The women and the kids, won’t never tell the tale,
And Iron County’s Saints won’t never see no jail.
The cover-up is startin’, no one says a word,
Bones on Hamblin’s Ranch are scattered by the herd.
There’s gotta be some justice, someone’s gotta’ pay,
The Brethren do decide, that Lee is in the way.
Banished to the ferry on the Arizona Strip,
And if he’s charged, he’s never, ever gonna’ flip.
And back in Salt Lake City, there sits Brother B.
“No, it wasn’t me,” he points to John D. Lee.
Feds will hold a trial, jurors wont convict,
Then the Prophet issues his secret edict.
The final trial is set, Lee will pay the price,
Mormons on the jury not even thinkin’ twice.
They pull the wagon out, firin’ squad within,
John D. Lee will pay for all that saintly sin.
He looks them in the eye, as the bullets fly,
And everyone knows why John D. Lee must die.
LDT July 28, ‘21
In September of 1857, a wagon train from Arkansas was ambushed by Mormon militia and their Native American allies at a place called Mountain Meadows in Southern Utah. The members of the train were persuaded to relinquish their arms and march to safety under escort. Upon Major Higbee’s command, “Do your duty!” the militia members turned and fired on the men they were paired with. At the same time a band of their Paiute allies attacked the women and older children. About 120 people were killed in the massacre. Nineteen children survived and were taken in by Mormon families. The Mormons were reimbursed for “ransoming” these children from the Indians in 1859.
In recent years the LDS Church has gotten better at examining its history, warts and all.
Some might wonder where I learned to love the music of words. When I was a kid, I found a moldy old book in the garage. It contained poems like this:
THE SHOOTING OF DAN McGREW
A bunch of the boys were whooping it up in the Malamute saloon;
The kid that handles the music-box was hitting a jag-time tune;
Back of the bar, in a solo game, sat Dangerous Dan McGrew,
And watching his luck was his light-o’-love, the lady that’s known as Lou.
When out of the night, which was fifty below, and into the din and the glare,
There stumbled a miner fresh from the creeks, dog-dirty and loaded for bear.
He looked like a man with a foot in the grave, and scarcely the strength of a louse,
Yet he tilted a poke of dust on the bar, and he called for drinks for the house.
There was none could place the stranger’s face, though we searched ourselves for a clue;
But we drank his health, and the last to drink was Dangerous Dan McGrew.
There’s men that somehow just grip your eyes, and hold them hard like a spell;
And such was he, and he looked to me like a man who had lived in hell;
With a face most hair, and the dreary stare of a dog whose day is done,
As he watered the green stuff in his glass, and the drops fell one by one.
Then I got to figgering who he was, and wondering what he’d do,
And I turned my head—and there watching him was the lady that’s known as Lou.
His eyes went rubbering round the room, and he seemed in a kind of daze,
Till at last that old piano fell in the way of his wandering gaze.
The rag-time kid was having a drink; there was no one else on the stool,
So the stranger stumbles across the room, and flops down there like a fool.
In a buckskin shirt that was glazed with dirt he sat, and I saw him sway;
Then he clutched the keys with his talon hands—my God! but that man could play!
Were you ever out in the Great Alone, when the moon was awful clear,
And the icy mountains hemmed you in with a silence you most could hear;
With only the howl of a timber wolf, and you camped there in the cold,
A half-dead thing in a stark, dead world, clean mad for the muck called gold;
While high overhead, green, yellow, and red, the North Lights swept in bars—
Then you’ve a haunch what the music meant … hunger and night and the stars.
And hunger not of the belly kind, that’s banished with bacon and beans;
But the gnawing hunger of lonely men for a home and all that it means;
For a fireside far from the cares that are, four walls and a roof above;
But oh! so cramful of cosy joy, and crowned with a woman’s love;
A woman dearer than all the world, and true as Heaven is true—
(God! how ghastly she looks through her rouge,—the lady that’s known as Lou.)
Then on a sudden the music changed, so soft that you scarce could hear;
But you felt that your life had been looted clean of all that it once held dear;
That someone had stolen the woman you loved; that her love was a devil’s lie;
That your guts were gone, and the best for you was to crawl away and die. ‘
Twas the crowning cry of a heart’s despair, and it thrilled you through and through—”
I guess I’ll make it a spread misere,” said Dangerous Dan McGrew.
