Sign-Talker

by JAMES ALEXANDER Thom

  Don’t think of elsewhere when you’re hunting, he reminded himself.

  When he put those thoughts out, his senses rushed in. He heard the scurry of small animals and the flutter of wings in the woods down to his left. A crow might warn a deer that a hunter sat here. But no crow called. Drouillard heard delicate hoofsteps and cocked his flintlock slowly, with his palm over it to muffle the click.

  A doe emerged onto the beach, a stately silhouette against the shimmering river, ears an erect V, attention upwind, away from him.

  His lips moved silently in the prayer that thanked the deer for her life, for the flesh that feeds the Two-Leggeds, and promised to feed her descendants when his own carcass would decay in the earth to nourish plants that deer eat. She was only about fifty paces away, so he aimed just below the top of her shoulder.

  When the shot’s echo had rolled away along the river and the powder smoke drifted off, she was on her knees and beginning to topple sideways, her life spirit already going out.

  Megweshe, he thanked the Keeper of the Game. He heard the soldiers whoop. They knew by now he never wasted a shot, and they expected meat. They had no suspicion that the meat they ate had been sanctified by the prayer of a man they probably considered a savage heathen.

  Drouillard reloaded his rifle, then went down the riverbank to butcher the doe. He slit open the abdomen and pulled out the guts. Reaching in and forward, he closed his hand around the hot heart and pulled it out. He sheathed his steel knife and took from his pouch a flint blade with no handle. It was sharp as a razor, and with it he sliced out a strip of heart muscle. He chewed it well.

  Akowa, the Doe, carried in her heart the spirit of health and the wisdom to perceive the coming of evil, whatever its disguise. He ate of her heart to receive these gifts, which he would need.

  In the flickering light of the dying campfire, a soldier named Potts was sitting up in his blanket, filling a clay pipe. His bedroll was closest to Drouillard’s. The other soldiers, except the sentry down by the rowboat, were asleep, or seemed to be, their feet toward the fire. The Cumberland’s swift water burbled and trickled, silvered by a half moon. The tethered boat rubbed and bumped woodenly against the tree roots on the riverbank, and the treetops were full of moonlight and intense star points. Drouillard was ready for sleep, his head on his knapsack, but he could feel Potts wanting to talk. Most of the soldiers said hardly anything to Drouillard, even though he was feeding and leading them. They were uneasy with an Indian in their midst, so uneasy that they never suggested he stand guard, which was fine with him.

  Drouillard tried to ignore Potts, but the soldier cleared his throat softly, once, then again, so Drouillard sighed, sat up in his blanket and looked at him. Potts was round-faced, fair-haired, with a Dutchy sort of accent. He leaned toward the fire, breath clouding in the cold. He put some sticks on the fire.

  Then he offered his pipe to Drouillard. That was a surprise. Drouillard took it with a nod, picked a twig out of the fire and lit the tobacco. It was harsh, dry army tobacco, but he blew a plume of smoke toward the sky to invite the Creator to hear whatever they were going to talk about. Then he turned the stem toward the four winds one by one, acknowledging all the Old Spirits. Then he touched the pipe stem to the earth and gave the pipe back to Potts with a nod. Potts had watched the ritual with interest. He took two puffs, gazed at the campfire a moment, and said, “You going west wit’ us, scout?”

  “Still thinking.”

  “Yah? Hope you come.”

  “Why’s that?”

  “Mmm. Good man. And, I like having an Indian wit’ us.”

  “Why so?”

  They were both speaking in murmurs. Potts shrugged and tilted his head, as if to think better. “Well … lots of Indians out t’ere, I s’pose? They might, mmm, trust us better, you along?”

  “Could make ’em more sly. Most Indians only trust their own.”

  “Huh!” Potts was quiet, then said, “Wonder how many tribes there are out t’ere.”

  “Scared?”

  Potts leaned closer and whispered. “Nah. Reed is, though. He frets so much about it, he’s causing me nightmares.”

