Sacajawea

by Anna Lee Waldo

  A little moment of silence came. No one moved. Then Sacajawea, who had stood up, put in a question. “Here? No one wants to stay here. We all know the south shore is best. Anyone who does not raise his hand for the south shore can stay here and eat fish.”

  Clark laughed into his hand and was so amused by Janey speaking out in quite good English in the expedition’s council that he set her words down in the official journal that evening.

  Captain Lewis was not so amused. “Wasn’t it a bit irregular to have a squaw and her man, who’s a citizen of Canada, and your manservant, York, and Shannon, a boy barely nineteen, vote as though they were U.S. citizens with the rest of us on this military expedition?” He paused and took a deep breath. “This was an important decision.”

  “Now, Lewis,” pacified Clark, as the sweetest of smileswreathed his lips, “isn’t this whole expedition unorthodox in so many ways?”

  “Oh, Lord! You’re so right! But I must say I call it bad manners—downright bad manners—for that squaw to speak up so—” He broke off abruptly and cast a glance at Clark.

  Clark ran a finger along the neck of his leather shirt, as if to ease his throat. “A woman! A mere girl at that—she took the words from your mouth. Go ahead, admit it. You were going to say the exact words in your next breath. You wanted the men to vote for the south shore and plenty of elk meat!”

  “Yes, I did! But Lord help me, the next time she speaks up and asks for something—”

  ‘Takes the words from your mouth, you mean,” teased Clark. “You’ll probably grant her wish. You know she doesn’t ask much. I daresay your grandchild won’t read the history of the United States without reading of you and me and of her, with fearless men crossing the prairies and mountains, enduring hardship and privation. We are a close-knit group with a terrible and rigid goodness that comes with work and self-denial.” Clark feigned enormous dignity.

  Lewis looked a little sheepish and said, “For Lord’s sake, forget I said a thing.”

  There was more rain and high waves as the expedition crept back along the shore the way they had come, looking for a place where the estuary was narrow enough to cross to the south shore. It was hard to find firewood that was dry enough to burn. The blankets were wet again and mildewed. The big leather tent was in shreds and no protection at all. Some of the men used their frayed blankets to make crude lean-tos, but they were so full of holes that nothing was kept dry.

  During the last of November, there were a few days that were warm, when the leaves browned, and the grass ripened in the sun, and the reflection of light from the water lasted until long after nightfall. But afterward the sky blackened and rain fell, and from that time until spring the rain never totally stopped and sunlight never shone over the land or sea. Except on the line of surf, the sea itself was like ink. The tremendous winds that blew out of it carried fierce twisters of rain that turned everything inside out as they passed. The shifting winds blew smoke from the campfire into the men’s eyes, which soon became painful from that irritation. Then they began to wonder how they were going to get along when they found deer but no elka even geese were wary of hunters.

  Ben York noticed that the weather was hard for the papoose. He was by turns unruly and listless. He told Pomp tales that were Negro folklore, handed down by word of mouth through the years. Like the songs Sacajawea remembered her grandmother singing, these were primitive accounts of the sorrows and tribulations of a wronged people and their inevitable reward in the afterlife.

  “And the angel say to him, he say, ‘Mose, come up on this here throne and eat ‘cause you are hungry, and drink ‘cause you are thirsty, and rest you weary and aching feet.’”

  Sometimes Pomp rode on Clark’s back and heard stories that invariably began with the magic words, “Once upon a time just like this—” There would follow a nursery tale or one of Aesop’s fables. Pomp remembered the English words and repeated them—“fox, rabbit, wolf, horse, man, woman.” That the listener was hardly a year old and incapable of comprehending what he heard made no difference to Clark. He was determined that the boy learn English and was pleased when he responded so quickly.

  A few days later, the expedition, tired and wet from riding in the canoes, came to a knob of land projecting about a mile and a half toward a shallow bay, and about four miles around. The neck of land, which connected it to the main shore, was more than fifty yards wide. Lewis called the projection Point William2 for William Clark, and there the men landed the canoes and set up another temporary camp. The stones on shore were brilliant reds and greens and white. Sacajawea scooped up handfuls for Pomp to play with.

