Sacajawea

by Anna Lee Waldo

  “I think her best bet is at old Gabe’s Fort, on the Black Fork. It’s not so much, just some logs and a sort of stockade. I heard that Louis Vasquez, down the table there yonder, helped Gabe with the building. Fantastic the way it holds together. Say, this squaw—she speaksa fair sort of English and knows more than most about them Charbonneaus. How do you account for that?”

  “I believe her.” St. Vrain then stepped over toward Monsieur Fontaine. “Why don’t you stay tomorrow? It is the Fourth of July, and we’ll shoot off the cannon and pass out some bacanora or cognac. I’ll start some book learning with those girls. And I’ll give you some books so that Lupton can help for a while this winter. In the afternoon the little girls can see horse racing and the games. They’ll enjoy the festivities. So will your Madame Charbonneau. Some Cheyennes are coming in for trade, and with them Gray Thunder, the daddy of Owl Woman. You know who she is? Bill Bent’s Cheyenne woman.”

  “Will Owl Woman come?” asked Sacajawea softly.

  “It’s possible. Knowing that his brother Charley is here, Bill Bent might just come in with his woman.”

  “Hey, Jacques,” called Charley Bent from another table to Monsieur Fontaine, “tomorrow you show us how you can ride your horse and what a good shot you are! We’ll get a few bets going.”

  The next day before noon, John Charles Frémont and his party, including Tom Fitzpatrick, arrived at St. Vrain’s Fort. There was much shouting and celebrating. They were invited to eat in the mess hall with St. Vrain and the others. During the conversation St. Vrain asked Frémont if he had heard any news from Saint Louis of Baptiste Charbonneau.

  “Of course. Just last summer I met that old grizzly-fighter. He was taking peltries to Saint Louis. Said he was working for you and Bent.”

  “True,” said St. Vrain.

  “Well, he ran into a snag—that is, the spring rise had been too low to carry the boats, so they gave up and sent for horses. Didn’t you get word and send him some?”

  “No, but maybe Bill Bent did.”

  “Well, he had the nicest little camp not far from Fort Morgan on an island. Called it Saint Helena. Sounds like him, doesn’t it? There was this big grove of large cottonwoods and the tents were pitched under them.” Frémont waved his long arms about and moved hismouth around as he talked. “He made us mint julep from horsemint. Very good, as a matter of fact. We had boiled buffalo tongue, and coffee, with the luxury of sugar.”

  “See there”—St. Vrain pointed down the table to the vicinity of Sacajawea, who could eat none of her noon meal as she overheard their conversation—“that is his mother.”

  “Now, Céran. You must be coming apart. That is a squaw in a gingham dress, but the mother of Bap? Wagh! He’s an educated man. He studied some years in Europe.”

  “She knows a lot about his early life in Saint Louis,” said St. Vrain.

  “Probably heard something from white traders. Those Indians will tell you anything that pleases. You know that.”

  After eating, Frémont and half his party moved south to gather news from traders and trappers at Lupton’s about passage over the western mountain range. Then they planned to move down to Bent’s for mules. Tom Fitzpatrick stayed behind with the other half of the party to gather further information about travel through the mountain passes.

  The sun was high when Gray Thunder’s band came in sight. Already the Utahs and Shoshonis were having a riding competition. Sacajawea and the little girls watched dancers. Two tepees had been pitched together, the poles crossed, and the lodge skins rolled up to form a large pavilion. A half-dozen men beat time on a hollow-log drum, while another half-dozen squatted in a row and played on tight leather hand drums. All seemed orderly confusion. Elderly men moved about quietly. Women with infants openly at their breasts, and others with small children, were arranging pallets on the ground in the little shade they could find from piñons and chamisa.

  Louis Vasquez moseyed around the fort before taking his supplies, including two bags of salt, back to his own trading post a couple of miles north. St. Vrain insisted Vasquez first meet the Shoshoni squaw who claimed to be Bap Charbonneau’s mother.

  Sacajawea smiled politely and asked slowly, in Spanish, when Vasquez thought Bap would be back around these forts.

  “I’ll be a ring-tailed racoon,” said Vasquez to St. Vrain. ‘The woman does speak fair Spanish and knows more about that dude Charbonneau than you or I together.” Then he turned to Sacajawea and said, “I think that son of yours is on his way to Gabe’s Fort. Then he’ll be in and out of this area sooner or later.” Vasquez was still shaking his head in wonder over the Shoshoni woman who talked Spanish with French phrases scattered here and there, as he left St. Vrain’s Fort that afternoon.

