Legacy provides lessons
Above: B.J. Stepp talks about his life as a firefighter in Elk City. Right: Stepp talks about one of his paintings at his mother's home in Elk City.
Legacy provides lessons

ELK CITY — B.J. Stepp is chased by the demons of alcoholism. Not long ago those demons pushed him to the edge, somewhere between this world and the next.

Stepp equates his journey to that of his own people, the Southern Cheyenne, who can be found scattered across Oklahoma's western plains in gritty towns like Hammon, Seiling, Canton, Watonga and Geary. Relatively speaking, they, too, were pushed to the edge not long ago in epic historical events in which names alone evoke images of massacre — Sand Creek (1864) and the Washita River (1868).

Stepp, like his fellow Southern Cheyenne, is a direct descendant of those who survived the bloodshed.

Now, in the battle against his own addiction, Stepp clings to that proud mantle of survivor.

"Those people hated us and tried to kill us,” said Stepp, 31, of Elk City. "They tried to exterminate us ...

"But they didn't.”

Stepp's words are not laced with anger, but rather the soft introspection of a young man trying to find his way in life. He philosophizes about his tribe's past and present in search of his own future, often asking more questions than he can ever find answers for.

He is a father, newlywed, volunteer firefighter, artist and recovering alcoholic. Mostly, he considers himself a student of life and the traditional ways of his people.

Stepp finds inspiration in even his tribe's darkest hours. For in the darkness, he envisions the light of a people who overcame tragedy and adversity.

Stepp prays he lives up to the legacy of his ancestors.

Only a handful of Cheyenne elders remember the old camp now. They called it "White Shield Camp” after Chief White Shield, who survived the Washita massacre.

On the eve of the attack, White Shield reportedly had a vision of a wounded wolf mourning its pups that had been killed or scattered to the winds by a powerful enemy. The vision prompted White Shield to ask Chief Black Kettle to move the village.

His request was ignored.

By the 1930s, White Shield and about 30 families lived in close proximity on the north side of the Washita River near present-day Hammon. By then, buffalo-hide tepees had been replaced by boxed-framed dwellings covered with canvas, but the traditional ways remained intact.

Christine Starr, Stepp's great-aunt, remembers the camp vividly and the people who lived there fondly.

"Peaceful people,” said Starr, 76, of Hammon, and still an active beader despite the loss of one eye. "They liked to share. They didn't go out for themselves. They always gave whatever they had.”

Starr suspects the unconditional love she witnessed as a child was fostered, in part, by the camp's shared history.

"Those people,” Starr emphasized, "they were the families who were at Washita.”

In 1868, Lt. Col. George Armstrong Custer led a surprise attack on their Cheyenne village with the U.S. 7th Cavalry on the banks of the Washita River. The dawn attack occurred near the present-day town of Cheyenne and ended with the deaths of an estimated 100 Cheyenne men, women, and children.

Those people were among the same family bands attacked four years earlier in Colorado Territory by territorial volunteers on the banks of Sand Creek. In that engagement, between 150 and 200 Cheyenne people are estimated to have been killed.

Today, the stories of Sand Creek and the Washita survive thanks to Cheyenne elders like Emma Hart, another of Stepp's great-aunts on his mother's, Leona, side of the family. Hart, now 95, has often shared the story of her grandmother, White Buffalo Woman, who was 15 when she saw Custer's troops kill her people at Washita.

White Buffalo Woman fled to safety that fateful morning with her mother, Red Quilt Woman.

"Grandmother told me as they were running, all of a sudden my great-great grandmother fell,” Hart once recounted during a 2000 interview with The Oklahoman. "She said, ‘Run on. I've been hit. Go and hide and save yourself.' So she hid in the water underneath the edge of the river bank.

"Later on she learned that her mother had not been killed. The bullet never penetrated the buffalo robe she had, but the force had knocked her down. She was taken prisoner.”

The emotional impact of the story never quite hit Hart until the day she asked her mother why her grandmother went to bed each night wearing her moccasins.

"My mother told me why,” Hart continued. "She said grandma was always afraid she would have to get up in the middle of the night and run.”

B.J. Stepp shares his failures as freely as his successes. One defining moment that has remained with him is the time his mother tried to teach him to pray in Cheyenne.

"You can almost see it now, where the newer generation peeled away from the older one,” Stepp said. "Now I feel like if I had learned those older ways back then I would have been better prepared to fight off those things that have tried to tear me down.”

That lesson came the hard way.

By the time he was 15, Stepp had taken his first swig of beer. He was hooked.

The party scene led him to drugs.

"First weed. Then coke, crank, and meth,” Stepp said. "You name it. One just kind of led to the other.”

In 2002, Stepp hit bottom. He was arrested on his third DUI. A judge ordered him into a 30-day rehabilitation program at Woodward.

Before his check-in, he gathered with Indian elders for a spiritual peyote meeting. He has forsaken alcohol and drugs since.

"I was that close to ending up in prison; from losing everything,” said Stepp, holding his fingers an inch apart. "At that moment I realized I had to straighten out my life. I don't want my daughter growing up, wondering who her father was.

"I knew things had to change.”

Stepp has been fighting wildfires since he was 18. He first became smitten with the endeavor as a teenager watching older tribal members depart for wildfires nationwide.

Since then, Stepp and 19 other crew members have been called to major wildfires in places such as Idaho, California, Nevada and North Carolina. Stepp has eased into the role of a respected veteran on the crew, both for his experience and his strength.

He stands 6 feet 5 inches tall.

"We usually put him up front with the younger ones to build fire breaks because of his size and strength,” said Marlin Orange, 53, the crew's coordinator.

Stepp clings to everything positive in his world — his 6-year-old daughter, Nykesha, who lives in Arizona; his newlywed wife, Lisa; his full-time job; and volunteer duties as a firefighter. He also recently rediscovered his passion for painting, a gift he discovered as a youngster.

At the center of everything Stepp said he has found God and the echoes of his ancestors.

"When I pray, I pray for everyone,” Stepp said. "That's how the older ones did it. They even prayed for their enemies.

"I'll try not to let them down. If I trip, I'll get back up and keep going no matter what.”

---

Leave a Comment

News Photo Galleriesview all