Sacajawea

by Anna Lee Waldo

  Sacajawea sat up and rubbed her aching shoulder. There was smoke hanging low over the entire village and the strong smell of gunpowder. She felt an elation and smiled. Charbonneau had been right at first—this was a fine gun. Ram home a bullet, pull the rod free, and spark from the flint does the rest. There was no worry about getting the priming pan wet with sweat when holding it too close to the lock. She could still hear Chief Red Hair telling Shannon never to hold a flintlock close to the lock when carrying, because “your sweat will run down and damp the pan.”

  She looked around for Otter Woman and the boys. They were huddled down at the side of the lodge with Charbonneau. Otter Woman was wailing, tears running down her face. Sacajawea put the flintlock over her shoulder and said, “What is the matter? I have shot a wapiti for our lodge.”

  “Look for yourself,” said Charbonneau, his eyes wide. He pointed his stubby forefinger to the place where the bucks had been locked together in battle. They lay spraddled on the ground, still locked by their antlers, but with a score of arrows and knives growing out of their chests and sides. Several cows were down, the rest had disappeared, and in their place were four Minnetaree women with bloody backs and shoulders, their arms and legs flung out from their bodies.

  “What happened?” asked Sacajawea.

  “Ai,” whispered Otter Woman, beginning to wail louder. The boys clung to each other.

  “Everyone threw their weapons at once, like crazies. They wanted to kill the wapiti, and they killed themselves. Stupid! Stupid!” said Charbonneau, shaking his head as if coming out of a bad dream. Suddenly his head snapped up and he looked at Sacajawea. “Nom du bon dieu, what are you doing with my brand-new gun?”

  “I shot a wapiti,” she repeated.

  “How do you know how to shoot? Are you trying to show me up?”

  “Chief Red Hair let me shoot at targets pinned to a tree—only once or twice. I was never good.”

  “This was beginner’s luck then,” said Charbonneau, and his face brightened. “So—the gun, she works. The hoo-doo is broken. Give it to me and I’ll show you some real shooting.” He grabbed the gun and walked to the ditch, hoping that the frantic animals were still racing around it. He checked the gun, rammed in a ball, and felt the trigger. Holding it to his shoulder and remembering its kick, he wondered how Sacajawea took that jolt. Her shoulder is black and blue, he thought. He lowered the weapon when he saw that several women were already bent over dead animals, butchering them. Men were loading up packhorses. The remaining elk had stampeded through another break in the rotting pole fence, and Charbonneau walked over to join several men who were examining the exit. The men moaned that they could have gotten at least another six or seven animals if they had only been quicker.

  “I got me a wapiti,” Charbonneau told them, and then walked on.

  He passed a group of keening women. A young boy lay on the bloody ground. He had been caught in crossfire and hit in the back by an arrow but he was alive. The Shaman was calied to suck out the arrow head.4

  In an unusual burst of philosophizing, Charbonneau cursed at the waste of humankind in such a frenzy to save each other from hunger. Out loud he said, “I’ve seen death while people go for food, and death while people go without food. Where is the Great Spirit in this?”

  Several men came up to Charbonneau, and they talked about the power of the Shaman, a power that could bring wapiti right into their village when the front gate was locked. One man said, “The Shaman and Chief Kakoakis conjured something big last night. I heard plenty singing and dancing in the chief’s lodge.”

  The Minnetarees had killed two dozen wapiti, with an average weight of at least seven hundred pounds apiece. That would supply each lodge about a hundred twenty-five pounds of meat.5 This called for a feast and celebration that would last a couple of days.

  Charbonneau went back to make sure his womenhad started butchering “his” wapiti. If they got it all cut up and pulled into the lodge, out of sight, he reasoned, maybe he would not have to divide it with another family. After all, he thought, there is no meat in my lodge at this moment and I have two squaws with big mouths and two growing boys to feed.

