Strongheart: The Lost Journals of May Dodd and Molly McGill Read online

  Because of my interest in the bible, I was considered to be an industrious student … a candidate to become a nun … or so the good “father” assured me while abusing me. It was a truly biblical relationship, my initiation as a sex slave of god and his earthly representative. And, by the way, it is not my lack of formal education that prevents me from capitalizing those names, rather my utter contempt and disgust. Finally, I ran away, which was to become a chronic pattern in my life. I ran away from the boarding school, from the church, from father so-and-so (whose last name I won’t mention for fear of reprisals). I ran away from my family, from a sexually abusive uncle, from an alcoholic man I lived with briefly who beat me up and raped me when he got drunk, which was regularly. I stopped reading … that was my fatal mistake … well, one of many … I moved to Denver and became a prostitute on Colfax Avenue, and a drug addict, whatever I could get my hands on, heroin, cocaine, morphine, speedballs—a combination of heroin and one of the others. I fucked men to get money for drugs. I was lucky I didn’t kill myself, though later I recognized that had been my goal. One morning I woke up robbed, bloody, and beaten in a filthy motel room that stank of paid sex, a place where the johns take whores for an hour or less. My shoes and clothes had been stolen. I walked out wrapped in a sheet. The police picked me up, took me first to jail, then to detox, and finally to a city-run treatment facility. I got clean, I got a job in a library, I started reading again, escaping into books, into the stories, the lives of others. It saved my life, and there I learned of my long dormant talents as a shape-shifter. I learned that I could enter those stories and lives, I could assume them, I could become those characters, or at least a kind of hologram version of them. I can’t even really explain how, I just do … As a child I had heard stories from the tribal elders about my ancestor, the man they called Hawk. They said he could become a raptor, that he could fly. The elders who had bothered to guard them and pass them on, and had not become drunks themselves, told many such stories about impossible events in our history, individuals with impossible talents, about animals who could speak, and men and women who could understand them. I never doubted any of the stories, and never asked for proof of them. I still believe them. The women elders told tales about white women, and women of other races who came to live among us, and about female warriors who were great horsewomen, and fought alongside the men, who could pierce an enemy’s heart with an arrow shot from a galloping horse. The old women passed these stories on secretly, for the tribal chiefs and the men elders did not like them because they portrayed our women as something other than docile wives and mothers who took care of the lodge and the needs of their husbands, and raised their children. I have never forgotten any of these stories, or any of the books I have read; they live on in me. The only black holes in my memory are during that period when I was a whore and a drug addict, which is just as well, for I remember enough to bring the bile up into my throat whenever I think of it.

  After I became a reader again following my long, dark hiatus, I revisited and was newly intrigued by those tales of the warrior women. Via my own bitter experience, which I must here say I do not blame on anyone but myself, I came to the inevitable conclusion that the only way for an Indian woman to survive on the white man’s earth is to stay sober, get strong, and fight back. We women have learned the hard way how far passivity has gotten us. I read the myths about the Amazon warrior women who, in these stories are, of course, always defeated in battle by the Greek men. In addition to being courageous, worthy opponents, the Amazons were also beautiful and sexually attractive to our mythic heroes. For instance, after Achilles slays the Amazon queen Penthesilea, who “had fought like a raging leopard,” … even in death “her valor and beauty … undimmed by dust and blood. Achilles’ heart lurched with remorse and desire. All the Greeks on the battlefield crowded around and marveled, wishing with all their hearts that their wives at home could be just like her.”

  I mean, really … could anyone other than a man be capable of writing such drivel? Achilles wishes that instead of having killed her, he could have fucked her, which, for starters, is sufficiently perverse, and then, of course, the other warriors “wish with all their hearts” that their dowdy housewives could be “just like her” … even though this was not permitted by the strict patriarchal structure of Greek society … not to mention the fact that if the wives actually were like the Amazon queen, their husbands would be terrified of them … though also sexually turned on … which I suppose is a trade-off some men might be willing to make.

  These are the ancient myths and fantasies men have created through the ages to keep women in a passive, submissive posture, because deep in their hearts they are afraid of our strength. I knew from the stories the elder women told me that our warrior women, like those of other societies, were quite as capable on the battlefield as men, and it is their example I follow.

  * * *

  One afternoon, and for a reason I didn’t yet fully understand, I was compelled to go visit an ancient medicine woman named Buffalo Woman, Esévóná’e. I knew of her, as all did, and had met her as a child. She lives alone, and has for many years, in a tipi just on the edge of the res, on property owned by a Cheyenne rancher along Rosebud Creek. Her needs are met by his family, who bring her food and whatever else she requires, and by tribal members who come for her wise counsel and strong medicine. Because the women on the res no longer know how to make tipis, the old woman had made her own from buffalo hides donated by a rancher couple in South Dakota named O’Brien, who raise the native bovine in the most natural habitat possible, which also involves restoring the native prairie—honorable white people, doing sacred work. Buffalo Woman said she could not live in a tipi made from cowhide, that it would poison her in both body and spirit.

