Sign-Talker

by JAMES ALEXANDER Thom

  Drouillard was in a turmoil of rich and troubling feelings. He was relieved that Captain Lewis had learned at least not to tell the Sioux who their chiefs were. But Drouillard hoped the officers weren’t fooling themselves. It had gone so well because of the Yanktons’ trust in Dorion and his son, and their fluency in the language. Dorion had been a gift from the Master of Life, but was gone now. Lewis had sent him back with the Yanktons to persuade some chiefs to go next spring to meet the President.

  Chief Half Man’s last warning lingered in Drouillard’s memory: “I fear those nations above will not open their ears.”

  With no one now in the party able to speak with the stronger bands of Sioux except by hand signs—though Cruzatte knew a very few Sioux words—the next encounter could not be as easy as this one had been.

  But what a people! Drouillard thought. Nothing had ever heartened him so much as seeing an Indian people free in their own land. Again the notion whispered deep in him that it might be just as well if this expedition failed to go farther into that land.

  September 7, 1804

  Every morning, Drouillard ascended the riverbank at first light and ranged out on the plains to take up the trail of the lost man, Shannon, and every day he found also the trail of John Colter, still following. Shannon had been missing nearly two weeks now, and for a week of that time Colter had been on his track, never catching up.

  But yesterday Colter had returned to the boat. He had given up on catching Shannon and the horses, and on the way back he had killed a buffalo, an elk, three deer, five turkeys, a goose, and a beaver, which he had up on scaffolds not far ahead. He had come back to report that Shannon was apparently still alive and moving rapidly, and to find out whether to keep on in pursuit. “I don’t know what he’s livin’ on,” Colter had said, “unless it be grapes. No sign he’d kilt anything but one rabbit. Bones by a little fire. He’s sure the poorest hunter in this army. But I reckon if he gets hungry enough he can kill a horse. Maybe if he tied it to a tree and took real careful aim he could hit his horse?”

  So this morning the captains had landed at a dome-shaped hill on the south bank and climbed it, taking a spyglass, hoping they might see Shannon ahead from that eminence. They didn’t see him. They were descending to the riverbank when they discovered a kind of animal they had never seen before.

  The creatures had made burrow holes over several acres of the slope above the river. They were whistling to each other, apparently in warning as the officers approached. The captains heard the whistling sound and looked over to see several of the animals scurrying into the holes. Some then stood in the burrows with their heads and shoulders out, watching like sentinels as the captains stooped here and there trying to see into the holes.

  The rest of the afternoon evolved into a single-minded campaign to capture one of these rodents for the President. Drouillard gazed in amazement and amusement as almost the entire manpower of the corps passed buckets and kettles of water up from the Missouri River to pour into one of the burrows, hoping to flood a few of the rodents out. The equivalent of five barrels of water were poured in, the soldiers now and then probing the ground with long poles. Eventually Drouillard found himself involved in the mud-spattered eviction effort, and he was down on hands and knees when a soaked, furry, squirrel-like face bobbed up through the muddy water in the hole. Before anyone else had the presence of mind to move, he grabbed its nape and extended the animal to Lewis. “Here, Cap’n. My gift to Chief Jefferson.”

  The voyageurs referred to the rodents as Little Dogs of the Prairie, finding their yips suggestive of barking. A cage was built for the specimen, in hopes that it could be kept alive until it could be sent to the President.

  In this exhausting period of struggling up through the sandbars and twisting channels, worrying about Shannon and watching for signs of the next of the Sioux tribes, one natural novelty after another distracted the officers. Captain Clark became obsessed with a fleet prairie creature that was either a goat or an antelope, with short, forked horns and of a light sorrel color. He hiked onshore whenever he could, hoping for a shot at one, but it was impossible to get near them. To steady his rifle for the long, long shots that would be needed to get one, he began carrying an espontoon, which was a short infantry officer’s spear with a hilt-like cross piece behind its head. With the butt of the spear on the ground and the rifle barrel resting on the cross piece, a long, standing shot could be much steadier. But even with this, Clark failed to bring down any of the pronged-horn creatures. Sometimes he took York on the hunts with him, and one day the servant killed two buffalo. The uplift to his pride was a marvel to see. He swaggered and smiled, wordlessly declaring that no mere slave carried a rifle and killed buffalo.

