Heart of the Sandhills Read online

  Just as Fetterman had predicted, the Sioux warriors fled before his eighty—until the eighty entered the trap set for them and encountered the rest of the war party, some two thousand of them, waiting just out of sight. It took less than an hour for Fetterman and his eighty men to die.

  It took a few weeks for news of the massacre to arrive in the East where Abner Marsh read and reread the account, barely able to contain the rage he felt when he read the graphic descriptions of what a Sioux warrior did to his enemy to make certain that in the next life his spirit would be both helpless and disfigured. But in the face of his wife’s growing friendship with the Indian women on the next section, Abner was forced to contain that rage. In the interest of maintaining peace at home, he concealed his unchanged opinion of Indians. He sent Sally to quilting at the Grants’. He nodded when Sally mentioned how nice Genevieve was. He echoed his wife’s hopes that Nancy Lawrence’s baby would arrive healthy. He even let Pris and Polly go along to help watch the Grant twins.

  When Sally expressed surprise at his open-mindedness, Abner shrugged his shoulders: “Don’t see as any harm can come from a quiltin’ bee. No call for my girls to be left out.” But every time “his girls” were gone to quilting, Abner headed for the barn. He threw open the doors to let in more light and he made his plans.

  “Goliath!” he called to a massive black-and-brown dog waiting expectantly at the door of a cage. When his master released him, Goliath raised up and put his paws on Abner’s shoulders, offering his master a slobbery kiss. Abner accepted the affection and then, pushing the dog off, he released Pilate and Thor, Goliath’s littermates and partners in training.

  Wrapping his arm in burlap, Abner held it up above his head for a moment. He made a clicking sound against the roof of his mouth and called for Pilate. Holding his arm down, he baited the dog. A bit too enthusiastic about his job, Pilate slashed the back of Abner’s hand. When Abner roared with pain, the dog cowered and sneaked back into its cage.

  “Pilate, come,” Abner said briskly. When the animal obeyed, Abner reached in his pocket and gave the animal a piece of dried liver and an inordinate amount of praise before letting the animal go back to its cage. The rest of the time while his wife and daughters were at the Grants’, Abner trained Thor and Goliath.

  When Jeb brought his wife and girls back from quilting, Abner Marsh smiled and shook Jeb’s hand. “Long winter,” he said. “Thank your missus for including my girls in the bee.”

  “I’ll do that,” Jeb said. “Marjorie’s hoping this can be the start of better relations between us all.” While Abner didn’t say anything, he nodded. Jeb decided he would be content with that. It was at least a beginning.

  “Can’t you look a little more … Indian?” the photographer asked, pulling his head out of the black drape that surrounded the rear of his camera. He peered doubtfully at Ecetukiya, otherwise known as Big Amos, who sat before a painted backdrop dressed in a suit and tie, a black felt hat poised on his knee.

  The Dakota brave contemplated the question, not sure the photographer was serious. When he realized the youth wasn’t kidding, Big Amos couldn’t resist. Without a hint of a smile he replied, “Sorry. Me leave warbonnet and tomahawk in tepee on reservation. Not want to frighten white women in Great White Father’s house.”

  “Well,” the boy asked, smoothing his oiled hair self-consciously. “Didn’t you bring anything Indian with you to Washington? Don’t you at least have some beads or a bear-claw necklace or something?”

  With an amused glance toward the back wall of the studio where Elliot Leighton and young Aaron Dane were waiting, Big Amos shook his head, clearly enjoying the game. He winked at Aaron before drawling, “Me no great hunter. Me afraid of bears.”

  The photographer sighed. “All right, then.” He directed Big Amos to shift his position. “We’ll do a profile. That looks more … noble.” He disappeared back beneath the black drape. His bank of lights flashed and he was finished. “Bring him back at the end of the week,” he said to Elliot. “I can have this ready then.” He lowered his voice and stepped closer. “Are you certain he doesn’t have any of his native dress? We could discuss an interesting marketing opportunity if he could pose again. As the western tribes are subdued, I predict the market for this kind of thing,” he said, holding out a small print of a Teton warrior in full battle regalia, “will enjoy quite a surge in demand.”

