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

  “Only temporarily, JW. I’ll be back, and I’m not leaving just yet. I’m going to finish this project first. I have one last entry from May’s journal to deal with.”

  “It kept me awake last night, thinking about you out there on the streets of the city.”

  “Yeah, keeps me awake sometimes, too. Funny, isn’t it, how the things that torture us at night seem so much less important in the morning?”

  “In this case, not to me,” he said. “I don’t know exactly what you’ve got planned, Molly, but whatever it is, I can’t talk you out of it, can I?”

  “No. But I’ll be OK, JW … really, I can take care of myself, I think you know that. Let’s talk about this later … let me drink my coffee. So what do you think about this last batch of journals?”

  “I like what you wrote about our camping trip.”

  “Thank you. And…?”

  “I’m having issues with credibility.”

  “Issues? How so?”

  “The other world behind this one.”

  “Hey, I told you … you didn’t believe me, and now you have proof.”

  “Did you figure out some way to doctor these?”

  “What?” Now I was getting angry … and I hadn’t even finished my coffee. “Doctor them? Yeah, JW, I found a supply of antique pencils for sale on eBay, and I erased parts of May’s and Molly’s original text, and I perfectly reproduced their respective handwriting … No, wait, better yet—I found a couple dozen unused antique ledger books also on eBay, as well as the pencils, and I wrote the whole damn story, including the parts that your father and you published, so I also perfectly imitated Margaret’s handwriting and that of Lady Ann Hall. In addition to being a shape-shifter, I’m a master forger. And you’re an asshole.”

  JW started laughing then. “You’re right, Molly, we’re so settled in our domesticity that we’re already treating each other like a squabbling married couple. In this short time together, we’ve covered the entire relationship spectrum. Divorce will be next.”

  I laughed, too. “I’m not quite ready yet for divorce … but you’re still an asshole. And, by the way, cowboy, it’s you who has admitted to fictionalizing journalism, not me.”

  “You’re right, I’m sorry, I am an asshole, forgive me. But it is a wild notion, isn’t it? I mean, virtually all cultures and societies have legends of alternate worlds, but as far as I know, there aren’t any first-person accounts of those who claim to have been there … OK, so if you didn’t forge the journals, my backup thought is that their band really did find an idyllic valley in which to winter, and May and the others who left did so out of a kind of hysteria.”

  “You know why you have issues of credibility, JW?” I asked.

  “No, but I have a feeling I’m about to find out.”

  “Because you’re a white man, and a journalist, and you think with a western mind-set. Presented with all evidence to the contrary, you can’t let yourself out of your little box, because it would frighten you to do that. It’s like Gertie suggested, you only believe the things that you can see. That is a very narrow way to live.”

  “She was a good woman, Gertie.”

  “They were all good women.”

  “So you want me to believe that you go to that other world, too?”

  “Look, I don’t care what you believe. That is entirely your business. Except when you accuse me of being a liar or a forger. There is such a thing as faith, you know.”

  “I’m not really a big believer in that, either.”

  “What do you believe in, JW?”

  “Do you know the painting by the French artist Gustave Courbet, called L’Origine du monde? The Origin of the World?”

  “Yes, I do. But of course, I’ve never been to France so I’ve only seen pictures of it in books.”

  “Dad took me there, the summer after the last time I was here. I saw that painting.”

  “Yeah, so?”

  “That’s what I believe in.”

  I smiled at him tenderly. He may be a white man, and an asshole, but, despite these shortcomings, I was kind of falling in love with him anyway.

  “That’s not a bad thing to believe in, cowboy. Maybe you’d like a bird’s-eye view of the real thing again?”

  “I thought you’d never ask, Indian.”

  * * *

  Because I travel so much, I have entrusted all the journals to May Swallow Wild Plums, who is a direct descendant of May Dodd. It was she and her ninety-six-year-old grandfather, Harold Wild Plums—the son of May’s daughter, Wren, Little Bird—who had given May’s original journals to JW’s father, J. Will Dodd. It was these that were first published in serial form in the family’s city magazine, Chitown, under the title One Thousand White Women.

