Sacajawea

by Anna Lee Waldo

  “How do I know? I cannot remember if my mother ever told me. He was a grand chief. He stood tall and big and black. He sang loud in a tongue that the Crows could not understand. He could sing up high and down low; he did not chant as the Crows do. My mother said he had once lived with white men.”

  “The shirt—did he tell where it came from?”

  “I do not know about that, except I think my mother said a white woman made it for him.”

  “Did the shirt have lacing at the neck and wrists?”

  “Ai, it did, and those beautiful pink flowers on that pure whiteness of the material. It was not like fine doeskin, but white as birchbark and soft and thin. Nothing like the Crow women could sew.”

  Sacajawea was speechless. She did not know who else it could be but Ben York, wearing the shirt she had so carefully made for him in Saint Louis. She thought awhile. She thought about the people she had known and decided now that they did not die with the years, they came back to her. Her own world was as large as the whole nation of white men to the east, the Comanches and Mexicans to the south, the Mandans to the north, and now the Crows to the west.

  “I cannot remember more except that the big black chief made little children laugh when he swung them up in the air and caught them in his powerful arms. He liked children, and he had many in his lodge.”

  “It is some story,” said Sacajawea finally, her eyes fastened on White Curly Bear’s face as though she had not heard the end.

  “You do not believe it?” asked White Curly Bear.

  “Oh, I do, ai. It is just something that is gnawing at my thoughts. I think it is the Great Spirit telling us that we can all live together in happiness, no matter where we come from. If we get to know a person, we can like him.”

  “Chief Woman, your mouth won’t stay shut. I feel like pinching it closed,” said White Curly Bear. “I tell you a childhood story, and you start telling about people getting along. Even members of families fight, you know. It seems to be the nature of people to be happy for atime, then to make some sadness, like fighting or death. Happiness is never long lasting. Now, why are you making a design of roses on those moccasins instead of the sun with rays?”

  “I do not really know. It is just something that was in my mind,” answered Sacajawea softly.

  “There is something going on that puzzles me,” said White Curly Bear. “That man called General Augur sent three men of the Arapahos to talk with my man. He would tell me nothing, except that the Arapahos wish to live with us on the Wind River Reservation. I could not believe it. The Arapahos are our enemies; they cannot be trusted. Why would they suddenly wish to join us now?”

  “Perhaps if we knew them, we could be friends,” said Sacajawea.

  “I hesitated to tell you this. But now it is time. It is the family of the man you call your son. There is a girl in that family who has made a friendship with an Arapaho youth. She meets him on the other side of the fort. It is the girl called Joy. You knew about this affair? That is why you talk about being friends with everyone?”

  “No,” said Sacajawea, “I did not know.” She sat quite still, her head reeling with thoughts.

  “And the man you call son has a loose tongue. He boldly told my man, Washakie, he was too old to be chief. He told him he could never win any battles or take a scalp now. He said further that the war blood has ceased to flow through his veins and that he, who was named Baptiste, should now be leader of the Lemhi Shoshoni.”

  Sacajawea’s head reeled with the words. Several times she bit her tongue so that she would not say what came to her mind.

  “Washakie has gone off on his horse alone. I do not know when he will return. He and I do not blame you for the ways of that man who calls himself Baptiste. We respect you as a true friend. What we do not understand is how you can have a son like that man.”

  Sacajawea sat hunched over her sewing for a long time. To have publicly claimed a son that was not truly hers was neither right nor wrong. He was the son of

  Otter Woman, her friend, and never would she let the spirit of this old friend find her rude or discourteous to something so valuable as the grown son of a true friend.

  But she could not understand Toussaint. Maybe he’d had too much schooling or maybe it was the poor, thin cows of the white men he brought home pretending it was buffalo meat; maybe it was the raw trade whiskey that made him stormy one time and peaceable the next. She could not tell ahead what little things might set him off. She hated him and at the same time loved him.

