Sacajawea

by Anna Lee Waldo

  The men walked away, leaving Sacajawea, Crying Basket, and their packs. Soon a large, pleasant, red-faced woman came toward them.

  Mrs. Ducate did not hide her surprise when she found that Sacajawea was not a white woman in the red dress. “We’ll have a bath first off,” she said, taking Sacajawea into the tiny washroom where she worked. She took a bucket out to the pump and filled it with water. She placed the bucket on the hot wood stove. The room was very hot. Crying Basket was asleep on her mother’sshoulder. Sacajawea sat on the floor in a corner opposite the stove and watched.

  Mrs. Ducate poured the hot water into a big wooden tub. She went out, pumped water into the bucket, and added it to the tub to cool the hot water. Sacajawea again marveled at the white woman’s pool for bathing. This tub was larger than the tub of Owl Woman. The water was soothing. Crying Basket sleepily clung to her mother as Sacajawea pulled her dress off.

  “Soap,” said Mrs. Ducate, handing Sacajawea an uneven yellow bar. Crying Basket tried to take a bite from the soap. Both women giggled.

  “It is much like the soap of Miss Judy,” said Sacajawea with surprise.

  Mrs. Ducate was even more surprised at the squaw’s English. She ran her hand over the brown smoothness of the little child’s back. Then she noticed the faint white scars across Sacajawea’s back.

  “You’ve been treated mighty poorly in your time, poor thing,” she sighed aloud.

  Sacajawea looked up. “Time is better for me now.”

  “For me, too,” laughed Mrs. Ducate. “My Charley is the clerk at the fort, and between the two of us we make out quite well. Took a long time to get this far.”

  Sacajawea examined Crying Basket’s feet and legs. She was pleased the sores and scabs had disappeared. She scrubbed Crying Basket vigorously with the soap. The child whimpered when soap got into her eyes. Sacajawea splashed the water on her face, and soon the child was singing and splashing back. Mrs. Ducate brought out a faded blue-gingham dress for Crying Basket and fresh undergarments for Sacajawea.

  These underthings were new to her. Sacajawea was used to living free from such bindings, but she stood patiently as Mrs. Ducate fastened them to her. That evening she took them off, never to wear them again, except for the petticoats. These she did not mind wearing, as she imagined herself to look as pretty as Judy Clark had looked with her petticoats swishing about her bare legs.

  Then Mrs. Ducate brought in a little dark-eyed half-breed girl, about a year older than Crying Basket. “This is Suzanne Fontaine.”

  Sacajawea looked at the child, who wore her hair in short dark braids. “She is beautiful.”

  Mrs. Ducate smiled and braided Crying Basket’s hair and tied strips of red cloth around the ends. Sacajawea then thought her own daughter beautiful. She bent to hug both children.

  Mrs. Ducate announced, “Suzanne, this is Madame Charbonneau, who will cook for you and tidy up around your place.” Then, abruptly, she turned to Sacajawea and asked, “Why is old Lancaster Lupton so interested in you?”

  “Maybe because the one called Sage is interested in finding my son.”

  “And why don’t you speak like other squaws?” Mrs. Ducate shook her head. “You are a somebody, I can see that. But who?”

  A grin crept over Sacajawea’s face. “I am the mother of Baptiste, and a long time ago I lived near the village of Saint Louis. I saw how the white women spoke and lived. I have been at the place called Bent’s and have learned more. I can talk your tongue now, huh?”

  “Oh, oh.” Mrs. Ducate stared at Sacajawea in a placid, measured way, trying to piece things together. She dropped herself into an unpainted chair and stretched out her legs.

  It was not long until Sacajawea was settled in as housekeeper for Monsieur Fontaine, who was neither young nor old, but had white hair, a gray pointed beard, and smoked his pipe continually. Sacajawea kept his rooms cleaner than Mrs. Ducate thought possible. Suzanne loved having Crying Basket as a playmate and companion. Often she asked to sleep in the single robe in the corner of the living room where Sacajawea and Crying Basket slept each night. Monsieur Fontaine did not allow it. He thought his daughter should sleep in a proper featherbed. And he made sure that the sleeping robes were neatly folded and stacked early each morning so that no hint of a bed showed in his front room.