  A noisy game of hands was in progress. It was a game Monsieur Fontaine had played many times—the Indians’ version of the old shell game. He loved it. Sacajawea watched the drummers beat time on hand drums and heard everybody sing a noisy accompaniment to the rhythmic movement of the one-who-hides-some-thing, who manipulated the small, polished bone. She found the game did not intimidate her. The unpleasantness of my girlhood is a thing of the past. Those bad things have healed over, she thought.

  Kit Carson seemed bored with the games and went out along the other side of the fort to the horse races.

  Old Bill Williams nudged Monsieur Fontaine. “Let’s get in that there game,” he said in a thin, cracked voice. Bill was about six feet, one inch, gaunt, redheaded, with a hard, weather-beaten face, marked deeply with smallpox. He was all muscle and sinew. He had heard of the festivities going on at St. Vrain’s Fort and being in the vicinity had come in to see the goings-on. Generally he avoided crowds. He preferred his own company. He had lived with one Indian tribe or another for years. He was called Lone Elk by his friends.

  There was a log-sawing contest, and Sacajawea moseyed there with the girls to watch.

  Gray Thunder left his men, who were unpacking, preparing to do some trading, and he came straight for the games. Monsieur Fontaine spoke his regards to Gray Thunder and offered to let him play hands in his place. Bill Williams seemed to look neither to the right nor the left. He did not look at Gray Thunder as he spoke, but seemed to be thinking of something else as his voice whined out, “Once you sit here, there can be no exasperatin’ hagglin’ over where the bone is. I hain’t gonner stay if this game gets slow and bound up.”

  The wrinkled, tough-minded Gray Thunder sat down to play the game with vigor. Monsieur Fontaine, now standing, watched as the Cheyenne Medicine Man lay his tobacco pouch on the blanket. Others followed Gray Thunder and put down their bets. Gray Thunder tossed in two silver dollars on top of the pouch he’d just put down. Bill Williams bent forward, which gave him the appearance of being humpbacked, and moved his head from side to side. The Cheyenne singing commenced. Gray Thunder moved his hands in time to the singing, allowing occasional glimpses of the bone as he passed it from one hand to the other. Bill pointed to his right hand, but it was empty.

  “Ee-yah!” exclaimed those who had bet on Gray Thunder. But the round was not over, the Cheyennes having merely gained the advantage. Gray Thunder smiled as he handed the bone to Bill Williams. If the old Indian guessed right, he would win. Bill Williams gently placed his worn Bible on the blanket. “Lucifer, get behind me,” he said.

  Gray Thunder guessed right and won. ‘That there Bible will do you no good, but it will do you no harm, either,” commented Bill. “I’ll get my Good Book back, you varmint.”

  Both Gray Thunder and Bill guessed right on the next round, so no bets were exchanged—though some additional wagers were made by the onlookers. It was fairly even for a while; then Bill Williams began winning more consistently. After a long losing streak, Gray Thunder looked at Bill admiringly. “Lone Elk, he is much alive,” he said.

  Monsieur Fontaine, sitting cross-legged next to old Bill, glanced briefly at Gray Thunder. Gray Thunder smiled quickly, his little twinkling eyes everywhere, then he resumed his ma
sked emotions. Monsieur Fontaine thought about these two travelers, Bill and Gray Thunder, of merging trails, who did well to keep an eye on one another’s attitude. Fontaine felt alive himself this day, and he was enjoying himself more than hehad in many months. He felt now he had something to live for, a motivation. He was going to have both little girls educated so they could read and write and make something of themselves.

  As the stakes in the game increased, Fontaine’s confidence increased, and he spoke aside to Sacajawea, who had come to sit beside him so the girls could watch the game. Bill Williams once in a while paused in his game to make laughing grimaces at the two little girls, who in turn hugged their knees in laughter.

  “Madame Charbonneau, get St. Vrain. Tell him to bring something for higher stakes. This will be my day! Gray Thunder is finding he cannot stretch Bill Williams on the fence to dry!”

