The Discovery was midstream in the Mississippi now, the wide mouth of the Missouri yawning ahead, and the juncture of the two great rivers afforded an expanse of open water so wide it was like a small sea, with a warm south wind laying over it strong enough to ripple shirts and ruffle hair. The Mississippi’s current was bearing the cumbersome vessel sideways downstream faster than the rowers could move it across. William wet a forefinger and held it up. “Mr. Cruzatte,” he called forward to the pilot, “would ye approve of trying some sail?” The one-eyed Frenchman nodded with smiling enthusiasm, and a moment later the sheet was hauled up. It filled with a rustle and rumble like small thunder, and began pulling. The rowers cheered. Most of them never had been under a sail before, and seemed delighted with this simple boost from nature.
York, who had been up and down the Mississippi with his master, soon took the opportunity to represent himself to the men as an old hand at sailing, and sat on a locker in the sail’s shade making up tall tales about great shipwrecks and capsizings he had survived. After a while, William heard angry voices on deck, and went down. Collins was at the heart of the uproar, and he explained.
“Cap’n, sir, I don’t find it fair that twenty-two white men has to pull on oars while a Nayger loafs an’ spins yarns.” Some soldiers murmured in apparent sympathy; others grumbled derisively at Collins’s complaint.
William bit back his temper for a minute. Then he replied: “Collins, hear me now: This man York has plenty to do as cook and orderly. But if it would please you to try to make him take your oar for ye, then you and him may hash that out personal, and I won’t interfere.”
York grinned and rolled his thick muscles under his body fat. Collins scowled at him, then looked away and kept rowing. The others laughed. William suspected Collins would complain no more about York.
Joining Cruzatte on the bow, William studied the bottomlands at the Missouri’s mouth, into which the vessels were now moving. Off to the left now was the bluff where George had first beheld the Missouri, a whole long quarter of a century ago. William had heard that story when he was a boy and had always been able to envision George riding down that bluff, dismounting, wading out into that low water, just about there, probably, and putting his hand into the current of the Missouri while his bodyguards and his Spanish friends had waited atop the bluff.
Now I’m as far west as George ever got, William thought. And after a while, as the Discovery nosed up the wide, turbid stream, he thought: Now I’m farther west than George ever got.
ONE IMAGE GEORGE’S STORY HAD LEFT IN WILLIAM’S MIND was that of the many full-size trees floating like straw on the Missouri’s current. And now the Discovery was in that current, and an alarming number of uprooted trees came barreling along. In no river had William seen these silent boat-wreckers come so thick and so fast. Cruzatte, now wielding a long, iron-tipped pike with which to fend them off, explained: “T’ees God-tamn Missou-ree, alway she caving in t’e banks! You see someday, mon capitaine, whole forest fall in at one time!” It was the river’s constant undermining of her banks and relentless channel-shifting that caused this, he went on, his one eye darting ahead, pike at the ready. Cruzatte had already catalogued enough other navigational hazards peculiar to the Missouri—rolling sandbars, false channels, quicksands—to make himself seem quite indispensable. Suddenly he whistled, and Labiche appeared beside him with another pike-pole. Without a word, the two pointed their poles toward a dark, gnarled, glistening snag that was sweeping straight toward the prow, bobbing in the roiling water. The poles touched it. The two Frenchmen strained and pushed in a single-minded effort; their poles bent slightly; the dark snag veered and rolled over and slid harmlessly by on the starboard side. At once Cruzatte was peering forward again, watching for more. He shook his head. “Mon capitaine,” he said, “permit me telling, t’ees boat too high in t’e bow. She could run onto a tronk.” He demonstrated with his hand and the shaft of his pike. “Better she have her nose down, like plow.”
William nodded, understanding. It would mean a tedious, strenuous shifting of cargo down in the hold, moving weight forward, re-drawing his sketch that showed where everything was. But he knew that Cruzatte was right. He had seen riverboats run over logs that had stove in their hull planks because they couldn’t be got out from under. “We’ll do that when we get to St. Charles,” he said. It was plain, Cruzatte knew boats.
A LINE OF CLOUD PASSED UNDER THE DESCENDING SUN, and in its shadow came a dank breeze. Soon a heavy rain was falling. The sail grew sodden, and was hauled down, and the men rowed onward, barely moving the vessel against the Missouri’s stiff current. William returned to the afterdeck and stood beside Sergeant Floyd, watching the rain pock the vast gray surface of the water. Cruzatte shouted back: “Right rudder, Mistair Floyd!” He was pointing at a V-shaped turbulence dead ahead, its point upstream.
“Hard right, sergeant,” William commanded, and Floyd put the tiller over. The boat swung slowly by the ripple.
“What was it, Cap’n?” Floyd asked, watching it.
“A planter,” William said. “Trees that get anchored to bottom, and sway back and forth just under th’ surface. Can’t see ’em, except for that ripple. They’ve sunk many a flatboat.”
Floyd was quiet for a while, squinting ahead in the rain. After a while he said, “I kinder ’preciate that leetle Frenchman, don’t you, Cap’n Clark?”
William nodded. “I do, too.”
Cap’n Clark he calls me, William thought. So little does he know.
William set his jaw and frowned. He had determined not to dwell on it, or even to think about it. But Floyd’s words had put it in his mind, and his stomach churned with bitter anger as he thought of it.
William’s commission from Secretary of War Dearborn had come a few days ago. Instead of the captaincy promised him by Lewis and Jefferson, he had received only a lieutenant’s rank. It was an insult, and it stung, and it had reminded him of all the insults and injustices his brother George had suffered at the hands of government. For a while William had even thought of quitting the expedition because of it. But Lewis, seeming to be almost as indignant about it as William was himself, had pleaded with him. He had apologized on Jefferson’s behalf, explaining that the President could only recommend a rank; it was the Secretary’s decision. And then he had said: “To the men you’re already Captain Clark, as you are to me. None of them, or anyone else, needs to know about the rank. In command with me, you’ll remain full equal. And when we’re done, I’ll see you’re compensated equal. Please, friend Clark. Who in heaven could I ever find to take your place? If you quit me, it won’t show the Secretary of War anything. But it’ll trouble me and the troops something awful!”
Finally, William had answered. “Two things I’d not want to live with. One’s failing you. The other’s not seeing the Pacific Ocean. I’ve got my heart set on that, and I guess I’ll go. And I take ye on your word, that I be co-captain in every way. Mark this: never remind me I’m but a lieutenant!”
Lewis had gripped his arm and looked intently into his eyes. “When we first met, remember, you were a captain and I was an ensign. You were as fine a captain as ever I saw. That’s why I told the President I wanted you. Knowing that, d’you think I’d ever bear rank on you?”
And so William had accepted that, and had resolved to himself that he would be as valuable as Lewis every step of the way to the Western Sea, as he had sworn to do when he’d signed on.
For, he told himself, whether governments keep their word or not, by my God, Clarks do.
May 24, 1804
THEY HAD BEEN ON THE RIVER FOR HALF AN HOUR WHEN THE sun came up astern. William was on deck, watching the river’s roiling surface change colors with the light: pewter, mustard, brass.
This was the start of the tenth day, and they had been working harder than they had ever worked in their lives, but still they had come only fifty miles up the Missouri.
William had thought he knew plenty about rivers, but this
one was teaching him new lessons every hour, and she was a rough and ruthless teacher. Already, a week ago, the convoy had been forced to stop at the French village of St. Charles, to unload and rearrange the keelboat’s cargo. Cruzatte had been right: Too heavy astern, the Discovery had run onto three floating trees on the second day out. William could still hear and feel those sickening moments: the Frenchmen’s nasal shouts, the thud, thud and the grinding rumble, the splintering of oars, the tilting, the loss of headway, the sight of York falling down and dropping a tea service all over the deck, the dismayed yells of the men and then all the strenuous and tricky effort to get the boat around and the tree out from under, in the swirling, murky water, while boat and tree floated back down over distances so tediously gained; then there had been the frantic inspections for hull damage. Fortunately the Discovery had withstood all those collisions, and now, loaded nose-heavy, she was plowing upstream toward the new hazards this day promised to bring. Sometime this morning they were due to reach a notorious stretch of water that Cruzatte called the Devil’s Raceground, and it promised to teach still more hard lessons.
Now William paced between the rowers, giving them jokes and cheerful words. They needed all the encouragement they could get. William paused in his pacing to look down at Private Collins’s bare, red-welted back. The muscles moved under a coat of grease as he rowed. Collins could not wear a shirt yet since his whipping.
A week ago, during their stopover at St. Charles, Collins had left camp without permission to attend a ball in the town, and on returning, drunk, had made some disrespectful remarks about his commanding officers. Next day he had been found guilty by a court-martial of his peers and sentenced to fifty lashes. The men had administered the punishment at sunset that day, and Collins had taken it without whimpering. He had even chosen to go back on the oars next morning instead of lying sickabed as he could have done. His spirit was admirable.
“That back looks better today, Collins,” William said.
“Aye, sir,” he replied over his shoulder. “Feelin’ much better, thank’ee.”
“Good. Y’know what I hope, my lad?”
“What, sir?”
“That those heal up before y’ earn yourself any more. Stripes on stripes hurt just about unbearable, I’ve heard it told.” William had hated whippings ever since he had first seen them in Wayne’s army, and hoped there would have to be no more in the Corps of Discovery.
“I don’t aim to earn any more, sir,” Collins said.
“That’s good to hear. But then I don’t reckon y’ aimed to earn those, either, did ye now?”
The nearby rowers laughed, and Collins laughed with them instead of taking it in bad humor. William was so pleased with this that he had an impulse to reach down and pat him on the shoulder and call him a good man. But no, it was too soon to ease up on him.
As William walked back toward the cabin, Lewis limped out its door onto the deck, grimacing. His face and hands were covered with red abrasions. Just yesterday afternoon, while exploring a high stone bluff on the left bank, he had got close to the edge, and the stone had crumbled under him, dropping him down the face of a 300-foot cliff. Alerted by the frantic barking of Scannon, William had looked up to see Lewis hanging like a spider on the face of the cliff. Lewis had stopped his fall only by digging his hunting knife into the cliff, thirty feet down. After going up and rescuing him with a rope, William had lectured him.
“You may be my superior officer, but if ye want me to go on with you, promise me no more such foolhardiness as that. Damned if I’ll go back and tell Mister Jefferson, ‘Sorry about your Voyage o’ Discovery, Mister President, but Cap’n Lewis kilt hisself’fore we could get fifty miles up th’ Missouri.’” Lewis had promised.
Now William and Lewis nodded to each other, and Lewis said, “Hear that water?”
“Aye. Th’ Devil’s Raceground. Cruzatte says it’s right ’round the next bend.” Already they could feel the increased velocity of the current and see dirty brown foam drifting by the boat. “We should put in up by those willows and set the towing party on shore.”
Twenty minutes later, the boat was creeping into the rushing narrows. Half the crew was on shore now, on the left bank, straining forward on the long tow rope, slogging along and stumbling like slaves through rocks and muck and willow thickets, shirtless, pouring sweat, their shoes and trousers heavy with clinging mud, tormented by mosquitoes and black flies. They had the rope over their shoulders most of the time, but often had to snake it high and low to keep it from snagging in brush and branches. This rope was attached to the bow. On board, the rest of the soldiers were laboring on set-poles, and by these combined exertions the Discovery began inching forward through a narrow channel formed by a rocky left bank and a mucky midstream island. The current in this channel was fast and turbulent, and gurgled and hissed loudly against the hull. Above its liquid turmoil William could barely hear the curses and the shouted advice among those laboring onshore.
This turbid channel seemed to extend for about half a mile, and at the rate they were moving it apparently would require an hour to pass through it—provided there were no hidden surprises in the muddy water, provided the tow rope wouldn’t break, provided the men’s strength wouldn’t give out.
Cruzatte stood poised like a panther on the bow, watching the water below and the shoreline ahead, while Labiche listened to his directions and moved the bow oar. The soldiers strained on their poles and the heavy vessel crept, just perceptibly. The morning sun was already blistering.