  Elliot Leighton stood up abruptly. He straightened his shoulders and assumed what his wife and Aaron had come to recognize as his “marching orders” pose. “Young man,” he said, putting his hand on the photographer’s shoulder, “Mr. Dane will call for the photograph tomorrow afternoon.” Applying pressure to the shoulder he added, “And before you photograph any more of the Dakota delegation, I would remind you, sir, that they are men. Not commodities to be marketed.” Gently, Elliot pushed the photograph away.

  When Big Amos and his white friends had exited the studio into the light of day, Elliot sighed. The streets of Washington were a sea of mud. It caked the men’s boot, splattered their clothing, and, on occasion, sucked a shoe right off some unsuspecting pedestrian’s foot.

  Aaron spoke up. “I promised Aunt Jane I’d watch Meg and Hope for her while she goes to some tea with the senators’ wives. Guess I’d better be getting back to the hotel.” He held out his hand to Big Amos and, after a firm handshake, headed off up the street toward the hotel.

  Elliot stood on the street corner, eyeing the abandoned stump of a proposed Washington Monument rising next to the Potomac River marshes not far away. “What haven’t you seen, my friend? What would you like to do?’’

  “Get on the train and go home,” was the reply. “Help Two Stars and Robert plow up a new field. Take Rosalie to see Nancy’s new baby.”

  Elliot looked up at his friend, mindful of the curious glances of passersby. Although an entire delegation of Dakota had been in Washington since February, people still stared at the white-haired officer and the towering Dakota Indian wherever they went. Big Amos and his friends had been taken to every “possible place of interest from the Ford Theatre to the Smithsonian. They had even heard the renowned former slave Frederick Douglass speak. Big Amos had commented to Elliot that he hoped the Great White Father would be kinder to his Dakota children than his friends were to the thousands of freed slaves roaming the streets of the nation’s capital.

  Elliot was indignant after the group was taken to the ‘nary yard, then seated in a makeshift bandstand at the arsenal and treated to a display of military arms in action. He said as much to his former classmate, Senator Avery Lance. “You are preaching to the wrong audience, Avery. These men already know they have no power. The agent at Crow Creek reported last winter they were living on bark with an occasional meal from a horse or cow dead of starvation or disease. I’d say their humiliation is complete. The warriors you want to impress with the power of the United States military are at this moment wandering west of the Missouri. A few of them likely participated in the Fetterman debacle. Your efforts are wasted on Big Amos and the rest of the peace delegation. They only want the government’s promise that they will be allowed to stay in Nebraska Territory where they can actually grow crops and feed their families. You needn’t make a point about the great American military. Most of these men don’t even own working rifles.” Elliot snorted. “The truth is, half of them are more afraid of the hostile Sioux than you are. Big Amos has already decided he’s not going back to the reservation because it’s too close to the hostiles. He wants to join my friends in Minnesota.”

  The Senator was unimpressed. “I know these men aren’t dangerous. But you can’t know that some of these very men will, next year, while they are quietly living on their government-granted farms, be visited by old friends. It’s been rumored that Sitting Bull himself was at Crow Creek three winters ago.”

  “We’d better hope that rumor was wrong,” Elliot muttered. “Why?”

  “Because,” Aaron had interjected, “if a man of Si
tting Bull’s reputation saw what’s been done to the Santees, he and his warriors would never trust a white man again.”

  Elliot nodded his head. “And the battle will rage long and hard.”

  “The battle may rage a bit longer than we had hoped. But we will win it,” the senator said firmly. “And these Dakota men will be sure to testify of that to anyone who cares to ask what they saw in Washington.”

  That had been weeks ago. Since then, the Dakota had been wined and dined and impressed but had accomplished nothing for their people. They wanted a permanent home. They got fried oysters, steak and onions, and pâté de foie gras in such copious amounts they frequently became ill. They wanted farming tools and oxen. They got a view of guns and military power they never intended to challenge. They wanted funds to recover some of the thousands of dollars lost when their Minnesota lands were taken. They got an indelible impression that the Great White Father and his friends were completely indifferent to the fate of the Dakota.

