Sacajawea
Page 59
The hunters had found plenty of elk by then, and the roasted meat helped cure the dysentery and colic. Mallard ducks settled wherever there was swampy ground, and the men managed to bushwhack a few with guns. Then they began to find plenty of deer, but complained because they were so small.6
Sacajawea stayed to herself, mending the tattered clothing and sewing new shirts, trousers, and moccasins as the hides became available. The issue of where she was going and whether she was headed directly there did not arise, for she knew she would spend time somehow—sleeping, eating, loafing—so she might as well spend it here; she would not die any sooner because she was here among white men. What is ahead in life is usually unknown.
She did not want to be troubled by the problems of her man, Charbonneau. She did not love him, but herlife because of him was good, so she felt a loyalty toward him. She wanted to be as free of him as possible so that he could not cast a net over her made of the strings of his dependence on her. Yet it was this avoidance of Charbonneau’s net that had run her directly into the strings of affection woven by Chief Red Hair.
It was to some extent to take her mind from him that she turned back to her memories. Those of her early childhood were pleasant. The memories of her later childhood were sharp and painful. Since her life with the white men, she had felt a belonging and a realization of their hold on her. They had their claws in her, like the sharp nails of a hawk fastened into a ground squirrel. It was not their conscious effort, but their endemic kindness. This kindness would remain with her, later not a memory of the past but of the present. It clinched her existence and her nature and twisted her, and she resented it in a kind of tender and anguished way. Why do I want to be like these white men and still be one of the People, especially when my childhood is a chaos of events?
By Christmas Day the fort was nearly done and the expedition men warm and dry, their colds nearly gone. They were living in the most luxurious quarters ever erected in Oregon country by 1805. They had spring water close by and wood enough down the draw. The cabins were sixteen by thirty feet. The south cabin contained a huge tree trunk that could not be removed. It was Shannon who had the great idea of smoothing off its top and making a table, and since it was rooted to the ground, the cabin had to be built around it.7 The doors of all eight cabins faced inward on a parade ground, forty-eight by twenty feet. The outer walls were joined by a stockade, eight feet high, with a gate and sentry box at the south end. The north buildings, for the noncommissioned men, were divided into three rooms. Each room was sixteen feet square with a fireplace in the middle. The south building had two officers’ rooms, each with a fireplace, and a separate storehouse, which was good—both for them and for the field mice and the wild rats that sneaked in at night. The sentry box was manned night and day. The gate was locked every night.
One sergeant and three privates constituted the guard, which changed each day at sunrise. All the natives were asked to leave at sundown, with the exception of one party of Chinooks caught barefoot in a freezing snowstorm late one afternoon.8
Captain Lewis had forbidden the “thieving Chinooks” to enter the fort without a special permit. Even on Christmas Day the guard was alert and stopped a small man with a hawklike face. He was bare to the waist and his breechclout seemed too big for his body, but he looked as though he had the strength and vitality to match even bigger clothing. He, like any Chinook, smelled of fish and carried lice. He said, “No Chinook!”
“Who, then?” asked the guard.
“Clatsop,” the man said, entering with wapato roots and cranberries.
“Beautiful,” said Captain Lewis, looking over the berries, “and they come on Christmas Day.” He gave the man a couple of files for the trade. The man squatted on his heels and poked the berries, not yet ready to leave.
While he was poking, Lewis called Drouillard to use his jargon with the man. The man puttered around the roots and rearranged them and chatted with Drouillard in a friendly manner, but rarely said more than “Yes” or “I think so.”
Finally he laced his fingers across his middle. “You know,” he said, “I talked those ignorant Klatskannins out of an attack on your camp. I told them your men were better hunters. They told me you would let the fish in the river die of old age while you tramp in the swamps after ducks and use the shooting-stick for the deer. But I think you know what you are doing. I have never seen such a lodge for keeping the wind out as this.” Then he settled back on his heels, looking small in his weather-bleached clout, but by his manner, clearly at ease with the strangers.
