Yup, some a your own folks is with’em. Take a wild guess who’s head a the Cheyenne wolves.”
“Jules Seminole,” I said, without hesitation.
“None other, honey,” Gertie confirmed, “an’ he’s got others with him who are right from this here camp, that got family still here. You know some of’em on accounta some of’em just came into the agency this past fall with their white wives. You know that little French gal that was with you, Marie Blanche?—well her husband is one of the wolves, and so is the one they exiled, you know the fella who’s married to the gal who always wears black.”
“Ada Ware,” I said.
“Yup, that’s the one—her husband, the one they call Stinkin’ Flesh. A course, they won’t have no trouble finding you here. They know right where you are. Like I say, honey, the Army don’t send out a force like this unless they really mean business. Too many miners and settlers have been getting picked off in the Black Hills, and folks is startin’ to really holler for military protection from the Injuns. They been sendin’ petitions to General Sheridan in Chicago and to the President hisself in Washington. Crook’s orders are to clean out any hostiles they find in this country. And any Injun who ain’t enrolled in the agency as of the first of February is a hostile Injun. And that means you, honey.”
The irony of having gone from being a volunteer in the service of my government to being considered a “hostile Indian” did not escape my attention. “But with the weather we couldn’t have complied if we’d tried, Gertie,” I said. “You know that. Especially with all of our pregnant women.”
“Sure, honey, I know that,” Gertie said. “But what I’m tryin’ to tell ya is that this has all been set in motion already. Listen to me on this: A military campaign, once it’s set in motion, has a life of its own.”
“We can’t leave now,” I said. “I have a newborn infant. The others are about to have their babies. These are innocent people. We are innocent people. We haven’t done anything wrong.”
“Honey, I was at Sand Creek in ‘64,” Gertie reminded me. “Those folks weren’t doin’ nothin’ wrong, neither. Last year Captain Henely and the buffalo hunters jumped the Southern Cheyenne on the Sappa, burned the camp, killed everyone in it. Threw the bodies of the smallest babies in the fire. The Army’ll do anything it wants. You put a bunch of raw recruits together in hard conditions in winter, fightin’ an enemy they don’t understand an’ that scares the piss out of ‘em—anything can happen. Especially when they got orders.”
“That’s madness, Gertie,” I said.
“I know it is, honey,” Gertie said softly. “Cap’n knows it is. But it don’t make no difference. That’s what I’m tryin’ to tell you. Them settlers that the Injuns are killin’, those are innocent folks, too. What it all comes down to, honey—always comes down to—is that there ain’t enough room for the Injuns and the whites in this country. One thing you can be sure of is that the whites ain’t goin’ to go away. And the other thing is that the Injuns ain’t goin’ to win this one, either.”
Gertie dug into the front of her shirt and brought out Captain Bourke’s letter. “Here, honey,” she said handing it to me, “I imagine this letter’ll tell you pretty much the same thing as I have.”
Fort Fetterman, Wyoming Territory
26 December 1875
Madam: I pray that this correspondence finds you in good health. I have news of the most urgent nature to convey to you, and to the other women with you. Thus I have once again dispatched our loyal intermediary “Jimmy” as messenger.
Your people must decamp with as much dispatch as possible and move immediately south toward Fort Fetterman. You must fly a white flag at all times so that your band may be identified as peaceful by Army troops who will intercept you en route. You will be provided safe escort the remaining distance to the fort where arrangements for your future settlement will be made. As I pen this correspondence, General Crook prepares to dispatch the largest winter campaign in the history of the Plains Indian wars. As a member of the General’s personal staff, I myself will be traveling with a force that included eleven companies of cavalry under the command of Colonel Ranald S. Mackenzie. Taking into account vagaries of weather and engagements with hostiles along the way, we expect to reach the Powder River country no later than the middle of February. We have been advised by our scouts of the general location of your camp and the number of people contained within it.
I can not too strongly impress upon you the fact that there is not a moment to spare. Under the direction of General Crook, Colonel Mackenzie and the other commanders have orders to proceed in the clearance of all Indians between the Bighorn and Yellowstone rivers to the Black Hills of the Dakotas. No quarter will be given. All Indians encountered by Colonel Mackenzie’s troops are to be considered hostile
—
with the sole exception of those traveling south toward Fetterman and flying the white flag of surrender. DO YOU UNDERSTAND ME? I urge you to depart immediately. Do not delay.
I am your humble servant,
John G. Bourke
Captain, Third Cavalry, U.S.A.
 
 
Of course we all of us were deeply shaken by Gertie’s news and the tone of urgency in Captain Bourke’s letter—which the others have also now read. Even with the Army delayed by weather for several weeks it is inconceivable that we will be able to comply with their preposterous demands.
I scribbled a quick note to this effect to Captain Bourke and insisted that Gertie depart immediately to intercept Mackenzie’s troops with whom he rides. And I have also prevailed upon Little Wolf to fly a white flag on a lodgepole in the middle of our camp. Surely for all their orders and dire warnings, the Army will not attack a peacefully encamped village in the dead of winter? A village in which, they are fully aware, a dozen pregnant white women reside.
 
