February 11th
We sent down a party with sleds, to relieve the horses from their loads; the weather fair and cold, with a N.W. wind. About five o’clock one of the wives of Chaboneau was delivered of a boy; this being her first child she was suffering considerably, when Mr. Jessaume told Captain Lewis that he had frequently administered to persons in her situation a small dose of the rattle of the rattlesnake, which had never failed to hasten the delivery. Having some of the rattle, Captain Lewis gave it to Mr. Jessaume, who crumbled two of the rings of it between his fingers, and mixing it with a small quantity of water gave it to her. What effect it may really have had it might be difficult to determine, but Captain Lewis was informed that she had not taken it more than ten minutes before the delivery took place.
ELLIOTT COUES, ed., The History of the Lewis and Clark Expedition, Vol. I. New York: Dover Publications, 1965, p. 232.
Sacajawea straightened slowly and pressed her two hands to her back to ease the ache. “Little Tess, stay close. Do not wet your moccasins.” She sighed while she looked enviously after the papoose’s mother, Otter Woman. Otter Woman was slim and agile. She trotted upriver to find a quiet place where she could break the ice and dip her stained tunic in and out of the water. Other squaws were washing skin tunics in the icy water. Sacajawea dipped a huge clay pot into the clearest water she could find. She knew that if the water were warmed the grime and grease would come out more easily. She longed for the slippery yellow soaproot that her mother had used to make a milky, frothed water that left skins clean and soft.
Washing was a chore in the winter, when water had to be warmed in the lodge. For Sacajawea, washing was even more of a chore now—her arms did not have the strength for wringing that they used to have, and her breathing was not deep and satisfying, but shallow, coming in little gulps as the air pushed against her distended diaphragm. She could not bend easily, and her legs tired quickly. She cupped her free hand over her swollen belly as a small foot pushed against the womb’s confining wall. Then her hand dropped to catch Little Tess’s chubby fingers. With the thick wire handle of the water pot adjusted in her other hand, they walked slowly to the lodge.
Her thoughts hovered over the morning’s activities. Charbonneau had surprised them. Unexpectedly he had said, “This day we move to the pale eyes’ camp. How you like that? The white chiefs, they want Charbonneau close to where he work.”
“Move? In winter?” asked Otter Woman. “Our man has strange orders.”
Charbonneau had threatened her with a stick of firewood over her backside if she did not hurry with his stewed meat and flour-and-water cakes. He had pushed her and had held a glowing stick near her feet to get them moving faster.
Now our tunics will be clean when we move to the village of the pale eyes, Sacajawea thought. And we will be able to see that huge black man, who looks burned, more often. She smiled to herself.
Coming to the mud lodge, Sacajawea hurried and pulled Little Tess after her. “Aiee!” called Corn Woman, who was still sitting in the sun, not moving a muscle, “you drag along that big papoose outside and a big papoose inside.” She chuckled to herself. “Pale eyes will not look two times.” She then stirred enough to point a broken, dirty fingernail toward the river. “Where is Otter Woman?”
“She is coming. I took this jackrabbit home with me because when she turned her back to peg her tunic down to dry, he stepped into the water. Otter Woman cannot watch him all the time.”
“Heee—when I was a papoose no one thought about me walking into the river. They deliberately pushed me, and I learned to swim. We learned to take care of ourselves in those days. This boy will have soft white muscles, like flour dough. Pagh! What kind of men will women make these days? Soft like dead fish, lazy as fat cats, pale as dusty bones—that is not men, that is shadow.”
“Chit, chit,” answered Sacajawea. “Gather your belongings, and while the water is heating I will gather those of our man so that we can move this day.” Sacajawea pushed the lodge door open and nudged Little Tess ahead into the dark passageway. There was much work to be done.
Sacajawea was pleased that they were moving to the fort, except that they would pitch their tent next to Jussome’s. She did not like the idea of being so close to Broken Tooth, who did not wish to be referred to as Broken Tooth anymore, but by her newest name, Madame Jussome. Otter Woman had told her this, and Sacajawea had asked what it meant. Charbonneau had explained that it was correct French for Jussome to refer to his woman as madame.
Now Corn Woman asked, “Could you call me Madame Charbonneau?”
Charbonneau threw back his head and exposed his yellow teeth, laughing uproariously. “Magnifique! My own mère, she was called that. Yi! She hated it. She preferred her own name, Tchandee, Tobacco. That was a fine Sioux femme. She left my papa when he called her Madame Charbonneau once too often. Femme! Mon dieu! Who knows what la jeune fille wants?”
Charbonneau then became more serious. “Baptiste LePage, my old trapper, is back with many beaver pelts—fat, sleek ones. He has sold the pelts to the pale eyes and has joined up with them for the long journey we take in the spring.”
Sacajawea lifted the robes from Charbonneau’s sleeping couch and folded them in a pile by the door. “Good, we like LePage,” she said. The trapper had visited with them in the early fall.
“Ai, there will be someone we can recognize. The men in the fort all look alike to me,” said Corn Woman, grunting and puffing as she carried clay cooking pots to the door. “Except the one that was painted by the night wind.” They all laughed, thinking of Ben York.