  St. Vrain came back with Sacajawea. Both were laden with trinkets and a roll of white strouding. The Cheyennes began leaving the circle of the game to reappear carrying loads of furs. They could not resist the white man’s trinkets and cloth. The game resumed and new bettors arrived and others entered or withdrew as their luck prompted them. Besides quantities of foofaraw, Monsieur Fontaine was soon betting good three-point blankets to entice the Indians to risk their whole winter caches of beaver and fox.

  Gray Thunder played it cautiously, sometimes sitting out a game or two and letting one of his warriors play. The games were now fairly even and the Indians were well satisfied until Old Bill had another run of luck and took three games in a row. “I gotter keep that white cloth for the two pretty little papooses here. They plumb took my fancy,” he said, closing down on one eye as if to wink at Suzanne and Crying Basket. Because of the number of Indians betting against him and also the size of the stakes, Old Bill’s winnings were beginning to make an impressive pile. St. Vrain lifted the pile of furs and skins off the blanket. “Nice easy way to trap,” he commented.

  “Aw,” said Bill, “you all know I have no glory except in the woods, and my ambition is to kill more deer and catch more beaver than any other man. But these here I’m giving to this here Fontaine so’s he can give his papoose some book learnin’. I say it won’t do ‘em much good, but it won’t hurt ‘em, neither.”

  Just then, Gray Thunder looked over at the huge pile of furs and skins. He stood up using hand signs as he talked. “Your winnings against what I have left.”

  “Hi! Ti! Good! Agreed!” shouted the Cheyennes behind him.

  “One pile of furs,” Old Bill said. He broke a stick in two and set half of it, to represent the pile, at the edge of the blanket.

  Gray Thunder matched the half stick and nodded to the Cheyennes to sing.

  Old Bill nodded toward Gray Thunder’s left hand and missed, but when he, too, succeeded in concealing the bone, Gray Thunder lost the advantage. St. Vrain sat at the edge of the blanket letting himself be drawn into the merrymaking. Old Bill passed the bone to St. Vrain, and a new game was started. Old Bill withdrew his precious worn Bible from the blanket.

  Gray Thunder placed a whole marker at the edge of the blanket. “A horse.” St. Vrain matched the bet. The round was deadlocked. The sticks increased until both St. Vrain and Gray Thunder had bet a fourth of their animals. Old Bill clapped his hands and yelped in a voice that left the hearers in doubt whether he was laughing or crying. Then St. Vrain guessed wrong and Gray Thunder guessed right and won the game. A riotous shout went up from the Cheyennes. They knew they could sell horses at their own price to the loser. The dancing gyrations became wild, and Monsieur Fontaine feared it could lead to mayhem. He looked at the Cheyennes’ dark faces and knew it would not take much to start trouble. Other traders had had their hair lifted for less. He shrugged and tossed the short length of polished bone to Gray Thunder.

  “Start it off, ami,” said St. Vrain, who was determined not to be beaten. St. Vrain lost the round and was minus at least half his horses. Monsieur Fontaine shook his head. “That enfant’s a fool to even have started in a chance game,” he said to Old Bill.

  Bill sniffed the air, and even though he appeared to look straight ahead, his eyes were everywhere. Gray Thunder resumed the game. St. Vrain won a round, and another. Then Gray Thunder won. The stalemate began again. The Cheyennes became as possessed, swaying back and forth, in and out, stamping their feet and raising their arms with the beat of the drummers. Some called to the players to move on more quickly. Bill Williams edged around beside Sacajawea and tweaked the nose of each little girl; then he whispered something to Sacajawea and moved his hands rapidly so that she’d be certain to understand. Her eyes rounded, and she caught her breath a moment. Then he seemed to reassure her with a touch of his hand, as he held the old Bible toward the heavens.

  “Ai,” she nodded and left to move inside the fort, leaving the girls watching the game.

  Bill Williams sniffed the air and remarked boldly, “Do’ee hyar now, boys, thar’s sign about?” His high-pitched voice quavered. “This hoss feels like caching.”

  “Don’t go off and hide now!” called Monsieur Fontaine. “The fun is just beginning.” But off he went to find his horse and then make himself scarce in the woods again. Though most mountain men sensibly believed there was safety in numbers, Bill was known to leave a large group when he sniffed the possibility of Indian attack.

  “He’s crazy as a hoot owl,” said St. Vrain. “But nobody can say he’s not shrewd, generally acute, and original—and far from illiterate.”