  “God damn you, Potts.” The voice came from beyond the fire. “I ain’t scared. Just curious about Indians. Damned if I ever talk t’ you about anything again!” Reed was up on an elbow, glaring. “Just you shut up, or—”

  Potts stiffened and scowled in that direction. “Don’ tell me to shut up, you damnt scaredy carbuncle.”

  A deeper voice spoke from beyond the fire. “Reed, shut up and get up. Time you relieve Howard on watch.” It was the corporal, Warfington.

  Reed sighed and grunted and began to stir. Soon he had his coat and hat and shoes on, and with an ugly glare at Potts he trudged out of the fireglow toward the sentry post with his firearm in the crook of his arm and his blanket over his shoulder. Drouillard heard him stop and piss on the ground, farting defiance at the corporal’s authority. After a while the other sentry, Private Howard, shambled in and got down into his bedroll without even warming himself at the fire or saying a word.

  Drouillard had been thinking of what Potts said about his nightmares. Dreams were messages, and he had been having one himself since the day he met Captain Lewis. It was of a flint blade slicing flesh, and blood flowing down bare arms.

  When everybody seemed settled and sleep-breathing again, he leaned toward Potts and murmured: “What were your bad dreams? Remember?”

  Potts’s eyes widened and he blew out through his lips and passed the pipe back to Drouillard, nodding. “Of me getting shot and cut up by Indians. Lot of ’em. Too many to fight.”

  Drouillard shivered. Such dreams were too much alike. Maybe they were sharing a dream, as people sometimes do when they camp together with wilderness all around. Suddenly a barred owl screamed, close enough that Potts jumped and some of the soldiers started in their sleep. Then it queried, Hook? Hook? Hook hook haw hooo awww! And soon another replied from far upriver.

  Now Potts was looking at Drouillard with meaningful intensity.

  “What, Potts?”

  “Uh … well … those hooters. Cherokee, down by South West Post, act scared of ’em. You?”

  Drouillard gave him back the pipe. To most tribes, Meendagaw, the Owl, was a death messenger. To the Shawnees it was a little different, an adviser. It was something to think on, that it had come just then. He laid back, pulled up his blanket, and tried to ease Potts with a nod. “Cherokees are superstitious savages,” he said, doing his best to look serious.

  And then he closed his eyes and went to sleep listening to the meendagaws talking.

  “Oh God Jesus Jesus Jesus!” Private Hall cried in a quaking voice. “I can’t even stand to watch this!”

  Drouillard, stripped to the skin, ignored the soldier as he stepped off the riverbank and waded in, breaking the thin skim of ice as he went. At waist depth he threw himself horizontal and swam out to the middle of the river where the faster current had kept ice from forming. His heart pounded and he gasped for every breath, but the cold was thrilling and his inner fire burned and made him feel stronger. He swam back through the ice he had broken and waded ashore. There, he stood and sluiced the water off his pale brown skin with the edges of his hands, and then he was still a moment, saying, without speaking, his going-to-the-water prayer.

  Master of Life, here I am making myself clean so I will not offend and drive off the game with man-smell.

  Master of Life, here I am alive because you gave me a piece of Kilswa the Sun to warm me from inside. Megweshe.

  Weshemoneto. Weshecatweloo. Master of Life, let us be strong.

  The soldiers of course thought he was crazy. He did this every morning. He had, every morning since he was a boy, except when the ice was too thick to break. Sometimes it made his bones ache.

  These soldiers never bathed, or maybe they did now and then in the summer. Half of them said they couldn’t swim. Maybe that was why they were afraid to bathe. Breath clouding,
he stood till his skin was dry and then he put on his clothes, while the soldiers shook their heads. They didn’t understand that he washed off his man-smell so he could hunt well and keep feeding them.

  Cape Girardeau

  December 20, 1803

  Louis Lorimier looked at his nephew and shook his head, his lips stretched in that grin of his that looked like a yellow-toothed snarl. “Tu, avec soldats américains?”

  “Oui, mon oncle.” He explained his mission to escort the soldiers to the American captains. He had left the men camped at the river and come up to the trading post. He talked about the captains and about their offer that he join the expedition. The old trader smoked a pipe and listened. He had pulled his long queue of black hair forward over his left shoulder, as was his habit, and was drawing the braid absently through his left hand. He was vain about his knee-length hair, which he sometimes used as a quirt when riding, or a fly-whisk in summer. Outside a window, men were standing in the cold, arguing loudly over the worth of horses they were trading.

