Sacajawea

by Anna Lee Waldo

  Chief Red Hair would have a solution. He would give her strength and release her from this torment.

  “Come in,” Clark answered to the timid knocking. “Janey, I’m always glad to see you. Here, let me take my dancing boy, Pomp. He is getting brighter every day.” Clark hummed as he stood Pomp on the floor and skipped around. Pomp loved it. His feet kept time to the song as his eyes stayed fastened on Clark’s face. Sacajawea suddenly felt the familiar wild beating of her heart. She trembled.

  “You came for something?”

  “Ai,” she said, wondering why she did not try some words to say while she was by herself. She felt miserable. “The Chinook squaws are unhappy, and we will make them happy.”

  “Chinook squaws?”

  “Ai, the woman and friends of Chief Delashelwilt.” She glanced at the doorway, distracted as York came in.

  “That moronic, flea-bitten buck. I told him not to come around here with those girls!” Clark was angry. York backed out the door and closed it softly. “That dumb Chinook! How did he get in?”

  “He came as a friend.”

  “You can find friends in the manure pile sometimes,” said Clark.

  “He is not my friend,” she added quickly. “He brings coins to buy friendship and wants trade goods from the stores in return. The trade goods should not be handed to him. It can be used later for things the men need. Now the squaws would be happy if they had tiny pieces of colored ribbon to sew on their tunics. They will go home and cause no trouble. The chief will have to go home with them, and he can be given some of that new kind of tobacco the men are smoking. There will be no fight. Charbonneau will have his coins until he plays the stick game with Twiltch.”

  “So—it was Charbonneau who was behind this. Who says there will be no fighting?” roared Clark, glaringpast her toward the door. “Who knows what tomorrow will bring?”

  “Tomorrow is in the hands of the Great Spirit.”

  Clark looked in bewilderment at Sacajawea. “Who cares about tomorrow!” He left his quarters with the door swinging wide open. Charbonneau’s the key. How are you going to handle him? he wondered. He slowed his pace. Janey told me how to avoid a battle. It is strange, but it is true. The plan will work. He strode to the front gate of the fort and was not surprised to see Charbonneau sitting on the outside watching Chief Delashelwilt come through the trees with his covey of females. His body stiffened and became straight. His face was gray with anger, but he did not falter.

  “Sit still, you ape,” Clark said to Charbonneau when he strode past him to meet Delashelwilt. “Stop, you dogs!” The Chinooks could not understand his words, but his manner was unmistakable. “Delashelwilt, your scalp is loose on your head and I would like to take it!” Clark’s eyes shot toward Charbonneau, who was backing inside the fort. Clark’s muscular arm shot out and grasped Charbonneau’s hand. “Get red, white, and blue ribbon and a sharp knife from the stores. Right now!”

  “Oui!”

  Clark hoped Charbonneau could find an extra knife. The goods that the expedition was depending on for the purchase of food and horses during the four-thousandmile homeward trip could all be tied in two handkerchiefs.

  Clark cut the ribbon into tiny pieces, almost like confetti, mixed the colors, and handed a few to each girl. The girls at once compared the number of various colors. One girl moistened a few on her tongue and stuck them to her face, to the delight of the others.

  “Take the pouch of makeshift tobacco off your belt,” ordered Clark. “Give it all to the chief.” Clark then made the final cut-off sign with his hands and pointed toward the trees beyond the fort. “Go home before you spread your infection to any more of my men.” Then to Charbonneau he added, “I’m surprised a sensible man like yourself would be seen with scum like that. Especially those women who all have the clap.”

  Behind him there was a growl of rage from Delash-elwilt when he found he could take the tobacco, but not the knife. The chief pulled his little medicine bag from the braided moosehair and stomped it into the ground. He pointed a finger at Charbonneau and said in plain English, “Paleface, jackass poop!”

