Sacajawea

by Anna Lee Waldo

  There was about half a minute when there was no expression on Clark’s face. And not one of the men had the guts to say a thing right away. There were no sounds at all except their breathing and the little scuff-scuff of a man’s hand rubbing back and forth across his bearded chin.

  “Well,” Clark said quietly, “that’s all. Let’s get to work setting up the night camp.”

  That evening, Old Toby and Cutworm gathered the snowshoes, explaining that there was no more need for them. They would be out of snow country in another day or two. Several of the old snowshoes made a good fire to melt a pot of snow for drinking water and for boiling some of that dried salmon. The rest were saved as convenient firewood for later on.

  Two days later, Charbonneau seemed quite normal. Riding through tall grass with him, Sergeant Ordway looked at the plains spreading out below them. “Rich and delightful for cultivation. I’m a farmer at heart. I’d like to have me a big farmhouse in the middle of that green land.”

  “You’re asking for plenty of backbreaking work,” said Charbonneau. “But it’s the richest land I’ve ever seen since we left the Missouri bottoms.”

  On the south bank of the Kooskooskee, as the Nez Percés called the Clearwater River, where the north and south branches met, Captain Clark found an ideal campsite. Several more of the men fell ill. Captain Lewis himself could hardly stay in the saddle. Three men were unable to walk to the camp and lay beside the trail, waiting to be brought in by packhorses. Others, able to stagger along, had to lie down before they could manage the last couple of miles into camp.

  Hunters brought in four thin deer and two large, fresh salmon. Sacajawea found the camass root and began digging. York was soon down on his hands and knees, helping. Captain Clark came over the hillock abruptly and had to swerve to miss going over York’s body. The horse threw him so that he hit the ground hard on his left hip. It was most painful for him to walk for several days.

  “I’d feel fit if my hip didn’t aggravate me so,” said Clark. But by the following day he didn’t feel at all fit; he had a fierce case of diarrhea and deep lassitude.

  It was then that Old Toby turned physician. That evening he took the tallow candles that had been removed from the tin canister, put them in one of the iron kettles, and melted them. When they were a lukewarm liquid and not quite congealed, he told Clark to drink what he’d poured in a cup. Then he went around to every member of the expedition and told them to drink; it would cure their trots.5

  Strangely, the men did not think it tasted so bad. Clark ordered the men to go to bed early, and he did the same. By morning, Clark and the others were completely cured. They could not believe that ordinary candle tallow could do this. Some admitted that the night before they were actually greedy for the stuff when Old Toby brought it to them, but ordinarily tepid lard would nauseate them.

  The next night, Clark felt well enough to attack the illness forthrightly with Dr. Rush’s infallible Philadelphia pills, a powerful charge consisting of ten grains of calomel plus ten grains of jalop. He supplemented this with Glauber’s salts and tarter emetic and offered the concoction to anyone who might want it. He had no takers for his medicines. However, many men went with Sacajawea back to Old Toby for more melted candle tallow. Old Toby told Sacajawea that the fat would find its way into her milk. No one except Old Toby had understood they had been suffering from a deficiency of fat; the active men could not function in that cold country on lean meat and at a level near starvation.

  CHAPTER

  23

  Dog Meat

  Clark’s Journal:

  October 10th Wednesday (Thursday)

  all the Party have greatly the advantage of me, in as much as they all relish the flesh of the dogs, Several of which we purchased of the nativs for to add to our store of fish and roots etc.

  BERNARD DEVOTO, ed., The Journals of Lewis and Clark. New York: Houghton Mifflin Co., 1953, p. 246.

  In a large meadow, called the Weippe, which was watered by streams from the snowcapped mountains, Nez Percé women dug the camass root with bone hooks. The root was round, like an onion. Little heaps of them lay here and there on the ground where the expedition hunted a suitable place for a campsite one late afternoon. Whenever one of the explorers wandered over the meadow or went close to the hills, the Nez Percé women would scream and run to hide in the brush. Little girls hid behind baby brothers and sisters and then peeked out to get a sight of these strange palefaces who had come to camp on their land.1

  Early the next morning, the chief of the village, who was also a medicine man and called Twisted Hair, came to visit. Captain Clark smoked a pipe with him and told him of the Great White Father in Washington who had sent the white men to visit the people of the Far West. He said, “After a few days we will move on to visit other river camps.”