  “The capitaine, Lewis, visited me,” Lorimier said. “He was clever, I think, in not bringing the one called Clark. It might have been difficult for us to be so hospitable, had he come. As it was, we found Monsieur Lewis quite amiable, especially after he had drained off as much of my brandy as I would have drunk in a week. He was rather too much attentive to Agatha, whom he referred to as a ‘lovely nymphet’—then apologized.” Lorimier shook his head again, musing. “But I am glad he came by. I now perceive President Jefferson’s purchase of the territory in a more favorable light. It will be troublesome, of course. But instead of opening it up for squatters to pour in, as I feared, they seem to favor trade with the natives. Less bad.”

  “Or so the captain said to you.”

  “I believe he meant it,” Lorimier said. “In truth, the capitaine made hints of a good prospect for me when their flag flies here. Hinting that I am well situated perhaps to become an agent for the Indians.”

  Drouillard sat in astonishment. He could remember from childhood the sight of this man, descendant of French marquises, setting out in war paint and feathers to raid American settlements in Kentucky, less than twenty-five years ago. And now he was speaking of becoming an agent for them! Obviously his uncle was not going to condemn him for consorting with the enemy. Lorimier had long been disappointed with his nephew for running away from the Black Robes and becoming a hunter in the woods instead of someone who could write and figure and be helpful in trade. Drouillard had been dreading his uncle’s censure, but Lorimier had obviously been swayed by Lewis’s talk. The old man continued:

  “He offered to send Guillaume and Louis to army officer school.”

  Those two were Lorimier’s sons. Drouillard said, “Officer school?”

  “A place called West Point, in the state of New York, where they will educate officers for their army. It would be amusing, would it not, for them to make officers of the sons of their old enemy Lorimier? Ha ha! And it will give the Lorimier name much prestige in this new part of their country.”

  Drouillard could see that Captain Lewis had caught his uncle like a fish on a hook baited with flattery and promises. Lorimier said now, “As for you, neveu: they want you to go with them. Will you?”

  “I am still studying on it. I would not even think of it but that I need money for Angelique and her family. But I do think of it.”

  “To be early in a place is a great advantage,” Lorimier said. “If you go and learn that country, we will all profit by it.”

  “I came for your counsel about it, mon oncle. Thank you.”

  “Then you will be going with them?”

  “I still need counsel from others,” he said.

  “Eh bien. Will you stay for supper with our family?”

  “I have some soldiers to take care of. And before I go, I must counsel with ni geah.”

  Lorimier raised his eyebrows and said, “Ah. Mais oui.”

  He walked out of Lorimier’s compound and climbed the small hillock where the Indian graves were, enclosed by a fence of cedar slats. The graves were little mounds with wooden markers, some grayed by years of weathering. Under a huge, fan-shaped elm he stopped, and gazed down at a plain cedar slab. Into it was carved the name ASOONDEQUIS. He leaned his rifle against the elm and crossed himself as the Black Robes had taught him. Though he had come to hate them and all they had taught him and done to him, his mother had cautioned him that they might be right about their god, and it was good to honor all gods, so while he was here with her he would make the gesture.

  He stood with his eyes closed and remembered his mother’s face, the steady, bold eyes, the vermilion dot on each cheekbone. Then he opened his eyes, loosened the drawstring of his tobacco bag and picked out some flaked leaf. He walked around the grave, crumbling tobacco at the head, sides, and foot. Then he stood in the cold by the marker for a long while, remembering, sometimes looking east toward the Mississippi and into the sky beyond, back toward their Ohio homeland.