The music almost died away … then it burst like a pent-up flood;
And it seemed to say, “Repay, repay,” and my eyes were blind with blood.
The thought came back of an ancient wrong, and it stung like a frozen lash,
And the lust awoke to kill, to kill … then the music stopped with a crash,
And the stranger turned, and his eyes they burned in a most peculiar way;
In a buckskin shirt that was glazed with dirt he sat, and I saw him sway;
Then his lips went in in a kind of grin, and he spoke, and his voice was calm;
And, “Boys,” says he, “you don’t know me, and none of you care a damn;
But I want to state, and my words are straight, and I’ll bet my poke they’re true,
That one of you is a hound of hell … and that one is Dan McGrew.”
Then I ducked my head, and the lights went out, and two guns blazed in the dark;
And a woman screamed, and the lights went up, and two men lay stiff and stark;
Pitched on his head, and pumped full of lead, was Dangerous Dan McGrew,
While the man from the creeks lay clutched to the breast of the lady that’s known as Lou. These are the simple facts of the case, and I guess I ought to know;
They say that the stranger was crazed with “hooch,” and I’m not denying it’s so.
I’m not so wise as the lawyer guys, but strictly between us two—
The woman that kissed him and–pinched his poke–
was the lady that’s known as Lou.
Collected Verse of Robert W. Service (1930) Available as an Amazon Kindle book for 99 ¢.
From Benton up to Alberta, the whisky road it was,
T’was the perfect trail for them that flaunt the laws.
Eighteen Sixty-Nine, Fort Hamilton they built,
A pint of rotten whisky will cost you a pelt.
Blackfoot, Blood or Piegan, they come on in to trade,
Many with their lives or souls, for the fire water paid.
The tribes were goin’ hungry, traded all that they had,
And when the Small Pox hit, ya’ never saw so bad.
Traders from Fort Benton, poison up the trail,
Marshal Beidler tried to put them all in jail.
They’re wily and they’re mean, and can the law evade,
Hidin’ in a coulee, they’ll never be betrayed.
The Northwest is a far country, run by HBC.
‘til the Commonwealth, it was wild, and it was free.
In the Cypress Hills the evil deed was done,
The wolfers and the traders, killin’ everyone.
Assiniboine death wail is heard in Ottawa,
Gotta’ tame the country, gotta’ bring the law.
In Seventy-Four the Mounties ride in to the land,
Makin’ peace with each and every tribal band.
Macleod finds the Whoop-Up Fort, quickly drives them out,
Alberta will be peaceful, of that there is no doubt.
The trail it will remain, as the country’s fillin’ up,
As merchants like the Powers, prices they markup.
Bullwhackers and the railroad will follow that old trail,
Bootleggers find it useful fer stayin’ outta jail.
Now the trail is gone, the Interstate runs through,
Cruisin’ down the lanes, if only that they knew.
LDT July 24, ‘21
Established by illegal whiskey traders in 1869, the Whoop-Up Trail ran from Fort Benton, Montana to what would become Lethbridge, Alberta. After Mounties shut down the illicit liquor trade, it became a freight route for Bull Trains. Eventually, the railroad from Great Falls would displace Fort Benton as the starting point of the trail. During Prohibition, the trail relived its illegal alcohol past as Canadian booze flowed down it to thirsty Americans. Interstate 15 now carries the traffic North to Canada along the old Whoop-Up Trail.
Back in the Sixties Ford Motor Company coined the slogan, “Ford Has a Better Idea!” Those were heady times, Boss Mustangs, Talladega NASCAR racers, F-150 Trucks, the GT-40. Everything Ford did generated excitement and sales. Trying to appeal not just to car nuts, Ford made all of their cars stylish and easy to drive. Tired of reaching down to disengage your emergency brake? Ford had a better idea. Starting in the mid-sixties upscale Fords like the Thunderbird began getting vacuum-operated emergency brake releases. Just put the car in gear and drive! No more ruining rear brakes by driving with the E-brake partially engaged. What could go wrong?
