Sign-Talker

by JAMES ALEXANDER Thom

  Drouillard was standing with Captain Lewis near the hatch of the after cabin. The clouds of blown sand now and then fully blanked Field from their view. The sand was so fine and so full of dried riverbottom dirt that it stuck to their faces, their clothes, even to the sides and bulkhead of the vessel. Lewis grinned, blinking, and glanced at Drouillard. “Hard luck, George. I always reckoned it’d be you, or me, getting the honor of bagging our first buffalo!”

  “Eh, Field’s welcome to the honor, sir. I got my first one when I was about twelve.”

  “Oh?” Lewis squinted straight into his eyes, as if to gauge whether he was telling the truth. “Really!” Then he cupped his hands around his mouth, as much to keep sand out as to project his voice into the wind, and shouted to Field, “Good man! Go on up! We’ll come ashore for it when we get there!” Field responded with a wave and his hat blew off. Drouillard hoped he’d be able to find it in this sandstorm. The captain shouted in the wind to the men straining on their set-poles, “Hear that? Reubin Field’s shot us our first buffalo!” The men gave a cheer.

  Drouillard said, “That’s Joe, sir. Reubin’s out with the horses.”

  “Right—Joseph,” Lewis mumbled. Drouillard was troubled, as he often was by the captain’s little slips. Lewis was a conscientious commander, careful for the safety and welfare of his men, but sometimes he seemed hardly to know them. He could glance at a soldier and remember what he was good at or poor at, but often didn’t seem to know his name, after all these months on the same boat. Drouillard felt that as intense a presence as Lewis was, he wasn’t all here. He was like something in heedless passage from far behind to far ahead.

  It was disturbing to think of an arrow-spirit like Lewis’s aiming at a round, seething spirit-swarm like the haunted hill. And it seemed to Drouillard that this storm of blinding, howling, clinging dust and sand was a warning against going there.

  August 25, 1804

  On the vast plain under an oppressive yellow haze, the Bad Spirit hill was visible from miles away, the only high place within all the horizons, and dark as if charred. It was a hill standing where no hill should be standing, and although it appeared bald, it reminded Drouillard of the great mound beside the Mississippi, which had been covered with trees. He was walking ahead and off the left flank of the file of seven men who followed the captains. There had been eight, but one had been sent to take Captain Lewis’s black dog back to the river after it collapsed panting in the heat. The slave York looked as if he too would collapse, but he kept trudging along behind his master, clothes sodden with sweat, gun over his shoulder, chest heaving. Ahead on the other flank was Colter, striding alert even in the great heat. Captain Clark with his long legs and deep chest was a great walker too, and though drenched with sweat, he was striding along through the parched grass with ease.

  It was Captain Lewis whom Drouillard watched from the edge of his eye. With every step he seemed to be losing strength. Perhaps that was because of the poison he had taken from the earth, or the medicine he had taken for the poison, but perhaps it was something beyond that. Drouillard kept hoping to see him stop and give up and turn back. But Lewis staggered on, obviously determined to investigate the Bad Spirit hill.

  It was hard to guess distance on this featureless plain, but at what seemed about a league from the hill, Drouillard began to feel its force. It was like a prickling, hot pressure building in front of him. It was not the wind; it had nothing to do with the wind, which was blowing on him from his left. It was like a thickening and heating of the air between him and the hill, telling him not to come closer.

  They moved on, the pressure growing. Blackbirds and larks rose from the grass or flew to and fro across their path in ever-increasing numbers. Drouillard thought he heard, under the sounds of the birds’ cries and wing beats, faint, shrill voices, as if hundreds of angry women were scolding from the hill. They grew louder and louder. He looked over to the column. Lewis was still stumbling onward, the others were gasping and coming along, and no one seemed to be noticing the voices.

  At about a mile from the mound he could see a cloud of what appeared to be black smoke leaning off the top, and heard Colter call out about it. Soon Drouillard saw that the cloud was not smoke, but hovering, swirling birds, the birds Monsieur Dorion had spoken of.

