In his 25 snows, Black Eagle had never seen anything like it.
A tall man with reddish hair on his head and face walked from the camp toward those who had brought down the tree, and together they inspected it.
“Red Hair is their headman?” Black Eagle asked.
“Yes. Come with me.”
Twisted Hair signed to one of the Soyappos, then held the cord down so Black Eagle and Red Grizzly Bear could step over. Black Eagle grimaced as he lifted his leg.
“You are wounded?”
“No. But my leg is no good.”
Twisted Hair signed to the red-haired Soyappo, explained that Red Grizzly Bear was their greatest war chief, and that he and Black Eagle had just returned to report a great victory over the Snakes. The Soyappo looked Red Grizzly Bear in the eyes and held out his right hand.
“Take it,” Twisted Hair said. When Red Grizzly Bear did, the Soyappo pumped his hand up and down. “This is how they greet people. And for them, looking into your eyes is not a rude or forward thing.”
Twisted Hair turned to the Soyappo and signed: The young one has injured his leg. Can you help him?
Black Eagle pointed to his right calf. The pain came on suddenly, he signed, but he did not know why. Perhaps a Snake tewat had used his power against him.
The Soyappo told them to wait, then walked to his brush lodge and returned with a shiny, hard container. He opened it, smeared something that looked like bear grease on his hand, and rubbed it into Black Eagle’s calf.
Black Eagle’s eyes grew wide; the grease was warm. He stared down at his leg, then at the grease the Soyappo held. He raised his knee, and already the pain had begun to ease.
As dusk fell and dragonflies dove for mosquitoes, the Soyappos drifted to their beds. Even the red-haired headman complained of his stomach; others had not moved all day, except to hobble to the bushes.
It was a warm night, and through the immense yellow pines Black Eagle could see many stars. He and his father sat close to the fire, to ward off mosquitoes, and listened to the whispers of the river and the groans from the Soyappo camp. “Did one of our tewats bring this illness on them?” Black Eagle asked.
“They ate too much after starving,” Twisted Hair answered.
“But that sickness does not last so long.”
“They ate only meat for many suns. Their stomachs have trouble now with roots.” He smiled. “They have much wind.”
“I see why you camped upwind.”
Twisted Hair chuckled, then nodded in the direction of the sleeping camp: “They seem foolish at times, but they have great powers.”
“And many firerock guns,” Red Grizzly Bear said. “What spirits taught them to make guns and tomahawks that can bring down giant trees?”
“Red Hair says their power comes from Creator. His son came to visit them; they have his words scratched onto leaves that tell them of his teachings.”
“Leaves?”
“He showed me. Soyappos scratch symbols on large white leaves. They put these between pieces of hide. One person’s words can be handed to another, who can understand them without hearing any talk.”
Black Eagle shook his head and stared at the fire, wondering at the strangeness of it all.
“Red Hair has asked me to guide their canoes,” Twisted Hair said. “He wants me to help them find Great Waters.”
Aieee, thought Black Eagle. This would put Twisted Hair in great danger.
“I believe I will agree, but only to Celilo Falls. Below, we have too many enemies.”
Black Eagle’s father turned to him. “If you rode ahead, reached each village before canoes arrived, you could tell them these Soyappos travel under our nation’s protection. Then we would be sure they were greeted in friendship.”
Black Eagle thought about this. He wanted to know more about these strange men, with their surprising powers. If he met them at each village, he could spend more time with them. “Ah-heh,” he said with a nod. “I could learn more of their powers.”
It had been ten days since Clark led the corps down from Twisted Hair’s camp on the prairie, half a day’s ride into the river canyon. It had been hot, dry, exceedingly disagreeable. Captain Lewis and most of the men lay prostrate, too sick to work. Every morning Clark handed out Rush’s Thunderbolts, a mixture of calomel, mercury, chlorine, and jalap, the Mexican root. If you had something rotten in your guts, they were sure to flush it out.
