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

“You must have read about them in your newspapers, JW, though shockingly little attention has been paid to them by your media, and much less by your government. Indigenous women and girls … of all ages … little girls … teenagers … have been disappearing, both off the reservations and in cities where they live. We don’t even have accurate current information about how many of them there are … because the federal government and law enforcement don’t give a shit about us and don’t keep those records. The most recent statistics are from 2016. That year alone, 5,712 native women and girls were reported missing. Yet according to the National Crime Information Center, only 116 of them were listed on the federal missing persons database kept by the U.S. Department of Justice. Yeah … 116 out of 5,712 … that’s some kind of justice, isn’t it?

  “Here’s another statistic for you: murder rates for Indian women are ten times higher than the national average. And another: one in three Native American women have been raped or been victims of attempted rape, and eighty-four percent have experienced physical, sexual, or psychological violence in their lifetime … and that percentage includes me. And one last statistic: in that same year, 2016, 506 indigenous women and girls disappeared or were killed in seventy-one American cities.

  “OK, now let us just imagine for a minute, JW,” I continued, “that these disappearances, murders, and rapes were happening to white women and girls with the same frequency, in, say, Beverly Hills, Chicago, Manhattan, Palm Beach … you name it. How do you think law enforcement agencies, federal, state, and regional, and the media would respond to such an epidemic of crime? The president of your country … because it isn’t ours, it isn’t mine … would declare a national emergency … the National Guard would be mobilized, the murderers, rapists, kidnappers, and sex traffickers would be hunted down, or at least massive efforts would be made to hunt them down. But because it’s happening to indigenous women and girls, the story gets a little article in your national newspapers every few years, and is then forgotten again.

  “That’s what I do for a living, JW, and that’s where I go when I disappear from here. That’s what we Stronghearts do … and it keeps us busy.”

  “Christ, Molly … yes, you’re right, I’ve read about this from time to time, but haven’t seen the statistics you quote. But, realistically, what can you do in the face of the enormity of the problem?”

  “Very little, it’s true … but we do have individual victories, and those mean a lot, too. We find women, and girls, bring them back, get help for them. We find perpetrators and punish them.”

  “You turn them in to law enforcement agencies?”

  “God no … we don’t go to all that trouble to track them down, just so they’ll be back on the street in two hours, which is how the law deals with them. I told you, we punish them … Due to my ability as a shape-shifter, that’s kind of my specialty.”

  “You kill them?”

  “Sometimes … but often I just make them wish they were dead.”

  “That sounds like vigilantism.”

  “We call it justice. We think of ourselves as righteous avengers, seeing that evil people are brought to justice. Someone has to do it, and neither your government nor your law enforcement agencies are doing a damn thing.”

  “Who pays you to do this work?”

  “The evil people we catch … you’d be surprised how much they’re willing to pay just to keep their cocks and balls, not to mention their lives … but no matter how much they give us, it is never enough to spare them.”

  I took a deep breath now, and put my hand atop his. “Now listen to me, JW … we’re on a little mini-vacation out here, aren’t we? Riding our horses, picnicking, fishing, camping out … having fun … living in the moment … It’s white people stuff, right?… Kind of like a honeymoon so far … without the marriage part. I’m having a fine time with you … maybe the best time I’ve ever had … does that sound sad for me to say about one day? I’ve been forthcoming with you, but let’s not ruin it by talking about this anymore. That’s all I have to say about my work. Now I just want to get in that tent and snuggle up with you again.”

  “Me, too, Molly,” he said. “So OK, no more questions … You’re right, it’s growing cold out here, let’s get in the tent and under the covers.”

  THE LOST JOURNALS OF MOLLY McGILL

  The Dead World Behind this One

  By now, everyone in our group was looking at each other with expressions ranging from confusion, to disbelief, to fear, to shock. I felt a strange tingling sensation run up my spine, that I believe was shared by the others …

  —from the lost journals of Molly McGill

  21 October 1876

  I have not made a single entry on these pages in weeks. I watch May scribbling away in her spare time, which is no greater than mine, and I feel ashamed for being such a poor keeper of my own journal. Truly, the woman is indefatigable, and prolific; she seems to have the damn thing in hand nearly all the time, taking notes even at our Strongheart meetings and at the social, as well as competitive events during the visit of the Shoshone.

  * * *

  She and I have developed a fine relationship, able to speak frankly to each other, and close enough not to maintain any pretenses. Although we have quite different backgrounds, we seem also to have a similar sensibility, and sense of humor, without which one simply will not survive here.

  For whatever fragility May occasionally displays beneath, she possesses atop it an indomitable fierceness of spirit, forged in fire by her own experience. She tells me that her overriding concern, above all others, is to be reunited with her children in Chicago and introduce them to their sister. Despite knowing this to be an impossible dream under the circumstances, she hangs on to it with tenacity. She has found a good man in Chance, an exceptionally competent, straight-ahead fellow, utterly without guile, who clearly adores her. He’s a fine horseman and warrior, and is learning the Cheyenne language. He and Hawk have struck up a friendship and frequently ride and hunt together, and I often wonder what they have to say about their respective mates when alone.