  A few yards from where the base of the mound rose abruptly from the sloping plain, rocks lay amid the grasses. The prickling sensations on his breast and face were now intensely sharp and stinging. Suddenly the hot pressure grew cold. The shrilling voices were nearly drowning out the twitter of the birds. The stings now were not just on the front of him, but penetrating him. He stopped. He would go no farther. The captains were talking, the men were talking, milling about, starting to make their way up the slope. Their voices were loud and clear but he could not understand any of their words.

  He prayed a wordless prayer of apology, turning in a circle and crumbling tobacco all around his feet. He saw York sink to the ground at the base of the hill and sit mopping his brow on his sleeves. He saw the captains climbing the slope, he saw Captain Clark glancing back down and calling something, his name probably, Drouillard thought, but the voice was an incomprehensible, quavering bellow that instantly faded away and was replaced by bird twitterings and the scolding of tiny, savage voices. The captains and the soldiers climbed on up and up. Drouillard saw Colter stop and look down at him strangely, then turn and go on up through the swarm of angry spirits. The spirits were like hornets swirling around Drouillard, held off only by his circle of tobacco, and he understood perfectly well that he was not to go onto this hill, but these whitemen seemed impervious, even oblivious, to them.

  Drouillard stepped backward and felt the pressure lighten. Another step and it was less. Understanding, he turned and walked quickly away from the mound. At a hundred paces the painful swarming had eased so much that he could stop and stand comfortably. The spirits now knew that he understood them and would stay off the hill. He pinched some more dry tobacco from his pouch and cast it into the wind. He heard York’s voice calling his name and asking, “What you doin’, man?” He just waved away the question and walked another forty or fifty paces away from the hill, growing still more comfortable. Looking up, he watched the whitemen casually wandering atop the hill, examining things and talking or gazing into the distances. He saw Captain Clark walk along the ridge of the mound toward the east end where the birds were still swarming. Something told Drouillard he should make an offering circle around the base of the hill, so he set off at a swift trot. The mound was long and narrow. At each end and side he sprinkled a little tobacco. Half a mile of running brought him around, back to where York still sat bewildered on the ground. Drouillard was hot and the run had made him very thirsty. “Mist’ Droor, you sure strange!” York exclaimed. “Run in this heat? Ooooh!”

  “Eh so? Those whitemen are stranger. Climbing a hundred-foot hill in the heat.”

  “Oh, they jus’ crazy. You strange.”

  Drouillard waited at the edge of the shrilling and swarming until the whitemen came down. They seemed to be all right, just desperately thirsty. It seemed that if they didn’t believe in something, they were impervious to it. But Drouillard did wonder if they would be changed after this.

  25th August, Satturday 1804

  … The surrounding Plains is open void of Timber: hence the wind from whatever quarter drives with unusial force against this hill; the insects of various kinds are thus driven to the mound by the force of the wind, or fly to its Leward Side for Shelter: the Small Birds whoes food they are, Consequently resort in great numbers to this place in Surch of them …

  One evidence which the Inds Give for believeing this place to be the residence of Some unusial Spirits is a large assemblage of Birds about this Mound—is in my opinion a Suffient proof to produce in the Savage mind a Confident belief … from the top of this mound we beheld a most butifull landscape; Numerous herds of buffalow were Seen feeding … we set the Praries on fire as a Sign
al for the Soues to Come to the river.

  William Clark, Journals

  August 27, 1804

  Drouillard had walked forty miles alone over the moonlit plains looking for young Private Shannon and two horses. He hadn’t seen a trace of the man. It had been a night bright enough to track by. Now before dawn the morning star came up, uncommonly brilliant. The shallow Missouri glimmered below, braiding among sandbars. It had been a long night of beautiful solitude and no sound but wind, water, the rustle of small scurrying animals, his own moccasins whispering in the prairie grass.

  He didn’t think Shannon had deserted. He was a well-liked, agreeable lad, about nineteen, not very experienced. He had just got lost hunting.

