Blazing West, the Journal of Augustus Pelletier, the Lewis and Clark Expedition

by Kathryn Lasky

  July 11, 1804

  Drouillard, who scouts out way ahead, came back this evening and reckons that we are no more than seventy-five miles short of the Platte River. I have never known any man, French trapper, or Missouri boatman who has gone beyond the Platte. I can hardly believe I will. A year ago if someone had told me I’d be going beyond the Platte, well, they might as well have told me I was going to the moon.

  July 13, 1804

  Private Willard fell asleep on guard duty last night. It was Sergeant Ordway who found him. Charged him of being “guilty of lying down and sleeping on his post.” Willard, who I’ve got to say has pluck, replied, “Guilty of lying down and not guilty of going to sleep.” Nonetheless it earned him one hundred lashes every day for four days, beginning at sunset.

  July 14, 1804

  Hard driving rains since dawn. Then all of a sudden the sky turned black and a wind drove down on us from the northeast. I was riding in the big keelboat. It hit on the starboard side, the right side, just as we were passing a sand island. We would have been dashed to bits in one minute, but we all leaped to the downwind side of the boat and threw over an anchor and cable lines. Canoes were in the same fix. We did ship some water. Storm kept barreling down on us for half an hour or more.

  July 15, 1804

  Captain Clark set York and me to the task of checking equipment and provisions, in particular the gifts for the Indians, to see if they were hurt by all the water we shipped. Even though there were tarpaulins covering most everything, some of the tarps have big tears in them. York is a good fellow. He’s jokey like his master. They fit well together. Anyhow we spread all sorts of gear out on the beach. I can’t hardly believe how much trading material they have for the Indians. There’s five pounds of white glass beads, and that’s just the white ones, twenty pounds of red, and at least twenty-five pounds of blue, because Captain Lewis has this notion that the Indians like blue beads the best. There’s exactly 288 thimbles. I had to count them and ten pounds of sewing thread, a whole mess of combs, and armbands and ear trinkets.

  Now, that’s just the gifts for the Indians. Then there’s Dr. Rush’s medical kit with all manner of vials and little jars stuffed with pills or ointments and bandages. There are Kentucky rifles. I ain’t never seen anything as beautiful as these muzzle-loading, flintlock, and long-barreled rifles. Everyone calls them Kentucky rifles but their real name is U.S. Model 1803. Joe Field told me they are the first rifle specifically designed for the United States Army. Captain Lewis made the redesign. It took us all morning to check everything over. Nothing was too wet. Maybe lost a five-pound bag of flour, that’s all.

  July 16, 1804

  Some men are part of the permanent party, which means that they will go all the way to the Shining Sea, while others will head back to St. Louis after we winter over somewhere in Mandan country. I didn’t know until a few days ago that not everyone was going to make the whole trip. This business about a “permanent party” and whatever they call the others — I call them the turnarounds — has got me more than a mite scared. I sure thought I was most certainly going all the way to the Pacific Ocean. I have no idea where I stand and I’m scared to ask Captain Lewis. I’m just going to keep trying as hard as I can to copy his notes. And I’m getting real good with the sextant and the quadrant — lining up stars over the horizon. I hope they decide I’m worth it and will take me all the way. There’s a word in Omaha for what I want to be. It’s hard to explain but it means roughly good-thing-held-tight-in-the-fist. My mama used to say this word when we got a big catfish out of the river that gleamed with a bright eye. They were the best. I think I’m one of these. I think I’m a keeper.

  July 19, 1804

  I like Joe and Reuben Field a lot. They are real nice to me. Joe surely appreciates that I carved into his hand with my knife and sucked out the snake venom. He says that saved him as much as Dr. Rush’s poultice that the Captain slapped on him. He and Reuben were personally selected by Captain Clark at the very start. They come from his country — Kentucky — and were known to be the best woodsmen and hunters around. They could almost be twins. Joe’s face is a little leaner than Reuben’s and I think he’s a tad taller, but their voices and their laugh is just the same. If I’ve got my back turned and one of them comes up and says, “Hey, Gus,” I don’t know which one it is until I turn around. Must be something great having a brother and being on an expedition like this. In the hugeness of this land — it is getting huger every day as it flattens out into the plains ahead — it must feel good to have kin within spitting distance.

  July 22, 1804

  Reached the mouth of the Platte yesterday. Captain Lewis has kept me busy enough for three men. When he gets to a geography — be it a river coming in, a creek, or a stretch of land that changes from prairie to plains — the man just about goes crazy with his note taking and scientific measurements. Water, I think, is Captain Lewis’s favorite thing to weigh, to measure, and to cogitate about. He’s gone plumb crazy with this Platte, which in my considered opinion is a lousy excuse for a river. It is great and wide but it slides along barely an inch deep in some places. The thing that Captain Lewis keeps going on about is how much sand there is in this river. Well, I guess if you like rivers made from sand you would fancy this one. I personally prefer water in my rivers. The river is cut by about a thousand channels, some as skinny as a starved mule. We had to count a mess of these and measure their width. Then he had me help him make a million measurements on the velocity of the river — that means the speed. We dropped in things like feathers and then timed them with the cro-no-meter. Then he tasted it to see if it was salty. There is not a thing that man has not done to that poor bedraggled river. And if that was not enough he went off and started measuring some of the grass along the banks. I, of course, had to help transcribe all these notes this evening. I better quit now and turn in. My hands are like to cramp up from all the writing.

