Sacajawea

by Joseph Bruchac

  And what did your father do then? Can you not guess? He froze. His feet forgot how to walk. He held tight to my hand, wanting to help us, but he was not moving. Captain Clark kept pushing me with his right hand and prodding your father with the barrel of his rifle as we climbed. By the time we reached the top, the ravine had become filled with water that growled at us, angry because we had escaped its quick hunger.

  ***

  York found us at the top of the ravine. Seeing the storm strike, he had stopped hunting and dashed back to find us. We were wet and cold, bruised by the stones of the ravine. Captain Clark had given the flood his big compass and his moccasins. Both he and your father had their tomahawks and powder horns taken from them. Charbonneau had also lost Captain Lewis's wiping rod. Your cradleboard and all your clothing now belonged to the river. But we were alive.

  York had with him a canteen filled with the water that warms you. Your good uncle had me drink some of it. But he did not let us rest. You were naked and I had just recovered from my illness. He was afraid that both of us would become sick. He gave up any idea of going farther.

  "York," he said, "move them to our camp on the run."

  Then he hurried on ahead of us. When he reached the camp, he found everything in confusion. We were not the only ones who had suffered. The hungry storm that had tried to steal our lives had struck the men while they were out on the plains. They had dropped their loads and run. The wind was like a great hand, slapping them down. The wall of hail had hit them so hard that it knocked them off their feet again and again as they ran. They were much bruised and bleeding. It had been a day that I would never allow myself to forget.

  18. WILLIAM CLARK

  The Three Forks

  July 9th Tuesday 1805

  on trial found the leather boat would not answer without the addition of Far which we had none of, Substituted Cole & Fallow in its place to Stop the Seams & c. which would not answer as it Scperated from the Skins when exposed to the water and left the Skins naked & Seams exposed to the water. this falire of our favourate boat was a great disapointment to us, we haveing more baggage than our Canoes could Carry. Concluded to build Canoes for the Carry them; no timber near our Camp. I deturmined to proceed on up the river to a bottom in which our hunters reported was large Trees &c.

  JOURNAL OF WILLIAM CLARK

  ABOVE THE GREAT FALLS, MONTANA

  I WILL CONFESS, Pomp, that it was with a good bit of uncertainty that we dropped the Experiment into the river that day. To my surprise, it floated like a perfect cork.

  Meri was as happy as a little child with an extra serving of pudding. He had worked for days to find something to fill in the seams of the boat. Pine pitch would have been the best. But there were no pine trees within a four-day journey of us. The other men and I had scouted the land there at the end of the long portage. I had walked twenty or thirty miles a day, through rocks and brush and prickly pears, wiping gnats out of my eyes and enduring the hum of the mosquitoes in my ears. There were no pines. So Meri had made up a "composition," as he called it. It was a mixture of charcoal and tallow and he covered the boat with two coats of it, drying it over a fire.

  Seats were fixed into it and oars made ready. But then one of those sudden winds struck again, and we had to wait until its violence blew over. When we came back to the water, we found that Meri's "composition" had begun to peel off in great flakes. His favorite boat was half filled with water. We pulled it from the river. The seams had come open. There was no way it could be repaired.

  The look on Meri's face was sad to behold. He had brought the Experiment three quarters of the way across the continent, only to have it fail just when it was most needed. No one said a word.

  Meri ran his hand along the skins of the boat. "See here, where the hair was left on the buffalo skins?" he said in a soft voice. "It answered much the best purpose here. Had I but singed the elk skins instead of scraping them, or used only buffalo skins, she would have answered our need." Then he shook his head. "Adieu," he said.

  He helped the men pull the boat from the river. With six men, he stripped the skins off and placed the frame of our failed Experiment into the hole that had been dug to hold the tar. Then, with nothing further to do, he went off to fish in the river.

  In the meantime I had set off with a crew of five men to a small grove of cottonwoods that had been sighted by our hunters eight land miles upriver. There we found just two trees. They were wind shaken but would serve. Both were three feet across. One was twenty-five feet long and the other thirty-three. During the five days it took to hollow them out, Meri supervised the carrying of all our baggage to the cottonwood grove where we were working.

  ***

  Have you ever heard the voice of the mountains, Pomp? We heard it first during those days at the end of the portage, just before we set out again on the river. The Minnetarees had told us about it before we set out, and your mother had agreed that there was such a thing.

  "Wait," she said. "You will hear their strong voice."

  I was beginning to understand by then that when your mother, Janey, said something was so, that was just how it was. But Captain Lewis had paid no attention, thinking it false.

  "The phantom of a superstitious imagination," he said.

  Then we heard it. It was like thunder or the firing of a big gun—a great cracking sound that came rolling over the plain. It wasn't at regular intervals, but only now and then. Sometimes in the morning, sometimes just before the sunset, and always from the same direction. "The artillery of the Rocky Mountains" is what we began to call it. Hearing it reminded us again of how many strange and wonderful things were all around us. It also reminded us how far we were from home.

