Sacajawea

by Anna Lee Waldo

  Sacajawea saw large wooden bowls, spoons of horn, skewers and spits for roasting meat, and beautifully woven, watertight baskets. She noted that each squaw carried a knife fastened to her right thumb by a loop of rawhide and hidden under her robe when visitors came. These knives, bought from seafaring traders, were invaluable for digging roots, cutting wood, meat, and fish, splitting rushes for mats, baskets, and the tall crowned hats, and cutting animal skins.

  Sacajawea’s mouth dropped open as she heard some Tillamooks talking with Twiltch. Interspersed among their native words were English: “damned rascal, musket, knife, son-of-bitch, powder, heave the lead, bloody redskins.” She asked questions, but they seemed to know no other words, or other foreign language. None had any idea where the traders had come from or where they went on their floating lodges; they just pointed southwest and shook their heads,2 then asked Sacajawea why she asked so many questions. “Are you chief of these men?” asked a Tillamook, who thought Sacajawea was bad-mannered for speaking out and asking too much. The Tillamooks turned their backs toward her, but Sacajawea broke in unexpectedly, using hand signs and the jargon she had picked up.

  “I just want to ask one more thing. Do you set aside anything for trading? For instance, do you save spuck3 pelts to trade for these?” She pointed to three rusty British muskets leaning against a lodge and a brass kettle in the yard.

  Now the Tillamooks were all nonplussed, not knowing whether to ignore her and talk with only Captain Clark, or to answer her last question.

  “This tribe and my tribe both collect weasels and spuck for trading with the inhabitants of the floating lodges.” Twiltch’s voice was brittle and unfriendly as he spoke for the Tillamooks. The Tillamooks then grunted an imperious affirmative and stepped away from her and closer around Captain Clark and his men.

  This tribe is touchy, Sacajawea said to herself. I will be more careful. She looked up in time to see Pomp slide down a mud-slick bank and dive, head first, into the creek. She ran to pull him out, all the time thinking, I have committed another discourtesy. I have not kept my thoughts on my baby, who is slippery as a fish, sliding from my eyes the moment I take an interest in something else.

  “You stupid femme!” yelled Charbonneau. “You are not here as an interpreter. You came along as the cook.”

  “I think you are to be the cook also, as on the trail to this place. We both turn the meat.”

  “I am not doing squaw’s work,” he said sullenly, looking away into space. “And make your child stop hollering. I hate that noise. God curse him. He’s wet. Do something with that mess!”

  She removed the baby’s clothing, wrapped him in her blanket, and slung him over her shoulder, saying to herself, Thank the Great Spirit for keeping the truth of this baby’s wetness from his father. She built up the cooking fire. Pomp slept the rest of the afternoon while his mother cooked and the men stayed on at the Tillamook village and held a council. Sacajawea put chunks of elk meat on sticks over the fire and turned them at intervals to roast evenly. Curious how that huge fish came out of the sea just at this time. Is it an omen? Strange how he landed when I was here with the white men so I could look at him. No one has ever seen a whale on this beach before. It is sad! The fish has no future, and we can know nothing of his past, only of this, now. One thing is certain, he is a part of the land now, forever.

  Her ears heard almost imperceptible approaching footsteps. The footsteps stopped behind the rise going to the white man’s camp. Then she heard Pat Gass’svoice. “There is good indication the Russians and Spanish have not been here too often.”

  And Chief Red Hair’s voice. “Janey was the one to find out the Tillamooks and Clatsops store up weasels and spuck for trade with incoming ships. I think we can get this trade in the hands of the United States. I believe that is exactly what Tom Jefferson had in mind when he sent us out here. Damn those Tillamooks for their customs! I would have liked Janey to sit in on that meeting with them. Her questions are pertinent.”

  The men, Sacajawea, and Pomp went back to the salt camp on January 9, spent the night there, and the next day returned to Fort Clatsop.