  Book Four

  HOMEWARD

  Washington, U.S. of America. July 6, 1803

  Dear Sir

  In the journey which you are about to undertake for the discovery of the course and source of the Missouri and of the most convenient water communication from thence to the Pacific ocean, your party being small, it is to be expected that you will encounter considerable dangers from the Indian inhabitants. Should you escape those dangers and reach the Pacific ocean, you may find it imprudent to hazard a return the same way, and be forced to seek a passage round by sea, in such vessels as you may find on the Western coast but you will be without money, without clothes and other necessaries, as a sufficient supply cannot be carried with you from hence Your resource in that case can only be in the credit of the US for which purpose I hereby authorize you to drau on the Secretaries of State, of the Treasury, of War and of the Navy of the US, according as you may find your draughts will be most negociable, for the purpose of obtaining money or necessaries for yourself and your men and I solemnly pledge the faith of the United States that these draughts shall be paid punctually at the date the are made payable. I also ask of the consuls, agents, mer chants and citizens of any nation with which we have intercourse or amity to furnish you with those supplle which your necessities may call for, assuring them honorable and prompt retribution. And our own Consume in foreign parts where you may happen to be, are hereby instructed and required to be aiding and assisting you in whatsoever may be necessary for procuring you return back to the United States. And to give more entity satisfaction and confidence to those who may be dispose to aid you, I Thomas Jefferson, President of the Unite States of America, have written this letter of general credit for you with my own hand, and signed it with my name.

  Th. Jefferson

  To

  Capt. Meriwether Lewis

  E. G. Voorhis Memorial Collection, Missouri Historical Society, St. Louis. Also in:

  EUBEN GOLD THWAITES, ed., The Original Journals of the Lewis and Clark Expedition, 1804–1806, Vol. 7. New York: Dodd, Mead and Co., 1904-5. Reprinted by Arno Press, N.Y., 1969, pp. 254-55.

  CHAPTER

  29

  Ahn-cutty

  Back around Warrior’s Point Clark came, whence the Multnomahs were wont to issue to battle in their huge war canoes. An old Indian trail led up into the interior, where for ages the lordly Multnomahs had held their councils. Many houses had fallen entirely to ruin.

  Clark inquired the cause of decay. An aged Indian pointed to a woman deeply pitted with the smallpox. “All died of that. Ahn-cutty! Long time ago!”

  EVA EMERY DYE,The Conquest. Portland: Binfords and Mort, 1936, p. 269.

  Each morning the weather seemed warmer. Sacajawea often sat where she could see the shoreline and the seals playing in the sea and sunning themselves on rocks. She was convinced that the white men had made no effort to kill the plentiful seals for food because they were a strange race of people who lived in water. Her own people had believed in water spirits for ages. Even Shannon had told her of their “wonderous homes” underwater, one time in a teasing mood. She could hardly picture herself as a grandmother, but thought, If I am ever with grandchildren, they will be amused with stories about these water people who sit on the rocks and stare at us who live on land.

  The men began to talk of going home. Bratton, still carried in the grass sling, was certain the warmth of the spring sun could bring healing to his back.

  In preparation for the return journey, Captain Lewis “borrowed” a canoe from the Clatsops in return for some elk meat they had “borrowed” during the winter. Comowool, the Clatsop chief, evidently did not think it necessary to go through his trading routine with Lewis. He watched as Lewis looked over his canoes with the ornate prows. Later in the afternoon he stayed with Lewis, who was fishing with a couple of men, taking the line of first one an
d then another, while they took a look for better places to fish.

  Lewis was thinking, Why doesn’t he just tell us where the fish are and then go sit in the shade and let us fish? Actually he liked Comowool, had found him cleaner and easier to be around than some of the other chiefs at the various Chinook tribes. But his very liking was for some reason a source of irritation, as much toward himself as Chief Comowool.

  The men were working their way back toward camp by the middle of the afternoon when the row of ten or twelve Clatsop canoes came into view along the bank just ahead. Lewis pulled in his line, walked past Comowool, and said to the others in English as casually as if he were commenting on the weather, “We’ll take themiddle-sized one, second from the left, in payment for the half an elk he and his men took a month back.”