“What name do you go by?” asked Drouillard, all the time wondering if the Klatskannins were a large tribe and if there were any others in the vicinity who had similar ideas.
“The other tribes call me Yanakasac Coboway. My own tribe knows me as Chief Comowool.”
Lewis brought out some red beads and gave them to the chief. But he pushed them back at Lewis and pointed to the files, indicating that he could use more.
“Why? What for?” asked Lewis.
“We carve the designs on canoes with chisels made from iron files.”
Finally Drouillard stood up and stretched, saying, “The berries and roots are fine. Glad you came. Come to see us again. Tell the neighboring tribes we are peaceful; we have gifts for them.”
Chief Comowool chuckled, and from a small leather pouch pulled out some yellowed paper and began to roll a cigarette as white men do.
“Where did you learn that?” asked Lewis.
“Haley. He gives us all many gifts. He will be here in three moons to trade. He, too, is peaceful.”
“Where does he come from? Tell us in which direction his ship comes.” Lewis was excited.
Chief Comowool pointed to the south but was not able to give any other information about this trader, who seemed to be a favorite with the Indians.
By the time Chief Comowool left, several of the men had gathered in front of the officers’ cabin to sing carols. York boiled the wapato roots for the men’s noon meal, and Lewis surprised the men while they were still at the tables in the mess hall by dividing the remaining stock of tobacco, twelve pigtails into two parts and distributing one among them to the men who smoked. The rest was set aside for trading on the return trip. Sacajawea and the men who did not smoke were given a silk handkerchief.
Cruzatte took out his violin, and there was some dancing. He let Sacajawea play the violin while York tried to teach Pomp the polka. Pomp giggled so hard that he lay on the floor and kicked his fat legs in the dappled light from the fireplace. His tiny fists waved in the air, and he gurgled in his throat with delight over so much attention. He was a glorious specimen of man-child. His light brown skin was hardly a blemish in the eyes of his mother.
“He is a show-off,” said Sacajawea, handing the violin back to Cruzatte, who was pleased because she had not forgotten the tune he’d taught her.
York took her around the waist for a polka around the room. She learned fast, and LePage came forward to dance with her. “I am proud of my little namesake,” he said. “I am glad that your baby has my name, Jean Baptiste, because I can see you are going to bring him up in the right way. He’s not even a year old and he can walk!”
Shannon, not to be outdone, cut in to show Sacajawea the schottische. She got her feet mixed up, but kept a straight face and time to the music through it all. The men began to clap, and soon almost everyone was clapping or dancing.
“I want to begin the talking lessons again,” she said.
“You want to continue with the English?” asked Shannon. “I thought you were tired of it.”
“I thought you were sore at me because I learned too slow.”
“I’m glad you won’t give up.”
“I want Pomp to learn when he talks.”
“That’s easier than you think. That’s all he’ll hear if he stays around us.
“Can you teach me some of this jargon or some more Minnetaree and Shoshoni, if I don’t get it all mixed up?”<
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“Why would you want to know all that?”
“I might want to come back into Indian country,” he said. “Maybe I’ll set up a trading post. Fort Shannon. Boy, what a name, bejesus!”
“What a name, bejesus!” agreed Sacajawea. “The trading will be at the Three Forks for the People?”
“I’ll be a bull-tough mountain man out there,” Shannon answered.
Sacajawea picked up Pomp so he would not get in the way of the dancers, and he struck at her face. Every blow of the little hands touched the heart of Sacajawea. This son of hers would beat many a man twice his size. She would see that he learned the manners of the white men, and their language would be his language.
Outside the snug cabins there was wind and rain, making the ice slick. The slushy snow had frozen. The hunters had come in empty-handed. John Potts said, “Funny thing out here in the snow—I could see it take shape and bound away right before my eyes. It waswhite moving on white, white with dark eyes and a gray tuft of tail, white that was jackrabbits, but they ran before my gun was aimed.”