  Two days later, the Clatsop chief, Comowool, from the village on the south bank of the Columbia, and Chief Comcommoly, from the north side, came to visit the white chiefs. Clark was ready with more questions about ships and traders. The native chiefs huddled beside the fire in the parade ground of Fort Clatsop. Comcommoly was muffled high about the face in a threepoint blanket from the Hudson’s Bay Company, so that only his hooked nose and his beady right eye showed above it. Comowool’s shoulders were bare. His legs were covered by a pair of moth-eaten navy blue woolen trousers.

  Clark pointed to the royal blue blanket. “Who brought this?”

  Comcommoly raised his hand and made signs, saying the name “Haley” and indicating, ‘Three masts brings presents. We like him.”

  “Tell me when he will be back,” said Clark.

  “Three moons.”

  Clark nodded, then prodded the men more. “Name others who come in ships to trade. Tell me something about them.”

  Comcommoly’s face wrinkled with a smile as Droui Hard sat beside Captain Clark and spoke fluent jargor with him. “Maybe we’ll learn something today,” Droui Hard said as an aside to Clark, and he gave both of the men a pair of gray wool socks with the toes and heel completely worn out.

  Comcommoly said, “Tallamon, not a trader; Callalamet, wooden leg; Fallawan, floating lodge has guns which killed some of my people. He does not trade now. Davidson, no trader, hunts elk; Skelley, only one eye.” The chief pointed to his own empty socket and was silent as the pipe was passed for smoking.

  Finally Chief Comowool shrugged his bare, scarred shoulders and shifted his weight on the woven backrest he had brought with him.

  “Moore, comes in four-masted ship, maybe he will be back in two moons to trade; Captain Youens, he will come in one moon for trading.”4 The chief went on with a weasely voice, “Swipton, Mackey, Jackson, Balch—all traders with three-masted ships.”

  When the two chiefs left, Clark walked along the bay with his spyglass pointed out to the gray-green sea. He saw no ships, but he ran across a slough lined with hundreds of beautifully carved canoes. These were coffins, with burial gifts still around the passengers; the skeleton feet all faced the sunset. Clark passed two old Chinooks fishing with nets, and he pointed up toward the bayou. The old men shrugged; they did not know whose bones they all were. They indicated, “Those old, old people. Long ago the skin broke open, and they lay in their lodges, on the sand, in the brush.”

  The other old man bowed his head, his hands moving quickly, “There was great mourning along the river at one time.”

  Clark guessed that hundreds of Chinooks were cut down long ago by smallpox.

  It was much milder than it had been at Fort Mandan the winter before, but the continual rain, fog, and murky skies were depressing. Boredom was a problem, created by the sedentary routine in the wake of months of strenuous activity and danger on the westbound journey. The captains did all they could to keep everyone busy, but this was not always possible, and onerous chores were resented. Sacajawea, York, and a couple of the men sewed moccasins from the elk hides they dressed until they had an average of about ten pairs per person. Saccgawea saw moccasins in her sleep. Any excuse was used for a change of pace from the daily routine.

  On February 11, York announced after the morningmeal, “This is to be a celebration for the first birthday of Master Jean Baptiste Charbonneau, known to us as Pomp.”

  The men sang and danced with Pomp during the day. Some told him stories, or held him on the back of the dog, Scannon, so that he could have a “pony” ride. The dinner was elk’s tongues and candle-smelt. At the finish, York brought out a large round sheet of flat bread made from wapato root and topped by one elk-tallow candle. Charbonneau complained that the bread tasted sour.

  “You feisty old bastard, put salt on it,” said John Potts.

  Shannon p
ut one of the Chinooks’ conical grass hats on the baby’s head. It almost covered his eyes, and he moved his head up and down, trying to see.

  Lewis held up both hands for quiet. “I bought many of these hats and will give them to all of you to keep the sun and rain off your heads on the way back to the States.”

  There was a loud clapping, and someone cried, “Hup, hup, hooray for our captain!”

  Bratton came in from the saltmakers’ camp with a barrel of salt and a string of tiny yellow matched shells for Pomp to wear around his neck. Bratton was fed, and when he finished, he sat Pomp on the mess table to put the shells around his neck so that all could admire them. No one noticed that Pomp pushed the soft, halfburned tallow candle to the floor. Bratton took a step backward to look at Pomp, and his moccasins slipped in the greasy tallow.

