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

by Kathryn Lasky

  April 5, 1805

  Put the keelboat back in the water today for the first time. We freed her up from the ice, along with the six new canoes. York and I paddled one of the new canoes out into the stream. She was lively as a fish out there in the current. Of course, she’ll hunker down and be steadier when we load her up, but she’s tight and with her comely lines will slice right through the cold water.

  April 6, 1805

  Can’t sleep tonight. Tomorrow we leave and I am so excited. I try to imagine the end of this river. I try to imagine the western ocean and I can’t. The Captains have been busy all day writing letters home that shall be carried down the river all the way to St. Louis. Captain Lewis has a mother and several brothers and sisters. Some of them are half brothers. Captain Clark has a large family, too. All the men are writing to their families, except York and me. I don’t know who I would write. Oh, Lordy! Just thought of it. Father Dumaine! I guess he’ll finally get the idea that I am not cut out to be a priest.

  April 8, 1805

  We set off yesterday about four o’clock in the afternoon with our eight vessels — two old pirogues and six new canoes. I have never seen Captain Lewis happier. And last night as I transcribed his journals I began to understand more completely the grandness of this venture. I copy now here some of what I copied into his journal.

  “This little fleet altho not quite so respectable as those of Columbus or Captain Cook, were still viewed by us with as much pleasure as those deservedly famous adventurers ever beheld theirs . . . we were now about to penetrate a country at least two thousand miles in width, on which the foot of civilized man had never trodden.”

  I had heard of Columbus, but I ain’t never heard of this Captain Cook. So I asked and Captain Lewis told me that he was a great English sea captain who had, in Lewis’s own words, “explored more of the earth’s surface than any other man.” He sailed the Pacific and as far north toward the pole as the ice would permit him and as far south so as to round the Cape of the Horn of the great southern continent of America and he discovered islands and new oceans. But the tips of those continents, those faraway islands, are to me no more imaginable than the end of this river.

  April 9, 1805

  Except for the Captains, Sacajawea, the baby Pomp, Charbonneau, and Drouillard, we all sleep in the open. They share a skin tent in the style of the Indians, a buffalo hide stretched over a frame of alder and soft pine limbs. They also ride together in the white pirogue, along with Cruzatte, except the Captains often walk along the shore or Drouillard goes off hunting. Sacajawea has already made herself very useful. She has taught us about a new food — artichoke buds. The mice hoard them and she took a stick and dug them up. She seems to know just where to dig. When boiled they make a tender, tasty dish. Charbonneau does nothing.

  April 11, 1805

  We have covered nearly ninety miles in these past four days, and today, for the first time since the curve at the Great Bend of the river near the mouth of the Kansas, this long river turns directly west once again. The country on both sides of the river sweeps on immense plains as far as the eye can see. There is not a single tree in sight, but herds of elk and buffalo and antelope graze on the sea of grass.

  April 13, 1805

  Captain Lewis shot a huge goose today. It has a white belly but its wings are a pretty patchwork of brown and black feathers. He climbed a tree to examine its nest and brought back an egg. He calls it a Canada goose. I have been measuring and weighing it and the egg. I think he just plans to skin this goose and not stuff it. Also today we saw our first signs of the great grizzly bears we have been told so much about. The Indians say these bears stand more than ten feet tall and weigh as much as our keelboat when loaded. They are savage and have great fanged teeth.

  April 17, 1805

  I think I have suddenly grown. My trousers hit me well above the anklebone. This morning my shirt split open on my back and even the sleeves feel tight. Sacajawea says she will make me a new one. She has a supply of hide. The moccasins she made me are the best I have ever worn. They are very soft but tough. She says that is because she chews the skins so well before she sews them. I am not only bigger but much stronger. I can tell from paddling. There are six blades or paddles to a canoe. I know that my pull is equal to that of any man I paddle with. We met with a strong but confusing eddy yesterday that threatened to sweep us into a pile of brush floating downriver. I pulled with all my might. I could feel the strength of my paddle against the current.

  At night we are all hugely hungry and eat our fill of meat, as it is so abundant. Captain Lewis estimates that each man eats as much as eight or nine pounds of meat a day. The beaver tail and its liver are everyone’s favorite and this is beaver-rich country. Some of the men begin to trap on their own when they get a chance, for the pelts pull a pretty price back in St. Louis.

  April 18, 1805

  I think the Captains are going to stop the private beaver trapping. A big fight broke out between two men over a trapped beaver. Each thought it was his trap that caught the beaver.

  April 19, 1805

  We lay by today, because the wind is so strong out of the northwest that we could never paddle against it. I played with Pomp. Pomp holds things now if you put them in his hand, and he is starting to reach out for stuff a little bit. So I made some more rattles for him. I told Sacajawea that we could weigh Pomp on one of the scales that Captain Lewis uses for weighing his specimens. She got very excited about this. So we took Pomp over and I set up the scales. Pomp weighs a whopping twelve pounds. Sacajawea was so pleased. I showed her how to write the number twelve and then I said it to her in English and French. Then she told me the word in Hidatsa and Shoshoni.

