Sacajawea

by Anna Lee Waldo

  Sacajawea whirled like a flash and caught hold of his arm; she grasped it firmly and gave it a violent twist. A howl of pain echoed through the camp.

  “What are you doing?” cried Charbonneau in Minnetaree as she wrenched loose the cup with her other hand.

  “That is medicine for my friend. Do not touch it.” She spoke in broken English, looking so fiercely at him that he slunk off to his robes.

  “That woman needs no help,” whispered Clark, sitting up in his blankets. He yawned and lay back down. There was a gentle chuckle among the others.

  “She spoke of the dog as her friend,” said Lewis. “She actually spoke of Scannon as though he had a human soul. Lord, she sends a chill through me.”

  In the morning, Sacajawea was up, her eyes on the dog, whose breathing was shallow. She remained silent as the men prepared for the day. Tears hung in her eyes; her heart fell. She pushed a tin plate of water near the dog. His eyes opened, and he drank a little. Then his nose gently nudged her hand, which held two breakfast biscuits York had brought to her from the cooking fire. He ate one, then the other; then he lay back. He was panting, and she pushed more toward him. He whacked his tail against the ground.

  “I am happy to see my friend once more. I have not forgotten how you ran through the tall weeds to chase a rabbit. You made my papoose laugh. I have not forgotten how you barked at a bear cub in a tree, or howled when York sang. You made us all laugh.”

  When Scannon fully recovered, Lewis knew he had to give Sacajawea some gift to show his appreciation of what she had done for his dog. He fetched out a silk handkerchief that was in the stores he had bought in Saint Louis more than a year before. It was checkered all over with bright colors, and the silk had a glossy surface that set those colors off to great advantage.

  To Sacajawea that silk handkerchief was a more than satisfactory return for cleansing and massaging Scannon’s painful paw, and noticing his weakness and hunger, and making him strong with her biscuits. The intrinsic value of an article had no meaning in the mind of Sacajawea. She cared only that her effort was appreciated, but the gift tickled her fancy.

  Soon Scannon was distinguishing himself again by his skill at catching wild geese and bringing them ashore for the expedition’s dinner.

  One evening past the middle of May, when camp had been made near the river named the Musselshell by the Mandans, and clearly drawn on the Wolf Chiefs map, Pat Gass stood up after supper to announce that there was a river, about fifty yards wide, that discharged itself into the Musselshell River about five miles from its mouth. “I propose that the captains name it Bird Woman’s River after our Shoshoni woman. We can make a note of it in our writing this evening.”

  “Hey, I thought you didn’t like squaws!” yelled Bob Frazier.

  “Well, that is generally so, but this here one saved old Scannon from blood poisoning, didn’t she? And she dug and brought us these here vegetables for supper. They taste fine, like carrots. She ain’t so bad. She ain’t complained once. Which is more than you can say for some of us.”

  Sacajawea felt greatly honored, and her problem of what to do for Pat Gass in return was solved a couple of days later when Drouillard and Gass killed two Rocky Mountain sheep. Sacajawea was wide-eyed when they were brought into camp. Rocky Mountain sheep were highly prized by the Shoshonis for their meat, skin, and horns which bent backwards and were encircled with a succession of wavy rings.

  She fingered the horn of one animal, then with deft hand signs told Pat Gass she would like a small section of the horn. He laughed at her childish request and chopped one side up for her. She grabbed two pieces and ran down to the gravel bed by the mouth of the river. There she spent several hours chipping and forming a small, semitranslucent bowl for Gass. She explained that her people made cups, small plates, and spoons from the big horns.

  Gass was so taken with the gift that he showed the crude bowl to Clark.

  “Say, Pat,” said Clark, “I can imagine that our white women would like this elegant material made into hair combs.”

  “Sure,” agreed Gass. “Even Janey”—which was their nickname for Sacajawea—“might like that. She combs her head with a pear thorn or her greased-up fingers.”

