Sacajawea

by Anna Lee Waldo

  In the evening, Charbonneau was cheered for a few moments as he ate several fish rolled in flour and fried crisply. The two women chatted in Shoshoni, softly, so as not to bother him as he ate. The winter was getting him down, with nothing in his trap line, no traders in the village, and the family of Corn Woman demanding more meat and hides in payment for the life of their daughter. The less Charbonneau did, the less he wanted to do this cold winter. He spent the afternoons playing the stick game with Chief Kakoakis. He never asked anymore where the evening’s fresh fish came from. He reasoned that they could be from the old woman, Grasshopper, who came to visit his women often.

  Charbonneau did not know exactly what day it was, but one morning when the sun shone on the sparkling white snow he declared it was Christmas, crossed himself, and played his French harp.

  Sacajawea recalled the merriment and gift-giving of the white soldiers. She gave Pomp and Tess the last little sugar lumps, and Otter Woman was given some short pieces of blue satin ribbon.

  “Nous avons envie de danser,” suggested Sacajawea.

  “Mon dieu, dance then,” said Charbonneau. He watched her strong legs and vigorous body as she danced around the lodge with the little boys following. She was no longer petite et delicate as she had seemed the night she sat on the blanket for the hand game. He had known this change for many months and had asked himself questions for which he had no ready answers. She was the leader. It was obvious as she moved to the center of the lodge with quick, certain steps, and there was an excitement stirring within her, as if she were again making her own plans to see the country in its immense richness. Charbonneau told himself he disliked energetic, headstrong women. Still, there was a nymphlike quality about Sacajawea. He was most attracted to the elfin, submissive qualities of very young girls.

  In the spring of 1807, there were moccasin telegrams sending word that “American trade boats are coming up the Big Muddy.” One group was going to the mouth of the Bighorn. One group would build a trading post at the Five Villages, and another would bring Big White and his family home.

  “That subchief on his way home?” Charbonneau shook his head. “A man can’t do a thing nowadays without it getting upstream faster than a bird flies away from winter. There will be too many people around here presently.”

  “jussome will be coming, too,” Otter Woman reminded him.

  “Pah! This is something to think about. My eyes won’t hurt none to have another look at his ugly face. I have missed that old Picardois. I think he is one fine bird. This time next year I will have him pluck, non?”

  Charbonneau’s round belly and winter fat shook as he chuckled. It was plain he thought well of his joke. “Jussome will strut around the street of this village, and I will pull those tail-feathers out of him. Hein! I think his feathers turn to dry leaves when he gets home, pardieu.”

  “Who will build the trading post on the Bighorn’s mouth?” asked Sacajawea, her lips quivering.

  “Les rats de la rivière ne reconnaissent pas leur ancêtre maternelle une fois partie,” Charbonneau swore softly. “It will be the first fort built above the Five Villages. I would like to be there.”

  “Could you go?” asked Sacajawea, her eyes wide. “It is not far from the camp of my brother, Chief Black Gun. The People will dance when they see traders coming.”

  “Ah, ça! It is not that easy. Nom d’un nom, you make it so simple. Can’t you see the job for me is here? I can be an interpreter here for the men who come up the river. Many will be coming, and I will have much to do.”

  There was a timid knock on the rough plank lodge door. Otter Woman turned to Charbonneau, who satwith his eyes shut, leaving morose creases in his face. “I was not expecting anyone.”

  “It is visitors, though; the knocking continues.”

  Charbonneau opened his small eyes and opened his hands and fairly flung them at Otter Woman.

  She went to the heavy door, made from soft cottonwood cut to size with an ax and chiseled to fit the opening. It was hung with wide leather strips tied around the doorframe and the first plank in the door. The whole thing was stained a deep ocher with clay mixed in bear’s grease. The door swung open slowly and strained the leather bindings, making a groaning sound.

  A young woman, wrapped in a bright orange piece of blanket, with a girl near the same age as Little Tess, smiled at Otter Woman. Otter Woman made a croaking sound. The young woman spoke. “Don’t you remember? This is Earth Woman, and I am called Sun Woman.”

  “Sun Woman!” Sacajawea cried out, running to embrace the squaw, whose cheeks flamed because she had not been recognized. Her tunic was quilled across the shoulders. Her moccasins and leggings were clean, showing she’d ridden a horse.

