From Sea to Shining Sea

by JAMES ALEXANDER Thom

  But no! The deer was clambering ungracefully, slipping and stumbling up above; surely he had winged it, at least, after all. He looked down and saw the rattlesnake still writhing, and its head was mashed and torn. He grabbed up the espontoon and hacked the snake once more quickly and it lay almost still, merely rippling a bit along its length; then he examined the elkhide legging at the place where he had felt the blow. There was no mark there. Obviously the snake had merely hit him with its body in its death throes and had not got fangs into him. If that poor snake had bit that ankle, William thought, it would be him that died o’ poisoning.

  Now he stepped over the serpent and limped through the scrub after the sound of the deer, which was out of sight now. Bloodspecks led up the draw. It was incredible but that wild shot had found a living mark. William ran, reaching for his powder horn to reload, following the red drops and hoof-scuffed earth around an outcropping of yellowish flintlike rock.

  And there was his deer. It was a doe, and her hind legs were collapsed; likely his shot had hit her spine. She was making a desperate, wild attempt to run, scrabbling with her forelegs, her eyes terrorized, not understanding this hurt and this helplessness. Now she was sliding sideways in the dust and rocktrash, her neck strained forward, her hind legs twitching, her mouth open and tongue protruding.

  William had advised the hunters not to waste shots, both to conserve powder and to keep from alarming the Shoshonis unduly. William did not like to see a deer in this awful twitching pathetic state, and he wanted to dispatch her with a shot through the head. But he remembered his own policy about shooting, so he just advanced on her, those last few intimate yards, his heart beating hard, until he stood directly beside her. Then, keeping his eye on the sharp hooves, he put his gun on the ground, moved in with the steel-tipped espontoon, and with a thrust powered by both arms he drove the weapon through her heaving ribs and into her heart. He stood back panting as blood poured out of her mouth and soaked into the parched ground, and she died, the wild terror fading from her brown eyes until they became dead and dull as bottleglass.

  Well, there was more meat for the boys. But he hoped he would never have to kill a deer that way again, close enough to watch the life die in the eyes.

  He had killed deer and elk and buffalo beyond count, but the only thing he was glad to kill was a rattlesnake.

  LEWIS HAD PUT YESTERDAY’S DISAPPOINTMENT BEHIND HIM, and now he and Drouillard and Shields were moving forward in the same wide line as before, searching for fresh Indian tracks, looking for a well-traveled path, while McNeal followed with an American flag on a long willow pole which, it was hoped, would be interpreted as a sign of peace by any Indians who might be watching from the high meadows.

  An hour ago they had found some of the sunshade bowers at a place where Indians had been digging for roots. The diggings were fresh, less than two days old. Now they were on a well-beaten Indian road that ran in and out of ravines, parallel to the streambed. Lewis’s hopes were waxing again; he was sure that these traces would lead within a few more miles to some Shoshoni village. But he could only hope that the Indian who had fled on horseback yesterday had not alarmed them all to the point of flight.

  And now the stream they had been following had dwindled to a mere brook. “Cap’n, sir!” McNeal called. Lewis turned around.

  There stood the grinning young private with one foot on each side of the water, waving his flag, and yelling now.

  “Praised be th’ Lord, I’ve lived f straddle this here thought t’ be endless Missouri! Yeeeeeee HAAAAAA!”

  TWO MORE MILES UP THE TWISTING VALLEY THEY CAME TO the base of a ridge that made a saddle between two mountains. From the base of the ridge issued a rivulet of ice cold water. Lewis waved Drouillard and Shields in and the four men sat to rest. Lewis seemed almost rapturous. He said:

  “Gendemen, this is a moment my mind’s been fixed on for many a year. I’ll have a drink now from the extremest fountainhead of the mighty Missouri. And you have spent so many toilsome days and restless nights with me to reach it, you’ll drink with me!”

