Sacajawea

by Anna Lee Waldo

  Sacajawea bent to one of Rosebud’s little girls. “I like girl-children,” she said, nuzzling the child in the neck so that the girl laughed. “They let me hold them longer than boys.”

  “Dance with me,” cried the little girl. They danced in the manner of a jog. Soon all the children were dancing with Sacajawea. Rosebud sat on the floor inside their circle so that she could watch. She was nursing the beaver cub. Finally she could stand sitting no longer and reached for a cupped bark dish by the cooking fire and pressed milk from her other breast into the dish for the beaver. Then she joined the dancers while the cub lapped up the milk and Pomp pulled at its broad tail. The beaver made a crying sound, almost like that of a baby. Pomp dropped its tail and scooted back to the dancing children with a grin on his face.

  When the trappers came into the village before daybreak, Otter Woman and Sacajawea were waiting at the water’s edge. They carried Charbonneau’s baggage and some dried corn and jerky, their own change of dress and extra moccasins, and the boys’ clothing. Char-bonneau ran in little trotting steps to the patron, who was crouched over a campfire; only his blue felt hat with its fur tail showed plainly.

  “Can we come aboard now?” Charbonneau asked, looking at the three dugouts.

  With one hand the patron pushed his black mustache up from his mouth as if to clear the way for his words. His voice was sharp; the flesh of his face was dark and cracked like leather that has seen too much rain and sun. The pouches under his eyes sagged and showed pools of red, like those of a bloodhound. He breathed audibly through his mouth, blowing at his drooping mustache. He had on boots, leather trousers, and a shirt.

  “You’ll have to split up. You in this pirogue and one squaw and papoose in this, and the other squaw with papoose in the other bateau.” He wiped his hands on his fringed shirt. “You did not tell me you had two squaws with you. Sacre crapaud!”

  Sacajawea did not stand around to hear the men argue about why Charbonneau had not said anything about bringing both women and children. She quickly stepped into the canoe designated for one squaw and child and settled herself among her baggage with Pomp on her lap.

  The Missouri’s current did most of the oarsmen’s work. There was little struggling against it with poles and oars and ropes. They had plenty of game and fresh wild fruit. They swept past the Arikara village. Each night the camp was silent, except now and then for the matter of one man talking to another and the clink of spoons against metal plates. The fire glowed and died and glowed again as the breeze played with it. Against the river the canoes were black logs.

  Sacajawea and Otter Woman sat together sopping up bean juice with dry corn bread and feeding it to their children. Sacajawea swallowed the last of her bitter coffee. The food was good, and she was glad to be back tasting the fare of white men. Her thoughts strayed to the unknown Saint Louis.

  Charbonneau got up and looked at the men about the fire. His eyes fixed on the patron. As if to crack the silence he said, “I be dogged, Miquelon, if we keep on with these white beans, I do believe we’ll blow your!bateau to Red Hair’s town.” The men looked at him unsmiling, their eyes catching glints from the fire.

  “It is an idea,” said the patron,“if only the rest could make the wind like you.” He lighted his pipe with a brand.

  Charbonneau went to his buffalo robe and half covered himself with a blanket. Soon his snoring was audible. Sacajawea and Otter Woman laid the children on buffalo robes and rolled themselves up in blankets beside them.

  On the third day out, they met a band of Teton Sioux. Sacajawea huddled in the bottom of the canoe, holding tight to Pomp, who was asleep.

  Miquelon said, “Quiet, écoutez now, all. Non song,non curse. To the passe avant. A bas les perches.”

  Charbonneau lowered his ash pole and felt it catch on the riverbed. He brought the ball of it into the hollow of his shoulder and set his legs to driving, feeling the canoe give under his feet. The canoe slid through the water. ” Lève les perches!” The boatmen whispered and straightened and caught their canoes before the current pushed them into a sawyer, and then it was push again, step by step, to get their bateaux into the main stream again, while the ball ground into Charbonneau’s shoulder and his lungs wheezed.

