Bridger bent his six-foot frame over the chief and clapped him on the shoulder. Bridger’s cheekbones were high and his nose hooked, giving him the facial appearance of a hawk. If he had been shorter, he could easily have passed for one of Washakie’s old warriors.
Washakie was taller and lighter complexioned than most Shoshonis. He resembled his Flathead father, Paseego. That morning he wore his government-issue, high crown, puritanical black hat with the wide brim. On the hat he wore a prized possession, a silver casket plate which read, “Our Baby.”28 He also wore another favorite ornament, a translucent pink seashell, as his kerchief holder. On the left side of his large nose was a deep scar left by a penetrating Blackfoot arrow. Two thick, graying braids hung over his bare chest.29
“I’m not young now,” said Washakie, cocking his head to one side. “It used to be I spent much time and energy trying to get things done that don’t really seem so worthwhile now. But this change is something the white men are bringing, and it will defeat us if we spend time and energy fighting it. The Shoshonis would be wiped out. I do not want my people wiped out. I wantthem to stay and see what is going to happen on the bosom of our Mother Earth. The young ones will learn the new ways easier than you and I. You ancient bastard,” he added in English, giving Bridger a crooked grin.
“Yep,” said Bridger, “even the Sioux and Cheyennes will give in.”
Bridger was shrewd. After he completed his talk with Washakie, the two smoked awhile, then he called for a council—not a council with the important men of the camp, but with the women. He began with his own woman, Rutta, and Sacajawea, taking them with him around the camp as he called out the other women. He spoke to them softly about their recent illness and about their children who still had the fever. He then led them slowly to the idea that the spotted sickness could come to any one of them in an unsuspecting time if they had just been sick or fighting off the pangs of hunger.
Next he bribed the post physician at Camp Augur to give cowpox serum. The man refused, but only at first.
“Well, then,” said Bridger, his broad face beaded with perspiration, “you go and explain to a couple hundred savages why they ought to have their arm scratched to prevent scarifying their faces. Smallpox is goin’ through Injun camps like dried prunes through the soldiers. Think of the little brown children, not knowin’ what ails ‘em, or the same with old folks, so they wander alone out in the field grass.”
The post physician had no interest in Indians and their general health, but he cared even less to spend a day among them, or to have them spread smallpox to one another and die like bloated cows in a peyote patch so that he and other soldiers had to bury them after the rest had fled trying to outrun the sickness.
Few of the squaws understood what Bridger was talking about, but they knew the dreaded spotted sickness. They could not see how scratching an arm could ward off the disease. Protestations, pleas, tears—nothing availed against the Blanket Chief. With a set, stern face, he sent out Sacajawea to explain to the People.
“Ai, it is something good,” Sacajawea explained, memory flooding back to the time Chief Red Hair hadscratched her leg and even the leg of her baby, Pomp. “See the scar?” She pulled up her tunic hem. “It is like a badge to scare off the sickness. I have been with those who are sick, but I remain well. See, I have no face scars.” She bent her face around the circle of women. Some put their hands on her juiceless, wrinkled skin. “When the smoke whirls around inside your tepee, as if afraid to go outside in winter wind, the sickness will pass over you and your children.”
The women returned to Bridger and formed a line, pushing their children forward so they could be scratched first. Some were yet weak from the fever, and some coughed or wiped their runny noses on the backs of their hands.
“Ai,” the women told Bridger, “Chief Woman is wise. The sickness could come to any of us. The scratch is small, but important. Our men will come for the scratch also.”
Rutta showed where she was scratched. Washakie’s women and all twelve of his children submitted to the vaccination. Toussaint and his two women stayed behind. They would not admit that the white man’s medicines were of any value. Their grandchildren, however, were among the two hundred that Bridger vaccinated that day.
During this time, the white men in Washington, D.C., were busy assigning new names to old posts and establishing new posts in the west. On March 28,1870, Camp Augur was renamed Camp Brown in honor of Captain Frederick Brown, one of the victims of the Fetterman Fight. That summer, Camp Brown was made independent from Fort Bridger, and remained on the Popo Agie until the next year, when it was moved into the Wind River Reservation and renamed Fort Washakie.