  He lay down to drink first, his heart beating against the ground, and kissed the surface of the fresh, crystalline water, inhaling the scent of wet rock, and drew in a mouthful of water so cold it made his palate ache, and swallowed it, and a teardrop fell off the end of his nose into the water. Then the other men drank. “Now,” he said, his eyes glittering, and pointed up to a saddle of land between two mountains straight ahead. “See where the trail goes over that pass? That I’ll swear is the Great Divide! What’ll y’ wager before nightfall we’ll be on th’ yonder side tastin’ a sip from a like fountainhead of the Columbia?” Now they all had teary eyes, and were impatient to get back on their feet.

  The ascent was gentle, and they walked in a close group up that last half mile. “Bejeesus,” Shields exclaimed as they slogged upward between two barren, windy peaks. “Y’ mean it’s all downhill from there on?”

  They went on, each wondering in his own manner of thinking what the western side would look like. Perhaps a descending rank of foothills, hills maybe like the Alleghenies, dropping away and away, lower and lower, with the blue and peaceful ocean lying out there somewhere on the horizon? McNeal, who had seldom heard his captains talk about the geography, probably was envisioning it that way. Drouillard and Shields had been around the captains more and probably had a less simple foreview of it, but in their souls they, too, were starting to think downhill, downstream, westerly. Captain Lewis himself knew there were probably more mountain ranges, but he knew that the waters leading down that western watershed would wind among them probably to the Columbia—or some other, as yet unknown—river, and that to the Pacific. He knew that in descending from this divide back down to the Gulf of Mexico, the easterly waters dropped gradually, some three thousand miles down the Jefferson and Missouri and another thousand down the Mississippi. He knew also from coordinates that the Pacific likely was no more than five hundred miles due west of this divide. Thus the westering rivers must make a comparatively short, steep rush down to sea level, or else twist and wind through an incredible maze of mountain ranges. All these long-held expectations were coloring his thoughts as he climbed the Indian trail to the top of the ridge. But still he was not prepared for what he saw.

  Range after range of immense, purple-sided, snow-capped mountains stretched away to the west until they were lost in each other. Many of the peaks seemed to stand much higher even than this ridge upon which the four white men now stood. Over and through those incredible gleaming towers and dark valleys moved the shadows of clouds, and a silence so deep it seemed to make the ears ring from within.

  It was a long time before anyone spoke, and it was Shields, who said:

  “God have mercy on us! That sure don’t look downhill t’ me!”

  THIS WESTERN SLOPE OF THE RIDGE WAS STEEPER. LEWIS tried to hearten the men as they made their way down the Indian trail. He reminded them that they enjoyed the honor of being the first Americans to cross the Divide, and assured them: “You have indeed passed over the rooftop of the land, doubt me not.”

  “I’m not a-doubtin’ you ’bout that rooftop, sir,” Shields ventured to joke, emboldened now by Lewis’s apparent high spirits, “but them out there’s surely the most turrible lot o’ gables I ever seen!”

  And then, three-fourths of a mile down the slope, the Indian path veered along the bank of a bold, leaping little creek of cold water. Here again Lewis stopped to lie down and drink. He stood up, grinning, bright-eyed. “Help yourselves, boys. By my soul, this is our first taste of the great Columbia, and I swear she’s the best stuff I ever drank, except whiskey.”

  “Please don’t say that word, sir,” McNeal pleaded. “Yell make me cry.”

  THEY CAMPED THAT NIGHT AT A SPRING BESIDE THE INDIAN road where there was willow-brush for a fire, and ate the last of their pork. As they had done the night before, they hung awls and pewter looking-glasses on a pole near the campfire, but as far as they k
new, no one came to see them.

  The next morning they were still following the Indian road and had come about ten miles, and were moving down a rolling plain within a valley when Drouillard whooped once and pointed toward a rise about a mile ahead. Lewis looked up and his heart skipped.

  On the brow of the height stood three Indians—a man and two women—and several dogs.

  Lewis was elated. This time there would be no stupidity like that before. Shields and Drouillard would not risk that kind of tongue-lashing again. And this time the Indians were on foot, and thus less likely to flee so quickly. In fact, they seemed to show no alarm at all yet, but were watching, immobile as statues. The two women sat down as if to wait for their approach.

  When Lewis was within a half mile of the group, he directed the men to stop. He put down his pack and rifle and took the flag from McNeal, unfurled it, and began walking slowly up the slope toward them, one hand full of trinkets. Stay, he thought, as if trying to project his thoughts across the distance to them.

