Charbonneau

by Win Blevins

  “Go ahead.”

  “Come back to Scotland with me. You can live at Murthly Castle. You’ll have a sinecure for life. For life. Isn’t the trapping at an end anyway?”

  “It’s dwindling.”

  “You can write your book, which will be much more colorful now. I may be able to help you place it with a publisher, and the income will be yours alone.”

  “Interesting.”

  “You might also give some concerts,” said Stewart. “I know nothing of that world, and have no judgment about what is possible. Whatever my support is worth, you will have it.”

  Baptiste just looked at him. He was partly overcome with an impulse to burst into laughter at the coincidence of having two European aristocrats invite him to be members of their households. But that wasn’t the point.

  “What do you think?”

  “I’ll put it under my hat for a while,” Baptiste said.

  “Would you like another drink?”

  “Does a bear shit in the woods?”

  They chitchatted for a while, but let the main subject go. Baptiste didn’t mention what was heaviest on his mind. William Stewart, baronet, was taking back live elk and buffalo to roam his ancestral Scotch estate. Would Jean-Baptiste Charbonneau be his live, souvenir Indian?

  Back at the main camp Spotted Deer moved in with Baptiste without asking. Apparently his interval of mourning was considered over, and regardless of what he ultimately wanted to do with her, she was his property for now.

  He liked her well enough. She was not a beautiful woman—her features were too strong and blunt for that—and she was thirty-five or forty. She was tall—strapping, in fact—and had a hard, wiry body that looked cut out for hard work. Like Running Stream she had mind enough of her own to talk back to him; she was full of common sense, and would sometimes make jokes that made him wake up in the night laughing. Well, she wasn’t keeping him from taking a second squaw, if he wanted, so why not?

  He noticed one night that the fact that she was lying down nearby had the simple effect of making his cock stand up. So he took her. It turned out to be a treat—she was athletic—and Spotted Deer seemed very pleased about it. He didn’t mind it himself; for however long she belonged to him, he thought he’d keep it up.

  Stewart’s party rode with the Snakes all the way to Fort Bridger on Black’s Fork, since Stewart wanted to see Gabe again before he moved toward St. Louis and ultimately Scotland.

  The morning before they got to Fort Bridger, Stewart approached him after breakfast.

  “Have you decided?”

  “Yes. I’ll stay here.”

  “You feel attached to the Shoshones?”

  “I feel attached to this land.”

  Stewart let his eyes run in a wide circle over the scorched plains and the high mountains beyond them. He thought maybe he understood.

  JANUARY, 1844: Washakie had agreed to have the big tribal council start in two days. The Shoshone nation was spread out through the Cache Valley, along the Bear River above the great rapids that rush it toward Salt Lake. The chiefs and principal warriors of all the tribes would come from their winter camps to sit at Washakie’s council circle; Washakie had a huge lodge made especially for this meeting, and sent his hunters for enough meat to last several days. It would be the biggest council since the fight with the Crows on the Wind River three years earlier, when Washakie had persuaded the chiefs that the Shoshones must drive the Absaroka people from the Wind River Mountains and claim those hunting grounds for themselves. When it came to other Indians, Washakie was a warrior.

  Paump had his work cut out for him. In the autumn he had made a long ride alone through the Salmon River Mountains to think it through. He spent more than a month wandering through that country. He rode over the big east-west divide, through a succession of wide alpine meadows full of deer and laid out like immense parks, to the head of Middle Fork, then down that river—the swiftest and most violent he had ever seen—all the way to its mouth at the main Salmon. He loved the country: The river canyon was too deep and narrow a cut ever to permit wagon traffic or any sizable party through; it abounded in grouse, deer, elk, bear, mountain-goats, and bighorn sheep; he had never seen so much game; the canyon would stay warm in the winter, and the animals would be forced down to the river; it was an ideal spot, far too wild for any white men and for most Indians; he marked it down as a vacation spot. And he caught glimpses of the Sheep-Eater Indians, relatives to the Shoshones, who were too man-shy to come even to him. He saw their ancient paintings on rock walls. There were only a few of the Sheep-Eaters; they had probably seen white men, but not even trappers had seen them. Aside from riding and hunting, he played the harmonika, lay on his back on the grass, and thought. When he came out, he had made up his mind what to say to Washakie.