  ***

  But you are right, my boy. Not all of us were far from home. We were coming closer to your mother's own homeland, and we were in hopes of soon seeing her people, the Snakes. We did not know, at first, how unlikely that was at that time of year. Because of the Blackfeet, her people were staying in the mountains, even though there was little to eat. I saw this for myself when we found an abandoned old camp of her people's with some of their little houses of woven brush. Your mother showed me the peeled pine trees.

  "This is how we do it to collect the sap and pith for food," she explained.

  But though we did find signs of a recent large encampment of Blackfeet Indians, we found no recent camps of her Snake people.

  We learned later that they would only make their great foray onto the plains at the end of the summer, to hunt the buffalo whose meat would help them survive another winter. Since the Snakes lacked the guns that their enemies had obtained freely from the English, their buffalo hunt had to be like a raid into enemy territory, short and swift. They had to be ready to flee at any moment. Only small bands would come onto the plains before the great buffalo raid. Few, if any, of Janey's people would be seen here near the river. And if they were to see us, they would likely run from us in fear.

  ***

  Hard as the land was, it was beautiful. The sunflowers were everywhere, as yellow as that ball of light in the sky. There was a great abundance of ripe serviceberries and currants, red and black, purple and yellow. Even the prickly pears, terrible as they were to walk among, were in bloom all around us. Those thorns were so keen and stiff they would pierce the double thickness of a dressed deerskin with ease. One evening after I had walked thirty miles, we camped by the light of the fire. I pulled seventeen of those briars out of my feet. Meri, practical as he always was, suffered less than I did. He had taken the trouble to sew an extra sole of buffalo hide onto his moccasins.

  It was July 20 when I saw my first clear sign of your mother's people, the Snakes. But it was not a hopeful sign. We had just killed an elk when we saw a great cloud of smoke rising from the little valley above us, where a large creek flowed into the river. It appeared that the country up the valley of the creek, which we later named Smoke Creek, had been set on fire.

  When I told your mother
of it, she explained it to me.

  "It is a signal to run away," she said.

  Hearing the shots of our guns, the Snakes had thought we were a war party of their enemies and set the fire to warn the others. They then fled from us over the mountains. I left behind pieces of cloth to show that we were friends, but my heart was low. If the Snake people feared us so much, how could we ever come close enough to show that we were friends?

  19. SACAJAWEA

  What Do You Call Us?

  Long ago, many of our people were sick. So our chiefs called on a medicine man to help them. His name was Man from the Sky. He went into his lodge, opened his medicine bundle, and prayed. When he was done, he told the people to bring all those who were sick to him. He would take them on a journey. He led the people up the Snake River to a place in the hills. Then he went up the hill and tapped a rock with his stick. Healing water flowed from that rock. The people bathed in that water and grew well again.

  YOUR GOOD UNCLE had made himself ill. With all of his walking through the prickly pear cactus, his feet were covered with open wounds and blisters. He was so tired that it was an effort for him to stand again after he sat upon the ground. Yet he did not wish to stop. His heart told him to keep seeking my people, even after Captain Lewis begged him to rest.

  Although we had not yet found my relatives, we had come to the lands that I remembered. They were as clear in the eye of my heart as if I had slept but a single night without seeing them, even though it had been five winters. My heart pounded and it seemed as if it would burst from my chest when I first recognized a place where the river bent around a little island filled with wild onions.

  But I could not tell if I was filled with happiness at returning home or if my heart was beating so fast because I was afraid of what I might find. What had happened to those close to my heart when the Minnetarees raided on that harsh day? Were any of them still alive? Was my mother among the living? My brother, Stays Here? What of my friends? Would I ever again see the face of anyone from my childhood other than Otter Woman?

  It had been many moons since I had seen Otter Woman. It was so long now since those nights in the Minnetaree village where we had sat with our heads close together, speaking to each other in our own language. Our language is one that your father has never learned or wished to learn.

  There were so many questions in my mind, so many voices speaking to me from within, I could not answer them all.

  So I showed no emotion, for I did not know what emotion it was that now made my whole body tremble as it did.

  "This is the river on which my relations live," I told them. My voice stayed calm. "The Three Forks are no great distance from here."

  All of them were made happy by my words. Though he was ill, your good uncle hugged me, and Captain Lewis looked at me with a brief smile and nodded his head.

  Such a serious man, Captain Lewis was. It always seemed as if there was something that made him doubt himself, even though he was good and strong. It is not that way with your good uncle. He always knows who he is. The red of his hair is a sign of the sunshine that lives in his heart. The spirit power in his heart is his friend. It never confuses him.

  Now I could tell them where we were going and help show them the way. The captains were so pleased that they gave me a beautiful string of the blue beads that everyone loves. I used them as a belt. I did not own that belt long, but I still remember how good it felt to my touch, how proud I was to be useful. Now I was not just the one who set up the tent, who found the good roots to eat. I was also the one who could show them the way to my people, the one who could help them get horses.

  Yes, Firstborn Son, your good uncle told you they expected this of me all along. But perhaps their hopes would not have come true. I might have been like that iron boat, unable to carry the load. Now it seemed all they hoped of me would come true. My heart was singing.

  But we still had not met with my people.