  But suddenly the two women rose and disappeared over the hill. The man still stood, watching. Lewis stripped up his sleeve and called, “Tab-ba-bone! Tab-ba-bone!” Two of the dogs began edging down the slope toward him, their wolfish faces alert and wary.

  But the man at the top of the hill turned and vanished.

  Damnation! Lewis ran toward the top of the hill, but when he arrived where they had stood, there was not a sight of them. Only the dogs remained, circling him warily at a few yards distance, or sitting down to scratch at fleas with their hind legs. It was incredible how quickly and completely the savages had disappeared. Lewis waved back for the men to come on.

  Then he had an idea. Perhaps if he could tie a few trinkets on a dog’s neck with a handkerchief, the animal would carry these tokens of friendship to its masters. This would be a precedent in diplomatic envoys, he thought, feeling a sense of the absurd. He knelt and began snapping his fingers, whistling, and cajoling them with crooned entreaties. “Come! Come, fellow! Come on! Good beastie!” A couple of them were cringing near. “Tab-ba-bone,” he added, and made himself laugh. The laughter, or the bared teeth of his smile, somehow struck the dogs wrong, and they all moved several yards out of his reach, their hackles rising. “Come, now, good boys,” he said sweetly, trying to keep the desperation out of his voice. They looked at him with their yellowish, half-vulpine eyes, but would not come forward. “You’re sure sorry-mannered beasts compared with my Scannon,” he felt compelled to tell them, but he said it nicely.

  Now the dogs’ ears pricked up on the arrival of McNeal and Drouillard, who were coming over the brow of the hill. The men looked at each other in puzzlement at the sight of their captain’s posture. One dog wagged its tail. “Help me lure these mangy coyotes,” he said. “Come, boy, come!” And soon Shields arrived, too, and for five more minutes the four explorers, the advance scouts of white civilization, were kneeling, whistling, cooing on a hilltop in a valley surrounded by gigantic mountains, trying to entice a half-dozen scrawny brutes into their service. “Shame we et our pork last night,” Shields said. “Chunk o’ that would fetch ’em.”

  But at length the pack apparently tired of this surfeit of attention; two of them turned and trotted down the Indian trail, then the rest lost interest in the white men and ran off after them. Lewis stood up with a morose sigh and put his fists on his hips and watched them disappear.

  “Eh, well. Let’s get on, boys.” He really looked gloomy now.

  “Chirk up, Cap’n,” McNeal offered. “It can’t be far to town.”

  “So. But I’m worried th’ town’ll be alarmed and gone. Or worse: up in arms. Set to attack us without asking any questions. We’ve got to look peaceable, lads, but be set for anything.”

  They were descending the trail into the narrowing valley, all four close together now moving alongside the tortuous creek, scanning the terrain for signs of the elusive Shoshonis, whom they were now beginning to imagine as wraiths, will-o’-the-wisps, forever vanishing, luring them deeper and deeper into a towering, mythical landscape.

  And then there before them, so close Lewis almost fell backward, were three female figures, looking up with an astonishment as complete as his own: an old Indian woman, a young one, and a thin girl, who had been so engrossed in foraging that they had not heard the white men coming around the creek-bend. All were in ragged, undecorated, almost colorless elkhide tunics, kneeling on fresh-dug earth, and before them was a wide, shallow woven-grass basket partially filled with serviceberries, chokeberries, and roots.

  The young woman leaped to her feet quick as a deer and fled, a flashing of bare brown legs, into a thicket down the stream, but the elderly woman, and the girl, who appeared to be ten or twelve years old, remained where they knelt, their faces transfixed in terror. When Lewis laid down his gun and advanced on them, they lowered their heads and shut their eyes as if ready to be struck dead.

  Lewis walked up and stood over the old woman, who was so patiently awaiting her fate; her unbound hair was grizzled and hung down to hide her face entirely; he could see her bony shoulders move with her quick breathing. The girl sat likewise; she was trembling; there were rashes and scabs on her arms, as from scratching poison ivy.