  Sacajawea could see Charbonneau trying to pole and slipping his pole against the rocks, inefficient and puffing. The dark bank moved by, its trees and undergrowth a picture of filtered sunlight and light shadows on the faded leaf carpet. The leaves were soft and moist; beneath them was rich black humus. Lying against the humus were moss-etched logs, returning their elemente to the soil to feed future generations of trees. The ledges and sand came out in full sight, and the blue spiderwort was everywhere. The Sioux stood painted on the shore, some with bows at their shoulders, others with rifles at the ready. The water murmured against the canoes. They slid swiftly downriver from the waiting Sioux.

  “Steady,” said the patron, Miquelon. Only the smothered grunts of the crew sounded and the whisper of the waves along the canoes.

  “Nigh perfect,” said one of the hunters as the Indians were left far behind. “There’s a good bunch of willow. Here, you.”

  The alcohol gurgled in its short flag kegs as Miquelon lifted it from a cargo box. He brought the kegs over the side. The men who stood in the water waded ashore.

  “Assez,” said Laurier, a hunter. “Enough.”

  “How much of the whiskey you allowed?” Charbonneau asked the hunter.

  “Gill a day for each boatman, when the going gets rough, but it lasts about four months only. The bigger outfits do a sight better. Take the Northwesters or Hudson’s Bay. I’ve knowed land brigades to get a gill a day for a whole year for each man, making out they was boatmen, and of course not a boatman in the lot, as everybody knowed.”

  They dropped their blankets near the willows and brought out the kettles. “Might as well make a little soup and sleep,” said Laurier. “It’s a long way yet to Saint Louis.”

  For three days the wind was right; the canoes moved along, and the rowers sang songs and only played at rowing. That suited Charbonneau better, as he had begun to rue the day he told these men he could row, cordelle, and paddle any craft that man could fashion. Early every morning, while darkness still lay on the river and woods, two of the men, hunters, slipped out of their blankets and went ahead to hunt, meeting them later on the bank or hanging game on a limb where it could not be missed and then going ahead to hunt some more.

  Sacajawea saw that from their association together the boatmen had developed a kind of slang peculiar to themselves. They had a quickness and a vulgar smartness that amused her.

  “By littles the damn pole is pushing clean through my shoulder,” complained Charbonneau, swinging Little Tess to his shoulder and grabbing Pomp by the hand. “They dance and it will make these men laugh.”

  He walked to where three Frenchmen, sitting crosslegged, were singing. Sacajawea guessed it was a love song. They made mouths over it, and their eyes rolled. Two boatmen wrestled on the ground, tumbling over and over and laughing as they tumbled.

  “Donkeys,” Otter Woman said. “Just donkeys. Out of the harness they roll and heehaw.”

  One of the boatmen jumped up and yelled, I’m a son of a wildfire—half horse, half alligator, and a touch of the earthquake—I’ve got the prettiest sister, fastest horse, and ugliest dog in the States, and can kill more liquor, fool more varmints, outrun, outjump, throw down, drag out, and whip any man in all Kaintuck.”

  Everyone roared a mighty laugh. Charbonneau took this as his cue and started playing the French harp. The boys held hands and toddled around him, sometimes with a toe-heel step, and sometimes just running. The men grinned and clapped.

  “This child is dry as a powder horn,” said Charbonneau. “Might it be time for the keg to be opened to wet down our whistles a little?”

  Miquelon opened the keg and was followed by the greater part of the men.

  The cook beat a pan with a long-handled spoon. The song
s broke off, the wrestling ceased, the drinking was finished in fast gulps, and everyone pushed forward. There were beans again, and parched corn, and wild turkey. Charbonneau heaped his plate and sat down against a tree, smiling to himself as the squaws squatted at the water’s edge washing the face and hands of the boys. Jésus, who cared about a dirty face?

  Two days later, they passed the mouth of the Vermilion River. They ran down as far as Floyd’s Bluff.8 Two weeks out from the Mandan villages, the three canoes met a trading pirogue belonging to Auguste Chouteau, the Saint Louis merchant and trader. To the delight of the crew, the Chouteau craft started for the bank. Miquelon caught its mooring rope. “Come ashore, the food is warm. Coffee we have. Beaucoup.”

