This poem is a true account of  an incident involving my late husband's Grandmother, Emma Duncan. His father, Robert Leonard Duncan, was the infant that was abducted.   (It appears in  my book, "Russell Country" under the name, FURY.)

                  
                   INDIAN WOMEN MOVING CAMP by Charles M. Russell


EMPTY-CRADLE SAD

She lovingly beheld her child…
so tender, pink, and sweet.
Her nine-month journey at an end,
Emma felt complete.
For years, she’d waited for him.
Every night she’d pray
that God would make her fertile…
that she’d have a child one day.
Emma thought a women’s place
was in that place called home;
that without a child around her,
she’d always feel alone.

For years, though she was grateful
for the loving man she had,
deep inside, the women there
was “empty-cradle sad”.
And when at last, she held her child
and clutched him to her breast,
she thought that God was good to her….
that she’d been doubly blest.
Overhead a V of geese
were winging northward bound.
Down below, with seeds and hoe,
Emma sowed the garden ground.
She placed her cradled infant
beneath a pine with care;
hoping, thus, to shield his eyes
from the sun’s bright glare.
Now as she hoed her garden,
some motion caught her eye.
She saw a squaw pick up her child,
then swiftly gallop by.

A group of Crows were winding past
along the Dry Creek trail.
They turned around on hearing
Emma’s anguished wail.
She flew just like the geese above,
vaulting fence and streams.
Across the range, the air was wracked
with Emma’s wrenching screams.

Usually so gentle,
she was vicious…savage…wild.
She ran and caught the fleeing squaw;
then grabbed her squalling child.
Backing off, the bleeding squaw
fought off a crazed assault;
then lifted up a bloody claw
to urge her foe to halt.
Emma paused; then watched the squaw
ride away alone;
the way she came, was how she left….
without a child…alone.
Forgive the Squaw? Impossible!
She knew she never would…
but deep inside, the women there
most surely understood.

Bette Wolf Duncan
©2000