When everybody was finally reunited at the upper camp, Drouillard had the strange, sweet feeling in his breast that he was in a family household again. Here were the brown faces of the quiet and self-contained Bird Woman and her cheerful baby Jean Baptiste, whose eyes were both coal-black and star-bright. And here too was the only other one who was not a whiteman, the brawny slave, York, in whose black face a hundred unspoken emotions were always passing in succession. Now York sat with his arms embracing his knees, telling his own view of the hailstorm on the plain:
“Broth’ Droor, I thought I losted ev’body! They was on ’at clift ’bove them horrenjus waterfall one minute. Then come a wind ’at blown me down, and when I got up and look for ’em, they was gone! When I see ’em come up out o’ that ravine, I got on my knees an’ pray thanks to the Lord! Yeah, got prickly pear in my knees, but I di’n mind. Heh heh!” He was chuckling now, looking at his master and the Charbonneau family, but tears ran down his cheeks.
The whole island was a thicket of willow, a vertical maze so dense a man could hardly see thirty feet ahead, the worst kind of place to hunt bears. But both captains believed that this island was where all the bears came from to bother their camp, and so here they were with half their soldiery thrashing through the thickets to kill or drive them out for good. Every man was at great risk, not just from bears that might charge through the bush at short range, but from the other soldiers’ bullets, which would be flying in every direction the moment anyone saw or thought he saw a bear. Captain Lewis was seething with frustration over the details that delayed the completion of his dream boat, and was taking it out on the only other annoyance he couldn’t control: the bears. York and Captain Clark were somewhere on Drouillard’s right, and Captain Lewis far off to his left, but he got only glimpses of them now and then: York’s sun-faded red headkerchief, sun-glint on a gun lock beyond twigs and green leaves. He could hear them breathing and their feet crackling in old twigs on the ground. He could smell the men—indeed could recognize almost everyone by odor—and there was some faint bear scent on the island. He saw strands of their fur on twigs here and there, and footprints from before the rain. But Lewis’s hope of finding an army of bears here to engage in battle seemed in vain.
They had pushed through almost all the way across the island when Drouillard heard a grunt and a rumbling growl just ahead, saw willow slips shaking and swishing, then saw the broad brown snarling face crashing toward him. Straight for him, not for anyone to his left or right. He heard warnings and questions shouted nearby as he cocked the flintlock and aimed just below the chin. The grizzly was two loping strides from him when his ball hit it in the heart.
The bear was knocked down by the shock, crashing to the ground almost at his feet, but it was up instantly with a roar. Without an instant to reload, Drouillard sprinted away to the left, crashing through the willows as fast as he could flee, with the roaring, gurgling animal at his heels and men’s alarmed voices shouting from every direction. In a few seconds the pursuit was over. He heard the animal fall silent behind him. He was reloading his rifle when the captains, following the trail of noise and blood, emerged through the willows and looked down on its carcass.
It was a young male of about four hundred pounds, and after another hour of beating the bush it was evident that this had been the only bear on the island.
Bird Woman and her little son were nearby that evening as Drouillard flensed the bear hide. She looked as if she wanted to say something about it—perhaps to offer to help with a task that was considered woman’s work. He kept working. He was thinking some curious thoughts about this bear, or rather, feeling something. Finally he leaned back and, with greasy hands, signed to her: You question?
She nodded and with a sweeping hand indicated everything outside the camp. Then she signed: Question all bears war against men who wear hats? That meant whitemen. She had noticed, then, that it had been this way since the first conflicts near the Yellow Stone. She had noticed the many bears around this camp last night.
He signed: War yes. Then he signed: I killed chief bear five days before. This bear come to kill me back.
She nodded. She had no difficulty believing it. Probably she was the only person in all this party who would believe such a revenge story. But with all the soldiers hunting bears on that island, the one bear on the island had sought him out and tried to kill him.
And yesterday while out hunting, Joe Field had another of his narrow escapes, chased into the river by a bear that went straight for him. It was Joe who had been in the tree with Drouillard when he killed the chief bear. Joe had been lamenting that he was having more than his share of bear troubles; maybe he would come to understand why.
It was getting too personal, this bear war, and Drouillard wasn’t sure he was on the right side.
July 4th Thursday 1805
a beautiful clear pleasant waarm mornng … we finished putting the Iron boat together and turned hir on one side to dry. it being the 4th of Independence we drank the last of our ardent Spirits except a little reserved for Sickness. the fiddle put in order and the party amused themselves dancing all the evening untill about 10 oClock in a Sivel & jovil manner.
Sergeant John Ordway, Journals
July 9, 1805
The day dawned fair. Then a dark cloud settled over the island, but it was not a storm cloud. Drouillard felt a chill, hearing a strange fluttering and squawking din. Glancing up, he saw the sky over the camp full of wheeling blackbirds, some landing in brush and trees, some staying aloft. This seemed a bad sign. He glanced at Sacagawea, herself called the Bird Woman, to see her reaction, and he could see in her face too that this was bad. Whatever it meant, he would have to pray and be watchful.
