The Fourth Woman: Chapter 4

Considered very beautiful, the dark-haired, dark-eyed 35-year-old woman showed no signs of aging and was reputed to walk so smoothly that her feet seemed never to touch the ground. Winnescheika was a Shoshone medicine woman who settled among the Northern Paiutes of Lovelock in the fall of 1890.

“There is something bad with her,” came the grumblings of tribe members, “She floats as if she were a ghost – or a witch.”

Though many in the tribe swore that no footprint ever followed in her path, her abilities as a doctor soon won the grudging respect of the suspicious desert dwellers and even the Whites of the area, who sometimes sought her out to minister to their ailments. On occasion she was also called upon to treat cattle and horses since the area lacked veterinary services.

All was not well, however; too many of her patients only worsened and died under her care and illness and bad luck soon came to plague the families of those she treated. The same was the case with previously healthy horse whose stablemates had received her care.

Several dropped dead suddenly or stepped in gopher holes at full gallop, splintering a leg, making their destruction a humane necessity. Others responded with uncharacteristic slowness to the sudden appearance of a deadly rattlesnake, were bitten and ended their lives in agony.

Some of the deaths were perhaps understandable, given the remoteness of the area and the primitive treatments subscribed to by the local Indians, and some were probably attributable to mere chance or bad luck, but there were other unexplained occurrences that soon began to cause much unease among tribesmen. And as a medicine woman, Winnescheika knew well the risks associated with her occupation.

Strange lights were reported to be seen in near Winnescheika’s wickiup and eerie, unearthly screams and laughter were often times heard to echo across the sage covered desert. Spring crops also failed that year, hunters returned empty-handed and cows were found drained of milk on many mornings.

Strange stories about Winnescheika’s past soon began to circulate and it was whispered that she was in reality, a witch who used her healing powers only to gain access to victims. Rumor also had it that her treatment had been responsible for the deaths of five babies at a colony near Austin, eight Paiute men and women on the Stillwater Reservation in Churchill County and many horses wherever she resided for any length of time.

It was during the start of spring 1891, that tribal leaders met in secret and decided that Winnescheika must die.