  Lewis reached down gently for the old woman’s right hand, a gnarled bundle of frail bones in dry, brown, skin covered with dirt from the root-digging. He pried her fist open with his thumb and put into her palm a short string of blue beads. While she was looking at this, he took the right hand of the girl and put a small pewter looking-glass in it. Then he stood back. The men had come abreast of him now and were all standing close, watching the abjectly bent heads, the dirty brown hands examining the bright and unexpected gifts. Somewhere up the valley a crow was cawing.

  The old woman’s head began to rise, and her red-rimmed eyes in their baggy folds of skin traveled up Captain Lewis’s dusty leggings, up to his hunting shirt, the pistol and tomahawk in his belt, then to his hard brown face, and the three-cornered hat on his head. Her age-puckered mouth was open and she had no teeth.

  Remembering then, Lewis stripped up his shirt sleeve to point at his untanned forearm. “Tab-ba-bone,” he said. “Drouillard, come here and try to hand-talk to ’em. See if you can make her call back that squaw, ere she goes and alarms her town.”

  The old woman and the child were so nearly overcome by everything—their delivery from death, the gifts, their first sight of white skin—that it seemed they would never respond to the Indian gestures Drouillard was making. Or maybe, Lewis thought, these signs don’t mean a thing to these people anyway.

  But at last the old woman seemed to come to her senses, and she got to her feet, smiling a rapturous, even beautiful, old smile, her face full of fine creases, tears glimmering in her eyes. She was dreadfully hunchbacked, yet so full of excitement that she shuffled in a feeble dance of joy. The girl jumped to her feet and stood there turning, looking at her eyes in the little mirror. It was, Lewis thought, probably the only time she had seen herself, except reflected in water; and he thought for a moment of all the young white women he had known in the East, and how essential their mirrors were to them, and this notion enhanced his sense of moment.

  By now Drouillard had conveyed his message, and the old woman turned her face down the valley and screeched a syllable, then again. And in a minute the young woman came running back up the path, her breasts bobbling in her tunic. She came up panting, wild-eyed, still frightened until the other two showed her what they had received. Then she bounced up and down a couple of times on her heels, in a gesture poignantly reminiscent of feminine delight such as Lewis had seen a thousand times in his own race without really noticing it. He gave her a moccasin awl. Then he told McNeal to find the jar of vermillion in his knapsack and open it.

  Now Lewis dipped his fingers in the yellow-red pigment and painted the women’s russet cheeks with it, and everybody was smiling and laughing. The young woman went to McNeal and rubbed a dab of the color off her cheek
and thumbed it onto his, and he laughed and smeared her own paint from her cheeks down to her chin, in the meantime getting as close to her as possible, rubbing her large breasts as if by chance, and she laughed and pressed against him. Shields watched this and grinned. “Been a long time, ain’t it, Hugh?” he said. And McNeal answered:

  “Oh has it ever! I’m a-gettin’ me a cockstand already, old Johnny!”

  “Well, save that,” Lewis warned. “She might belong to somebody.”

  Soon Drouillard had expressed by hand signals that they wanted to be taken to the chiefs and warriors. The girl picked up the forage-basket and the two women cheerfully beckoned and started on down the trail.

  They had gone about two miles this way, following the squaws, and had emerged into a narrow, treeless valley, the women ambling happily several yards ahead on the dusty, well-worn trail, when Drouillard raised his head and hissed, “Listen!”

  Lewis heard it now: a thundering of hooves. And then immediately, over a sloping rise, riding straight at them at full gallop, came a horde of armed warriors mounted on excellent horses, raising a cloud of dust, shaking bows and spears above their heads. Lewis felt a thrill of fright, and in the corners of his eyes saw his men instinctively raise their rifles. There were sixty or seventy warriors in the band.

  “No,” Lewis snapped. “McNeal, give me the flag!”

  The horsemen, at a shouted command, wheeled their mounts to a whinnying, dust-swirling halt a hundred yards away. At once three horsemen separated themselves from the band and came trotting their steeds forward to meet the three females. Good, Lewis thought, and he put down his gun and pack. “Stay here,” he told the men, and began walking forward holding the flag at his shoulder. His heart was practically fluttering, but he was determined to show no fear.