Sacajawea

by Anna Lee Waldo

  CHAPTER

  49

  The Raid

  Sacajawea lived, approximately 26 or 27 years among the Comanches when her husband, Jerk Meat, was killed in a battle. It is a fact this was the first husband of her own choice and apparently she was devoted to him, therefore at his death she was heartbroken and very much depressed. At that time she was not in harmony with the relatives of her husband, therefore she declared she would not live among them any longer. When she said this the people did not take her seriously.

  Reprinted by permission of the publishers, The Arthur H. Clark Company, from Sacajawea, Guide and Interpreter of the Lewis and Clark Expedition, by Grace Raymond Hebard, 1957, pp. 154–55.

  During one of the hot, dry days of summer when there was no wind at all, only swarms of cicadas stridulating in the mesquite, Sacajawea gave birth to another female papoose. She was pleased with this papoose, who was small and perfect as her others had been. She hovered over the papoose, protecting it, keeping this link to her own mortality from the ravages of desert life, of Quohada living. She made a stout basket from willows in which to lay her new daughter. It was not in the manner of the Comanches. It was not in the manner of the Shoshonis, but more like the cradle that her first born, Pomp, had lain in while he slept at the edge of the Mandan village. She liked the basket. It was convenient to hang a strip of rawhide to a lodgepole, or from the limb of a tree while she worked outside. The baby was strapped in with wide leather straps so that Sacajawea could fasten the basket to her back, or take the papoose out easily to clean her, then hammock her in a soft blanket in a loop that placed the papoose close to Sacajawea’s breast. The other women did not make fun of her, but rather were curious and asked how to make such a baby basket for a daughter who was expecting or for a favorite grandchild.

  Hides Well was amused. “Why must you always do things differently? Are the Comanche ways of making a cradleboard so awkward that you have to improve on them?”

  “No, my mother, it is only that it pleases me to make my child warm and secure for the winter months.”

  This new papoose affected Pronghorn. It helped him forget the death of Butterfly and the old, intelligent Big Badger. He would come into the lodge when Sacajawea was there with the child, and no longer did he seem to have the feeling of something missing slap him in the face. He found that his words were coming back to him and he was again remembering what was on his mind to tell the women, or in the council he could stand up and talk without a lump coming to his throat or an angry blaze in his chest when mention of white soldiers was made.

  Also, it seemed that Jerk Meat was suddenly more cheerful and did not try to fill the conversation with inane speech such as “The berries seem bitter this year” or “The snow is white.”

  The early winter weather was pleasant, and the sun shone warm and thin. The men were able to bring in many fat antelope for winter clothing and food. All the women were busy tanning hides, drying strips of meat and the soft, dark plums. They chopped pecans to add to their pemmican.

  Sacajawea made tallow candles, with the dried fibrous mesquite stems as wicks, for Wild Plum and his young squaw, Hebo, Walking Against the Wind.

  Jerk Meat teased Ticannaf one evening after a good meal. “Do you have many horses, my son?”

  “No, my father. One for riding and one for carrying supplies. Why, do you wish to use one?”

  “I do not wish to use one, but old Dancing Foot might like one or two.”

  “Why would Dancing Foot need my horses?”

  “If he is to be your father-in-law. I have seen you eyeing his youngest daughter, Happy Heart. So—your mother has also.”

  Ticannaf reddened. He moved a step toward his mother, then added, pointing to his baby sister who cried in a fit of hunger, “Mother, aren’t you going to do something about the Yagawosier? That Crying Basket is loud enough to attract the mother instinct of female wolves.” Then he lifted the tepee flap and stepped into the night breeze. It was true that he had been seen walking with Happy Heart, daughter of Dancing Foot, many times lately.

  “Crying Basket,” Sacajawea crooned as she put fresh cattail fluff in the leather pocket between the baby’s legs before nursing her. “Our papoose has a name. Yagawosier, Crying Basket.”