  “Hey!” he called, trying to hold himself up. He lost his balance and went down flat on his back. “Curses on the poxridden joker,” he said, trying to get up.

  Some of the men close by were laughing at the way Bratton’s feet flew in the air as he fell. “You looked like a puppet on a string!” laughed Shannon.

  “Shut up! My damn back is broken! I can’t move!” Bratton’s face was red and his upper lip wet with perspiration from the pain in his lower back.

  Lewis carefully moved his own hands over Bratton’s back and said, “I don’t think any ribs are broken, and the vertebrae seem all right. Maybe it is a pinchednerve. I think York could try to pull out your spine and line it up. If it is a pinched nerve, that might just relieve it.”

  “No way!” Bratton snapped. “Don’t touch me! The pain—oh God, it is great!” His head rolled to one side, and all the men were quiet as they saw that Bratton had passed out.

  The light from the fireplace flickered, making the sweat-streaked face of Bratton seem grotesque.

  “Femme, spank that child!” Charbonneau ordered. “He threw the soapy candle on the floor. He is responsible for this terrible accident. Warm his bottom with this.” He held a kindling stick in his hand.

  “No, that is not making Bratton’s back whole again,” said Sacajawea, shaken. “That is cruel. I will not allow you to touch my baby.” She could never raise her voice to reprimand a child, and never used corporal punishment. What was treated as a catastrophic event by Charbonneau, a white parent, was regarded with casual calmness by Sacajawea, a Shoshoni.

  “In that case you are responsible for that bloody candle on the floor. Where were your eyes?”

  Sacajawea thought, You’re a cruel, cold-gutted, heartless bastard. She was hard put to hide her distaste. “I cannot bear to be near you!” She picked up the frightened Pomp and took him to her quarters, putting him to bed in his cradle. She searched in her sewing scraps and found a long, soft, leather strip.

  She was certain she had not caused Bratton’s trouble, but she would do all she could to help him. She would not blurt out at her man because if she did she would surely lift his head right off his shoulders. In the mess hall she heard Chief Red Hair say, “He is like a tiger with boils on his ass, but I’ll give him some laudanum and he’ll behave himself.” To her relief she heard Lewis say, “Yes, he’ll be all right.”

  Sacajawea gave Captain Clark the leather strip and suggested hot and cold packs be used alternately during the night after wrapping his back with the leather to give it some support.

  In the morning and for the next couple of days, Bratton felt no better. Once she watched while Clark gave him more laudanum and sponged his face. She saw thetaut mask of Bratton’s face, the way he accepted the painkiller without pleasure and the cold towel with cold thanks.

  Charbonneau kept looking at her as though it were her fault that the accident had taken place. Clark told him once, “Lay off her. It was something no one saw. The baby is too young to know what he did. The best we can do is take care of Bratton and see that he can walk again.”

  She watched Charbonneau walk off talking to himself; she was furious that he wouldn’t help minister to Bratton. She managed to get some strips of cedar bark and long grass for weaving from the Clatsop women. She and York wove a sling to carry Bratton in. You’re foolish and without manners, she told herself, for expecting this man to smile and act grateful for all this fussing. He feels that the accident should not have taken place. He wants to be back with the other saltmakers instead of here where a baby runs the day’s activities.

  “We are all sorry and would like to take away the time of the accident. But it has happened. Pomp meant no harm. He likes the yellow shells,” she sighed, her voice soft and honeyed so that even Charbonneau in one of his most foul moods would have been soothed. “It was my fault. I should keep my eyes on that child. He is into everything this winter.”

  Bratton smiled but said nothing. During the next few days his face turned pale and he lost weight.

  Day by day, the winds came up and warmed the land so that the marshes became softer and oozed. Clouds sat low and dark on the skyline. The grass began to grow taller, and out of somewhere came magpies. The days were dull at Fort Clatsop.

