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

by Kathryn Lasky

  It’s been four days since we saw those mountains, and they don’t seem to be getting any closer. The water of the river is getting shallower, and often we must get out and pull the canoes. The water is icy cold but the sun on our backs hot. So you freeze one end and fry the other.

  May 30, 1805

  We started to smell something fierce and awful today. Then when we rounded the bend we saw a mountain of buffalo piled up in the river. Captain Lewis thinks it’s what he calls a “pishkin” or buffalo jump. Captain Lewis and I both heard from some Hidatsa how young Indian boys dressed in buffalo robes would lure buffalos to their death at the edge of a cliff while other Indians chased them from the rear. The only problem, as I pointed out to Captain Lewis, is that there is no cliff here. So now we think that maybe they tried to cross the river in the winter and broke through the ice and drowned. Whatever it was it sure does stink now. Captain Lewis named the creek flowing in here Slaughter Creek.

  May 31, 1805

  Captain Clark came upon a stream this day and named it the Judith River. I guess he has a sweetheart back home by the name of Judith. It’s awful close to Slaughter Creek. I think if I were naming a river for a sweetheart, I would have put a little more distance between it and those stinking buffalo.

  June 1, 1805

  We have entered a most fantastical part of the country. White cliffs soar up around us, twisting into all sorts of shapes imaginable. They are a pure shining white. Some appear as if they were built by man and have square edges. Others look like clusters of huge candles dripping wax. Caves and niches are gouged in them. Some are capped with strange toppings that look like hats. I have made some pictures because the shapes are so peculiar. The river twists and turns and runs level through this country. We are sore from pulling the canoes. The river made a turn from north northwest to south southwest today. The mountains look no closer. When will this river end?

  June 3, 1805

  Another large river joins us here. We have made camp at the point of connection. It sets a problem for us. Which river is truly the Missouri? The Hidatsas told us that the Missouri runs deep into the western mountains and then it is half a day’s portage over these to the place where a new river called the Columbia begins and slides down to the sea. I accompanied both Captains, who hiked to a high bluff to see if they could solve this problem and see which river to follow. This new river comes from the north. The Hidatsa had said nothing about it. However, the Indians had spoken of some great falls to which the Missouri led, and after the falls was a place where indeed the rivers of this huge country divide. The Captains are calling it the Continental Divide. All the rivers east of the divide flow east, while those west, like the Columbia, flow west. The Captains are really stumped because this river that seems to come from the north looks a lot more like the water and the currents of the Missouri, which we have traveled on all these long months, while the water of the south fork is much clearer and more tranquil in its movement.

  They returned to camp to ask Sacajawea’s opinion, but she said she does not know, for we are not yet near her country.

  June 4, 1805

  The Captains are still undecided. Captain Lewis will set out on an exploration of the north fork, and Captain Clark the Southern. I am to accompany Captain Lewis along with some of the other men. They hope to be able to figure out which is the true Missouri. We made good miles on foot. Close to thirty today.

  June 7, 1805

  It has begun to rain. We keep walking and are still no closer to figuring out which river to follow.

  Later: Had a terrible fright this afternoon. The mud had become as slick as grease, and we were edging our way along a narrow cliff trail when suddenly Captain Lewis’s feet went out from under him and he was hanging off the edge of the cliff. He wrenched himself back up onto the edge and to safety, but not one minute later, we heard another cry. Private Windsor had slipped over the same cliff edge. Windsor was hanging there shaking like a leaf in the breeze, and I expected to see him plummet three hundred feet to the rocks below, but the Captain, his voice as steady as could be, softly says, “Take out your knife, Private, and commence to dig a hole for your foot. In that way you shall gain a hold.” Windsor did as he was told and was soon back on the top again. We all go now like snails.

  Captain Lewis has decided to name this confounding river that comes from the north Maria’s River. He hasn’t said but I am guessing that Maria is the Captain’s sweetheart. So now each of the Captains’ sweethearts has a river named for her. That’s more than most women get in this life.

  June 9, 1805

  We returned to camp last night. Both Captains are convinced that the true Missouri is that which branches south. But not one man in the Corps including myself believes them. We all feel they are wrong. And yet, every man in the Corps, myself included, shall follow our Captains. The two men are so determined in their beliefs that I think we all feel it would be most disrespectful not to follow them. So we start tomorrow, for it is late in the season and there is not a minute to be wasted. The Hidatsa told us that snows can come as early as September. And although every man thinks we are headed up the wrong river, we are all still a contented lot, and tonight Cruzatte got out his fiddle and played us several merry tunes.

  June 11, 1805

  Captain Lewis has been sick with dysentery. He asks that I fetch the Glauber’s salts and mix up a decoction from the chokecherries he has picked.