The few who could work hacked and scraped at the trees with their axes for four futile days. Thank God the Chopunnish finally took pity and showed Clark how to burn out the center of the canoes. The Indians lined the edges with mud, to protect them, then used pitch and dry grass to light fires in the centers of the huge logs. To get the fires to burn evenly throughout the canoe, they had to fan them steadily. Those who were healthy enough joined the Indians in this work, sweat pouring off them. Periodically they put the fires out with mud and scraped out the charred wood, then pissed in the canoes to soften the wood—as the Chopunnish showed them—before filling them with hot stones to spread the edges, so they would be more stable in the water. The odor of piss and charcoal filled the camp.
The weather finally broke on October sixth, with a cool wind blowing down from the mountains they had crossed. The next day, all five canoes were ready. As Clark’s canoe moved into the river under cool, cloudy skies, he silently gave thanks to God. The Corps of Discovery was on the move again.
The Indians called it the Kooskooskee. It was a handsome river, 200 yards wide, crowded now with Chopunnish returning to their winter villages. Immense flocks of migrating fowl filled the skies, winging upriver.
After several thousand miles of fighting against the current of the Missouri, they were now racing downstream. Every mile or so they hit rapids, and Clark—in the lead canoe—struggled to find the best channels through. The steep hills on either side were barren and brown.
On the second day an island narrowed the channel into a seething rapid, filled with boulders. The canoe piloted by Sergeant Gass hit one, swung around, and hit another broadside, ejecting Gass, throwing Thompson hard into the bow, and cracking the side of the canoe. Waves roared over the rocks as the men clung to the rapidly sinking boat. Luckily the water was only waist deep, as several of the men could not swim. Twisted Hair and his friends, who had accompanied them, raced over in their own canoe and took on the cargo and some of the men, while Clark sent one of the large canoes to retrieve the sunken baggage, take on the other men, and tow the crippled boat to shore.
Gass, Pryor, Gibson, and Joe Field set to work on the canoe. They cut long, thin pieces of pine, then affixed them along the bottom and side with rosin the rest of the men harvested. When dark fell Cruzatte took out his fiddle and the men danced. The local natives stood watching in the chilly night air, wrapped in buffalo robes. The corpsmen sat around a huge fire, sparks drifting into the night, the rushing of the river barely audible above the crackling of the fire and the background song of crickets from the hills.
When York rose to dance a hornpipe, the natives crowded around. They had changed into their finest clothes, and when Cruzatte took a break, the men began to drum and dance in their own style. Clark’s eyes followed the women who stood around the edge, their bodies graceful as the fringes on their long dresses swung to the beat of the drums. While the Chopunnish men often wore breechcloths and were casual in exposing their private parts, the women secreted them more than any tribe he had yet encountered. Their hide dresses were bleached almost white and heavily ornamented with porcupine quills, small pieces of brass, blue and white beads, thin white shells, and elk teeth.
As his eyes moved around the circle he noticed a familiar face. What was her name—Swan Lighting on Water? What was she doing here? She sang in a high, keening voice as she danced slowly around the circle of women, taking roots out of her parfleche and handing them to people. When she reached Lewis, he refused her gifts. She held them out again, still singing in that keening voice.
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br /> “Tell her I don’t want her roots,” Lewis said to Clark.
The woman kept pushing them toward Lewis, and he pushed her hand away. “Damn it, man, tell her!”
Clark moved to Lewis’s side and signed the message. The woman stared at him, her eyes on his, for a long moment. He felt naked, as if she were looking into his soul. Then she shrieked and threw the roots into the fire. She pulled a sharp flint knife out of the leather parfleche she still carried. Clark thought she was going to attack Lewis, but instead she slashed the inside of her left arm, just below the elbow. Blood spurted over Lewis as Clark reached out to restrain her, but he felt arms on his; Twisted Hair held him back. The woman transferred the knife to her other hand and slashed her right arm. Then she tore off her bead necklace and some pieces of copper that hung around her neck and handed them out to those who stood around her. The crowd watched her, as if they knew what was coming. Her eyes drifted up and she fell backward in a faint.
