Blazing West, the Journal of Augustus Pelletier, the Lewis and Clark Expedition

by Kathryn Lasky

  August 13, 1804

  Set up camp on a sand island today. Pierre Cruzatte along with a few others was sent to take a message to the Omaha Indian village, inviting them back to our camp tomorrow. Yesterday we saw a strange animal. Looked like a cross between a dog and a fox to me, but Captain Lewis called it a prairie wolf. They tried to kill one to stuff but it got away. Looks pretty fast and sneaky to me. Charley Floyd should have been here. He would have got him, but Charley was feeling poorly this morning.

  August 17, 1804

  I brought Charley some bread and coffee for breakfast this morning. He is still feeling sick. He couldn’t touch it. Said it would make him sicker.

  Francis has been out scouting with Drouillard these several days. He came back into camp tonight and says Drouillard is following with Reed and three Oto chiefs. They done found him. There will be a court-martial as soon as they come back.

  August 18, 1804

  Got to hand it to Reed. He confessed everything, even stealing a rifle, and was as stand-up as I’d seen him since I’ve known him. Didn’t flinch and try to dodge out of anything. Think it impressed the Captains. At least they didn’t order him shot. They could have. Instead they ordered him to run the gauntlet four times through the entire party, and they gave each one a switch, and we were every one of us ordered to whip him as he came through. That means in all over 100 lashes. I must say that I didn’t have much stomach for it even though I don’t like the fellow. But I did it. The chiefs were shocked by this punishment but the Captains explained its rightfulness. It’s Captain Lewis’s thirtieth birthday today, and because of it they passed out extra gills of whiskey. Took a tiny sip. Didn’t like it. Seemed to sting as much as a whipping would. Me and Charley were the only ones who didn’t drink. The calomel doses Captain Lewis gives Charley don’t seem to help much.

  August 19, 1804

  Imagine this: I wake up this morning. Just going out to take a leak when I look up and dang if I don’t see a half-naked Indian coming into camp. And a chief he turns out to be! Came to show how poor he was. His name is Big Horse. The Captains invited him to stay for breakfast under the awning, and Captain Lewis asked that I come to take some notes. I have never eaten breakfast with a naked person before.

  August 20, 1804

  I heard a stirring and a lot of voices, including Captain Lewis’s, right before dawn. I could tell something not good was happening. There was this strange hush and just something about the way the Captains were standing when I came to see what was taking place. What I found was that Sergeant Floyd was dying. Just as the sun broke over the horizon he breathed his last.

  Sergeant Charles Floyd is the first U.S. soldier to die west of the Mississippi. We buried him this afternoon on a bluff overlooking a river. Captain Lewis read the funeral service, and Captain Clark called him “a man who at all times gave proofs of his firmness and determined resolution to do service to his country and honor himself.” The best part of the service was at the end when the Captains officially named the little river Floyd’s River and the bluff Sergeant Floyd’s Bluff. Here we are, naming America again, and you couldn’t have a better name than Floyd to pin onto a bluff, a river, or a creek. Charley Floyd was a stand-up man.

  August 21, 1804

  I can’t stop thinking about Charley. I really miss him. When I’m riding up front on the keelboat I catch myself just staring down at the water as it slides under us, and I keep thinking every foot up this river we’re farther and farther from Charley, and I think it seems so lonely — him buried out on that high bluff. Then I get all morbid and think about his body under that red cedar post we made to mark his grave. I think about it rotting away and turning to dust and sinking down into the earth and maybe spilling down that hill with the first good rains when they wash out dirt. Then I think about it going into the river — maybe not this big one but the little one, Floyd’s River, and all that dust that was Charley just mixes with the silt and the water of the river and then . . . and I guess it just floats away.

  August 22, 1804

  Good mileage last two days. About forty. This evening we held an election to vote for Charley’s replacement in the permanent party. Privates Patrick Gass and William Bratton and George Gibson were nominated. Not me! But I can’t complain. I was allowed to vote. I couldn’t believe it. So was York. And I figure this is the first election ever held west of the Mississippi. I liked voting. It felt like a real stand-up thing to do. I voted for Gass. And he won.

  August 23, 1804

  Joe Field came running back into camp hollering his dang head off. He’d done killed a buffalo! I guess we couldn’t have any surer sign that we are on the great plains than a buffalo. Captain Lewis took eight men out with him, me included. We brought horses to drag the buffalo into the boat. I never seen anything so huge. We roasted the hump and the tongue that night and cut the rest up into steaks. I tell you, buffalo is nearly as good as beaver in my book. My mouth still waters just from the memory.

  August 26, 1804

  Private Shannon is missing. Everyone seems pretty sure he has not deserted. We think he’s just plain lost. The Captains sent Colter out to look for him.