By that afternoon, they had moved into the fort, and with the help of the tall, skinny youth, Shannon, Sacajawea and Otter Woman had pitched their leather tepee beside Jussome’s.
All the men of the Corps of Discovery liked George Shannon, even though he was not well versed in woodcraft—several times on the upriver trip he had got lost while hunting. But he was eager, whistling and scampering with Captain Lewis’s big black Newfoundland dog, and he took his teasing well. Charbonneau had explained to the boy that his squaws would take care of everything—that was the reason for having many femmes, after all. But this puny pale eye had actually done squaw’s work and hauled in the rolls of hide and clay pots. The women had giggled as their man made signs with the boy. No man, however young, would do a squaw’s work. Still, while Sacajawea giggled, she was glad of the help, and Shannon and Otter Woman had taken an immediate liking to one other. By the end of the afternoon, they were exchanging Minnetaree and English words.
The first hard blizzard of the winter hit. The temperature fell below zero. From the vantage point of the tepee, Sacajawea could see the white men leaning into the blasts of driving snow as they crossed the frozen stream just outside the fort and returned to stack the logs they had dragged in from the woods. They seemed to take no account of the weather; besides, the snow on the ground eased the task of dragging the logs for firewood.
That first blizzard was succeeded by another and, after a week of intermittent heavy snow, by a third. When the last one ceased to howl, it left in its wake the stillness of intense cold. The timbers of the building groaned, and limbs snapped from the trees. The snow creaked underfoot. Encircled by their newly finished stockade and assured by the existence of the storeroom of an ample food supply until spring, the men settled by their firesides for a pleasant respite until it was time for the guards to change at the gate and in the tower.
“Whilst there’s snow on the ground, we got no call to fret about Injuns. They never like to hunt for trouble nowhere’s that’s way off from where they belong, account ye cain’t go nowheres in the snow without yer leavin’ tracks.” Young Shannon was repeating the facts of wilderness winter life he had learned from Otter Woman to Captain Clark. “It goes agin’ the grain with an Injun if’n other folks see where he’s been. Injuns ain’t a-goin’ to bother us none till the snow goes off in the spring.”
“I hope I can count on that,” said Clark, puffing on his pipe.
Nevertheless, the captains insisted on the regular guard.
Dark days followed, the noons as dim as twilight. Having banished the sun and the stars, the leaden overcast seemed to have obscured the distinction between minutes and hours and days. Each day centered about the morning and evening meals. The men went hunting in groups of two or three. Charbonneau, Jussome, and the two Fields brothers, Reuben and Joseph, who were excellent woodsmen, went out early one morning and returned with an enormous bull moose. A neck shot from Reuben had dropped him.
The Indians soon discovered that in addition to food and trinkets, the white men had strong medicine, and the Mandans began bringing their sick to the fort. The captains found themselves thawing frozen feet, amputating frozen toes, and treating pleurisy. They knew that those who were relieved of pain would know the Americans meant to help them. It was good for the women of Charbonneau’s lodge, also, for seeing friends made them feel less isolated.
One crisp, cold morning Sacajawea awoke to a volley of rifles and a loud salute from the swivel gun. Charbonneau was already awake, trying to rouse Corn Woman to add wood to the fire and boil water for his tea. Corn Woman scratched her head and tucked a few of the hair wisps beneath her felt hat before she inspected the fire.
“What are you? Big lazy turtle? She is cold in here. Add more sticks to the fire. She day of medicine for Americans. She Christmas. Holy Mother! I want to see how they celebrate day of Holy Infant’s birth.” Charbonneau crossed himself and spat toward the smoldering fire.
Now the three women dressed quickly, chattering softly. Otter Woman dressed Tess in his best leggings and shirt. They, too, were eager to see a white man’s celebration. This was something new.
Charbonneau was one of the first in line for his ration of brandy, with Jussome following close behind. Broken Tooth did not show herself. Captain Clark had stopped her from soliciting gifts from his men in return for favors from some Mandan squaws she had recruited, and he had threatened her. She did not want another scolding.
Some of the men cleared the mess room and began dancing to a tune Cruzatte was playing on his violin. Pierre Cruzatte, a private, was chief waterman. He was a wiry, one-eyed Creole whom the irreverent soldiers of the expedition had nicknamed Saint Peter. An extrader with the Chouteaus, he spoke the Omaha language and was well liked by the detachment, particularly for his fiddling. With only one eye—and that one nearsighted—he could guide boats through the worst rapids or shoals better than many watermen blessed with two eyes.
Some of the men tooted on the trumpets, or tin horns, Lewis had bought in Saint Louis. Warmed by the brandy, Charbonneau played a French horn, or mouth organ; then Jussome joined him in singing “Mon Canot d’E-corce.” The voyageurs then sang something of their own composition, “La Sauvagesse.”
When Ben York came in, the audience gasped. On his back, bare to the waist, the image of the sun gleamed in white paint. His kinky hair was brushed out like a wild man’s, and around the eyes that he rolled from side to side were huge circles of grayish white clay. White also circled his red lips.
“Good Lord!” exclaimed Captain Lewis.
“Is that a necessity on Christmas?” asked Captain Clark, astounded.
“Ai, the Devil of the Mandan celebration, the Okeeheede,” cried Corn Woman gleefully, giving Sacajawea a poke in the side. The Indian women doubled over with laughter.