  Late one evening not long afterward, the girl, Joy, came limping to Sacajawea’s tepee. Her right leg was stiff. Sacajawea rolled up the legging and saw the two tiny holes with blood in them. By this time they were turning black and the flesh was beginning to swell and puff. Sacajawea pulled the lacing from the legging, and around and around she bound it as tightly as she could, just above the knee, twisting the knot with a piece of stick to stop the flow of blood. The girl fainted as nausea swept over her and the earth swam. At first horror filled Sacajawea; then, as it ebbed away, anxiety for the safety of this young life took hold of her.

  “What happened?” she asked when the girl was conscious.

  “I was out on the trail beside the water hole on the far side of the fort,” explained Joy slowly. “I waited for High Horse, the son of the Arapaho subchief Sorrel Horse. He did not come, and I grew impatient and stepped off the trail only to see the moon better.”

  Numbness was climbing to her knee, and her leg was swelling terribly. Another great spasm of vertigo overcame the girl. She tried to fight the sickness.

  Sacajawea’s decisive and authoritative voice cut across her nausea. “I’ll get your mother.”

  “No, please, no. Do not tell them. Not any of them.” Then when the great twisting nausea was over, Joy knew she had vomited; her tunic was covered. She then found she was lying down on a bed of robes. She lay half-conscious as Sacajawea worked over her. Her clothes came off. A cotton cloth covered her.

  “Be still now,” Sacajawea said. “Do not stir up your blood.”

  The girl obeyed. She was small, light-complexioned, frail-looking. Her face seemed coarse and vacant. She seemed to have no volition of her own.

  Sacajawea looked up as she heard footsteps. Dirty, the girl’s mother, pushed aside the tepee flap and entered. “The boy, Squirrel Chaser, told me she was hurt and had come here. I brought whiskey. It’s the one cureall. Where is she?”

  “You’re not going to let her drink the whiskey?” asked Sacajawea.

  “Ai.” Dirty’s fat fingers pressed at the leg’s swelling. “And so she found herself next to a rattler. It looks bad.”

  Sacajawea wished she had called Dancing Leaf to come. Her mind seemed numbed for a moment. Crying Basket was gone with her man and baby to Fort Hall. She knew that drinking whiskey was not good for snakebite. Kicking Horse, the Comanche Medicine Man, would never use it. But he would use mescal powder to edge off the pain. And what else did he use? Her mind reeled and fell into her past.

  “Please, do not give the child whiskey to drink. Pour it over the wound,” commanded Sacajawea.

  Dirty did not answer. Her breathing was rasping as air hissed through her clenched teeth. “I can see my daughter has come where she was forbidden,” rasped Dirty.

  “The child came for help. I could not refuse. See how the foot is swollen so it fills the moccasin? Take this knife and cut the moccasin off.”

  Dirty put the whiskey to one side and began severing whang leather. The moccasin dropped off.

  Sacajawea went out to find the yucca spears she remembered growing near the wall of Bridger’s Fort. Yucca spears to stab the swollen flesh. She was remembering what Kicking Horse would have done. Everything was dark near the wall and quiet. She ran holding out her hands to feel the tall daggers. She found the huge plant and whacked the long spears off one by one, trying to see where they fell in the darkness. The clouds moved across the face of the moon, and she saw clearly. Finally holding a
bundle of sharp leaves, she ran back to her tepee.

  Inside, she stood frozen. Dirty had put the girl’s swollen leg over a piece of firewood. “I’m going to cut the poison out.”

  There was barely an exhalation from the girl.

  Dirty then slid her arm back of the girl’s shoulders, lifting her. Whiskey went down her throat. The girl’s eyes flickered open.

  Sacajawea’s face was beside the woman, disapproval strong on it. Dirty’s face mirrored fear and concern.

  “No!” shouted Sacajawea.

  Gulp, gulp, gulp—the fire swirled through the girl. It came too fast, and she coughed the sour, wet stuff all over her face. She felt it was all coming up; then the whiskey seemed to numb the sickness.

  “She will take more!” scolded Dirty.

  “No!” cried Sacajawea. “It is bad! It takes the poison through the blood faster.” She pulled the bottle from Dirty’s hands; half was gone.

  Then Dirty’s rump was turned toward Sacajawea, the butcher knife in her hand.

  Dirty spoke. “See there—the fang there? It has to be butchered out. Look at all that black blood.”