  The paddlers rested their oars. “Sounds grand,” said one. “My ass’s breaking.”

  Stiffly the men rose and stepped out. Most of the men had on red-flannel shirts covered with blue capotes, moccasins, and each had a knife hanging from a broad leather belt. They had sugar in the Chouteau outfit. More coffee was brewed, and a quarter cup of sugar was in the bottom of every tin cup before the coffee was poured on top. The general joy of the after noon was marred only by Charbonneau and Otter Woman. Weary with so much travel, they argued about who was going to hold Tess. The little boy relieved his own discomfort by squalling. Miquelon gave the child some sugar water, and he was immediately quiet, sipping the sweet, cool liquid. Sacajawea put her finger in the bottom of her tin cup and stirred a little; then she let Pomp lick her finger. She did this until the cup was clean.

  Miquelon tossed the painter back to the Chouteau crew and with his foot started the canoe into the current. The paddles glistened, and the patch of black receded until Sacajawea could not tell what was canoe and what was wave in the twilight.

  The next day, they met another party of French traders, and they feasted on venison and wild onions together. They sang French songs far into the night. The next day, the voyageurs sang to the stroke, songs that Sacajawea had come to know by heart, though she did not know all their meaning.

  The French rivermen make me think of devoted dogs, thought Sacajawea. They are not the stuff of which warriors are made, they are not fighters, yet they are industrious and loyal soldiers. They seem tireless, and they move into unknown country with an ever-ready quip and a chant on their lips, even as they look fearfully at the hills ahead and cross themselves as the shades of night conceal the world. She was certain that their religion had made them see life through a veil of mystery and distortion, and had instilled an unquenchable fear in them.

  Sometimes Pomp squirmed and tried to drag his fat hand in the brown water. Sacajawea joggled him until he laughed and stretched his legs out, keeping time with his feet.

  Otter Woman sat slumped over in one of the canoes, and little Tess dragged one hand in the water. Charbonneau looked sharply at them, praying Little Tess would not fall into the brown water. The sky was blue and patched with slow white clouds. The sun looked down, bright and hot.

  Sacajawea, tired of sitting in the bottom of the canoe, asked one of the voyageurs if she could take the longblade. The man laughed, then said, “Je chanterai.” Carefully she took his place; he held Pomp in the bottom of the canoe and began to sing.

  She pulled to the rhythm of the tune, laying the long blade far back and pulling it through, trying for the easy skill of the voyageur she was spelling.

  The party passed old Mr. Dorion, the Sioux interpreter, in a pirogue with some French traders who were going up to the Yankton Sioux for beaver pelts.

  Laurier and another hunter were sent out, and the canoes continued all night because the evening was wet. Thunder rolled up the river and rumbled down on them; the wind was not strong. Miquelon called, “Hallez fort! Hallez fort!” and the paddlers steadied down on the oars as they felt the wind coming now at their backs. By morning they were passing the little French village of La Charrette, the home of Daniel Boone. Sacajawea had long ago given the voyageur back his blade. The canoes angled for shore, and the men began to sing again, softly, relieved that they could finally rest and be through with work for a few hours.

  Laurier and the other hunter came in, and the party had steaks from deer flanks. In three or four hours they were back in the water. Sacajawea saw her first cows grazing on the bank.

  “Cross between buffalo and horse and the Rocky Mountain goat,” Laurier explained to her.

  “Extraordinaire!” exclaimed Sacajawea, clapping a hand to her mouth.

  They passed a high rock slope where a cool copse of aspen stood trembling in the breeze. One of the men told Otter Woman, by hand signs, that the aspen’s wood had been used in the cross and ever since the Crucifixion the leaves of this gentle tree had trembled.

  “Ai,” answered Otter Woman, never comprehending the Crucifixion story. “I know the wood is good for fuel. It has little odor and does not taint the meat.” She moved her hands slowly so the man could read them.