Chief Washakie took his people to Utah, where many were washed or baptized by the Mormons. Lance, the son of Shoogan (earlier given the name Bazil by the Mormons), was given the new name Andrew Bazil. Little Red Eyes was named Eli Bazil. Their young sister, Stay Home, was renamed Nancy Bazil. The daughter of Toussaint and Contrary Woman, Yelling Falls, was renamed Barbara Baptiste, because earlier the Mormons had given her father the name Baptiste. One of Chief Washakie’s sons was named Dick, another Charley, another George, and a fourth Bishop Washakie.
This renaming was acceptable. The Shoshonis often were renamed by their family or friends according to some deed or mishap that came their way. Sacajawea sat beside her small fire, nodding in approval, as Andrew Bazil told her all the new names. After all, she had worn out several names herself.
“There is no strength in this meat,” she remarked one fall morning, stirring her kettle. “A fat buffalo cow—that is meat, and so tender even I could chew it with these few teeth.”
“When spring comes,” said Andrew in English, “we will put seeds in the earth and have corn and squash. That might taste good to you. Better than this stringy beef cow.”
She was suddenly thoughtful. “Even an old horse would taste better.” Andrew smiled, then laughed. He wore a white man’s shirt and trousers and hard shoes; his unbraided hair hung to his shoulders.
“Grandmother,” said Andrew, sobering, “do you know a man called Brunot, Felix Brunot?”
Sacajawea shrugged.
“I think he came from Saint Louis.”
“Oh.” Her eyes lit up and she sucked in her cheeks, making hollows. Then a sadness came into her face and she was silent.
“Maybe he comes from Washington,” said Andrew. “We could mosey over to the post and see what he talks to our chief about.”
She followed behind. The grass was brittle and dry on the red soil. Dozens of yellow-winged grasshoppers flew up in front of them, their wings whirring, their jumping legs popping. Sacajawea had no trouble keeping up. Her cedar stick cane tapped out little dust puffs where the grass was thin. She never shrank from walking, although her bowlegs seemed better for hugging the sides of a horse. She looked short and squat. Andrew’s legs were straight and he looked tall. However, he did not like to walk and much preferred traveling by horse.
“Look at this parched grass! I suppose it is green and tender on the other side of the mountain.” Sacajawea chuckled.
Felix Brunot, chairman of the Board of Indian Commissioners, was sent to buy the title to the land occupied by Miner’s Delight and to clear title to certain land that had been taken up by white settlers prior to the Fort Bridger treaty.
Despite the hot fall morning, Brunot wore a coat over his white shirt. His trousers matched the blue of the coat, and his heavy black shoes wore a thick coat of yellow dust. He stood on the wooden porch of the agent’s new house. Some of Washakie’s subchiefs stood beside the chief on the steps. Among them was Shoogan, or Bazil, Andrew’s father.
There were twenty-four square log houses a story and a half high, built for the Shoshonis by the Great White Father in Washington. Few of the houses were really occupied. The house nearest the agent’s was given to Shoogan and his family because he was able to interpret and use fairly good English. Toussaint, generally called Baptiste, lived
farther down the street. Several hundred yards away were tepees scattered along a running stream. The older Indians preferred them to the one-room cabins, which were too close together and too much side by side for their liking.
Sacajawea’s old patched tepee was down beside the creek. At times when the winter was its bitterest, she stayed in the log house with Shoogan and his children and grandchildren.
Farther down the stream was another square wood house and a plank barn. That was the home of the boss farmer, Finn Burnett. Farther away, beside a crooked rail fence, was the cabin of James Patten, the reservation teacher.
Back beside the agency offices and home of the agent was the Moore store and the church.
It was a fine autumn morning. Brunot cleared his throat and twisted the end of his mustache. He had blue eyes, fair skin, and a sharp tongue, which lurked behind a perpetual smile. He had little regard for the welfare of the Indians, and had maneuvered Washakieinto agreeing to give up some of his best land. In trade, land, and argument, Brunot was shrewd.