  One day Drouillard followed buffalo on a beaten trail and found a strong salt spring. The captains meanwhile discovered a molasses spring and the fossil backbone of what looked to be some sort of fish or whale, nearly as long as the keelboat. The “molasses” was some kind of bitumen oozing from under a blue shale bluff; it looked, even tasted, like molasses. The vertebrae and teeth of the great fish protruded from the earth of a ridge, providing the troops endless speculation on how a fish could have climbed to high ground. It also gave them much to complain about, as it was carried piece by piece down to the river and added to the burgeoning load of specimens and souvenirs that had to be rowed up the river.

  Drouillard, who could marvel at an amazing object and then leave it where the Creator had placed it, just shook his head at their groans. Whitemen were slaves to what they obtained.

  Tuesday 11th Sept. 1804

  George Shannon who had been absent 16 days joined the boat about one oclock. the reason of his keeping on so long was he see tracks which must have been Indians. he took it to be us and kept on, his bullets he shot all away & he was without any thing to eat for about 12 days except a fiew Grapes, he had left one of the horses behind as he gave out, he had gave up the idea of finding our boat & he was near killing the horse to Satisfy hunger. &c. &c—he Shot a rabit with Sticks which he cut & put in his gun after his Balls were gone.

  Sergeant John Ordway, Journals

  Shannon, once a handsome, tall lad with dark hair and blue eyes and wispy soft whiskers, was a dirty, gaunt-faced, walking cadaver in rags, tending to weep with relief and gratitude from time to time as York fed him marrowbone broth and fawn veal to start rebuilding him. He told of the despair he had felt when fat buffalo had wandered within yards of where he sat dizzy with hunger, with gunpowder in his powder horn but not one lead ball to fire at them.

  Somehow he had neglected to think of making snares or deadfall traps, or of catching or spearing the fish that abounded in every stream; he had been too intent on catching up. Drouillard wavered between scorn and pity, then offered to take him out when he got recovered and teach him how easy it was to get food, even if it was roots, grasshoppers, snakes, and grass seeds. “And,” he said, “it’s really hard to mistake Indian tracks from whitemen tracks, if you know how to look at ’em. That alone would have kept you from straying off.”

  “Good idea,” Clark said. “Shannon, if you’d just learn a few of the tricks Drouillard knows, y’ might survive long enough to reach age twenty.”

  He sat on deck, rain drumming on the awning just above his head, fleshing the pelts of three beavers he had trapped the night before, clothes bloody and greasy, the air dank and thick with smells of beaver gland and unwashed soldiery. Near the after cabin, Lewis was dissecting some entirely new kind of hare that Shields had shot, with long, wide ears, long hind feet, and powerful legs. “It don’t scurry like a rabbit,” Shields was saying. “It sprangs. When it shot through the brush I thought I’d flushed a quail, till it landed and I got a look at it!”

  Drouillard said, “Here comes Cap’n Clark.”

  The captain was muddy to the knees, drenched. He had two rifles hanging from his shoulders by their slings, and in his right hand was his espontoon, which he was using like a walking staff. Beh
ind him came Willard, with some beast across his big shoulders, its forelegs gripped by one huge hand, hindlegs by the other.

  “Damned if he didn’t get one of those pronghorn goats!” Lewis exclaimed. “At last!”

  A whole new animal for Jefferson, Drouillard thought. What he said aloud was, “He’s some hunter, that cap’n is.” It was a tribute, and he meant it. Drouillard himself hadn’t been able to get within range of one of those beasts.

  When Drouillard hunted, he watched as much for Indian traces as for game. The boats were a thousand miles up the Missouri now. The next populations would be Teton Sioux, who called themselves the Burnt Thighs. They were the ones known throughout the trading routes as “the pirates of the Missouri.” As far as he knew, any communication with them would have to be done through the language of his hands, unless somebody like Dorion should fall into their laps before then.

  Chapter 9

  Mouth of the Bad River

  September 25, 1804

  The three Teton Sioux chiefs came in under the awning at noon and sat to smoke the ceremonial pipe and begin the council. The moment Drouillard saw Thotohonga’s eyes, his nape tingled. Thotohonga, whose name meant War Maker, or Partisan, was almost sparking with mean spirits. His eyes were like a snake’s, cold and darting. He was sinewy and handsome, with jutting cheekbones and narrow chin, but his upper lip curved in a sneer over his prominent front teeth.