  Even their missionary, Dr. Stephen Riggs, was discouraged. He confided to Elliot late one night that he hated lobbying the ignorant and powerful on behalf of what he considered to be the most intelligent and best-educated Indians of the West. “Just when our labors of the last twenty-five years are bearing fruit, all of Congress seems united in a vast conspiracy of deliberate ignorance,” Riggs said. He sighed.

  “We won’t give up,” Elliot said firmly. “My family needs to get home to New York, but I won’t leave until we have a distinct promise of the new reservation on the Niobrara. And Senator Lance has promised the farms in Minnesota for the scouts. We have made some progress.”

  “The promise of land and the actual ability to live on it are not the same things, I fear,” Dr. Riggs replied sadly. “I hope you can secure a home for Daniel and Genevieve and the Lawrences.” He shook his head. “Heaven knows I’ve been powerless to do it.”

  He left Washington half-sick, having secured nothing for the Dakota beyond vague promises of help at some indeterminate point in the future.

  Elliot sent Jane and the younger children home, allowing Aaron to stay only after the boy presented a convincing argument that it might benefit the Indians someday if he had experience in Washington. But in spite of Elliot’s connections and Aaron’s innocent appeals, they made little progress on behalf of their friends. With post war reconstruction ongoing in the South, and Red Cloud causing trouble in the West, Congress had little money and almost no interest in helping a few defeated Dakota Indians in Nebraska and Minnesota.

  Elliot put his hand on Big Amos’s shoulder. “I, too, wish we could head west, my friend. Mrs. Leighton and I promised Daniel and Genevieve we would be out to visit this spring. The children are counting on it.” He sighed. ‘And all I can seem to accomplish here are more delays and fruitless meetings.”

  The two men ambled off toward 14th and Pennsylvania streets. When the Willard Hotel came into view, Elliot asked Big Amos, ‘Are you hungry? We could get some lunch.”

  Big Amos forced a smile. “What I would really like at this moment is a chance to rip open a fresh kill and—” he stopped abruptly. Looking down at Elliot, whose blue-gray eyes were filled with empathy, Big Amos smiled. “But I will settle for beef steak instead of buffalo liver. And a cherry pie.” He turned to go inside. Elliot followed, smiling to himself at the memory of the first time Big Amos had tasted pie. Since that moment, whenever pie was on a menu, Big Amos ordered—and ate—pie. Usually an entire pie. Men like Avery Lance had meant to impress the Dakota with military displays. What Big Amos would remember most about Washington was the taste of the Willard Hotel’s cherry pie.

  “I thought it might help,” Nancy said, blushing furiously as she held the oddly shaped cushion between Violet and the hard-backed chair. Violet leaned back stiffly.

  “Wait,” Nancy said. “Lean forward.” She shifted the cushion. “Now try.”

  Violet leaned back, surprised at how comfortable Nancy’s creation made the chair. Reaching behind her, she examined the cushion to see how Nancy had adjusted the thickness of the filling to allow for Violet’s crooked spine, creating channels in the fabric and then varying the amount of stuffing in each channel. There was just a slight cushion in the center and then successively more and more until, at the outer rim, the cushion was nearly as fat as a down bed pillow. Violet leaned back with a sigh. “It’s—it’s wonderful,” she whispered, squeezing Nancy’s hand. “Thank you.”

  Violet’s sister Lydia looked up at Nancy. “No one’s ever done anything so nice for my sister, Nancy. God bless you.”

  Nancy shrugged. “It’s only chicken feathers.” She lifted her eyes to where Marjorie was standing at the stove frying chicken. “Marjorie says if we could find someone with geese, the down would be even softer.”

  “I’m hoping to get some geese brought in in the spring,” Sally Marsh offered. “If the wolves don’t get ‘em before they’re growed, you can have all the down you want.”

  “Oh, hush, Earl,” Harriet Baxter snapped impatiently. “I don’t want to hear another word of that ‘Sioux Uprising’ nonsense.” She snapped her dish towel for emphasis.

  From where he sat smoking his pipe beside the fireplace, Earl Baxter shot his wife of nearly thirty years a look of surprise.

  “I mean it,” Harriet said, drying out her mixing bowl. “That trouble was years ago. Long before we came to Minnesota. And that Fetterman thing happened halfway across the continent from us. It’s got nothing to do with us, and I won’t have you stirring up more trouble for everyone just because Abner Marsh has a bee in his bonnet about a stolen horse that came home the same day it was stolen. That man’s got a temper that’s going to get him in trouble someday. There’s no reason for you to be part of it.”

  “Now, listen here, Harriet—” Earl made the mistake of pausing to draw through the pipe.

  “—No, you listen, Earl Baxter. You’re all riled up and the fact is you don’t know beans about Daniel Two Stars or Robert Lawrence. I don’t know ‘em either, but I know their wives and I can tell you there’s no two nicer women in the county.”

  Earl stopped rocking. He leaned forward. “And just how would you know that?”

  Harriet felt the blush coming up the back of her neck, and so she turned away so Earl wouldn’t see. She hadn’t intended for Earl to know Marjorie Grant’s quilting bees included the Indians. Not yet. But, Harriet thought, what was done was done. Harriet always recovered quickly. So now, she turned to face her husband, red-faced and defensive. “They been comin’ to Marjorie’s for quilting.”

  Earl snorted and sat back.

  Harriet put her hands on her ample hips and stalked toward her husband. “Marjorie just up and invited ‘em. What was I supposed to do? Make Jeb hitch up the sleigh and bring me back home?” She smoothed her graying hair nervously and walked back to the sink to retrieve the towel. While she dried dishes, she talked. “I didn’t like it at first. None of us wanted ‘em. But they’re good quilters, and it just made sense to get our work done faster.” Harriet whirled around, blustering defensively. “You got no idea what it takes to make enough bedding to keep a family warm, Earl Baxter. If you won’t get me a sewing machine like Jeb got his wife—”

  “Now, Harriet, I told you,” Earl said, raising his hands in the air, “I just can’t justify spending nearly twenty dollars on a machine that does little more than help a woman with her housekeeping.” The minute he said the words, Earl Baxter knew he was in trouble. He saw the tears gathering in Harriet’s eyes and knew he had stepped over her line of tolerance. Knowing he was in for it, anyway, he decided to try to avert disaster and get back on the topic of Indians. “But if I would have known going to a quiltin’ bee would turn my wife into a gol-durned Injun lover, I’d have ordered one right up!”

  If he expected a fight, Earl Baxter was disappointed. Harriet glared at him for a moment and then she turned away and returned to drying her dishes. While Earl sat beside the fireplace, she worked. When she finished wi
th the dishes, she disappeared into the bedroom. She emerged with a threadbare blanket and one pillow, which she tossed at her husband. “Genevieve Two Stars and Nancy Lawrence are my friends, Mr. Baxter. And if you do anything to harm them or their husbands, you will be sleeping alone for a very, very long time.” At the doorway to the bedroom she paused. “And the next time you want breakfast, or dinner, or supper, or a shirt mended, or a warm bed, or a clean house, or fried chicken, or greens, or gooseberry pie, or the garden weeded, or a new pair of pants—” she paused and bit her lip to keep from bursting into tears. “I been a good wife to you, Earl Baxter. I worked side by side with you for nearly thirty years. Now I guess I know exactly what all that was worth. Maybe you should’ve hired someone to do what I done for free. Then you wouldn’t have some fool woman thinking she earned the right to a little easing of her burden.”

  After a nearly sleepless night stretched out on the kitchen table, Earl Baxter rose early and saddled his old mare and headed for New Ulm. On the way, he rode by Abner Marsh’s place where he found Abner in the barn feeding his three dogs. With a deep breath and a gulp, he told Marsh he didn’t want to stir up any more trouble with the neighbors and he guessed Jeb Grant had a right to hire whoever he wanted to work his place. And then Earl rode on into New Ulm to Ludlow’s Variety Store, searched a catalog, and paid the ridiculous sum of twenty-three dollars for a sewing machine to be delivered as a surprise from her beloved husband to Mrs. Harriet Baxter.