  Jerk Meat watched the smoke drift up and out through the smoke hole just below the top of the tepee. He moved to the back of the tepee and sat cross-legged on the buffalo robe that covered his slightly raised couch, watching Sacajawea nurse Crying Basket and prepare the baby for the night. His woman always dressed with care, and this pleased him. The sky blue stone lookedgood against her brown throat. The beads on her long deerskin tunic glittered in the soft light of the tiny fire. Her dark eyes were outlined in yellow paint.

  “Come and sit,” said Jerk Meat.

  She knelt on the floor beside him. She did not speak. Her close-cropped hair framed a face that was good to see in the gentle light; the strong line of her jaw was softened.

  “I am glad that you have come to me.” Jerk Meat stood up, but made no move toward her. It was as though their bodies had never joined and he was greeting a friend. He felt uncertain, like a boy.

  Sacajawea said nothing, but she looked at him openly. Her eyes shone. She seemed ageless, yet quite young somehow. He could remember her when she had first come to the Quohada camp. She had sometimes played bull-roaring with the young girls, swinging the flat cedar board through the air, holding it by the thong tied to the handle, listening with delight to the whirring noise it made. Her eyes were as bright then as now.

  ‘Tonight I feel the time passing,” Jerk Meat said abruptly. “Our son is a man ready to take a woman. Together we have seen many good things and many bad. We have been happier than most and sadder also. I sit with wonderment at my wiseness so many moons back when I chose you among all the beautiful Quohada girls.”

  “Tell me,” Sacajawea said. “I will listen why you chose me instead of a beautiful Quohada woman.”

  Jerk Meat knew an instant of shame, shame that he chose his words wrong, that he did not tell his woman he thought her the most beautiful woman he had ever seen and this feeling had never diminished through all the years he had lived with her.

  “I will always love you. You make life strong and worthwhile; you give me health; you give me happiness. A man could want no more. Many have less and are content.”

  “I feel that for you also,” Sacajawea said, stirring the tiny fire until it seemed to fill the tepee with light. “We have held our hearts in our hands and laughed. We have found our hearts on the ground. In time we have picked them up and lived again. We grow closertogether with time. You are the handsomest horse rider among all the Comanches.”

  “Woman, I believe you talk with sand in your mouth,” Jerk Meat laughed, pulling her on the couch beside him. She nipped once at his ears. He did not wait, could not. He took her body, took it with a violence that was more than hunger; it was more need to love and be loved. When it was over, they were both weak and trembling. It passed, and their bodies stilled. Jerk Meat felt a warm, comfortable drowsiness, akin to lovely tenderness.

  “Sleep now,” she said, her breath soft in his ear. “I will stay with you.” She pulled the buffalo robe over herself and lay close against his curled back.

  Jerk Meat slept. Sacajawea slept. Crying Basket slept. Ticannaf crept inside the tepee, lay on his couch, and slept. Their dreams were good.

  Mother and father were awake before dawn. They whispered and lay close together in the chilled air. They came together again, slowly. There was still plenty of time before the others awakened. It was like a greeting, a comfortable greeting filled with all the warmth and good wishes exchanged by longtime friends with great respect and admiration for one another.

  Sacajawea roused herself and built up the fire. They talked. He dressed. “The times are getting worse,” she said slowly. It was not good for a woman to complain. “This is a good winter with plenty of meat for us, but there will be sad times ahe
ad. There will be sickness. Even the Comanches cannot withstand the sickness the white men bring in. Other nations will suffer.”

  He shook his head. “It is shameful. It is wrong for some tribes to be herded like the taibo cattle to live in a place chosen by white men. This is Comanche land. The buffalo are still here, and the Quohadas will stay here. We are free.”

  “For how long?” She looked at him, her yellow-rimmed eyes filled with words that could not be spoken. “The old days are gone. They were gone when I came here to you. The white men can move over all the land, and will.”

  “Ai, but what of that? There has always been someone taking land from someone else. We took this land from the Apaches. We can fight the white soldiers.”

  “Perhaps. It is not for a woman to say, but you know that I must say I do not believe so. I believe that we must all learn to live in peace and there will be less Quohada blood spilled on the plains.”

  “You have always talked much for a woman,” laughed Jerk Meat deep within his throat. “I like the way you do it.”

