An Indian woman of the Snake nation, desirous, like Naomi of old, to return to her people, requested and obtained permission to travel with my party to the neighborhood of Bear river, where she expected to meet with some of their villages. She carried with her two children, who added much to the liveliness of the camp.
The Shoshone woman took leave of us near Ham’s Fork of the Black Fork on the Green River, expecting to find some of her relations at Bridger’s Fort, which is only a mile or two distant, on a fork of this stream.1
JOHN CHARLES FRÉMONT, Report of the Expedition on the Rocky Mountains in the Year 1842, and to Oregon and North California in the Years 1843 –44, 28th Cong., 2nd Sess., Sen. Doc. no. 174. Washington, D.C.: Gales and Seaton, Printers, 1845. also in:
Donald Jackson and Mary Lee Penal, eds., The Expeditions of John Charles Fremont, Travels from 1838 to 1844, vol. I, Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1970, pp. 430, 457–58, 468–69.
Mrs. Ducate stopped Sacajawea at the water pump one morning. “Say—you’ve got him out of his shell. He was whistlin’ and hummin’ this morning when he went out to that garden. Next he’ll be wanting to take you and the little girls to the other forts. He’ll want to show them off. Let’s fix them up. I have some pink gingham and we can make them dresses and hair ribbons.”
Sacajawea was delighted with the idea, and indeed, Mrs. Ducate was right. By the end of the week Monsieur Fontaine’s face was a shade tanner from working in his garden, and there was a twinkle in his eyes. “I want to go visit St. Vrain. Bring the children. We might hear something about that roving, handsome Baptiste. He ought to be in Saint Louis by now. Maybe St. Vrain has heard,” he said to Sacajawea.
Sacajawea could not wait to tell Mrs. Ducate. “See there, I told you,” was her reply. The two women chattered and scrubbed the little girls. “They look beautiful in that pink with their dark eyes and black, shining braids,” said Mrs. Ducate, walking around each little girl.
“Ai,” said Sacajawea, just as pleased with the effect. “Will Monsieur Fontaine like their looks?”
Monsieur Fontaine brought the horses from the corral. He was most pleased with what he saw.
Sacajawea wore a yellow flowered dress. It had been Mrs. Ducate’s once and was big for Sacajawea, but she had taken in the waist with a belt of woven grass. Underneath she wore two petticoats.
Suzanne rode in front of her father and Crying Basket rode in front of Sacajawea as they set out.
During the ride Monsieur Fontaine turned his head slowly every so often and stared at Sacajawea. Slapping a gnat that had lit on his nose, he remarked once that this country sure did get as hot as the inside of a buffalo. Sacajawea reluctantly understood that he was one of those people who could ride through a land full of glory and never see it. To Jacques Fontaine, beauty meant a clean shave, and shining boots, and his own reflection in the stillness of a deep pool. He had hauled furs inand out of the country, herded sheep, farmed, but never noticed a mountain or a sunset in his life.
So Sacajawea did not talk about the spectacle around them. But that evening she gazed at the declining sun that sent long blades of light among the rocks, striking fantastic colors from their walls, and the shadows that lay purple on the ground. They arrived at Fort St. Vrain as the sun slipped behind one of the far towers, and the light around them was a thicker purple, though there were still crowns of gold on the top of the fort.
The Indian women inside the fort gathered around the little girls in pink and ooed and ahed, and touched their soft dresses.
Charley Bent came out.
“He is called White Hat by the Indians and is Bill Bent’s brother,” explained Monsieur Fontaine.
Charley Bent was happy to see the old engagé Fontaine out for a visit again. “You’ll be trapping by fall,” was his prediction. Then he winked toward Sacajawea. “Another woman now, huh?” asked Charley Bent.
“No. She’s my housekeeper.”
“Of course.” Bent winked. “Come through the blockhouse to the main quarters.” Descending the blockhouse stairs behind Sacajawea and Monsieur Fontaine, holding a spyglass in his hand, was a stocky, round-faced man. He was distinguished by a hedge of black whiskers and deep brown eyes, and his gray cassinette pants and red-flannel shirt set him apart from the buckskin-clad trappers and the Mexican dragoons with their colorful serapes. This man was Céran St. Vrain, first in authority here.