  Everything living responded to the increase in the warmth and length of the days. The deer, which were still plentiful, had changed to their reddish summer coats, and the does were accompanied everywhere by their fawns. Wood duck cruised with their fleets of ducklings on the small tributaries of muddy water that foamed on either side of the Missouri.

  Several huge cedars had toppled because their roots were shallow in the marshlike soil. Large gaps of light, where the trees had once been, formed windows in the forest roof. Sacajawea could see the crossed branches of giant trees. It seemed like a battle of arm wrestling. The limbs pushed and pulled at one another under the influence of wind until one of them fell. Lewis, Drouillard and Sacajawea, with Pomp on her back, walked along the bank, enjoying the sunshine after the damp, foggy days. The air was filled with the smell of honeysuckle blossoms and the buzz of bees, mosquitoes, and metallic, blue-colored flies.

  Lewis found an old moccasin under a large windfall. A tongue had been sewn in the front of the single piece of buckskin, which was cut square across the heel end and curved around the toe. A T-shaped cut had been made in the upper leather piece, with the stem of the T starting at the back. The tongue was attached to the cross of the T, and the two halves of the back of the moccasin were joined in a vertical seam. The cuff of the moccasin stood straight up. The rawhide sole was cut larger than the foot and sewn to the upper a little above ground level. “Here, does this belong to any people you know?” he asked Sacajawea, who walked a little way behind him.

  She looked and turned it over, peering closely at the stitching and outline of the sole, then shook her head. “No, not Shoshoni—see, no heal drag, and shaped to fit left foot, not identical for both feet. Blackfoot moccasin.” She pointed to the north, from which the Black-feet came down on their horses ready for hunting or horse stealing, whichever came their way. She looked around and sniffed audibly.

  Lewis thought to himself, There is something animallike about the manner in which she always looks and reports what is near. What is it she smells in the air now?

  “The Blackfeet have gone for buffalo,” she announced, looking upstream. “Not far from here.”

  “Enough walking,” said Captain Lewis. “Let’s get back in the pirogue. I do not want to surprise a troop of Blackfeet hunters.”

  Before long, everyone was aware of a horrible stench, and then the expedition passed by the remains of nearly a hundred mangled buffalo carcasses, which were lying at the bottom of a precipice of about a hundred and twenty feet.

  Sacajawea, sitting near the dignified Captain Lewis, turned, pointed, and then indicated that she had smelled this earlier. “Blackfeet here.”

  “How did it happen, do you suppose?” asked Captain Lewis, restraining himself from holding his nose altogether.

  Slowly, to make herself understood, Sacajawea described how the Blackfeet selected a fleet young man and disguised him in a robe of buffalo skin with the animal’s head worn like a cap. All the mountain tribes did this, she explained. The man disguised as a buffalo would find a place between the herd and the precipice. The hunters would surround the herd and start them moving toward their companion and the cliff. The buffalo, seeing the disguised man, would think it was the lead animal and follow him right over the edge of the cliff. The decoy must be quick and agile to hide himself in a cranny in the cliff.

  “The decoy is one of the bravest men,” explained Sacajawea. “If he is not fast, the buffalo will crush him to death or drive him over the precipice, and he will be killed with them.”

  “Good Lord, what a way to hunt!” exclaimed Captain Lewis.

  “My people sometimes get their winter meat supply this way,” she said, “because they have no guns. Arrows do not kill enough in a short time. The women must work quickly
, too, because it may take a week or more at a place like this, cutting and packing meat and returning to the winter village. Meat and robes must be taken before the wolves come. There is always a good feast at these places.” She smiled broadly, her white teeth flashing in the sun.

  “Primitive,” replied Captain Lewis. “A shameful waste.”

