Alice’s Trading Post

Born in the 1860s along the Columbia River, Oregon Territory, Army Girl is the daughter of a Klickitat woman, Molly, and an absentee white father. Army Girl’s stepfather, Chub, a white trapper, raises her to shoot straight, survive in the wild, and speak Plains Indian Sign Language. When hard times hit, Molly and Chub move east to Fort Benton, MT, where they trade Army Girl to an old trapper, Mr. McFadden, who in turn sends her to a bordello to learn about sex. She eventually makes an escape to the Plains with a handsome man named Lone Wolf, whom she later marries. (He and the setting are described in the book as “Sioux,” a French exonym for the Oceti Sakowin Great Plains tribal system.) Lone Wolf gives Army Girl the name Sweet Medicine Woman, and she begins a new life far away from Molly, Chub, and Mr. McFadden—a life that requires all the skills Chub taught her.