“We would like to wash up a little before the evening meal,” said Monsieur Fontaine. “We want to stay overnight. I don’t want to take these babies back to Lupton’s in the dark.”
“Oui, you may sleep inside the fort, Monsieur Fontaine. I did not know you were remarried,” said St. Vrain.
Monsieur Fontaine colored. “I am not, but I have a fine housekeeper for my little girl. This is Madame Charbonneau and her daughter, Yagawosier.”
“Charbonneau?”
“French, huh? Baptiste Charbonneau works for youand Bill Bent? Out? He worked for Louis Vasquez? Oui? This woman is looking for him. He is her son.”
“Vasquez?”
“Charbonneau, Baptiste.”
St. Vrain slapped the side of his leg with fine calfskin gloves. “That man is one of the finest men in the mountains, on foot or in a bateau. He always wears his hair long—down to his shoulders, sort of Indian-style. I loaded him down with furs early this spring, and he is on his way down the Platte to Saint Louis. Probably there now. If not, he’s camped somewhere reading to Jim Bridger. Ha-ha. Those two even argue about what Bap reads. Bridger can’t read a word, but he’s got a thinking head. That Bap has had a good deal of education. And you say Bap is her son?” St. Vrain looked at Sacajawea.
“Ai,” said Sacajawea. “You know my boy well?”
“Do I? That fellow has been working for me since he came back from Germany. He can get a mule or a man to do anything he says.”
“Did the Duke Paul come here again from his village across the Great Eastern Waters?”
St. Vrain stared at Sacajawea and brushed his hand across his mouth. “First time I ever heard a squaw say so much in good English and make sense. By God, you just could be Madame Charbonneau.”
“I am!” flared Sacajawea, moving herself so that her skirt rustled on the floor.
“Now I can’t wait until he comes back up here from Saint Louis,” said St. Vrain. “But he may just go to Bill Bent’s or across the mountains to that ramshackle Fort Bridger first. He and Bridger talked about doing some trapping.”
The bell for supper rang, and Sacajawea and the girls followed the men into the large dining hall. Wooden benches lined each side of the plank tables. Many of the workers at the fort were men with Indian women and children. These women looked curiously at Sacajawea in her gingham dress and the little girls in pink.
Across their table sat St. Vrain next to his young wife, who was languidly beautiful, dark, and serene. Sacajawea thought she looked more Mexican than Indian; then, when she looked again, she could not be sure.
The food was good. There were chunks of fresh mutton stewed with peppers and dried onions, slabs of goat’s-milk cheese, and fat red Mexican beans. In place of bread there was atole, a cornmeal from which was cooked hot mush, and pinole, a mixture of parched corn flavored with sugar and cinnamon. St. Vrain told Sacajawea that mixed with hot water, atole and pinole made good porridges for children.
Next to Sacajawea sat a mountain man. He was thickset, towheaded, blue-eyed, bandy-legged, and quiet-spoken most of the time. This man was telling about a skirmish with the Blackfeet. He pointed to the shoulder in which he had been shot. “Not even beaver fur would stanch the wound,” he said. “But the subzero temperature of them mountains saved my hide. My blood froze, and the wound closed.”
Sacajawea made some derisive noise and spoke the name of the Blackfeet in Shoshoni. The sun-haired mountain man looked at her and spoke in the Shoshoni tongue. She was delighted and asked him how far away the mountains were from here.
“Long ways,” he said. “Long. But they are worth gaping at.” The mountain man looked at Crying Basket and then at Suzanne. “Them yours?” he asked.
“This one,” she pointed.
“I have a little girl not much older. She is in school in Saint Louis. It’s been a year since I’ve seen her. Her mother, Waanibe, an Arapaho, is not living.”
“Shh,” Sacajawea warned him. “Do not speak the name of those who have gone away.”
“Hey, it’s been awhile since I’ve seen one of these,” he said, reaching behind Sacajawea so that he could tug at the necklace her child wore. It was a narrow wooden paddle, whittled from a willow and pierced for the woven and beaded buckskin necklace. “That’s a goose stick. Every time the wild geese migrate, a notch is cut on the stick. Right? This here papoose is five winters old.”
“Ai,” answered Sacajawea, pleased that the man knew what the necklace meant.
“Are you Yankton, then?”
