Sign-Talker

by JAMES ALEXANDER Thom

  He looked around the sky. In many places he saw buzzards circling, drifting against the cloudy sky. Higher up he saw two white-headed eagles in different quadrants of the sky.

  On the hills and plains were countless buffalo, herded by the wolves who were always with them. He saw no sign of elk yet. Far up the river, where it began to bend to the south, he saw a yellow bear.

  Above this waterfall the river was almost up to the level of the plains, the banks very low. The river canyon was deeper below every waterfall. From here he could see downriver to another bend, and beyond it there drifted the spray from the next waterfall, about two miles below.

  Water thundered, wind blew, and now over it he heard the descending whistle of an eagle, close by. Looking up, he saw an all-black eagle swoop overhead and settle on the edge of the high nest in the cottonwood. It raised its great wings once, twice, slowly, then folded them down like a man closing his coat.

  On the hoof-trampled ground he saw a long, black feather, the pointer-feather from an eagle’s wing. He knelt and picked it up, twirled it between finger and thumb, thinking. He had no right to keep it. He put it where he had found it. He and the eagle regarded each other for a while over the distance, and he remembered the day when he had watched an eagle rise through the clouds above Fort Massac and dreamed of seeing over all its horizons. Then he turned to walk on up the riverbank, hunting for elk, thinking of the Hidatsa people, six hundred miles back down this river, who knew this wide land so well they could tell you where a bird would be and it would be there: the very one you had seen in your dream.

  The portage unfolded as a labor of many days. It was all done with the captains’ characteristic processes of planning, measuring, and organizing. George Drouillard again thanked the Creator that he was just the hunter, not a soldier laboring in the midst of their scheme. His responsibility was demanding enough, but as usual he had freedom to do it his way, at a distance. He would kill enough game to feed everybody, preserve the flesh, and prepare the hides for use as moccasins, clothing, and a cover for the iron-frame boat. He must especially try to get elk, if any were about, because Captain Lewis thought elk hide would be more waterproof and durable on the boat than buffalo.

  The soldiers’ ordeal as draft animals began every morning at the Portage Creek Camp below the lowest waterfall. From there they carried loads up a steep draw to the high plain and stowed them in the canoes-on-wheels. Then, six or seven to a canoe, they would put their shoulders into loop-harnesses, made of rope or hide, lean forward and strain until the clumsy wooden wheels began to turn. They would keep straining until all that tonnage was at Captain Lewis’s Upper Portage Camp eighteen miles to the southwest, above all the falls and rapids. If weather or broken-down wagons didn’t delay them too much, they might get there before dark. They would eat and fall into deep sleep, and the next morning pull the empty canoes back. Now and then favorable winds allowed them to raise sails on the wheeled canoes. The wind power made the pulling much easier.

  That was how it was done on the good days. On bad days, when rain and hail turned the plains to slick, wheel-clogging mud, it was much more difficult. Bad days were frequent.

  June 23rd Sunday 1805

  the men mended their mockersons with double soles to Save their feet from the Prickley Pear and the hard ground which in maney Places So uneaven as to hurt the feet verry much. added to those obstructions, the men has to haul with all their Strength wate & art. maney times every man all catching the grass & knobes & Stones with their hands to give them more force in drawing on the Canoes & Loads, and notwithstanding the Coolness of the air in high presperation and every halt are asleep in a moment. maney limping Some become faint for a fiew moments, but no man Complains all go Chearfully on—to State the fatigues of this Party would take up more of the journal than other notes which I find Scercely time to Set down.

  William Clark, Journals

  Drouillard’s hunting camp was on the bank of a tributary river that flowed in from the west, four miles below Captain Lewis’s camp, about halfway to the black eagle’s nest. The Hidatsas had called this pretty little river the Medicine, because a magic drum sound often came down its valley from the mountains. His camp was basically a slaughterhouse. To it every day he carried the buffalo, deer, and elk meat and hides he harvested in the surrounding plains and bottomlands, and there, sometimes with the aid of another hunter and butcher, he cut the flesh into strips to dry on stick racks high in the sun, or over fires of driftwood and dried buffalo dung, and he flensed hides while the meat cured. Because of all the meat, bears were always around.

  Eighteen miles below, downstream beyond the five great waterfalls, lay the lower portage camp under the charge of Sergeant Ordway, to which the exhausted soldiers returned after pulling their emptied wagons back to be reloaded. At that lower camp the cook was Charbonneau, who stayed there with the Bird Woman and their baby. Captain Clark and York were at that camp when they were not trekking back and forth with the wagons. From that camp every day came the welcome news that the young mother was regaining her health and strength.

  Drouillard, though he had spent much of his hunting life alone, was surprised to find himself thinking and worrying about all these people spread out miles through this powerful place with all its winds, waters, and angry bears.

  There were many bears. And they did seem angry. They kept making it plain that these whitemen were not welcome.

  Tuesday, June 25th 1805

  This morning I dispatched Frazier down for Drewyer and the meat he had collected, and Joseph Fields up the Missouri to hunt Elk. about noon Fields returned and informed me that he had seen two white bear near the river a few miles above and in attempting to get a shoot had stumbled uppon a third which immediately made at him being only a few steps distant; that in runing in order to escape he had leaped down a steep bank of the river on a stony bar where he fell cut his hand bruised his knees and bent his gun. fortunately for him the bank hid him from the bear when he fell and by that means he had escaped. this man has been truly unfortunate with these bear, this is the second time that he has narrowly escaped from them …

  in the evening Drewyer and Frazier arrivd with about 800 lbs. of excellent dried meat and about 100 lbs of tallow

  Meriwether Lewis, Journals

  After Drouillard and Frazier unloaded the meat from their canoe, Captain Lewis proudly took them over to show off the progress on his iron boat. The captain had named his boatbuilding camp White Bear Island, because those animals were always prowling around it. The vessel was being built on a scaffold so the crew could work under it and turn it over when they needed to.

  “Thirty-six feet long, four and a half wide, and she’ll carry four tons of cargo,” Lewis exclaimed, “but light enough that eight men can carry her. Did you ever see such a clever vessel?”

  Drouillard paid it the solicited compliment, although he found it much less ingenious and beautiful than an Indian bark canoe. Its basic frame was ninety-nine pounds of strap iron assembled with screws. Interwoven with the iron were flat-shaved slats of willow and box elder and strips of bark, which made the boat look like a big, long basket with pointed ends. Over it the workers were fitting a covering of elk hides, the hair singed or shaved off, sewn together to be form-fitting.

  “I’m worried about sealing the seams,” Captain Lewis said. “There’s no pine around here for pitch. I’m experimenting. Tallow mixed with pounded charcoal might seal well enough. Drouillard, you—Oop! There it is again. I swear it sounds just like a cannon!”

  It was the drumbeat sound from the mountains that the Hidatsas had spoken of. Drouillard had heard it several times a day in his hunting camp.

  Lewis said: “Cap’n Clark and I have been speculating on what it is. Air pressure changing maybe. There has to be a rational explanation.”

  Of course, Drouillard thought.

  “Do the bear bother you as much down in your camp as they do us?” the captain asked. “They prowl here so much that
Seaman barks all night. We’re too busy to deal with them the way I’d like to. When the time comes, I’d like to get enough troops to make war on ’em and drive them out of here.”

  Drouillard kept himself from saying something that he knew would be meaningless to the captain. He replied simply, “The meat draws ’em. I have to hang it high between trees at night.”

  “I won’t let a man go alone anywhere in the bush, always in pairs. It bothers me that you’re alone down there so much.”

  “I appreciate your concern, Cap’n, but I’m all right.”

  He spent that night, a night thick with droning mosquitoes, at Captain Lewis’s camp. The next morning the captain woke him early for breakfast. Lewis was serving as the camp cook so his men could keep working every waking hour on the iron boat and the portage. He was making a great quantity of suet dumplings as a treat for the wagon crews when they should come up. The captain was in high spirits. “Fine meat you brought, George. We’ll feed those hardworking fellows well. Ha ha! What do you think, a captain serving as cook for his men?”

  “Guess they should feel real honored,” he replied, telling the captain what he apparently hoped to hear.

  “I want you and Joe Field to take that canoe upriver today and see if you can get more elk. I sent him up yesterday and a bear almost got him. Shields has fixed his gun, and he’s ready for bear again.”

  “But what you really want is elk, sir. Not bear, eh?”

  Lewis laughed. “Correct. Elk.” He rubbed his hands and looked at his cookfire. “Another day or two they can bring up the rear camp. Be good to get Charbonneau up here. That fellow can cook! Captain Clark says the squaw’s about well enough to make the walk.”

  “Good.” She had been very much in his prayers,

  The captain sighed and clenched his jaw, looking toward the mountains. “We’ve been here far too long. Near two weeks where I expected we’d be one day. I really want us out of this place.”

  Drouillard thought: The bears would be glad to know that.

  June 26th Wednesday 1805

  Some rain last night this morning verry Cloudy the party Set out this morning verry early with their loads to the Canoe … I assort our articles for to be left at this place buried Kegs of Pork, ½ a Keg of flour, 2 blunderbuts, Caterrages a few Small lumbersom articles Capt Lewiss Desk and Some books & Small articles in it

  in the evening the wind Shifted round to the East & blew hard, which is a fair wind for the two Canoes to Sail on the Plains across the portage …

  William Clark, Journals

  June 27, 1805

  “Chief, I swear t’ God they’s a bear a-stalkin’ to bushwhack us,” Joe Field said in a low and tight voice from the stern of their canoe. They had started back down the Missouri to Captain Lewis’s camp. Ominous dark weather was gathering in the southwest.

  Drouillard knew. He had been seeing glimpses of a pale bear slipping through dense willow brush on the near riverbank, staying a good way ahead, and it looked as big as a buffalo.

  The little narrow dugout was so loaded with elk meat and hides that it had scarcely three inches of gunwale above water. Their hunt for elk had been very rewarding: nine of them. Also the fat and hides of two small bears. Drouillard nodded toward shore. “Put over close.” He wanted a look at the tracks. He didn’t really want another bear just now. With weather rising and the canoe so burdened, they could be swamped easily, especially if they took on another bearskin. But he was interested in this bear’s intentions.

  From a few feet offshore he could see that the prints of the grizzly’s hind feet in the mud were the biggest yet—about a foot long, not counting the talons. Joe Field said, “That big sneaky son of a bitch! I hate them bullyin’ bastards!”

  No wonder, Drouillard thought, Joe Field had reason to feel they were picking on him personally. What was beginning to worry Drouillard was that if this big warrior bear kept stalking ahead like this, he would head right into Captain Lewis’s camp. And this one appeared to be more bear than the one last month that had needed eight bullets to die.

  He thought of trying to get ahead of the bear to warn the camp. But probably this bear wouldn’t allow anyone to pass him, not until he’d had his chance to ambush them on shore.

  So it seemed there was nothing to do but go ashore. “Joe, put us in above that big leaning tree. And keep quiet.” Field was probably good and scared now, but he was brave and he had a true bear grudge, and without a word he steered to the bank. The dugout was too heavy-laden to pull onshore, so Drouillard stepped off the bow and tied it to a willow clump, meanwhile looking, listening and smelling for the big bear. Wouldn’t he like to come back and tear into this load of elk, he thought. But I think he’d want to tear us up first, and then maybe eat some elk. And then maybe go down and tear up the camp. Drouillard had a strong notion that this was a chief bear.

  He motioned for Field to follow him into the brush, and led him to the base of the leaning cottonwood. Then he signaled for him to go up. They slung their rifles on their backs and started up. The thick, slanting trunk was easy to climb. Field rested in a fork twenty feet up. Drouillard straddled a limb below him, slipped out of his rifle sling and said, “Now call him.”

  “Eh? What? Me?”

  “Let him hear your voice. You’re the one they hate.”

  Field looked down at him oddly, but then hooted, “Hey, goddam bear!” They waited. Field whooped again. Drouillard felt a blast of cold air, smelled rain in the distance. Leaves turned underside up in the wind and the surface of the river darkened with shivering ripples. Their tree began to sway. A brilliant scribble and flash of lightning hit the trees nearby, followed instantly by a deafening thunderclap. “Jesus almighty! I want out of this tree!” Field gasped.

  But Drouillard answered: “No, you don’t. Look down there.”

  The pale bear had just burst out of the brush and was under their tree, where he heard their voices or caught their scent, and paused, swinging his enormous wedge-shaped head from side to side.

  N’nochtu makwa, Pehthon aha ’y keeteh, Drouillard prayed. Chief war bear, I salute you to heaven. Just as it looked up and saw him with its intelligent eyes, he fired a ball between them. Another lightning bolt and thunderclap shook them, and hailstones now were tearing down through the foliage, shredding leaves. Drouillard bent over his rifle to reload it, hearing Field swear away in awe and amazement just above him. Then he slid down the tree trunk to inspect the dead bear. Field dropped to the ground beside him. Drouillard, hunched up against the hail that was beating his back, looked at Field and said, “Satisfied now?”

  He was fleshing hides that evening at the White Bear Camp, and Joe Field kept telling all the soldiers about how Drouillard had killed the biggest of all bears while perched in a swaying tree in a lightning storm. Some of the soldiers had been terrorized by the storm and even blown down by the wind. Finally all that talk made Drouillard remember an old Shawnee story, and he started telling it as he scraped the hides.

  “My people don’t fear storms,” he said. “We know they won’t ever hurt us. Because of a promise from Wind Spirit.” They looked at him strangely; it wasn’t like him to just start telling about something without being asked a question. And they had never heard him discuss anything about spirits.

  “Long time ago this was. Wind Spirit likes to blow things down, throw sand in your eyes, you know. Long time ago when he was young, he was even worse about that, like a bad boy. Blew people down and laughed about it. He blew houses down and laughed. So all the old Shawnee women held a council, said it was time Wind Spirit grew up. They would teach him manners. So here’s what they did:

  “Next time they saw Wind Spirit coming with a storm, they all lined up, all those old women, facing him. He came on, laughing. So they all grabbed the fronts of their dresses and pulled them up. When he saw that sight, all those old women fronts, he begged for mercy. They threatened him that if he ever bothered Shawnee people, they’d show him that again. So he prom
ised he never would. And he never has again. That’s why my people aren’t afraid of storms.”

  The soldiers sat looking at him. It wasn’t till they saw him slyly smiling that they all burst out laughing.

  Two days later another violent hailstorm shrieked and pounded over the prairie. It was bad at the White Bear Camp, where it seemed every tree would come crashing down. That night the canoe wagons didn’t come up from the lower camp, and Lewis grew tense with anxiety. By midnight not even a messenger had come up, and worry kept everyone from sleeping well.

  The next day they learned that the hailstorm had punished the wagon-haulers brutally, and had come within a hair’s breadth of wiping out the lives of Captain Clark, Charbonneau, Bird Woman and her baby, and York.

  Caught in the open on the portage trail without even hats or shirts, the men had been beaten to the ground by a deluge of hailstones the size of apples. Many were bloodied, some knocked unconscious, others so badly bruised they could hardly walk or use their arms. After the storm they had left the wagons on the trail and staggered back to the lower camp.

  At that same time, Captain Clark, York, and Charbonneau’s family were hiking up by way of the riverbank. Clark had needed to rewrite some earlier waterfall measurements that were blown away in the wind. He’d taken Charbonneau’s family with him because they had not been out of the lower camp yet to see the spectacle of the waterfalls. York veered off toward a small buffalo herd in hopes of shooting a calf for a meal along the trek. They viewed the grand waterfall and then proceeded a quarter of a mile above it when the black storm cloud suddenly mounted the sky, the wind howling up with such force that it threatened to blow them all off the cliff into the river. They had taken shelter under overhanging rocks in a dry ravine just ahead of a deluge of rain and hail that looked and sounded as powerful as the grand waterfall itself.

  In moments a flash flood of muddy water came roaring down the ravine, and would have swept them into the river above the grand waterfall had the captain not seen it coming; by the time he had pushed Charbonneau and Sacagawea, with her baby in her arms, up the muddy bank and out of the ravine, the torrent was fifteen feet deep and he was half submerged, pulling himself up to the lip of the ravine by his fingertips. He saved his rifle but lost his compass. Charbonneau lost his gun, shot pouch, and tomahawk. Sacagawea saved her baby, but for the second time the child’s cradleboard had been swept away by water, and his clothes went with it.