  Sacajawea sent Tess out to tether the guest’s horse.

  “We have come to hear your stories,” said Sun Woman, dropping the blanket shawl on a wall peg. She wore thin ankle bracelets over her leggings. Her child, already walking with the usual in-toeing, was dressed in the same manner. “My man, Four Bears, went on a hunt and rode this far with us.” Her black eyes warmly lighted the shadows in the lodge.

  “Come,” said Sacajawea, taking the child, who carried a cornhusk doll wrapped in rabbit skin, by the hand. “You may sit in the place of distinction.”

  “I will tell some good tales,” offered Charbonneau, stepping forward. “You come to hear what I say?”

  “No,” said Sun Woman timidly. “I only came to visit with the women of your lodge.”

  “So be it. But it is my turn to talk today.” Charbonneau’s smile taunted Sun Woman. She held her small body erect. Charbonneau thought she looked like a bird trying to be dignified, small and unsure of herself. “My women, they go to plant early squash.” He waved his hands toward Sacajawea and Otter Woman.

  Sacajawea looked from one woman to the other. Sun Woman shrank against the wall.

  “What for? It is hardly time yet. What for?” But Sacajawea knew. She interposed her body between Charbonneau and Sun Woman.

  Sun Woman was embarrassed. Her child, Sakweahki, Earth Woman, moved slowly toward Pomp. There was a stillness in the lodge like the sudden quiet of slack water at the foot of a high falls. There was danger in slack water. It had a way of gathering itself imperceptibly, of rolling smoothly, without warning, into the irresistible, tumultuous chute of another sault.

  Charbonneau passed behind Sacajawea, whose face was white. Her enormous eyes stared. Charbonneau smiled, put his hand on the edge of Sun Woman’s short tunic, his finger pushing up along her warm thigh.

  Otter Woman put her hands over her face, chagrined.

  “Little Sunshine—” Charbonneau felt his voice shake.

  Sun Woman made a gurgling noise in her throat. It was Sacajawea who moved beside them and spoke. “Our man was leaving to visit Chief Kakoakis. He is leaving now.” Her tone was low, reassuring. Her fingers touched the back of Charbonneau’s collar, pushed down along the cold skin at the back of his neck, closed tightly on the woolen cloth.

  At the same time, Earth Woman tapped Pomp on his shoulder and in a girl’s high voice said, “My father sent you a white pony. It is because you can travel far and come home safely.”

  “Pony!” cried Pomp.

  “The white pony?” Little Tess suddenly appeared from the middle of his sleeping couch. “I saw him. Come, I’ll show you.”

  The boys’ legs moved as fast as they could go for the door. Charbonneau’s hand dropped, and he stared after the boys. He put the women aside. “Pah! A pony, you say? I will see for myself. Dépêchez-vous, mangeurs de lard!” he called to the boys and trotted after them. His quick step carried him through the entrance and out the door.

  Otter Woman let her breath go out, pouf. Sacajawea felt her dignity go. “I hate you!” she called, then crumpled. Then she summoned her composure and sat on Otter Woman’s couch beside Sun Woman. Otter Woman began making herb tea.

  “Is it true?” asked Sacajawea. A curious embarrassment seized her, but she trie
d to appear calm.

  “Ai,” said Sun Woman, her voice shaking yet. “Four Bears has a special liking for you and your son. He has been happy since he heard of your safe return. I think he makes a special effort to watch over your household. He feels that you need more care since you live with a white man. I understand that concern now.”

  This last caused Otter Woman to put her hands to her mouth and laugh nervously. Soon the three women were looking at one another and laughing behind their hands, knowing that there had been three of them and only one Charbonneau. He had been powerless, in fact.

  Once Pomp came in for dried plums to share with the children. Otter Woman gave him a handful of dried corn for the new horse.

  “The pony is not here,” said Pomp. “He was ridden through the village for showing off by my father.”

  Then the three children were inside, listening to the story of the Nez Percé fish trap and the burial canoes of another nation. Sacajawea showed Sun Woman the red, puckered scar behind Pomp’s left ear, which was all that was left of his dreadful sickness when he was on the expedition. She told of the kindness of Chief Red Hair and how he used medicine to make Pomp well again. Pomp moved away and showed Earth Woman how Ben York had danced, making her laugh.

