The Captain's Dog

by Roland Smith

  For the next few days I rode in the boat and the Captain wouldn't let me put any weight on my sore leg. My luck had not run out, though. I recovered well and it wasn't long before I had so much energy built up I could not stay still. When the men weren't looking I jumped into the river, swam to shore, and found Captain Lewis. I thought he might be cross when he saw me, but instead he laughed.

  "So you gave them the slip?" He scratched my head. "I thought you might when you felt up to it."

  The leg healed, but it has never been quite the same since.

  May 26, 1805

  Today I beheld the Rocky Mountains for the first time. I could see only a few of the snow-covered peaks above the horizon, but with the sun reflecting off them they were a wonderful sight to see. I could hardly contain my pleasure, knowing that we are now nearly at the end of the Missouri River, but this pleasure in seeing the mountains is somewhat confounded by my fear of crossing them. I know it is a crime to anticipate evil, so I am trying to imagine an easy passage through those peaks....

  THE MOUNTAINS were whiter and taller than any of us could have imagined, and Captain Lewis stared at them until sunset. He was right to worry about getting through them, but before we reached the mountains we would face a number of other dangers. Like the lone buffalo who stampeded our camp one night.

  Since my injury I had been sleeping toward the back of the lodge, next to Captain Lewis, where it was warmer. Because of this I didn't hear the buffalo swim across the river, clamber over the white pirogue, smash York's rifle, and damage the blunderbusses.

  What I did hear was Caw! Caw! Caw! My eyes snapped open at the familiar call, then I heard Charbonneau, who had sentry duty that night, shout. I was up in an instant, scrambling past the captains, Drouillard, Bird Woman, and Pomp. By the time I got through the flap the buffalo was charging right through the middle of camp.

  The big brute ran straight for our lodge, where the Captain and the others were still stumbling around inside. I ran at the buffalo head-on, as I'd seen the wolves do on many occasions. Just as we were about to collide I stepped to the side and bit into the buffalo's ear. The beast veered to the left, missing the lodge by five feet, and I went for a wild ride until I remembered to unclench my jaws. When I stopped somersaulting over the rough ground and looked up, the buffalo was gone.

  "His hoof didn't land a foot from my durn head!"

  "I thought it was a grizzly!"

  "Lucky some of us weren't killed!"

  "The dog saved the captains' lives!"

  "I saw him! He went right for that bull!"

  "Hung on to him like a prickly pear!"

  The captains walked down to the white pirogue with torches to survey the damage. Everyone followed.

  "Who was on sentry duty?" Captain Lewis asked.

  This quieted everyone down. The men looked at Charbonneau.

  "You didn't hear the buffalo coming over the top of the pirogue?" Captain Lewis asked.

  "No, I did not."

  "I see." Captain Lewis looked at the other men. "Did you men see the buffalo running through camp?"

  They all nodded.

  "Was it wearing moccasins on its hooves?"

  Colter whispered to Shannon, "Looks like we're in for some more of that boudin blanc."

  June 1, 1805

  Our passage has been very difficult the past few days. It is cold and rainy. On either side of us are enormous white cliffs. There is no shore to speak of below the cliffs, and what little ground there is, is so slippery the men have to take off their moccasins while they use the towlines to pull the pirogues through. Their feet have been terribly cut up by the sharp rocks. They spend a good deal of the day up to their armpits in the icy water, pulling the boats. Tomorrow I will take a party of men ashore to shoot buffalo and elks. I need the skins to stretch over the iron frame of our new boat....

  I look at Drouillard to see if he remembers this day. If he does, he shows no sign of it.

  CAPTAIN LEWIS had taken a number of men ashore with him, including Drouillard and Charbonneau, who had once again gotten back into the Captain's good graces with a plateful of boudin blanc.

  The men split up into pairs and I decided to ramble with Drouillard and Charbonneau. Drouillard shot three elk and two buffalo. Charbonneau missed four buffalo and two elk We were headed back to camp with the skins when White Feather showed up.