  Mosquitoes appeared in the afternoon warmth on the river. Clouds of them rose from the edges of the water, whining, singing about the heads of the party. With every breath they inhaled them into their throats, and coughed and spat mosquitoes. The men on the cordelle ropes were sweaty; they splashed themselves with water and mud; some rubbed the mud on thickly to protect themselves from the mosquitoes. Sacajawea rubbed buffalo grease on herself and on the face and hands and arms of Pomp as protection. She offered her grease to the captains. Captain Clark was glad to use it profusely, even though the smell was strong and rank, and even Captain Lewis dubiously rubbed some on his arms.

  A misty rain fell from low, gray clouds all afternoon. The vegetation grew thick along the river, but the animals seemed to have abandoned the ground for food and light up above. Cockroaches, crickets, centipedes, ants, and mice scurried along mossy tree limbs. The bald eagles soared high. Sacajawea saw ospreys, gulls, pelicans, and trumpeter swans. Huge limbs stretched out horizontally to interlock with crowns of neighboring trees. Honeysuckle vines wove among the trees, forming a green lace roof. Each plant fought for its share of sunlight under that roof; the sword fern grew as tall as a man. The ground near the water’s edge was like a cave with a deep bed of springy leaf mold and dying bracken. The temperature stayed constant, as did the oppressing humidity.

  Toward late afternoon one day, the fog lifted and clear sky appeared. Captain Clark stared at an extremely clear, sparkling river that emptied on the left of the Missouri, and his thoughts returned to his home in Virginia. He thought of his girl, Judy (Julia) Hancock, and he imagined he heard her clear, sparkling laughter. She was barely sixteen when he last saw her rosy face framed in soft brown curls.

  “This is the Judith River,” he said aloud, deciding the river must be named after her.

  “What did you say, Chief Red Hair?” asked Sacajawea, who had followed Clark about two and a half miles up the shore of the river. He turned, scarlet. Sacajawea was looking into his face. He was confused for a moment, and then brought sharply back from the dream of the girl he would marry soon after the expedition returned to the States.

  “A beautiful river. It should be named for a beautiful woman. See how it rushes proudly and defiantly—like a thoroughbred horse.”

  “Ai,” she agreed. “The water is clear and pure like rivers in the mountains. No salt in them to upset your belly.” She referred to the last couple of weeks on the Missouri when the water was saturated with mineral salts.

  “I’m naming this river after a girl—about your same age. A winsome creature with laughing eyes.”

  “A paleface?” Sacajawea’s heart beat unevenly against her ribs.

  “Yes. She is called Judy.”

  “Judy? What does that mean?”

  “It really means nothing—it’s just a name,” laughed Captain Clark. “Just as I call you Janey. It means nothing, just you.”

  Sacajawea was puzzled at the way white men had names. Her people were named for some deed or physical aspect or special happening. She drew in her breath. Chief Red Hair had a woman! She was called Judy. Then her logic told her: Why not? Her man, Charbonneau, had three women. Chief Four Bears had seven, and Chief Kakoakis had so many there was no counting them. She stood for a while without saying anything; she seemed like a squaw whose strength was giving out, trying to climb a steep hill. All at once she went closer to the bank and stood looking at the clear water. Captain Clark followed.

  “She is your woman?” Sacajawea asked timidly.

  “She is a friend, Janey. I have no woman.”

  Sacajawea looked at him. “That is true? You mean that?”

  “Of course I mean it! Most of the men, except Charbonneau, are single. They have friends back home, but not women—which we call wives.”

  “So the white men are still boys?” To her this was an incredible thing. All men had a woman or two when they were grown. Underneath she had a feeling of joy that pushed the jealousy aside when she found that Chief Red Hair was single. She was afraid to examine this joyful feeling too closely.

  “My dear Janey, have you worried about that?”

  “Ai—among my people and the Minnetarees, the men take a woman before they are the age of your man that whistles, Shannon.”

  “There is nothing so unusual about this, except that my men have been too busy to look for a woman to keep them tied in one place.”

  Sacajawea gazed at Captain Clark. Slowly, her shyness receded. With a deep breath, she pulled her body straight. “So it is true that white men do not take their women from place to place as our men do?”