  “And I have been thinking.”

  “My pia talks and also thinks,” grunted Ticannaf sleepily from his couch.

  “I have been thinking that the nations of Indians need someone like a go-between to talk to the whites for them, someone who understands both people.”

  “My pia talks like some chief,” Ticannaf teased his mother.

  “Someday this may come,” said Jerk Meat seriously.

  “It will come,” said Sacajawea. Suddenly she thought of her old friend, Chief Red Hair. He could understand both people, talk with either, live with either, and be friends with both. Then, as suddenly, it dawned on her that she was the mother of a cholo, half-white, half-Indian. She was a go-between herself already. She would save this to tell Jerk Meat when they were alone again. It would help him to understand that the whites and Indians could live together.

  In the spring the band moved again into the buffalo range on the rolling plains. Ticannaf had a woman, Happy Heart, the daugher of old Dancing Foot, to whom he’d given his two horses. Sacajawea made a beautiful marriage tepee, painted in reds, blues, and yellows. Happy Heart fastened her tepee next to the tepee of Jerk Meat and Sacajawea. She was part of their lodge. In time Dancing Foot, a widower, came to live with them.

  Jerk Meat told Happy Heart that she must have plenty of strong braves because he had only Ticannaf, who was not even brave enough to spank his woman the night she fed him cold soup. Happy Heart smiled, remembering the evening she had visited with Sacajawea and her cooking fire had gone out. For Sacajawea, the everyday work went much faster with someone to talk to and laugh with like Happy Heart.

  The next spring, plans were made for a small raid into the Mescalero country to replenish the dwindling Quohada horse herd. No women were going. But many young braves were going who had not been on more than one or two raids. Bites Hard, the elder son of Kicking Horse and Gray Bone, was going. Ticannaf and Wild Plum were going. Ticannaf was busy for a day painting himself and checking his shield and bow; then he and the others danced the War Dance with the older warriors, trying to keep from showing too much either of pride or nervousness. That night, all members of the raiding party moved out in the dark.

  The camp settled into the waiting period. The old men left behind watched the small horse herd, leisurely hunted antelope, worked on weapons, and slept. The women did not worry much. They knew that the raiding party had been strong in numbers and had gone for sport as much as for serious raiding. Jerk Meat, Ticannaf, Pronghorn, Dancing Foot, and Wounded Buck had gone. Sacajawea worked as she saw fit, going often to visit and gossip with Hides Well and Spring.

  Sometimes Sacajawea sent Happy Heart to take the horse kept hobbled near camp to graze in the grass meadow. Sacajawea sometimes went out to the meadow to dig roots, Crying Basket strapped to her back. The sweet peas were beginning to put out their pale-lavender flowers, and she dug their roots for food. Occasionally she went for an hour’s walk from camp to a hill where yucca grew thick and where the soil was easy to dig. The roots of the yucca were good to use in bathing and washing things, also to put in a tanning mixture.

  Out by herself, she would take Crying Basket from the basket and hold her under the arms, teaching her to walk. When the baby was tired, she would let her sit and crawl in the grass, poking at the bright wild flowers. Sacajawea thought of her life with the Quohadas and felt it was only good and satisfying when Jerk Meat was home.

  It was nearing the time for Happy Heart’s child to be born. Sacajawea spent more and more time with her. The girl did not want to be left alone if her time came early because some old woman had predicted that ifthat happened the baby would not take a breath. Sacajawea was making a robe for the new baby from the tattered remnants of her beloved old blue coat. She had opened up the sleeves, which had frayed cuffs and holes in the elbows. She tried to sew them to the top and bottom of the coat, but the material was old and rotten. Finally, she gave up and sewed the coat to the underside of a soft white doeskin. Now the small robe reminded her of the quilts Judy Clark had shown her so many years back.

  Happy Heart was pleased with the new blanket for her coming papoose. “It is the warmest robe a Quohada papoose has ever had,” she said, feeling the soft thickness of it.

  “Ai,” agreed Sacajawea. “That blue coat has kept me warm for more seasons than I can count on my two hands. The man who gave it to me must be a grandfather several times over now.”