  When Drouillard came in without him, the captains sent Joe Field and John Shields out to continue the search, and Drouillard slept the morning away in the cabin of the moving keelboat, which the soldiers were pulling through the shallows much of the time with a long rope of braided elk hide. He would half waken to the groans and bumps and voices, then fall back into deep sleep. He dreamed of a black eagle high in a tree that stood above a mist like clouds.

  He woke to a shout in the afternoon: “Hey! Indian swimmin’ over! Lookee! Two more!” “Sioux at last!” Clark cried. “That last prairie burn got their attention! Hey! Red boat, bring Dorion up!”

  August 30, 1804

  His heart pounded with the drum, and when the Sioux warriors trilled, his own voice broke out of him in his people’s war cry, which he had never uttered in battle. The soldiers turned and looked at him, eyes big in the firelight with astonishment. He was as startled as they at his outcry.

  The dancers’ chattering rattles sent wave after wave of shivers through him. He had never in his adult life been so stirred.

  There were about seventy warriors and boys here, so the captains had warned the men to be on guard for any trouble, even though these were Dorion’s people—Yankton Sioux, who called themselves Dahkotah, or Allies—and were friendly. They were erect, sinewy, sharp-eyed and proud. Their chiefs were Shaking Hand, White Crane, and Half Man. Only a few had guns, cheap, rusty trade muskets; most were armed with bows, lances, clubs, hatchets, and knives. The soldiers’ fine rifles would not be much advantage if any trouble broke out in the crowd; it would all be face-to-face, hand-to-hand cutting and bludgeoning, and the soldiers were far outnumbered. The only sense of security lay in old Pierre Dorion’s assurances, and in his influence with them. He had Sioux wives, and sons by them; one of those sons, Pierre le jeune, had come to the soldier camp with all these Indians.

  The captains, aside from their nervousness, were delighted. The President’s grand plan for peaceful commerce hinged on cooperation with the powerful Sioux tribes, of which there were about twenty; now represented here was one of their factions, acting friendly enough so far, and thanks to Dorion and son there was no language barrier.

  Today there had been plenty of talking and gift-giving and showing off, including an impressive display of archery skills by young boys. Now tonight there was this big party around the bonfires. Tomorrow the formal parloir, or powwow, would continue. The Yankton chiefs had already expressed an eagerness for a reliable source of goods, as the Teton Sioux farther upriver jealously controlled the flow of British goods from Canada. The quantity and quality of utensils and ornaments they had already seen today made their eyes gleam.

  The Dorions had instructed the Americans in the protocol of rewarding the dancers and musicians: tossing them tobacco, hawks’ bells, beads, whistles, and cheap knives. And in the shadows outside the fire circles, some of the randy voyageurs were already trying the art of seduction by barter on the few women who had followed the warriors down. There was whiskey breath in the air.

  Four tall, elegant, composed warriors held themselves apart from the rest, while staying close enough to the fires to be admired. They deigned to talk only to one another, cheerfully and with the familiarity of brothers. Dorion had pointed them out as members of a society known as Warriors Who Never Step Back. Whatever the odds or jeopardy, they never took cover or fled, but stood their ground until they won or died. Dorion said that the society had recently had twenty-two warriors but eighteen had been killed in a battle with the Crow people far to the west, and only these four survived. The captains had shown a fervid interest in this society. Captain Lewis told the chiefs that American soldiers were just such a society, and fled from no threat. Drouillard thought that was a pretty tall boast; as well as he had been able to discern, only two or three of the expedition’s soldiers had ever been in combat, except for their brawls among themselves back in winter camp at Riviere à Dubois.

  Now a sweaty warrior stepped out from the rest dancing around the flames, and danced a tale of his exploits in war, all told by mime: stalking, springing, crouching, striking, holding up a scalp. The soldiers encouraged and applauded him with shouts, whistles, clapping, and tossing tobacco and trinkets at his feet.

  Bratton leaned close to Drouillard, breathing whiskey smell, and said, “They think they’re so brave, tell ’em how we’uns went right up t’ their Devil Mount ’n’ walked all ’round on it! They’re ’fraid to do that!”

  “No.”

  “Huh what?”

  “I’m not going to tell them that.”

  “Puh! Just ’cause you were afeard to go up!”