The food for this Christmas dinner was the boiled cranberries brought by Chief Comowool and sweetened with the last of the sugar cubes and some poor elk, so putrefied that they all ate it only from necessity. York had roasted it until it was dry, then added a few wapato roots for moisture.
Some of the men exchanged small gifts. Clark received a shirt, drawers, and socks from Lewis, moccasins from Whitehouse, and a woven basket of rushes from Goodrich.
Gass gave Pomp a set of pine blocks, made from the wood he used for the floorboards. Then the men’s eyes twinkled as if with some delightful secret as Clark cleared his throat and motioned for York to bring in something. It was a pine cradle for Pomp that the carpenter, Gass, had made from Clark’s instructions. At the headboard was a crude carving of a wild rose, made by Gibson, and at the foot was a bird, carved out by LePage. The men crowded around to see the look on her face.
Sacajawea could not hide her emotion; her whole heart was loosened and dissolved. “Oooo,” she said with her hand over her mouth. It was fearfully difficult to keep her eyes dry and her voice under control. “Beautiful! I say thank you. Pomp will say thank you by sleeping in this cradle.”
The baby climbed in unaided and rocked himself back and forth until his eyes closed and he was quiet.
“Merry Christmas, Janey,” said Clark.
She looked up, startled, but Clark smiled and made it easy for her to feel relaxed. “Hee-hee turn-turn,” she answered.
“A laughing heart to you and everyone,” Clark called out, translating her Chinook jargon.
Lewis had been watching her accept the cradle, and he thought to himself, Lord, that Janey has more emotion than I believed. He had brought a basket of blackberries in from the storage room. They were about the size of a cherry and dried. “Look what Clark has brought for me, everyone.” He shoved the basket on the planktable. “The Clatsops call them shelwell. I hope your bellies are grateful and they sit well.”
The men laughed and went over to try them. “Oui, let’s eat again,” said Charbonneau.
When the berries were almost all gone, the men relaxed and sang and told about other Christmases spent with their families. Sacajawea gave York a pair of beaded moccasins and shyly held out a leather bundle to Clark. “I bargained myself for this. It is a gift for a great chief. Merry Christmas,” she said in her fair English. Then she went on as though she were a spring that could not be stopped unwinding. “This is the birthday of the son of the white man’s Great Spirit. This day, long ago, a star stood guard over the lodge where the papoose slept in his cradle. It is a day to be happy and to make others happy.”
She caught everyone unawares with her knowledge of Christmas. Shannon had spent several hours with her that afternoon explaining the meaning of the white man’s big medicine day. Charbonneau, wearing a wide necklace of white shells around his neck, and much oil in his hair, was surprised at his squaw’s knowledge. He had not remembered gift-giving himself, but she had entered into the spirit of Christmas as if she had celebrated it all her life.
Clark let out a long whistle, and everyone stopped talking to look his way. “Wheeeiii! Great balls of fire! Where did you find these, Janey?”
The leather bundle held the two dozen white weasel tails. Tails such as these were one of the most prized forms of decoration among the North American Indian tribes.
“You must not give them away—not to a white squaw,” she said slowly. “Because squaws are not allowed to possess or wear tails the length of these. These are for a great chiefs ceremonial robe.” She fingered the snow white tails with the black at their very tips and a faint streak of palest gold staining the black.
Clark’s eyes were moist in the firelight. “Janey, it is one of the nicest things anyone has ever done for me. Ill never forget as long as I live.” His hand momentarily brushed hers.
Charbonneau was still eating bits of dried berriesand once in a while pulling off bits of meat from the tin platter in the center of the table. He ate the meat like an Indian, putting a piece in his mouth and cutting it off under his nose with a flip of a hunting knife. “Mon dieu,” he said, holding the knife poised close to his face, “I do not like bragging, but I have a collar of such tails, a gift to me.” He cut off a mouthful of hard, dried meat and forced it down his throat half-chewed.
“It was a very short-tailed collar, more for a child,” said Sacajawea, almost whispering.