  ***

  As we went along I showed them things. There was the creek where we got the earth from which we made our white paint. I taught them how a friend would paint the cheeks of someone he or she met. I told them that they should carry paint with them. If they ever met any of my people, they should use the vermilion paint to honor them in this way. I explained how we would greet friends. You know how it is done, Firstborn Son. We put the arms closest to our hearts around each others shoulders, we press our cheeks together like this. And what do we say? Uh-huh. We say "Ah-hi-e, ah-hi-e. "I am so pleased, I am so pleased.

  They listened closely to me and nodded. But Captain Lewis needed to know something else. Captain Lewis was trying to find words to speak in other languages. Though he sometimes got them wrong, as soon as he was able to turn them into his marks on white leaves he was sure he understood perfectly.

  "What do you call us?" Captain Lewis asked.

  "You are the Red-Haired Captains," I answered.

  "No," he said, looking unhappy. "That is not what I mean," he said, speaking very slowly, as if it were his words, not his question, that had confused me. "All of us." He gestured with his hands. Then he looked at our little party. He motioned for York to take Seaman and lead him off to the side. He had your father join them. Then he made a circling motion, including him, your good uncle, and the other men who came from far away. "All of us" he said.

  He wanted our word for white men. But I still could not understand. Your father looked worried. Captain Clark caught my eye. He held out one of his hands and raised an eyebrow.

  "Janey?" he said.

  I had to say something or Captain Lewis would have been unhappy all that day. I remained silent, though, until Captain Lewis asked one more question. He made the motion in sign language that stands for our people.

  "What would your people, the Snakes, call us?"

  At last I thought I understood. "Ta-ba-bone," I said. "Ta-ba-bone." It is a word for those who are strangers, who might be enemies.

  "Ta-ba-bone," Captain Lewis said. He was very pleased. He smiled as he turned it into black lines on a white leaf. "Ta-ba-bone. "

  Despite his sickness, your good uncle kept scouting ahead, walking far along the shore and farther inland as we came down the river in the cottonwood canoes. Your father had sprained his ankle some days before, but he assured Captain Clark he was better now. He begged to go with him. You know how your father always wants to see something new. So your good uncle agreed. And I remained behind.

  ***

  The mountains were so close to the river now that we could no longer see the ranges of peaks beyond them. Captain Lewis was greatly worried that we would come to waterfalls or dangerous rapids.

  "No," I told him, "our river has no such places. It flows all the way just as it does now."

  He did not believe me, or at least he was not ready to let go of his worries. He was troubled so much by the insects that bit him. His eyes and face were always swollen, even though he covered his head each night with the thin cloth you can see through. He also kept urging your good uncle to cease his walking and allow him to take a turn looking for our people. But everyone in our party, including Captain Lewis, knew that your good uncle was the better of the two men at speaking with Indians. You could see in his face how he enjoyed meeting our people, sharing their food, and hearing their stories. Captain Lewis only showed such excitement when he looked at some small plant he had never seen before or when an animal or bird new to him was brought in. Then he would spend much time making his marks on the white leaves, sometimes even drawing the exact shape of that fish or animal or bird.

  ***

  It was a fine day when we came to the place where I had been taken captive. There were the Three Forks of the river, that same river I had spoken to on that day long ago when I made my foolish wish to travel. The river had certainly heard me then. I whispered to it again.

  "Help my friends," I said in a very soft voice. Then I stood quietly on the banks and looked.

  Now your good uncle was s
o sick that he had no wish to eat. Yet he wanted to walk. He walked along the north branch of the three rivers with only your father and one other man by his side.

  The river almost took your father that day, Firstborn Son. They were wading together out to a large island when your father lost his footing. He was pulled into the deep water by the fast current. Weak though he was, your good uncle came into the river after him and pulled him to safety. Then they continued on to the island, where Captain Clark decided to camp for the night. His scout for my people had not succeeded.

  20. WILLIAM CLARK

  Finding the Shoshones

  Thursday August 8th. 1805.

  the Indian woman recognized the point of a high plain to our right which she informed us was not very distant from the summer retreat of her nation on a river beyond the mountain which runs to the west. this hill she says her nation calls the beaver's head from a conceived resemblance of it's figure to the head of that animal. she assures us that we shall either find her people on this river or on the river immediately west of it's source; which from it's present size cannot be very distant.

  JOURNAL OF MERIWETHER LEWIS

  SOUTH OF HELENA, MONTANA

  IT WAS NO EASY JOB to find your mother's people, Pomp. By the time the month of August began, I had walked so many miles that my feet felt like a worn-out pair of moccasins and there was a swelling on my ankle, just here, almost the size of one of your little fists. But the men in our little fleet of canoes were no less worn and weary than me. The river had grown shallower and swifter, and we had to push our way with poles or climb out into the water and pull our boats along. All of us were blistered and bruised, stabbed by cactus, and bitten by insects.

  Our "trio of pests" was what Meri called the mosquitoes, gnats, and prickly pears together. "Billy," he said to me, "they are equal to any three curses that ever poor Egypt labored under!" And he spat out a mouthful of gnats at the end of his words as a punctuation mark.