Narrator
After the American Civil War, the United States Government, through the United States Army and especially the US Calvary, waged a war of extermination against the original inhabitants of vast areas of land in the upper Middle West, in order to secure this property for the use of the Euro-Americans otherwise to be confined to the Atlantic Seaboard and areas immediately or distantly adjacent to it.
Apart from one Native American woman employed by the Army as a translator/negotiator in the Bannock War in the Northwest in 1878, no women seem to have been officially acknowledged as being associated with American forces in the 19th Century. Women disguised as men participated on both sides during the Civil War. So it’s possible that a woman camouflaging her gender might have joined up and been there at the historic battle of Pine Bluffs. This drama tells the story of Sally Winter, who, although she was a woman, fought for her country against the enemies of freedom during the Indian Wars and even became a hero.
Act I Capture
Narrator
The 42nd Calvary Unit is making good time as it heads towards the village of Pine Bluffs. (horse hoof sounds) Suddenly, shots ring out from the surrounding bluffs (sounds of shots). Some soldiers fall (sound of wounded and falling soldiers).
Sally Winter
Come on guys, show them what we’ve got. I’m just a supply soldier, and I’m fighting hard (sounds of gunfire). Guys? Come on! Come on! Oh, no! Get your hands off me. Leave me alone. Stop. Stop.
Narrator
After killing several of the soldiers in her unit, the Pine Bluff Native Americans disarm and capture Sally Winter.
Happy Coyote, Native American fighter
Well, we got her. Now what do we do with her?
Flying Buffalo, Native American fighter
She looks badly wounded. Even though the US soldiers think we are sub-human brutes, or animals, we are not. We respect the rules of the Geneva Convention on the treatment of prisoners of war, even though they won't be officially adopted until the next century.
Happy Coyote, Native American fighter
We should take her to our healing place, and treat her as well as we can. It is the only decent thing to do.
Flying Buffalo, Native American fighter
You’re right. Let’s go.
Narrator So the Native Americans of the Pine Bluffs tribe secure their new prisoner, Sally Winter, and, putting her on one of their horses, take her to the local Pine Bluffs healing center. An American woman soldier has been captured by her country’s enemies.
Act II Captivity
Narrator The Native Americans have delivered Sally Winter to their healing center. Let’s listen to the healers planning her treatment.
Plentiful Corn
She has many broken bones, the result of her heroic resistance to our fighters’ well-planned and well-executed attack on her unit of invaders. Otherwise, she doesn’t look that bad. What should we do?
Floating Leaf
We should use our most sacred herbs and time-tested techniques to heal the solder woman. She is a human being, and she deserves no less, even if she came to our place intending to exterminate us in the name of the supposed Manifest Destiny of her people.
Plentiful Corn
I agree. I’ll go get the sacred herbs.
Narrator
So Sally Winter was treated with the best the Pine Bluffs tribe had to offer her. Apparently, she even bonded a bit with her captor/healers.
Running Cloud
You’re looking much better this morning, Miss Winter. Can I get you anything?
Sally Winter
Maybe some more of that tasty fruit nectar drink you’ve been giving me? It is so yummy. What’s it made of, anyway?
Running Cloud
It’s a blend of pollen from buzzing bees, petals from smiling flowers, and dew collected from the prairie grasses. Has it been helping you?
Sally Winter
Oh, yes, Running Cloud. It’s helped me so much, and it’s so delicious.
Running Cloud
We’re very glad. It will keep you healthy and make you stronger now that we know we must keep you here for a longer time, now that our effort to return you to your own people failed when they shot at our braves when they tried to take you to them.
Sally Winter
Yes, that is hard to understand. You were waving a white flag with a painted sun on it as we approached, and that’s a widely-understood sign that you had no ill intentions, only a desire to re-unite me with my own people.
Running Cloud
Well, you’re welcome to stay here as long as you want and grow stronger.
Sally Winter
Thank you so much, Running Cloud. Tell me something. Is it true that all the braves who normally guard this sacred healing center have abandoned it, so that only the healers are still here, to watch over me?
Running Cloud That is right, Sally. They are all needed elsewhere in the battle against your soldiers. There’s no one here now except you and a few of us healers.
Sally Winter
OK.
Act III Conspiracy
George Edwards, Press Secretary to the President of the United States
Listen, Mr. President. The Battle of Pine Bluffs is not going well. We are losing more soldiers than we planned to We are not making the progress we predicted. Without good news, the people will become discontented and that can only bode poorly for your popularity and re-election chances.
Josiah Summers, President of the United States
I told the people we were fighting this war against those Pine Bluffs Indians because they had terrible bad weapons, maybe even smallpox that they’d cultivated off the blankets we gave them to keep them warm on their long journey to the concentration camps, I mean reservations, we were putting them on in exchange for turning over their millions of acres of prime real estate to us.
George Edwards
I know, I know. I’m the one who coined the phrase “Blankets of Mass Destruction” to enhance the fright factor. And it worked. The people wanted to be protected from the deadly blankets. The Congress wanted to be thought of as protecting the people from the Blankets of Mass Destruction.
Josiah Summers
And we even hinted, strongly hinted, that the Pine Bluff Indians might share their Blanket of Mass Destruction with other tribes, even worse tribes, tribes that did not have our best interests at heart, tribes without territory of their own, and who are therefore very hard to track down and destroy as they deserve to be destroyed.
George Edwards
That might have been because we stole their land, killed large numbers of their men, women, and children, and destroyed the resources, for example the buffalo, upon which they’d depended for food for tens of thousands of years.
Josiah Summers
Yes, there was that.