  "Caw! Caw! Caw!"

  Drouillard and Charbonneau payed no attention to White Feather, but I knew better than to ignore his warnings. I stopped, put my nose up in the air, and picked up the scent of a grizzly coming our way. I started barking.

  "Shut up, dog!" Charbonneau said.

  I paid him no mind.

  Drouillard looked in the direction I was facing. "Is your gun charged?" He asked Charbonneau.

  "Of course it is."

  "Good. I suspect you're going to need it presently. If I'm not mistaken, this is Sea's bear bark."

  Charbonneau's eyes bulged. "Where?"

  "There." Drouillard pointed to a small rise in the distance. The grizzly was just topping it. The wind was blowing our scent in his direction and he stood up to get a better whiff. "Here he comes." Drouillard dropped his skins and unslung his rifle.

  The grizzly ran straight at us. Charbonneau looked as if he might explode with fear. When the grizzly was a hundred yards away Charbonneau fired his rifle into the air.

  "What do you think you're doing?" Drouillard asked, without taking his eyes off the charging bear.

  Charbonneau was too frightened to answer.

  "Better reload your gun," Drouillard said. "And make it quick."

  Charbonneau ran. I wanted to join him but wasn't about to leave Drouillard alone.

  "Guess I'm going to have to make this shot count," Drouillard said calmly. He waited until the grizzly was fifty feet away before firing. The bear reared back on its haunches and was dead before it hit the ground. "Think I hit it in the eye."

  The left eye, as it turned out.

  June 3, 1805

  We are camped at a fork in the Missouri. One of the branches appears to flow from the west, while the other flows from the south. Unfortunately the Hidatsas, who have been here before us, did not mention this second river and I do not know which one leads to the Great Falls. I sent two teams to scout ahead. They just reported in. Their opinion is that the right branch is the Missouri and the left branch is another river. The men's belief is based on the direction from which the right branch flows and on the color of the water, which is same color as the water we have been traveling on.

  Captain Clark and I believe that the left branch is the correct river. The river stones in the left branch are typical of those found in rivers flowing directly from the mountains, as is the color of the water, which is somewhat clearer in the left branch.

  If we take the wrong river there is a good chance we will perish this winter....

  CAPTAIN CLARK walked into the lodge and sat down. "What do you think, Meriwether?"

  "Let's look at the map again."

  Captain Clark unrolled the map of the river the Hidatsas had helped him draw at Fort Mandan. It did not show a fork in the Missouri. "How far do you think we are from the Great Falls?"

  "I thought we were close, but now I'm not sure. I expected the scouts to find it today. If we follow the wrong river we will not find the Shoshones and their horses, which means we will not get over the mountains before winter."

  "We have to get over those mountains before the snow comes," Captain Clark said. "What do you suggest?"

  "I think our only choice is to scout farther up both rivers. Tomorrow I'll lead a team up the right branch for a day and a half. You'll lead a team up the left for the same amount of time. One of us is bound to find the Falls."

  Early the next morning we headed up the right branch, which Captain Lewis named Maria's River, after his cousin Maria. With us were Drouillard, Sergeant Pryor, and Privates Shields, Windsor, Cruzatte, and Lepage.

  The shor
e along the river was covered in prickly pear, which slowed our progress considerably.

  After a day and a half of painful walking, the Captain still wasn't sure, so we continued on another half day. That evening he concluded that the river could not be the Missouri because it appeared to flow too far to the north.

  "I don't know as I agree with you, Captain," Sergeant Pryor said. "I think the Falls are still up ahead, but I won't be sorry to turn back This place feels like bad luck to me."

  He was not alone in thinking this.

  "It's going to be pretty slow going with all these skins we're carrying," Cruzatte added. Along the way the men had shot several deer and elk and were carrying the skins on their sore backs for the Captain's iron boat.