  Now he had to persuade the council. He spent the last two days before the parley politicking—talking to Bazel and Sacajawea, to Mountain Ram, who was now crippled, to Broken Hand, Little Eagle, Fat Bear, Buffalo Horn, Crazy Eyes, to every man who would attend the council. He had no idea whether he would get support from anyone but Jim.

  Washakie puffed, then saluted the earth, the sky, and the four winds. “Our brother Paump has asked to me to call this great council,” he began. “We will speak of what we must do concerning the Frenchman, who now comes as many as the locusts—who drinks the water, burns the wood, and kills the buffalo of our hunting grounds, so that the Shoshone people may one day have not enough to eat. Paump has lived among the white men and knows their hearts. Therefore do not be offended that I have invited him to sit here beside me and to speak to you his heart about the Frenchman.”

  He passed the pipe to Paump, who puffed ceremonially. Ordinarily, the first speeches would have been preliminary skirmishing, but he decided to pitch straight in.

  “My brothers, the white man wants your land, your game, your water, your wood, your children, your minds, your hearts, and perhaps your lives.

  “Before the memories of the grandfathers of the oldest men, the Frenchmen came across the salt-water-everywhere to this land. From the beginning they fought with the Indians and took the land where they had lived since the time before the memories of the grandfathers of their oldest men. First they pushed the red man away from the salt-water-everywhere, beyond the first range of mountains, and took their land for themselves. They promised, however, that the red man would have the land beyond those mountains to live upon as long as the grass shall grow and the sun shall shine.

  “Then the white men themselves crossed the mountains and began to take the land. When the Indians fought them, they sent the long knives with many guns to drive the red men far to the west or to kill them. They killed many, and stole the lands of the others. Only fifteen years ago they declared that all the land west of the Missouri River shall belong to the Indian as long as the grass shall grow and the sun shall shine. They herded all the red men of the east together and drove them in herds like tamed oxen to the west side of the Missouri River. Even to the Frenchman that march is now known as the Trail of Tears, for many died of weariness, of hunger, and of sorrow.

  “Now, however, they wish to use the land for themselves which they promised to the red man for as long as water shall run downhill. They wish to make a great trail to the salt-water-everywhere that lies to the west. Last summer wagons came thick as grasshoppers across our land, scavenging all that lay in their path and leaving it barren. Last summer the long knives sent out a band to mark the trail. Soon the long knives will come to guard the trail with their rifles, and the long knives will live in the forts and feed off the land.

  “My brothers, the Frenchmen are many. The Great White Father alone rules a hundred villages each with as many Frenchmen as there are braves, squaws, and children in the Shoshone nation. And for the Frenchmen in those villages there are ten more living in smaller villages. Many more white men live across the salt-water-everywhere, and now they come to increase the number swarming across our lands. They outnu
mber us as the flies outnumber the buffalo.

  “They will come as thick as mayflies if we permit it They have the boat that moves driven by mist, as you have heard, which carries many people. They also have a wagon that is driven by mist; it pulls many more wagons behind it, so that together they stretch farther than the highest lodgepole pine. This wagon travels many sleeps in a single day. Many will come to our country on that wagon and will spread like plague through our land.

  “My brothers, they are many and they are strong. Perhaps they are too strong for us. But we must fight like made-to-dies. If we die now, that will be better than living to be toothless old men, starving as we wander the earth because we have no lands. Perhaps, however, we can in our brave fight stop them. For the land is on our side.

  “The Frenchmen who cross our land in wagons do not understand it and do not love it. Therefore they come in fear and quake in their sleep. They are poor hunters, nearly starving in a land of plenty. We can use their fear, their lack of skill, and the land.

