More Than Cowboys

by Tim Slessor

  The next day was Lewis’ 30th birthday. He spent it giving presents to the Shoshone. The main party had now come up. With no time for a rest, they hid their canoes and transferred their loads to a string of newly bartered horses. Then whites and Indians made their way back into the mountains. As they wound their way up, the whites questioned their guides, presumably through Sacajawea, about the best route to reach the great western river, the Columbia.

  On one point the information was quite specific: the upper Columbia (in fact the tributary now called the Salmon) was impassable to any rafts. Nor would horses be able to find a footing on the sheer canyon walls. If this were true - and Clark set off to verify it while Lewis bartered for more horses - it could be a disaster.

  Clark was away for four days. He found that the river was everything that the Indians had claimed. Now, not only was there no hope of making a quick passage through the mountains, but gone too was the chance of establishing a workable route across the continent to the Pacific. Perhaps there was some easier way that they had missed? Anyway, with winter coming, they would have to scramble forward as fast as they could.

  They said goodbye to their Shoshone friends. The next few weeks were the hardest of the whole journey. Often they had to climb high up along the ridges in the wind and clouds, with only the mistiest idea of where they were going. They were always cold, and damp. They could find no game, so they ate dog. Their clothing was quite inadequate, their boots and moccasins were ripped and torn. At night, there was never enough dry wood to build a fire; anyway, they were usually too tired to try. Most of them had dysentery at one time or another, either that or an aching hunger. This was no way to reach the Pacific.

  Coming down, at last, into the beautiful and warmer valley of the Bitter-root, they met Indians again. These were the friendly Flatheads. They paused long enough to regain some strength (they called the place Travelers’ Rest) and to buy more horses. They also transcribed many words of the local language. “They appear to us as though they had an impediment in their speech.” Welsh, perhaps? Anyway, Lewis, conscientious as ever, was taking no chances and noted down “the names of every thing in their Language, in order that it may be found whether they Sprang or origenated first from the welch”.

  A few miles beyond the Flatheads, they climbed into more mountains, more snow, more dysentery, more frostbite. Often they only managed to make 9-10 miles in the day, but the wonder is that, somehow, they kept going at all. Perhaps Sacajawea had something to do with it. If a 16-year-old mother with a papoose on her back could take the hardships... It was during this scramble over the Lolo Pass that the expedition really came to admire the uncomplaining spirit of the girl. They had grown fond of the baby swaddled on her back, whom they called Pompey; it meant “little chief” in his mother’s language.

  At last they limped down into the easier valleys of the Pierced Nose Indians (the Nez Percé). The Indians told them that they were only a few days from a large river. It turned out to be the Clearwater and, on the evidence of the salmon they could see, they reckoned that it must eventually flow into the Columbia and thence into the Western Ocean. So now they built another flotilla of canoes, and left their horses with the Nez Percé. The worst, they hoped, was now behind. They reckoned that they had come 300 miles since they had hidden their boats back on the Jefferson; it had taken 8 weeks.

  Today, in summer, the map shows that one can drive the whole distance from the Jefferson to the Clearwater in about 5 hours. I have not made the journey (one day perhaps), but the road winds through the same mountains and over the same passes; it follows the expedition’s route, sometimes exactly, always within a few miles. Dynamite and bulldozers have made the difference. True, you will need to fit chains to your tires in autumn - if the road is still open. In winter it is firmly closed: both the Lost Trail Pass and the Lolo Pass are blocked by snow and ice. All this you can learn from any worthwhile road map. And you can see too that the Flatheads still have their lands, a reservation now, just to the north of Travelers’ Rest.

  On water once more, the party’s morale revived. They had no accurate way of knowing how far they were from the Pacific. In fact, they had nearly 300 miles to go. But now, traveling with the current, progress was much faster. Sometimes, round the “smokey” evening fire (smokey to drive off the “mesciters”?) they even found time to relax and laugh again: “After dark we played the fiddle and danced a little.”