  The next day was even more exciting. They passed a dozen canoes of Kickapoos going out on a hunting expedition, and more grazing black-and-white cows on the banks. In the afternoon they saw the village of Saint Charles. Sacajawea waved to Otter Woman in the nextcanoe, pointing to the white ladies walking in long, puffed-out skirts along the bank.

  With cheers and the firing of guns they landed at the village.

  The men traded some pelts for beef and pork, and flour, sugar, and tea. They had a great dinner on the beach of pork steaks fried in flour, and tea with much sugar.

  Miquelon finally waved his arms. “Get aboard! Everybody! We’re moving. Get on!”

  A waterman took up the big pot full of tea from the fire and leaped into his canoe with it. The others threw blankets and guns into their canoes. There was some cheering, and a voyageur began to sing. Laurier let out a long, wild yell, and someone fired a gun. The noise of the shot thundered into the village; it was caught by the bluff behind the shadowy town and thrown back at them.

  “On to Saint Louis,” called Miquelon.

  Just above the junction of the Missouri and Mississippi rivers locmed the mud chimneys of the log Fort Bellefontaine, where Colonel Thomas Hunt was in command and Dr. Saugrain was chief surgeon. Sacajawea listened as the men talked. She knew of the use of Dr. Saugrain’s pills. She stared intently at Colonel Hunt walking along the bank as he was pointed out to Charbonneau. Hunt had a large face, burned brick red, graying hair, pale blue eyes, and a quick grin for his little daughter, Abby, who walked beside him.

  Pomp and Little Tess climbed out of the beached canoe. The little white girl, Abby, ran toward them. Her eyes sparkled. “You are like the children who came with the other two Indian ladies a long time ago. One of the men looked like him.” Abby danced up and down and stared at Charbonneau.

  “That was two years back, my dear,” said Colonel Hunt. “That was a more important party than this, I daresay. Lewis and Clark were on board those canoes.”

  Abby giggled and put her hand to her mouth. “There was the manservant—he was a big black Indian. I remember.”

  Sacajawea’s heart leaped. It was probably Jussomewho reminded the child of Charbonneau, and the other men Sacajawea knew for certain.

  Two days later, in August 1808, they sighted the old stone forts of the Spanish in Saint Louis. The frontier village was noble, rising on a high terrace from the rock-bound river. They landed the three canoes in the center of the village beach. Down the banks came people to greet them. These people never suspected, as Colonel Hunt had not suspected, that three members of this small party were from the famous Lewis and Clark Expedition.

  “Laurier!” called a small, black-eyed Frenchwoman in blue.

  “Susette,” called the hunter, and with a leap he was out of the canoe and upon the shore.

  “Mon dieul” cried Charbonneau. “Many people. It is like Montreal. And where do we find Capitaine Clark?”

  CHAPTER

  36

  Judy Clark

  “I have become quite a galant a
nd somewhat taken with the fair creatures,” Clark wrote his brother Edmund from Washington, but his real interest was in Judy Hancock, whom he soon persuaded to marry him.

  When Clark confided his engagement to Mr. Jefferson, that constant friend presented him with jewelry for Judy—a necklace, two bracelets, earrings, a pin and a ring, of pearls and topaz.

  Judy set the date of their marriage as January 1808.

  Excerpt from p. 383 in Lewis and Clark: Partners in Discovery by John Bakeless. Copyright 1947 by John Bakeless. By permission of William Morrow and Company.

  Late in the afternoon, Charbonneau left his two women and two sons on the rocks beside a pier. He went to find William Clark.

  The sun streamed like a red glaze over the limestone bluffs that stood behind the town, filtered through the trees and smoke of grass fires, and glinted on the surface of the Mississippi. The street above the river was filled with confused and unfixed shadows, the clash of voices, and the strains of fiddle music. In this hour before sunset the street was raucous with voyageurs, tanned and sallow, quick of gait, graceful and gay; blackeyed Frenchwomen, and little French children in red petticoats; here and there a coureur de bois, a Kentucky hunter, lank and lean; Creole engagé; and the Negro, breed, and Indian filles de joie who filled the shops and bars.