  “All the wagons that cross to Oregon must come through South Pass. The next pass over which oxen may draw wagons is many sleeps to the south, further far than any Shoshone has traveled. The land there is a desert, without water or game. Few white men can cross it without perishing.

  “Brothers, we can close South Pass to the wagons. Its western side belongs to us. It is narrow, and our braves can hold it against many guns. The eastern side of South Pass belongs to the Crows. We can ask them to join us in blocking the pass against the wagons. Against the Shoshones no Frenchmen will get through. The Crows will make the Shoshones even stronger, and we will no longer help the Frenchmen by letting Shoshones kill Crows and Crows kill Shoshones.

  “Brothers, until now the white men we have seen have been men of good heart, and they were few. They took only the beaver, which we did not need, and they gave us guns in fair return. The Frenchmen who now come in wagons on the great trail are many, and they are not of good heart. They take our buffalo, our deer, our elk, our wood, our water, and give us nothing in return but misery. Brothers, we can force them to a halt, and we must.”

  As a sign that he had finished, Paump passed the pipe to Mauvais Gauche. He hoped he’d done right spitting it all out at once like that.

  It would be a long process now, for every brave who wished to speak would be heard in full, and none cut short. He would not know what had been decided until the pipe went full circle to Washakie, and then perhaps full circle again and again. Aside from the chiefs and the principal warriors who sat in the circle, many braves and even squaws sat and stood behind them listening: some of those braves would speak and be heard.

  Mauvais Gauche supported Paump, except that he would not go in league with the Crows but would kill everyone he saw and curse their grandchildren. One Eye said that the Frenchmen were too many, and perhaps the Shoshone should demand payment for the crossing of their land, because they could not keep the wagons away. Buffalo Head agreed with One Eye, Fat Bear with Mauvais Gauche; Bazel said that he believed that the Frenchmen would be brothers to the Shoshone and teach them their great medicine; Crazy Eyes called for the closing of the pass. And so it went, hour after hour. Opinion seemed split, except that all were against making a pact with the Crows. Damn, Paump thought, they’d rather raid their old enemies than save their lives and their land. The pipe had circled nearly two full times when they quit for the day, but Washakie had said nothing.

  The next morning it went the same. Paump had no idea what they would decide. Jim, sitting in the place of least honor on Washakie’s right, helped with an impassioned plea for war against all whites. He reminded everyone that the whites had made slaves of the black men—braves, too, not just squaws—and had bought and sold them like horses. They would do the same to the Shoshones, he said, if the Shoshones did not fight like made-to-dies. Baptiste saluted him with an eyebrow.

  It was time for those sitting in the rear to speak. Mountain Ram was first. He said simply that the whites had killed his one daughter and his other daughter’s brave without cause, and he would see their blood in the dust even if he, an aging cripple, had to kill them himself. Three more braves called for war on the Frenchmen: If Paump, who had lived among them many years, said that their hearts were bad, it must be so. Baptiste thought maybe the ayes had it.

  “Fathers and sons”—it was Sacajawea’s voice—“I also know the Frenchman’s heart, and know it to be good.” Damn, he couldn’t believe she would speak up in council, being a squaw. Washakie did not interrupt her. “I lived near the white man’s big village St. Louis for two summers and two winters, and visited there many more times. Always they treated me with sincerity and respect, and my children also. Furthermore, I have the word of the Red-Headed Chief that the Great White Father holds us as he holds his brothers and sisters and sons and daughters. This I believe, for the Red-Headed Chief always spoke the truth to me. The Shoshone must never black his face against the Frenchmen.”

  That hurt. Baptiste looked at his knees while he listened to Washakie sum up. He invoked open hands for the Frenchmen, blackened faces for the Crows. It was settled.

  “Whar you went cockeyed, John, was askin’ ’em to jine up the Crows. Wagh! If Fremont come back with fifty men, the Shoshone would give him five hundred warriors to help kill Crows, and fork up the know-how besides. The Crows ’ud do the same against the Shoshones, or the Blackfeet, or the Sioux. And t’other way. John, they druther kill each other than the U.S. Cavalry.”