Enter the Ford C-6 transmission. In 1966 Ford came out with a new automatic transmission. Like its little brother, the C-4, it had three forward gears and a lightweight aluminum case. Bigger and stronger, it could handle the torque of Ford’s big block motors. It was widely used in trucks, luxury vehicles and muscle cars. Indeed, the C-6 was a better idea. At least for a few years.
Ford C-6 Transmission
I have owned a couple of Ford’s with the C-6 transmission. In 1988 I bought a ’77 Ranchero with one. It also had an awesome 429 cubic inch engine from an earlier Ford model. With breathtaking power and torque, I loved it. My Ranchero was no Malaise-Era slug.
My ’77 Ranchero Towing My ’69 Mustang Fastback Home
Very early on, I discovered an odd feature on the Ranchero. The first time I went to release the emergency brake I couldn’t find a lever or handle. This was seriously weird. Crawling under the dash, I eventually located a tiny lever that released the brake. Upon releasing it, I heard a clunk and a hiss. Later on I tried to engage the e-brake while the motor was running and the truck was in gear. It wouldn’t engage. Maybe that’s a good thing I thought as I played around with the brake. Soon, I noticed that the emergency would engage if I was in park and automatically release when I put it in gear. Well that’s nice, or so it seemed.
This was in the late ’80’s. The C-6 transmission had been out for over twenty years. Millions of them were on American roads. Some were getting older, parts were starting to wear. Unbeknownsed to me, there were some alarming reports of Ford automobiles slipping out of park and motoring off by themselves in reverse. Ford blamed careless drivers. Drivers claimed their cars were in park and that they had set their emergency brakes and blamed Ford.
On television, there was a video of a driverless Lincoln Continental circling a cul-de-sac in reverse with the driver’s door open. It went for an hour before a brave cop jumped in and stopped it. After watching the video, I went out and disconnected and plugged the vacuum line that powered the brake release on the Chero. I would just have to use that little hard-to-find lever in the future.
The problem with Ford transmissions was serious. What happened all of a sudden to make these cars so dangerous? Analysis showed that most of the reported transmission slipping into gear incidents were in older cars. After ten or twenty years, shift linkage bushings were wearing out. Inside the transmission, the detent springs the held the selector in place were getting weaker. Since the problem wasn’t happening to other brands, Ford’s transmission design also came under suspicion. These issues coupled with a car with an automatic brake release spelled trouble, big trouble.
Reports started rolling into the National Highway Safety Administration. 23,000 incidents, 1710 injuries and 98 fatalities. NHTSA responded in 1978 by warning drivers not to leave their cars in park with the engine running. Lawsuits against Ford began to pile up. The magazine, Mother Jones, did an expose. NHTSA threatened to recall 10 million Fords. They backed down when Ford agreed to send a letter with a warning label to 23 million owners in December 1980. Complaints, injuries and as many as 300 more deaths occurred after the warning. Whoever owned my ’77 Ranchero in 1980 failed to attach the label to the dash as recommended. (Note, the problem was not limited to the C-6 transmission, but seemed more common on them. Larger, fancier Ford products with big engines used the C-6 along with the automatic emergency brake release in most cases.)
The warning labels were ugly and didn’t work.
If anything is to be learned from the Ford transmission fiasco, it is that both machines and people are fallible. Machines wear out. Sometimes people put forth defective designs, then try to cover up their mistakes. If you find something wrong with your machine, get it fixed or find ways to reduce the danger. And, yes, I did love my Ranchero!
You can still buy an original ford emergency brake release vacuum motor. It will cost you 56 bucks and maybe your life!
By the 1830’s steamboats were navigating the Missouri River as far as the mouth of the Yellowstone
By 1837 the fur trade along the Upper Missouri had settled in to a comfortable routine. The advent of the annual steamboat had done more to enhance the trade than any other factor. Crews no longer had to endure the months-long, backbreaking journey up the river. No more using the cordelle, that laborious process of men with ropes dragging boats up the river. No more poling, no more hoping the wind would fill the sail, the steamboat had conquered the river. Most days the only members of the crew breaking a sweat were the hands that fed the ravenous furnace that generated the steam.
