Sacajawea

by Anna Lee Waldo

  Hides Well belched profoundly and satisfyingly, and Sacajawea’s anger fled. Sacajawea flexed her knees and grinned at the woman. Hides Well grinned broadly, delighting in the white man’s profanity Sacajawea had used. She nodded wisely, covered her laughter with her hand, and made the sound of amusement and astonishment, “Hooo-hooo.”

  “Hooo-hooo, yourself,” Big Badger said, coming into the center of the women’s work area. “I heard what you said. I listened carefully. Why should my people do anything to help a woman who has lived among the whites?” His voice was icy.

  Sacajawea’s heart fell to the ground.

  “For many a harvest I was friend of some whites. I protected them against bad Comanches. I received only treachery for my actions. For the lives of whites I saved I was paid in death of Quohada warriors. Other white traders came to us with promises and left us death.” He spoke of the times the white men had gathered the Comanches together promising to make peace and then instead had poisoned their drinking water.

  When he finished, Sacajawea replied, “You do not yet tell the whole story. You are correct, but your hatred blinds you to something. I can tell you as many more as you have already told me of Indians who have stolen, broken promises, traded spoiled meat for good axes, and caused death and sorrow among the whites.”

  “You tell me white men are good?” Big Badger adjusted his robe. “They kill us, so we kill them.”

  “Ai, there are bad whites. There are also bad Comanches.”

  “You ask me to now be your friend when you have been a friend of our enemies?”

  “Still, there are white men who have caused yourpeople no harm, and yet they are hunted like animals and killed. Do your people try to find which white men are good and which are bad?”

  “No.”

  “I ask you to be greater than that.”

  Big Badger gazed at her in bewilderment. “You are a strange woman, and you ask strange things. You ask favors. Only men ask favors.”

  “I am speaking as a man speaks to another man. A man can give favors only according to his own size.”

  Big Badger stood up and walked away. Sacajawea looked at Hides Well, who had been greatly amused by the outspoken Sacajawea. There was now a comfortable understanding between the two women. There were no hard feelings. Hides Well nodded her head toward Big Badger. Sacajawea followed him until he stood at the edge of a huge stone.

  “It is quiet here,” she said. “Ai.”

  “It is good here.”

  “Ai.” Then Big Badger began to speak, at first more to himself. “This is the country of the Quohada Comanches. This is the country where they belong. The hills and valleys and day and night belong to us. It was so from the memory of the oldest man, and that memory came from the oldest man ahead of him. There was nobody but Comanches here and the land was filled with food and the Comanches could make a living for themselves. The Mexicans came, and we defeated them. The white men come again with more treachery and arrogance. The white man thinks he is better than any other man. He makes his own laws and says those laws must be obeyed. Why?”

  The old man took his pipe from the folds of his robe and smoked. Sacajawea let a little time go by before speaking. Then slowly, careful of her words, measuring them, thinking of their effect, appearing casual and unworried, she said, “Comanches have laws, and when a white man lives among them he must obey them.” She added, “I have broken your law. I do not control my tongue. I broke another when I set the bone in the wrist of the son of Kicking Horse and sewed the skin of Twisted Horn’s son so he would not be disfigured.

  And I am breaking another by sitting here talking with an important man in your tribe?”

  Big Badger stretched his arm and touched Sacajawea’s shoulder. The muscles of his upper arm were banded with silver; there was an expression of serenity on his face.

  “Wadzewipe,” he said, “I respect you.” His words came slowly, and were as careful as Sacajawea’s had been. “We are friends.”

  Although the touch on her shoulder was light, she felt its calming effect. She felt a great peace come over her. She knew inexplicably that the outstretched hand was a bridge to cross the abyss. She felt secure and very alive. The old man spoke once more.

  “You will find a way to show the Quohadas you are to be respected, and you will answer to the name Wadzewipe.”

  Sacajawea looked unwaveringly at him. “I do not know how I will do this.”

  “We will talk often. You are welcome among the Quohadas always.”

  Sacajawea looked away from Big Badger, into the blue, hazy distance. “Through his life a person is content if he finds a friend. Through that one friend a person has more contentment than he can have with hundreds of others.”