Dinner was a feast of roast turkey, deer, elk, and buffalo. There was flour thickening in the dried apples, which were baked with cinnamon. The corn had been seasoned with salt and pepper, making it taste like some rare dish. And there was hot tea with plenty of sugar.
Sacajawea casually rubbed some buffalo fat from her dinner into her braids to make them shine in the firelight, and thought how wonderful it was to have plenty to eat.
Shortly after Christmas, just days before the thermometer at the fort fell to thirty-eight degrees below zero, the weather-wise buffalos sought the Upper Missouri, where the snow blew off the rises and there were bluffs to protect them. Many of the men, unused to the deceptively dry cold, were frostbitten, York among them. It became a great joke, particularly when the news spread to the Indians. A Sioux, a recent captive of the Mandans, called this year the Winter the Black Man Froze His Man Part.
New Year’s Day was as festive as Christmas. Sacajawea wrapped herself in a gray wool Army blanket given her by the captains. She sat against the wall of the mess hall. Otter Woman paraded in her new blanket before Madame Jussome. Little Tess paraded with his father. Two shots were fired from the swivel, and a round of small arms was shot off early in the morning, followed by a round of rum. Cruzatte brought out his violin again, and George Shannon appeared with a tambourine. About midmorning, half the men left, saying they had invitations to the Mandan village “to dance.” Cruzatte, Shannon, and George Drouillard (with a tin trumpet) went with the men.
Drouillard had responsibility second only to that shared by the commanders. He was Lewis’s scout, interpreter, and chief hunter. His mother was a Shawnee; his father, Pierre, a friend of Clark’s brother. Lewis exempted him from guard duty, promised him extra pay upon the completion of the expedition — and got it for him. His accuracy with a rifle was uncanny. He was tall and ramrod-straight. He had inherited his mother’s stoicism and reserve as well as her jet black hair and dark brown eyes. He was second only to Reuben Fields as a strong, fast runner, and his proficiency at woodcraft, or plainscraft, made even such men as Colter and the Fields brothers look like rank amateurs. Unlike many of his full-blooded French colleagues, Drouillard could write tolerably well, and he was fluent in Indian sign language, which Lewis knew was the lingua franca of the plains and Rockies. To Lewis, obtaining the services of Drouillard as nimrod, dragoman, and dactylologist at twenty-five dollars per month was just about the best bargain he had ever made.
Lewis and Clark watched the men leave, then returned to their cabin.
“Good Lord,” Lewis said as he was going through the storeroom, “they’ve been in here. A marvel that Indians just being in a room should leave so strong a smell.”
“It’s the bear grease they use.” Clark groped in after Lewis and closed the door. He felt his way along the piles of goods, took a candle from the shelf, and lighted it from one of Dr. Saugrain’s matches on the shelf alongside the candles. These matches were phosphorous sealed in glass tubes. The phosphorus was ignited by breaking off the end of the tube. As he straightened, he heard Lewis gasp. He spun around, holding up the candle. Motionless as a statue against the wall, his eyes catching and reflecting the dim glow of the candle, was the dark, bulky, fur-shrouded figure of an Indian.
“Who is on guard?” Lewis asked, taking care to keep his voice steady and calm.
“I don’t know,” Clark said.
“Fran’,” said the Indian. He tapped his chest and grinned. His face was not painted, and he was not armed with bow and arrows. Lewis glanced down, and only then did he notice that the Indian had his fingers tightly closed over the snout of the dog Scannon, to keep him from barking. “Fran’—Fran’,” the Indian was chanting loudly while pointing in vigorous and alternate succession at Lewis and Clark.
“Friend,” agreed Lewis.
The Indian snatched a pipe tomahawk from a shelf beside him and extended the hand that still held closed the snout of Lewis’s dog. The dog shuffled and tried to pry loose. “Swap? Swap?”
Lewis looked around, giving himself time to think, apprehensive lest he make some useless but provocative gesture of belligerence. He should not have feared. Clark, his arms laden with calico shirts, shoved them under the Indian’s nose. Scannon was released and began to bark loudly. Clark opened the door and feigned smoking on the pipe. The Indian laughed merrily and by cheerful gestures indicated that he still had something to give the captains, as was right and proper among such good friends. Behind him, out of range of the candlelight, stood a woman dressed in a fresh white deerskin tunic decorated with blue beads and held around her waist by a belt of blue beads. She had on leggings and white moccasins decorated with the same kind of blue beads. Her head was bowed, but every now and again her eyes looked up to see the wonders on the shelves. Obviously this was the Indian’s most favored woman.
“He wants you to have his woman, I think,” said Clark with an amused look.
“Oh, Lordamercy, we’d better straighten this out in an amicable way,” said Lewis. He sent York for an interpreter. While they waited, the Indian petted and patted Scannon and offered him a bit of jerky, which he pulled from somewhere in the folds of his fur robe. Scannon lay contentedly at the Indian’s feet.
Unexpectedly, York returned with Sacajawea and Otter Woman. Both Jussome and Charbonneau had left the fort, probably on a hunting trip, he explained. Otter Woman now knew a good many English words taught to her by Shannon, but she would not come to the officers’ quarters alone.