  "I have a solution for that," Captain Lewis said. "We'll build two rafts and let the river do our work for us."

  The river worked against us, destroying both rafts minutes after we launched them. We ended up on the opposite shore.

  "Told you this place was bad luck," Pryor said. He and the other men began drying out their gear.

  "Drouillard and I will scout ahead and see how the route along this side is," Captain Lewis said.

  I went with them. The north bank was blanketed with prickly pear and covered with impassable boulders. After half a mile it became clear that the shoreline could not be followed easily on foot. We returned to the men.

  "We'll have to walk north to the prairie, then head back east and parallel the river," Captain Lewis said, removing prickly pear spines from my paw.

  "With all these skins?"

  "Regretfully, we will have to leave them behind."

  That night on the prairie, a hard steady rain drenched us. We sat around a poor fire, shivering, wondering if the sun would ever rise again. This whole area put me on edge, and it wasn't because of the prickly pears or the difficult terrain. Ever since we got here the Captain seemed to have pulled into himself. I had seen him have minor bouts of melancholy along the trail, but the mood he was in now was far worse than before. I hoped he was right about the north branch not being the Missouri. I didn't want to come back this way again.

  The next day we rejoined Maria's River farther downriver and slithered our way along a narrow trail above a steep hillside of slick clay. Captain Lewis slipped and nearly plunged a hundred feet into the river, but he managed to stop himself with his espontoon and crawl back up to the top. No sooner was he back on his feet than we heard Private Windsor behind us.

  "God, Captain! What shall I do?"

  Windsor was spread-eagled on the slippery hillside about fifteen feet below the trail. Captain Lewis was greatly alarmed at the private's predicament, but he did not show it.

  The Captain got as close to the edge as he dared and smiled down at Windsor. "You're doing just fine," he said. "You're in no immediate danger." The statements were baldfaced lies, but Windsor believed both of them. He smiled and seemed relieved. "Take your knife and dig a foothold in the clay for your foot."

  Windsor reached down with his knife and began digging the hole. The only thing holding him in place was the Captain's confidence.

  "That's it," the Captain said. "Careful, now."

  "How's that?" Windsor asked.

  "Perfect! Now slip your right moccasin off and stick your bare foot in the hole. That's right. Just drop the moccasin. Now all you have to do is to crawl forward, using your knife to pull yourself up."

  Windsor crawled up the slick clay face like a blowfly on a windowpane. When he got within an arm's length of the top, the Captain and Drouillard pulled him up over the edge.

  "Guess I got a bit overwrought down there," said Windsor sheepishly. "Sorry, Captain."

  "You responded just about right, Private Windsor."

  We arrived back at the fork two days late.

  "We were just about ready to send a search party out for you," Captain Clark said.

  "We had a little trouble." Captain Lewis shook his head and sat down heavily on a buffalo skin. He had not been feeling well since our drenching on the prairie.

  "Did you find the Great Falls?" Captain Lewis asked.

  Captain Clark shook his head. "I assume you didn't, either."

  "No. And the river veers too far to the north to be the Missouri. How does the left branch look?"

  "We didn't get very far up it, but I think it's the Missouri."

  "And the men?"

  "They disagree."

  The following morning Captain Lewis, still ill, tried to convince the men that the left branch was the Missouri River. He showed them several maps, arguing his case for nearly an hour.

  "It doesn't matter to me whether you're right or wrong, Captain," Colter said when Captain Lewis finished. "I can't speak for the others, but I'll follow you and Captain Clark whatever direction you choose. The way I figure it, we are in this together."

  "Well put, Colter."

  "I'm with the captains, too."

  "Count me in."

  All the men were of the same mind, which cheered Captain Lewis considerably.

  June 9, 1805

  I am gratified at the men's willingness to follow us despite their belief we have chosen the wrong river. I pray that we are right.