Sacajawea felt uneasy watching him. Something did not set right with her, as if she had eaten spoiled fish. She thought about this man. He had power. Yet, she thought, all men are like brothers. Each has the same lusts, thirsts, hungers. The desire for land is common to all. The white men have it, and so do I. Man is but his land. It rises to shelter him in life and holds him in death. By eating its game, seeds, and roots, he builds his flesh into walls of his own land. He has its hardness or its softness. So—I know my own land, and I want it, and that is right. Does not a baby cry for his mother’s breast? But when this white man desires my land, it is not right. It is bad. For he would not belong to it. So, then—I suspect this man.
Sacajawea listened, sitting in the shade with her grandson beside her, and remained silent but watchful.
Fingering his mustache, Brunot stepped directly in front of Chief Washakie. “President Grant appreciates all the fine deeds Washakie has performed to help the white men and knows he has saved the lives of many innocent women and children in the early days of the Oregon Trail. This Great Father in Washington knows that you have helped to educate the Shoshonis in their farming and by sending your grandchildren to the mission school. Take, then, this saddle, Washakie, as a gift from one of your admirers.”
This was a surprise. No word was spoken by the old chief, who stood up straight and tall, arms folded.
“What word shall I take back to your Great White Father?” asked Brunot, placing the saddle in the chief’s arm.
“Nothing,” said Chief Washakie. “I cannot speak. My heart is so full my tongue will not work.”
“Try to say a few words,” urged Brunot, “so that President Grant may know how pleased you are.”
The chief was thoughtful. No one spoke. Then he held his head high and spoke slowly. “When a favor is shown a white man, he feels it in his head and his tongue speaks. When a kindness is shown to an Indian, he feels it in his heart. The heart has no tongue.”30
The saddle had bright silver mountings, red, blue, and yellow ribbons. There was much applauding and stamping of feet. “Fine thing,” the Shoshonis said to each other. “Fine thing.”
The Shoshonis received cattle for the land they had ceded to the government—601,120 acres, or all of their reservation south of the North Fork of the Big Popo Agie.
Cattle have some virtues, no doubt, thought Sacajawea. There are no large buffalo herds left, and the Shoshoni are not good farmers—their corn crop is small. Now with a big herd of cattle and the promise of more government money to buy cattle each year, there will be no hunger pains or starvation deaths among the Lemhis. There will be milk for the children. The white teacher, Mr. Patten, said it makes them grow strong. But what a taste! A child had to be strong to drink that!
This white man says he is a brother to the Shoshonis, she thought. He says, “Just put your mark on this paper to show that you will not forget what we have agreed upon.” And then the white man very quickly takes away Shoshoni land. Whoosht!
Wagh! Can one believe a man who says he loves his family, when he allows them no room to ride their horse? Can a man love his land, and then build iron roads through cornfields?
Sacajawea was no fool. She realized there is no love of abstract humanity. There is only the love we show each man as an individual.
So several weeks later, Sacajawea questioned Colonel Lander’s intent to benefit the Shoshonis when he negotiated a treaty with Chief Washakie for a right-of-way through the country owned by the Shoshonis. The road would extend westward from the Sweetwater to Fort Hall. She questioned Lander so much that he finally made certain that the Shoshonis were paid for this right-of-way in horses, rifles, ammunition, blankets, and some trinkets Washakie wanted.
Winter passed quietly, and spring came to the land. Sacajawea pulled her red blanket closer around her shoulders; the spring air still had a winter chill. She smoked her pipe with Chief Washakie. “Why is it the white men are always in a hurry?” she asked. “It is not good.” Then for a time she seemed unconscious of Washakie sitting inside her tepee. She seemed to be studying the ground. “It is bad!” she whispered.
“Chief Woman, what is bad?” asked Washakie.
“Old people have strange dreams. But after I was stolen from the People as a child, I had plenty of dreams. More than once I saw bearded men come from the sunrise. The buffalo changed to bones on the prairie and the People starved. Their bones were beside the buffalo’s. Next the face of Mother Earth was scarred and the bearded men made odd, square houses from many lodgepoles.”
“Ai, it is so,” sighed Washakie.