  June 13, 1805

  I was walking with Captain Lewis today when both of us at the same time heard an odd whining in our ears. “The falls!” Captain Lewis exclaimed. Indeed the Captains had made the right choice to follow the south fork of the rivers, for this was the true Missouri and as the Hidatsas had said, it led to some great falls. Very soon the whine became a roar. We were both so excited that when we returned to camp we could hardly speak fast enough. We had a delicious feast to celebrate tonight — buffalo hump, beaver tail, trout, buffalo tongue, and the marrow from their bones.

  June 14, 1805

  Today Captain Lewis and several of us set out for the falls. The spray billowed up like smoke, but as we drew closer we saw a single bright white sheet of water that fell over the edge. This first ledge of the falls is some two hundred yards wide, but there are falls beyond this and then more and more falls. We think there might be as many as five or six. We walked on to the second rank of falls. They are huge and powerful. They flash with light and spin rainbows in their crashing descent into the frothing waters below.

  June 16, 1805

  I barely have time to write for myself because Captain Lewis has kept me busy all day copying his journals. We have discovered that there are indeed five separate falls, all of them huge and mighty. We have set our camp at the base of the first one. It is going to be a long portage.

  Later: Captain Clark just appeared in the tent where Captain Lewis and I have been transcribing notes to tell us that Sacajawea is very ill. They gave her some opium and a decoction made of the special bark Captain Lewis often uses for poultices. The Captain has asked me to fetch some water from a sulfur spring we came across on one of our walks on the riverbanks. He thinks the sulfur in the water might do her some good. They have bled her twice.

  June 17, 1805

  I stayed up with Sacajawea and the Captain all night as he treated her. I couldn’t do much to help her, but I held Pomp and tried to rock him and keep him happy. Come dawn this morning her pulse began to grow stronger and more regular. Captain Lewis feels this is a very good sign.

  June 21, 1805

  After much exploring in the region of the falls our portage around them begins today. The canoes are mounted on sleds with wheels and we must pull. If the wind backs around behind us we shall hoist their sails to ease our hauling. It will be an eighteen-mile portage. The Captains at first thought it would be just half a day, but now they are saying at least three. They divided the party in two. I shall go with Captain Clark, Sac
ajawea, Charbonneau, York, and a couple of other men.

  June 25, 1805

  This is the hardest thing I have ever had to do in my life. I have never been so tired. Every bone in my body aches. We must haul these canoes and all the gear over hills and rocky knobs that are perhaps not quite hills, too big to go around but not small enough to get over easily. Tall grass reaches out to snag us. There is mud to slip on and steep gullies. We limp, our feet are sore, our backs ache. Captain Clark directs the portage. Captain Lewis has stayed behind working on his “experiment.” The experiment is an iron-frame boat for descending the Columbia. They have brought the pieces all the way from St. Louis, and they hope to assemble the rods of iron and then stretch hide over it. Everyone except Captain Lewis doubts it shall work. There is no telling Captain Lewis it won’t work.

  June 28, 1805

  The portage continues. Too tired to write. Feet blistered. Bad sore on shoulder from pulling rope. Windsor fainted today. I have a prickly pear needle festering in my heel. We had rain. The temperature dropped suddenly and hail as big as apples was beating down on us. We are on the eighth day of what was supposed to be a three-day portage. Our moccasins last no more than two days. We have learned to sew them real good using double soles of parfleche and buffalo hide.

  June 29, 1805

  We nearly met our end today. We were about a quarter of a mile above the falls when it started to rain. It just came pounding down and then a sudden squall chased in. We all ran for a rock shelter above the falls that was in a deep ravine. York had raced ahead and found it. There was some rock shelf sticking out for protection — or so we thought. We all huddled there, and wouldn’t you know it, Charbonneau found the driest spot under the overhang. I was trying to inch my way over and draw Sacajawea and Pomp in closer when suddenly it was as if a wall of water came tearing down the ravine carrying mud and rock and more water than you could ever imagine. I yanked Sacajawea back and Pomp and the hide pack cradle in which she carries the baby with her came off into my arms. Then I don’t know what happened but I felt the pack just slip away. I saw it skid off on a slab of sliding mud. Pomp screamed and I dived across for him, and by some miracle I grabbed hold of his little shoulders. The cradle board went cascading down with slides of mud and rock and Sacajawea screamed. I’ve never heard such a scream in my life. It was almost as if you could not just hear it but see it, like a bolt of lightning torn from her throat. She started to dive headlong because she thought Pomp was falling into the ravine, but Captain Clark reached out and grabbed her and spun her around and she saw Pomp squashed into my arms. She just collapsed, shaking on the ground with relief. And Charbonneau didn’t say a word. He sat as dry as could be in his corner. But York gave him such a look as to freeze his blood. Pomp lost all his swaddling blankets. And I guess I pulled him right out of his little breeches. I am going to help Sacajawea start sewing some new clothes for him tonight.

  July 1, 1805

  We have seen grizzlies almost every day but I think we look so miserably skinny and tough and genuinely poor that they have no interest in chomping into us. They’d probably spit us out after the first bite.