  July 23, 1804

  We are camped above a small willow island. Lots of timber around — oak, elm, walnut. The Captains want to stay here for a few days since it’s such a nice spot. We’re really near Indians, and the Captains hope to meet some of the chiefs. They sent me out with York and the Field brothers to look for good timber for making oars. They need some spares for the keelboat.

  July 25, 1804

  We saw an interesting thing today. It was a pointy-top boulder standing twenty feet high and was capped off with a big buffalo skull. Seems to say plain as day that there are Indians around here. I know I’ve said that before, but a big old buffalo skull doesn’t just move up and put itself on top of a rock like that.

  July 26, 1804

  I like all the men in this outfit but one of them troubles me some. His name is Moses Reed. Whenever he’s got some drudge work job that no one might want, he turns to me. I can rightfully say that he is the only one on this expedition who does not treat me like a stand-up member. He seems to think that because I’m the youngest and scrawny, I can be bossed around. Sometimes he treats York this way, too, but never in front of Captain Clark, because he knows Captain Clark won’t tolerate anyone treating York like some field hand. Francis came up to him once when Reed was asking me to cut his share of firewood for the cook fires and said, “Just because Gus is on firewood with you today doesn’t mean he has to cut your share, Reed!” He glared at him. There’s a way a grown-up half-breed, ’specially with French blood, can glare, where their brow turns dark just like storm clouds rolling up on the horizon. I’m working on it myself. It’s best with whiskers. I don’t have whiskers yet.

  July 27, 1804

  I caught three dozen catfish for dinner tonight. Nearly one per man. And they’re fat, too!

  July 28, 1804

  Sioux Indian country

  First Indian! He was brought in by Drouillard, who’d gone off to hunt. He’s a Missouri Indian who lives with ones he calls the Otoes, and he told Drouillard and Francis and Pierre, through
sign language, that their camp is about four miles from here but that everyone has gone off to hunt buffalo excepting for him and a few others. Well, finally, an Indian! And that explains why Drouillard and Pierre a few days ago kept finding signs and even one empty Ottawa village. The Captains sent out this Indian with a message to deliver to the others, saying that we want to meet with them.

  July 29, 1804

  Can’t believe it! Reed tried to push off water hauling on me today. But Charley Floyd, he’s a quiet kind of fellow, a sergeant in the permanent party, he come up and said real quiet but steady as a rock, “Don’t you go asking Gus to do what ain’t his job. It’s not right, Moses.”

  July 30, 1804

  I was on my way to catch up with Captains Lewis and Clark because they were both out naturalizing and sent for me and more paper and scientific equipment. Well, about a quarter mile before I got to where they was, I came upon this pond and I had to blink. I thought, Dang! Is this thing filled with ice floes in the middle of summer? It wasn’t ice. It was a huge flock of swans. Found Lewis and Clark on a bluff. Clark was his usual self, exclaiming, shouting about the beauty of the country that stretched out before them, and Lewis — Lewis was quiet as could be, looking straight down at some bug crawling over his boot. I think in a funny way they are the perfect fit. It is as if Captain Clark can see all the way to the Shining Sea. He sees the contours and the shape of the bones of the land, but it is Lewis who sees every little grain and clod and can measure the pulse and the beat of every heart, whether it be in a mouse or an eagle or a badger.

  Later: Badger! Funny I should write that word. Joe Field just came in with one he shot, and Captain Lewis has decided he wants to gut it and stuff it and send it back as a present to President Jefferson. I helped him weigh it and measure it, even its teeth, for Lord’s sake. It was kind of interesting watching him gut it and stuff it with a bunch of wadding that had been soaked in preservatives. Captain Lewis thinks this badger is just great, and he had me write, “This is a singular animal not common to any part of the United States.” I didn’t want to correct him, ’specially seeing as he is sending this one as a present to Jefferson, but I’ve seen passels of badgers. I like this stuffing dead animals. He calls it “taxidermy.” The real fun is that when you’ve got them almost stuffed you try to set them up in a pose that looks like the way they might have been in life. I wanted to have the badger’s left paw raised just a bit as if it were clawing at something, but it kept tipping over. A while back I helped him stuff a rat. I guess it was a special kind of rat, rare and “unique,” at least that’s what he said. A rat’s a rat as far as I can see.

  August 1, 1804

  Two of the scouting horses wandered off last night. The Captains are worried that the Indian didn’t deliver our message, for no Indians have come to meet us.