  When they came out onto the Columbia, they were amazed at its size; it was even wider than the Missouri at St. Louis. Now they paddled easily toward the sea on the Great River of the West; it had been flowing through Lewis’ mind ever since he had first read the accounts of Mackenzie and Gray. But... if only there were an easier way across or around those cursed mountains.

  Now the river broadened to nearly a mile, and the Indians hereabouts, the Chinooks, had canoes larger than any they had yet seen. Then they met a chief who kept repeating a phrase someone deciphered as “son-of-a-bitch”. A day or two later they came up with another chief who wore a scarlet coat and carried a sword. It began to rain. The dug-outs dipped to waves. They paddled on. Now gulls skimmed the boats, and the river grew to an estuary so wide that they could hardly see the other shore. The water became too salty to drink; the wind blew damp and raw; the beaches on which they camped each night showed the flotsam line of tides. Yet they still had not reached the sea.

  For the next three days they took a terrible battering from gales which, blowing up the wide and unsheltered estuary, almost swamped their boats. Then one morning they saw far ahead a line of breakers where the “great Pacific Octean” pounded across the bar. It was 7 November 1805. The pathfinders of the prairies and the mountains had come at last to that “which we had been so long anxious to See”. In 18 months they had trekked 2,000 miles. In elation, they must have felt like Columbus when he first made landfall in his imagined Cathay. But, unlike him, they had some idea of where they were and what they had done. More or less.

  “Ocian in view!” noted Clark. “Oh, the joy!”

  ***

  Conscientious as ever, the two Captains had already decided that there were too many questions of geography on which they had failed. So even if a ship did come into the Columbia and offer them passage home, they would have to refuse. They would have to go back the hard way in order to fill in the gaps. But there was no point in starting yet; the high country would be impassable with winter snow. So they chopped down some trees and knocked together some rude shacks; they ran up the flag and called the place Fort Clatsop - after the thieving local tribe. From November to April, the coast of what, today, we call the Pacific North-West can be a very wet place indeed: day after day, the sodden winds blow in from the sea. The expedition’s journal tells that, in five months, it stopped raining for just twelve days. Even then, everything dripped.

  Inside the fort, they were out of liquor, tobacco and salt. Outside, the opportunities for R’n’R were limited. A few of the more energetic souls ambled off to a nearby establishment run by a Clatsop matron and her six “nieces”. One of the nieces sported a tattoo which read “J. Bowmon”. So, in more ways than one, someone had already been here. The Captains disapproved of these goings-on, but on practical rather than moral grounds: there was the problem of payment. They were going to need all the trade goods they still had, to “pay” the various tribes during their return journey. In the end, they handed out a few colored ribbons and hoped for the best.

  Not surprisingly, they all grew heartily sick of Fort Clatsop. In spring, as soon as the rains eased, they got ready to move. Before going, they carved their names on a few trees, raised more flags and handed out proclamations to the natives. While all this undoubtedly had an element of “Kilroy Was Here”, it was also part of the ritual of declaring to any subsequent passers-by that these parts were now formally claimed by the United States. On such very slender assertions of ownership, the nation was to b
ecome more than merely argumentative with the British three decades later.

  On 23 March 1806, they abandoned Fort Clatsop and headed east. Four weeks later, when they reached the easy-going Nez Percé, they learned that the snows were still far too deep on the passes ahead; they would have to wait 30-40 “sleeps”. This enforced idleness was infuriating to the Captains, because there was so much to be done once they got beyond those mountains. But for everyone else, the delay in the spring sunshine of the high country must have been a golden time. The longer they stayed, the more they appreciated the hospitality of their hosts. They were given horses for food without mention of payment; they learned enough of the language to ease the monotony of only speaking to each other. That skill must have been handy when fraternizing with the younger of their hostesses. Indeed, after a few weeks, several of the explorers were quite ready to quit exploring. Apparently, even today, it is still a point of pride among a few families in that tribe to claim descent from those times; some even suggest that Captain Clark might be their five-times-great grandfather. There is no allusion to this possibility in the Captain’s journal.