The Indian took one look at the two women who were to interpret his hand signs and refused to talk. But then Captain Clark asked a question and Sacajawea pointed a slim brown finger toward the Indian. “Le Loup,” she said softly, imitating her man’s French.
The Wolf Chief nodded and emitted a guttural laugh, recognizing Sacajawea. This was not squaws’ business, but if the white men let squaws repeat their words, then he would do the same.
The captains felt the charge in the air. “You two know each other?” asked Clark, looking from Sacajawea to the Wolf Chief.
“Ai,” indicated Otter Woman shyly, trying hard to be helpful but feeling much out of place, still not sure how she had come to be here telling the white chiefs that the Wolf Chief was head of all the Mandans. Too much had happened too suddenly for her.
Sacajawea, by far the more intelligent, talked to her, making signs and clucking noises.
After Otter Woman’s first panic had subsided, she began to speak slowly. Sacajawea helped with the important hand signs. “This Wolf Chief played in the game of hands with Charbonneau when Sacajawea became Charbonneau’s squaw. Sacajawea sat upon the blanket,” added Otter Woman slowly, her face flushed.
The Wolf Chief threw the women a haughty look.
Half a lifetime of cowering before men had taught Sacajawea that there was no more certain road to approval than obedience. She sat on the floor and bowed her head.
“Now what is the matter?” asked Lewis. “I thought this was the young woman who had all the spunk. Just look at her now!”
Otter Woman, finished with her story, squatted in a corner, her arms wrapped around her knees. No thoughts showed on her face.
Clark surveyed the situation, then with a slow movement of his hands turned from Otter Woman to Sacajawea. “Why does this man cause you to bow your head? Did you not want to become Charbonneau’s squaw?”
Sacajawea could not answer. For her there was no question of wanting or not wanting, one only did as one was told. She could not understand that she could have had a choice. For captured Indian women, there was never a choice. She looked into the face of Clark. His blue eyes were searching for something in her face. She wanted to say something, to tell him anything to make him happy. Her mind stirred. “You healed the frostbitten fingers of Le Loup’s first born son. He is so grateful that he has brought his most beautiful pale-skinned woman so that both American chiefs can use her for the night as a gift from him.” Her hands rested limply in her lap, her eyes still on the captain’s face. She waited patiently for his answer. If he refused, he would offend the Wolf Chief, and that would be a rude thing.
Otter Woman, in the meantime, had grown inquisitive about the pretty clothes on the young squaw and was fingering the beads and looking at her moccasins and beautifully worked leggings. The tenseness in the small room grew. Otter Woman could not be enticed or cajoled to come back to talk with the American chiefs. She was completely preoccupied with the garments on the prized squaw. Sacajawea watched the room with bright, sharp eyes. Suddenly she felt something new to her; she did not want Chief Red Hair to accept the offer of the Wolf Chief’s young squaw for the night.
Lewis began to talk softly to Clark. The Indians listened quietly as if they understood, but the Americans knew that they did not comprehend one word, and if Otter Woman heard a familiar word or two, she did not indicate it.
“Don’t fool yourself that Indians aren’t smart. They play every angle. You saw how he grabbed Scannon and used him as hostage to get the pipe tomahawk?” Clark nodded, sucking intently on his own pipe. “We know Indians are natural traders. All they have ever had in their existence is what they’ve traded for. Now”— Lewis pointed the stem of his pipe at Clark to emphasize what he was saying—“here’s the thinking of an Indian in a trade. You’ll never get the better of him. Here’s his logic.” He paused for a puff or two, then went on. “He’ll never give up anything he wants or for which he has the slightest use. He wants something you have. So he’ll give you something that is worthless to him in trade for something he wants. So you’re getting nothing for something. So, you see, he’s always got you beat.”
“It looks that way,” said Clark thoughtfully, making little sucking sounds on the stem of his pipe.
Finally he turned to Sacajawea, his hands still moving slowly, and at the same time using English words. “Say to the chief we thank him very much for this great honor. His young woman is very attractive.” Sacajawea had him repeat the words so she could get the thought across to the Wolf Chief. “Tell him he would please us more by giving us information in regard to the westward country and the mountains. Is there a water passage through those mountains?”
Sacajawea stared at Captain Clark. Didn’t he already know there was no water passage? Her mind moved swiftly. She thought Chief Red Hair asked questions only to divert the Wolf Chief and make him feel important.
She pulled up a box in front of the Wolf Chief and talked to him in his language, elaborating on the beauty of the young woman and on his fine judgment of women. The captains watched, seeing the brightness of Sacajawea’s eyes as she talked with the Wolf Chief, and noting that Otter Woman, who knew more English words, was not much interested in using them, but interested only in clothing and trinkets. Sacajawea sat on a box in the manner of the white men, not on the floor as Otter Woman continued to do.
“Fran’,” the Wolf Chief repeated, almost genial again. He patted the tomahawk and settled it more snugly under his arm. He motioned that he was willing to tell what he knew of the west. He slipped the fur robe to the floor and then took his deerskin shirt off and smoothed it down in front of the fireplace.
Captain Clark understood. He brought out an elk hide and a piece of white chalky stone. “I want him to make the best picture he can of the Big Muddy,” he said.