George Edwards
Still, we did pretty well with that story, even though our scouts had reported back that there were no Blankets of Mass Destruction.
Josiah Summers
There weren’t?
George Edwards
No, Mr. President. We made the whole thing up, to frighten the people, to railroad the Congress, to give us a reason to go to war against the Pine Bluffs Indians.
Josiah Summers
Does anyone know this besides us?
George Edwards
Well, I suppose the scouts do.
Josiah Summers
But they won’t talk, will they?
George Edwards
Of course not, Mr. President. They’ve been threatened and bribed every which way from Sunday. Our secret is safe with them.
Josiah Summers
Good. Now, tell me your plan to divert attention from the fact that we are not winning this war as fast as we expected to.
George Edwards
A daring rescue of a damsel in distress.
Josiah Summers
Huh?
George Edwards
Apparently, due to pressures from early feminists, some of whom are threatening to become suffragettes, and because of some slipshod work at the War Department, a woman managed to enlist in the 42nd Calvary, which is one of the units we sent to put down the Pine Bluffs Indians.
But, snatching victory from the jaws of embarrassment, I propose that we stage a daring rescue of this woman from the squalid Indian village where she now languishes.
Josiah Summers
Would that be difficult?
George Edwards
Difficult? (laughs) We’ve got scouts, well, scouting the area and they’ve reported that there isn’t a single Indian warrior anywhere near the squalid Indian village where she’s being detained against her will.
Josiah Summers
I don’t want to seem stupid, but how do we perform a daring rescue if there are no opposition forces anywhere near the girl we’re rescuing?
George Edwards
Images, Mr. President. Images. We will send artists with our troops and they can make sordid drawings of the squalid village and action-packed drawings of our soldiers rescuing the fair maiden. We’ll give copies of the drawings to all the newspapers and magazines and we in the White House and our soldiers and, above all, this Sally Winters person will be hailed as heroes without equal and everyone will forget we’re losing the war and will be discouraged from ever saying anything about how we made up the reasons for going to war against the Pine Bluffs Indians in the first place.
Josiah Summers
Brilliant, Edwards, brilliant. Now I know why I chose you to be my Press Secretary.
George Edwards
Actually, sir, it was because your father told you to hire me.
Josiah Summers
Oh, yes. That’s right. OK, when can you carry out this brilliant plan?
George Edwards
Right now, Mr. President, at your order. The soldiers and the artists are standing by, ready to go in.
Josiah summers
Then send them in, Edwards. And may God bless the United States of America.
Act IV Rescue
Narrator
On the 7th day of her captivity and healing, Sally Winter awakes in the calm and quiet Lodge of Healing in the village of the Pine Bluff Native American community. Running Cloud enters her space, bringing with her a full cup of the Healing Nectar. Sally looks up at her as she wakes.
Running Cloud
Good morning, Smiling Flower. I bring you Healing Nectar and good tidings.
Sally Winter
Thank you for the Nectar, Running Cloud. And what is the good news?
Running Cloud
Our scouts have seen a raiding party of your people approaching our village.
Sally Winter
How do you know this?
Running Cloud
By the clouds of dust their horses are kicking up, the loud yelps they are emitting, and the occasion rifle shot that they let escape from their expedition.
Sally Winter
Those would be our guys. And they are headed here?
Running Cloud
Absolutely. One of them is carrying a large banner that has written on it “Rescue Sally at the Pine Bluffs Village or Bust.” And our scouts report the strangest thing. There’s a soldier off to the side of the regular soldiers with a large sheet of paper, and he seems to be drawing a picture of the other ones and their banner.
Sally Winter
I wonder what that’s about.
Narrator
Suddenly, there’s a clamor (sounds of clamor).
Henry Jones, US Solder
(sounds of gun fire, crashes, general havoc)
Are you Sally Winter? What are you drinking? Not a devilish Indian brew? (sounds of a breaking cup).
We are the proud soldiers of the 42nd Calvary and we are here to rescue you from the clutches of these hideous savages.
Take that, you hideous savage.
Running Cloud
Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh.
Sally Winter
Leave her alone, you brute, she has nursed me back to health quite selflessly.
Henry Jones, US Solder
Your mind has obviously been warped by prolonged exposure to these savages. We will take care of that problem once you have been returned to your people. We are here to bravely rescue you from the clutches of the evildoers who have waylaid you and held you captive here in this squalid prison.
Sally Winter
What are you talking about? These Native Americans have treated me with respect, competence, and kindness, and I am now much improved from how I was when, I will admit it, I was waylaid by their soldiers and taken here.
Henry Jones, US Solder
The soldier over there with the pen and paper is creating images of your rescue that will soon be seen by millions in our cities, when they open their magazines and newspapers to behold the wonder of how we, a few dedicated soldiers of the United States, rescued you against overwhelming odds, in the face of determined and brutal resistance by hordes and hordes of crazed enemy soldiers.
Sally Winter
What crazed enemy soldiers did you overcome? You mean Running Cloud, who cared for me? Or the other healers who treated me? As I look around, I see no enemy soldiers. Just soldiers from my own people, who seem determined to make of me a false idol of rescued femininity.
I have endured enough already. I would prefer not to become a false idol. To do so would not be good for me and it would not be good for our country. Tell me, soldier, that that is not what you intend.
Henry Jones, US Soldier
I have my orders, Corporal Winter. The stretcher will be brought in to carry you home in glory and triumph, just as soon as we’ve neutralized the withering fire of the massed Indian troops coming from that supply closet on the other side of your squalid cell.
Sally Winter
But there are no Indians in the closet.
Henry Jones, US Solder
What until you see your story told. There will be.
THE END