  Because she was an Indian, her marriage to his father had not meant anything in the eyes of the Christians, and after the drunkard abandoned her to go and marry a respectable Catholic Frenchwoman in Ontario, Asoondequis had stayed with her relatives in Kishkalwa’s band near Lorimier’s store. They had helped her raise her son, first in Ohio, then here in the West. Here she had lived out the rest of her life on the fringe of the Indian trade, and had let Lorimier send him to the mission where he was forbidden to speak Shawnee. Then something had happened at the school, something Drouillard remembered only in dark images, in a room like a box, the murmuring voice of the man in black cloth, some caresses that had seemed comforting at first. Then being held and struggling, and pain and shame. He ran away, and his mother hid him and refused to let Lorimier send him back to the school. From then on it had been all Shawnee teaching, the prayer smoke, the Spirit Helper quest, the eagle leading him even into the sky, the strawberries in spring, the Green Corn ceremony with a drum beating and a cedar wood fire in the center. Twice she had taken him on journeys back to the Ohio country to visit relatives who had not come with Kishkalwa and Lorimier to the Mississippi. On those journeys, she had taken him still farther, to Ontario, where he had been allowed to stay awhile with his father’s new French family. The children had doted on him, their Indian brother. His father as usual had smelled of liquor, but was respectable and made a good living, and was good to his Indian son. Then Asoondequis had brought him back here where Lorimier’s children were his family. His mother had not married again. She had not been dead long; her grave marker was hardly turning gray yet from weather. She had not been gone long when he got the letter that his father was dead.

  “Eh, ni geah,” he murmured. “Ma mère forte et triste.”

  He picked up his rifle and walked down out of the graveyard. He had no idea whether he would ever be able to come back here. Her counsel to him was not apparent yet.

  Riviere à Dubois

  December 22, 1803

  Drouillard led the column of soldiers and packhorses up the east bank of the Mississippi in a lashing sleet storm to Captain Clark’s winter camp, here opposite the Missouri’s mouth. The camp was a cluster of half-finished log huts. On the bank of the Riviere à Dubois, the big keelboat sat propped on wedges, two smaller boats nearby.

  Captain Clark’s cabin was smoky inside, with tangy smells of new-hewn oak. The rafters were roofed over with canvas. The captain’s clothes were muddy and he looked very tired. He sent Corporal Warfington out with the first sergeant, Charles Floyd, to assign the arrivals to shelter and give them coffee, and said he would come and inspect them within an hour. He coughed often into a handkerchief. He invited Drouillard to have a dram, which the black servant poured for him. The servant especially seemed pleased to see him; the man hummed and smiled and draped Drouillard’s damp blanket on a chair near the fire. Captain Clark looked at some mail that Drouillard had handed him from inside his tunic. The letters were limp with dampness.
/>   Cahokia, December 17th 1803

  Dear Captain,

  Drewyer arrived here last evening from Tennessee with eight men. I do not know how they may uncover on experiment but I am a little disappointed in finding them not possessed of more of the requisite qualifications, there is not a hunter among them. I send you by Drewyer your cloaths portmanteau and a letter which I received from St. Louis for you and which did not reach me until an hour after Floyd had set out. Drewyer and myself have made no positive bargain, I have offered him 25.$ pr. month as long as he may chuise to continue with us … I shall be obliged to go by St. Louis, but will be with you as soon as possible.

  Adieu, and believe sincerely

  Your friend & obt servt.

  M. LEWIS

  Drouillard sat forward, rubbing his cold hands before the fire. The fireplace was so new its clay was still damp. His hands stung and prickled in the fire heat. Captain Clark brought a cup of whiskey to his table, sat down and said, “Welcome to Camp Wood, and thank you for a hard task done well. No troubles along the way, I take it?”

  “No, sir. Hard weather. A little trouble finding out where you and Cap’n Lewis went from Massac.”

  “You had time to get acquainted with the Tennessee soldiers. What d’ye make of them?”

  He had expected that. Captain Lewis had asked him the same question, and had gotten the same answer: “Sir, I only delivered them. I would not judge people for you.”

  “Let me put it this way: Would you want to have to count on ’em?”

  “Not to feed me, Cap’n. They’re no hunters. Some of ’em do talk amusing. They have many words for misery. And for merde.”

  “Meaning, ah, shit?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  The captain half smiled and shook his head slowly. “Well, since you don’t care to speak bad of folks, tell me what’s good about ’em.”