  * * *

  Since the departure of the Shoshone after what we white women have come to refer to as the warless war games … and how refreshing to report that no one was killed on either side … there has been much distress expressed about our seemingly idyllic valley. While the fall weather holds, groups of scouts have made forays of several days into the surrounding mountains and plains, to get the lay of the land … and, not incidentally, to try to determine where exactly we are.

  Throughout the course of the games, the Shoshone—men, women, and children alike—seemed to be inordinately fascinated by the white women among us, and our Black woman, Phemie. Thus at the feast and dance the last night, we gathered all our group and their husbands, when that was the case, in a large circle among our guests. Pretty Nose, who had so distinguished herself in the war games, appears to have struck up a flirtation with a handsome young Shoshone warrior by the name of Two Crows, against whom she had competed. Among that tribe surrounding us, Chief Young Wolf, a splendid fellow of roughly our age, and his lovely wife, whose intriguing name, according to Chance’s translation, is Appears on the Water Woman, sat beside us. Although Young Wolf speaks a smattering of both Cheyenne and Arapaho, and we had the common hand talk by which to communicate, we were also fortunate to have Wind, Chance, and Gertie there to speak for us and translate our guests’ language. The three of them engaged in lively conversation with the visitors in the Shoshone/Comanche tongue.

  Both our translators asked a number of penetrating questions about our valley, and about where their own village lay. Young Wolf said that they lived on the other side of the mountains, a four- or five-day ride from here, and that he had been born and spent his life in that country. Like all the Plains tribes, their bands split up in summer to follow the buffalo herds, but they respect the boundaries of each other’s hunting lands, and there is enough game for all. They obtain certain practical goods from F
rench traders who come south from Canada in the spring, summer, and fall, some of whom have married among them and have families but continue to ply their trade until too old to do so, at which time they usually take up permanent residence with their Indian wives and families.

  Young Wolf told us that his people trade with the other northern Plains tribes—Arapaho, Blackfoot, Cheyenne, Sioux, Nez Perce, Pawnee—and even travel south from time to time to trade with the Comanche, Apache, Navajo, Puebloans, Hopi, and Zuni. They maintain large herds of horses and appear quite prosperous—particularly judging from the rather luxurious, one might even say exotic gifts they brought to us. Among these are articles of Navajo jewelry and Hopi pottery (how they transported the latter, given their fragility, I have no idea.) They, too, are in the process of making permanent winter camp now that the season is upon us.

  We asked them if the other tribes also had villages here, a question that seemed to puzzle Young Wolf and Appears on the Water Woman. “Yes, they, too, have villages in this country. But they are very large. Sometimes we visit with them for war games or social gatherings, as we have with you.”

  “Do you not make real war against each other?” Gertie asked in Shoshone, with Chance translating for us.

  “No, we only play at war and other contests of skill, as we have with you.”

  “Do the white soldiers come here?” Gertie asked.

  “Our medicine men and women tell stories of the white soldiers, stories that come to them in visions,” Young Wolf explained. “They say that the white soldiers live in a different world than we, ‘the dead world behind this one’ it is called. There, all the tribes make real war against each other, they kill each other, they kill each other’s children and infants, as do the white soldiers who wear blue coats and make war against the tribes, slaughter the buffalo herds, steal the land, and drive the People from the earth. These stories the elders tell to the children to teach them the way not to live, for that is how the dead world came to an end and the new world came into being. We do not know for certain if this is so, for no one has ever seen the white soldiers. They live only in the stories told by our medicine men and women. But we believe them.”

  By now, everyone in our group was looking at each other with expressions ranging from confusion, to disbelief, to fear, to shock. I felt a strange tingling sensation run up my spine that I believe was shared by the others … except apparently Gertie, who seemed strangely unsurprised by this news.

  She spoke then to Appears on the Water Woman. “Have people from the dead world ever come here?” she asked.

  “The medicine men and women say that long ago our ancestors escaped from the dead world before it died,” she answered, “and came here to make the new world.”

  “Do people from the dead world still come here?” Gertie asked.

  Appears on the Water Woman again looked puzzled. “New bands, like yours, come here from time to time,” she said. “But we do not ask where they are from.”

  “Are there white people here?”

  She smiled shyly. “Yes, the French traders from the north and now and then an English person,” she said. “When they marry among us, or the other tribes, some of their children are light-skinned, but we do not think of them as white people, just light-skinned Indian people.”

  I was seated beside Gertie, and in order to indicate me, for to the Indians it is impolite to point, she put her hand on my arm. “Do people who look like this woman”—she touched her chest—“or me”—then waved her arm to take in the rest of our group—“or any of the other light-skinned people you see among us live here?”

  Appears on the Water Woman smiled again with downcast eyes and appeared to blush.

  Now her husband, Young Wolf, spoke again. “Some of our people whose fathers are traders from the north,” he said, “have hair and skin as light as some of you. Before my warriors and I came to see you, we heard from members of other tribes who live on this side of the mountains that a new band had arrived with men and women like you. It was to learn if this was true that we came, for all the People wanted to see you. No band like yours has ever been here before.”