“So far all right,” William said almost an hour later. The troops were gasping, slipping on the sweat-slickened deck. “York, take ’em water.” The slave went along with a bucket and dipper. “Now,” William said, “take one o’ those set-poles, why don’t ye, my man, and apply those great muscles o’ yours.” York looked astonished at this suggestion, but took one and got in line, and Collins whooped once with delight.
The channel was widening now; they had passed the rocks and were abreast of the upper end of the island. “Almost through,” William said. Lewis nodded, grim and anxious.
But the hard labor wasn’t yet over.
Half an hour later they were past the island, above the Devil’s Raceground, rowing now, but the current was still too powerful for oars alone and the towing crew was still laboring along the wooded bank. William watched them with admiration.
When we get above this, he thought, they’ll all merit an extra dram o’ whis—
Cruzatte shouted something, and there were cries from the shore, and then that end-of-the-world sound: the muffled roar of riverbanks caving in. A few hundred yards ahead of the towing crew, acres of wooded riverbank were dropping into the water; hundreds of birds were flying up out of the toppling trees.
Cruzatte yelled again and signaled violently for the helmsmen to steer for the right bank.
“Lay on those oars!” William yelled above the uproar.
Where they found new strength he didn’t know, but they did, and the vessel began to veer toward midstream, away from the collapsing shore. The shore crew stayed where they were, paying out a little rope while getting ready to run in case the part of the bank they were on should start to give way under them.
The Discovery was making headway to the starboard shore now, and William was just beginning to plan a way to bring the towing crew across—we’ll ferry ’em over when th’ pirogues come up, he was thinking—when the keelboat suddenly shuddered, and listed so far to the right that he almost fell overboard.
Sandbar! he thought, scrambling to his feet on the tilting quarterdeck. “Aground!” he yelled.
Now her bow was wheeling to the right; Cruzatte and Labiche both had poles against the hidden bar and were straining to stop the drift. But she was sideways to the swift current now; the water was thundering broadside against her hull, and she was tilting, tilting against the soft, hidden sand. The men on shore were digging their heels into the ground, pulling the long line to keep the boat stead
y, and the rope was so taut that water drops were popping out of it. For an awful, wonderful moment, the bow stopped swinging, even nudged a few degrees back into the current.
But then the tow line was snagged by a floating tree, stretched one last unbearable inch, and broke. With a sickening swoop, the bow was driven downstream again; the Frenchmen’s poles snapped; the whole long hull was again broadside to the current, and the boat was about to be overset, her starboard rail almost in the water. The men, half by instinct, half by the little river-wisdom they had gained already, were swarming toward the upper rail, Abandoned oars were breaking in the sand or plunging away in the muddy whorl above the invisible sand bar. William bellowed:
“All hands over the larboard rail and bear down!” He swung himself over the quarterdeck rail to show the way.
They did it. Even those who were non-swimmers—a good half of them—and even York, and Captain Lewis himself, jumped out on the upper side and hung far over the water on straining arms, their feet and seats in the swift, cold, brown water. Scannon barked once and leaped overboard after his master, plunged into the water, and disappeared.
They hung on; they groaned, they yelled; they waited. Their weight on the upper side had stayed the tilting, but it was merely a hanging balance and there was nothing they could do beyond what they were doing, and it seemed just a matter of time.
But then the current helped them, for a change. The sand gradually washed from under the hull, and the bow began to turn downstream, the boat slowly righting herself as she floated off. The men, sopping wet and whooping in triumph, tried to swarm back aboard.
But now the vessel had wheeled end to end and was again coming broadside to the current, now her starboard side, and was cross-current again when her port side hit the next sandbar. Now she began listing that way, and was about to turn over again, and the men, this time not needing orders, scrambled across the deck and flung themselves over the starboard rail. Again they held her in balance; again the current scoured the sand out from under her; again she wheeled, and her larboard side was athwart the current when she sighed onto the third sandbar, just a short way above the upper end of the island. The men went out over the upper side again and hung there.
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