  May lives alone in a prefab house in the country, several miles outside Lame Elk. She is a handsome woman in her late fifties now, who has known hard times herself—rape, spousal abuse, alcoholism—but has come through them to become a certified counselor on the reservation. I have a great deal of respect for her, and I knew she would take good care of our journals. We had made a secure hiding place for them outside the house, the location of which only she and I knew, so that I could come and go, to take a few at a time when I needed them.

  I, too, stabled my horse at Lily’s ranch, and two days after my return from Denver, during which we had read, cooked, made love, and slept, I suggested to JW that we ride over to May’s place together, so that I could leave these journals I had brought for him to read, and bring the last one back to the trailer to work on.

  It was a deeply autumnal day, which I have to say is not my favorite time of year. I much prefer the rebirth of spring, and even the long, silent winter, but fall is the dying season, and I’m always filled with a certain sense of trepidation, butterflies in my stomach … I don’t know why exactly. And maybe this year, knowing where I was headed, I felt it even more. I think JW did as well, for we rode largely in silence, a light, cold breeze blowing the first leaves from the trees. I always try to avoid riding alongside the paved highways on the res, and although it’s more circuitous and takes longer, I have a route to May’s house that keeps to the trails and smaller dirt roads.

  Now and then a pickup truck belonging to one of the ranchers or ranch hands came by, and when they did, we dropped down off the road to ride in the borrow pit. They all knew me, and I knew them. Most were polite enough to slow down as they passed, to avoid raising too much dust, but a couple of others intentionally accelerated.

  “Is that for my benefit?” JW asked, the second time this happened.

  “For both our benefits,” I answered. “Things haven’t changed that much here. You’re still not supposed to take me to the movies, let alone cohabitate with me.”

  When we reached May’s, we dismounted and looped our reins around a hitching rail in front of the house. She came out on the small porch to greet us, and we walked up the steps to her.

  I introduced JW and started to explain who he was.

  “You don’t need to tell me that, Molly,” she said with a wry smile. “Everyone on the res knows who he is, and pretty much his every move. And yours, too, of course.” And to JW she said: “You probably don’t remember me, but we met once a long time ago when you came to my grandpa’s house in town with your dad. You were just a kid then.”

  “Of course, I remember you,” he answered, “the famous May Swallow Wild Plums, named after my family’s relative. My dad was so grateful to you and your grandfather.”

  “He was a good man, your father, we liked him very much. We were sorry to learn of his passing.”

  “May Swallow is a beautiful name,” JW said.

  “Thank you, I owe it all to your great-great-great…” She laughed. “I lose track of the number of greats, but you know who I mean.”

  May invited us in for a cup of tea. I took my moccasins off in the entranceway inside the door, and JW, taking the cue, pulled off his boots and entered the living room in his stocking fee
t. In addition to being a counselor, May is also a traditional medicine woman, and she told us, as I knew she would, that she must bless us upon entering her home. Having experienced this ritual many times before, I went first, so that JW could witness the procedure.

  From her woodstove, she gathered a few coals of cedar wood in a small metal pan, and with the other hand took up her feathered, beaded prayer fan. She brushed me lightly with smoke, turning me to face each of the Four Directions, gently sweeping the smoke-infused feathers across my shoulders and breasts, down my arms and legs, and between my legs. Knowing the drill, I opened my hands at my sides, palms facing out, and she brushed them, then placed her right hand lightly upon my heart. I always find this blessing to be soothing, the smoke and her gentle touch wiping away my autumnal anxiety. She is a wise woman, May.

  She repeated the blessing with JW, and he thanked her, telling her how good it felt. I could tell May liked him, for he displayed the same polite respect and gratitude with which his father always treated people here.

  We sat in chairs around the woodstove and she served our tea. I told her we had come to return the journals I picked up the other night, and take the last one with me to work on.

