Heart of the Sandhills (4 page)

For ye are all the children of God by faith in Christ Jesus. For as many of you as have been baptized into Christ have put on Christ. There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither bond nor free, there is neither male nor female: for ye are all one in Christ Jesus
.

Harriet shifted in her chair. Lydia got up and refilled her coffee cup, rattling the cup and saucer noisily. Violet paused and reached up to rub her neck, grimacing slightly and leaning back as best she could against the hump on her back. The aroma of fresh-baked bread wafted through the room. Still, Marjorie read . . .

Bear ye one another’s burdens and so fulfill the law of Christ. For if a man think himself to be something, when he is nothing, he deceiveth himself . . . As we have opportunity, let us do good unto all men, especially unto them who are of the household of faith . . . And as many as walk according to this rule, peace be on them, and mercy . . .

Marjorie finished reading. “Mmmm . . . those rolls smell good!” She got up and opened the oven door. The aroma of cinnamon filled the little room as the icy clouds of suspicion hovering above the quilt began to thaw.

“You women have a nice time together?” Jeb asked later that evening as he settled down beside the kitchen stove to enjoy a piece of dried-apple pie.

Marjorie leaned over and kissed him on the cheek. “Thank you for collecting Harriet and the others, dear. I know it was asking a lot to have you take the team all those miles.” She sighed. “I only wish Abner would have let Sally come. Genevieve showed the women her Two Stars quilt. Lydia especially admired it.” She settled opposite her husband at the table.

Jeb took another bite of pie and a sip of coffee. He looked up at the underside of the quilt suspended above the kitchen table, studying it for a moment before reaching across the table to pat the back of Marjorie’s hand. “Looks like you got a good bit accomplished today, Marjorie.” He smiled. “Just what was it you said that broke the ice?” he questioned. “I mean, when I saw Gen and Nancy headed up onto the porch, I was waitin’ for Harriet Baxter to come barrelin’ right out and order me to take her home.”

“Why, I didn’t really say anything,” Marjorie said. “I just poured coffee and read the Good Book.”

Jeb chuckled.
The Good Book
. He leaned back and stretched. His chair creaked dangerously. “Don’t suppose you happened upon any of them passages about lovin’ your neighbor as yourself?”

“I just read what I read, Jeb,” Marjorie said, blushing. “I wouldn’t have wanted them to think I was preaching at them.”

Jeb went to the window and looked out. “If the weather holds and you want to have another quiltin’ you just let me know. I’ll be glad to round ‘em up any time you want company. Who knows, maybe if we pray on it we can even get Abner to let Mrs. Marsh around that quilt a time or two.”

Forsake the foolish, and live; and go in the way of understanding.

—Proverbs 9:6

Historians would remember the winter of 1866–67 because of the Fetterman Massacre in the West. Farmers would remember it because of the record-breaking cold and subsequent loss of livestock. Merchants would remember the most dismal season on record thanks to deep snows and below-zero temperatures for days at a time. But Marjorie Grant would always remember the winter of 1866–67 as the winter she proved that just as the pen was mightier than the sword, a quilting bee could prove to be mightier than prejudice. For that was the winter that Mrs. Abner Marsh came to quilting. She accepted a cup of tea from the hand of Genevieve Two Stars and hoped aloud that Nancy’s delivery would be an easy one. And, as she said quietly to Marjorie one day, Sally determined to make the best of things with the neighbors—and to find a way to convince Abner to do the same.

And if it were not for an event in the far-off West, things could have been different. The long winter could have provided time to cool Abner Marsh’s temper. His wife’s exposure to Genevieve and Nancy could have been the beginning of a change in Marsh’s heart. The spring arrival of the white children from the East who loved Daniel and Gen Two Stars could have made Abner Marsh and his neighbors willing to just let things be and get on with their lives.

Unfortunately, while Marjorie Grant was introducing the neighbors to her Dakota friends, events in the West conspired against the uneasy peace between the Marshes and the Grants, the Baxters and the Two Starses, the Quinns and the Lawrences. The West was where Colonel Henry Carrington, charged with building three garrisons to protect the Bozeman Trail through the only prime hunting grounds left to the Sioux Nation, listened to a thirty-three-year-old Captain who loved to boast that with eighty men he could cut through the entire Sioux Nation. While cutting through the entire Sioux nation was not feasible that December, Carrington trusted Fetterman to find a way to end a Sioux attack on a woodcutting detail. Oddly enough, last-minute volunteers who begged to go along gave Fetterman the eighty men he had always said he needed to defeat the Sioux.

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 Sitting 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.”