Foreword
Those readers who have extensive knowledge of the time and places where this story occurs may find errors or omissions I have made. Those errors and omissions are the result of imperfect research or were done in the interest of brevity and are not intended to be disrespectful in any way.
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The keelboat laboriously made its way against the current of the Missouri River just as it had for the last three weeks of April in 1825. Rebecca Ames listened to the men clomping up and down the deck as they poled the boat through the shallow water close to the bank. It was a sound she at first had thought fascinating, then irritating, and now found maddening. It had been this way, day after day, since the boat had left St. Louis. On the occasional day, the small sail was enough to power the boat up river, but usually, it was the men, shoulders against the long poles and walking endlessly up and down the deck.
Even though her husband was there, Rebecca did not feel safe. Fredrick was a kind man and a religious man, but not a very brave man. When she ventured out of the small space in the cabin that held only a small cot she and Fredrick shared, the boatmen would stare at her and she sometimes heard comments that chilled her to the bone.
"I knowed a red-headed woman in New Orleans who could raise your pole and make it spit in two minutes. Yessir, you want to get yer pole greased good, you go find you a red-headed woman. Like to have one right now, wouldn't you?"
"Georgia is where they grow them peaches, ain't it? I heared tell them peaches are sweet and juicy when you split 'em open."
"Womens needs a real man 'stead of a preacher man. Preacher men don't know how to settle a woman proper like. They's too busy prayin' fer souls while they womens are praying for a good stiff poke."
The comments were said just loud enough for her to hear them and she knew they were about her. Rebecca had copper-red hair, she was from Georgia and she was married to a man who was a Baptist preacher. So far, none of the men had tried anything, but Rebecca was worried that if they did, Fredrick wouldn't be able to defend her. He didn't even have the pistol the man at the American Board of Commissioners of Foreign Missionaries had recommended. Fredrick said if he had a pistol, the Devil might tempt him to use it and that would be a sin. He said God would protect them from anything that might befall them.
While she and Fredrick were man and wife in the legal sense, they weren't in the biblical sense. Their marriage was one of propriety rather than love. It would be a sin for a man and a woman to travel together and then live in a remote place like the Dakota Territory unless they were married. Fredrick had consummated their marriage on the night of their wedding, but had not touched her since. He said if she became with child, their mission to the Lakota Sioux would suffer. He didn't seem to be concerned that she wanted children as badly as he wanted to be a missionary.
That was his only concern -- the mission to the Lakota to convert them to the Baptist faith and to teach them to be civilized instead of heathen savages. Only if the Lakota were to do both would God accept them into Heaven. He believed he was born to lead the savage onto the path of salvation.
They had both volunteered for the mission because of their strong faith and the belief it was every Christian's responsibility to spread that faith. That faith had held her firmly committed even though she was equally frightened about what that mission might entail. If only they would reach Fort Tecumseh and she could get out of this boat, stand on dry land again, and get away from the coarse and boastful boatmen.
That did happen about an hour later, though Rebecca didn't know it until she felt the boat bump against something and heard Fredrick's voice. She climbed the steps to the deck and saw the boat was being tied up to the shore. In the distance, she saw the log stockade of Fort Tecumseh, the trading post established by the American Fur Company. There, they would seek out someone to guide them to the encampment of the Lakota and introduce them. The ABCFM man said they should look for a trapper who would do that since trappers traded with the Lakota.
Fredrick had been on deck the whole morning because the boatmen said they would reach Fort Tecumseh sometime that morning. He was talking with a man standing on the shore. After a few minutes, he walked back to where Rebecca stood.
"We can find a place to stay at the fort and I've arranged for our supplies to be taken there. It's a short distance, and I'd like to stretch my legs after being cramped in this boat for so long, so we'll walk to the fort."
On the way to the fort, Rebecca asked Fredrick if the man on the shore had said anything about a guide for them. Fredrick shook his head.
"No, but he said the man who runs the fort would be able to help us. He knows all the trappers who come here to trade their furs."
Rebecca hadn't expected a room in a believer's house like they'd had in St. Louis while waiting for the keelboat to start the trip up the Missouri, but she hadn't imagined how primitive their small room at the fort would be. It was little more than one small bed and a fireplace. The manager of the fort said the price for the room included their meals with the other residents, so at least she wouldn't have to try to cook in the fireplace.
She hoped they wouldn't be there long. The men at the fort were as bad or worse than the men on the keelboat. Most wore filthy, greasy leather clothes, carried a large knife on one hip and all had at least a rifle in their hands. They all stared at her and some smiled and licked their lips. Many brought their Indian wives with them, and Rebecca could not fathom why a white man would ever marry a savage.
She also wondered if they were really legally man and wife or if the trapper was just keeping the woman to satisfy his carnal needs. She thought that was probably the better explanation. The Bible warned about that type of conduct being a sin, but what could she expect from women who were so uncivilized and men who had apparently rejected the civilization they had once known?
Rebecca and Fredrick had been at Fort Tecumseh for two days when Fredrick said he might have found a guide.
"Mr. Sublette, the manager of the fur company, says there is a man who lives with the Lakota and has brought his furs here to trade. This man is not trusted at Fort Tecumseh because he is half Lakota and half white. Apparently his white mother was married to a Scotsman who worked for The Hudson's Bay Company. The husband was killed by a bear and left the woman nowhere to go. Because her husband had traded with the Lakota, she had established a relationship with the Lakota women and men.
"I suppose it was out of self-preservation -- I can't think of any other reason any decent white woman would want to marry a savage - but she did and this man was the result. The manager says the man is more Indian than white but that he can speak both English and Lakota because his mother taught him English. Both languages will be necessary if we are to accomplish the conversion and civilization of the savages.
"I am not certain about any man of mixed race though. I will talk with him tomorrow morning and then decide if he is a man we can trust to lead us to the Lakota. You may come along if you wish, or you may stay here in our room. I will make the decision in either event."
The next morning, Fredrick and Rebecca met the man outside the stable at the fort where he was packing his belongings on a horse. Upon first seeing him, Rebecca was impressed by his size. The man was much taller than all the other men she had seen at Fort Tecumseh and his bare chest spoke of a strength she had not seen in Fredrick. That chest also was scarred in several places, short scars across his upper chest that looked as if he might have been cut by a knife several times.
The man did not smile when Fredrick walked up and offered his right hand. The man stared at Fredrick for almost a minute and then simply said, "Mister Sublette told me you want a guide to the Lakota? Why?"
Fredrick lowered his hand and smiled.
"I am a missionary from the Baptist Church in Louisville, Kentucky, and I am on a mission to convert the savages to Christianity. I will teach them about the Bible and baptize them once they are believers. This is my wife, Rebecca, who will teach the savages to speak English and teach them how civilized people act. Both, obviously, will be our first task. If the Lakota can not understand English and behave properly, they will not understand what I am saying."
The man frowned.