  “Music,” said Pomp. “We should make music like the fiddle.”

  Sacajawea looked out the door and saw that for certain their man was gone. Cautiously she sorted through Charbonneau’s belongings in the sack until she found the French harp. She also opened the leather pouch that held the peace medal.

  “See, I still keep this shiny round totem safe. A gift like this is always valued. When Pomp is older I will give it to him to keep in his own safe place.”

  The medal was not so shiny as they remembered.

  “It darkens with age,” said Sun Woman. “We’ll lookat it again after another snow; then see if the face there is as black as the man you call York.”

  “Ai,” said Otter Woman, and she retold of the repeated wet-finger tests on York’s black skin by the strange tribes along the rivers, just as though she had been there and seen it all herself.

  Before she was finished, Pomp repeated, “Music. We want to dance.”

  Sacajawea put the medal away and put the French harp to her lips, blowing softly at first, barely breathing in and out on the top. When she felt more accustomed to the music, she played louder—no specific tune, but with a definite rhythm to her composition. The children laughed and danced, hopping on one foot, then the other. Otter Woman and Sun Woman clapped their hands and chanted with the notes. Finally the children complained of being thirsty.

  Otter Woman poured the herb tea in tin cups.

  “It is the best time I had for many moons,” said Sun Woman, her face flushed. “Please come to Rooptahee for a visit. Send me word when your man is gone, and I will come again.”

  “We’ll all ride the white horse,” laughed Earth Woman.7

  When the visitors had gone, Sacajawea replaced Charbonneau’s French harp and told Otter Woman to keep her mouth sealed about the instrument. Then she cautioned the boys not to say anything about the good time they had just had.

  “Your papa would not understand that we only enjoyed ourselves and it had nothing to do with him,” she said.

  Charbonneau came home at twilight. The weather was mild with the promise of spring in the air. He ordered the women to put the children on their couches. “They have had a busy day and are nothing but cranky!” he yelled. “Nothing is worse than a whining half-breed kid.”

  After he had eaten a little elk jerky, he had Otter Woman remove his moccasins.

  “Why are your feet so tired? Didn’t you have a fine white pony to ride?”

  “What pony? There is none. I gave it to the familyof Corn Woman so they would not bother me, but now they want three good buffalo robes besides. Greedy. Mon dieu, greedy Indians.”

  “You—you gave away a gift that belonged to your son?” asked Sacajawea, shocked and angry with this big, foolish man.

  “I had to or they might have taken my scalp. Jésus, they are a mean, sauvage bunch. It was a pretty horse,” he sighed. “All white, except his mane, which was more cream or yellow. Nice.”

  Sacajawea went mad. She became a wildcat. She beat her hands against him like an infuriated sparrow hurling itself upon a moose. “Why did you come back? I hate you. I do, I do!”

  Her dignity was gone. He lifted her, scratching, kicking, clawing, and set her down on her couch. The lodge door slammed. Charbonneau went to Chief Kakoakis.

  There were more moccasin telegrams about boats carrying white men up the Missouri. One was captained by Manuel Lisa, a wary Spaniard who had come past the Sioux, as far as the Arikaras. Kakoakis swore he’d stop this white man from trading beyond the Five Villages. Mainly he did not want the Shoshonis armed and fed. They were a good source of horses and slaves. Kakoakis could not stop Lisa, and soon there were more boats. One party was led by Auguste Chouteau from Saint Louis, who was bringing Sheheke home. The Arikaras fired on the boats, killing three white men and injuring three others, two of whom were Jussome and George Shannon. Big White was forced to return to Saint Louis.

  Chief Kakoakis came to see Charbonneau the evening the news of Sheheke’s retreat came. He was exultant. “See, now, I was right. The United States is only a small nation. I was smart to stand by the British. Sheheke was foolish to visit the Great White Father. He will never get home—not alive, anyway.” He grinned his lopsided smile and blinked his one good eye.

  Charbonneau had worn himself thin boasting of the great exploits of the Americans and, patting the letter from Clark, bragging about the job offers. His positionamong the Minnetarees was by now none too comfortable while Chief Kakoakis was supporting the British.

  About this same time, there were squabbles among the British and Americans for fur-trading rights in the west.