  The principal chief, T’tanka Sapa, Black Buffalo, appeared a solid and civil man. His cheeks were pitted by pox and much weathered. He was tense and wary, holding something in, and Drouillard sensed that Black Buffalo did not want Partisan to catch him smiling at these whitemen. There was something bad between them, whether an old animosity or something particular to this meeting, and it extended to their bodyguards, who hovered outside the council circle. The third chief, T’tanka Wakan, Buffalo Medicine, seemed to be aware of the silent conflict, but revealed no sign of being on one side or the other. He would be one to watch for clues to the others.

  Captain Lewis was absorbed in his own task of delivering President Jefferson’s message, and wasn’t aware how inadequate to the translation Cruzatte’s mishmash of Omaha and Sioux was. Black Buffalo, though confused, seemed to do his best to listen and understand, but Partisan began acting like a bored smart aleck in a schoolroom, glancing around, smirking, yawning, even sighing and farting to show his boredom, or to make his followers laugh. The captains’ sun-browned faces grew redder than the Indians’. At one point, when it appeared that Captain Lewis’s hair-trigger temper was about to go off, Captain Clark put a hand on Lewis’s wrist and told Drouillard to take over from Cruzatte, using hand language. That helped.

  Black Buffalo answered the peace spiel by telling of a raid in which his warriors had captured many Omahas. Lewis puffed up to scold him, but Drouillard interceded with a suggestion that some of those captives should know Sioux well enough to translate into Omaha for Cruzatte and thus establish a chain of spoken language. Partisan snarled at the idea of bringing lowly Omaha “tied-up dogs” into a high council about Sioux rights and powers.

  “A reasonable idea,” Captain Clark said, “but reason doesn’t suit that man right now. He’s a-showin’ off for the constituents.”

  “Aye, showing off,” growled Captain Lewis. “That’s what we might as well do. Words aren’t getting us anywhere.”

  So the council was terminated. A parade and drill was held, but it was by only a squad. For the sake of safety, most of the soldiers were standing to arms on the boat, which was anchored a hundred yards offshore. The council awning and parade ground were on a sandbar in the mouth of the Bad River, while most of the Sioux warriors and villagers, seemingly a hundred or more, watched from the riverbanks, their excited voices a steady drone.

  Because of the eminence of the Sioux on this stretch of the Missouri, the captains had put together what they considered a generous array of gifts for the chiefs and their selected warriors. Each of the three chiefs was presented a large Jefferson peace medal depended by glossy ribbon, and an American flag. Black Buffalo was decked out in an elegant scarlet military coat and a cocked hat with a plume, and while he preened in it, Drouillard saw Partisan writhe with envy.

  When Captain Lewis set up his air gun demonstration and hit the target, Drouillard saw Partisan’s eyes widen with wonder like those of the rest. Even the spectators on the distant riverbanks erupted in a chorus of amazement. But as the captain aimed his second shot, Partisan said something to the nearby warriors, pointed his finger at the target and pursed his lips. When Lewis squeezed the trigger, Partisan spat and jerked his pointing finger and the target twitched in the distance. Partisan grinned and the warriors laughed. Captain Lewis of course presumed they were laughing at him, and had no idea why; they might have laughed if he had missed. That ended his air gun demonstration.

  “Very well,” Lewis said. “Let’s invite the chiefs onto the keelboat. I’ll wager they’ll be impressed enough by some of our inventions and manufactures. And maybe a dram will loosen ’em a bit. They’re tight as bowstrings with their pride.”

  The chiefs, and one bodyguard who had come onboard the keelboat with them, were intrigued by the swivel cannon, the compass, magnifying glasses, telescopes, and the iron corn grinder, and by the size and solidity of the vessel itself, but they did not let themselves appear overawed. Partisan was right there ready to snort if Black Buffalo or Buffalo Medicine expressed any real enthusiasm. They had seen plenty of such things before, he seemed to suggest, and better ones, from the British traders of the North West Company, to which the Sioux had long been attached. Drouillard stayed close wherever the chiefs went in the vessel, explaining with hand signs, but trying to stay inconspicuous and study the interplay between Black Buffalo and Partisan. All three chiefs had, of course, noticed that he was one Indian among all these whitemen, and they looked at him curiously now and then. The keelboat was crowded, with so many uniformed soldiers standing at rest along the gunwales.