  One of the canoes had a wide split and needed repairing. Before that job was finished, the wind shifted to the northwest and blew with such fury that trees were uprooted near the camp. “We must move out ofhere right away,” said Sacajawea. That night there was rain and hail; sleep was fitful and miserable.

  The next day, the rain let up, for several hours. Sacajawea spread out blankets and clothing to dry, then sat on the beach to watch the birds. Eagles, hawks, ravens, and crows picked up small salmon floundering on the shore where they were washed in. She liked the beach. It was clean, away from the snakes, lizards, and spiders, but not the sand fleas that seemed to follow her everywhere. Then there was rain that night and the next day. Her nerves wore thin as she bucked mud, sand, and wet brush for the sake of a bit of dry land.

  Captain Clark sighed, “How long? Can it rain forever?”

  Even the Chinooks turned short-tempered and asked for two axes, three knives, and a good blanket for one fifty-pound fish, though they had been around this area for generations of continuous residence to get accustomed to the climate.

  The men lost weight and color, and squabbled incessantly. Captain Clark’s stomach became upset, probably from so much pounded fish and salty water.

  Sacajawea, always watchful, pulled out a soggy piece of bread from under her blanket folds. It was made of wheat flour, not the wapato roots everyone had come to loathe. She had been saving the good bread for Pomp. She now offered it to the ailing Chief Red Hair. The ancient and dubious biscuit was a little sour, but Clark ate it with relish, saying, “That is the only bit of food I’ve had in weeks that was not fishy or salty and that sits firm inside my stomach.” He tweaked Pomp’s little brown nose. “I ate your muffin.”

  Pomp replied with a wide, baby grin, “Num, num, num.”

  The next afternoon, soon after the canoes were beached, Sacajawea lay Pomp on the blue coat for a nap while she hunted colored seashells. Clark sat with her and put some he found in an empty canister. The two became so engrossed with the beauty of the shapes and designs and colors, and the small, smooth stones of agate they saved, that they did not at first see the dark clouds forming to warn them of the coming storm. Sacajawea jumped up and pointed skyward and began torun toward camp with Pomp. Clark followed. York came toward them and took Pomp in his arms and hurried him safely back to camp. Sacajawea and Clark followed. Then both stopped to look back. There was the black center of the storm coming in from the water and churning the flat water into a wall of foam ten or twelve feet high. Clark started on to keep the wave from overtaking them, but Sacajawea was fascinated and climbed to a high, flat stone.

  “Let’s let it catch us!” she called, daring him. “It won’t hurt us here—will it? Come see what it does.”

  Suddenly the wind hit so hard that Clark staggered and had to sit down. Sacajawea ran to him, and water plastered them in a solid sheet. Through it she saw in a kind of blur that Clark was laughing. When she opened her mouth to talk, the water beat on it and stopped it so she could not say a word. The rain slackened and passed on, and the two ran down the beach, now trying to overtake it and face it down again, but it outran them. They were drenched but laughing. He drew a great breath and let it out again as Sacajawea ran into his arms. He pushed the hair from her eyes and smiled at her. The touch of his firm, callused hand was like running fire.

  “Yo
u smell good, like the crushed ginger weed.” He sniffed and sighed, still holding her. He found himself suddenly throbbing with love. He thrust his right hand behind her head and bent to kiss her full on the mouth. She took hold of him and held her arms tightly around the small of his back, not wanting to let him go. His lips were warm, and she marveled at the strength of them and how their strength was transferred to her own lips.

  “You have used sorcery on me, Janey. I could not help myself,” said Clark, pulling away and smiling into her eyes. “We must hurry back now, before it is too late.” He looked sideways at her and felt a rush of gentleness toward her because she, too, was trying to hold back the power that had risen with the beating of their hearts.

