Sacajawea

by Anna Lee Waldo

  Sacajawea was bathing herself. Her feet sank deep into comfortable mud. Wading out was like stepping into rabbit robes in a snug mud hut, pulling the robes up slowly, feeling the warm fur sleek against the skin. It was like that except that the water in this little backwash was softer than the fur. It curled in around her thighs. She treaded water, and paddled with her arms, helping out her legs. When Clark came to the bank for her, he turned his back. She came out, the tips of her toes touching silt. Coming up out of the river was like falling headlong into icy water. The wind cold, scorched her wet skin. She felt good. She pulled on her tunic and slipped into her moccasins, wrung her hair on the sand and pushed it behind her ears. It was early. Directly westward were the mountains, not dark, but blazing redly in the new sun.

  Lewis asked her to tell them again about what lay northwestward, across the valley space and beyond the foothills. His right arm was sweeping back and forth. His body bent forward, as if he were trying, unconsciously, to gather all details of the great scene about him.

  “The Shoshonis go back and forth here in annual hunts to the Yellowstone,” she said, sitting a little apart from the two men. “The Nez Percés and Flatheads come here for robes and meat. Big Bellies come from the north for good hunting.”

  “She means the Gros Ventres from Saskatchewan, I bet,” said Clark.

  “No tribe lives here permanently, but the roads are deep, like trenches, worn by trailing their lodgepoles and travois. This is common hunting ground,” said Lewis, his imagination spinning.

  “This land would feed thousands of cattle and feed ‘em fat!” said Clark. “And it is sure enough wheat country.”

  “Lordy, wheat!” said Lewis. “That’s it. Wheat would be up as thick as the hair on a dog’s back inside of two weeks after the last spring snow!”

  “There!” exclaimed Clark. “We’ll come back here and farm. Wouldn’t Judy like it out here?”

  “Judy Hancock, here? She’d have none but Indians to ask to her cotillion!” laughed Lewis.

  Could either man but have known his words were prescient of the day when this would be the heart of the Montana wheat and cattle country, their thoughts would not have been so lighthearted.

  Now there was a problem of more immediacy: which fork of the river to take? Patrols were sent out to explore while the hunters went for game and equipment checks were made. Their stay at the Three Forks was a long one, for it was vital to choose the correct fork, and although Sacajawea had been right before and now told them to take the fork leading west, Captain Lewis waited for the men to scout before reaching the same decision.

  Lewis named the southeast fork, which he explored, the Gallatin, in honor of the Secretary of the Treasury. The middle fork became the Madison, after the Secretary of State, and the northwest fork was named the Jefferson, after the President of the United States. Captain Clark provided the first basic survey of the Three Forks area. He added it to his manuscript maps.

  The canoes were reloaded, and the expedition began to ascend the Jefferson on July 30 to its head in the Bitterroot Mountains, and to continue their search for the Shoshonis.

  “You’ll never find them in the open,” explained Sacajawea. “They lived once on the plains, but they have been driven from them by enemies.”

  Captain Lewis was worried. The expedition must get across the Rockies before the early autumn snow came down in their upper reaches because it would block all passes. Lewis was afraid a few more weeks’ delay might be too late, and he wanted to abandon the search for the Shoshonis, but the captains had no reliable information about the mountains or the passes through them and only the vaguest idea of the distance between navigable canoe water on the upper Missouri and upper Columbia. Captain Clark thought it important to find the Shoshonis, for through Sacajawea they would be able to converse easily and buy horses for the overland trip. This had been the chief reason for bringing her on the expedition, and this was to be her real service.

  Sacajawea did her best to explain that her people had taken refuge in the most inaccessible uplands so that it was not worth a war party’s time to follow them far into the mountains, so little was the plunder to be gained when they reached their camps. There was little food, and their robes were thin and worn. The people had learned to accept semistarvation in order to escape being massacred.

  She was certain the People had watched their party and probably heard the hunters’ rifles. She had seen the thin line of smoke wisps for several days, low on the horizon, filtering above the silvery bulk of snow-covered mountains, like far-off clouds. In her mind’s eye she could see the People’s hunting parties coming back to the hills, recalled because of the approaching strangers.