  Sometimes Sacajawea took both little girls visiting outside the fort. They visited the camps of friendly Utah and the Tukadükas, or Sheep Eater Shoshonis, living near the walls of the fort. The girls ran with the campdogs and played ring and pin, hoop and pole with the Utah children.

  When travelers came to the fort, Sacajawea sat in the yard to hear of where they had been and who they had visited. She was aware of trappers going out of the fort and who was carrying furs to Mexico or east to Saint Louis.

  One morning after breakfast, Monsieur Fontaine got his pipe and motioned for Sacajawea to stop sweeping the floor a moment.

  “I have to ask you, Madame Charbonneau. Was old Toussaint your husband?”

  Sacajawea was startled, and a chill crept over her. She looked carefully at Monsieur Fontaine, whose face told her nothing. “Ai, many years back.”

  “I met him at Fort Union on the Upper Missouri back in thirty-five or so, and he was then claiming to live with the Mandans. Since then, those people were wiped out from smallpox. He had trouble speaking the Mandan language without mixing French phrases with it. With no more Mandans, I wondered what happened to old Charbonneau. I would not have thought him to be the kind of man you would live with. He often talked about his boys and their education in Saint Louis, but he was a damned scoundrel himself.”

  Sacajawea had to keep a hand over her mouth to keep from showing her amazement. “Our paths have not crossed for many seasons,” she said. “But the Mandans—gone? It is not possible.”

  Monsieur Fontaine rose and began to pace. “So you had sons who were schooled in Saint Louis?”

  “Ai,” she answered, wondering what he was to say next.

  “Old Lancaster Lupton has a West Point education. What do you think about education for girls? I am serious.”

  “You mean read the talking leaves?”

  “I most certainly mean that, madame. How else are these young women going to get on? Your son went to school with backing from General Clark, and so did that other, called Tess. The time is coming when everyone will be expected to read and write. The white manis going to force the red man to be civilized. I know it is coming.”

  “But you mean these little girls, here, learn from books?”

  “I’ve been thinking about this for some time. Have you met Céran St. Vrain? Maybe we could take them to Fort St. Vrain and have Céran work with them on the teaching himself. He has books. You could teach the sewing. I’ve watched you. Your work is equal to any white woman’s.”

  Sacajawea shook her head.

  Monsieur Fontaine resumed his pacing.

  Then, with no more discussion of such an important subject, he left the room; a snatch of a whistled tune came from the yard, and the iron gate of the fort opened and slammed.

  Sacajawea ran out after him. She stopped and saw him in the unkempt garden digging and still whistling, throwing out weeds here and there from a row of pole beans.

  CHAPTER

  51

  St. Vrain’s Fort

  An Indian woman of the Snake nation, desirous, like Naomi of old, to return to her people, requested and obtained permission to travel with my party to the neighborhood of Bear river, where she expected to meet with some of their villages. She carried with her two children, who added much to the liveliness of the camp.

  The Shoshone woman took leave of us near Ham’s Fork of the Black Fork on the Green River, expecting to find some of her relations at Bridger’s Fort, which is only a mile or two distant, on a fork of this stream.1

  JOHN CHARLES FRÉMONT, Report of the Expedition on the Rocky Mountains in the Year 1842, and to Oregon and North California in the Years 1843 –44, 28th Cong., 2nd Sess., Sen
. Doc. no. 174. Washington, D.C.: Gales and Seaton, Printers, 1845. also in:

  Donald Jackson and Mary Lee Penal, eds., The Expeditions of John Charles Fremont, Travels from 1838 to 1844, vol. I, Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1970, pp. 430, 457–58, 468–69.

  Mrs. Ducate stopped Sacajawea at the water pump one morning. “Say—you’ve got him out of his shell. He was whistlin’ and hummin’ this morning when he went out to that garden. Next he’ll be wanting to take you and the little girls to the other forts. He’ll want to show them off. Let’s fix them up. I have some pink gingham and we can make them dresses and hair ribbons.”

  Sacajawea was delighted with the idea, and indeed, Mrs. Ducate was right. By the end of the week Monsieur Fontaine’s face was a shade tanner from working in his garden, and there was a twinkle in his eyes. “I want to go visit St. Vrain. Bring the children. We might hear something about that roving, handsome Baptiste. He ought to be in Saint Louis by now. Maybe St. Vrain has heard,” he said to Sacajawea.