  I scratched on her tipi flap, and she invited me in. A small fire burned in the center. It took a moment for my eyes to adjust to the dim light. They say she is well over a hundred years old, but no one, including her, seems to know exactly how old. She is tiny and nearly bald, her shrunken skull covered in translucent skin that looks as fragile as old parchment paper, with a network of thin red veins running through it. I don’t know if she ever learned English, for she only speaks in her native tongue, or in Arapaho, in which she is also fluent. I speak both those languages myself, so that is no problem for me. I had been told that she liked to smoke, and when one goes to visit an elder or a medicine man or woman, it is essential to arrive with an offering. So I brought a bag of tobacco to give to her.

  She looked at me with tiny bright eyes, like the eyes of a bird of prey, that seemed to own both prescience and omniscience. “I know who you are, child,” she said to me. “I have been waiting for you for many, many years. I knew you would come. You are the little girl who was murdered.”

  “No, grandmother, that was my sister,” I answered. “It was a mistake in the newspaper. I was not murdered, I ran away.”

  “No, it was you, child,” she said, nodding with certainty. “I do not read the newspaper.”

  “However you wish, grandmother. But for what reason have you been waiting for me?”

  “To give you something that belongs to you. Something my grandmother gave me to keep when I was a child. I asked her what I was supposed to do with it. She told me to keep it safe, and one day a woman would come, and I would recognize that it was to her I must give it.”

  “But how do you know that woman is me, grandmother?”

  She did not answer that question, she just looked at me with those shiny, piercing eyes, which was sufficient answer.

  “And what is it that she gave you?”

  “That I do not know. It is all wrapped up. I have not opened it. I have never looked at it. It is not my business. My business was to keep it until you came. Let us smoke a pipe together, child, with this fine tobacco you have brought me, to honor this gift. And then I will give it to you and be on my way.”

  “On your way? Are you going somewhere, grandmother?”
/>   “It is time for me to walk the hanging road in the sky to Seano, child. I have been waiting for you, so that I could do this last service for my grandmother before I left. When I see her, I wish to be able to say that it is done, that I have fulfilled my promise.”

  The old woman pulled her pipe from a beaded bag, and between her gnarled, skeletal thumb and three fingers took a generous pinch of tobacco from the pouch, expertly packing the bowl. Then she held a stick over the fire until the end took flame, and lit the pipe, sucking on it until the tobacco glowed. She held it up now to bless the sky, then lowered it to bless the earth, and finally turned it to bless the four cardinal directions, took a deep drag, and handed the pipe to me. I did the same and took a draw.

  We smoked in silence, passing the pipe back and forth until the bowl was finished. Then Buffalo Woman tapped the ashes into the fire and slid the pipe back into its bag, which she handed to me. “You keep this, child,” she said, “I do not need it any longer.” She reached behind her and dragged a package from against the wall of the tipi. It was wrapped in an old hide and tied with a leather thong. She pushed it toward me. “Here you are, granddaughter. I have carried this around most of my life. I am happy you finally came for it. Thank you for accepting this gift from my grandmother. I must sleep now.”

  A buffalo blanket lay by the wall of the tipi beside her. She crawled over and curled up upon it, so shrunken with age that she looked like an ancient ten-year-old child. I moved to her side and placed my hand lightly on her forehead. “Thank you, grandmother. Sleep well.” I sat with her like that for some time, until her breath grew increasingly shallow, and finally stopped altogether, her forehead cooling. It was the most peaceful of passings, and I imagined a younger version of her now walking the hanging road to Seano.

  I untied the thong and unfolded the dried, cracked hide, beneath which I found a stack of old ledger books with faded covers. When I picked one up, it shed small fragments of time-yellowed paper. It was the first six of these books that I took to Chicago and left in the care of the magazine editor JW Dodd at his office, and which he reprinted in his city magazine, under the title The Journals of Meggie Kelly and Molly McGill. The others you are presently reading.

  * * *

  I mention all this backstory because more recently I went to see JW again where he had parked his trailer on the res several weeks ago. I was surprised that he was still here. I hadn’t seen him since his first night when I had chased off the meth heads who were harassing him.

  Again, it was nighttime, late, by my own design, and he had all the lights inside the trailer turned off, with just the outside porch light left on. He had pulled his awning down and set up a little folding table under it with a single chair. I assumed he had gone to bed. I tried the door and was surprised to find it unlocked. I opened it and went in. He was sound asleep in his bed, lying on his back, snoring lightly. I was in my incarnation as a nineteenth-century warrior woman, wearing my hide shift, moccasins, and leggings as he had always seen me, but dressed up a little tonight with a buffalo bone choker, my hair in braids wrapped with rawhide straps, an eagle feather dangling from one of them, a beaded headband, and my knife in a beaded sheath at my waist. I will admit here that I wanted to look pretty for JW Dodd. At the same time, I wanted to scare the shit out of him.

  It was a warm night, and he was covered by only a sheet, under which he appeared to be nude. I took off my leggings and moccasins, hiked my dress up, and climbed onto the bed, straddling and settling lightly upon him. I pulled my knife from the sheath and very gently laid the dull top edge of the blade against his throat. He opened his eyes but did not move. “If you’re wondering what woke you up…” I whispered, putting slight pressure on the knife. His eyes took a moment to focus on me and consider this situation. “Little Molly Standing Bear,” he finally said, “I must be having an erotic dream.”

