“Oh, I have more than that,” Nelli Mae said, almost exuberantly. “I also have his skull.” Nelson saw Martin’s mouth drop open and his normally squinty eyes widen in surprise. “You didn’t mention that to Ms. White and me when we visited you,” Nelson said.
“Well, to tell you the truth, I wasn’t sure then that I could trust you. But after meeting Mr. White Cloud, I’m sure now that I can.” She smiled warmly at Martin.
“Where, uh — exactly where is the, uh — skull?”
“At my house. In the closet. On a shelf. In a shoe box.”
Nelli continued to smile, at both of them now, back and forth, as if she were very pleased with herself.
After Martin and Nelson meticulously examined the skull back in the museum laboratory, and radiocarbon dated it, twice, Martin found himself convinced that it very likely was the skull of Crazy Horse.
“I don’t agree,” Nelson said unequivocally. “I think Ms. Nelli Mae Feathers is trying to run a con game on us. That skull could belong to anyone who died around eighteen seventy-seven. And there’s not a shred of evidence that she is a descendant of Crazy Horse. I’m not even convinced that she’s got any Indian blood in her!”
“She looks like an Indian,” Martin insisted.
“So did Tony Curtis when he played Ira Hayes, a Pima Indian who was one of the Iwo Jima flag raisers, in a movie. And Curtis was a Brooklyn Jew. Anybody can look like an Indian if they know how to use makeup.”
“I’m surprised at you, Nelson,” the curator said sternly. “Aren’t you the one who said that finding Crazy Horse’s body would — how did you put it — bolster our prestige? Now you seem to be doing a complete turnaround.”
“I simply feel that caution is called for at this point.”
“And cautious we will be — until we have Naomi’s full report on her study of the military archives. In the meantime, the annual board meeting is rapidly approaching and I expect a full summary of your areas of responsibility to present along with my own report. As well as your recommendation regarding this claim of Ms. Feathers. I suggest we get busy on both.”
“Yes, sir, of course,” Nelson agreed.
The annual meeting of the Board of Directors of the Great Plains Native American Museum was held in the large conference room of the museum, where Martin White Cloud hosted luncheons for celebrity guests, gave lectures to visiting historians and other academicians, and frequently invited the press to release pertinent reports on new museum acquisitions and other matters of interest.
Around the table sat nine of the ten elected directors: four elders from the Oglala, Brule, and Hunkpapa Sioux tribes, three Northern Cheyenne elders, and two Crow. At the head of the table sat Moses Big Rain, Chairman of the Board, a direct descendant of Rain-in-the-Face, the Hunkpapa chief who led his tribe in the Battle of the Little Big Horn. At the opposite end sat Martin White Cloud.
Off to the side, away from the table, were two other chairs, one occupied by Nelson Clay, the other by Naomi White Cloud, who had just returned the previous evening from her assignment at the U.S. Army Records Archives in St. Louis.
“Mr. Chairman and Honorable Directors,” Martin White Cloud addressed the gathering. “All of you have received, prior to this meeting, reports from my assistant, Mr. Clay, with whom you are all familiar, and from myself, regarding the matter of one Ms. Nelli Mae Feathers and her claim to be a direct descendant of the venerated Oglala war chief, Tasunke Witko, or Crazy Horse, as he is known in English. We have processed a skull and other relics brought to us by Ms. Feathers and determined that they are authentic as to age. Our only uncertainty at this point is whether or not the lineage Ms. Feathers claims can be verified — which, if accomplished, would be almost certain evidence that the skull is authentic.
“As you see by the reports previously given to you, my assistant, Mr. Clay, has taken strong exception to the story of Ms. Feathers and rejected it as false. I have reserved my own opinion on the matter until we have heard the report of my niece, Dr. Naomi White Cloud, whom you all met at our welcoming breakfast this morning.”
A breakfast to which I was not invited, Nelson mused. Goodbye job.
“I now ask Dr. White Cloud for her report on this matter.” Martin bowed, stepping aside as Naomi stood.
She was resplendent in a white soft leather dress with jewelry representing Sioux, Northern Cheyenne, and Crow tribes, her sable black hair braided down the back all the way to her waist. Way to go, Naomi, Nelson thought.
“Good morning, Honorable Elders,” she said, with a ceremonial bow of her head, first to Moses Big Rain, then to each side of the table in turn. “Let me qualify my report by saying that I present it respectfully but reluctantly, since it is in direct contradiction to Mr. Clay’s report. After an extensive search and analysis of U.S. Army military records in the St. Louis archives, as well as Sioux tribal records and Bureau of Indian Affairs records, I believe I have incontrovertible evidence that Ms. Nelli Mae Feathers is indeed, without any doubt, a direct blood descendant of Crazy Horse. Here—” she distributed printed sheets to each director — “are the facts as I ascertained them.
“Army records show that in eighteen eighty-seven at Camp Robinson in Dakota Territory, a trader known as Long Joe, who was of French descent and whose actual name was Joseph Lavarie, had a daughter named Nelly May Lavarie, who was born of a Southern Cheyenne woman. This daughter was fluent not only in English and French, but also in dialects commonly used by Sioux, Cheyenne, Crow, and other tribes as well.
“Nelly was frequently called upon by the army surgeon posted there, Major Valentine McGillycuddy, to act as an interpreter between the doctor and non-English-speaking patients such as the so-called agency Indians who lived on the post. One of the doctor’s patients was Black Shawl, the wife of Crazy Horse, who suffered from whooping cough. It was through Nelly’s work with the doctor that she came to know Crazy Horse. This was presumably during a period when peace negotiations were going on between the army and the Indians.
“There is a report in Dr. McGillycuddy’s medical logbook that Nelly Lavarie left Camp Robinson to live with Crazy Horse and care for Black Shawl outside the camp. All of this information supports Mr. Clay’s conclusions — up to this point. It is here, however, that we differ.
“Dr. McGillycuddy’s log also indicates that while living with Crazy Horse and Black Shawl, the young woman fell in love with Crazy Horse, became pregnant, and bore him a daughter in July eighteen seventy-seven, just two months before he was killed. That child was given the name She-Is-Not-Afraid, the same name as Crazy Horse’s first daughter who died of cholera years earlier. The child was half Sioux, one-quarter Southern Cheyenne, and one-quarter French.
“Twenty years later, in eighteen ninety-seven, according to Sioux tribal records, that child married a full-blooded Sioux named Chasing-the-Sun, and that same year gave birth to a daughter who was named Many Feathers, after the father’s mother, Bright Feathers. That child was the granddaughter of Crazy Horse. She was three-quarters Sioux, one-eighth Southern Cheyenne, and one-eighth French.
“Twenty years after that, in nineteen seventeen, according to Bureau of Indian Affairs records, Many Feathers herself married a full-blooded Sioux named Three Hawks. She bore five children, four of whom, all boys, died during the smallpox epidemic that followed World War One, while the fifth child, a daughter, survived. She was named Shawl-in-the-Sky, because her parents believed that her ancestors dropped a shawl from the spirit world to protect her from the disease brought by the white man. Shawl-in-the-Sky was the great-granddaughter of Crazy Horse. She was fourteen-sixteenths Sioux, and one-sixteenth each Southern Cheyenne and French.