  When Captain Lewis uncorked a half-full whiskey bottle and set out glasses, all pretense of indifference vanished. Like any Indians who had been exposed to white traders, they knew liquor very well and it had their full attention. Captain Lewis poured each chief a quarter of a glass, and a shot for himself and Captain Clark. Before the captains could raise their glasses in a salute, the chiefs had gulped theirs down and stood blinking, breathing through gaping mouths, and extending their glasses for refills. Lewis held up the bottle to show it was empty. Partisan grabbed the bottle, upended it and sucked at its neck, set it down hard on the deck and with three motions of his right hand said, Give me another. Captain Clark brushed his right palm down past the fingers of his left, in an imprecise sign somewhere between Ended and Wiped out, and although it was sloppy signing, Drouillard thought either message was clear enough. It was clear enough to Partisan, whose eyes narrowed as he put his fist to his forehead and twisted it away to say he was angry.

  “Tell him I’m angry too,” Lewis snapped. “Tell him we’ve a long way to go and must move on.” Cruzatte, still in his mix of Sioux and Omaha, tried to tell them that, while making signs that meant Go boat. Clark murmured to Lewis that it might do to try a little more diplomacy, but Lewis said, “I’m mad. These are bandits. Firmness is all they’ll understand.”

  When the chiefs began to understand that their visit was so abruptly over and that the captains meant to go on up the river, Partisan suddenly began lurching and staggering down the narrow deck, acting as if he’d had as much whiskey as he wanted, instead of the little bit he’d had. With considerable balking and manhandling, by which the Indians got an inkling of how strong the blue-coat soldiers were, the chiefs soon found themselves in a pirogue being rowed toward the riverbank by five soldiers and three voyageurs. Captain Clark sat in the stern, with Drouillard and Cruzatte squatting between him and the four surly Indians. The scores of Sioux men, women, and children lining the riverbanks were clamoring with confusion or consternation,
depending probably on how they had perceived the brief tussle on the keelboat. Drouillard saw a number of warriors running along the riverbank toward the place on shore where the boat was headed.

  Captain Clark said in a low voice: “Listen, Drouillard, Cruzatte. We’ve got these gents a little more riled up than I like ’em to be. Cap’n Lewis is having one of those days when his fuse is short. Now, before we get to shore, I hope to calm these people a little, but let ’em know that it’s not their say-so whether we go on up the river. That we’re warriors, not merchants. That merchants will come along later, but not if they try to interfere with us now. Can you get that across to ’em?” All the time he was talking, the chiefs were muttering and whispering among themselves.

  Drouillard said, “There’s no talking to ’em with that one here. The others might listen but he doesn’t want ’em to.” Then he got their attention and talked to them with his hands, while Cruzatte occasionally interjected a few words.

  Drouillard couldn’t tell whether they were heeding his message. When the pirogue slid to a halt in the muddy shallows, though, three warriors splashed out from shore and grabbed the boat’s mooring rope, and the chief’s bodyguard, who had been riding in the bow, jumped to his feet and wrapped both arms around the mast. The stern swung downstream, closer to the bank. Black Buffalo and Buffalo Medicine, faces set in anger, clambered over the gunwale and waded ashore, talking rapidly to the warriors who were swarming around the landing place. Captain Clark and Chief Partisan stood in the pirogue, face-to-face.

  The captain, erect, solid as an oak and elegant in his gold braid, blue coat, and rakish black cocked hat, made the simple, graceful hand sign that said, You may go. Partisan, equally elegant and formidable in a beautifully tanned tunic with long fringe and fine quillwork, drew himself up, every fiber quivering, craggy head held up haughty and defiant, nostrils distended, and stared the captain in the eye almost nose-to-nose. The eagle plume standing at the back of his head quivered in the hot breeze. Drouillard crouched, ready to spring into whatever action would be needed, but hoping Partisan would back down and get off the boat. Drouillard was aware of the overwhelming number of warriors onshore drawing metal-tipped arrows out of their quivers, and some with ready muskets, all gathering near the boat. Black Buffalo was pacing on the shore in his new scarlet coat and cocked hat, talking fast and pointing at Clark and Partisan. Across the water Drouillard could hear Captain Lewis barking out commands for the soldiers to stand to arms, to load the swivel with sixteen balls and stand ready to fire. Merde! Drouillard thought. I am to die because men can’t talk?