  Otter Woman cried off and on most of the day as she and Sacajawea made strips for jerky inside their lodge. At the edge of the village where the bodies had been lifted to burial platforms, the families of the dead mourned with a high, ululated keening. Charbonneau spent the rest of the afternoon cleaning his gun, rubbing it with oil, watching the women work with the meat. He guffawed when the two boys complained that they couldn’t find the wapiti’s gall bladder. “You saps,” he said, “you have now learned what every man and woman already knows—that the wapiti does not have a gall bladder.”

  Charbonneau felt let down. The excitement had worn off and he had not used his gun. He glanced at Sacajawea and wondered if she was really good with his newfangled flintlock. He was a little afraid of her. If her temper came to a boil she might grab the gun again. What could he do about it? Maybe he would be better off getting out of this damned place—go out trapping for a while.

  Later in the afternoon Chief Kakoakis came to the lodge door. He and Charbonneau talked about how one of the larger wapiti was shot.

  “I sure got me a big one for this lodge,” bragged Charbonneau. “There are plenty of hungry mouths here. My gun shoots straight—never misses.”

  “You divided with a needy family?” asked the chief. “All people share. Your women will show you where extra meat is needed. I heard how the ball from your flintlock lodged directly in the wapiti’s heart. A perfect shot… and by a woman.”

  Charbonneau felt the blood rush to his neck and face. He looked at Sacajawea, who was speaking to the boys and seemed to be paying no attention to him. “Well, I was standing back from my woman, protecting her in case the wapiti came out of the ditch; I had this newfangled flintlock, see. I took careful aim and bam! That’sall I had to do. Aim and shoot. Her shot went into the fence. Mine went to the heart. It is a natural ability.”

  Kakoakis laughed and put his arm around Charbonneau’s shoulder. “You bring some of the white man’s rum to my lodge and we’ll celebrate your ability.”

  “I’m out of rum,” said Charbonneau, with some regret in his voice.

  “Get some,” said Kakoakis, leaving.

  Sacajawea looked at Charbonneau. The look made him shiver and feel guilty. He was afraid she might take some of his meat to that old woman, Grasshopper. Or worse, the old woman and her half-witted girl, along with the one who had all the papooses, might come for a visit in his lodge. If they did that, he did not want to be around. “I ought to go up to one of the Canadian posts,” he said. “I could get some things for the chief and do some trapping on the way.”

  No one said anything to his suggestion. He rubbed bear’s grease into the stock of his new gun and thought of picking up a piece of firewood and beating both women. Then they would talk to him, and pay him the attention he deserved as the man in the lodge. I could cut their noses off and send them out, he thought. Then I could find a couple nice young girls that appreciate me. But he knew no young thing would come willingly to his lodge if he did that bloody deed. And he would not do that because he preferred his squaws good-looking.

  Charbonneau found a better way to hide his disgrace than disfiguring his women or getting drunk with Chief Kakoakis. The Britisher who had sold him the flintlock returned late in the afternoon, and the two men left that night. They trapped the rivers of the Côte Noire. He was gone nearly a month.

  Most of the women were in the fields harvesting the fall crops. A Canadian trader on his way to Fort Assiniboin, then east, stopped by a belt-high stone fence and called out, ”Bonjour, mes amies!”

  Sacajawea looked up and squinted her eyes into the sun. She could see him talking to one of the women, his hands jerking. The woman wiped a hand across her perspiring face and motioned toward Sacajawea. “He calls in the same tongue as your man. I think he looksfor the one called Toussaint Ch
arbonneau, sometimes called Chief of the Little Village.”

  “Ami! she called, and walked to the narrow passageway in the rock fence. Out of the field, she noticed the man was short and his black hair trailed down his neck through a bone ring. There was no bridle on his horse, only a single rein tied to its lower jaw.

  “Alerte!” The face of the French-Canadian turned redder than the inner bark of the red pine. He licked his lips and spoke in French. “I want to speak to the man Charbonneau. You know where I can find him?”

  “Oui,” said Sacajawea, nodding her head. She also spoke in French so that this stranger would know that she spoke with a straight tongue. “He has just returned, this same day, from the Côte Noire.”