Little by little, amid much groaning and clucking, the Wolf Chief made the marks of the western course of the Missouri, showing the Little Missouri and the river called Rochejaune by the French, coming in from the south. Sacajawea did her best to interpret his motioned words. He drew a big stream and made it very white—the Milk River, which emptied into the Missouri from the north. Then, smiling, pleased that he could draw so well, he showed where the Missouri dipped to the south and then cascaded into a series of large falls: “a creation of the Great Spirit!” Sacajawea pointed to parts of the picture and spoke with the Wolf Chief, who shook his head yes.
Captain Clark was excited with his good fortune this night. “You know some of this trail?”
“Ai.” Sacajawea looked up at him. “I was a child, but I can remember the way to the People. With no enemies on the trail, I could go back. It is not an unheard-of thing to the People.”
Sacajawea’s eyes flashed as the Wolf Chief spoke rapidly. She moved from one moccasin to the other.
Surprised at her agitation, Clark asked, “What did he say?”
Slowly, with trembling hands, she replied, “He will make war on the Shoshonis when the snow goes. He likes their horses and women.”
“Tell him it is wrong to make war.” Captain Clark spoke in a very stern voice. “He must keep peace with his neighbors. He can get horses in peaceful trading.”
“Peace.” The Wolf Chief shook his head doubtfully, and Sacajawea emphasized the hand signs he made. “The braves who steal a horse count coup, take a prisoner and be a hero, kill an enemy and not only count coup but rise toward the high office of chief. War is the measure of tribal valor. White chiefs would make sons soft with this strange talk.”
Sacajawea shifted her weight; this philosophy was difficult to put across in hand signs.
Captain Clark said, “The tribes and nations who do not keep peace and do not open their ears to the counsel of the white men will lose the protection of the Great White Father. Sooner or later you will have to listen. War cannot continue.”
“I will wait,” promised the Wolf Chief, “but if other nations do not keep peace, aaahoooooooo!” He let out a bloodcurdling war whoop.
While the Wolf Chief was smoking with Clark, Lewis rummaged around on a shelf and found tortoiseshell combs for the women. Then he went outside and motioned for the guard to let them out. He was surprised at the depth of emotion he felt toward Sacajawea. Clark was absolutely right; she was very intelligent.
When the Wolf Chief left, Clark stared at the map so long that when he finally spoke, Lewis was startled.
“A mother with a child climbing the warm foothills with a handful of grasses and flowers,” mused Captain Clark. “It might work in a wonderful way to appease the Indians. When spring comes and we can smell the tree buds, and we count heads for our journey west, I believe a woman of the Shoshoni Nation ought to be included.”
Lewis looked at Clark with amazement and disbelief in his deep-set blue eyes. “Clark, is this meant to be a joke? A woman and a baby—on a military expedition?”
“Well, I was thinking along those lines,” said Clark, taking a deep draw on his pipe. “It might not be as silly as it sounds at first. I’m trying to think like the Indians we’ll meet. They resent being called Indians, you know. That is a paleface name to them. They want to be known by the name of their particular tribe. They have a pride in the nation they belong to and want to be known as an individual from a certain group. I guess we have pride like that, too—we want to be known as men from the United States, representatives of the American government. We are proud to be from the state of Virginia or Missouri or Kentucky. If you saw a contingent of Sioux with a woman and child, would you think that they were on a raiding mission or some war party?”
“No, I’d like to believe they were maybe hunting or looking for a new spot for a camp,” said Lewis, glaring at Clark. “Why do you ask this non-sequitur question?”
“Oh, but it does follow logically. If we take a squaw with a child, no Sioux, Blackfoot, or Crow will figure we are at war, but they will immediately know we are peaceable. And if the squaw is a Shoshoni, then that tribe will welcome us as friends.”
“So, we can be friends with the Shoshonis. That’s fine, but I can’t see what that has to do with us getting on to the west.”
“The Shoshonis have horses. What if they are willing to trade for some of our trinkets or ground corn? Wouldn’t that help get us west?”
“But we are going to go by water all the way to the Pacific! This is a northwest waterway we are going to explore.” Lewis shook his head as he looked at Clark.
“I was just thinking that in case there is no water passage through the mountains, or if we have to portage for any distance, it would be much easier to have horses to carry our supplies. And I’m in favor of riding whenever I can, instead of walking.”
“All right, that does make sense, but I thought you were going to get sentimental and go on about how a pretty squaw would be something enjoyable for the men to have around on the rest of the journey. Or how she’d give you all her family secrets about how her ‘Aunt Pokeberry’ or ‘Granny Gingerseed’ made tea and tonic with mustard flowers or lupins and buttercups. Instead, you’re mercenary. You want to trade friendship for horses. You want a reward for friendship.”
“Hire horses, yes. I told you I was thinking in a straight line. I’m serious. And there will be wild plants—ferns, and mushrooms, roots, bark, and leaves—that have medicinal uses. A squaw does know about these things, and that could be helpful to us. Just suppose you and the medicine boxes go overboard because a pirogue overturns? We’d be in a hell of a fix without those drugs and medical supplies that Doc Saugrain and Ben Rush packed for us in Saint Louis.”