  “You will begin your new life here as one of us.” Big Badger rose and adjusted his robe.

  “I find it good here.” Sacajawea scrubbed her face with her hands to make the memory of her past go away. She dropped her hands and met the old man’s eyes.

  “Your boys will find a new life for themselves. They are grown. To find your son one day may be something the Great Spirit only knows about. You will rest with the Quohadas.”

  They walked silently to the village, Sacajawea following Big Badger, to the tepee that stood near the center. In the sun before it sat Hides Well. She was pretending to sleep. Sacajawea knew that she was waiting for them and that she watched through small slits in her eyes.

  Big Badger drew his robe over his chest, grunted toindicate the conversation was finished, and bent to enter his tepee.

  Hides Well stirred and looked up the street at some yipping dogs. “He is considerable man,” she said.

  Before going to sleep that night, Sacajawea thought of all the people she had known. Their names sounded foreign in her mind, as though they were now people of a strange land.

  As the winter wore on, there was less and less work to do and Sacajawea learned to recall the forgotten words of her native language, and to give them the Comanche accent. Big Badger spoke Spanish at times, which he had learned from the Mexican traders. She quickly picked up his limited Spanish vocabulary.

  Pronghorn was chief leader of hunts. In that capacity he called on Kicking Horse, the chief Medicine Man, to perform the hunt ritual. Kicking Horse asked Bites Hard and Dancing Foot each to carry a secret charm chosen from his medicine bag. Kicking Horse put on his sacred mask made of the whole skin of a buffalo head with the horns still attached. He moved the mask skyward, then toward the four corners of the earth in a prayer to the guardian spirit. He prayed that the spirit would direct the buffalo to the Quohada hunting grounds. He turned four times, moving his outstretched hands in a curved line so that they formed an imaginary ring. Everyone believed he was powerful enough to draw a large, invisible ring around any herd of animals.

  In the morning Pronghorn led the hunters to the hunting grounds. They found a good-size herd of buffalo and they rode in from all directions. The men on horseback rushed the animals closer and closer together. The buffalo dashed recklessly around like a gigantic pin-wheel. The hunters moved inward, shrinking the outside circumference as they whistled wildly. The sound was like a tremendous wind rushing through tops of gigantic oaks. The tramping of the frantic animals’ hooves was like a constant, earthshaking thundering.

  Kicking Horse was left on a little knoll far outside the ring. He watched closely and suddenly pointed his medicine bag at a gasping bull. The animal fell fromexhaustion and was trampled to death. That was the cue for Bites Hard and Dancing Foot to fling the charms away and to shoot their arrows. After their chosen animals were dead, the other hunters took their turn.8

  Kicking Horse enjoyed showing off his power. However, there was one person he had no power over—his first woman, Gray Bone. She was given to fits of incoherent rantings. Her hair was coarse and uneven at the ends and her eyes were beady and hard. She was fat and usually slow on her feet.

  Flower, Kicking Horse’s second woman, was made to work hard
by Gray Bone, who was also unpleasantly jealous. Sacajawea had had a taste of that jealousy, and wondered what could be done to counteract it and replace it with friendship.

  The weather during the last part of winter alternated between bad spells of cold and sunny days when the film of ice at the creek’s edge would melt by the middle of the day. On some good days Sacajawea went with Spring and Hides Well to bring wood or dig roots for eating. Sometimes Jerk Meat came into the tepee and sat in a corner watching the women work.

  Jerk Meat was tall and lanky, unusual for Comanches, who were generally built short and stout. He always wore the silver plate in his long hair. He smiled and seemed friendly with everyone in the lodge. He was always helpful and kindly and did not talk too much. Once he put his hand on Sacajawea’s arm to help her balance an overlarge load of firewood. Sacajawea thought the touch was as nothing to him, but from it she felt fire course through her body. This she interpreted as gratitude that he had brought her to his village.

  Living close with them, Sacajawea began to notice that Jerk Meat’s face was smooth and deep red in color. In a far-off way he sometimes reminded her of Chief Red Hair, but his face was broader and he had great jaws and wide cheekbones. His manner was gentle, and he continued to treat her like a child. His hair was always clean. Often his sister, Spring, combed it for him. It was greased and slicked down on top; then the two braids, which started at his shoulders, were wrappedin bearskin with long whisks of buffalo fur tucked inside.