  “Looks like it.”

  “What ye gonna do?”

  “Stay here a spell. The time isn’t yet.”

  “It will be, afore long.”

  Epilogue

  SUMMER, 1847: The spearhead of the Mormon migration crossed the Wasatch Mountains and neared the Great Salt Lake, in country hunted and disputed by the Shoshones and the Utes for generations. Brigham Young announced, by the authority of divine revelation, that this territory was ideal for the cultivation of crops, for settlements, and for the Saints’ way of life; back up the trail a ways, Jim Bridger had announced the same to Brigham Young, by the authority of a quarter-century spent learning the whole interior West. Brigham exhorted his people to the stalwart courage and determination to succeed that would be needed.

  1848: Paump, having observed the impassioned and inspired efforts of the Saints’ first year, and also having noted the astonishing numbers of Mormons who kept bumping into the area in wagons, decided that a little distance from them would be a tonic. By then he had a second squaw, a teen-aged girl named Aspen whom he thought remarkably beautiful. He packed up Spotted Deer, Aspen, and their year-old daughter, and rode north for Salmon River country. He promised Sacajawea that he would be back next summer to trade for supplies at Fort Hall.

  Brigham Young’s representatives promised the Shoshones that they would teach them how to tend the soil so that they would have food, and how to tend their souls so that they would be saved. Washakie and the other chiefs, aware that their people were beginning to go hungry from lack of game, pronounced themselves grateful.

  Paump sets up this lodge beside a swift-running creek seventy miles below the mouth of Middle Fork, in the upper part of the river’s deep canyon. Between his lodge and the river stretches a grassy meadow about a hundred yards wide. That winter he shoots an elk, a bear, and two deer, and could shoot as much in any week of that season. He builds a second lodge to use as a smokehouse.

  1850: The Shoshones began to distinguish between “Americans,” whom they liked as good friends, and “Mormons,” whom they did not like.

  Paump builds a log cabin. After living in it two months, he decides to travel to the plains to get buffalo hides for another tipi. And he presents to Sacajawea that summer, at the tribe’s camp on the Siskadee, now better known as the Green River, another grandchild, this time a son.

  1853: Washakie, angered by a slight from the captain of the Green River ferry, shouted at the Mormons who owned the ferry that he would kill ever
y white man, woman, and child he found on the eastern bank of the river the next morning. The Mormons spent the night getting ready to defend themselves. At sunrise Washakie came back with fifteen warriors and declared his people to be the good friends of the white man.

  Paump’s year has evolved its own seasons: The winter he spends by his meadow in the canyon, where the animals join him for shelter against the deep snow and zero temperatures of the surrounding mountains. When the snow melts away from the bottom of the rocks and trees, and then from the meadows, and the brown grass begins to green and the wildflowers bloom, he moves slowly up the river. After a couple of weeks the salmon run, and for a few days he catches the huge fish on hooks made from pins and smokes the meat on wood racks above open flames. The squaws gather rosehips and every imaginable berry as they travel, for drying and for use in pemmican. All summer they camp above a savage set of falls near the mouth of the river, in a series of meadows that unfold as broad, flat, green, and gentle as any country estate in England. He spends his days on long walks or long rides, for here the country is high, cool, and truly alpine, the hills covered with pine, spruce, and fir, the water plentiful, the temperatures cool. Sometimes he spends whole afternoons inventing new tunes on his harmonika; sometimes he spends whole days sitting still in the forest watching, listening, drinking in. And in the autumn, when the aspens begin to turn color, he makes a circle through the mountains back to his meadow in the canyon. So he has a summer home in the high alpine plateau, a winter home low in the warm canyons, and a spring and fall of traveling.

  1854: Brigham Young sent missionaries to Washakie with the Book of Mormon. The chief whiffed on the pipe, then passed it and the book left around the council circle without comment. Every brave puffed, fingered the book, and pronounced the book good for the white man, no good for the Indian. After the book had made the circle over twenty times, without a word being said in its favor, Washakie upbraided the councilors for their stupidity: