From Sea to Shining Sea

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From Sea to Shining Sea Page 79

by JAMES ALEXANDER Thom


  The men bathed and washed their clothes in the river, enjoyed an extra gill of whiskey with their dinner, and went to bed still chuckling about the “damned little pups of the prairie.”

  Off in the dusk somewhere, William heard the Fields brothers’ voices.

  “Lordy, Joe, I never been so tired. Heh, heh! But I sure am glad we come along.”

  “Me likewise.”

  They were thinking prairie dogs instead of Sioux, and William was pleased.

  “Yip, yip!” someone piped up in a far corner of the camp. William listened to the men’s chuckles blending with the gurgling of the Missouri, and he went to sleep smiling.

  “LORD GOD, THIS’S EVEN BIGGER THAN A MISSOURUH CAT-FISH!”

  “That was Jonah’s own fish, in its day, I’ll bet it wahr!”

  The men thus exclaimed as they dug in stinking, black-sulphur soil at the top of a bluff on the south side of the river, exposing the fossilized bones of what seemed to be a fish without end. When at last they had uncovered the last vertebra, a rope was stretched from one end to the other of the skeleton and measured. “Forty-five feet,” William announced. He wrote it down in his notes for September 10, and then the men were put to work gathering up the bones, each labeled and numbered for shipment to Thomas Jefferson.

  “D’ye reckon, Cap’n, there’s fish like this still in this here river?” The query was from Private Goodrich, the Corps’ most dedicated fisherman. William chuckled.

  “I doubt you’ll catch one this size,” he said.

  “I sorta hope not. In a way,” Goodrich said wistfully.

  “When this fish swam,” William explained, remembering things George had told him so long ago back at the Falls of the Ohio, “this land we’re on likely was under sea.”

  Goodrich paused and looked at William, uncomprehending, thinking perhaps he was joking. “Anyways,” he said then, “I sorta would like to catch one like this.”

  William smiled. Dreams o’ glory, he thought.

  34

  AT THE MOUTH OF THE BAD RIVER

  September 25, 1804

  WILLIAM LAY ON HIS SIDE IN HIS BLANKET ON THE QUARTERDECK watching the sky brighten to gold above the distant bluff, hearing the Missouri trickle and swirl under the hull of the Discovery. He had hardly slept all night, thinking about the Sioux. He was tired, but was relieved to see daylight come so that something could be done.

  He sat up in his bedding and rubbed the corners of his eyes. Lewis lay nearby, his dog asleep beside him. Down on the main deck, on lockers and on the foredeck, two-thirds of the Corps lay rolled in their blankets, literally covering every available foot of space. It had been decided the night before that because of the nearness of the Sioux, most of the men should sleep aboard the boat, while a detachment of fifteen stood guard on the sandbar beside which the vessel lay anchored. Opposite the sandbar was the clump of willows that marked the mouth of the Bad River. Beyond those willows was the main village of the Teton Sioux, the notorious “pirates of the Missouri.” A grand council with the Sioux chiefs had been arranged, and it would be held on this brushy sandbar, beginning about midmorning.

  “Ordway, you awake?” William said.

  The sergeant sat up nearby. “Aye, Cap’n.”

  “Let’s have reveille and use this light.”

  The men awoke quickly, those who had slept, apparently remembering their situation at once. Those who had not slept moved about, haggard, bleary-eyed, anxiously peering toward the Bad River. Patrick Gass, who had been elected sergeant to succeed Charles Floyd, rumbled orders.

  The men worked until breakfast, setting up the council place on the sandbar. They erected the keelboat’s mast as a flagpole. Then they stretched the barge’s awning over poles to make a shade canopy. They set up a field table under the canopy, and moved several bundles of Indian presents from the boat to the table. As the sun peeped over the distant bluff, they bathed and shaved on the shore of the sandbar, donned the blue coats, leggings, boots, and top hats of their parade uniforms, and slung the white belts of their bayonets and cartouch boxes over their shoulders. It had been a long time since they had looked so much like soldiers, and though this uniforming felt strangely formal here on a sandbar in a prairie river without a fort or even a tent within a thousand miles, it seemed to brace their morale.

  The sun was halfway up the sky, and William was under the awning laying out the Jefferson medals, flags, hats, tobacco, and other gifts, when Lewis touched him on the shoulder and nodded toward the mouth of the river.

  William looked and a shiver went down his neck. “Got us a lot outnumbered, haven’t they?”

  There were hundreds of Indians filling up the shore over there, tiny figures of ruddy skin and tawny deerhides, bristling with spears and guns and decorated poles. Most were afoot, but many were on horseback. Their voices droned above the watery whisper of the Missouri. From somewhere far off came a regular, jingling beat, not distinct, but something rather like a tambourine.

  “Well,” said Lewis. “Let’s go back aboard and get spruced up for the chiefs.”

  BY ELEVEN O’CLOCK, THREE COLORFULLY DRESSED CHIEFS and about two dozen bodyguards had gathered near the flagpole. With them were two bedraggled captive Omaha squaws, through whom Cruzatte could interpret when hand signs were inadequate.

  The two captains put on their bicorn hats, climbed down from the keelboat into one of the pirogues, and were rowed to the sandbar. They walked up to where the chiefs stood. The principal chief, in a full headdress of hawk feathers and a long, clean, beaded doehide tunic reaching his knees, stood in front, and the other two stood slightly behind him, to his right and left. Cruzatte, self-conscious and nervous, placed himself at Captain Lewis’s right hand. The chiefs’ eyes stayed mostly on William, whose stature and fair coloring apparently made them believe he was the leader.

  The principal Sioux chief, Cruzatte said, was Un Ton-gar Sar-Bar, meaning Black Buffalo. He was tall, about fifty, with a kindly, broad, deeply lined face and a mashed-looking nose. The second chief was Torto-hon-gar, known as Partizan. The captains glanced to each other. This was the one whom Loisel had described as a snake. His eyes were cold and furtive, his lips thin. The third chief was introduced as Tar Ton-gar Wa-ker, or Buffalo Medicine. The chiefs touched hands with the captains. Each of their bodyguards wore a headdress made of a raven’s skin with head, wings, and tail intact, the beak projecting over the warrior’s forehead.

  William did not like the appearance of these Teton Sioux. They seemed less wholesome and more ill-proportioned than the Kickapoos, Missouris, Otoes, and Yankton Sioux whom the expedition had met downriver. These Teton Sioux looked like chimney sweeps or coal-diggers; their faces and bodies were smeared with matter that appeared to be a mixture of charcoal dust and lard, and they were short-limbed and bug-eyed. Somehow, too, they seemed sullen and reticent, and they either misunderstood, or pretended to misunderstand, Cruzatte’s translations.

  “Tell them,” Lewis said, “that we bring them samples of our food.” He pointed to a row of salt pork and flour kegs. There followed some more talk, and two Sioux bodyguards stooped to open a hide bundle, which Cruzatte explained was meat the Sioux had brought to the Americans.

  It lay there on the opened skin now, perhaps two hundred pounds of it, not red but dirty, graying, stinking in the sunlight. It was many days beyond freshness, and its pungency made the captains recoil. William asked, “Do they mean this as an insult?”

  “Non, capitaine,” said the Frenchman. “Meat of a rankness is very estimable to them. They favor it.”

  But the chiefs had already seen the revulsion in the Americans’ faces, and they now looked even more sullen.

  “Sergeant, parade the men and raise the colors,” William said.

  The Indians watched with unreadable expressions as a squad of blue-coated soldiers, impressively tall in their black hats, shouldered arms, marched in perfect step, flanked, and wheeled, tramping and swinging their arms in unison as if they shared o
ne spirit. Then the squad halted in a rank and stood at Present Arms while the American flag was hauled up the pole. Then the chiefs and their bodyguards were invited to settle themselves in the awning’s shade. The pipe was lit and passed in silence for a quarter of an hour, while everyone looked everyone over.

  The next order of ceremony was Captain Lewis’s speech. William sat down on a keg beside the table while Lewis stood before the chiefs, Cruzatte by his side, and began.

  “Chiefs of the great nation of the Sioux, hear me.” He pointed upward. “Today you have seen the flag of the United States put above this land. Your white father is now the great chief of the United States.” He waited while Cruzatte translated this. The Indians looked around, looked up, looked at each other, shrugged. It was obvious that either Cruzatte was not translating well, or the Sioux were insolently pretending not to understand. When a pause came and Cruzatte nodded, Lewis continued.

  “Your former fathers the Spaniards have gone across the great water where the sun rises. We have come very far with our flag to tell you this.” Again Cruzatte limped along with his hand signals and his limited command of the Sioux tongue. The chiefs seemed to be more interested in his curious appearance and his eyepatch than in what he was saying. They also seemed more interested in the array of gifts than in the words being spoken. During Cruzatte’s desperate pauses for word-searching, the whine of flies was loud under the awning. It seemed that a million of them had congregated around the great pile of tainted meat lying out in the sun.

  “Your new father cares more for the Sioux, and for all the red men in the land, than your Spanish fathers cared. He wants to see your chiefs, and hear them, and know them, and to trade with all your people. Your new father does not want the Sioux to be hungry in the winters. He wants the Sioux to have many useful things, such as we will show you soon, so that the Sioux may live with more ease.”

  Cruzatte struggled through this part, which seemed to be more interesting and comprehensible to them; Lewis went on then.

  “Your new father does not want the Sioux to waste their time making war on other nations. He does not want your women to cry because their men and their sons die in wars that are not necessary. Your father wants all the red men to be at peace with each other, and with the new flag. When nations are at peace, there is time to do good things. There is time to hunt, and to store food, time to make goods, to trade and grow wealthy. Your women can have things of many beautiful colors, and machines of iron, to grind grain.”

  Cruzatte was unable to come up with a word for “machines.”

  “Tell them we will show them later,” Lewis said. “Tell them that if they are peaceful with our flag and with other nations, we will sell them good guns, to hunt better.” This made their eyes glint. But then:

  “Also: Tell them that they must no longer stop traders on the river and frighten them and take their goods. Say our government will send many more soldiers like us to make them obey, if they keep doing this. Say they will grow rich only by being honest and fair and peaceful.”

  It was plain that the Indians did not care for such admonitions. They were frowning and muttering to each other. So Lewis decided to bring his harangue to a close before the whole ceremony could deteriorate in rudeness.

  “Tell them,” he said now, “that we have presents to give them, and some implements to show them.” He turned and looked darkly at William, obviously very disappointed that the Sioux had taken his President’s noble overtures so disrespectfully. In the crowded shade, a sense of trouble seemed to flicker like heat lightning.

  William supervised the giving of gifts and Cruzatte translated. Black Buffalo was given a medallion, about three and a half inches across. On one side was stamped an image of President Jefferson. “This,” William said, “is your new father, the great chief of the United States.” Cruzatte grunted and burbled his Omaha syllables, and the chiefs looked scowling and murmuring at Jefferson’s resolute profile, as if to appraise his character from it.

  William turned it to show the reverse side, which depicted two hands clasping, with a pipe and a hatchet crossed above them. “These marks,” he said, stooping so close to indicate the tiny letters that he could smell the chiefs’ strong breath, “these are American words put on the metal. They say, ‘Peace and Friendship.’ Those we want and expect: Peace and Friendship.”

  Next he gave Black Buffalo a small American flag on a stick, a cocked hat with a feather in it, and a scarlet uniform coat decorated with lace.

  The chief nodded and acquainted himself with his new treasures, rubbing them between his fingers, sniffing them and looking at them minutely. In the meantime, William gave Partizan and Buffalo Medicine each a smaller medallion. These depicted domestic animals, and a farmer sowing grain. Lewis had picked up a large number of these plentiful medals from the War Department; they were left over from George Washington’s presidency. He also presented these two chiefs with pairs of red leggings and garters, a knife apiece, and twists of tobacco. Buffalo Medicine seemed pleased, but Partizan looked disdainfully at his small hoard, holding the items in his hands and sneering. William leaned to Lewis.

  “Good thing for him my Ma’s not here,” he said. “She’d whap his hindy end for takin’ a gift in such bad manner.”

  “Tell them,” Lewis now said to Cruzatte, “the chiefs are invited to come on our big boat, and we’ll show ’em some of our implements.”