“What about me? Clark, I swear you’re impossible this morning.”
Both men laughed and walked together outside to look at the thermometer on the side of their quarters. The morning was clear and the sun shone bright; the snow crunched underfoot. The thermometer stood at twenty degrees below zero.
Lewis jogged around to keep warm. “Clark, are you wearing my extra woolen socks? They’re not in my foot locker where I laid them last.” Lewis led the way back inside their quarters. Their breath made vapor puffs in the cold air.
Clark sat on a packing crate and pulled at his pipe; the tobacco was cold. “Look, at the very least it is up to me to decide whether we want that old rascal Jussome or the Squawman, Charbonneau, with us as interpreter. I’ve thought some, and I say Charbonneau. He’s not as bright as Jussome, but he’s not as scheming, either, and I like the looks of his young wife.”
Lewis looked out of the corner of one eye at Clark. “You’re not—surely not! You’re not really thinking of taking that Frenchman’s woman! Who ever heard of any military expedition going into unknown land, into a foreign country, up an uncharted river, guided by a female—a pregnant squaw! Lord, that’s ridiculous. We’d never be able to hold up our heads in front of President Jefferson!”
Clark filled his pipe with fresh tobacco and lit it with a stick from the fireplace in the room. “We’ll do this with our eyes open. Nothing to be ashamed of. By spring the child will be here. You can record in your journals the plants she gathers and what she uses them for—mullein for cough syrup; crabapple bark for asthma and sneezing. She’ll be helping in a scientific way.”
Lewis bent down to look at the woolen socks Clark was wearing. ‘Those are mine. And those remedies aren’t new. Your grandmother knew all that. So did mine, and I’ve had my fill of each. We can find out from the various tribes we meet what they do with this grass or that twig, and I’ll write the information down for the President. I’ve already got enough information on the Mandans and Minnetarees for a book.”
“Lewis, I’ll give you back your socks if you’ll hear me out. That young squaw of Charbonneau’s is brighter than the usual. Look at the way she helped us today. What would you do if your dog, Scannon, had a snakebite? I’ll bet you she’d know how to save him. You wouldn’t want Scannon to die, would you?”
“Of course I wouldn’t. I’d be willing to let her advise me on what to do. But what do you think Jefferson would say to such a plan?”
Pulling off his moccasins, Clark took the outer pair of gray woolen socks from his feet and threw them at Lewis. “It’s a wonder I haven’t been frostbitten. Wish my moccasins were fur-lined. I bet those mountain folks, the Shoshonis, know how to keep the cold out. They haven’t seen many white men. Even the British are afraid of a Shoshoni brave, and those savages don’t even have guns. Our men would be at their mercy in the mountains. They are masters with a bow and arrow. An arrow could whang itself into your chest before you even knew they were around. You know that Charbonneau’s young squaw is a Shoshoni, don’t you?”
“Oh, Lordy, how could I forget when you keep mentioning it?”
“You saw how her eyes lit up when she spoke of her mountain home. She could help us restore our supplies, and if her people do have horses, we could make a deal.”
“The baby—what do we do with a baby on this expedition?”
Clark looked at Lewis in astonishment. “You’ve got to put your moccasins on right and think Indian. A papoose is no trouble. The squaw stuffs him in the cradleboard and shifts it to her back. Indian women are strong creatures, and they can fend for themselves. They are never ill, and they don’t complain. They are cheerful about taking orders and never talk back. You know how they behave.”
“Lord, you’re actually serious about this.”
Clark paused to relight his pipe. “Out here, among a different kind of people and a different way of living, values are not the same. Look — in an office in Washington or Saint Louis, this would be funny. I’d be the first to admit it, the first to laugh. But right now, here, it is the most logical thing in the world.”
“You want us—me—to hire a pregnant squaw to be counted in our expedition?”
Clark thought a moment. “I could give you half a dozen situations where a military operation has not always gone by the book. You know as well as I that sometimes it is impossible.”
“Maybe we could take Charbonneau’s older woman.”
“That’s the way! At least now you’re thinking, Lewis! But we want someone with spirit, not just a follower. Someone to follow orders cheerfully, but to be a bit creative and more than just a slave; someone useful as well as helpful. That other one won’t do, but Sacajawea has spunk. She is not afraid to speak out. Her people would be friends, and we could trade for supplies. She could speak to them for us. We might even leave her with her people until we return from the Pacific. Then we wouldn’t have a woman and child along for the whole expedition.”
Lewis looked at Clark in consternation, as if he wanted to argue but didn’t dare. Clark’s words had hit home. He thought, Maybe this young woman has some knowledge of the northern territory that would lead to the Saskatchewan territory from her homeland in the mountains. Jefferson had privately directed Lewis to solve this problem. Then he thought of trade with the Shoshonis in the mountains. A trading post in the heart of the Rockies was not a bad idea—or, better yet, a post in the Saskatchewan territory.
“This young woman will be a token of friendship. The tribes will not mistake our motives and always know we come in peace,” continued Clark.
“If we could develop trading posts, maybe at first east of the Continental Divide, in American Louisiana, perhaps her people would come down to them. Later we could set one up in the mountains for them, and then still later, when the system has grown in strength, posts could be established west of the Divide, in the home country of other tribes that would be our customers.”