  Sergeant Floyd and I went out to scout the nearby countryside. I spotted a bird that I knew Captain Lewis would want a specimen of. I thought I had him in my sights but missed. But by gosh if Sergeant Floyd didn’t get him two seconds later. Floyd is one powerful shot to bring down a spooked bird after it had been missed once. I said to him, “Thanks, Sergeant Floyd.” And he said to me, “Just call me Charley, Gus.” Then I said, “You sure are a fine shot, Charley,” and you know what he said to me? He said, “I wish I could draw that bird half as fine as you’re going to draw it.” I couldn’t believe that he had seen my drawings. He said that Captain Lewis showed him some.

  It’s Captain Clark’s thirty-fourth birthday today. I had no idea he was so old. We celebrated with the tastiest dinner so far. A saddle of venison, beaver tail steaks, elk, and a dessert that York made of cherries, plums, raspberries, and currants.

  August 2, 1804

  Horses found. Private John Colter and Drouillard brought them back into camp this morning along with elk they shot. Finally some of the Otoes and Missouri nation came to camp with a trader who lives among them. Wouldn’t you know they’d show when Captain Lewis had sent me back out with his dang specimen bag to collect some weeds he’s taken a fancy to. They traded some roasted meat and flour to the Indians for some watermelons.

  August 3, 1804

  Indians came back today with more from their village including six chiefs, but not the top one. York and I set up the mainsail of the keelboat as an awning. They met under it. Captain Lewis made what I call the Big Speech. He done told me about it several times. In fact I had to copy it out three times. He don’t want to lose it, and I heard him practice it with Pierre and Francis and Drouillard because they have to put it in sign language. In it he tells them why we are here, where we are going, and that they have a new Great Father — Jefferson. The first two parts of the speech I kept thinking would go over fine. But I couldn’t help but wonder if these Indians would be a little bit surprised to hear they have a new Great White Father back in Washington. He also calls them “children.” Maybe that doesn’t strike others wrongly, but me being the youngest I think it’s odd calling these grown men “children,” especially the chiefs. The Indians, however, seemed fine with this information. Didn’t twitch an eyebrow. We gave them gunpowder and a bottle of whiskey to share around. Then we gave each of the six chiefs a special medal to hang around his neck. I was sent to fetch some paint and dress ornaments but told to leave back the blue bead bags. Captain Lewis told me we have to make them last all the way to the Shining Sea. Of course I think we’ve got enough to last all the way across the whole dang sea. Hard to imagine using up twenty-five pounds of blue beads.

  We named this meeting place Council Bluffs. Makes sense, I guess, for this is the first place we took council with the Indians.

  August 4, 1804

  Well, it looks like Moses Reed has up and deserted. Yesterday after the council with the Indians we made our way upstream and camped on a sandy point on the western side of the river. Reed told me to tell the Captains that he had left his knife back at the other campsite at Council Bluffs and was going back to fetch it. He ain’t been heard from since.

  Later: Still no sign of Reed.

  August 5, 1804

  Captain Lewis is busy killing animals for study. I am kept equally busy helping him measure and weigh. Now he asks me to draw more often. We got a bull snake today and two water birds, one that squeaked like a pig — honest to gosh. I had to write that in the notebook, but it’s true. We crouched and listened to it squeaking away for a good five minutes before Captain shot it.

  York asked me to help him mend some tarp today but Captain Lewis needed me. Pierre Cruzatte came up and said, “York, you don’t want this boy mending tarp. Look how he done sewed his ear.” York and I laughed. As a matter of fact, I’ve become a better sewer helping Captain Lewis stuff all these critters. You have to sew up the seams.

  August 7, 1804

  I don’t think there is a night I go to sleep not thinking about whether I am going to be able to be a member of the permanent party and go all the way to the Shining Sea. But I can’t get up my nerve to ask Captain Lewis. I have been thinking that I’ve got to talk to someone about this and the person I might best be able to confide in is either York or Charley Floyd. York might be a Negro and a slave, but he is a stand-up man in my book, as is Charley.

  August 8, 1804

  This morning we had a good southeasterly breeze. Doesn’t often happen and we could hoist the sail on the keelboat. I was riding lookout up front, although lately I’ve been doing my share of pulling and poling — poling off sandbars. Anyhow we come round the bend and it looks like the whole river had been covered with a white blanket. First, I thought, Swans, like back before at that pond. But then I see that these ain’t no swans. Captain Lewis was about to jump out of his skin. He’s leaning so far out with his seeing scope that Joe Field has to hold on to him by the pants so he won’t fall into the river. Then he yelps “Birds of Clime! Birds of Clime!” and before I know it he has us pull over and Captain Lewis, Joe and Reuben Field, Drouillard, and I are o
ut of the boat. Drouillard is the party’s best shot, but Joe and Reuben aren’t bad. The Captain and I are the only ones without rifles. We’re carrying all the scientific equipment to note take and measure. Captain shoves a field notebook into my hands and starts dictating facts to me as we walk. I’m getting expert at walking and listening and writing all at the same time. No neat trick. Anyhow, Captain is going on and on, he’s so excited. I guess these birds — he calls them pelicans — spend the winter on the coast of Florida — I am not sure where Florida is — and then go over to the Gulf of Mexico. Not sure where that gulf is either. Captain Lewis knows all this from book learning, and he is sure these are the white pelicans he has read about.