Sacajawea

by Anna Lee Waldo

  On two sides of the expedition’s camp lay camps of the Sioux, each one’s presence unknown to the other. This tribe had gone to attack the expedition’s camp at Fort Mandan because they thought the white men were bad medicine. They had missed them and were now going home. Chief Black Cat of the Mandans had disapproved of this Sioux scheme so strongly that he had not let his people trade or give food to them. By Indian standards this was the sharpest rebuff possible. Black Cat knew this band was warlike and wanted mainly the guns and ammunition the white men carried.

  The Missouri River was beginning to look something like a swamp. The bed was shallow, and the men with the cordelles were sometimes out all day pulling and hauling the canoes. Sometimes the banks were steep and the men had to wade up to their armpits in the cold river; other times they climbed and scrambled over the sharp rocks and prickly pear along the shore. At times the banks were slippery with mud that clung to their moccasins, so they were forced to go barefoot. Dirt and stones showered these men from the crumbling cliffs.

  One afternoon during a heavy rain, the expedition was forced to stop. A fire was laid on high ground in the center of the skin tepee, and as many as could gathered inside to keep dry. The others built small lean-tos that were not completely watertight but much better than sitting in the open or even under a tree.

  Gathering sticks and saplings for the lean-tos, Gass noticed hoofprints. Drouillard and Cruzatte came to investigate. They reported to Clark that a Sioux war party traveling with many horses had been in this same spot only twenty-four hours before. No one wanted to meet these Sioux. The men began to speak of Corporal Warfington’s party going downriver to Saint Louis in the keelboat. Would they miss the attacking Sioux? Fortunately both parties had traveled sooner and much faster than the warring Sioux had reasoned they would. The Pirogues and canoes averaged about twenty miles a day going upstream.

  Alkali dust rose, blown into clouds, and sifted into Clark’s double-cased watch until the wheels refused to move more than a few minutes at a time. The riverbank was perfectly white, and the river itself became milky white. Lewis remarked, “The Missouri looks to me like a cup of tea my grandmother used to make, with a tablespoon of milk stirred in it.”4

  The game became so tame that the men had to drive the elk and deer from the cordeliers’ path with sticks and stones. Sometimes the yellow cougar watched from some rock ledge. When a rock was thrown in its direction, the animal would growl and slink away. The expedition ate beaver, elk, prairie hens, turkeys, and ducks.

  Little meadows were radiant with shooting stars, honeysuckle, morning glories, trillium, dogtooth violets, spring beauties, and buttercups. Wild cherry and plum blossoms perfumed the air. For two days they traveled past second-growth fir. The original timber had been burned off a generation before. The undergrowth was filled with vine-maple, or Virginia creeper. The captains investigated a clone of aspen, genetically identical, which had grown from one root.

  Toward the end of April, Lewis studied the map drawn by the Wolf Chief and led a small party ahead to the mouth of the Rochejaune, or Yellowstone River. This had been named on a map drawn by James Mackay ten years earlier. Lewis had a copy of that map for study also, and he decided that the junction would make an ideal location for a future trading post. Pat Gass suggested the post be made of local limestone. Charbonneau suggested starting trading fairs, such as the Mandans and Minnetarees held.

  Lewis and Drouillard wandered about, studying the terrain. There were a couple of square miles of open ground, walled on three sides by a stand of black fir timber that looked solid until the men got within two yards of it; on the fourth side was a growth of mountain-ash saplings fencing the river. The open ground was a swale of yellow snapdragons and lavender-flowering wild pea vine. Silently, out of the timber, loped two grizzlies.

  Instantly Lewis recalled the awe and terror with which the Mandans had described these “yellow bears,” the king of western beasts. Never did they go out to meet the grizzly without war paint and all the solemn rites of battle. As with the cave bear of ancient legend, no weapon of theirs was adequate to meet this dreaded beast. In parties of six or eight they went, with bows and arrows or, in recent years, the smoking-sticks of the French-Canadian traders. To kill one grizzly was equivalent to killing two enemies.

  With these things swirling in their minds, Lewis and Drouillard faced the snarling animals. Each man fired his rifle; each wounded his bear. One beast ran back into the dense copse. The other turned and chased Lewis. A lucky third shot from Drouillard laid the bear low. He was only a cub, but the men estimated his weight at close to five hundred pounds, larger than any bear in the Atlantic states.