  “You know, having just read these journals,” JW said, “it seems strange for me to be sitting here one hundred forty-three years later, talking with two women named May and Molly, who carry the blood of your ancestors … I wish my dad could be here to see it, and to know the rest of the story.”

  “Perhaps he does know it now,” says May. “By the way, JW, I must tell you that your father made a mistake in his epilogue.”

  “Really? That surprises me. Dad was such a meticulous editor and a stickler for confirming source material. Tell me his mistake.”

  “He wrote that after Little Wolf surrendered at the agency, he got drunk and killed Jules Seminole. As you know, the greatest crime a Cheyenne can commit is to kill another tribal member, and the punishment is lifelong banishment.”

  “Yes, of course, I know that,” JW said.

  “But it wasn’t Jules Seminole Little Wolf killed,” May explained, “it was a man named Starving Elk, who for years had been coming by his lodge to flirt with the chief’s wives. By the strict rules that governed the Sweet Medicine Chief, Little Wolf was never permitted to take his quirt to Starving Elk, or even object and send him away. He just had to endure this insult. But shortly after he had surrendered his band, Little Wolf got drunk, and he went to the agency store, where he found Starving Elk making lewd comments to his daughter, Pretty Walker. The chief went back to his lodge, got his gun, returned to the store, and shot Starving Elk dead.”

  I could see that this news disturbed JW. “Even though it’s been twenty years now since Dad published those journals,” he said after a moment of consideration, “I’ll issue a correction in the magazine. I can’t imagine how it happened, but I suspect someone must have told that to my father, and he neglected to confirm it with a second source. It’s unlike him, but those things do happen in our business now and then. Thank you for telling me, May.”

  “Just so you know, JW, it does not diminish at all our respect for your dad.”

  “That’s good of you to say.”

  “There’s something else I must tell you,” May said to him. “I’m hearing of some discontent among the Crazy Dog Society regarding your presence on the reservation. That society can be a bit … how should I say … rash. I think it might be a good idea if you didn’t stay here too much longer.”

  JW nodded. “OK, thanks for letting me know that, too. It seems that Molly will be leaving soon,” he said, looking at me, “and there’s no reason for me to stay after she goes.”

  “May, I know we made a pact,” I said, “not to tell anyone else where we keep the journals, but I want to ask your permission to show JW. I am going away soon, and I don’t know for how long. Just in case anything were to happen to me, I’d like him to have access to them. I think you know I wouldn’t ask if I didn’t trust him completely.”

  “Listen to me, Molly,” May said, “I don’t have any problem with that.” She looked at JW and smiled. “I trust him, too. But I do have a problem with something happening to you. I felt your anxiety while I was blessing you. Please, don’t do anything stupid.”

  “I’m many things, May, but I think you know that stupid is not one of them. I’ll be careful.”

  JW and I rode our horses a short distance down valley from May’s house to a rock formation, where it is said that Sitting Bull had his famous vision after the battle of the Rosebud and before the Battle of the Little Bighorn. In the vision, the great Sioux medicine man saw the soldiers falling upside down from the sky like grasshoppers, which was taken as a sign that the Indians would win the battle. And so they did.

  We dismounted, and I led JW to a large, flat stone amid a number of others at the base of the formation. “You need to move this one aside,” I said, toeing it with my moccasin. “I’d do it myself, but it’s heavy, and as long as you’re here…”

  “Sure.”

  He did so, and buried beneath it was the hermetically sealed steel case in which we store the journals. JW lifted it out, and I showed him the combination to the lock. I opened it and replaced those ledgers I was returning, took out another, and looked inside the cover to make sure it was the correct one.

  “Yeah, this is it.” I relocked the case. He placed it back in the hole and wrestled the stone back into place. Then I smoothed out the disturbed dirt with my hand. “Look around, now,” I said to him, “and get your bearings. There are a lot of rocks here and you need to remember which it is.”

  He smiled. “I got it, Molly.”