  August 27, 1804

  Still no sign of Shannon. The Captains now have sent out Drouillard. We are approaching Yankton Sioux country. This is the home ground for the French trader who has been along with us, Old Dorion. President Jefferson asked Captain Lewis to council with all the Plains nations, but with the Sioux in particular. We set a prairie fire to warn the Indians that we are coming. It’s going to be time for Dorion to earn his keep, says Reuben Field. He hasn’t done a lick of work, and he ate more buffalo hump than anybody the other night. So he better start translating real good and I hope his wife’s as tight with the chiefs as he says she is.

  August 28, 1804

  Dorion got the Indians here all right, seventy of them and the five chiefs. They came whooping and hollering into camp with their drums, blowing on their pipes, and all painted up. We had a council with them at the bluffs. Captain Lewis made the Big Speech. I got the scissors, some iron pots, tobacco and corn, and the beads (not too many blue, as Captain Lewis warned me). I am already tired of this speech. I wish I could have gone with Sergeant Pryor the day before. He got to go into the Yankton village. He came back with wonderful tales. He says these Indians live in cone-shaped tents made from buffalo hide that they paint bright colored designs on. I can’t imagine such tents. And do you know what they fed him for dinner? Roasted dog. He said it was tasty. I told Captain Lewis we better keep a sharp eye on Seaman. We sure don’t want him ending up on a spit.

  These Plains Indians paint themselves up all gaudy and decorate their clothes with porcupine quills and feathers. Captain Lewis called me into his tent after they left and he wrote, then dictated to me a long piece on how they dressed.

  August 31, 1804

  Another meeting this morning with the chiefs. They say that despite these fancy clothes they are really poor. Their women have no clothes. This is just their fancy dress-up duds for dancing and meeting other chiefs. They want whiskey and they want guns and gunpowder, but the last chief who spoke, Arcawechar, warned the Captains that the Corps is going to need all its powder as it goes farther west.

  September 7, 1804

  We’re in the short-grass country now. Saw the strangest little critters. Yesterday I was walking out with the Captain not far from the campsite when all of a sudden we heard these high little squeaks, sounded like pip . . . pip . . . pip. Then we saw these tiny heads poke out of dirt mounds. Their heads look a little like squirrels but not the rest of them. Dorion told us they call them petit chiens — little dogs. We just started calling them prairie dogs or barking squirrels. They live underground and have built a whole mess of connecting tunnels. Clever little fellows!

  September 8, 1804

  Dang if Captain Lewis didn’t bring five of us out to dig into these underground prairie dog villages,
and dang if they aren’t deeper than anyone thought. There is no getting to the bottom here, and I surely hope the Captain gives up this idea fast.

  Later: The Captain’s new idea is to flush them out. We had to lug five barrels of water out here and pour it into a hole. Sure enough, the animals started to come out. The Captain ordered us to capture one live. He wants to send it back to President Jefferson. So we did. And who’s in charge of taking care of it? Me.

  September 9, 1804

  When I got a close look at this barking squirrel we done captured, I thought, By jig if this critter ain’t the spitting image of Brother Antoine. Brother Antoine, or Frère Antoine, as he was known in St. Charles, was a Jesuit monk who came out to help Father Dumaine a couple of years ago. He was kind of a squirrely little guy. So I named this critter here Antoine.

  September 11, 1804

  Shannon was found today. We spotted him sitting on the bank just as the keelboat made a bend in the river. He has near starved to death. The fellow must be dumb as a stump. This is God’s country out here. He could have fished. Killed himself a deer. Next to me Shannon is the youngest on the expedition. He’s almost twenty. That’s six years older than me.

  September 17, 1804

  I saw something today that my eyes still do not believe. We were on a high bluff — the Captains, Drouillard, and the Field brothers — and we looked down and saw a blanket of blackness stretched as far as we could see over the plains. You could see slow waves in it and a roiling motion as it drew closer. It was a herd of thousands of buffalo. It was a most amazing sight. This whole country is filled with game. Every place you look are elk, deer, wild turkeys, and pronghorn goats. The pronghorns are the fastest critters on four feet I have ever seen. They are real hard to get a shot at. Captain Lewis has tried and always misses.

  September 23, 1804

  Fair breezes from the east. We are able to hoist the mainsail and make good time. I am becoming one of the best at hoisting the sails. You have to do it quick or it can get caught midway up the pole. Then they ask me to scramble up there because I am light and can slide out the crosspiece easy. There is a kind of nervousness in the air, however, despite the fair winds. Everyone is worried about the Teton Sioux. They are much different and less peaceable than the Yankton Sioux. The Captains are short with the men for the first time ever. Even Captain Clark, usually so even-tempered, looks like he is a fuse already burning with that red beard. Pierre speaks some of this kind of Sioux language.