  No wonder Indians who slew the grizzly were respected and in line to become chiefs. No wonder the bear’s claws became a badge of honor, an emblem of unflinching valor, and the skin a chiefs robe. There must be no enemy so fierce as an enraged and famished grizzly, thought Drouillard.

  They pulled the huge animal to the shore for butchering, and its fleece and skin made a load that two men could scarcely carry. York rendered several gallons of oil from the bear. Charbonneau was so pleased with this much bear butter for his cooking that he volunteered to steer the white pirogue that afternoon.

  No one, except perhaps Lewis, quite realized that Charbonneau was the worst steersman of the party. Both the captains were on shore at the time, which was very unusual. Almost always, one of them remained with the pirogue.

  Charbonneau began to sing, “I’m a riverman. I’m half alligator and half horse, with the rest of me crooked snags and the red-hot snapping turtle. Cock-a-doodle-do!” He stopped, amazed at his own powerful voice. He was going to steer the pirogue and show those rogues he was more than just a cook with this outfit.

  Scannon barked. Charbonneau turned and grinned, “By gar, you growl at me again and I’ll scream through my nose. I’m all bull ‘gator. If I set my teeth in your ear—”

  He became silent; a puff of wind came up, then another, stronger one. Instead of putting the pirogue before the wind as he had been told, he luffed her into the wind; then he gloated about his seamanship, never giving another thought to luffing. A sudden squall struck the pirogue obliquely. The wind came in such a strong gust that it drew the brace of the square sail out of Drouillard’s hand. Sacajawea looked about, then toward the shore. Lewis had fired his gun to attract Charbonneau’s attention, gesturing him to cut the halyards and take in sail.

  “Let Drouillard steer!” called Sacajawea.

  The craven Charbonneau stood paralyzed with fear. His knees were jelly, his mind water. He squawked, “Shut up, squaw, we are going to drown.” Then he dropped the tiller and crossed himself, saying, “Jésus, l’enfant, save us.”

  Charbonneau had turned pale and was staggering.

  “Take hold of the helm, or I’ll shoot you on the spot!” yelled Cruzatte, enraged at Charbonneau’s cowardice.

  Charbonneau was conscious of a tremendous weight upon him and the feeling that he would burst open. Instinct alone made him cling to the bottom of the boat.

  Looking three hundred yards across the river, the two captains saw the pirogue heel over, then lie for an agonzing half minute on her side. Finally the sail was pulled in and the pirogue righted, but she was filled with water to within an inch of the gunwales. Lewis began unbuttoning his coat to swim out, but then realized how hopeless that would be. “Lord help that Frenchman!” he exploded.

  Gradually Charbonneau came to and began to spit out muddy water and gasp for breath. Cruzatte hauled him out of the water in the bottom of the pirogue, and Charbonneau slumped against the gunwale in a half-conscious condition. His hands were numb, and he kicked a cask of water, deciding that was the weight that had been on top of him as he lay half-submerged in the bottom of the pirogue. If his life had depended on his doing something, he would have been lost.

  Sacajawea, with her baby tied to her back in the cradleboard, began swimming after papers and articles that had floated off the d
eck. Beside her was Scannon, who had rushed into the water the moment she did. Drouillard frantically bailed as Cruzatte rowed the pirogue to shore.

  There was nothing to do but stop the expedition for the rest of the day and unload the dripping, muddy cargo. Sacajawea paddled to the shore. Her arms were filled with papers from Lewis’s journal and his botanical notes. Hitched under one arm she carried Cruzatte’s violin in its dripping case, and the sextant. Slumping down on the moss-covered bank, she pulled the tumpline from her forehead and slipped out of the cradleboard. She was spreading the baby’s clothes, which she carried in the foot of the cradleboard, on stones to dry as Lewis ran up.

  “Man,” he said to Charbonneau, “if the pirogue had capsized while you were steering, it would have cost us dearly.”

  Scannon shook himself, spraying water over the two men, then barked loudly.

  Charbonneau cringed. He dried his face with his shirtsleeve, but it stayed wet.

  “You realize,” Captain Lewis went on angrily, “we have valuable instruments, papers, medicine, and presents for natives on board, to say nothing about the people here, including your own woman and child. Clumsiness cannot be tolerated on this trip!”