  The man stared unbelieving at the sweating squaw who laid her hoe against the rocks and motioned him to follow. He began unscrewing the cap of his powder flask, and pulled from the flask a cylinder of tightly rolled paper. Just inside the lodge were fur bales that Charbonneau hoped to exchange later for supplies. The man looked at them, then looked into the center of the lodge where Charbonneau was pouring water into a sack of flour to make galette.

  Sacajawea tied the man’s horse to Charbonneau’s, which was hobbled at the side of the lodge. She saw a twitching around Charbonneau’s mouth, the beginning of a grin that anticipated a meeting with an old friend. But he did not know this man.

  The stranger took Charbonneau by the arm. “Charbonneau—Toussaint?”

  “Oui.” He let the water go unkneaded in the small flour sack. “What you want with me?”

  “I am André La Croix. I have a letter.” He unrolled the bit of paper.

  “Wait! Can you read it?” Charbonneau reached for the paper. “Name of a name, who would write all this to me?”

  “We find out who he is.” André La Croix read the letter. His English came with difficulty, his lips exploring every sound.

  Sacajawea looked over La Croix’s shoulder and drewin her breath. She stared frozenly. To her the neat script meant only one person, Chief Red Hair.

  August 20, 1806, in board Pirogue near Ricara Village

  Charbono:

  Sir: Your present situation with the Indians gives me some concern—I wish now 1 had advised you to come on with me to the Illinois where it most probably would be in my power to put you on some way to do something for yourself. I had not time to talk with you as much as I intended to have done. You have been a long time with me and have conducted yourself in such a manner as to gain my friendship; your woman, who accompanied you that long dangerous and fatiguing route to the Pacific Ocian and back, deserved a greater reward for her attention and services on that route than we had in our power to give her at the Mandans. As to your little son (my boy Pomp) you well know my fondness for him and my anxiety to take and raise him as my own child. I once more tell you if you will bring your son Baptiest to me I will educate him and treat him as my own child—I do not forgit the promis which I made to you and shall now repeat them that you may be certain—Charbono, if you wish to live with the white people, and will come to me, I will give you a piece of land and furnish you with horses cows and hogs—If you wish to visit your friends in Montreall, I will let you have a horse, and your family shall be taken care of until your return—if you wish to return as an interpreter for the Menetarras when the troops come up from the establishment, you will be with me ready and I will procure you the place—or if you wish to trade with the Indians and will leave your little Son Pomp with me, I will assist you with merchandise for that purpose, and become myself concerned with you in trade on a small scale, that is to say not exceeding a perogue load at one time. If you are disposed to accept either of my offers to you, and will bring your Son your famn Janey had best come along with you to take care of the boy until I get him—let me advise you to keepyour bill of exchange and what furs and pelteries you have in possession, and get as much more as you can, and get as many robes, and big horn and cabbra skins as you can collect in the course of this winter. And take them down to St. Louis as early as possible. Enquire of the governor of that place for a letter which I shall leave with the governor. I shall inform you what you had best do with your furs pelteries and robes, etc. when you get to St. Louis write a letter to me by the post and let me know your situation—If you do not intend to go down either this fall or in the spring, write a letter to me by the first opportunity and inform me what you intend to do that I may know if I may expect you or not. If you ever intend to come down this fall or the next spring will be the best time—this fall would be best if you could get down before winter. I shall be found either in St. Louis or in Clarksville at the falls of the Ohio.

  Wishing you and your family great success, and with anxious expectation of seeing my little dancing boy Baptiest, I shall remain your friend.

  William Clark

  Keep this letter and let not more than one or two persons see it, and when you write to me seal your letter. I think you best not determine which of my offers to accept until you see me. Come prepared to accept of either which you may choose after you get down.

  Mr. Teousant Charbono, Menetarras Villages.6

  “Read it once more,” urged Sacajawea.

  Charbonneau made a noise in his throat that signified nothing. “What does it mean?”

  La Croix sucked in his breath and expressed exasperation. He had an owllike face and round, lightless black eyes; he was darker than Charbonneau. His fat shoulders and short back were blackened by the sun and wind. He wore a white mussel-shell necklace with a pendant of bear claws.