  During the spring, Sacajawea and Otter Woman softened the old buffalo hides Charbonneau had left behind. He had taken a pack of pelts to Fort Pine. The women made clothing for their own use and some to sell to traders who might come upstream. Sacajawea had learned to drive a good bargain, and she understood most of the French or English traders, which was a great advantage. Otter Woman grew to respect Sacajawea’s ability more and more. Charbonneau began to resent it.

  When Charbonneau returned, he seemed in a great hurry. He had plans. He had a purpose! He was going to “Red Hair’s town.” There was a great fur market there. He had heard about it from men who came in from Michipicoten. “There are many who are transporting their furs across Lake Superior to get them into Prairie du Chien or down to Saint Louis,” they had said. Charbonneau was impatient and ill-tempered. He ordered both women to get ready. He was confident his plan would work. He was going to take both boys to be educated by Capitaine Clark. He felt it was a foxy move. He knew that Clark would not have the heart to send Little Tess back to the Indians, or keep him out of school, so both his boys would have an education and do something great for the Charbonneau name. Even his relatives in Montreal and Toronto would hear of the Charbonneau boys being educated in Saint Louis. C’est le monde renversé, he thought, they won’t believe such a thing can happen. He raised his eyebrows and sucked in his round cheeks just thinking of their astonishment when they heard this news.

  Sacajawea was dazed by this surprise move of her man. It had been a dream, but now it was a reality. She and Otter Woman were packed within a day’s time. Then Sacajawea began to fret and worry. Would there be room for all of them in a boat returning to Saint Louis? There has to be, she thought. Charbonneau had made it clear they were all to go. Voilà! So there it was.

  But she remembered he sometimes did not check into details too carefully.

  The next morning, she asked, “May I use your horse to visit Grasshopper? She is getting old, and I would like to see her once before I go away from this village. I would like for her to see our growing son.”

  “Oui,” said Charbonneau before
thinking. “You go and show off our son. He is quite a boy. Let him dance for old Grasshopper, eh? Tell her he will one day not be a sauvage, but a gentleman that reads and writes like the whites.”

  “Oui, mercil” she said, grateful that he did not remember he had planned entering his riding horse in the Minnetarees’ spring races in the next couple of days.

  At Grasshopper’s lodge there was much commotion as the children crowded around Rosebud. “See,” said old Grasshopper, her face grained like the scum on cold corn porridge, “it is a fresh-born beaver. Fast Arrow found it hunting two suns back. Its mother was so thin and scraggly that he let her go to fatten up. See how the children love this new pet.”

  Sacajawea saw a tiny animal, no bigger than a large fist. She felt its quick breathing and its tiny pink tongue on thé palm of her hand. She held it for a few moments, then handed it to the small girl, Chickadee. Then Sacajawea surprised them with her announcement of going down the Big Muddy to Saint Louis.

  “Alone? Are you going alone? Does your man know about it?” asked Rosebud, astonished. “We won’t breathe a word.”

  “He knows. We are all going. My man has word of trappers coming in from the Red River of the North and passing here in two or three days. We are traveling by canoe with them.”

  Grasshopper pushed two grandchildren from her lap and shook her head. “An Arikara chief, called Ankedoucharo, went downriver to visit the Great White Father, and now that is ended; he is dead. The Arikaras do not like white men. There is a rustling in the dry grass that seven hundred Sioux are ready to fight anybody that is white and traveling up the Big Muddy. These same Sioux would like to come fight the

  Mandane, or Minnetarees, anyone—they are bloodhungry.”

  “You worry,” sighed Sacajawea. “You are more like a grandmother each day.”

  “I am a grandmother, and I am wise. Men do not stop fighting just because someone who is kind comes to make a peaceful gesture to them. They forget and fall back into their fierce ways soon enough. It is the way men are. The Great Spirit knows this. And so—does the Great Spirit of the palefaces know this truth?” She reached out her gnarled old hand to examine the neatly braided hair of Sacajawea. Her hand moved to Sacajawea’s nose, fine and straight, and to her pure, unblemished copper skin. “I have friends and relatives killed by Sioux, with whom our village has battled forever. It will not stop unless the white men kill them all to the last man. But you, my daughter, are not meant to wither and grow old in this prairie nation. The Great Spirit plants wiseness behind your eyes. Care for your handsome son. He, too, will be wise in the ways of two people, the white men and the Indian nations.”