  They traveled at a steady pace, day after day. The river in this place was filled with beaver dams, strong currents, and shallows. Towing was torture, but had to be done. Sacajawea felt she could not sit in a canoe and have the men pull her. She got out to lighten the load and trudged with her son hung on her back in a two-point wool blanket. Captain Clark and York also usually walked. Occasionally they found old signs of the Shoshonis, and once moccasin tracks made during the night by a single buck were found when camp was broken in the morning.

  Often Lewis or Clark paused to scan the terrain with the glass, but they found only the uplifts of hills and few trees; once Clark picked up some elk, and another time he saw antelope—only those things, and occasionally smoke signals, which became gradually fainter.

  The country became less rugged. They emerged onto the floor of a wide valley that waved away in small lakes of yellow and white boulders in a slope toward the north. The entire earth seemed to have been tilted in that direction. Against the sky ahead rose a high range of timbered hills.

  “Sixteen days,” sighed Captain Lewis. “Sixteen days today, since we left the forks.”

  The expedition ran into antelope and had plenty of food. On one of the meadows the antelope were frantic. Their curiosity exceeded the bounds of their instincts at times, bringing them close to the river’s edge. They ran along the bank as if racing one another, stopped, and gazed at the party in amazement and wonder. They pivoted suddenly and bounded away on springlike legs, only to whirl about and stare again. They stood in groups on knoll tops as if chatting with one another, and for no visible reason suddenly scattered in all directions as if a noiseless explosion had occurred in their midst.

  On August 8, Sacajawea pointed to a steep, rocky cliff shaped a little like a beaver’s head, one hundred and fifty feet above the water, an Indian landmark from the beginning of time.

  “The Beaver Head,” she said, pointing, “is not far from the summer camp of my people. We will meet them soon, on this river or the river beyond, west of the source of the Big Muddy. Not far now.” She settled herself in the bottom of the canoe, Pomp in her arms, her knees to one side. She rocked the baby when the water was still, and hummed to him. When he fussed or cried, she nursed him until he fell asleep.

  That evening Sacajawea listened intently to the conversation around the cook fire, grasping much of its meaning. She stood holding Pomp over one shoulder as he pulled at her braid and put the end of it into his mouth. She stepped forward just a little. “My people’s cheeks are painted with vermilion. Red on the cheeks is a sign of peace between men. See, I have been wearing a red line in the part of my hair and some on my face so that the People might notice.”

  “Balls of fire!” said Captain Lewis. He had tied his hair back with a rawhide string, but the ends stuck out unevenly, like oddments of old straw hanging down his neck. The queue looked like a badly made sheaf gleaned from the yellow stubble on his face. “I wondered why you wore that gaudy stuff!”

  “They are near, but they are scared.”

  “Then we have to flush them out like a covey of grouse. Tomorrow I’ll take a couple of men and scout out around the river. I want you to stay in camp with Captain Clark. You and York see that he stays off that foot. It’s nasty-looking tonight. If we meet with any kind o
f tribe, we’ll wait for you to come upriver and then you talk with them.” He turned and strode away to speak with Captain Clark.

  Sacajawea followed and looked anxiously at Chief Red Hair. A carbuncle on his ankle had become so large that he could barely walk. She let out her breath with a sigh. “Have you been walking?” she scolded him.

  Captain Clark grinned as if he knew he’d played a joke on her. “Nobody’s offered to wait on me—yet.”

  Captain Lewis noticed the expression on Sacajawea’s face as she looked at Clark. He suddenly thought, Why that little savage loves Bill Clark. She loves him as deeply as any white girl could. And I do believe that Bill enjoys her attentions. Good Lord! I hope that man of hers does not find out! Lewis hunched his back against a tree and stared at the sky. He thought he could understand the relationship between Sacajawea and Bill Clark, the man who was his equal in rank and authority and whom he respected as men of great intellect respect one another. His silence was without strain. The day lost itself, and he slept.