Clark rose to his feet and stretched his big frame. “Lewis,” he said, “you’re a realist, and you know that that country isn’t American yet—you old son of a gun.”
“And you’re a sentimentalist! A broad-shouldered, red-haired, emotional sentimentalist.”
“And we both have to be smart, like the Indians. They have a way of thinking that pushes all trifles aside. From them comes a wisdom that we often overlook. So, that’s settled—we’ll take Toussaint Charbonneau as our interpreter and his young squaw to interpret in the homeland of her own people, the Shoshonis. Her papoose could be our talisman.”
“A baby for a good-luck charm? I see I was only half-right—you are sentimental, but you are also superstitious,” said Lewis with a twinkle in his eyes. “All right,” he said then, giving in, “I’ll talk to Charbonneau.”
Charbonneau entered the tepee, tossed his cap on the floor, and assumed a swaggering air. “I am going with the Americans in the spring. We plan the trip together. I am their chief interpreter.” He was pleased with the sound of these words.
The three women looked at him, their work interrupted.
“I will miss you,” sighed Corn Woman barely audibly.
Sacajawea looked at her bulging belly and thought, So, this is the way it will be. I will have a papoose but no man. There was nothing else to think about.
Otter Woman sprang to her feet, letting the nursing Little Tess slide to the floor. “You go to the land of the Shoshonis? Maybe I go, too?”
“Les capitaines disent non. I tell them I take you — you are the best squaw, I say—but it is they who say non.” It was this part of the arrangement with Lewis and Clark that he did not like. It hurt him to think of leaving Otter Woman behind. “I must take the other one,” he said.
“So, then they want me to keep you fed and comfortable?” said Corn Woman, all smiles now.
“Non, not you, and not anyone but Sacajawea. They make it clear.”
“So, you take the one big as a cow buffalo?” snapped Otter Woman. “The white men would not want her!”
Sacajawea looked up. She felt her child give a push inside her. It was a good sign. He was eager to begin his new life.
Otter Woman directed a couple of spitting shots at Sacajawea, but when she and Charbonneau seemed to ignore her, she spit again.
He leaped to his feet. “Diable! Why do that? I am not to blame, it is les capitaines.”
“But they called for me to interpret for them,” shouted Otter Woman.
“And now they call for me and Sacajawea to come live in a wood hut,” Charbonneau said.
Otter Woman’s jealous rage mounted. She upset the stew kettle and tore Sacajawea’s bed, tossing the soft cornhusks here and there, like a gopher pushing the dirt high in the air so he can get into his burrow.
That evening, Sacajawea left the leather tepee and returned to the old earthen lodge. She built herself a fire to keep off the chill and lay near it on a buffalo robe. She wanted to think, to plan and dream. She knew she had won the contest, but she did not think about the cost. She owed thanks to the Great Spirit, yet she kept seeing the face with the summer-sky eyes and red hair. She was going back to the People, back to the Shining Mountains. She was dizzy with her championship.
February was a cold month. Men went hunting and came in with frozen fingers and toes. The northwest wind howled around the fort and kept the men busy chopping wood for the fireplaces.
Sacajawea stayed close to the fireplace in the room given to her and her man for sleeping quarters. She softened thin deerskin for a warm, soft robe for her coming papoose. York brought her stewed fruits and tea with plenty of sugar cubes. Women were never treated thus by the Indians. At first she was shy, but soon she began to like the attention.
Then one morning, she sat up, sobered. There was something oddly out of key. Instead of being famished, she felt dull and depressed. Her back ached, and she bent in the middle with a cramp. She looked for Charbonneau, then for Clark, but both men had gone on a hunting trip with Sergeant Gass and another man.
Patrick Gass was an old Army Regular who had fought Indians, had known Daniel Boone, and had become acquainted with the Clark family as early as 1793. He was a little man, standing only five feet seven, but broad-chested and sturdy. He was a good soldier and an experienced carpenter and had built the ladder to the loft with extra-wide rungs so that Sacajawea could go up to her sleeping couch more easily. However, he was quite resentful toward the captains for taking a woman on a trip with military men. But his sense of fairness won out when he saw the thick mat of dried grasses and hay under Charbonneau’s sleeping robe and nothing under Sacajawea’s. With a burst of spunk he pulled out much of the soft matting and arranged it under Sacajawea’s sleeping robe.
Sacajawea tried to lift the kettle from the fire, but had to set it back and bend over to ease the pain. York came in with an armload of wood for the fireplace.
“Oho, missy, I’m going to get Captain Lewis if it’s the last act—if your time has come.” The huge dark fellow helped her climb to the loft and to her buffalo robe. He spoke softly to her, saying that he would return right away. She answered with a spasm that spread to her face, and her body writhed under the robe. When the spasm passed, her small brown face seemed loose and tired. Sacajawea opened her eyes, and in that instant, in that second of knowing, Ben York saw not a little Indian squaw; he saw his mother and his sister, he saw Mrs. Clark, mother of the captain, the mothers of all the men on the expedition. He saw womankind. Then he saw himself and knew her look was the humble, hurtful, anxious look that was hope and bone-deep in all of mankind.
