Trapping a Wild Soul
(Chapter 3)
Angelique took out her cell phone and leaned back in the Adirondack chair. She sighed. A troubled look crossed her face as she settled into her story. Her people spoke in many different tones depending on the circumstances. Traditional stories were told with a specific cadence and were carefully memorized from thousands of repetitions. Her teaching stories often began with the phrase, “your people..” When she told the stories of other nations, the four-legged, the winged, standing ones, her voice always sounded far away. Her healing stories were sung in a piercingly clear tone.
Angelique had taught her that stories are a form of medicine. This was not one of those kinds of stories. This story, Johanna could tell, rocked her friend to her very soul. Johanna became very quiet, her body very still.
“Early this morning I was driving along the mountain road. The sun was just up when I came around the curve by the Ice Mine Cut. You know, the place you used to call the rock fall. A small car had driven off the road, like it just didn’t straighten in time from the steep curve. It looked like an accident so I slowed down.”
She took a long sip of her iced tea and slowly continued.
“There was a pickup truck pulled halfway off the road and a man was standing by the driver side door of the disabled car. I thought he had stopped to help. But he had a gun in his hand. He fired it.“
She paused.
“He started to point it at the back seat of the car and that’s when he saw me. He holstered his gun and walked quickly to his truck. But I snapped this picture with my cell phone first.”
She leaned forward and showed Johanna a photo of a man looking directly at Angelique. He was frozen by the camera’s view as he put his gun in a shoulder holster. Beside the truck was a small car facing the guardrail sideways. The photo was taken from a distance but when Johanna zoomed in she could clearly see both license plates and the man’s face.
Johanna waited as Angelique leaned back in the chair.
“As he drove away, I ran over to the car. The driver had been shot in the head. A woman. She was clearly dead. There was a blood-spattered child in the back seat, staring ahead blankly. She was alive. I grabbed her out of the back seat and ran back to my truck. I had to get out of there in case he decided to come back. I turned around and drove up the Hyner Run just to get off the main road as soon as I could.”
Johanna felt her chest tighten.
Angelique continued.
“I asked the girl if the woman in the car was her mother. She said, no. She said, my mother sold me to that lady.”
Angelique stopped, words choked off.
“Trafficked…” Johanna whispered.
Her friend nodded.
“We cannot go to the police,” said Angelique. “We cannot put this child at further risk. Social services will take her and they will give her back to her mother.”
“Who will sell her again. She needs medical attention, Angelique. Who knows what may have already happened to her. How old is she?”
“I would say about ten or eleven years old. Johanna, it has already happened to her. We have seen this before. Too many times.”
Angelique was the retired director of an agency that offered shelter, resources and counseling to battered women and survivors of incest and sexual assault. Johanna had worked with her years ago as a staff therapist. Both were mandated reporters for children and elders who had disclosed abuse.
“We have seen how this ends up,” Angelique continued. “Children are returned to the perpetrators. We have stood together in courtrooms with children whose lives had been ruined and watched judges rule their parents have a right to see and be with their children. These children learn the hard way never speak of what is happening to them to anyone ever again.”
“We can save this one,” said Angelique softly.
“There may be a trafficking ring involved. The police must be brought in.”
“You are forgetting, this is no longer about the trafficker. She is dead. A man killed her and wants to kill this child too. If the police are involved there is no way to assure her safety. You know this as well as I do, Netuksq.”
Angelique’s use of her special name, found its mark in Johanna’s heart. “Where is she?”
“She is safe. I cannot tell you unless you promise to help in a certain way. It may be dangerous. It may cost you your clinical license.”
“This child has no one,” Johanna said. “No one but us. I am in. No matter the cost.”
“Thank you, Netuksq. Spirit is in charge here. You are needed for your gifts. Not your spiritual gifts. What is needed is the clinical skills of a white woman, whose assessments count for something. I need you to come and be a witness to her medical exam. You have done this in the past at the agency. You have written the notes. You have signed the forms. It is your clinical skills and the respect of your license that we need.”
“That can be done at a hospital.”
“We can’t bring her there. No protection.”
“Social services and the police will be called, I get it. But who? How can such an exam be done?”
“A tribal doctor who is also a medicine person has been called. The child is not a member of the tribe nor was she harmed on tribal lands, so there is no jurisdiction. But the evidence, if any, can be stored at the tribal medical center. Safely. Your witnessing of the exam gives it credence in a US court later if necessary.”
“What has this child said, about what has happened to her?”
“Nothing. Nothing at all. After she said her mother sold her, she stopped talking completely. “
“Selectively mute?”
“I believe so.”
“I will do whatever you think is best Angelique. Do you need me to go with you now?”
“Yes, if you can. I can take you there and bring you back later when the exam is done.”
“Let me tell Scott I need to go with you. He will understand.”
The tall woman rose from the Adirondack chair. The wind lifted her hair from her shoulders and for a moment spread it like dark wings behind her, fringed with a golden light from the setting sun.
“Johanna, this child has become a wild soul. We need to trap her spirit, guard it and return it to her when she is safe again.”
Johanna nodded. She saw a shadow pass over her friend’s face, darkening her features. She felt Angelique’s shock and sadness engulf her own spirit. She could not count the number of times they had fought this same battle.
A half hour later, Angelique drove away with Johanna riding shotgun.