Captain Lewis had finally finished assembly of his hide-covered iron boat, with a coating of charcoal, tallow, and beeswax over the entire hull to seal and waterproof it. It had been a maddening and anxious time, and the task had kept them here a week since the completion of the portage. Now the boat had been launched, and it floated like a swan, waiting to be loaded. Captain Lewis kept pacing on the shore, slapping the back of one hand into the palm of the other, looking at his creation from every angle, grinning and chuckling with his bottom lip between his teeth. The six dugout canoes had already been caulked and loaded, ready to proceed at last on up the Missouri to the snow-topped mountains. The load for the iron boat sat on shore.
Just then the blackbirds all flew away to the east, and a violent windstorm swept in after them. The Missouri was whipped up into high, whitecapped waves which sprayed over the canoes, wetting their baggage before it could all be unloaded. Another delay.
The wind continued until evening. Captain Lewis had stayed hunkered down in the spray-drenched camp, keeping an eye on his precious boat, and by the time the wind slacked, he was slumping, grim-faced.
The hull of his iron boat was delaminating. The caulking compound was slipping off the elk skin, leaving the seams exposed, and through each one of the thousands of needle holes where the skins had been sewn together, river water was leaking. Even without any load in, she was sinking. Captain Lewis looked so gray and defeated, no one knew what to say to him.
Maybe this was what the blackbirds had foretold.
Eventually Captain Clark said, “I’ve had the hunters looking out for timber good enough for making dugout canoes. There’s some really big cottonwoods a few miles upriver. I’ll take a crew of our best axmen up in the morning, and a hunter, and we’ll have two or three dugouts made by the time you get up there. Two should carry what that basket-boat o’ yours was supposed to.”
It was plain that Clark had not had much faith in the iron boat. Captain Lewis glared into the fire, cracking the knuckles of one small, thick hand and then the other. Finally he muttered, “If I’d only singed the elk hair instead of shaving it, the composition might have stuck on. At least till we got to some pitch pine country. But there’s no time to experiment anymore. I’ve piddled away a week, on top of what th
at portage cost us.” He shook his head slowly. “I don’t know whether this place is enchanted, or cursed, or both. Seems like we’ve been here for years, not weeks.”
He sighed mightily, then went on: “Well, my friend, all right. I’ll take apart this favorite boat o’mine and bury her tomorrow, and say adieu. We’ve got to get up to the end of this damned Missouri River and find Shoshone horses if we’re to cross the mountains before winter. God knows, our biggest portage is still probably ahead of us!” They all sat looking at him, thinking about what he had just said. They had barely survived this one. After a while he said, “Notice how quiet the bears are? Lord, I hope I never have to meet another one!
“But, my God!” Lewis looked as if he would cry. “Hasn’t it been worth it all, just to see these waterfalls?” There was a desperation in his eyes that Drouillard could hardly bear to see. Then he saw something gather and straighten up inside Lewis, who laughed and exclaimed, “Damn, what a time to run out of whiskey!”
Monday July 15th 1805
We arrose verry early this morning, assigned the canoes their loads and had it put on board. We now found our vessels eight in number all heavily laden, notwithstanding our several deposits … we find it extreemly difficult to keep the bagage of many of our men within reasonable bounds: they will be adding bulky articles of but little use or value to them. At 10 A.M. we once more saw ourselves fairly under way much to my Joy and I believe that of every individual who compose the party.
Meriwether Lewis, Journals
Chapter 15
The Three Forks of the Missouri
July 27, 1805
Drouillard raised his head to sniff and listen, because there was something important about this place that he felt he was supposed to know.
He thought that it was one of the most beautiful places he had ever seen, a long, wide, fertile basin with snow-topped mountains on every horizon, berries and currants growing thick, extensive stands of timber, and considerable game. It appeared to be the best beaver country he had seen yet.
It was a coming-together place of rivers; here, within a short walk, three rivers came together, cold, clear waters, to become the Missouri. The captains had seen a high, level limestone plateau which they with their military eyes thought of as a naturally fortified place for a fort and trading post. So it was in many ways one of those proper places where his uncle had said a man should establish himself early. Drouillard could see that.
Charbonneau’s wife, the Bird Woman, said she remembered it as the valley where the Hidatsas had killed her relatives and captured her. This was hunting country of her Shoshone people. That news excited the captains, who urgently wanted to find the Shoshones and acquire horses that could carry their tons of goods over the Shining Mountains to the westward-flowing rivers. Captain Clark had scouted far ahead up the western fork with Frazier, the Field brothers, and Charbonneau, looking for Shoshones. They had found horse tracks and burned prairie but no sight of a living Indian. Clark had finally returned this afternoon sick from heat exhaustion and fatigue, feet bleeding and infected from prickly pears. In the course of his scouting he had saved Charbonneau from drowning in a swift stream, had climbed high hills to view the basin and river courses, and killed two grizzly bears who were unfortunate enough to cross his path.
The rest of the soldiers were in no better shape; they had been poling and dragging the eight dugout canoes up through swift, cold, rocky-bottom shallows and riffles, and were almost too weak to move. The two hundred miles since the Great Falls had exhausted them almost as much as the portage itself. There had been no evening whiskey to alleviate their miseries since the Fourth of July. The season was deep into summer, the days scorching even at this altitude, and the whole height of the Shining Mountains lay before them yet to be crossed before fall snows would close the passes, those passes they hadn’t even found yet.