  Charbonneau hung his head and mumbled, “Go to the devil!” And he mumbled something about a changing wind. He looked at Scannon and shook his head. What good was the dog, anyway, he thought.

  Scannon growled and showed his teeth.

  Charbonneau stared at the dog. “Holy saints, that dog’s mouth looks like a crater, and his bark can shake the canoe worse than the river rapids. It was that dog that caused the pirogue to shift. I’ll shoot him if he tries to bite me!”

  “He won’t bite,” Lewis said, then softened his reproach of the dejected Charbonneau. “Lord, you gave us a scare today. But the damage to the pirogue is less than it might have been. Let’s have a drink.”

  Charbonneau slowly relaxed.

  Lewis had York break out a ration of spirits all around while they inspected the pirogue’s cargo. Some of the small medicine vials were ruined, but others could still be used and they were set out to dry. Only a few articles had rolled off the deck and sunk. The rest of the equipment could be salvaged.

  Cruzatte examined his violin. “Dry in the prairie air and she be good as new. Many thanks.” He bowed to Sacajawea. “I’ll show you how to make music. You show me how to dance—sometime soon?” Sacajawea nodded and put her fingers on the sagging strings. “Oh, after I tighten a few things,” said Cruzatte.

  Sacajawea went to help Lewis place the wet pages from his journal and his loose botanical notes on a clean, sandy place, with small stones on the corners of the papers to keep them from blowing into the river again.

  When she finally sat down beside Pomp, she was exhausted. She picked up the baby and nursed him, half dozing herself. Something wet bumped against her arm. She looked quickly. It was Scannon, who lay with his head on his front paws beside her. She put a hand on his head, and it felt solid and strong. She passed down his neck, his back and flanks. He seemed to quiver and leaned his huge body against her. Then he bowed his head and licked her wet moccasins.

  She began to talk. She told Scannon about the People, the family of Catches Two, Redpipe, and Charbonneau. Scannon listened, his eyes half-closed.

  Charbonneau came over to tell her that York had food ready and she ought to dry her clothes out.

  “Why you talk with that beast?”

  “He does not talk back,” she said.

  “Zut!” spat Charbonneau.

  Lewis did full justice that evening to Sacajawea. “She showed equal fortitude and resolution with any person on board,” he said to the men. Clark clapped his hands, and the others followed. Sacajawea lowered her head. Never had she had such great praise.

  “Mon dieu,” said Charbonneau. “I’ll never be able to do anything with that squaw if you make her something special and give her compliments.”

  Sergeant Gass looked darkly at Charbonneau. “She didn’t ask for anything, but a little praise goes a long way. It is harmless.”

  Sacajawea looked up. What had Gass said? She had understood only part of it. Was he defending her against her man?

  “You have to thrash women once a week, maybe more if you treat them too nice,” answered Charbonneau.”

  I guess you don’t know women like I do.” He laughed from deep within his throat.

  “You ought to be hanged and have it prove a warning to you,” snapped Gass. “Maybe we could call the lass our mascot. Soldiers often have mascots, you know.”

  The men clapped. Sacajawea sensed he had said a good word for her, and was pleased.

  “Hey, Frenchy!” called John Ordway, “what were you thinking of out there this afternoon?”

  Charbonneau looked up, shaken. “I—I did what I could.” He became quite pale.

  “What does that mean?” asked one of the men.

  “I can’t swim,” said Charbonneau with an awful grimace of embarrassment.

  “My dear friend,” said Pat Gass, “you made the princely and self-sacrificing gesture of steering the pirogue when you were a stranger to water? We are two or three thousand miles from anywhere. With less men and equipment, the captains would have had to turn back.”

  “Oui,” admitted Charbonneau, his liver doing flipflops.

  “Your behavior is intolerable in a military outfit,” said Gass.

  “I’m mortal sorry,” said Charbonneau. “The dog growled and jumped at me, and I must have blacked out for a moment. Oui, that is it—I blacked out for a moment. Fainted.”

  Sacajawea looked from her man to the others. It would not be the last time she would see him go to pieces under stress, but this night she did not know this and excused him, thinking he was frightened by the dog and had miscalculated the strength of the wind in the sails.