  It was typical of the Plains Indians in general that despite all the questions we had asked them, they asked none of us, and thus we felt no obligation to explain our presence here, which, in any case, would have been difficult to do, as we didn’t really understand it, either.

  “Might you ask them,” said Ann Hall to Gertie, “if any of their people have ever traveled from here to the dead world?”

  This Gertie did, and we learned that, indeed, no one to their knowledge ever had done such a thing … “Why would we wish to?” they asked, “when our people fled from there long ago?”

  “I believe, ladies,” said Ann, in a nervous tone of voice, “that a council meeting must be called for tomorrow immediately upon the departure of our guests, and open to all band members who wish to attend. We have much to discuss … for instance … rotten to the core though it may be, I am suddenly beginning to miss the dead world … our world … After all, I have a lovely hunting estate there … a stable of horses … a kennel of sporting dogs. Upon my return here, I was not aware that it was meant to be forever. Therefore, the first thing we must explore tomorrow is … how in the bloody hell do we get out of here?”

  “Ah, oui,” said our ever sunny and optimistic Lulu, “but let us not permit a little news to distract us from the entertainment portion of the evening. I see that Dog Woman is signaling us, and our musicians are taking their places. We have a spectacle to put on for our guests. To the dance circle, mes filles, our public awaits us!”

  I don’t believe that any of us really felt like dancing just now, as we were each, in our own way, trying to make sense of something that made no sense. Although this subject had certainly resided in the back of everyone’s mind since our arrival here, it was one we had largely avoided discussing, or even pondering at great length, preferring to allow ourselves to be seduced by the tranquility, security, and fecundity of our hidden valley. Yet now, as Ann suggested, a sinister element had been introduced into this seeming oasis … the possibility that we were not simply wintering here, as had been our short-term plan, but were quite possibly permanent residents in another world … as ludicrous as that seems to say.

  I had trained young Sehoso to take my place in the dance, in deference to my growing belly, and took my place beside Hawk with the other spectators. Our dancers began tentatively, all still nonplussed by the news we had just received, and also mildly self-conscious about the distinct possibility of making fools of themselves … a feeling I knew all too well. But soon the discordant, yet oddly rhythmic music—flutes, drums, and rattles—while not to be confused with the New York Philharmonic Orchestra, had a kind of hypnotic effect upon them, and their steps became more certain, more lively. They were, of course, performing the one dance in which Lulu had instructed us, the French cancan, and as the tempo increased, they seemed to forget for a moment their worries. It is the nature and business of music and dance to provide an escape from the ordinary routines and activities of the day, whether these be in the house or the tipi, both for the spectators and the performers, a freedom of movement and expression … and joy. I wondered if the baby I carried heard the music and I stood to join my friends in the dance circle after all, though eschewing the high kicks and adopting a modest, rhythmic step, bouncing her gently I danced with my daughter.

  The sounds of laughter and happy astonishment arose from the audience. Soon we were laughing ourselves … our troubles forgotten in the moment … When the children joined us in the dance, including my little Mouse, and some bold young women from both our band and the Shoshone, I couldn’t help but feel that perhaps it would not be such a terrible fate to be trapped in this paradise, to explore this virgin country, hunting and fishing, and following the buffalo herds … I could grow a garden here—I am, after all, a farmer—raise a real family, and live out a life of peace, security, and happiness. I
t certainly offered a vastly more agreeable future than did a life sentence in Sing Sing prison, without being able to speak a word to anyone … or, for that matter, life on an Indian reservation in the dead world behind this one. Of course, I understood that May and some of the others had different concerns and responsibilities, but it occurred to me as we danced, that, indeed, I was not a prisoner here at all; I was married to a man I loved, I was going to bear his child, and perhaps others by him as well. This was no sinister nightmare but a dream I had unknowingly sought all my life.

  After the performance, I went directly to Hawk, and when he stood from his seated position on the ground to greet me, quite to his surprise, and well outside the norm of proper Indian behavior for couples in public settings, I threw my arms around him and kissed him full on the lips. “I love you,” I said.

  22 October 1876

  Our Shoshone guests left this morning, and as Lady Ann Hall had suggested, we held our council meeting this afternoon. In addition to the official members, with their spouses, all our Strongheart society women were in attendance, as well as noncombatants such as Feather on Head, Grass Girl, Lulu, and Hannah. We had invited, as well, Holy Woman’s granddaughter and apprentice, Amahtóohè’e, Howls Along Woman.

  A pipe was lit and passed first to our chief, Pretty Nose. Because it was Ann, a Strongheart but not an official council member, who had called for the meeting, Chief Pretty Nose asked her to begin it. Ann speaks Cheyenne tolerably well, but she asked Gertie, who is multilingual, to translate for her, took a puff of the pipe, and directed her first question, a direct one as might be expected, to Howls Along Woman.

  “Young lady,” said Ann, “did your grandmother tell you how one goes about leaving this real world to return to that from which we came?”

  “No,” the girl answered, shaking her head.

  “In that case, having lived and worked with your grandmother, do you have any ideas of your own on the subject?”