  Jerk Meat was one of the honored warriors in a tribe where warfare was highly regarded. He was taught to ride horseback well as a young boy, to stand water and food deprivation. He knew that success in defeating an enemy was rewarded with tribal respect and admiration, and he believed that death in battle was a thing of glory, guarding a person from the terrible miseries of old age.9

  One day two young visitors came to the large tepee. One wore dirty old pieces of thick buckskin tied around his left wrist. It was Wolf. Sacajawea was pleased to see him. He had come to have the tough buckskin cast removed. She led him close to the fire so that she could better see where to cut the old lacings. She nodded and pulled out her butcher knife. She had to make sure she did not cut too close and pierce her own fingers. Wolf sat on the floor when the buckskin was peeled. He held his arm in his lap.

  “The tingling will soon be gone,” Sacajawea assured him. “See how pale it is. It needs exercise—slowly at first. In a few days it will be all right.”

  She looked into the second youth’s face. The deep gash under his eye that she had sewn with his black hair had healed into a thin pink ridge. Her fingers ran over the ridge lightly.

  The son of Twisted Horn smiled and pointed to a man who was at the door of the tepee. It was Kicking Horse, dressed in his finest clothes, as though it were a feast day.

  “My father comes to see you perform your healing,” explained Wolf. “He believes your medicine is nearly as great as his.”

  Kicking Horse came inside and examined Wolf’s wrist.

  “It is healed. See, it hurts and needs to learn to work, but I can twist it around and pick up little things. My mother said it would be forever stiff. It is not.”

  The son of Twisted Horn darted out of the tepee, then came back with a basket woven of heavy grass brought back from some Mexican raid.

  “I thank you,” said the boy.

  Wolf said, “My father brings you a gift.”

  Kicking Horse laid several large silver loops at her feet. Sacajawea stepped back and nodded her appreciation.

  “My mother, Gray Bone, is not well,” said Wolf. “She has a fever and coughs. My father prays over her when she sleeps.”

  “Have you tried the sweat bath?” Sacajawea asked Kicking Horse.

  Kicking Horse looked startled. “That is only for the men.”

  Sacajawea looked about her. The lodge of Pronghorn sat perfectly still. “I am sorry,” she said quietly. She wondered why it was she always forgot that women took a secondary place.

  Jerk Meat stepped out from the shadows and grinned, not knowing how winsome the uncertain, one-sided smile was. “You said yourself Wadzewipe had some power for healing. And so—then you, the Medicine Man, could arrange a kind of sweat bath for your own woman as Wadzewipe suggests.”

  Kicking Horse scowled, then nodded.

  Jerk Meat saw Sacajawea’s mouth soften and twitch a little as if she might be trying to keep from smiling.

  “There is no harm in trying, even though it is not usually done,” said Kicking Horse. Then he looked Sacajawea fully in the face. “Are you a Shaman?”

  A chill settled over her. “No, I can do nothing that is magical. I know little compared to the knowledge of the white men who are called doctors.”

  Kicking Horse began to speak, but at the same time Spring had gone to the tepee entrance and suddenly let out a cry of surprise. “Horses! Who would tie all those horses to the entrance of this tepee?”

  Kicking Horse made a small sound in his throat.

  The boys, Wolf and the son of Twisted Horn, laughed. “Ask her,” they said together. “Kicking Horse, tell her why you are here.”

  Kicking Horse made the small sound again and cleared his throat. “I have come to ask Lost Woman to live in my tepee and share her medicinal powers with me. I come to take her. I leave my finest horses to replace your loss.”

  Sacajawea moved back stiffly. Dryly she repeated, “I have no power.”

  Kicking Horse glanced around the lodge, embarrassed. He pulled at the one silver loop that ornamented his left ear. He rubbed a thumb on it and mumbled, “The Lost Woman will come? There is no reason to hesitate. My offer is generous.”

  “She does not have any powers to share,” said Chief Pronghorn sternly, looking down at Kicking Horse, who had hunched his shoulders.