  July 2, 1805

  Portage is finished. We rest here for several days before getting on the river again.

  July 3, 1805

  Captain Lewis keeps fiddling with the iron-frame boat that they brought up here. It’s leaking like a fishnet. Even Captain Clark thinks this is a folly. He says nothing but I can tell what he is thinking nonetheless.

  July 4, 1805

  It is the United States of America’s twenty-ninth birthday today. The Captains gave us all a gill of whiskey. It burned so with the first swallow, I gave the rest to Joe Field. Good supper: beans and bacon, dumplings, buffalo hump.

  July 6, 1805

  My heel where the prickly pear needle went in is still bothering me. I thought I got it all out.

  Later: Sacajawea took a look at my foot and came back within a few minutes with a bag full of thimbleberry leaves. She steeped them in hot water and then wrapped my heel in them. She did this three more times this evening. My heel is feeling better. The redness is gone.

  July 9, 1805

  Captain Lewis has given up on the iron-frame boat. Never thought I’d see this man give up on anything. But the hide began to separate at the seams in spite of all the work. Good Lord, he caulked those seams with every thing from tallow to pine gum. We were counting on the iron-frame boat for hauling equipment. Now short one boat, we’re delayed while we get to work making two new canoes.

  I wanted to get out of here sooner, as the mosquitoes are something fierce. I know Sacajawea is anxious, too, for soon she will be coming into her home territory.

  July 15, 1805

  We set out today. The mountains look a little bit closer and a lot bigger. I learn these mountains are called the Rockies. So far we have just called them the mountains. But more and more I hear the Captains speak of them as the Rockies. I sense that they are nothing like the gentle red soil and grassy low mountains of Virginia with which both the Captains are so familiar.

  July 17, 1805

  Everyone is most anxious to meet up with the Shoshoni. We keep a sharp eye out for signs. The Captains are talking about sending out a party under Clark to scout for them.

  July 19, 1805

  Hard morning on the river. The river narrows and grows shallower. We had to use the ropes for dragging as well as the setting poles. But none of that was as tough as when we rounded a bend, and then we saw them. The Rockies broke through — immense, high peaks jagged and crusted with snow. This ain’t Virginia, and my heart sank down to my moccasins.

  Later: We passed through cliffs on the other side of the river late this afternoon. They rise more than a thousand feet into the air. Captain Lewis calls them the gates of the Rocky Mountains. I feel pressed in between these cliffs and the wall of mountains ahead. It is like a stone coffin.

  July 20, 1805

  We pass now through a wide fertile valley, and for this brief day the immense mountains did not seem to close in on us with their lofty peaks. Captain Clark has set out with a scouting party to look for Shoshoni. I cannot understand why he did not take Sacajawea with him. He did ask her the word for “white man” so that if he encounters the Shoshoni he might explain who we are. The word she told him is tab-ba-bone. She explained to me that the word “white man” is hard to translate and that this word really means “stranger.” I think they should have taken her with them. I think they feel they need her only to get them horses but not to introduce them and explain their mission.

  July 22, 1805

  Shoshoni country

  Hurrah! Suddenly this afternoon, as if mists had cleared from her eyes, Sacajawea recognized that we were entering her home territory. She nearly danced down the river, recognizing trees and boulders and bends. The going was very tough today. Our shoulders are tired from hauling the canoes through shallow water. The way along shore is not much better, as there is a most fiercesome grass that grows in this region. We are calling it needle grass because it has barbed seeds that stab through our moccasins and tear at our skin. But the knowledge that Sacajawea now surely knows the way lightens us all.

  We met up with Captain Clark. He has seen no Indians and plans to set off tomorrow in search once more. And once more he refuses to take Sacajawea.

  July 28, 1805

  We have come to a point in the river where three forks meet. Captain Clark had arrived two days before. There is a southeast, a southwest, and a middle fork. Captain Lewis has named them the Jefferson, for our President, the Madison, in honor of James Madison, the secretary of state, and the Gallatin, for the secretary of treasury. We go on naming this land, but I wonder if the world that reads this map that Captain Clark is making will ever know what Sacajawea told me this evening — that this is near the very spot where her mother was murdered by the Minnetarees and where she herself was kidnapped. She poin
ted in the direction of a creek where her best friend from childhood, who was also captured, had jumped across to escape the Minnetarees when they had briefly turned the other way. Sacajawea also said something that really surprised me. Her name before she was captured was not Sacajawea but Bo-i-nav, which means Grass Girl. There is a lot of thick, tall grass around here. She told me that because of their horse herds they always looked for grass so the horses could graze, and that when she was a little girl she once got lost in the tall grass but that she found her way back to the camp all by herself. So they named her Grass Girl.

  This spot where we now are, where she was captured, will probably be known only as a place named for great men and never for Sacajawea or her friend who had courage equal to any president, I think, or any secretary of the state or treasury.