  To reach the mountains before winter we will travel light and fast. To this end we left the red pirogue at the fork and will pick it up on our way home. We also left a cache of supplies there.

  I am leading a land party to reach the Great Falls ahead of the others. Drouillard, J. Fields, Gibson, and Goodrich are with me. If the Falls are not up this river, we may still have time to go back down and ascend the other branch and reach the mountains before winter. Captain Clark is following on the river with the others.

  I am still not feeling well. When I left this morning Sacagawea was also ill....

  THE CAPTAIN SLEPT very little our first night out because of his illness. Despite this, we were on our way again early the next morning.

  A few hours after we started, the men shot four elk.

  "Butcher the meat and hang what we don't need next to the river," Captain Lewis said, sitting down heavily on the ground. He was pale and very weak. He leaned against a tree and closed his eyes. I lay down next to him until the scent of those elk guts pulled me away.

  When I got my fill, I returned to the Captain and found him sleeping peacefully. Rather than disturb him, I joined Private Goodrich at the river, where he was fishing. He pulled out one lively fish after another with his pole and string. It was great fun to catch the flopping fish he threw onto the bank and bring them to him. Each time I brought one, he patted me on the head, took the fish from my mouth, and put it onto the growing pile.

  "They don't call you Seaman for nothin'."

  "Goodrich!"

  It was Captain Lewis. I ran to him, with Goodrich right on my heels. The Captain was doubled over on the ground, clutching his stomach. "Gather ... some ... chokecherry ... branches," he said through clenched teeth. "I need to make some medicine out of the bark."

  Goodrich ran off. I had never seen the Captain in such pain and I wanted to help him, but there was nothing I could do but watch. Goodrich returned with the branches.

  "What should I do with them, Captain?"

  "Strip the bark ... make tea..."

  The men were alarmed at the Captain's condition. Drouillard wanted to find Captain Clark and bring him up, but Captain Lewis wouldn't let him, insisting that he would be fine after the tea had a chance to work.

  By eight o'clock the Captain was sitting. By ten o'clock he was walking. He went to sleep about eleven, and the next morning he seemed perfectly recovered.

  "Bless my mother for teaching me about herbs," he said. "Shall we proceed on, gentlemen?"

  We walked nearly thirty miles before the Captain called a halt, saying that he was somewhat weakened from his ailment the day before. After we made camp the Captain worked on his notes, then did some fishing using a deer spleen as bait, which worked tolerably well.

  The following day
we came upon a vast plain with more buffalo than we had ever seen before. In the distance there was a great rumbling noise. Captain Lewis ran toward the sound.

  June 13, 1805

  O the Joy! We have arrived at the Great Falls and their beauty is beyond my ability to put into words....

  Colter flips through the red book. "Some pages are missing here. You were there, Drouillard. Any idea what was on them?"

  Drouillard shakes his head.

  I know....

  THE CAPTAIN stood on the edge of the precipice, staring across that grand crack in the prairie.

  "A rainbow," he said, and began to weep.

  The rainbow stretched from one side of the Falls to the other. The sound of the water was deafening. The cool mist drenched us.

  It was not the beauty alone that moved him. Finding the Great Falls meant the Shoshones were not far ahead.

  The men came up and were as joyful as the Captain at the sight.

  "You were right, Captain Lewis," Joe Fields said, staring in awe at the roaring spectacle.

  "The important thing to me, Private Fields, is that you followed us. I value that more than this sublime sight."

  The Captain stayed at the Falls while the men set up camp a short distance away. For over two hours he tried to capture the magnificent Falls by sketching them in the red book. The renderings looked pretty good to me, but each time he finished a sketch he tore the page from the red book and crumpled it in frustration.

  Later that evening he used the pages to start his campfire.

  June 14, 1805

  I would give just about anything to be an artist. I thought about it all last night. I fear no one will believe the sights we have seen because of my inability to record them with any accuracy. If I had only pursued this skill in my younger years ... but there is nothing that can be done now.