  Sacajawea could not wait to tell Mrs. Ducate. “See there, I told you,” was her reply. The two women chattered and scrubbed the little girls. “They look beautiful in that pink with their dark eyes and black, shining braids,” said Mrs. Ducate, walking around each little girl.

  “Ai,” said Sacajawea, just as pleased with the effect. “Will Monsieur Fontaine like their looks?”

  Monsieur Fontaine brought the horses from the corral. He was most pleased with what he saw.

  Sacajawea wore a yellow flowered dress. It had been Mrs. Ducate’s once and was big for Sacajawea, but she had taken in the waist with a belt of woven grass. Underneath she wore two petticoats.

  Suzanne rode in front of her father and Crying Basket rode in front of Sacajawea as they set out.

  During the ride Monsieur Fontaine turned his head slowly every so often and stared at Sacajawea. Slapping a gnat that had lit on his nose, he remarked once that this country sure did get as hot as the inside of a buffalo. Sacajawea reluctantly understood that he was one of those people who could ride through a land full of glory and never see it. To Jacques Fontaine, beauty meant a clean shave, and shining boots, and his own reflection in the stillness of a deep pool. He had hauled furs inand out of the country, herded sheep, farmed, but never noticed a mountain or a sunset in his life.

  So Sacajawea did not talk about the spectacle around them. But that evening she gazed at the declining sun that sent long blades of light among the rocks, striking fantastic colors from their walls, and the shadows that lay purple on the ground. They arrived at Fort St. Vrain as the sun slipped behind one of the far towers, and the light around them was a thicker purple, though there were still crowns of gold on the top of the fort.

  The Indian women inside the fort gathered around the little girls in pink and ooed and ahed, and touched their soft dresses.

  Charley Bent came out.

  “He is called White Hat by the Indians and is Bill Bent’s brother,” explained Monsieur Fontaine.

  Charley Bent was happy to see the old engagé Fontaine out for a visit again. “You’ll be trapping by fall,” was his prediction. Then he winked toward Sacajawea. “Another woman now, huh?” asked Charley Bent.

  “No. She’s my housekeeper.”

  “Of course.” Bent winked. “Come through the blockhouse to the main quarters.” Descending the blockhouse stairs behind Sacajawea and Monsieur Fontaine, holding a spyglass in his hand, was a stocky, round-faced man. He was distinguished by a hedge of black whiskers and deep brown eyes, and his gray cassinette pants and red-flannel shirt set him apart from the buckskin-clad trappers and the Mexican dragoons with their colorful serapes. This man was Céran St. Vrain, first in authority here.

  “We would like to wash up a little before the evening meal,” said Monsieur Fontaine. “We want to stay overnight. I don’t want to take these babies back to Lupton’s in the dark.”

  “Oui, you may sleep inside the fort, Monsieur Fontaine. I did not know you were remarried,” said St. Vrain.

  Monsieur Fontaine colored. “I am not, but I have a fine housekeeper for my little girl. This is Madame Charbonneau and her daughter, Yagawosier.”

  “Charbonneau?”

  “French, huh? Baptiste Charbonneau works for youand Bill Bent? Out? He worked for Louis Vasquez? Oui? This woman is looking for him. He is her son.”

  “Vasquez?”

  “Charbonneau, Baptiste.”

  St. Vrain slapped the side of his leg with fine calfskin gloves. “That man is one of the finest men in the mountains, on foot or in a bateau. He always wears his hair long—down to his shoulders, sort of Indian-style. I loaded him down with furs early this spring, and he is on his way down the Platte to Saint Louis. Probably there now. If not, he’s camped somewhere reading to Jim Bridger. Ha-ha. Those two even argue about what Bap reads. Bridger can’t read a word, but he’s got a thinking head. That Bap has had a good deal of education. And you say Bap is her son?” St. Vrain looked at Sacajawea.

  “Ai,” said Sacajawea. “You know my boy well?”

  “Do I? That fellow has been working for me since he came back from Germany. He can get a mule or a man to do anything he says.”

  “Did the Duke Paul come here again from his village across the Great Eastern Waters?”

  St. Vrain stared at Sacajawea and brushed his hand across his mouth. “First time I ever heard a squaw say so much in good English and make sense. By God, you just could be Madame Charbonneau.”