  When the expedition eventually pulled itself together to move on, it had spent seven contented weeks on the Clearwater.

  Now, each man had a horse to ride and a pack-horse to lead. For five days they scrambled up, down, and along the ridges. On the sixth day, almost before they knew it, they were coming down to the warmth of the valleys again, to the comfortable place that earlier they had called Travelers’ Rest. Now, the plan was to split into three different parties for the next six or seven weeks, so that they could cover more ground in searching for a better route through the mountains.

  Lewis reckoned to take six men directly east to look for an easier line back to the Great Falls of the Missouri. Meanwhile, Clark would take the rest of the expedition off to the south, to the place where, the year before, they had left their canoes and their stores. A part of this group would then take the re-loaded canoes directly downriver to the Great Falls, while Clark would try to find the headwaters of the Yellowstone River. If he and his small party succeeded, they would build a raft and float 400 miles down the Yellowstone until it flowed into the Missouri. There, at the junction of the two rivers, the three different parties would rendezvous in about six weeks’ time.

  Astonishingly, the plan worked just as they had hoped.

  ***

  Halfway down the Yellowstone there is what my guidebook mundanely called “a point of interest”. Without stretching things, the writer might have been more enthusiastic. He or she is referring to the one and only “in situ” remnant that, today, one can see of the whole long expedition. Three weeks into Clark’s raft journey down the Yellowstone, he noticed a massive sandstone outcrop half a mile or so from the river. He pulled in to the bank; he scrambled halfway up the outcrop and, in a looping script several inches high, he carved his name: Wm Clark July 25, 1806. “I marked my name and the day of the month and the year.” Today, one climbs 100 feet or so up a series of steep wooden stairways to reach a small platform. From there, one looks across a gap of about 12 feet to this simple piece of graffiti. It is guarded by a thick panel of plate glass. Clark called the whole outcrop Pompey’s Tower. Perhaps, as Clark left his mark, Pompey sat on his mother’s hip and watched from below. One would like to think so. Today, the place is known as Pompey’s Pillar. The afternoon I was there, I had the whole place, including the National Parks Visitors Center at the base of the cliff, entirely to myself - time and peace to wander and wonder. And to be not a little moved.

  ***

  Three weeks after he had “marked” his name, Clark and his small party arrived at the junction of the Yellowstone with the bigger Missouri. He was ahead of schedule, so he settled down to wait for Lewis and his party. They came in just two days later. They were full of a narrow escape, when they had bumped into a small party of hostile Blackfeet. In getting away, they had killed two Indians. So, fearful that the remaining Blackfeet would summon a very much larger group of their fellows and come after them, Lewis and his men had just made a forced ride of over 100 miles in the previous 24 hours.

  Now that the whole expedition was together once again, the fiddle came out, and they “went to dancing” around their cooking fires. Then, extraordinarily, just as they were pushing off downriver, they met two white men coming the other way. Dickson and Hancock were the first whites that the expedition had seen since leaving the Mandan villages 16 months before. They were the forward scouts of an extraordinary army of trapper-adventurers who, over the next 30 years, would beaver their way into every valley and over every pass of the western mountains.

  The news the two newcomers brought from downriver was discouraging. The Mandans were feuding with the Aricara; the Minnatarees were squabbling with each other, and the Sioux were being bloody-minded toward the world in general. The expedition would have to run this complex gauntlet.

  Before they paddled on, the two trappers asked if anyone could be spared from the expedition to join them as a partner and guide. John Colter was keen to go, and asked for his discharge; perhaps he was one of those people who prefer the dangers of the wilderness to the comforts of civilization. Anyway, he collected his few belongings and headed back west again with his newfound companions. But we will meet him again, for John Colter was now taking his first steps towards becoming his own special legend.