  Monsieur Fontaine, who was daydreaming again, felt a light touch on his shoulder. He turned, half expecting to see Bill Williams again, but it was Sacajawea, who hurriedly indicated that she wished to enter the game—on the side of Gray Thunder and his Cheyennes.

  “Sauvage,” he chuckled and nodded toward St. Vrain. He studied Sacajawea, wondering what had prompted her, a squaw, to get into a man’s game. There seemed no reason for her wanting to enter the play, but it certainly would do no harm. He and St. Vrain had lost much already. To lose a little face by having a squaw play opposite them and win a few rounds would please the Cheyennes and might be a way to finish the game more quickly. He shrugged. Sacajawea wedged in between St. Vrain and Gray Thunder.

  She put several pairs of white moccasins on the blanket and touched the ones she wore so that the others could see their beauty and value. Gray Thunder gavea deep grunt of displeasure. This was no place for a foolish woman. Ignoring him, Sacajawea looked along the line of bettors opposite her. Her blanket slipped off her shoulders. Her eyes sparkled and there were red spots in the center of both cheeks.

  “Against one fine horse of St. Vrain,” she said in her best Comanche English and fast hand signs.

  “Ai,” Gray Thunder agreed, his face still dark.

  “I will be the one who is hiding something,” she said and picked up the bone from Gray Thunder’s hands.

  St. Vrain looked at the woman and then looked at the hoard of skins Gray Thunder had won back. “Go to it, sauvage,” he sighed, signaling for the Cheyennes to begin their song once again.

  Gray Thunder shrugged, and Sacajawea manipulated the bone. The onlookers stood a moment, hypnotized, as St. Vrain successfully guessed the hand in which Sacajawea held it. Then she guessed his hand correctly.

  Then he pointed to her left hand. It was empty. A rumble of disappointment arose from the Cheyennes. There would be no sale of horses. St. Vrain had won back all his animals.

  Gray Thunder looked across at St. Vrain and began making arrangements for delivery of the horses, and Sacajawea sent for the one horse she had lost to St. Vrain. In the moments of going to pick out and deliver the horses, gunfire was heard beyond the fort in the direction of the Cheyennes’ horse herd. The alarm was relayed through the various Indian camps, and Sacajawea heard, “Horse thieves! Many horses stolen!” There was instant tumult. Monsieur Fontaine was forgotten as Gray Thunder and a group of his young men broke from St. Vrain and scattered for their camp. Sacajawea watched the
Cheyennes leave, then she reached deep into her blanket. Only Monsieur Fontaine, who had been bundling up some of the peltries St. Vrain had won back, saw what she did. She had cheated Gray Thunder that last guess. The bone had not been in either hand.

  Monsieur Fontaine’s eyes narrowed. A man did not always hanker to be beholden to any fool squaw, but sure as he was no drinking man—his tastes ran moreto horse liniment for horses—St. Vrain owed something to this sauvage. On second thought, maybe it was Bill Williams he owed it to—what had that old coot said to her just before he left, anyway?

  Monsieur Fontaine watched while Sacajawea went leisurely in the direction of the fort, followed by the pair of little girls. Then he hoisted a bundle of furs to his shoulder and went toward the fort himself, thinking he’d better get his horses and hightail it inside the fort before they were raided out here.

  Coming in from the horse races, Kit Carson turned toward the fort. With Cheyenne horses driven off by enemy raiders, there would be a chase and likely a fight. He would not miss that. Carson felt it lucky for his friend St. Vrain. If the white men could help the Cheyennes recover their horses, without a doubt Gray Thunder would not be reluctant to pay off his losses. And the Cheyennes would do more trading at St. Vrain’s Fort than at the others nearby. In the joy of victory, Cheyennes would do anything for brave warriors, red or white. Carson went off to saddle up and follow Gray Thunder’s men in search of the raiders.

  Monsieur Fontaine, out of breath and panting from carrying the bundles of furs into the fort, began to hunt out his fast horse in the corral. Sacajawea could be counted on to look after Suzanne while he was gone, he was confident. Other men from the fort came for their horses to join the Cheyennes in their chase.

  In the Cheyenne camp, the warriors hurriedly painted themselves and their horses; they were beginning to sing their war songs for courage. Then a wolf cried out. It was a long, quavering trill of sorrow, indescribably mournful.