  “And never tell another soul about this place.”

  He laughed. “I’m going to print a detailed map of it in the magazine so that tourists can come visit.”

  “Ha-ha.”

  Back at the horses, I slipped the ledger book into soldier Miller’s saddlebags, and we remounted for the ride back to Lily’s ranch.

  “May knows what you do, doesn’t she, Molly?” JW asked.

  “Yes, May is my friend, she knows everything … almost everything.”

  “Whatever you’re planning, it was clear that she didn’t have a good feeling about it. And neither do I. Please, tell me more.”

  “I’m going back to Denver, JW. I’m meeting another Strongheart woman there, an Arapaho girl I work with, but I’m not going to tell you her name. We both know the city, and we know the area where a lot of the Indian women are disappearing. We believe there’s a well-organized international sex trafficking operation in place, but we don’t know where they’re being taken. We think maybe first to Canada, because, of course, it’s the closest border crossing. But there is only one way for me to find out.”

  “I was afraid you were going to say that … to get kidnapped yourself, right?”

  “I need to get inside.”

  “Both of you?”

  “Just me. My Arapaho colleague needs to stay outside so I can contact her when the time is right.”

  “Jesus Christ, Molly, that’s crazy! They’ll drug you and you’ll end up like all the other women. And, like them, no one will know where you are. You likely won’t even know where you are. You’ll get raped by a few hundred men, until it kills you, or you’re so beat up none of them want you anymore, and then they’ll kill you.”

  “Look, JW, with all due respect, I know a good deal more about these people than you do, and I am well aware of the risks. You may still not choose to believe it, but I have big medicine … power … I can deal with this, and it’s the only way. That’s all I’m going to say on this subject now. We’re not talking about it anymore, OK?”

  We rode in silence the rest of the way back to Lily’s. It was midafternoon by the time we returned, and I went to work in the trailer with my notebook, transcribing and editing May’s last ledger book. JW went about making preparations for our dinner. He’s a better cook than I am, but he was running
low on supplies, and as we were both planning to leave soon, he didn’t want to make another trip to the market in Billings. Lily kept a kitchen garden, it was harvest season, and she had told us to help ourselves to the vegetables.

  “I know Lily’s going to charge me dearly for that privilege,” JW said, “but it’s well worth it.” He had more or less gotten over his little snit by now, and while I worked, he picked some ripe tomatoes, zucchini, yellow squash, eggplant, and lettuce, and unearthed an onion and a head of garlic. He made a salad and a wonderful ratatouille for our dinner, and served it with his last buffalo steak, seared on the grill, and his last bottle of red wine. I had told him about the rancher couple in South Dakota, who raise the animals on thousands of acres of restored native prairie, harvest and butcher them in the field one at a time, and sell the meat through their company, Wild Idea in Rapid City. It’s too pricey for us Indians, that’s for sure, but, of course, JW got online and ordered some of their steaks … I think he was trying to impress me … you know, sensitive, liberal white guy embracing native ways … that kind of thing.

  “After your people exterminated the plains buffalo,” I told him, “and we had to eat our horses, and the often rotten beef the government sent us on the reservations, that’s when we started getting sick, both in body and spirit. We had coexisted with those animals for thousands of years, our entire way of life depended upon them, we considered them our brothers. And I don’t mean like our brothers, I mean we believe we are related to them. I’ll bet you’ve never looked a buffalo directly in the face before, into his or her eyes, have you? They are not like your stupidly vacant bovines … it’s difficult to explain but there is a certain sentience in their regard, a kind of ancient wisdom, and an almost human quality to the structure of their faces.”

  “Maybe I’ll take that route on the way back to Chicago, stop and visit with those ranchers, and have a good look at one. Maybe I could write a piece about their operation for the magazine … I know what you’re going to say, Indian, you’re going to say, yeah, so that rich white city folks can buy the meat of animals your people hunted wild for a thousand years, and we nearly wiped off the face of the earth.”