  When the expedition arrived at the Mandan and Minnetaree villages, the inhabitants were only too happy to see the white men again; they represented protection against their enemies. Charbonneau announced that he and his wife wanted to stay with the Mandans, where they had started. So please, could they have their wages, $500 for the last 17 months? Clark wanted to take Sacajewea’s young Pompey, of whom he had become very fond, on to St. Louis for a white man’s education. His mother said that perhaps she would bring him when he was a little bigger. After all, he was not yet fully weaned. They gave one of their guns to a local chief, “to ingratiate him more strongly in our favor”. Then they pushed off. One hopes that the Charbonneau family came down to the bank to wave goodbye.

  Now there were only 1,500 miles to go. With the current behind them, they could make 50 miles a day and hardly raise a sweat. In the afternoons, the sun “warmed our backs”. But, in the evenings, as always, “the mosguetors were excessive troublsom”. (Of the two Captains, Clark was the more inventive speller.) They paused several times for diplomatic meetings with various tribes. But when they came to the Sioux, they drifted past with their weapons levelled. The Sioux pranced about on the bank and shouted an invitation for the expedition to step ashore, so that they could all have a good fight. “We took no notice.”

  As they went on, Lewis and Clark must surely have felt some pride in what they had done. By their leadership and judgement, they had not only held their men together under the greatest hardships, but they had forged them into an extraordinarily efficient “Corps of Discoverie”. In the whole long journey they had taken only two lives - those two Blackfeet. Even then, it had been “take or be taken”. Above all, they were fortunate in each other; never once had they had a serious disagreement. So, it is entirely appropriate that in all the subsequent histories, one name is hardly ever mentioned without the other. Captains Lewis and Clark were a most remarkable pair.

  There were more traders on the river than there had been two years before. Every few days the expedition would sight a new party and, to a shouted welcome, pull over to a sandbank and talk. The traders would have been astonished to see them; the whole party had long been given up for lost. Indeed, the river-men had been specially asked by President Jefferson to try to find out what had happened. Even to these hardened river-traders, the men who now clambered out of their canoes and waded across to ask for news of home must have seemed as if they had come back from the dark side of the moon. Burnt as brown as any Indian, they would have had a way of standing, talking and laughin
g among themselves which would have marked them as men who had been alone together for a very long time. To those other men, so lately come from “civilization”, everything about this brotherhood must have been intriguing: their ragged but serviceable clothes, their questions, their stories, their music and songs, their jokes and ribaldries, even the Indian patois they sometimes used among themselves. They had been away for over two years.

  Five weeks after leaving the Mandans, the expedition’s flotilla steered out of the Missouri onto the Mississippi. A few more miles and they could see St. Louis - now under the American flag. After all that they had been through, their diaries for Tuesday 23 September, 1806 are marvelously matter-of-fact. “12 o’Clock”, wrote one of the Sergeants, “we arrived in Site of St Louis, fired three rounds as we approached the Town... then the party all considerable much rejoiced that we have the Expedition Completed and now we look for boarding in Town.” So, they were back to the mundane reality of civilization: looking for lodgings. Sergeant Gass concludes, “We were received with great kindness and marks of friendship by the inhabitants, after an absence of two years, four months and ten days.” Perhaps, for the time being, that was all that was worth saying. They seem to have been men of no recognizable pretensions.

  And what of Sacajewea and young Pompey? Captain Clark wrote repeating his earlier offer to educate the lad. He even offered, if the family came down to St. Louis, to see Charbonneau set up as a small trader or farmer. In due course, the family arrived. Clark kept his promises. He looked after the growing boy and made himself responsible for his education. Later, while still in his teens, Pompey met the touring Prince Paul of Wurtemburg; he must have been a personable lad because the Prince took him back to Europe. By the time Pompey returned to the United States it is said that he spoke at least three languages. Sadly, other than working for a time as a guide, he then seems to disappear. His mother too poses a mystery. Most histories report her dying of “the bloody flux” while still a young woman, somewhere in what is now North Dakota. But to this day the Shoshone people, her people, insist that she lived to be over 90 and is buried on their reservation in western Wyoming. Her gravestone is there for all to see.