The steamboat had changed the very nature of the fur trade. Permanent trading posts could now be established at strategic points along the river. The once hostile tribes could be persuaded to bring their furs to the posts in order to trade. The free and company trappers could get their “possibles” at a trading post. The annual rendezvous began to disappear. The hated Hudson’s Bay Company of the North could no longer compete in fur trade of the Missouri. They had no great river for commerce , they had no steamboats.
Everyone benefitted from the trade. The fur company made huge profits. The lonely trapper had better access to vital supplies, sugar, coffee, tobacco, powder and lead. Manufactured goods, like clothing, knives and cookware were now easier to come by. One might even get one of those great Hawken rifles to defend himself with. The tribesmen of the Upper Missouri looked forward to the annual steamboat’s arrival as well. They had come to covet many of the same things the trappers did. Maybe they wouldn’t get a gun as good as the Hawken, but it would still be better than the tribe over the ridgeline had.
The St. Peters left St. Louis that spring with everything that the hardy inhabitants of the Upper Missouri wanted or needed. They might even have had a little “firewater” stashed on board. Liquor was highly valued on the frontier. It could help a lonesome trapper deal with the boredom and isolation. More importantly, the tribes would do almost anything to get it. Alcohol was worth more than anything else in the trader’s store to a native American. Not being used to it, however, they tended to overindulge. This left them at a disadvantage in trade. It also caused friction within the tribe and led to vital social and community tasks being neglected. Alarmed by the effects of alcohol on the tribes, the government sought to ban it from the Upper Missouri. Companies who violated the ban faced the possibility of having their licenses revoked. A small amount of liquor for consumption of the Whites was all that was allowed.
To get around the restrictions on alcohol, companies devised ingenious methods of hiding their cargos. Some portaged the contraband by land to get it past the inspectors at Fort Leavenworth. One boat was designed with an ingenious tram system that moved the liquor while the dark cargo hold was being inspected. One company transported a still to its post up the river. There was no limit on how many bags of sugar could be transported.
Sadly in 1837, alcohol was not the worst cargo that the St. Peters was carrying. It had something much worse on board. And it would easily slip by the government inspectors. When it got to its destination, it would decimate the tribes of the Upper Missouri. Unseen and without warning it would kill healthy people in a matter of days. The proud and fierce Native Americans would be helpless in the face of this threat. It was smallpox.
Smallpox is a disease that has a mortality rate as high as 30% amongst European populations. For Native Americans, with no natural immunities, the death rate can be as high as 90%. Forty years before the voyage of the St. Peters an effective vaccine for smallpox had been developed, but it had never reached the frontier. Some of the traders at the isolated posts on the river had previously been vaccinated. Others may have survived earlier outbreaks on their own. Smallpox had visited the Upper Missouri tribes before, once in 1781 and again in 1801. One possibility for these outbreaks not being so devastating was that the tribes were less interconnected by trade and travel in those days. Another reason might be that they were far less likely to be at war with their neighbors in 1837 than in the past. Having peaceful trade relations would suddenly become the greatest weakness of the tribes.
When the disease broke out amongst the tribes, it would wreak a deadly harvest of souls. In 1902 Chittenden reported that, “Deaths were almost instantaneous. The victim was seized with pains in the head and back, and in a few hours was dead. The body immediately turned black and swelled to thrice its natural size. Nearly everyone who was attacked died. “
All seemed well as the St. Peters pulled out of St. Louis in the Spring of 1837. The brand new vessel was on its maiden voyage up the Missouri for the American Fur Company. Early in the trip a crewmember fell ill with smallpox. There was no good place to put him off, so the sturdy sidewheeler just huffed its way on up the river. Soon a few more crewmembers and passengers became ill. The craft’s first major stop was at Fort Pierre in what is now South Dakota. A man named Jacob Halsey, bound for Fort Union, boarded there. Though Halsey had been vaccinated, he still came down with the disease.
The St Peters would head next for Fort Clark about 50 miles upstream from where the modern city of Bismarck, North Dakotas is located. The fort served the Mandans who had been so welcoming to Lewis and Clark back in 1804. Unlike most other plains tribes, the Mandans were a village dwelling people. They lived close together cultivating crops along the river. The wandering tribes of the Northern Plains came to them to trade. Their communal living style was a perfect incubator for contagious diseases. The Mandans were doomed.
