B57 Columbia Falls, Montana USA 1889

No one speaks about the woman

dying in the frail rising of a killing day.

A woman hard-frozen in the field

Her trail marked by the blood of the hundred pounds of buffalo

she carried.

And the sleek footed wolves trailed her,

wove weaved a tight trail around her sniffing

the bitter wind she carried.

The razor snarl of their teeth chewed the meat off her back

down to the column of her bones.

But her life was so powerful

even in death she is still

standing. Her rigid spine

sparkles in the steam of river light.

Her eyes glitter at the swooping birds.

Men weight their wives with venison   antelope   buffalo   meat

make them walk for miles

for one small favor from the white man

a trinket

a handful of beads

a promise of plenty

dying in the shrill wind.

— Debra Magpie Earling, excerpt “The Lost Journals of Sacajewea,” 2010

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