A.P. Greenwood - Writer, Author & Story Teller

Between 1872 and 1876, Nate Henderson lost his family, was enslaved and then accepted by the Lakota Sioux, made an unsuccessful attempt to provide the Sioux and its allies with a permanent solution for peace, and fell in love with a woman named Kimemela. He also collected enough gold from the streams of the Black Hills to make him one of richest men in Houston.

A Lakota Wish is the story of the years after those experiences, and specifically what happened when Nate and his wife returned to South Dakota to find his wife’s mother and other Lakota friends. Once there, they discovered how brutally harsh life was on an Indian reservation, and they became determined to fulfill the wishes of their loved ones living there, regardless of the extreme perils involved.

“Do you think they’re still alive?”

Otis was in the stables feeding the horses. Leola was walking to the bakery to buy a fresh loaf of bread, and then to the grocer for fresh vegetables, as she did every morning. Gracie was in the laundry doing her chores. And the three Henderson children, after strolling hand in hand, were at Mary Cameron’s home a quarter of a mile away for another day of school.

In the den, Nate and Kim were enjoying their quiet time together. It was a typical weekday morning. It was the hour before he went to his office at the hotel, and before she became involved in her household endeavors, which normally involved helping to prepare the meals when Leola returned, or sewing more clothes for herself or her children. They were reading the morning newspaper and talking. Their conversations, at those times, usually related to what each had planned for the day ahead, what social events they might have had on their schedule, and what they might need to buy for their home or for their children. While Nate and Kim often talked about the people they knew and loved in the Dakota Territory when they told their children bedtime stories, the only times related topics arose during those morning conversations were those few instances when there’d been an article in the newspaper about Indians or events that had occurred in the American frontier.

Nate glanced up from his newspaper and raised his eyebrows. It was a question he’d considered many times over the past few years. He recognized the sincerity in her eyes. His feelings, as they often were, were the same as hers. He sensed that his wife had just read one of those newspaper articles. His answer was brief.

Kim nodded to the newspaper in her lap and said, “It says that Indians are starving. It says that there’s much sadness and drunkenness on the reservations. The article was about reservations all over; in Oklahoma, Texas, and the Dakotas. The man who wrote the article said that something needs to be done.”

For maybe the thousandth time, Nate thought about how life would’ve been so much better for the Lakota Sioux had their Declaration of Independence -- the document he’d prepared in 1876 -- been recognized and accepted by the Unites States government. He thought about how his life, and how his wife’s life would’ve been so very different. And while he had that familiar thought, he also wondered how his and Kim’s life could’ve been better than it was now, as prominent citizens in a booming town in Texas.

He felt guilty. Life was very good for him and his family. No drunkenness. No starvation. No sadness, except when thoughts turned to loved ones far away.

Nate said, “It’s so unfair, Kim. And unfortunately, I don’t know of anything that can be done to help.”

Kim said, “I wish there was something we could do.”

Later, when Nate was working in the office that day, he recalled the words, “Do you think they’re still alive?” Not just once, but many times.

When Nate walked from his office to his warehouse, that was now filled with cotton and lumber, he heard his wife’s voice again in his head. He heard it over and over. And when he and Kim and his three children were sitting at the dinner table at half past six, those same words were haunting him. Later, at ten o’clock, as he lied next to his wife while she slept, for two hours Nate wondered what the answer to Kim’s question might be before he finally drifted off.