  When the sun lighted the east side of the camp, he roused Drouillard, who knew the Indian hand signs nearly as well as he knew English, John Shields, who was not overly bright but could follow orders very well, and Hugh McNeal, a good hunter and reader of trail signs, and prepared to track the elusive Shoshonis. Clark and the rest of the men would rest for a few days, and then follow with the canoes.

  Sacajawea applied hot mud poultices to Captain Clark’s ankle and brought him the tenderest meat from Charbonneau’s cook fire. During the next few days in camp, she made clothes for her baby and herself. She wanted to look nice when she went to the People. She put little blue beads on her baby’s moccasins and on the yoke of his small shirt.

  “Hey, Janey, bring me some of those beads,” called Captain Clark. “I have to do something, and I’m tired of writing, drawing pictures, and sorting seeds. Maybe I can make something pretty.”

  She looked questioningly at Chief Red Hair and chuckled to herself. Did he really want her to go in the stores and get out some beads? York had been the one to bring the beads to her, along with a fine metal needle and linen thread.

  “Sure, it’s all right,” he said. “You bring me the color beads you like best, a good needle, some strong thread, and a long piece of tanned, soft hide.”

  On August 13, the expedition moved forward, with Captain Clark sitting in a canoe, letting Cruzatte pole, while he sewed blue beads on the strip of leather. Most of the men were towing supplies in the canoes, but Clark insisted that those with large blisters and boils on their feet ride as he did.

  Sacajawea collected the sticky ooze from balsam blisters at each stop and told the men to keep their sore feet covered with it. She brought armloads of thimble-berry leaves to wrap their feet at night. This herbal treatment and the strong constitutions of the men kept the infections at a minimum and hastened healing. Clark’s ankle improved each day now.

  Captain Lewis, with Drouillard, Shields, and McNeal, had scouted around the river, hunted a suitable portage, and followed several well-traveled game and native trails. There was plenty of low brush, but few tall trees. Captain Lewis stopped frequently to look at the hills with his spyglass. They were several days ahead of Clark when Lewis looked ahead at the plains and saw a man on horseback. The man saw him and watched silently.

  “Look, he is different from any of the natives we have so far met,” Captain Lewis said, handing the spyglass to McNeal.

  “He may be as nearabouts to a Shoshoni as any we’ve seen,” said McNeal.

  “I’m thinking the same,” said Captain Lewis. “See, he carries a bow and a bag of arrows on his back. The horse is elegantly painted but has no saddle and only a thin bit of braided horsehair going under the jaw for a bridle. Just the way Janey described the Shoshoni horse.”

  Captain Lewis, about half a mile from the strange horseman, loosened his blanket from his pack and held it by two corners, throwing it up in the air higher than his head, then bringing it down to the ground as if to spread it out. He did this three times. It was the Shoshoni sign of hospitality taught him by Sacajawea. It meant, “Come, sit on the robe with me in peace.”

  Still the stranger kept his position, looking on with suspicion. Signaling the other men to halt, Captain Lewis walked slowly toward the man on horseback, holding several trinkets, beads, and some ribbon in his outstretched hand. ”Tab-ba-bone, tab-ba-bone!” he called, believing the word to mean “white man” in Shoshoni, and stripping up the sleeve of one arm to show the white color of his skin.1

  The Indian kept his eyes on Drouillard and Shields, who continued to move forward, not realizing that when Captain Lewis was negotiating with the Indian they should stand still. Lewis now risked a signal to halt. Drouillard obeyed, but Shields failed to see the signal.

  The Indian paused, looking from Drouillard to the advancing Shields and then to Captain Lewis, who went slowly forward for another fifty paces. Shields, rifle in hand, foolishly moved ahead so that he would soon be in the Indian’s rear. From the Indian’s point of view, it looked like a trap.

  As Captain Lewis came forward shouting, the suspicious Shoshoni fled like a frightened deer. No amount of calling or motions could bring him back.