  She had cut a sizable piece of flesh from the girl’s ankle. The flesh was dark and blood-covered. Sacajawea could see no fang in that mess. She wondered why she had not seen it before if it had really been there.

  “Stop that!” shouted Sacajawea. “If you want your daughter to live! Pour some of the whiskey over the wound! Warm that blanket and tear it into thin strips. That hole in her leg has to be covered. Move faster, you butchering fool.”

  “I think she’ll die, anyway,” sobbed Dirty. “No one can live with a leg that has such a big hole in it.”

  Then Toussaint put his head through the tepee flap. He looked ready for a rampage. “Disgusting!” he said in a flat voice. “She’s a goner. No use working over her more. This is her reward for sneaking around with a dirty Arapaho. I just found out where’s she’s been. I ought to cut her nose off!”

  It was not fear that answered. Sacajawea was not afraid. It was all the sores coming to one head. “She’ll pull through it if you keep your cheap whiskey out of her mouth and take your woman home with you. I’ll see to her this night myself.”

  There was a moment of will against scared will. Toussaint’s words broke it. “A rattler’s bite means death. She let the Arapaho put his hands on her, and that’s same as a rattler’s bite to a true Shosoni.” He turned and marched out of the tepee, but halted at the flap and turned toward the inside, his face as black as anthracite. “Go to it! But her death will be on your hands!” He went on out.

  These words of warning struck Sacajawea deep and added to her anxiety for the girl.

  “She’s hardly breathing! You have killed my daughter!” Dirty wailed the death keen.

  “Stop that! Her mind has only wandered away for a while. She may be all right.”

  “No, no, she’s gone. She was a quiet child. Afraid of her father. She was going to run away with a rotten Arapaho. What would the rest of the tribe say to that? Arapahos are enemies, not some band to go to live with. Maybe you were helping her, you stinking skunk.” Dirty held the half-empty whiskey bottle to her own lips. Sacajawea pulled it away and told Dirty to find more firewood. Dirty wiped her hands on the shredded wool blanket and ran from the tepee.

  Sacajawea washed the dark blood from the wound, noting that the leg above the knee was turning dark. Suddenly sharp lancets punctured the girl’s flesh. Wielding the yucca spears like a handful of daggers, Sacajawea stabbed again and again at the swollen leg, stabbing and striking with all her strength. Black blood ran in oily ooze from many holes at once. The smell of whiskey was in the enclosed air of the tepee, and it burned in the girl’s open wounds. Sacajawea poured most of it in the unnecessary hole Dirty had cut. Sacajawea wrapped hot wool strips around the leg.

  Joy stirred. Her foot and leg throbbed with each beat of her heart. She tried to move the terrible hurting, but her leg did not stir. It was still night. The center fire glowed weakly. Somebody sat beside the pallet. “Mother?” said the girl through thick lips. “Mother, stop the pain.”

  “Be still.” The voice was Sacajawea’s. “Your mother has gone.”

  She brought the girl bits of mescal button. “Try to swallow without water. Water comes back.”

  The drug took some of the edge off her pain and seemed to settle her stomach. Again consciousness slipped away.

  When she awoke again, Sacajawea removed the binding on the leg and gave Joy more dry mescal bits. Joy felt the prickles of circulation creep down her leg, and the throbbing seemed less severe. She rewrapped the leg.

  From outside in the early morning came the thin sound of high keening—the death wail.

  “Who has died?” asked the girl feebly.

  “No one has died,” said Sacajawea abruptly. “That is a coyote’s call, nothing more.”

  The girl lapsed into another period of blackness. The next day, Sacajawea carefully unwrapped the bandages and soaked them in yucca suds; then she wrung them and replaced them on the swollen leg. She propped Joy up and forced some thin broth between her lips. Immediately the broth spurted to the dirt floor.

  “Rest,” said Sacajawea’s compassionate voice. “You have plenty of time to try later.” Her cool fingers, with a grateful pressure, were on Joy’s forehead. “The one you call High Horse was here early, before dawn today, to see about you,” whispered Sacajawea. “He calls me grandmother and seems well mannered. His father is at the agency trying to make plans for a council. He is waiting for Chief Washakie to return. He says one day the Shoshonis and Arapahos will not be enemies. I like him.”