  Twisted Hair then spoke with hand signs, and a halting translation through Old Toby and Sacajawea again took place. “We have no Great White Father in the East, but we will be friends.” His face was square with sharp features as if pinched out of clay. Shining brass rings decorated his ears, and brass wire was twisted around the end of a braid of hair that hung down the side of his face. Twisted Hair pointed to the many horses around the Nez Percé camp, saying, “Our horses are far sleeker and stronger than the ones you ride. I recognize yours come from our friends the Snakes on the other side of the mountains.”2

  Late in the afternoon, Chief Twisted Hair drew on a white elk skin a chart of the rivers to the west for Captain Clark. Clark stroked his beard. According to this chart the Clearwater joined another river a few miles from the camp the expedition now occupied. Further study showed that two days by canoe toward the south the river joined with another, larger than the first.

  “The Nez Percés fish on this second river. It is called the Snake,” indicated Twisted Hair.

  Clark saw that five days’ journey by canoe on the Snake was a very large river into which the Snake emptied itself, and from the mouth of that river to a great waterfall was a journey of five more days.

  Twisted Hair blinked and moved his hands. “On all the joining rivers, as well as the main river, are many Nez Percé villages.”

  Then Clark gave Twisted Hair an American flag and a handkerchief in payment for the map and information. Clark made a sign for the chief to wait. He rummaged around in several wooden crates and came up with a steel knife, another handkerchief, and some twists of tobacco. “I want to trade for some dried salmon and skins suitable for clothing.”

  Twisted Hair rolled sidewise on the ground, showing that he would bring the trade items immediately. He returned with a dozen baskets of salmon, some elk skins, and ibex, or goat, skins. Again he rolled on the ground in a paroxysm of almost inaudible laughter.

  “No, no,” corrected Clark. “I am not going to cook and sew. Sacajawea and Old Toby will sew. York will do the cooking.”

  Twisted Hair rested his chin in his hand. “That would have been something to see. A white man doing a squaw’s work.” His belly shook with laughter.

  During this time Captain Lewis was in the center of the village buying up the fattest dogs he could find. He traded an ax to one man for several dogs. The man was so pleased that he buried the ax at once for safekeeping. Another man exchanged a dog for a flint and steel, and he was so delighted with his trade that he completely wore out the flint that same evening with repeated demonstrations.

  Lewis brought the dogs back to camp on leather leashes and ordered them killed, skinned, and roasted. He was certain the meat would not only taste better than the constant diet of rotten fish they were having, but be necessary to ensure the men’s health.

  Captain Clark felt a bit squeamish about eating the dog meat. He talked to Shannon. “I got Lewis’s thinking; I understand him. But I can’t help thinking about a retriever bitch I once had. The best hunting dog I ever knew, and together we had some great times in the hills. She could track a beast all day, and minded a blizzard no more than a spring shower. Well
, she got something mortally wrong with her innards and was dying. One morning I missed her from her bed beside the stove, and my brother, George, told me he’d seen her dragging herself up through the woods in the snow. I followed her trail and found her dead in a little laurel grove, the place she’d been happiest when she was well. She wanted to die on her feet. I reckon that’s the best way for men and hounds.”

  “Sure,” said Shannon, “maybe Captain Lewis feels he’s right—but how many of these here codgers would give up their lives for a dog?”

  That evening, the mealtime was very quiet. One by one the men gingerly nibbled, then succumbed to the dog meat. Charbonneau thought it was the finest meat he had tasted. This truly disgusted Sacajawea. She begged Captain Lewis not to butcher any more dogs. Her people would eat horses in desperation, but never dogs, no matter how hungry they became. She also remembered her friend Dog from the big Hidatsa village, and her throat constricted. She could eat no more. “You would eat your dog, Scannon?” she asked Captain Lewis.