  Captain Lewis picked up his three men and tried to follow the horse tracks, hoping to be led to the man’s village. They passed places that looked as though the women had dug roots that day. Lewis fixed a pole with several strings of colored beads, moccasin awls, and some little tin boxes of paints and a looking glass attached to one end. He planted the other end in the ground beside their old campfire, hoping that some Indians would come by and see that the white men were friendly. Only friends would scatter such valuable goods about. McNeal carried the small American flag with fifteen stars tied to a pole, and whenever the men stopped he planted it in the ground.2

  On the morning of August 12, Captain Lewis and his three men traveled along the foot of the mountains on a wide, well-traveled trail. A sudden shower wiped out any tracks, but Lewis was confident if they continued on the trail they would find the Shoshonis soon. By late afternoon they had made no contact with any Indians. They traveled beside a small stream, which all four men regarded as the headwater of the Missouri River.

  McNeal thought of the long struggle up the muddy Missouri to this small stream they followed in the foothills. Exultantly he put his feet on opposite banks of the clear stream and shouted, “Thank God that I have lived to bestride the mighty and almost endless Missouri!”

  The men drank from the stream, which they were convinced was the headwater of the Missouri. Captain Lewis himself, however, believed this small stream to be the headwater of the mighty Columbia River.3 The four men went on to the top of the dividing ridge. There they could see tall mountain ranges in front of them, their tops partially covered with snow. Lewis went down the other side of the ridge and found it much steeper.

  Next morning the men were up early, going slowly down a long descending valley, when all of a sudden they saw on a flat, broad stone in front of them two women, a man, and some dogs. These natives watched them for some moments, then disappeared.

  It was an annoying situation to be so near an Indian encampment but fail to find it or even speak with the inhabitants. Yet Captain Lewis and his men were certain that Indians watched every move they made. This was a hopeful thing. Lewis continued to walk along the wide, dusty trail with his three men walking behind him in single file. The size of the trail told them that the camp must be nearby and fairly large. A village of any size was not easy to hide, yet these people had kept their encampment well concealed. They walked on in the summer heat another dusty mile; then, around a mountain-ash thicket, they surprised three squaws. The approach of each group was hidden from the other by a series of small ravines. A young woman ran away. The older woman, with a little girl who was perhaps two or three years younger than Sacajawea, sat down and bowed her head, as if expecting instant death.

  Slowly and gently, Captain Lewis approached
the old woman. He stripped up his sleeve.

  The old woman’s eyes widened. She was barefoot, to save her moccasins for more important times, when the weather would be cold. Her tunic was stiff with grease, old, and cracked. The child was also barefoot. Her tunic was short and not so old, but black-wet and plastered to her body from the heat of the day. Her hair, in two braids, was bound with leather strips. They were amazed at the sight of Lewis. He was the first white man they had ever seen. Then Drouillard, McNeal, and Shields came up the ravine, wiping perspiration from their foreheads. Lewis gave the old woman and child beads, moccasin awls, mirrors, and vermilion paint in small tin boxes. While they examined these splendid things, Captain Lewis told Drouillard about the squaw who had run away.

  “It naturally jars a man to find out that the people he finds don’t know that they’re being looked for,” laughed Drouillard. He made hand signs, telling the old woman to call back her younger companion. She did so, and quickly the young woman came back, out of breath, her face shiny with perspiration, but her hands outstretched. Lewis gave her trinkets also.

  The child was looking first at Lewis and then at Drouillard and then back again. Lewis slowly painted the child’s forehead with vermilion. Then he did the same to the young woman and the old woman to show that he came as a friend, in peace. Chuckling to herself, the old woman stood beside Lewis and wiped her hand across her forehead and then put the paint on Lewis’s cheek slowly, shyly. He, too, was now smeared with the red mercuric sulfide pigment mixed with bear’s grease.

  Drouillard motioned to the old woman and then extended his hands to her. He stood silent until she touched him; then he made a quick series of signs. He let her follow his hands with her sharp, clear eyes, his gestures sweeping, each curving into the next with few angular or abrupt motions. When he finished, she smiled and motioned with a sweep of her right arm, “Come on.” The young woman, in a bleached-out deerskin tunic that had seen much washing and much sunning, led the four white men down the trail about two miles.