Wolf Shadow’s Promise
Read Wolf Shadow’s Promise Online
Authors: Karen Kay
Wolf Shadow's Promise
For Nancy Richards-Akers
Our friendship, the magic of
who and what you are,
will live forever in my heart
“Two and two equalsâ¦?” The teacher slapped the ruler againstâ¦
It was a grand night for a ball. Indian ladiesâ¦
Perhaps an amateur might have been disoriented by the blacknessâ¦
Wolf Shadow woke with aches and pains all over hisâ¦
Alys knew a little about herbs and about healing, havingâ¦
As Wolf Shadow grew stronger, his teasing took on aâ¦
She watched him as he slept, his chest rising andâ¦
“Is he still alive?” He crouched down beside her, whereâ¦
He welcomed the cold spray of the water upon hisâ¦
She had welcomed him back with a smile, which wasâ¦
Sitting up a little straighter, Moon Wolf took hold ofâ¦
“You say that he married you?”
Moon Wolf had no choice. He went to her. Howâ¦
“You must be careful. Lieutenant Warrington is a dangerous man.
She opened her violet-and-lace-trimmed parasol and rested the handle onâ¦
“Engaged?” This time Bobby took three steps backwards. Three bigâ¦
The tinkle of laughter, the clamor of feminine voices, andâ¦
He never returned. Darn the man.
Was it possible that he had heard of her engagement?
“Seizer Chief, come give me a drink.
She hid beneath a bush in a low coulee, justâ¦
Makoyi led them into a wooded area close to theâ¦
Bobby Thompson strutted through the streets of Fort Benton, youngâ¦
“I know that you have hesitated to come into myâ¦
“Has it always been this way between us?”
He nodded, his head against her own, his breathing quick and shallow.
“And do you think it will be like this still, when we have been long married and are growing old together?”
He caught his breath and held it while several moments swept by, followed by a deadly silence. His hands had slowed and his body had gone suddenly rigid. Had she been at all experienced, she might have taken heed of the brusque change in him, but she had never been in love before, had never been with a man.
He should have gone while he had the chance. But he didn't. Instead he said, “It was wise of you to go your own way all those years ago. Our worlds are too far apart.”
But his touch told her that his words might not be true. At once, he was holding her up, turning her around to face him. He pulled her in close, his lips above her ear, kissing it, kissing her, inhaling deeply as though memorizing the very scent of herâ¦
T
he following historical background will hopefully shed some light on this moment in history, one that has oft been forgotten. The time is circa 1870 and the place, the Montana Territory.
Let's go back to 1862 when gold was discovered near Bannack, Montana. This attracted floods of white men into the Montana countryside. These men were described by their contemporaries as rough, uncivilized and often criminal. As John C. Ewers noted in his book
The Blackfeet: Raiders on the Northwestern Plains
they were considered little more than “thieves and blackguards,” the sort of persons who could “not be tolerated in any civilized society.” With the advent of these people flooding into the country, a series of wrongs committed against the Indian people began to go unpunished, thus setting the stage for war.
To add to this, in 1863, annuities, promised to the Blackfeet by treaty with the U.S. government, never reached the Indians due to a Sioux war and the Blackfeet agent's fear of travel. Ultimately he refused to complete the journey north, and the goods were never delivered to the Indians.
At last a new agent was chosen for the Blackfeet, but he was possibly worse than the previous one. In his writings, he referred to the Indians as “degraded savages,” and
called them “hopeless.” Under his “care” and “guardianship,” more injustices were committed, and the Indians, who had voiced their disapproval of the white invaders, escalated their protests from capturing a few horses (a practice laudable to Indian society) to killing the white invaders.
Also, at this time, the governor of the district, Governor Edgerton, took steps to ignore the U.S. government's treaties with the Blackfeet and stated openly, “The Government will, at an early date, take steps for the extinguishment of Indian title in this territory, in order that our lands may be brought into market.”
In 1865, a war between the Blackfeet and whites ensued after gold was discovered in the Sun River Valley. The whites wanted the gold; the Indians demanded that the treaties, which had given the land to them, be upheld. Also that winter the Indians helped many of these white men to survive a particularly harsh season. However, this aid was clearly forgotten when friendly Indians visited John Morgan in Sun Valley that winter. There he killed one of the Indians and hung the other three affable visitors from a nearby tree.
Now add to this, the horror of smallpox, which may have been transmitted to the Indians through contaminated blankets. This disease was carrying off the tribe's young people, and the Blackfeet began to fear for their future.
About this same time the white settler's eye began to covet not only gold, but the rich grazing land, which again had been promised to the Blackfeet by treaty. Perhaps because of the discovery of gold, or perhaps only because the white settlers screamed so hard all the way to Washington, the United States government blatantly refused to uphold the promises of the Treaty of 1868.
Hostilities grew and in 1869, two Indians, while on a peaceful errand for their agent, were shot and killed in
broad daylight on the streets of Fort Benton. No action was ever taken to right this wrong.