  “Of course not!” he exclaimed. He was not looking at her; he just kept his head down and was quiet. Finally he looked up, explaining, “This is not breaking any law nor a sin with these Nez Percés. My sensation of right and wrong is my conscience. The men in this outfit need red meat. If we don’t find it hunting, but find it in the village in the form of a dog, then we’ll eat the dog. I am bound to build the health of the men in my charge, so I am forced to give them something that is not considered fit for eating by some, but a delicacy by others.” Lewis nodded his head toward Charbonneau. “You know, some people eat those bitterroots, boiled until they are mush and still too bitter for my taste—besides that, they give a man so much gas he can scarcely breathe. And there are some who eat crickets and ants. This does not make them sick; it keeps them from starving and actually keeps them fit. This fat dog meat will keep our men well. You can understand that, can’t you, Janey?”

  “I see how you feel about the men, but I do not have to eat dog meat, and neither does Pomp.” Her mouth was drawn down so that she could keep it firm.

  Captain Lewis now looked directly at her. “It doesn’t make any difference. You don’t have to eat that meat if it bothers you, so long as you stay well. But if you get sick on rotten salmon or too many damn roots, I’ll hold your nose and make you drink dog-tail soup!”

  She looked at him in alarm, her eyes wide. Captain Lewis thought her eyes looked like a doe’s. In fact, she sort of makes me think of one when she walks, he thought to himself. Quick and light, and she always seems to be watching out, curious, as if she saw something waving in the grass ahead and she would go to find out what it was. Lord, like a little animal.

  By October 5, everyone was feeling well and preparing to move on toward the Pacific. The expedition now had a total of thirty-eight horses. Captain Lewis gave the pack mule Charbonneau bought from the Shoshonis to Old Toby and his son. Lewis and a couple of the men heated up the iron and branded the horses that had been purchased since leaving the Shoshonis. Then they cut off the foretop hair of all the remaining horses, thus marking them twice for easy identification. Three Nez Percés, two brothers and the son of Chief Twisted Hair, had agreed to take care of these horses until the expedition returned the next year. Clark and some of the men built caches near where five ponderosa pines had been cut to make new dugout canoes. They buried the saddles, some canisters of powder and balls, and the branding iron in the caches during the night and carefully laid the turf back in place, hoping no one would detect these freshly cut holes in the ground. The five huge pines were trimmed, then hollowed out, first by burning and then by scraping, to make seaworthy canoes.

  Word traveled fast by the wearkkoompt, the Nez Percés’ grapevine, that five dugouts were coming downriver filled with white men who traveled with a squaw and a papoose. At the last minute, Chief Twisted Hair and his subchief, Tetoharsky, wearing long leggings of goat hide, decided to accompany the party to the Columbia River. Both men had beaver pelts tied around them, going over a shoulder, with the hair next to the skin. Their arms were bare; chest and back showed nakedly between the loops of pelts. Each wore a gut belt, and each looked about with an agreeable unconcern about time. They squatted in the dugout with Old Toby and Cutworm, a picture of contentment, oblivious to the shifting of the cargo to make room for them, and not seeming to care one way or another what the next step would be.

  The men of the expedition noted happily that this part of their travels would be entirely downstream. This meant no paddling, no poling, no labor at the tow rope, and hopefully no portages. But their dreams of floating down a broad and pleasant stream were soon rudely destroyed. On the second day out, Sergeant Gass’s canoe hit a rock and swung in the current; hitting another rock, it split, filled, and sank. As usual, the men who could not swim were in the canoe that had the accident. The water was no more than waist-deep, but the danger in rapids is not depth. The capsizing canoeist is more likely to die by being swept underwater and being held against a rock by the force of the current, if he is not brained against a rock. There was nothing to be done but land, dry out the baggage, and repair the damaged canoe with plenty of pine pitch, elk hide, and strips of pine.