“At, we have seen it. I did not know what it meant when I was a child. I have not thought of it since. It was especially my own grandmother who had these mysterious dreams. I do not like the square wooden house to live in. Yet, would you believe that long ago in a white village I lived in one and was happy for a time? Things change, then come back to their beginnings. Like the circle of the sun and moon, the sky, the bodies of men and animals, nests of birds, the days and seasons—all come back in a circle. The young grow old, and from the old the young begin and grow. It is the Great Spirit’s way,” she sighed.
“My adopted son in the gray wooden house is good; he feeds me of the little meat he has, and my grandsons bring me wood. I was born an Agaiduka, and so I will die in a tepee, for I have seen it in a dream. I have seen another dream where some of our young men will have their bones scattered on the prairie to show where they fell in battle. Perhaps it is good—for it is hard to grow old.” For a while her mind turned inward and she was silent, staring at the ground.
Washakie moved a little and cleared his throat in preparation for speaking. “While riding alone, I have been thinking. Two days ago, two men came to see me. They were sent by Three Stars, General Crook. The men were Left Hand and Straight Tongue. I have met them before in councils with the white men. They told me that the Great White Father told Three Stars to ask us to help him. They said Three Stare’s camp is on Goose Creek and he has many soldiers and some of our new friends, such as the Crows from the village at themouth of Grapevine Creek. I am inclined to help this man. He has many soldiers, and we will all destroy our old enemies, the Sioux, Cheyennes, and Arapahos. This will be a fight for peace.”
Sacajawea took a deep breath, then said, “I do not feel so old. I have many thoughts not yet put into talk. Perhaps it is really not hard to grow old. Maybe this talk of fighting for peace, here on our reservation, is a waste of time. Maybe we are fools.” She stopped and relighted her pipe. “Our fights over land with the Sioux and Blackfeet have always been fierce; too much of it has killed us also. Now we have our own land marked out on the white man’s paper. The Sioux have their land, but they will not stay on it; they run into the white man’s land. Should we fight this white man’s battle against our enemies? Do we feel that friendly toward the white man?”
Washakie knocked the dottle from his pipe and laid the empty pipe in his lap
. “There is no other way. We cannot join our enemies, and there are more white men than there were buffalo. We have to join them. To help them will make them our friends. We have always fought the Sioux, Cheyennes, and Arapahos, anyway, so why not now?”
Sacajawea puffed deliberately. She knew Washakie’s mind was made up—not because he loved the white men who were crowding other tribes into Shoshoni lands, or because he hated the three enemy nations, but because he saw plainly that this course was the only one that might save his land. It was the only way to act.
Chief Washakie collected one hundred and eighty warriors—some Shoshonis, some Crows. Luishaw was his war chief.
It was late spring and the warriors had not come back. The winds howled in the night and the smoke whirled around inside Sacajawea’s tepee as though it were afraid to go out. She crawled deep under her blankets on the buffalo robe. The night when the wind went dead, she peeked out through the tepee flap. The stars were big and sharp, and everything was listening. She let her fire die and carried her blankets to the warm square cabin of Shoogan.
In the morning, she watched her grandchildren go to the mission school. Dancing Leaf explained that the boys learned to farm and the girls learned cooking vegetables and pancakes and sewing with cotton goods. They both learned to wear stockings and heavy shoes.
Later there were footsteps on the warped pine steps. It was Sarah Irwin, wife of the agent. Dancing Leaf smiled and beckoned her to come in out of the cold. Sarah, a powerful, heavy woman past fifty now, shrewd, dominating, yet strangely childlike, had studied astronomy and botany in the east before marrying a physician, James Irwin. One day he came home and announced he was going west to a mission that had been an Indian school. He taught Sioux children reading, writing, and arithmetic. School attendance constantly fluctuated. The Sioux did not relish reservation life. Dr. Irwin was then sent to Wind River as the Indian agent. His wife now made grim jokes about those early days. “Hair-raising times,” she said. She had taught the Hunkpapa girls to sew and wear sunbonnets and worship the one Father named Lord who was more powerful than the Great Spirit.
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