  “I suppose I should say she is soft,” said Big Badger, moving the boys aside so that he could speak directly to Kicking Horse. “She cannot carry much wood. And her water kettle is only half-full.”

  “She is my sister,” said Spring, giggling behind her hand. “And she helps around the lodge less than any one of us women.”

  “And she does that hastily,” added Jerk Meat, his words coming queerly thick, as if pushed out of his throat over some obstacle. “She is constantly in hot grease with someone for giving of her clumsy help and bad advice.”

  “I call her bossy,” said Big Badger tautly.

  “Does she boss you?” asked Kicking Horse, backing toward the tepee opening.

  “She’d better not!” said Big Badger.

  “Well, then, maybe I can handle her,” Kicking Horse said, coming back into the tepee. “I can take care of my women, Flower and Gray Bone, well enough.” He moved swiftly toward Sacajawea. “Will you come as my third woman?”

  She smoothed her short hair, not yet grown out more than two or three inches from the cropping she’d received more than four months before. She pulled at the neck of her tunic, shook out her skirt, and went—had Kicking Horse known it—through all the motions a woman makes when she is confused and nervous and wants to gain time—a necessity for setting herself to rights before she sets a man in his place. All Kicking Horse saw was a composed young woman whose voice was cool, whose eyes were not, and whose mouth was puckered.

  “My fingernails are long; they scratch. I have notwashed. My stench is stronger than the polecat’s. Your horses, out there”—pointing to the six that were tethered to a stake in front of the tepee—“have never been brushed, so their hair is dull. The Comanches must learn to brush the hair on their horses before they will have anything compared to those of the white man.”

  Kicking Horse tried to think of something to say, to find an excuse for his presence, for his intrusion. There seemed to be nothing that would not make matters worse, so he said nothing. He simply stood awkwardly before her, twisting the silver loop around and around. Carefully he kept his face composed, knowing that to stammer, to utter some inanity, would only incur her s
wift wrath and bring it down on his head. It was easy to tell she was seething, that all she needed was his first word to start boiling over. He knew he could not endure another woman with a sharp tongue in his tepee. Gray Bone was more than enough for him. He had no idea that this Lost Woman was so free with her tongue. He did not like Pronghorn, but today he felt sorry for him with this woman in his family. Meekly he turned, picked up the several large silver loops, and shuffled through the opening, blinking in the light of day, motioning for the silent boys to bring the horses along home with them. “In Pronghorn’s moccasins I would lodgepole that woman. It would be a good thing.” The boys laughed, but made no reply. It was not good to venture opinions in family matters.

  “Is it true you think our horses dull?” asked Jerk Meat wryly.

  Sacajawea stared at Jerk Meat, who met her look. Color flamed in her face, turned her warm-red. “But then, your horses, they are even more beautiful than those owned by my people, the Shoshonis.”

  “You are now truly one of us, Granddaughter!” shouted Big Badger, dancing with tiny to-and-fro movements. Then he stood before his grandson Jerk Meat. “Would you like this woman as your own and have many sons by her?”

  Jerk Meat looked at Big Badger awkwardly, as if off balance. Then his eyes shone and his mouth worked to keep from smiling. “She is one of us. You just calledher granddaughter. Does a man take his own sister?” He struck out for the open air, trotting up the main street of the village, leaving Sacajawea standing with her mouth open, bereft of the last word.10

  CHAPTER

  45

  Comanche Marriage

  For the ordinary Mexican mule and donkey caravans, existence was purely nomadic—the finding of an Indian encampment, the making of presents, then the spreading of trade goods on the ground: bolts of calico and a few Navajo blankets; some knives and beads and mirrors, the hard, sweet bread the Mexicans baked in their outdoor ovens; beans and pumpkins, which the Indians relished as a change in their all meat diet. Generally there was Taos whiskey, too, and it is not likely that the Comanches eschewed its use. Once the goods were displayed, prices were set by the use of counting sticks—this many pumpkins for a pair of moccasins; this many buffalo robes for a Navajo blanket. Haggling was interminable. Every article was traded for individually, never in lots. But finally the bartering was done and then probably there was a feast in the lodge of the chief, story telling, gambling at the game of hands, horse races, and quick, urgent amours.