  George Shannon paused to wipe his forehead, gazed out across the swampy land in the opposite direction from the canoes, and said, “I’d take that long-prowed black on the other side.”

  “I haven’t had a chance to study them,” Pete Wiser said. “Is that big red one any good?”

  “Too big,” Lewis told him. “We have to take it past some fast water on the way out of here. We need something small and maneuverable.”

  “I’ll help you get it and have it well packed for the home stretch,” Joe Whitehouse said.

  They took delight in this game of mild revenge against the Clatsop chief who fished beside them. Lewis thought that the others probably found it sweeter than he did. How many times they had faced the language barrier when they were around the Chinooks and felt their shortcoming of not trying to learn the language, even the jargon! They discussed the merits of the canoes—which ones might be best for shallow water, which ones appeared to be watertight, which ones were most beautifully carved. Sometimes they looked at the string of canoes in order not to appear to avoid them. They enjoyed the sense of their own cleverness, the audacity, the hint of danger in it.

  The next morning, Lewis went back to the same place and bought a canoe from Comowool with his gold-laced uniform coat, the long-prowed black canoe. Comowool briefly checked the outside of the canoe for cracks, then began to pull it away from the main string.

  Lewis caught movement in the low brush above the bank and looked hard. Three men were coming on foot. He said to Comowool, “Looks like some others are coming here.”

  Comowool looked, frowning, then laughed and used jargon to talk with Lewis. “Yes, they are hunters from my village.”

  All three men came close and grinned in a friendly manner. One man’s hair seemed to have oil on it to make the black hairs stick together and form stiff points at each shoulder blade. He said, “Good day to be breaking camp and heading up the river.”

  “Pretty good,” Comowool said.

  “What I wanted to see you about—How much is half a good elk worth? Maybe a small canoe?”

  “Yes, about that.”

  “I guess the white chief can borrow that one.” He pointed to the middle-sized canoe, second from the left.

  “He knows you borrowed that elk meat.”

  “Well, he didn’t make a fuss over it, so he must have known we had some hungry people in our camp.”

  It seemed as if they were trying to outdo one another at grinning.

  Comowool asked, “Why do you stand there? Pull that canoe over against the first one I sold you.”

  Lewis began to grin. “All right. I’m much obliged. I’ll borrow this canoe. You fellows are all right.”

  Comowool chuckled. “Move out!” he said to his three hunters. In a moment the three of them had departed through the trees.

  Lewis was aware there had been a sense of comradeship and humor among the four Clatsops but that it was turned against him. He suspected that Comowool understood more English than he let on. Comowool started to follow his three men, then returned to Lewis, who was puffing as he pulled the borrowed canoe away from the others. The chief clicked his tongue, pointed to Lewis’s head, and put his hands together in the shape of a wedge. With more hand signs and jargon he said, “Friend, you are not as backward as some I bargain against. So, then—I am surprised that you people do not put your heads against the board as the Chinooks do. It would improve your looks.”

  Lewis was startled and confused. Was this more native humor or was it actual criticism? He took a deep breath, rested a moment before replying, and gathered his thoughts. Of course, he had seen Chinook mothers with their babies strapped to a cradleboard covered with soft moss. Across each baby’s forehead was a smooth slab of bark held on tightly by a leather band passing through both sides of the cradleboard. A grass pillow was under the back of the baby’s neck for support. Sacajawea told him the practice was vile and pointed to an infant whose mother was collecting seaweed. Thebaby’s eyes seemed to be about to pop out of his head from the extreme pressure of the flattening bark. Sacajawea told him that a baby was strapped in such a manner for the better part of his first year, thus causing the front of his skull to be flat and higher at the crown. She said, “The papoose cried when the mother cleaned him and quieted when the head lashing was again in place. Pagh! It is a practice for savages!”

  Lewis cleared his throat, pointed to his own head, and said, “We might try it, if it improved our minds.”