  “Oh, that is true. But there comes a day when they settle with a woman whom they choose.”

  “Choose—what is that?”

  “Well, our men find their own women—no one helps them much. Then there is a big celebration—like a big feast—called a wedding. Maybe I’ll choose Judy to be my woman.” Captain Clark was deeply moved that his feeling for Judy Hancock could be so strong out here in the prairie land so far from Virginia.

  But his words stunned Sacajawea. She felt a hurt like a cruel blow. This feeling crushed her insides so that she could scarcely breathe. She had to get away to hide the feeling. Quickly she turned and left him; then she began to run faster and faster, as a small, vulnerable animal would run from danger.

  Captain Clark gazed after her, slightly amused, shaking his head. Whatever could have happened? Had her keen ears heard something he had not? Indian women acted strange at times. This one—so young, yet so responsible and capable and, yes, intelligent—was burdened with a baby and a loud, outspoken braggart already. She might have been better off with some bright brave, he thought, instead of Charbonneau with his irritating arrogance. Captain Clark’s heart was wrung with pity and compassion for the little Shoshoni woman. He looked once again at the beautiful Judith River and slowly returned to the camp.

  Sacajawea sat hidden among the weeds for a time. She tried to consider her feelings and what to do about them. First she tried to picture the white squaw, Judy, spending much time walking by Chief Red Hair’s side, then sitting close against him in a pirogue. Could she pick up the paddle and help spell him so that his arms would not ache? Had she sewn moccasins for his feet or rubbed them when they were sore and tired, noticing how the tiny red hairs glinted in the firelight? Had she taken care of his belongings and put up his tepee for him? No—the white man’s ways were different; she already knew that from what Charbonneau had told her. She sat up straight and shifted the cradleboard on her shoulders. She could hear the baby making soft, gurgling sounds. One day at a time she should live. So now she would not think about something she knew nothing about. Her thoughts moved more slowly and in an orderly manner. Chief Red Hair and Chief Lewis had allowed her man to take her on this long trail so that she might see her own people. Now she could think only of that. Surely the Great Spirit would not bring her this far and then not let her complete the entire journey. So she would look after Chief Red Hair and the other white men. Beyond that she would not try to imagine—it would be an alien village until she got there. In the far corner of her mind a thought fluttered, saying there was more to her life than being with these white men, something even her intuition could not fore see. But it was too deep, and she calmed the flutterings and would not think on it. She broke off the stems of the purple fireweed. Here was something she could give to Chief Red Hair to flatten and dry in one of his big books.

  CHAPTER

  16

  Sacajawea’s Illness

  The most serious medical problem was Sacagawea, who had been taken ill at the mouth of Maria’s River. Clark bled her on two successive
days, the approved treatment at the time, though the wonder is it did not kill her. When she grew worse, he tried “a dose of salts,” which did no good at all. Charbonneau, though he had been warned about her diet, foolishly allowed her to gorge on “white apples” and raw fish, after which she became alarmingly ill. Her pulse could hardly be felt; her arm and fingers twitched, she began to refuse medicine. Only Charbonneau could get her to take it, and even he could do so only when she was delirious. Without much hope, Clark tried cataplasms of bark and laudanum. “If she dies it will be the fault of her husband as I am now convinced,” Clark wrote in his journal on June 16,1805, gloomily, for he liked the little squaw.

  On that same day Lewis wrote, “I believe that her disorder originated principally from an obstruction of the mensis in consequence of taking could.”

  Both captains knew that if Sacagawea died, the expedition would find itself left with a four-months-old baby, which would have to be carried across the continent and back with no available milk supply—a unique problem for a military expedition, which even Lewis had never foreseen.

  Excerpt from pp. 212–13 in Lewis and Clark: Partners in Discovery by John Bakeless. Copyright 1947 by John Bakeless. By permission of William Morrow and Company.