  “No. Because we didn’t belong up there. Believe me, they won’t admire that the way you want ’em to.”

  And then Drouillard had to worry that Captain Lewis, with his liquor and bravado and his ignorance of Indians, might get carried away himself and brag about climbing the Bad Spirit hill. Surely old Dorion would have the sense not to translate it to them if he did. But then, it was Dorion who had told Lewis about it in the first place.

  It was late at night before the Indian dancers yielded the dance ground and the corps could begin to put on its own show.

  The opening spectacle was little Pierre Cruzatte, springing into the firelight like a grasshopper with his fiddle held overhead in his left hand, the bow in the right. To the Indians, the instruments must have appeared to be weapons. As he hopped all the way around the fire on bent legs, leering, his one eye rolling and bulging like a madman’s, he twirled the fiddle bow and waved the fiddle by its neck like a war club. Then, stopping right in front of the three dignified chiefs, he tucked the fiddle under his chin, stomped three times with his right foot, dragged the bow over the two low strings in a mournful announcing note, which probably sounded to them like the moan of a wounded animal. That was followed so quickly with a squealing, swiftly bowed tune on the high strings that the chiefs almost fell over backward in astonishment. For the next hour the soldiers stamped, whirled, swung, bowed and cavorted, whooping and yipping, to fiddle, tin horns, Jew’s harps, and finger cymbals. York was coaxed out to dance, and the sight of the huge black man dancing with the alacrity of a sprite finally overtopped anything the Indians had seen, and not long after midnight the festivities were closed. The Sioux were ferried across in the white pirogue to their campsite across the river, with the understanding that the talks would resume tomorrow after the chiefs had held council. When they were ready, they would be brought back across and feasted again, and would have their opportunity to reply to all they had heard from the captains today. Laughter and cheerful voices echoed across the water, wisps of pleasantry through the hush of a strong and mild southerly wind.

  Drouillard listened to wind and water, watching a sentry pace the riverbank silhouetted against starlit water, remembering the great, surging feeling of wildness that had made him yip and trill with the warriors. Wind and stars and wild freedom: these were expanding his spirit until he felt a swelling under his throat, like another scream wanting to come out. The captains and soldiers had done well and had been respectful; he wasn’t ashamed to be seen with them by Indians. But he knew they didn’t belong here.

  He lay there trying to sleep. Two soldiers, Werner and Whitehouse, were still awake nearby, in sof
t voices revising a familiar old song to suit the impressions of the evening. They sang in murmurs:

  “Let’s go a-courtin’ the big chief’s daughter,

  Let’s go a-courtin’ the big chief’s daughter,

  She ain’t been loved and I think she oughterrr!

  Let’s go down and court ’er!”

  August the 31st 1804

  after the Indians got their Brackfast the Chiefs met and arranged themselves in a row with elligent pipes of peace all pointing to our Seets, we Came forward and took our Seets, the Great Cheif The Shake Han rose and Spoke to Some length approving what we had Said and promissing to pursue the advice.

  I took a Vocabulary of the Sciouex Language—and the Answer to a fiew Quaries Such as refured to ther Situation, Trade, number, War, &c.&c.—This Nation is Divided into 20 Tribes, possessing Seperate interests—Collectively they are noumerous Say from 2 to 3000 men, their interests are so unconnected that Some bands are at war with Nations which other bands are on the most friendly terms. This Great Nation who the French has given the nickname of Sciouex, Call them selves Dar co tar … They are only at peace with 8 Nations, & to their Calculation at war with twenty odd.—

  the half man Cheif said My Fathers … we open our ears, and I think our old Frend Mr. Durion can open the ears of the other bands of Soux. but I fear those nations above will not open their ears, and you cannot I fear open them … You have given 5 Medles I wish you to give 5 Kegs with them …

  all Concluded by telling the distresses of ther nation by not haveing traders, & wished us to take pity on them, they wanted Powder Ball & a little milk.

  William Clark, Journals

  The captains were so elated by the success and harmony of their first council with the Sioux that even a night-long rainstorm at the next camp didn’t dampen their spirits.