  By noon the canoes were moving fast through some turbulent water in a deep canyon. Suddenly Nat Pryor’s canoe grounded and its cargo was thoroughly drenched. The men were stranded midstream where the water was only thigh-deep, but on either side the swirling, gray-green water was over a man’s head. Charbonneau had a hard time keeping his feet on the bottom of the river. The water was moving fast enough to push him over. “Jèsus!” he yelled, holding on to his felt hat. “Save me! Allez! Get a rope!”

  “Don’t get excited, Frenchy,” said Pryor, doing some swearing himself.

  “Hurry!” cried Charbonneau. “My feet are slipping. I’ll be a goner! Holy Mother!”

  “You ain’t no goner,” growled Pryor. “It’s against nature. Hang on.”

  “L’aide!”

  “Keep your shirt on!” called York. “I’se throwing out the rope.” He first grinned at Charbonneau, who was kind of simpering in his beard, then stabilized his own feet and threw a rope to the closest man stranded mid-river. He worked quietly, easing each man out, and he smiled, pleased with himself, in the way of a man doing something for friends.

  “Thank you, sir,” said Pryor, shaking York’s hand and slapping him across the back.

  “Merci,” Labiche said, smiling.

  “Zut! That water, she is like ice. My feet are blue,” said Charbonneau, pumping York’s arm emphatically up and down.

  “Bonjour,” answered York, grinning broadly.

  Again that day there was baggage to dry out and the damaged canoe to repair with braces of pine wood.

  That evening, Cruzatte had his fiddle out, ready for songs and dancing with the Nez Percés who lived nearby and had come to see these strange pale ones. He offered the violin to Sacajawea, saying, “I made a promise to you a long time ago. Before this trip is over, you’ll be able to play a tune on this old fiddle. Hold the bow straight and curl your fingers this way.” She tried; and the more she tried, the more the Nez Percés mimicked the screech owl. The air was filled with screeching and laughter until Cruzatte, sides aching from his own laughing, took the fiddle back. “Janey, all you need is more practice.”

  “Ai, this box lacks something from me,” she agreed.

  Looking around the next morning, Sacajawea could see nothing but stones, sand, and a wide sagebrush plain. She could smell nothing but the stink of drying salmon. It seemed as though the entire Nez Percé nation lived on the riverbanks, and all they did involved salmon in some way. They ate salmon, slept on salmon, burned dried salmon, and traded with salmon.

  In the late afternoon each day, Old Toby and his son wandered among the small thickets of sage that stood out like black islands in a tan sea of sand. They found no game and came back to a supper of cold, dried fish or, if the expedition were fortunate enough to find fuel for a
fire, fish soup and boiled roots.

  “This is not food,” Old Toby exclaimed one day when York handed him a plate of steamed salmon. “We sleep on the bare ground, where it is wet and cold, so we need more fat or all of us will have the belly cramps and die doubled over in pain.”

  Twisted Hair and Tetoharsky shook their heads and picked at their salmon, eating every morsel they could put in their mouths.

  Old Toby motioned toward the river. “A roast duck. Watch for the ducks on the river; then, when it is roasted, eat every last drop of grease.” He picked at the fat lying along the back of his salmon. “This is not the best grease,” he complained.

  Captain Lewis, feeling a touch of the cramps and diarrhea again, tried a few agonizing swallows of more fish, then decided he wasn’t hungry. He moved away from the eaters and dozed with Scannon pressed against his legs in the sand. Before breaking camp in the morning, he said to Drouillard, “We need more meat. See if you can’t find some river tribe that will trade us a few fat dogs in the next couple of days.”

  For the next two days the canoes tossed in the wind from storms that hovered on the hills or swept over the chasm of the river. Thunder roared in the distance, and lightning struck on the hilltops, twice starting landslides.

  Once they approached an island and were almost upon it when Sacajawea saw the dark mass heave. What had seemed a sandy shoreline was the yellow foam around an enormous raft of drifting sagebrush, jammed together by a combination of wind and fast water. Branches and roots were scattered through the mass and waved like ponderous monsters as they rose and fell in turn with the rapids.

  Old Toby and Cutworm stopped paddling to watch the drifting sagebrush, and they talked in low tones with Twisted Hair and Tetoharsky.