Francis Chardon was the Bourgeois (head trader) at Fort Clark. Adding to his excitement of the coming of the St. Peters, was that his 2-year old son, Andrew Jackson Chardon, was on board. So delighted was he that he met the steamer 30 miles downstream just to see the boy. Horrified when he discovered that smallpox was on board, he retrieved child and made for the safety of Fort Clark.
To ensure the safety of the Mandans and other tribes, company officials devised a plan to keep them off of the boat when it docked. This did not work. The anxious tribesmen would not be deterred by some obstructionist crewmen with vague arguments they didn’t understand. They accused the company guards of trying to cheat them. One Mandan stole a blanket from a watchman who was infected with the disease. Chardon tried to bribe the brave to get it back but no avail. Then the Natives stormed aboard the St. Peters. This act would prove fatal for most of the tribe.
Before the disease could really take hold, the St. Peters was off to Fort Union, located at the mouth of the Yellowstone near the present Montana-North Dakota border. This would be its last stop on the trip. Makinaw boats full of goods would be muscled farther up the Missouri and the Yellowstone Rivers the old-fashioned way. Fort McKenzie, at the mouth of the Marias, and Van Buren on the Yellowstone would be their final destinations. At first it looked like the disease could be contained at Fort Union. The tribes had yet to come in to trade. The St. Peters only had one case of the smallpox on board when it docked. That was Jacob Halsey, who had gotten on at Ft. Pierre. Maybe they could just keep Halsey away from others.
Then another company clerk came down with the disease. Both he and Halsey would survive. Unfortunately, a Native woman residing at the post also caught the disease. Panicked, trader Charles Larpenteur searched his medical book for answers. He read about the vaccination process, but he lacked the needed cowpox cultures. Then he got an idea. Halsey had been vaccinated and his case wasn’t severe. Maybe he could use Halsey’s sores as a basis for a home-brewed version of the vaccine. There were thirty or so native women living at the post. He “vaccinated” all of them.
Fifteen days after the “vaccination” program began Fort Union became a scene of indescribable horror. The vaccinated women were dying. “There was such a stench that it could be smelt at the distance of 300 yards….some went crazy, and others were half eaten up by maggots….” Larpenteur put the blame on the failure of his vaccination effort on Halsey, who had a weak constitution. Larpentteur had hoped that the outbreak would be over before the Fall trade commenced in September. Regrettably, one band of natives arrived at the height of the epidemic. Though they were refused admittance to the fort, they later came down with the disease and spread it to their kin.
Smallpox was deadly to Native Americans, with a mortality rate of as much as 80% of those infected .
By September, the epidemic inside the fort was over. But beyond the wall was another matter. The sick outside of the fort were infecting more tribesmen as they arrived to trade. They died so fast that the bodies were merely hauled off and dumped in the brush. They had come for a few trinkets and manufactured goods. If they even left at all, they carried death back to their camps. The Piegans, the Blackfeet, the Assiniboine, all fell victim. The Crows, who were hunting in the Wind River Country were initially spared the outbreak. Their time would come in the fall when they headed back to the Yellowstone to trade.
The devastation on the Upper Missouri was almost unthinkable. Nowhere though was it as bad as it was at Fort Clark. Chardon kept a journal. It is chilling to read, even 180 years later.
-July 14, 1837. Less than a month after the arrival of the St. Peters, Chardon recorded the first death, a young Mandan. The disease would spread rapidly in the days that followed.
-July 20, 1837. The disease was reported to have reached the Little Missouri River country. Five days later it turned up at the meat drying camp of the Mandans.
-July 25, 1837. Four Bears, a Mandan Chief, went crazy from smallpox. Two days later 4 would die in the village.
-July 28, 1837. Alarmed by the epidemic and blaming the Whites, a young Mandan tried to kill Chardon. That night the Mandans and Rees (Arikara) held a “splendid” dance knowing they were all about to die.
-July 30, 1837. The disease had spread to the nearby Gros Ventres camp. 10 or 15 have died. Then Four Bears speaks. He blames the Whites for the plague and calls them “Black-harted Dogs” (sic). Then he says, “I do not fear death my friends….but to die with my face rotten, that even the wolves will shrink with horror at seeing me….”