  CHAPTER

  15

  Beaver Bite

  Clark’s Journal:

  May 19th Sunday 1805

  Capt Lewis’s dog was badly bitten by a wounded beaver and was near bleading to death.

  BERNARD DEVOTO, ed., The Journals of Lewis and Clark. New York: Houghton Mifflin Co., 1953, p. 113.

  The game was still abundant and tame. One fat, complacent wolf was killed with nothing more than an espontoon—a spear and ax combined—which was part of each officer’s equipment.

  Not all the game was equally submissive. Scannon made the mistake of catching a beaver, probably the first he’d ever seen. He was bitten so severely that he nearly bled to death. Sacajawea showed Lewis how to stitch the wound together with some of the longer hairs from the dog’s tail. Three days later, the paw was swollen to double its size and infected. Scannon was listless and lay in the bottom of the pirogue. Sacajawea stared down at his face. The dog was suffering terrible pain; his features were distorted in agony. She placed her blanket so the sun was shielded from his eyes. Lewis could not help; he was busy on shore collecting rocks and leaves.

  After the evening meal, she examined his foot, felt it, turned it over, clicked her teeth, and said “Ahhh,” as if she had done nothing else all the days of her life but tend such cases. The paw was as hard to the touch as a piece of firewood. She went to the cooking fire for the kettle of hot water. York thought she was going to bathe Pomp, but the papoose would go without his bath this night.

  The sick dog kept his eyes fixed intently on her. Several of the men had come to see what she was doing with this huge Newfoundland, which was nearly as large as she. A close circle formed around the two. The captains also joined. Her face was sober, but all the while she kept talking in fast Minnetaree syllables.

  “I think it is blood poisoning, sure as the Lord’s watching,” said Lewis.

  “Let’s give him a bit of laudanum so he will be still while she works on him,” suggested Clark, going after one of the medicine boxes.

  “Ought we to let that squaw work on my dog?” asked Lewis.

  The dog pulled away from Clark and had to be forced to
drink the water with the alcohol-opium mixture. He refused to be moved from Sacajawea’s side.

  “Can you do something with that swollen foot?” asked Lewis, looking doubtfully at Sacajawea.

  “Ai. Bad spirits inside!” She dipped her hands in the hot water and rubbed them several times on the swollen paw. Slowly she dipped the paw in the water. Finally the dog permitted her to hold his paw in the hot water for several minutes. She drew on the great store of knowledge she had gathered as a child from her grandmother. First, she massaged the flesh around the wound for a long time, then moved upward to the dog’s ankle. She rubbed with the palm of her hand, making circular motions, gently for a while, then more strongly, and firmly. By then, the dog was sleeping.

  She looked up and said something to Charbonneau. “She wants a drink of rum!” he spluttered.

  “Well, she shall have it, then,” said Clark, sending York for a tin cup.

  “My Lord!” exploded Lewis. “The nerve of her!”

  Clark handed her the cup of spirits. They all expected her to drink it. Instead, she drew the sleeping dog’s paw from the warm water and poured the rum directly into the now soft, oozing wound. Her face was flushed, and her eyes shone in the firelight.

  She made motions of wrapping the great paw. Lewis pulled some strips of white linen from the medicine box and swathed the paw. The dog gasped and whined and moaned as the opium wore off, but he did not try to stand. All night he lay beside the little fire. Sacajawea was certain from the dog’s face that the pain was growing no worse. He even slept off and on.1

  The whole camp was asleep now. Sacajawea felt tired and drowsy. Both captains had gone to sleep, and Drouillard was snoring. Pomp was asleep in the cradleboard, and she could see York with his feet close to the fire in the center of the skin tent. The dog slept. She lay on her robe, half-asleep. Suddenly she lay very still, listening. In another instant she was wide-awake. She had heard steps off to one side, steps that seemed to be hesitating as if in fear. They came on cautiously, drawing closer and closer; then they stopped, as if the person were listening. Sacajawea glanced around. The dog was still sleeping; the fire was low and did not give much light. The others seemed asleep. She got up quickly and squatted close to the fire, looking for a large piece of firewood to use in case she needed some protection. The steps were now approaching firmly. The next moment her man, Charbonneau, stood within the circle of the campfire’s glow, looking at her silently, the partially empty cup of rum shaking unsteadily in his hand. His yellowed teeth flashed as he raised the cup to his lips.