Those were the anxieties of the captains, and Drouillard felt their tension. Captain Lewis was ready to take a sortie up the west fork, which he called the Jefferson River, and not stop until he found Indians who would sell him horses and show him the way through the mountains. Drouillard knew he would be one of those going on such a sortie. This was one of those times when Lewis was desperate. But Drouillard also felt something apart from this journey of the whitemen, something about himself and the voices of the ancestors, the faint voices that sang in the wind from high places. As he gazed around and smelled the air now, he thought he could hear those voices.
They sang not just about what had happened here before, or was happening here now, but about something farther ahead around the circle of time.
August 12, 1805
The Continental Divide
Up and up the long, scruffy slope they trudged, keeping an eye on the Indian path, through prickly pear, short dry sedge, thistles and dusty sage, looking ever ahead for the ridge where this treeless slope eventually would have to culminate. Drouillard walked before and to the right of Captain Lewis, Shields left of the captain a few yards, and McNeal following, each carrying a knapsack and blanket roll and a rifle. They scanned the slope in every direction for a sight of the Indian horseman they had seen yesterday, who had waited curiously and nervously as the captain came within a hundred yards of him, signaling to him with trinkets, waving a blanket in the parley sign, and calling out to him over and over a Shoshone word that was supposed to mean “I am a whiteman.” In other words, not your enemy.
But that wary Indian suddenly had wheeled his elegant horse, leaped a creek and vanished among the willow brush.
Later they found the hoofprints of several horses, and places where Indians had been digging roots, but no people. The captain was in a nasty state of anxiety, desperately wanting to make contact with any Indian, but afraid that any Indian who saw them would run to warn the rest and they would disappear.
They were deep in Shoshone country. For two weeks Bird Woman had pointed out places she remembered, and in those two weeks the captains had taken turns scouting far ahead of the slow-moving canoes, searching desperately for the elusive Shoshone. Unfortunately, the Shoshone were an extremely wary people. They had no guns, but their enemies did.
They were excellent horsemen with fine herds, who in late summer made furtive forays eastward onto the plains to hunt buffalo with their bows and arrows, but most of the year lived on the scarce game of these mountains, eating roots and fish, and trying to avoid raiding parties from the tribes who knew whitemen and had gotten guns from them. Bird Woman’s husband had told the captains, “She say, anyone they see they fear to be an enemy.” And her tribe of the Shoshones had never seen whitemen. When she was a girl, they had only heard of them, of those far to the south, where, in the old days, horses had come from. That, the captains presumed, would mean the Spaniards.
So it was no wonder these people were so hard to find. They lived in a vast, high country and did not want to be found. Even the hunters’ guns, which were needed to feed the expedition, might be frightening these Shoshones farther and farther into hiding.
But they had to be found, and befriended, and persuaded to sell at least two dozen horses. If not, the expedition could never go across the mountains.
Captain Lewis was grim in his desperation. He had blamed his men for scaring off the man on horseback. He had angrily sworn that he would find the Shoshones if he had to hike these mountains for a month. After that, of course, it would be too late because of the seasons. But he had laughed today, once:
Coming up a narrow, grassy stream bed on this endless slope, Private McNeal had stood with one foot on either side of the clear trickling rill, fumbled with his breeches, and yelled: “Thank God! I’ve lived to bestride the end of the goddamn endless Misery River! And now I’m going to take a piss ’at goes plumb to the Gulf of Mexico!”
Drouillard gave him a hard look and said: “Among my people, it’s the women who straddle to piss.”
Captain Lewis laughed out loud, but then scowled at McNeal. “Stop that. Our people a
re downstream.” Shamed, McNeal quit.
A little farther up they found the source of that stream to be a clear, ice-cold spring emerging from the earth. Here Captain Lewis had drunk and sat to rest, and he said, with a long, long look in his eyes, gazing back down the long slope, “I’ve done it! Drunk from the very fountainhead of the greatest river of this continent. Boys, we’ve come three thousand miles up this Missouri. Now, let’s cross over this ridge and get us a drink from the fountainhead of the Columbia.”
And so now here they were, trudging up onto the ridge that separated the east-flowing from the west-flowing waters. The Shoshone trail led over a pass; the ridge rose higher both north and south. If the Shoshones had a village, it must be over on the west side of the divide. That way went their path. And from this ridge it was supposed to be all downhill to the Pacific Ocean in the west. They climbed toward the ridge. In his mind’s eye Drouillard anticipated a long, easy slope down the other way, with wide rivers for boats. These captains had been right so many times, he was ready to see what they expected to see.
What they did see when they crested the rise, into a howling updraft, left them speechless.
The western slope fell away steeper than the one they had just climbed, and was the same sere, brown, treeless kind of ground.
But as far as they could see to the west, rose range after range of immense, craggy, snowcapped mountains, some shining in sunlight, some somber and almost black in the shadows of drifting clouds.
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