  Each chief summoned two bodyguards, and they all went down to the pirogue at the edge of the sandbar and got in. The chiefs looked quietly at the keelboat as they were rowed out to her, and then climbed aboard over the side. Buffalo Medicine almost leaped back into the pirogue when he came up over the side and got a glimpse of York standing there huge and plum-black.

  “Get below,” William told the servant, “and have Ordway pump up the air gun and bring it out.” York disappeared into the cabin, followed by the wondering eyes of the chiefs.

  Lewis seated the chiefs comfortably on lockers amidships and then began demonstrating, one at a time, his implements. First he showed them the steel corn mill that was bolted to the gunwale, and gave each a handful of corn to put in the top. Sergeant Pryor then turned the handle and Lewis gave each chief a handful of the fine corn meal that came out of the bottom. Then he brought forth a compass. “See this little arrow,” he said, stooping near. “Always the arrow aims at the north, whence the winter comes, you see?” He rotated it and they saw that it did indeed always point to the north, no matter how he held it. “A great power makes it point there,” Lewis said. “You turn it and see. You cannot make it point south.” Black Buffalo manipulated the brass instrument for a while and then agreed that with all his chiefly powers he could not make it point another way.

  “Now see me,” Lewis said. “I have power to make it point south.” He had palmed a magnet, and held it behind the compass, and the chiefs, who had just newly come to accept the truth that a compass arrow always points to the winter quarter, now saw it come vibrating around to point south. The chiefs were hard pressed not to appear as mystified as they really were, and were still apparently thinking about this when Lewis brought forth his next implement of great medicine, a telescope. William stood watching and hoped that they had never seen a spyglass before. If they had, he knew, Meriwether’s proud show of gadgets would suddenly seem like a transparent display of trickery instead of great medicine. “See the flag over there,” Lewis said. “How small it is, so far away. But now aim at it through this stick and it will be close.” Black Buffalo held the telescope to his eye, and it took quite a while for him to learn to aim it. In the meantime, Partizan and Buffalo Medicine were growing restive and their attention was straying. Buffalo Medicine kept looking toward the door of the after-cabin for a glimpse of York, who seemed a bigger magic than any of this. Eventually Black Buffalo got the enlarged image of the Stars and Stripes, and his mouth fell open.

  “Ai!” he murmured.

  “The United States will come close to you
like that,” Lewis said, and Cruzatte translated. The chief seemed to appreciate this analogy. Then Partizan and Buffalo Medicine took their turns at the eyepiece. And while they were still wondering at it, Ordway brought up the air gun.

  The Indians looked at it with wonder. Being one of Lewis’s favorite gadgets, it was kept in a fine polish at all times, its brass gleaming and its varnished stock rosy; it was an elegant-looking piece compared with the nicked, rusty, ill-made muskets carried by those of the Sioux who had guns. Of greater interest was the apple-sized brass bulb just forward of the trigger guard. This was the pneumatic chamber, which Ordway had just secretly pumped full of compressed air with a hand pump below decks.

  Lewis took up his espontoon and, standing near the bow of the keelboat, rested the gun barrel on it. “Sure hope this shoots better than last year,” he muttered to William, alluding to the lady he had accidentally wounded with the inaccurate gun near Pittsburgh. “See that tree,” he told the chiefs.

  Lewis now aimed at a large cottonwood near the crowd on shore and squeezed the trigger.

  The gun’s soft pop, no more than that of a puff of air expelled from the lips, made the chiefs smirk at each other; they thought the gleaming gun had misfired. Now Lewis dropped another pellet into the loading-hole above the breach and squeezed the trigger again. Again the pop; again the chiefs looked smug and contemptuous. But then a cry came from shore, followed by an astonished murmur from the crowd; a brave had gone to the distant cottonwood and found the pellet-holes in it. The chiefs were suddenly attentive again, and watched in amazement as Lewis fired several more smokeless, noiseless shots without seeming even to reload. Black Buffalo was watching the tree through the telescope now and he could see bark fly from its trunk every time Lewis pulled the trigger. The chiefs were talking among themselves excitedly now, and Cruzatte said that they were calling this great medicine, a gun that shoots without powder. “He say it is beyond all he have comprehend,” Cruzatte said.

 

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