  September 25, 1804

  Three chiefs came to camp today. They brought them out onto the keelboat for the meeting. There were many warriors with them who stayed on shore. They brought buffalo meat as a gift. Pierre was no good at the translating. He only knew a few words and I guess not the right ones. Beforehand I was sent for the beads — lots of blue ones this time! And I was told to bring back a magnifying glass as well. We even brought out the air gun, corn, tobacco, and whiskey. The medals were given as the last part of the gift giving. And then there was this god-awful silence and the chiefs just stared. It was as if we had all fallen into a deep, dark hole. I knew something had gone terribly wrong. Then one of the chiefs, the one called Buffalo Medicine, signed. No interpreting was needed. The sign was clear as anything: “Is this all?” You knew that the chief thought these were stupid gifts and that he didn’t give a hoot what colored beads we gave them and that they thought the medals with the profile of Jefferson were about as precious as horse dung.

  More whiskey was offered and then the trouble began. The chief made ugly, rude signs right to Captain Clark. No interpreter needed. They were not going to leave when the canoes were brought up to fetch them to go ashore. Captain Clark really had to force them into the canoes. Then when the canoes landed, two or three warriors caught hold of the bow lines and wouldn’t let go. They started yammering. I guess it was about the presents and how they weren’t any good. Captain Clark grew red all over. I swear even his hands looked bright when he drew his sword. I could see from where I was on the keelboat. Then I felt the keelboat rock as Captain Lewis swiveled the cannon on the bow and pointed it right toward the warriors on shore. He stood there with a lit taper over the cannon. There were sixteen musket balls ready to tear loose down the throat of that thing, and there were at least seventy warriors on shore who were notching their arrows. You might think that the Indians weren’t a fair match for us. But they were, even without a cannon, because they could reload a lot faster than we could. The entire expedition could have ended right then and there. Lewis and Clark could have been killed, along with a passel of the rest of us. It was a moment that seemed to last forever. I kept waiting for one of the Captains to cry, “Fire,” but then Buffalo Medicine somehow changed his mind and ordered his men to leave. It could have so easily gone the other way. It would have been awfully simple for the Captains to say the single word “Fire,” but something made them delay maybe just three seconds, and that made all the difference.

  I might have learned the most important lesson of my life so far today. Sometimes it pays to wait even if it is only three seconds.

  Later

  I guess one of the things that made the chiefs back off is that the one called Black Buffalo demanded that we come to his village so his wives and children could see the party, especially York. All the Indians we’ve met so far can’t quite believe that York is real. They ain’t never seen a black man before. So we went. Black Buffalo was on his best behavior. Couldn’t be polite enough. They smoked the peace pipe together and then — I guess they thought this was a big treat — they invited us to watch the Scalp Dance. All the women formed a solid block and began jiggling a pole rattling with deer hooves, but when I looked a little closer, I saw some of those poles had hair attached. Dang if they hadn’t strung up the scalps of some Indians they had just led a raid on. I like to died when Francis leaned over and said to me that those scalps belonged to Omaha. Francis and Pierre and I are Omaha! Lordy, I’m glad my father married my mother and brought her in from the plains to St. Charles. I mean, her dying was bad enough. She had pneumonia and her lungs done clogged up and I’ll never forget that awful breathing, but the good Lord let her keep her scalp attached to her head at least.

  October 5, 1804

  Most of the Teton Sioux are well behind us. We were nervous right up to the end. Cruzatte had heard a lot of rumors through the Omaha prisoners they hadn’t scalped that the Tetons planned to rob us right before we left. But it was only a rumor, I guess, because it never came to be. We did, however, name one small river that runs into the Missouri the Bad Teton River!

  The days are clear and bright. The wind backed round to south the other day and we made more than twenty miles under our sail alone! Each day the shadows grow longer. I like in particular the end of the days, those short late afternoons when the sun drops down and turns everything to gold. We see vast herds of elk and pronghorn coming down to graze in the grassy flats. Captain Lewis seems perkier. I didn’t mention it but he was real down through most of last month and hardly ever wrote in his journal. I had to do most of the journalizing. Now he’s writing again, but mostly he’s out every day walking and collecting. He complimented me on my handwriting today. I seem to be pleasing him. Yet I still don’t know if this means that I shall remain as a member of the permanent party. I have decided not to ask York about it. I think I’ll just wait and see what happens.

  October 7, 1804

  I’ve been forgetting to write about Antoine our prairie dog. He is a frisky little fellow. Doesn’t seem to mind not being underground that much. Captain Lewis was worried about that. He’s getting right plump. He is the only member of the Corps of Discovery that actually likes the portable soup! I don’t even boil it up for him or add water or anything. He just takes it out of the keg in hunks.

  October 8, 1804

  We’re nearing the country of the Arikara Indians. We began seeing signs of their villages a couple of days ago but they seemed aband
oned. We couldn’t figure this out. Then we came to one in the middle of an island in the river today that had people. We began seeing some of these villagers yesterday in their bull boats, which look like huge bowls floating down the river. They are made from a willow frame with a single buffalo hide stretched over them, and they hold as many as eight people!

  October 9, 1804

  Moses Reed was actually nice to me today. Offered to help me haul some water. Maybe I’m wrong to say this, but it makes me nervous when someone as naturally ornery and cantankerous as Reed turns all of a sudden nice.