“Hey, Charb,” called Ordway, “you blow a lot of wind and it’s meant mostly for the other end!”
Gass pointed his finger at Charbonneau. “Your ma never had to throw cold water on you to keep you from holding your breath.”
Charbonneau looked around at the men, then at Sacajawea. There was nothing of self-satisfaction in her expression, nor of egotistic basking in victory. Her face seemed drawn with weariness, the brown lids half-closed, and for an instant she seemed oblivious to those around her as she contemplated the lines in the framing timber of one wall.
“Oh, shit, squaws exaggerate.” Charbonneau flushed and stomped out, slamming the door. The afternoon rain had melted most of the snow and ice. He walked from the fort to the beach, where he could almost see the bay run out into the sea. He stood for several moments. As far as his eye could see, the beach sloped gently into the somber forest. The gray sea and the gray covering of high clouds domed together to the horizon. The tide was being sucked rapidly from below where he stood, silent and motionless. A mysterious force drew the water outward. Each wave ran the length of the shore, falling a foot or more below the previous one. In half an hour, a mile of dark, uneasy bottom was laid bare. Then the same mysterious force started climbing toward the forest.
The sand quivered faintly under his feet. Tiny bubbles rose and remained; small holes opened and gasped. Curious shellfish materialized and scurried meaninglessly across the sand. Gulls came and hunted them down. Well, he thought, the devil take me if I was not exactly right. There was nothing but the distant windin the treetops on one side of him and the distant waves on the other. Between the two he moved alone. If he stayed, only the sea would roll itself to his feet and slip away again, over and over in a terrifying vision. He laughed with jarring loudness.
Within the next couple of days a warm, moist, southwest wind blew off the sea. “Talk about a midwinter thaw,” said Lewis. “This is it.”
“The meat is spoiling, and we must have salt for curing,” said Clark. “I’ve said this before. Now I’m forced to organize a salt crew.”
The following day five men were dispatched with five of the largest kettles to build a cairn for the manufacture of salt from seawater. The saltmakers’ camp was erected near Tillamook Head, about fifteen miles southwest of the main fort. The men built a neat, close camp, convenient to wood, salt water, and fresh water from the Clatsop River. They kept the kettles boiling day and night, scraping them out only when they had boiled dry and the salt was thick and crusty.
In the evenings Sacajawea brought him herb tea and hot, flat bread from camass roots.
“You are the best gal in this whole outfit.” He pounded his knee and laughed, then had a fit of coughing. She pulled his arms above his head. Then she pounded him on the back so he would breathe deeper. “Me old aching back,” he complained.
“You will feel better, by and by,” she said.
Later Lewis came into his quarters, highly agitated. “Where are the meat bones for my dog? You don’t suppose some flea-bitten buck has walked off with them?”
Clark laughed out loud and wiped the ink off his quill. “Janey knows how to make the most of things. You won’t believe it, but I found her breaking up the bones. She boiled them and it was amazing the quantity of fat and good food she extracted. She flavored the broth with dried sage and fed it to York. He likes it and he’s some better tonight. When she’s through withthose bones there really is not much left for a big dog like Scannon.”
Lewis rushed out to the mess hall to retrieve any other bones before Sacajawea could get her hands on them.
A young man, who caused some excitement, came to the fort with several Clatsops just before sundown on New Year’s Eve. He was much lighter-colored than the Clatsops. Both Clark and Drouillard thought he looked like a Mandan. He was freckled, with long, dusky red hair, and was about twenty-five years old. Lewis and Gass left their checker game to see if they could communicate with him. The man appeared to understand English, but he did not speak a word of it, using Chinook jargon instead. He held out his arm so that they could see tattoed on the outside: “Jack Ramsay.” He indicated that was the name of his father, but he never knew his father himself. He believed himself to be a full-blooded Clatsop. Lewis bought some roots, dried fish, mats of woven rushes, a small deerskin, and some Clatsop tobacco, made of dried clover leaves and heads, in small rush bags, from this son of Jack Ramsay and his Clatsop companions.9