  “Did you see Chief Red Hair?” Sacajawea ran her hands lightly over the paper.

  “When I left him, he and his men, they were going to Saint Louis.” He read the script again.

  Charbonneau shook his head in two short, impatient jerks, as if the suggestions had enraged and awed him. He was in a quandary. Which offer was best for him? How should he get down to Saint Louis? When should he go? Should he go at all? He argued and considered, and then decided not to go. He did not have enough pelts yet.

  “Pouf!” said La Croix, fastening his belt up another notch, “you’re too damned toplofty for your good, my man. A chance like that? You decide not to do anything. A bigger fool I’ve never seen.” He pulled on glossy skin gloves and went out to mount his horse.

  Sacajawea turned so the firelight touched her eyes. They were half-closed, narrow; their polished gleam was no wider than two splinters of sharp flint. They were hostile, and her voice was hostile. “You have shown yourself to be a jackass and a fool.”

  She darted after La Croix. “We have pemmican and galette. Eat; then you’ll be ready to start out.”

  “Merci; au revoir. A free trader like myself ought to be moving before sunset, Madame Charbonneau. I was paid fairly to get the letter into Charbonneau’s hand. Now that the job is finished I’m heading toward the Lake of Rains—there’s a long enough trail ahead. If I sit around, I hear things that are not there—the wind in the grass, the sound of running hooves on the earth, the murmur of water about a canoe bow, the beat of a skin drum, the chanting of watermen. So I go back to trapping and living among Assiniboins and Ojibwas. Savez-vous? I like white man’s luxuries, though — mashed potatoes with salt.”

  “Vous attendez.” Sacajawea ducked inside the lodge and was back in a minute with a handful of sugar cubes. Some were stained purple because they had been kept in a bag with dried currants and plums.

  “Merci!” called La Croix as he rode off, first looking up and around to orient himself by the sun as Sacajawea stammered her gratitude to him for bringing the letter. Then he rode in a beeline for the north, going through the back gate of the village and keeping on across the prairie to the edge of the forest.

  Sacajawea shivered with sudden anticipation. She thought of holding the letter, looking at the markings that Chief Red Hair had made. She thought, He does think of us as I think each day of him. We will meet again.

  Charbonneau went to Fort Pine to trade his furs.
The days turned to winter, and the country was changed. Sacajawea’s memories crowded together and moved in a tightly woven parade, overlapping and merging until they blurred before her eyes as if in a whirl of snowflakes. When she could stand it no longer, she reached into the sack that held Charbonneau’s valuables, such as his government money order, his French harp, three or four tallow candles, and Clark’s letter. She looked at the markings on the paper in the light of the lodge fire and found some that were similar. But she could not read them.

  She now lived in the present, using events gone by only as a measure of comparison, as a guiding experience for the future, which never emerged. There was an inherent vitality in Sacajawea’s coppery figure, an ability to adapt, a placidity and devotion to her child, that gave no sign of weakening. Otter Woman observed this vital force in Sacajawea through the searing monotony of the days when the snow spread a white cover over the quiet hills and the river froze.

  When Charbonneau returned from the north, he was in a black mood because he felt he had not received enough for his fine pelts. He began to grumble over the food his women brought him. He did not like the steady diet of corn and squash and elk jerky. Both women explained that he had not brought in enough other meat to use in the stew or to make pemmican.

  Grimacing, Sacajawea told Otter Woman of the steady diet of fish that winter in Fort Clatsop.

  “Fish would taste good now!” exclaimed Otter Woman, pulling her soiled woolen blanket more tightly around her shoulders.

  “We will get some, then,” said Sacajawea, and she told the boys to pull on their warm leggings. They walked upstream to fish through the ice, away from the places where the young boys of the village fished, sothat none would tease or taunt them with shouts of how their man could not provide enough food. They caught small bass. Sacajawea told how the white men did not eat the insides, not even the heads of fish. Otter Woman shook her head, thinking of all that good food going to waste.