SEVEN
October 1805
Clark stared down from the top of the precipice, 500 feet above the river, into an astonishing channel no more than 45 yards wide. The entire Columbia was compressed between narrow black walls for a quarter of a mile, swelling and roiling like boiling water. Then it widened to 200 yards, before hitting another huge wall of rock two miles downriver. Clark turned to gaze at the wide river basin behind him, shading his eyes against the morning sun. He could see watermarks on the rock sides, 30 feet above the river’s surface. Pointing, he shouted to Lewis over the roar: “I wager this rock dams up the river in the spring, when it’s full. The water must rise 30 feet. That’s how the salmon get through—the falls disappear.” Yesterday they had portaged around the falls, all of them wondering how salmon could get over them.
Lewis pointed up at the immense black rock. “You know what this is? Lava! We’re in the mountain range we’ve seen for days now. This here’s volcanic rock, and this damned river’s cut a channel through its heart!”
“We cannot portage this,” Cruzatte shouted. “Our men could not get canoes over this rock, and there is no place to put in below.”
“Can we shoot it?” Clark asked. He considered Cruzatte their best waterman.
“Perhaps.” Cruzatte shrugged. “It is deep.”
Clark gazed down at the torrent. If they could avoid the rock walls, there were no boulders in the river. The danger was getting sucked into a whirlpool or capsized by a wave. He signed to Black Eagle: Can we do this in canoes?
We have never tried it, Black Eagle replied.
Clark had taken an instant liking to this young Indian at the canoe-making camp. He was tall, about six feet, with a lopsided smile. He had an earnestness and curiosity about the corpsmen that Clark found endearing, and he had been extremely helpful, riding ahead to ensure they received friendly receptions at every village.
“Cruzatte can take the Indian canoe with Drouillard and go first, see if it’s possible,” Lewis said. They had traded their small canoe and a hatchet yesterday for an Indian canoe from below the falls. It was beautifully shaped and crafted: wide in the middle, tapering at each end, with figures of animals carved in the wood of the bow. Thinner and deeper than those they had made, it was built for waves at the coast.
“If he makes it, I’ll take the second canoe,” Clark said. “If one capsizes, we leave the rest.”
Black Eagle touched Clark’s elbow, a question on his dark face, and Clark explained the plan in sign.
I will go with you and steer, Black Eagle replied. I grew up on these rivers.
Clark’s mouth fell open in surprise; then widened into a grin. He clapped the young Indian on the back and let out a whoop.
When the local Indians learned what they were going to try, hundreds hurried to the top of the mammoth black rock to watch. Colter, who paddled just behind Clark, pointed at them as the canoe drifted toward the narrows. “They’re fixin’ to watch us die, Captain! Lord God A’mighty, they’re fixin’ to watch us die!”
Clark watched as Cruzatte and Drouillard shot into the gorge. Their canoe bounced up and down, disappeared repeatedly into troughs, but emerged without a mishap.
Fear grabbed at the pit of Clark’s stomach. He said a silent prayer as his canoe picked up speed, and suddenly they were in the chute. They smashed into a wall of water, bounced up, fell down the other side. They were wet now, the canoe filling rapidly. It was much worse down here than it had looked from above. The smell of fish and the fury of the water filled his senses, and the canyon grew dark as the massive stone walls blocked out the sun. His heart leapt as they vaulted over waves and pitched into troughs. He looked back at Black Eagle in the stern, who was using his paddle as a rudder, concentrating on what was ahead.
And suddenly they were out, into calmer water. The men were hollering at the tops of their lungs, thrusting their paddles up over their heads in celebration. Clark looked back and watched the next canoe bounce through waves, perilously close to the cliffs. Then the last two crews came racing through, faces white and knuckles gripping the gunwales until they too were through. He held his paddle high and let out a shriek of exultation.
As dusk fell that evening, Clark found himself seated by Black Eagle, near the fire. Cruzatte pulled out his fiddle and began to play, a sad, lilting tune. It took Clark back to the last time he had heard such music.