  “I am!” flared Sacajawea, moving herself so that her skirt rustled on the floor.

  “Now I can’t wait until he comes back up here from Saint Louis,” said St. Vrain. “But he may just go to Bill Bent’s or across the mountains to that ramshackle Fort Bridger first. He and Bridger talked about doing some trapping.”

  The bell for supper rang, and Sacajawea and the girls followed the men into the large dining hall. Wooden benches lined each side of the plank tables. Many of the workers at the fort were men with Indian women and children. These women looked curiously at Sacajawea in her gingham dress and the little girls in pink.

  Across their table sat St. Vrain next to his young wife, who was languidly beautiful, dark, and serene. Sacajawea thought she looked more Mexican than Indian; then, when she looked again, she could not be sure.

  The food was good. There were chunks of fresh mutton stewed with peppers and dried onions, slabs of goat’s-milk cheese, and fat red Mexican beans. In place of bread there was atole, a cornmeal from which was cooked hot mush, and pinole, a mixture of parched corn flavored with sugar and cinnamon. St. Vrain told Sacajawea that mixed with hot water, atole and pinole made good porridges for children.

  Next to Sacajawea sat a mountain man. He was thickset, towheaded, blue-eyed, bandy-legged, and quiet-spoken most of the time. This man was telling about a skirmish with the Blackfeet. He pointed to the shoulder in which he had been shot. “Not even beaver fur would stanch the wound,” he said. “But the subzero temperature of them mountains saved my hide. My blood froze, and the wound closed.”

  Sacajawea made some derisive noise and spoke the name of the Blackfeet in Shoshoni. The sun-haired mountain man looked at her and spoke in the Shoshoni tongue. She was delighted and asked him how far away the mountains were from here.

  “Long ways,” he said. “Long. But they are worth gaping at.” The mountain man looked at Crying Basket and then at Suzanne. “Them yours?” he asked.

  “This one,” she pointed.

  “I have a little girl not much older. She is in school in Saint Louis. It’s been a year since I’ve seen her. Her mother, Waanibe, an Arapaho, is not living.”

  “Shh,” Sacajawea warned him. “Do not speak the name of those who have gone away.”

  “Hey, it’s been awhile since I’ve seen one of these,” he said, reaching behind Sacajawea so that he could tug at the necklace her child wore. It was a narrow wooden paddle, whittled from a willow and pierced for the woven and beaded buckskin necklace. “That’s a
goose stick. Every time the wild geese migrate, a notch is cut on the stick. Right? This here papoose is five winters old.”

  “Ai,” answered Sacajawea, pleased that the man knew what the necklace meant.

  “Are you Yankton, then?”

  “No, Shoshoni.” And she made the special movement like weaving in and out in a grass basket. “But I have learned from others about counting winters.” She then looked fully at his face. “I have a son. Maybe your age.”

  “So—you cannot be that old,” teased the man.

  “Ai,” she said. “My son works in the white man’s forts and goes to Saint Louis.”

  “So—has he a name?”

  “Baptiste. Jean Baptiste Charbonneau.”

  “Well hang the boots and saddles! I’m Christopher Carson. And I would not have believed what you have said unless I’d heard it.”

  She smiled and waited for him to say more.

  “Your son, he left Bent’s Fort last year and came here to St. Vrain’s. He took furs into Saint Louis.”

  She nodded; she already knew most of this.

  “He was to check on my little girl. He knows his way around that town. Went to school there himself. Buys books in Saint Louis to read during the long winters in the mountains. That sound like your boy?”

  “Ai,” said Sacajawea; then softly: “I was in Saint Louis while he went to school. He and Toussaint.”

  “Not old Toussaint. You’re pulling my leg. He never saw the inside of a school!”

  “No, Little Tess.”

  “Yes, seems I remember that one, too—dark and rather thickset and short—about same build as me. He likes firewater and fights. Last I heard he lived down with the Utes or Crows, maybe. He has a woman there. He’s not the man Baptiste is, if you don’t mind me telling you.”

  “Ai.”

  St. Vrain came to the side of the table and bent to Kit Carson.

  “So—you’ve met this woman who claims to be the mother of Bap Charbonneau. She’d like to see him when he comes in for more furs.”