  April 20, 1805

  I went walking out into the countryside with Captain Clark today. He invited me. It was a good day not to be on the river, as a bank caved in and nearly swamped one of the canoes. However, Captain Clark and I made an interesting discovery. As we were walking along we saw what looked like a long bundle on the ground. When we approached we realized it was a dead Indian woman wrapped up in hides that had been laced tightly and placed in a sled. Alongside the sled was her dead dog. I had been told that the Indians in this country scaffold their dead. They put them on high platforms, which they carry up into trees or on stilts if there are no trees. Captain Clark and I examined the arrangement carefully. Numerous trinkets were wrapped into the lacings, along with a leather pouch of different colored earth paints. The bones of small animals were also tucked in, including the still-feathered body of a blue jay. It was clear that the scaffolding had collapsed.

  April 25, 1805

  Captain Lewis is most upset. Seaman has disappeared. The Captain was low enough before this happened. Now he is truly in despair.

  Later: Seaman walked into camp at eight o’clock this morning. The Captain ran to the dog and embraced him. We get under way. It is a bitter cold morning for this late in April and the water freezes to our oars, but by this evening we have almost reached the river that the Indians call the Yellowstone.

  April 26, 1805

  Captain Lewis sent Joe Field to explore a few miles up the Yellowstone. I was to accompany the Captain, as he had many astronomical sights he wanted to make. We measured the altitude of the sun all day long until the clouds rolled in. All this is important to the Captain because he wants to precisely mark the longitude of the Missouri River and where it joins the Yellowstone. Joe Field came back and said that the Yellowstone is a wandering sort of river with many twists and turns and sandbars.

  May 8, 1805

  Every day we’ve been naming things — new rivers, creeks, streams, bluffs. Two days ago we came upon a small river feeding into the Missouri on the north bank. There were so many porcupines that Captain Lewis has named it the Porcupine River. Then there is another river that the Minnetaree Indians call the River-that-Scolds-All-the-Others, but Captain Lewis changed its name to the Milk River be
cause of the light color of its water.

  I went walking with Sacajawea and Charbonneau and Drouillard today. Sacajawea found wild licorice and a mess of other roots called white apples.

  May 9, 1805

  Charbonneau finally earned his keep today. He made a kind of sausage called boudin blanc. Captain Lewis wrote out the whole recipe for it.

  May 11, 1805

  Private Bratton, whom I never took as a flighty fellow, came running down the bank late this afternoon, flailing his arms and screaming his head off. I thought he’d been attacked by a nest of hornets. But it wasn’t hornets. It was a grizzly. He’d shot and wounded one. Thought he got him right in the chest but dang if that bear didn’t turn and give him chase. Captain Lewis doesn’t cotton to the idea of a member of the Corps being shown up by a bear, even a grizzly. So he ordered a canoe put in and for the men “to give pursuit in quest of the monster,” which is just a fancy way of saying, “We’re going on a bear hunt.” I was not asked to join. They did, however, find this bear. Bratton’s bullets had gone through its lungs, but the bear was still running. They finally cornered him and shot the monster through the head twice.

  May 13, 1805

  I keep patting myself today. I can’t quite believe I am all here because it’s just short of a miracle that parts of me aren’t floating around in the gut of a grizzly bear. Here is what happened. I was in a canoe with Labiche and Reuben and Joseph Field, and we had just landed on a small beach because Reuben thought that he saw some movement in the brush and that it was deer. Well, he thought wrong. It wasn’t deer. It was the biggest grizzly ever! Least, biggest I’d seen. It rose out of the brush and looked not ten feet tall but twenty. It was a monster! It opened its jaws and roared and the sun blazed off the biggest, sharpest teeth this side of hell. Reuben fired and I saw something spit off the bear’s shoulder. But that didn’t slow the bear, who began to charge. Reuben was off to one side and hied himself into the brush. Joseph and Labiche still each had a foot in the canoe. But it was me who was right in that bear’s sights, directly between him and the water. Joseph and Labiche pushed off from shore and I almost made it into the canoe but fell into the water. Labiche reached for me but couldn’t grab me, and before you know it the canoe had swirled away into the current and I felt this warm rush of air on the back of my head and it was the breath of that bear not five feet from me, those teeth just glinting and its eyes rolled back in its head. All I could think was, Duck! Duck under the water! So I took a huge gulp of air and dove. It wasn’t that deep and I swear I felt that bear’s claw on my moccasin. I scraped my chin on the rocky bottom but I just kept swimming. Go deep! Go deep! The words pounded in my head. Maybe that bear won’t smell me if I’m deep. Maybe he can’t see. Maybe he’ll think I have just plain up and disappeared.

  Now my lungs felt that they’re about to burst. But I just got to keep swimming underwater until I get to the deep part and the current. Finally I can’t stand it another second. I think to myself, Now what’s worse, burst lungs or being chomped by a bear? Then my head bumps something. Not real hard but I see a shadow that looks like wings and a long upcurved crest just like a silverwing swift. And I think of my mother, Silverwing Woman. That’s my last thought. I can almost see her face floating down through the shots of sunlight in the water. I reach up and my hand feels a big snag of branches. I break through the surface and my face is whipped by limbs. It’s a whole tree pulled roots and all from a river bank cave- in. I couldn’t have done better if I had climbed a tree. It’s the perfect hideaway. I look back and I see the bear swimming, turning his head this way and that like he’s looking for me. Then I heard another shot. The air splatters with blood. And the bear sinks. It was Joseph Field from the canoe. I wave to them from my floating tree and they circled back pick me up.