He turned to Black Eagle and signed: Twisted Hair told me Swan Lighting on Water is your sister.
A nod: Younger by two snows.
Clark described what he had witnessed when Swan gave away her possessions and slashed her arms. He had been unable to get the image out of his mind. What would make a woman do such a thing?
Black Eagle’s eyes narrowed, but he said nothing.
I asked Twisted Hair, Clark signed, but he did not want to explain.
Black Eagle hesitated. He gazed into Clark’s eyes, as if searching for something to trust there. At last he signed: She was trying to see your spirits, to understand if you were to be feared or welcomed.
Clark’s brow furrowed: Why would she fear us?
She had a bad feeling about you and your people. I argued with her, but I could not convince her. She performed this ceremony to see if she was right.
Why did she give away her possessions?
To humble herself before spirit.
Clark stared, uncomprehending.
Spirits help us when we give up all our attachments and become humble. That is why she cut herself as well—spirits help us when we suffer.
How could she see our spirits?
Black Eagle hesitated again. If I said she looked into your heart, would you understand?
Clark’s head moved back slightly, and his mouth opened. Yes, I felt that. But what did she see?
Whatever is in your heart.
Within days the corps was in tidal water, rid of the mountains and into a lush land of thick forests, fog, teeming waterfowl, and sleek native canoes. A week later they could smell the ocean and see waves breaking in the distance. Pointing and shouting back to the others, Clark felt his heart swell with pride. The Corps of Discovery had reached the Pacific Ocean—the first Americans ever to traverse the continent.
But it was not the ocean—only waves blown up the broad Columbian estuary. And before they reached the ocean, bad weather closed in. For ten miserable days they were trapped on the banks of the great bay, drenched by rain and pounded by wind and waves that rose so far on the high tide they had to move their baggage back onto the cliff sides and fill their canoes with rocks to keep them from being dashed to pieces. Soaking wet, their clothes, blankets, and buffalo robes rotted. They were saved only by Clatsop Indians whose superior canoes allowed them to reach the huddled corps. They brought roots and fish they traded at stiff prices.
Finally, on November 15, Lewis, Drouillard, Frazier, and the Field brothers set off on foot for the ocean. Two days later they returned with news from an Indian village that sailing vessels carrying white men had been there
recently but had all departed. The next day Clark, York, and ten other men made their own visit to the windblown coast.
The landscape was unlike any Clark had ever witnessed, and there was nothing pacific about it. Huge waves crashed against enormous rocks, foam exploding dozens of feet into the air. But after 18 months of the most strenuous travel, they had at long last fulfilled their dream. Granted, there were no sailing ships from which they could reprovision, a sore disappointment. Nor had they found a practical water route across the vast continent. But they had covered 4,120 miles no American had ever laid eyes upon. Lewis had documented a hundred plant and animal species heretofore unknown to science, packed myriad specimens to send home to the president. And they had befriended dozens of native tribes. Filled with gratitude for their success and awed by the scene in front of him, Clark pulled out his knife. On a tree where Lewis had carved his name, Clark added his own, the date, and these immortal words: “By Land from the U. States in 1804 & 1805.”
EIGHT
February 1806
Swan Lighting stared up at the thin strip of moonlight visible along the vent in the top of the longhouse. Her empty stomach growled. She could hear a cold wind moaning, rustling the tule reeds. She was so tired of lying here every morning, wide awake, longing for her husband. She wished she had died with him.
She forced herself to a sitting position, found her winter moccasins, and put them on. Pulling her buffalo robe tight around her, she stood and walked to the back wall to pick up two hemp and bear grass bags. She crossed to the other side, stepping carefully around sleeping bodies, ducked through the door flap, and made her way through the short entrance area that helped ward off the winter winds. When she threw aside the second flap, a fresh layer of snow lay under a three-quarter moon, shadows like dark stains on its bright surface. The cold cut at her face, and her breath hung in the brittle air.
The Coming Page 4