More than two weeks have passed since Gertie’s hasty departure. Still no word back yet, but the weather has remained abysmal, with wind and driving snow. As if in a chain reaction, the others’ babies are coming in such rapid succession that the birthing lodge operates at nearly full capacity. Martha and Daisy had theirs on the same day—two strapping boys, beautiful little nut brown infants whose parentage requires less divine explanation than does mine. Indeed, the little fellows make my milky white Irish-Scot daughter look even paler and more exotic by comparison!
“Oh my goodness!” Martha said when first she saw her own son. “Look, May, he’s inherited his father’s hair!” And it was true, her son was born with a head full of matted tangled black hair! Tangle Hair Jr. we have thus named him.
These were quickly followed by the Kelly girls, who true to form had their labor and births in perfect synchronization—twin daughters both. Twin mothers, twin fathers, twin babies—thus the twins multiply in kind. How extraordinary!
“Roons
in the family,” said Susie. The Kelly babies are strange-looking little things, tawny of skin but with deep red hair.
All the children so far seem healthy; we have been extremely fortunate to avoid anything resembling complications during birth. The Cheyennes themselves are quite pleased with these new additions to the tribe and all the women dote on them. Feather on Head loves my little Wren like her own; I can hardly wrest the infant away from her when it is time for her feeding, so attached has the girl become. Indeed, were it not for my milk-swollen breasts I’m not certain that the child would know which of us was her mother. Quiet One, too, seems fascinated by the baby, and Little Wolf still acts the proud father.
 
Still no sign of the Army. We have all prayed that Gertie was able to deliver my message to the Captain, and we remain confident that all will end peacefully.
Little Wolf has held a council and most of the chiefs of the remaining warrior bands have agreed that as soon as it is practical to travel we will begin the move toward Fetterman—this decision made, at least partly, as a result of the birth of our daughter. I am very relieved. And proud, for truly we are fulfilling our mission here, after all—facilitating a peaceful resolution. Our anchorite Anthony of the Prairie has also been very helpful toward this end. The People recognize a holy man by his own actions, and the monk’s simple faith and self-denial, his fasts and penances are something the Cheyennes well understand and themselves practice as a means of drawing closer to their God.
Anthony has baptized each of our babies thus far and has counseled the People toward the path of peace and harmony. He is a good, pure man, with God in his heart. We had hoped that he might accompany us back to Fetterman, but he remains firm in his pledge to make his hermitage here—to one day found his monastery in the hills above the river. We will greatly miss him. Indeed, a part of me wishes I could remain with him, and I intend to be a regular visitor here, after we are settled on the reservation.
Yesterday, Gretchen had her baby, an oddly small and delicate little thing with none of her mother’s bulk. The child’s Christian name is Sara.
 
These past days have seen a midwinter thaw, with temperatures mild again and the snow rapidly melting. Our scouts have been able to venture farther away from camp and returned today with reports of the movement of Army troops at a distance of several days riding—which means at least a week’s travel for the more ponderous military forces. We still fly our white flag over the medicine lodge, and I am now convinced that Gertie safely delivered our message.
However, much to our dismay we have also learned that some of the restless young warriors of the Kit Fox society have taken the opportunity of the springlike weather to slip away with the intention of making a raid upon the Shoshone tribe to the west. This war party was first exposed by the Kelly twins, whose husbands are themselves members of this particular band and who stole off with the others early one morning—telling their wives that the raid was being undertaken in honor of the new babies, and that many horses would be brought back as gifts to them.
“We couldn’t stop the lads,” said Meggie. “We tried, but they got their damn
blooowd
up.
Ya
think it’d be
enooof
that they got new babies in the house, wouldn’t you, but they got to go off an’ steal some ponies to prove their damn manhood.”
The raid is utter folly, for the Shoshone, like the Crows, while bitter enemies of the Cheyennes, are close allies of the whites. Evidently the recent councils which resulted in the decision to give ourselves up have also caused some of the young men to embark upon this imprudent action as a last opportunity to taste battle, to prove themselves as warriors. Once again the independent nature of Indian society and the lack of central authority acts against their better interests.
On a personal note, I have been recently discussing with Little Wolf our own future at the agency. General Crook has promised that the Cheyennes will be given their own reservation directly upon giving themselves up. Having signed documents, as did all the others, at the outset of this adventure agreeing to stay with the Indians for a minimum of two years, our real work among them will begin in this next year on the reservation—teaching the People the ways of our world.
“One of the first things you will be required to do,” I explained to Little Wolf, “is to give up two of your wives. It is against the white man’s law to have more than one wife.”
“I do not wish to throw away two of my wives,” Little Wolf answered. “I am pleased with all of my wives.”
“This is the white man way,” I explained. “You must keep only your first wife, Quiet One, and give Feather on Head and me up. She is young enough that she can find a new husband for herself.”
“Perhaps she does not wish to have a new husband,” Little Wolf said. “Perhaps she is happy to stay with our child in the lodge of her present husband and her sister, Quiet One.”
“It does not matter what she wishes; this is the law of the white man,” I said. “One man, one wife.”
“And you,
Mesoke?”
Little Wolf asked. “You, too, will find another husband?”
“I do not know what I will do,” I answered truthfully. “But I could not hope to find a more satisfactory man than you, my husband.”
“You will perhaps leave us and take our daughter into the white world where she belongs—as a member of her mother’s tribe,” Little Wolf said proudly. “If the Great White Father had given us all of the one thousand brides they promised to us, all the children would belong to the white tribe and the People and the whites would thus become one.”
“General Crook has promised you that when we go into the agency,” I said, “we will take this matter up once again with President Grant.”
“Ah, yes,” said Little Wolf, nodding, “I am familiar with the promises of white men …”

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