  So here I sit, drying off in the sun and patting myself. It’s a marvel, every square inch of flesh that’s right here on my bones and not in that bear’s gut, I think. And I keep thinking the ways of the Lord are indeed mysterious, and even more mysterious is that shadow of the silverwing swift and the face of my mother in the sunlit water.

  May 14, 1805

  As if the bear didn’t give enough excitement yesterday this morning a squall hit. The white pirogue was under sail and Charbonneau was at the helm. He should have turned her before the wind but the fool headed her into it. I was on the banks and watched as the canoe was laid over flat on her side by the wind slamming down the river. She righted but was filled with water, and Charbonneau, who can’t swim, was crying and praying to whatever god he prays to. He never once looked to Sacajawea or little Pomp. All I could think was that they would drown. I started tearing down the bank toward the swamped canoe. I saw Cruzatte in the bow level a rifle at Charbonneau in the stern and heard him bark, “Grab hold that rudder or I’ll shoot your cursed head off.” This brought Charbonneau to his senses. Meanwhile I heard Captain Lewis come up behind me and heard this terrible gasp for what he saw was all manner of equipment and articles, including valuable instruments, and even some of the journals floating about in the swirling water. But then I saw that while others in the canoe were bailing out the water, Sacajawea was leaning far out and grabbing whatever she could of these articles. She was as calm as if she were bathing her baby, who was still strapped to her back. I think if Captain Lewis had not spied her doing this he would have plunged directly into the river to save the articles, for he had already begun to unbutton his coat.

  May 15, 1805

  Here is what Captain Lewis wrote about Sacajawea last evening in his journal, concerning the disaster on the river yesterday. “The Indian woman to whom I ascribe equal fortitude and resolution with any person on board at the time of the accident, caught and preserved most of the light articles which were washed overboard.” He wrote nothing about Charbonneau, but he called him into his tent last night and in a voice as icy as the river told the man that he was a fool and a coward and not deserving of the wife he had. I don’t believe I have ever in my life heard anything as ice cold as that low, steady voice of Captain Lewis. I think I would endure five hundred lashes of the whip on my bare back before I would ever want that voice directed toward me.

  May 16, 1805

  Today is a special day. Captain Clark let me name a falls. We had come upon a little falls on the north bank of the river. It spilled down in a silver cord from some high black rocks that were sprigged with the creeping juniper that we have taken a cutting of to send home. These were the prettiest little falls I have ever seen. And I have named them Silverwing Falls for my mother. Captain Clark let me mark the spot on the map and write in the letters myself. For me there was something almost holy about this marking down. Then the Captain shook my hand. I felt that this was as sacred as when Father Dumaine lays the wafer on my tongue during communion. I went back out to the falls this evening at twilight and took a long drink of their clear water. I looked up at the soaring timbers on either side that framed a piece of the sky. The sky was exactly the color of a peach. I have seen only one peach in my life, but this sky was pink and golden and then this silver cord of water fell from the dark rock. I thought, This is church enough for me. I felt that God being stand-up, like I know Him to be, understood and thought it fine. You don’t have to be between four walls to pray.

  May 19, 1805

  Reuben Field shot a beaver today and Seaman jumped in the water to retrieve it. Bad luck! The beaver wasn’t dead. Still had plenty of fight in him and sank his teeth into Seaman’s hind leg, cutting an artery. Captain Lewis has had a fearsome time trying to stop the bleeding. I hope the old dog makes it.

  May 20, 1805

  We have entered a most desertlike region of the country. The river begins to turn south on its course. We passed a creek swarming with bugs. We named it Blowing Fly Creek.

  Seaman still very weak.

  There is another stream. Its waters run clear and lively, and I am most happy to write that the Captains have dec
ided to call it Bird Woman’s River after Sacajawea.

  May 23, 1805

  Every day we see and name new things. There is now a Shields’ River and a York’s Dry Fork. And yes, there is a Gus’s Divide where the river splits for a mile before the two strands rejoin.

  Seaman is much improved today. He was even able to limp about a bit.

  May 24, 1805

  We think we might see some mountains far in the distance, like pale white ghosts against the sky.

  May 25, 1805

  We do most definitely see the mountains. Can the river’s end be far?

  May 29, 1805

  Well, Seaman is completely recovered. He proved himself this morning. We heard a bellow just at daybreak that shook the entire camp. Before I know it I see this hurl ing dark mass. It was a buffalo bull come charging right through camp. He just about trampled the Field brothers. Seaman bolted out of the Captain’s tent and dang if he didn’t charge that buffalo and chase him right out of camp. We named the nearby stream Bull Creek. I think we should have named it Seaman’s Creek myself.