Then the worst happened. In 1870, one of the friendly villages of Blackfeet was struck by the cavalry, an incident that is now known as the Baker massacre (see appendix), in which an entire village of women, children and old men were killed while the warriors were out of the camp, on a buffalo hunt.
While news of the massacre stirred the hearts of those in the east and incited their protests, closer to home, the white settlers in the west applauded the military's action.
It was during this time that the Indian whiskey traders began to take unprecedented advantage of the Indians' uncertainty of the future by pouring barrel upon barrel of illegal liquor into their trade. While liquor had always been a part of the trade, never had the west seen such large quantities of the “white men's water” so easily obtained. The liquor had ill effects on many in the tribe and the weak-hearted went crazy under its influence, ofttimes killing family members or friends or even freezing overnight in a drunken stupor.
In its defense, the U.S. government, witnessing the horrible effect on the Indian tribes, cracked down on the traders whom the Indians called “whisky sneakers,” thus making it almost impossible to trade alcohol to the Indians south of the Canadian border.
In 1869, a new problem began when the Hudson's Bay Company ceded its vast territory north of the “medicine line” (the divide between the United States and Canada) to Canada. This effectively left no law and order in the land; no one to prevent American rascals from trading more and more liquor to the Indians. During the next four years more than a dozen forts, large and small, flew the American flag on Canadian soil.
As said by John C. Ewers in his book
The Blackfeet:
Raiders on the Northwestern Plains
, these “whiskey forts” were directly responsible for one of the bleakest time periods in Blackfoot history when easily twenty-five percent of the tribe perished, directly due to the liquor trade.
In spite of their colorful names, these American posts north of the “medicine line” were responsible for one of the darkest chapters in Blackfoot Indian history. At a time when these Indians were disturbed by the steadily growing influx of white settlers upon their Montana hunting grounds and by the United States government's refusal to honor treaties made with them, when another smallpox epidemic was carrying away large numbers of their sturdy young people, and when they were thoroughly shaken by the massacre on the Marias, it took but little more to demoralize the Blackfeet completely. That little was a ready supply of “white men's water” with which to drown their sorrowsâ¦
There are no complete records of the number of Indian deaths caused by “white men's water” in the period 1869â74. But the Blackfoot agent in Montana estimated that six hundred barrels of liquor were used in Blackfoot trade in 1873, and that in the six years prior to that time, 25 per cent of the members of these tribes died from the effects of liquor alone.
And so it is during this turbulent time period in American history that our story begins.
Blackfeet Reservation, Montana
Early 1900s
“S
it down, my grandchildren, and I will tell you a story.”
The youngsters, laughing and giggling, crowded in through the tepee's entryway, its canvas flap thrown back to allow access. Several women, their mothers, were at work in the sunshine, the men out tending to their livestock and horses.
Smoke from the lodge's inner fire found its way under the still colorful tepee lining, the sooty fragrance, reminiscent of an earlier time, curling its way up and out of the upper opening, the “ears” of the home. But there the similarity between this lodge and the lodges of old ended. No longer were the riches of Indian life strewn throughout the home: no tanned buffalo robes, no comfortable willow backrests, no parfleches, no spears, and certainly no rawhide shields depicting a warrior's dreams.
Spread out on the ground, underneath where the old man sat, lay a three-point trade blanket and several other quilts, lining the floor. These, and the single medicine bundle hanging from the inner lining, remained the only evidence of the once powerful Blackfeet confederation.
“What story are you going to tell us today, Grandfather?”
The old man smiled kindly at the pretty little girl whose dark eyes sparked with vitality, something in them reminding him of the former, wild life of the Indian; a life he had loved well. He motioned the child toward him, noting, in doing so, that the child's features mirrored the spirits of her ancestors. If only she knew.
The child flopped down next to him and he drew her closer, grinning at the small creature who sat so trustingly beside him. Then he gestured toward the other children, inviting them to sit.
It was time, he decided. Time to tell these youngsters the great stories of their fathers, stories that the missionaries and the new government agents had forbidden. Tales he hoped these youngsters would never forget.
Aa
, yes, he set his head back slightly and shut his eyes. He remembered it well. It had been in an era before the white man had invaded their country so thoroughly, a brief interval before the reservation days. An age when the Indian had still roamed free.
Taking a deep breath, he began, “My children, today I will tell you a story about a great warrior, a brave man. A man who alone defied the United States army.”
“Alone, Grandfather?”
“
Aa
, yes, aloneâ¦that is, except for a brother wolf and hisâ”
“A wolf?” The small voice at his side sounded awed, as well it should.
“
Aa
, yes, in those days, the wolves ranged over the
countryside in huge numbers. They were our brothers, the wolves. Now, I have heard the tales of the white man which say the wolf preyed on human beings, but such stories never came from an Indian tongue, for the wolf in this country never bothered man.
Saa
, no, the wolf was kinsman to the red man. Now listen well and I will reveal to you a time when the white man had just begun to live next to the red manâ¦a day when the people's future hung delicately⦔