-August 10, 1837. The Rees who had been camped with the Mandans flee to an island hoping to escape the pestilence. 10-15 Mandans died. The next day the Mandans moved their camp across the river. The day after that, one of Chardon’s best Mandan friends in the Little Village died.
-August 14, 1837. An old Mandan was exhorting the tribe to kill the Whites. The next day the Mandans try to get the Gros Ventres to join them in a revenge attack on the Whites.
-August 16, 1837. Very bad smell from the abandoned Mandan village. The dead and dying were left behind.
-August 17, 1837. A young Ree came to the fort looking for Chardon but instead shot Dutchman John Cliver in the back. The Ree was chased to his brother’s grave shouting that this was where he wanted to die. An employee named Garreau tackled the man and slit his body open. The Ree had smallpox.
-August 10, 1837. The suicides, previously unknown amongst the tribes, begin. A Mandan couple kill themselves. Many more suicides and murder-suicides will follow. Mandans are dying at the rate of 8-10 per day.
-August 20, 1837. A Mandan shoots his sick wife, then disembowels himself. Two young Rees stab themselves. It rained.
-August 22, 1837. Several more deaths including a Ree employed at the post. Two young Mandans shoot themselves. With the Mandans threatening to fire the fort, guards are posted in the bastions.
-August 26, 1837. A young Ree had his mother dig his grave. Chardon tried to persuade him to return to the village. The lad said no, that all his young friends were gone. He died that night. Healthy warriors left on a buffalo hunt.
-August 29, 1837. Chardon’s interpreter comes down with smallpox. Chardon frets that his services are critical to the company.
-August 31, 1837. A young Mandan widow kills her two children, then hangs herself. There are only 23 Mandans left.
-September 1, 1837. Two bodies wrapped in a buffalo robe float by on a raft. The Rees relocate to the unattended Mandan cornfields.
-September 4, 1837. A young Mandan came by the fort hunting his father who left him in the brush to die. He wants to kill him.
-September 8, 1837. Seven sick at the fort. The son of old L’etaile died.
;September 16, 1837. Two more of Bellehumeur’s children are sick. That makes his wife and five children ill.
-September 19, 1837. Only 14 left alive in the Little Village. At least 800 dead.
-September 20, 1837. Fourteen sick in the fort. Rainy and cold. No firewood. Bellehumeur’s youngest died.
-September 23, 1837. “Entered My Winter quarters, my youngest son (Andrew Jackson Chardon) died today.”
-October 16, 1837. The smallpox has broken out amongst the Sioux.
Blame for the 1837 Smallpox outbreak rests solely on the officials of the American Fur Company and the Captain of the St. Peters. The boat should have stopped at the nearest port and quarantined itself when the first case occurred. Granted, this would have led to privations at the Upper Missouri trading posts and a loss of a year’s worth of revenue. It might have even caused friction and conflict with the disappointed tribes. None of these consequences would have been as bad as what happened through the company’s negligence. Moreover, many of the company’s employees were felled by the disease. Most of their unvaccinated wives and children died.
Nobody knows how many died of the smallpox in 1837. Estimates range from 15,000 to 150,000. The Mandans and the Arikara nearly disappeared. Other tribes were greatly weakened. Eventually they would be pushed further west by the encroaching Sioux. (The Sioux, or Lakota, were probably the least impacted tribe, possibly due to their inability to get along with the whites and the neighboring tribes.) The fur trade would continue until the beaver, the buffalo and the Native Americans were all but extinct. Prince Maximillian of Prussia had visited the region a few years before the epidemic. When he heard the news of the disaster, he wrote. “The destroying angel has visited the unfortunate sons of the wilderness with terrors never before known….”
DEDICATION: This page is dedicated to Harrison Lane, Chair of the History Department at Northern Montana College (Now MSU-Northern). It was he who first told me the story of the 1837 smallpox epidemic during his “Westward Movement” course in 1968.
Mecuricome got slapped on all the skinned-up knees.
Never gave a lecture when you caught the clap,
But after the injection, he gave y’er butt a slap.
One day we loaded up, shippin’ out fer ‘Nam,
He gave us all another shot, Gama Globulin.