  “Ai, York will come looking, thinking the ocean has swallowed us.” She felt her lips and wondered how theycould feel like burning coals and her knees weak as water.

  She’s got me roped as tight as a horse plowing a field in spring, and I don’t know that I have any more to gain than the horse, he thought as he followed the figure in the brown tunic with his eyes until she disappeared in the trees this side of the camp.

  He crossed the rocks beyond the beach and walked in the same direction. He stopped and arranged some of the baggage and inspected the repaired canoe. Then he talked to Bill Werner, who was on south guard duty. He felt he had his emotions in control. He vowed not to let himself be carried away by his heart, not to let his guard down again. He was a captain of the United States Army and responsible for this outfit. His first duty was to his men and to his co-captain. Janey, God bless her, had a man.

  After the storm, dozens of huge birds swooped down for the easy food. The men called the big birds vultures, but they were larger than any vulture anyone had ever seen before. Baptiste LePage shot one down, and it measured nine and a half feet from wing tip to wing tip, three feet, ten and a half inches from the point of its bill to the tip of its tail. The tail itself was fourteen and a half inches long, and the head and beak six and a half inches.3 York added the vulture to the three hawks and three ducks the hunters brought in later that afternoon for the evening meal. The hunters had seen elk sign, and the news brightened everyone’s spirits.

  Captain Lewis managed to get a small canoe across to Point William, only to find that there were swamps on the south shore that would make overland travel impossible. He turned back to Meriwether Bay4 and found a site along a little river called Netual5 by the Chinooks. This place was ten miles from the Pacific Ocean, but within hearing of the dark, angry breakers. Selecting a high point on the west bank of the Netual, so that the permanent camp would be out of swampy land and the incoming high tide, Captain Lewis went back for the men to start work on shelter and fortifications.

  * * *

  Captain Clark and Drouillard walked northwest, exploring the coast. They were often in mud and water to their hips, walking through bogs where the weight of a man would shake a half acre of ground. Drouillard was eager to explore and leave the cedar cutting for the winter cabins to the others. Clark was dubious about finding anything in the way of game, so he kept his notebook out so that he could sketch an unusual tree or plant. Clark was feeling a little uncertain about himself at this time, but he was eager to see this new country and talk to natives he had not seen before. Besides, the farther away he was from Janey, the better. If Janey wanted him for some silly advice or to answer some fool question, she could think of someone else. As for this exploring, if he didn’t find anything he would quit, even though he had told Drouillard they might be gone a couple of days.

  It was afternoon when they came upon a small group of Chinooks. One of the men came forward and shook hands with both Clark and Drouillard, cleared his throat, and said, “Sturgeon very good.” After the initial surprise wore off, the men felt disappointment because apparently that was the only English the man knew. Drouillard sat with the man and used hand signs and jargon as they passed a pipe back and forth. The man said that once in a while the Chinooks attacked the white men that came off the ships, but they had not planned to attack the men of the expedition because there was not so much to gain. The expedition did not have many trading goods the Chinooks wanted. Drouillard found that the Chinooks were mainly interested in alcohol.

  Around dusk they found a quiet, grassy spot protected from the wind where Clark could write in his notebook and sort out the day’s leaf and twig specimens. Silently several Clatsops, from a village on the south side of a line of boulders, crept close to the two men to observe them. Clark saw them and drew rough sketches of these silent observers. They were dark, their complexions running to deep brown rather than reddish. All seemed fat, and their faces had a combination of stupidity and covetousness. The females were tattooed on their lower lip with charcoal embedded under theskin, which left them with a line of dusky blue, as though they had spent the day in an elderberry patch.

  The next morning Clark and Drouillard visited the Clatsop village. The people knew they were Clatsops, but somewhere in all the years of their existence they had forgotten or found it unnecessary to know the name of their particular tribe. They used strings of mussel shells ground into cylindrical beads for money, but were willing to go along with the barter system if they could purchase metal fish hooks. Their houses were built from the abundant supply of cedar planks and were window-less and rotten smelling. This was partly due to unwashed bodies and no ventilation, but mainly because of the small, dried smelt that were fastened by the tail in shell and pottery bowls and placed all along the walls. When burned they gave off a white light.