  How did he know I was here? Joy wondered. Who told him? Did the boy Squirrel Chaser follow me? Her mind was too far away to concern itself. She lay back, and her consciousness again departed.

  Long afterward, Sacajawea heard Joy groan, and she saw her eyelids open. The girl was as thin as a lodgepole. Sacajawea placed a cool cloth on her forehead and bent over her.

  “How do you feel?”

  “My head,” she answered thickly. “My head.”

  “You’ve been far away, but I hoped you’d come back.” There was a catch in Sacajawea’s voice.

  “You did not believe the others when they said I would die?”

  “They had never seen one bitten so by the rattler live. I thought you could fight such an enemy.”

  Sacajawea lit her pipe, her hands trembling as with palsy. She steadied the bowl and held a lighted stick to it. She studied the dirt floor through the slowly rising smoke. Her voice seemed weary with its burden of dead days remembered. “A storm is coming on. The sun is covered, and the wind comes very strong and cold. I need more wood for the fire.”

  The girl moved across the pallet. “High Horse says nothing bad about my family. He is not bad, as my father thinks. I can put my foot on the floor. The pain is gone.”

  “You must not be too quick,” Sacajawea objected. “The flesh must fill in your ankle before it is strong enough to stand on.”

  Sacajawea left to gather an armload of cottonwood chunks Shoogan had piled beside a stump outside the circle of tepees. She met Dancing Leaf, also gathering wood against the oncoming storm.

  “How is the girl?”

  “She will be all right,” answered Sacajawea. “The swelling is about gone. She may limp—that is all.”

  “I saw her mother going to visit. Her eyes were red and puffed, and she mumbled the Death Song. It is not good for Dirty to carry on so when her daughter is getting better.”

  Sacajawea’s face turned white. “Hmmm,” she said high up in her nose and hurried back.

  When she raised the flap of the tepee, she stooped in a puff of pleasant warmth and placed the armload of wood chunks beside the fire. Then she noticed Dirty in the shadows against the wall, her hair straggling to her shoulders about her aquiline face, which had been handsome, surely, before her niggardly way of life had squeezed the flesh down to the bone.

&
nbsp; Dirty moved forward and threw the robe from Joy. Sacajawea gave a cry that stopped halfway up her throat. The girl seemed a stranger. Her hair was caked with sweat, her eyes were empty, her face was ashen, and her mouth was still open for the words she was sayingwhen death took her. Blood clotted on her ankle and on the pallet; she had the smell of sour whiskey.

  “What happened?” said Sacajawea accusingly. “She was well enough when I went for the wood.”

  “I gave her whiskey to stop the ache in her head and cut the leg to let the last of the poison out.”

  “But the swelling of her leg was hardly to be noticed. She had asked to put the foot down!”

  “Porivo, you think you know all! You think you have some mysterious power, some great medicine, but see—you could not make my daughter well!”

  Dirty flung the empty whiskey bottle on the floor and staggered to the tepee flap. “She was going to live with an Arapaho. She would have disgraced me.” Her keening was loud outside the tepee.

  Sacajawea wept quietly. Her anger was as strong as her sorrow. She peered at Joy for a while, still letting the tears roll over her cheeks. Finally she said to herself, I am old and have learned so many things that I do not know much anymore. Maybe I was wiser before my ears were troubled with so many forked words.

  She washed the girl and rubbed her body with bear’s oil and sage. Then she unbraided her hair and combed it. When it was shiny, she braided it very carefully. She painted a thin red line down the center part and put red paint inside Joy’s ears. “Your black road of trouble has ended,” she said out loud to the girl. “You will go to a place where the grass is green forever and the sky is always blue and no one is afraid and no one is old.” She dressed the girl in a soft white tunic with a yoke of small blue beads. The tunic was too large, and she cinched the middle with a leather belt, decorated with porcupine quills.

  When she had finished, she walked to the far side of the village to the tepee of Toussaint. Outside, she called, “I have prepared the body of my granddaughter for her long journey.”