  The chief’s head bobbed up and down and his eyes twinkled in enjoyment of this competition of words. “How will you know until you try?”

  When Lewis told Clark of the incident he said, “These natives are not slow-witted. They can even outsmart us white men at times!” They both laughed out loud.

  On the day of departure, Captain Lewis gave Chief Comowool a certificate indicating the kindness and attention they had received. Then the captains made him a gift of the cabins and furniture in the fort as more substantial proof of their gratitude for his cooperation.1

  Comcommoly, the one-eyed Chinook chief, was given a certificate along with Chillahlawil and several other important men of the tribe. The fat Chief Delashelwilt was given an “Indian Commission” to keep him peaceful. These papers were seven and one-half by twelve and one-half inches and filled out with the name of the man being honored.2

  Just before leaving, Lewis posted a paper inside the officers’ quarters, which read:

  The object of this last, is, that through the medium of some civilized person, who may see the same, it may be made known to the world, that the party concisteing of the persons whose names are hereunto annexed, and who were sent out by the government of the United States to explore the interior of the continent of North America, did penetrate the same by way of Missouri and Columbia rivers, to the discharge of the latter into the Pacific Ocean, where they arrived on the 14th day of November, 1805, and departed on the 23rd of March, 1806, on their return to the United States, by the same route by which they had come out.3

  Both captains had given up the idea of the expedition’s returning by ship, even though they had carte blanche letters of credit, the main reason being that they sighted no ship during their stay on the west coast.4

  Departure day was gray, dreary, and wet. Sacajawea felt a lump in her throat when the canoes were loaded and they took final leave of the fort at one o’clock. Her head reeled as her canoe left shore and the water waved beneath her. When she looked back, the fort had sunk from sight beneath the low swell of the bay. She waved to the Chinooks packed on the shoreline. She wanted to weep.

  For two days the dugouts tossed in wind from storms that hovered over the land. Thunder roared around them. Lightning struck on the hillsides and twice started fires that quickly went out with the downpour of rain. Then the wind died altogether and the waves quieted. The unexpected silence deepened; the crashing of water on the shore became the only sound, and a sense of apprehension grew in Bratton’s mind as he lay in the bottom of a dugout, his back in great pain.

  “What is it?” he asked. His voice seemed startlingly loud without the wind to snatch it away.

  “Another storm somewheres,” Pryor said, and hi
s words, too, seemed loud. He spoke to Collins behind him and then said, “See, there? Over the far point. Drouillard and his men have found us a campsite. They are beaching their canoe; let’s follow.”

  Charbonneau was in Drouillard’s canoe, dipping in time with the movements of fish-oiled backs before him. Sweat smarted in his eyes as he balanced on raw knees and bruised toes, remembering how he had asked for the poling job, saying if he had to have his share of upstream work, he’d do his now while the water ran wide and smooth. He readied himself to jump overboard and help pull the canoe onto the shore. His palms were gummy with sores from the paddling. While the other canoes were pulled in, he let Sacajawea wrap his hands with soft, pliant leather. “They will heal faster wrapped,” he winced. “But until they are better, I cannot hold a paddle or pole.”

  Charbonneau woke the next morning and found he could not move without sharp pains; even his fingers were curled stiffly and felt like swollen growths.

  Mosquitoes had plagued the expedition since the weather warmed, and a new rash of bites began to itch excruciatingly. Charbonneau scratched a chain of welts, staring about and waving peevishly at the clot of gnats whining around his head. Sacajawea sat beside him and wordlessly offered him a bladder of fish oil.

  “I rub that on my hands and they will slip on the pole. I rub it on my back and I smell as vile as the rotten fish. You rub it on my aching shoulders.” He picked his teeth with a twig.

  “It is time to push on,” she said, rubbing some of the soreness from his shoulders. “The canoes are ready to go. Some have already started along the bank on foot to hunt elk. Come, Chief Red Hair says you will paddle again.”