York climbed down, meeting Lewis coming in. York pulled the big kettle off the wall hook, filled it with snow, and hung it over the fire. “Always heat the water to boiling.” He smiled at Lewis. “I’se seen birth an’ dying long before either was a shock, so I reckon I’m going to help with this here birthing. Biemby I ‘spect I’ll have to sing lullabies.”
They sat near the door wondering if they should get some Indian woman to help, but Lewis reasoned that Indian women can take care of these things by themselves. They heard Sacajawea calling, her voice low and indistinct at first, then rising in shrill terror. She was afraid to be alone. Her own body frightened her. It had turned and set itself against her. It gripped her with such a building up of one agony on top of another that she was afraid to trust herself with it alone, as if its system of torturing her was something secretive and intimate that the presence of somebody else could hold back.
York suggested they make a couch by the fireplace and bring her down from the loft. “Too hard going up and down that ladder,” he said.
York dipped cloths in boiling water and laid them on Sacajawea’s distended abdomen. Once, for a breath, he dared look into her eyes again, and again he knew that she was kin to him and to all other men—red, black, or white, it did not matter. Their entrance into this world was the same.
The pain did not seem to increase much, but the sudden blasts of it stiffened her body for two or three minutes at a time, leaving her weak. The sun moved up and down the roofs on the fort. Toward evening, she felt the sharp spasms closer together, one almost on top of the other. The constant pushing—the pushing she could not stop—was doing no good; the papoose did not come. York wiped her face with a cool cloth, then her hands and arms. Lewis smoked his pipe wishing that Clark were here—maybe he could think of something to do to help.
Suddenly there was a yipping and a loud “Whoa there,” and Jussome came bursting into the cabin, letting in the frosty air. His sled dogs yipped and growled, then quieted.
“Dieu, I looked everywhere for you,” he said to Lewis. “I wanted to ask if we could keep that grinding machine here after you leave in the spring. We could get a lot of cornmeal from it.”
“Ssshhh! Cain’t you see this little squaw is having a monstrous time?” hushed York. “Don’t you know some native potion hereabouts that hastens this here business?” he asked anxiously.
“Monsieur York, you have asked the right man. Snake rattles. Make a powder of them, and le bébé, he will come within un moment. Make a tea from rattles. Have her drink it. The Assiniboins and Arikaras use it.”
“Rattles! That sounds like voodoo,” said York sarcastically.
“Try it,” urged Jussome, taking off his blanket coat and stomping his boots on the hearth.
Lewis remembered some huge rattles he had collected a little way out of Saint Charles. He went to his cabin to look among the bottles and jars and boxes. He found them wrapped in some writing paper.
Jussome took two rings, put them in a tin cup, and with his fingers broke them into little pieces. He put hot water into the cup and stirred. York held Sacajawea’s head up so that she could drink the concoction. Jussome explained to her what it was supposed to do. Sacajawea’s hands grabbed for York. Lewis looked out the door at the sinking sun and wondered how long this could go on.1
Sacajawea knew that this was the time she must make the push count. She was beyond calling out or speaking. Her thoughts were her own, but she was one of a million women before her, and a sister to every woman who had been along this path. Her feelings were as primitive and as civilized as any woman’s. There was no distinction between primitive and civilized in the event of birth. This was an involuntary thing. It possessed her. She was not in control. She felt herself sinking into a black void; then, from far off, she heard York’s excited voice.
“I can see! It is a boy! His face is as round as his belly. He is just as lively as a cricket in the embers.”
When she opened her eyes, Lewis was holding the baby awkwardly as York washed him in warm water. The baby was yowling like a little coyote. York wrapped him in the soft skin robe she’d made. His eyes closed, and his fist came up beside his mouth.
“Black hair—no red,” she sighed.
“What?” asked York. But she was asleep, secure and safe, hardly stirring with the afterbirth. She dreamed of her child bronze and shining with golden-red hair, playing happily at the foot of snow-topped mountains. She dreamed of the many trails that had brought her here to the white men’s village.
In the morning Charbonneau came in with the other hunters, to learn the news of his new papoose. The men were tired from tramping through knee-deep snow and carried in two antelope and one buffalo.
Looking deep among the robes around Sacajawea, he found his son and put a big hand near the baby’s face. “Oooom, she is nice. I call her Jeannette.”
York laughed, showing white teeth. “When she asks you why and craves to raise Cain ‘cause of her name, don’t come crying to me. This here ain’t no little gal.”
“She is a boy?” asked Charbonneau, his face falling. “I already have a boy.”
“Give him a good name,” suggested Lewis. “One he can handle when he’s a man. One that spells easily, like—Jean.”
“Oui, I call him Jean Baptiste,” said Charbonneau, looking up and grinning so that his yellow teeth caught the firelight. “That is a good French name. My brother and LePage, they have this name. My squaw will like him. She will like the name I give papoose. Mon dieu!” He slapped his knee, and the tiredness seemed to drain away. “Jean Baptiste Charbonneau! Yiii! I can see this enfant refused his milk before his eyes were open, and called out for the bottle of red-eye! That’s my papoose! Talk about grinning the bark off a tree—that ain’t nothing! One squint of mine at a buffalo bull’s heel right now would blister it!”