  “Not yet you aren’t, white boy…” And I admit to being disappointed that he wasn’t afraid of me.

  “Has anyone told you how nice you look tonight?”

  “Just my mirror.” I could feel him growing between my legs. “You always sleep nude?” I asked.

  “You always go without panties?” he answered.

  “We don’t wear panties. Where do you think this outfit came from, Victoria’s Secret? And how do you know that I’m not wearing them?”

  “Because I feel a certain specific warmth emanating from you.” Now he moved a little under me.

  I slightly relaxed the pressure on the knife. “You see how easily I could kill you?”

  “Yes, I’ve certainly considered that. But then I was thinking, why would you want to?”

  “Because I’m an Amazon, and that’s what we do. And because you lied about me in your magazine. You made me sound like a cheap slut who slept with you on our first encounter and wanted to have your baby. What was that all about?”

  “I did lie, and I’m sorry. I believe that journalism is often more interesting when slightly fictionalized … which, of course, is not a popular position among my peers.”

  “If it’s fictionalized, it isn’t journalism,” I pointed out.

  “Quite true, Molly … but it always helps to titillate one’s readers. Is that really what you do? You’re an assassin?”

  “Of sorts.”

  “Ah … would you mind taking that knife away from my throat now?” he asked.

  I did and slipped it back in the sheath. “I just wanted to make our respective positions clear,” I said, as I climbed higher upon him and settled myself gently on his face. “I told you that we Amazons take our sexual pleasure when, how, and with whom we wish.”

  “That you did,” he said, his voice slightly muffled. “And you could hardly make your position any clearer.”

  “OK, stop talking now, white boy, and start paying your dues.”

  * * *

  “You know, Molly,” said JW Dodd as we lay in each other’s arms in the bed of his trailer, “you come on as a Strongheart nineteenth-century warrior woman, but you have a gentleness, too, a softness. And if I may say so, a great reserve of untapped love to give. And by the way, that was a much better first date than going to the movies.”

  “Let’s not get ahead of ourselves, JW, with talk of love, and I’m not sure I would call this a date, exactly. I simply wanted to be pleasured, and for you to know how I smell … and taste.”

  “Hmmm … OK, then,” he said, “let’s see if I can describe it … Like a … like a freestone trout stream in the early fall, when the tendrils of bright green algae wave in the clear current, and the sharp mineral taste of midsummer is enriched by the pungent falling leaves of autumn…”

  “Wow, that’s not bad, JW,” I admitted. “No one’s ever said anything like that to me before.”

  “No one’s ever done anything like that to me before. It deserved a thoughtful description.”

  “Although I’m not so sure about the algae and pungent leaves part.”

  “You know, Molly, I have to tell you this,” he said … “you are without doubt the strangest woman I have ever met. And the most mysterious. Yet I sense that you have a vulnerability lurking just beneath your tough façade. Even when we were kids, and the res boys were already scared of you, I sensed that about you. I’d like to know more about your life.”

  “Little by little, JW,” I answered, “maybe … but slowly. Right now it’s hard for me to trust people, especially men. I don’t mind coming to you like this now and then, having these encounters, but let’s not confuse it with making love. I’m not at all ready to confide in you or have what you would call a … ‘relationship’ … I wouldn’t even know how to do that.”

  “OK, Molly, understood, but then just tell me one thing that might be revealing about you,” JW proposed … “I mean anything at all. Tell me a story. And then I’ll do the same.”

  I had to think about this for a long while.

  “OK,” I finally said, “so I’ll just tell you this … knowing you
r fondness for metaphors. You may have noticed that there are a bunch of stray dogs who wander around the res … maybe you’ve even seen a few of them out here, although they tend to hang more around town. Some have been abused, abandoned, others just ignored, most of them starving, many of them sick. When I was a kid, I worked part time at the trading post in town during the summer, and over holidays. You remember, you used to come in and try to flirt with me? That’s when the res kids decided to beat the white boy up.

  “So anyway, one day I was taking out some trash behind the store, and I saw that there were three mutts, all males, skulking around, clearly interested in something behind some cardboard boxes. And from there I heard another dog growling. So I made a little circle around the males and came up behind the boxes to see what was up. I found a little dog there, who looked very young, and I soon learned was a bitch. It was Christmastime, and she had made a little nest for herself in a pile of old insulation someone had dumped there, a kind of dog bed for the homeless. She hardly paid any attention to me, because she was completely fixated upon those three males, staring at them intently, baring her teeth and growling. I mean, she was tiny in comparison, any one of them alone could easily have torn her to pieces, and the three of them together would have killed and eaten her in an instant. But they didn’t. Every now and then, one of them would make a kind of feint, or two of them would come up on either side of her, like they were going to charge. But she stood her ground, her back up, showing her teeth, her growls deeper and more threatening. She was one tough bitch, who intended to defend her territory, and those three big male dogs didn’t dare call her bluff. They were either afraid of her, or just respected her, because they finally slunk away, frustrated maybe by their own cowardice.