  The Clatsop girls were providing amusement for the men. Lewis warned them time and again of venereal diseases.

  “Those are the very germs that are responsible for the miseries of McNeal and Goodrich. Furthermore, we have little trade goods left. We won’t have anything for the home trip if you men trade it off for those Jezebels’ favors!”

  Unanimously the men promised to have nothing todo with the girls they knew were afflicted, which were only two or three. All these young girls practiced only what they knew as notions of hospitality in their tribe, and a sort of fertility rite, in which their tribe might gain new and stronger bloodlines.

  Sacajawea felt no compunction to keep the men’s activities a secret and pointed out to Clark that some of the Clatsops mixed pounded beaver castoreum with bear’s oil and rubbed it on their body to heal the scabs and ulcers of syphilis and the oozing of gonorrhea.

  “Does it do any good?” asked Clark.

  “The beaver glands do have an odor that travels ahead of the wearer some distance,” explained Sacajawea, “but it does not rid anyone of the sickness. He must endure it and die early.”

  “Well, it would be a good idea to put medical dispensaries in American forts,” said Clark firmly. “Eyewash, salts, laudanum, and the new mercury salves could be stocked. I imagine it will take some months of fast talk and statistics to convince others of this need.”

  “First, you could tell Captain Lewis.”

  “That’s exactly what I will do.”

  Life seemed to creep back into the men as the sap crept up into the tree trunks that spring. Since most of the men either smoked or chewed and they missed the tobacco habit, it was not long before the smokers discovered the inner bark of red willow mixed with bearberry and the chewers found the crabtree bark.

  One March evening just after dusk, Chief Delashelwilt waddled nervously to the fort wearing a Hudson’s Bay multicolored blanket coat stained with fish oil and soot, to talk with Charbonneau. He also wore a little medicine bag suspended from a braided bit of moosehair that ran around his neck. In the bag, Delashelwilt was convinced, his immortal soul was lodged, and if he stroked the bag frequently, his influence over men would be invincible.

  The men talked for some time until Delashelwit was told by the sentry the fort was closing for the night. Delashelwilt and Charbonneau shook hands. Charbonneau looked about as Delashelwilt left. The gate wasbarred, and Charbonneau quickened his step. He began to hurry to his quarters.

  Sacajawea saw him come in and close the door. He dropped several gold coins on the top of his bunk. He began to dance in an awkward way in front of the coins.

  “Is everything all right?”

  “Oui, everything is perfect.”

  The next night Chief Delashelwilt came to visit Charbonneau again, but this time he was accompanied by half a dozen squaws.

  When they left, Sacajawea asked, “What did that knife-scarred chi
ef want with you?”

  “We are friends.”

  “What friends? I know friends—and I know enemies!” Sacajawea whirled back to Charbonneau. “They are paying you to make some kind of deal. I can feel it. Why don’t you let them crawl out of their holes and stand in front of the captains to make their deal?”

  Charbonneau stared back malevolently.

  “They are not friends. They will cause you trouble.”

  “Why don’t you hide your head in a hole like a prairie dog when the hawk sails over him? Then you would not see what is my business, not yours!” He put several more coins in a leather bag with the others.

  In her mind Sacajawea could see Delashelwilt’s woman—the big breasts, the big bottom, the little feet and fat wrists, and the hunger for goods. She did not like the faces of his squaw friends, nor their leering, jeering glances. And, most of all, she detested in them their lack of dignity, for they all wore more beads and shells and foofaraw than the chief himself did, and most of it came from the diminished stores of the expedition.

  They are all childish and foolish, but what can one expect from a flea-bitten Chinook, she asked herself. The expedition is low on trade goods. What right does my man have to give it away? He does not collect shells to restock them. I cannot rant over these normal things and act like a madwoman. I need some plan. I have seen extraordinary things and have been to strange places. I must be able to think of something. I can only think of Chief Delashelwilt as a liar and cheat, and my man acts out his wishes with no thought of his own. Charbonneau, you are so stupid, Sacajawea wanted toshout. I want to tell you I hate you. You cause more troubles.