  “They are as good as our candles, if you like the smell of putrefying fish,” commented Drouillard.

  They ate this little candlefish with the villagers. Clark called them “anchovie,” and put several on the end of a wooden stick to roast. They were so fat they needed no additional sauce.

  These Clatsops lived mostly on fish. They did trap some game and killed it with a bow and arrow at a range of from two to five feet. Clark and Drouillard watched them trap wild ducks by setting decoys on a brush-covered hole in the marshes, hiding under it until a flock landed, then grabbing their legs and pulling them underwater to drown.

  They learned the Clatsop trick of treating the little creeks with a few bushels of hemlock bark. Then the stupefied speckled trout would float up by the bucketful.

  Vegetable products were scarce; besides wild crab-apple, the Clatsop women picked a coppery-tinged wild sorrel, which, after cooking, Clark thought had the flavor of rhubarb.

  The second evening at the Clatsop village Clark brought out his sketch materials. His first subject was a child sleeping in a cradleboard with a flattening board covering the top half of its head. While sketching, Clark thought of the ease with which these people lived, with food and shelter and clothing at their fingertips. Yet, he could think of nobody who would trade places with them. They had not perfected any great skill in arts or crafts or thinking; their easy living was not conducive to creativity. On the other hand they were not warlike and did not even try to explore new places along the coastline.

  By the third day both Clark and Drouillard had seen enough of these self-contained, contented people, so the two men headed for the expedition’s camp. They discussed the unknown past and future of the indolent Clatsop band. Had the Clatsops’ ancestors landed on the shore in some small craft, or had they trekked overland in small hunting parties in the prehistoric past? Had these people once been warriors and recently tired of that uncertain life? At present they seemed to be going nowhere. If they all died out suddenly no other tribe would grieve. This one group had followed a trail to nonentity. On the other hand, the men argued, these people had no stress and were happy with the way things were.

  Clark and Drouillard noticed the strong mixture of odors from the wild flowers and vegetation that hung in the thick forest’s unmoving air as they made their way back to camp. The balsam poplar buds were covered a glistening, freeze-resistant, winter coat of resin, making them look as large as
peace medals. This ball of sticky resin was delightfully fragrant. The mosquitoes were a great annoyance and didn’t seem repelled by an application of rancid bear’s oil.

  Back at camp the two men could not contain their curiosity and asked Sacajawea what she knew about the woody substance a few of the idle Clatsops chewed that turned their saliva blood red. She thought a moment, then said it was probably from the inner bark of the red alder and that the people probably chewed it to ward off diarrhea. Intrigued by this information Clark and Drouillard made a study of the alder that grew as large as three feet thick in every damp place. They found that the fresh wood was satiny white, but turned cherry red when it had been aged. Drouillard guessed that the bright color was tannic acid in the alder’s sap, which also explained the medicinal power of its inner bark.

  During the weeks the men worked to get the winter cabins finished, they were troubled with dysentery, colds, aching muscles, colic, and boils because they worked out in the constant rain.

  Clark and Drouillard tried the red alder medicine to relieve the distress of their dysentery. They soon found it worse than the disease. The moist, inner bark was so astringent that their mouths puckered for hours and the red juice made them look like they were bleeding to death. The soft wood tasted harshly bitter and biting and left their teeth ugly brown, which both men feared would become a permanent discoloration like the Clatsops’.

  “This here timber makes the finest puncheons I ever saw,” said Pat Gass, with a carpenter’s appreciation of good white pine and cedar. “They can be split ten feet long and two feet broad, not more than an inch and a half thick.”

  The logs were rolled up Boonesboro-fashion into winter shelters, made from some abandoned Clatsop boards that the Indians gave permission for the white men to use, fleas and all. By mid-December the men were chinking and mud-daubing the cabins. Using elk hides for weatherboards, they tightened up the cabins and began cutting doors.