  “A man? Not your man, Jerk Meat?” asked Happy Heart in surprise. “I thought probably Jerk Meat took it in a raid on a white man’s fort and brought it to you as a gift.”

  Sacajawea clapped her hand over her mouth, instantly realizing what she had said to the girl. “Well, and so—it was from a taibo. This white man lived in a fort. He saw my need for warmth and gave me the coat. Even though you think the whites are our enemies, there are some who are friends and who do not have forked tongues.”

  “Oh, Mother,” said Happy Heart, wide-eyed. “It was Jerk Meat who brought you to our camp. And then you were cold and hungry. He brought the warmth back into your body. Perhaps your mind wandered when you were so hungry and you supposed it was a white man who gave you the coat. Maybe it was Jerk Meat after all. You have forgotten.”

  Sacajawea answered, “Ai, my daughter. Starving causes the mind to wander outside the body and see things no one else sees. You are right.” She thought, The man who gave me that coat had the reddest hair and the bluest eyes I have ever seen. His deeds will be told among the whites for many seasons. He will never be forgotten.

  Several days later, some of the old men decided one morning that they should go to check on the raiding party in case they needed help. Two days after some of the old men had left, three scouts came back. They galloped to the center of the village. One of the men said, “They are coming soon now.”

  Everyone asked at once about their own men. The scouts would say no more. Some women began to push their way back to the edge of the village. Some of them stopped first to paint their faces and put on their best clothes to meet their men, or fathers, or brothers.

  Sacajawea hurried to her lodge and painted the pretty yellow circles around her eyes and tied the sky blue stone on the thin thong around her neck. She put a leather band around her flying hair and tied a string of blue-and-white trade beads around her waist. She went out with Crying Basket hung in a blanket on her back, following the crowd in anticipation.

  One look at the dejected men, whose eyes were glued on their shuffling moccasins, caused Sacajawea’s heart to fall. She looked for Jerk Meat. Spring and Hebo ran out to look for Wild Plum. Some of the women were already keening with high-pitched shrieks. Sacajawea’s eyes fell on a couple of mules and a few spent horses, all with no manes or tails. Wild Plum had long red gashes along his arms, soot on his face, and a shorn head. He hardly looked at his woman, Hebo, but went directly to the front of the Council Lodge.

  Sacajawea’s mouth was so dry she
could not speak. She hardly recognized Ticannaf, who was skin and bone. A hard knot grew in her belly as she looked over the worn-out riders and did not find Bites Hard, Kicking Horse, Dancing Foot, Pronghorn—nor her beloved Jerk Meat. She wanted to sit in the dirt and pour dust over her head. It was unthinkable, but obvious, that no others were coming back.

  Ticannaf kept his head low. It was hard to hear his words. “All I bring is a tick-infested mule and this Mexican captive.1 Her name is Choway.”2

  The girl had not been noticed. She hung back, her black eyes darting from one to the other. She was about twelve or thirteen summers.

  The women began crying and moaning. Some fellupon each other’s necks sobbing. Sacajawea was stunned. It just was not true. This could not happen. Jerk Meat was coming over the hill in a few minutes now. He would be here.

  Hides Well was sobbing, “Pronghorn! Pronghorn! Where have they left you?”

  The men who had returned got up and went to their lodges. The village was in mourning. During that first black night Happy Heart delivered a stillborn boy. The Mexican girl stayed outside Ticannaf’s lodge, bewildered and frightened.

  The story of the unsuccessful raid finally took shape through visiting and sorrowful talking. The men had gone deep into desert country, then on past El Paso, finding it well guarded. They spent one night on the desert and began their return the next day. In the region between the lower Pecos and the Rio Grande, they camped at a spring coming out of a cave. This was a deep rock well with a large basin of water, and on each side a cave ran under the rock from the water’s edge. During the night they were surrounded by a large force of Mexican soldiers, who killed several of the horses and forced the Quohadas to take refuge in a cave. These Mexicans had several Mescalero Apaches with them. Even though the Apaches were enemies of the Comanches, they called out in the Comanche language several times for the Quohadas to hold out.