Gonna’ fight those Commies, over in a flash,
Then we’ll all get drunk, with that combat cash.
Didn’t go so well, but Doc, he kept us sane,
Always patched us up, with sumpin’ for the pain.
“Son I know y’er nerves are shot, all I got’s a pill,
Sit here for a minute, then git back up on the hill.”
I wasn’t there to see it, flew back into the World,
They said he was a hero, as the battle whirled.
Crawled out into the wire, to drag the wounded in,
Pulled one into safety, then went out agin.
AK’s rattle deadly, he never gives a care,
All the walkin’ wounded, he patches up right there.
Battle lines are shiftin’, finds a Viet Cong,
Bandages up his wound, no it isn’t wrong.
“Leave that body layin’, ferget them golden teeth,
Put that damn ol’ K-Bar back into its sheath!”
Maybe war is hell, but not when Doc’s about,
He took a higher path, of that there is no doubt.
LDT July 10, ‘21
Dedicated to all the Navy Hospital Corpsman who served with the United State Marines.
Twenty-two Corpsmen have earned the Medal of Honor, most while supporting their Marine buddies. Six hundred and thirty-nine Hospital Corpsmen were killed during the Vietnam War alone.
*APC-A cure-all pill containing Aspirin, Phenacetin and Caffeine.
Métis Traders camped near the “Medicine Line” (49th Parallel)1873-1875
I never knew if she was Chippewa or Cree.
Perhaps it was her French side a people called Métis.
Somewhere near Red River, her forbearers did reside,
They traded and they hunted and did it all with pride.
The Company brought their fathers into the fur country,
Their mothers were the tribal gals, the kids were called Métis.
Across the plains they followed where the bison roamed,
Never had no roots, never were they homed.
Rupert’s Land-Dakota , no buffalo to roam,
Got a two-wheel cart, gonna’ call it home.
Wooden wheels a’squeakin’ fiddle drowns them out,
Singin’ in Francais, they’re headin’ west no doubt.
Head up on the Milk, the huntin’ there is good,
Be-friendin’ all the tribes in the neighborhood.
None will ask the question, Canuck or ’Merican?
Huntin’ for the robes, makin; pemmican.
They maybe cross the line, that isn’t even there,
Who can see the line or even know the where?
Even when they mark it, it’s kinda’ hard to find,
No. you’ll never stop ‘em, the Mountie he don’t mind.
Winter camp’s on Frenchman Creek, hidin’ from the chill,
Then tradin’ with the H.B.C.* upon the Cypress Hill.
They say they gave the Sioux their powder and their shot,
No Monsieur it wasn’t me, the whiskey that they got.
They lived in peace upon the land of the native sons,
Never caused no strife, never used no guns.
Then Colonel Miles from Keough, soldiers sallied forth,
You don’t belong on the Res, got to go up North.
Prove y’er blood is red, maybe you can stay,
Or maybe cross the river, Judith Gap’s O.K.
Canada don’t want ‘em, gives them worthless scrip,
The Battle of Batoche will make them rue the trip.
Back in old Montana, the life it ain’t so good,
No more huntin; buffalo, there’s wolfin’ and there’s wood.
If y’er lookin’ white you can prove up on the land,
Otherwise you’ll fit in Stone Child’s footloose band.
Forty years at Belknap, they maybe throw you out,
No, you aren’t a native, of that there is no doubt.
Somehow they remain, a people tall and proud,
They take it all in stride, never whine out loud.
It wouldn’t be Montana, if they never did come here,
So thank you to a people, give them all a cheer.
I never knew if she was Chippewa or Cree,
Perhaps it was her French side, that stole the heart of me.
LDT July 8, ‘21
Métis Woman
*HBC-The male progenitors of the Métis mostly worked with or for the Hudson’s Bay or Northwest Fur Companies. Not all were French. Some were Scotch or English. Most settled in the Red River Valley. Many Montana Métis can trace their roots to Pembina, North Dakota. Originally thought to be in Canada, an 1823 survey placed Pembina south of the 49th parallel. Those born south of this “Medicine Line” were Americans.
For further information on the Métis of Montana and the border, see Michel Hogue’s Metis and the Medicine Line: Creating a Border and Dividing a People.
Outlaws, Outrages and Outright Lies 