“No, Shoshoni.” And she made the special movement like weaving in and out in a grass basket. “But I have learned from others about counting winters.” She then looked fully at his face. “I have a son. Maybe your age.”
“So—you cannot be that old,” teased the man.
“Ai,” she said. “My son works in the white man’s forts and goes to Saint Louis.”
“So—has he a name?”
“Baptiste. Jean Baptiste Charbonneau.”
“Well hang the boots and saddles! I’m Christopher Carson. And I would not have believed what you have said unless I’d heard it.”
She smiled and waited for him to say more.
“Your son, he left Bent’s Fort last year and came here to St. Vrain’s. He took furs into Saint Louis.”
She nodded; she already knew most of this.
“He was to check on my little girl. He knows his way around that town. Went to school there himself. Buys books in Saint Louis to read during the long winters in the mountains. That sound like your boy?”
“Ai,” said Sacajawea; then softly: “I was in Saint Louis while he went to school. He and Toussaint.”
“Not old Toussaint. You’re pulling my leg. He never saw the inside of a school!”
“No, Little Tess.”
“Yes, seems I remember that one, too—dark and rather thickset and short—about same build as me. He likes firewater and fights. Last I heard he lived down with the Utes or Crows, maybe. He has a woman there. He’s not the man Baptiste is, if you don’t mind me telling you.”
“Ai.”
St. Vrain came to the side of the table and bent to Kit Carson.
“So—you’ve met this woman who claims to be the mother of Bap Charbonneau. She’d like to see him when he comes in for more furs.”
“I think her best bet is at old Gabe’s Fort, on the Black Fork. It’s not so much, just some logs and a sort of stockade. I heard that Louis Vasquez, down the table there yonder, helped Gabe with the building. Fantastic the way it holds together. Say, this squaw—she speaksa fair sort of English and knows more than most about them Charbonneaus. How do you account for that?”
“I believe her.” St. Vrain then stepped over toward Monsieur Fontaine. “Why don’t you stay tomorrow? It is the Fourth of July, and we’ll shoot off the cannon and pass out some bacanora or cognac. I’ll start some book learning with those girls. And I’ll give you some books so that Lupton can help for a while this winter. In the afternoon the little girls can see horse racing and the games. They’ll enjoy the festivities. So will your Madame Charbonneau. Some Cheyennes are coming in for trade, and with them Gray Thunder, the daddy of Owl Woman. You know who she is? Bill Bent’s Cheyenne woman.”
“Will Owl Woman come?” asked Sacajawea softly.
“It’s possible. Knowing that his brother Charley is here, Bill Bent might just come in with his woman.”
“Hey, Jacques,” called Charley Bent from another table to Monsieur Fontaine, “tomorrow you show us how you can ride your horse and what a good shot you are! We’ll get a few bets going.”
The next day before noon, John Charles Frémont and his party, including Tom Fitzpatrick, arrived at St. Vrain’s Fort. There was much shouting and celebrating. They were invited to eat in the mess hall with St. Vrain and the others. During the conversation St. Vrain asked Frémont if he had heard any news from Saint Louis of Baptiste Charbonneau.
“Of course. Just last summer I met that old grizzly-fighter. He was taking peltries to Saint Louis. Said he was working for you and Bent.”
“True,” said St. Vrain.
“Well, he ran into a snag—that is, the spring rise had been too low to carry the boats, so they gave up and sent for horses. Didn’t you get word and send him some?”
“No, but maybe Bill Bent did.”
“Well, he had the nicest little camp not far from Fort Morgan on an island. Called it Saint Helena. Sounds like him, doesn’t it? There was this big grove of large cottonwoods and the tents were pitched under them.” Frémont waved his long arms about and moved hismouth around as he talked. “He made us mint julep from horsemint. Very good, as a matter of fact. We had boiled buffalo tongue, and coffee, with the luxury of sugar.”
“See there”—St. Vrain pointed down the table to the vicinity of Sacajawea, who could eat none of her noon meal as she overheard their conversation—“that is his mother.”
“Now, Céran. You must be coming apart. That is a squaw in a gingham dress, but the mother of Bap? Wagh! He’s an educated man. He studied some years in Europe.”
“She knows a lot about his early life in Saint Louis,” said St. Vrain.
“Probably heard something from white traders. Those Indians will tell you anything that pleases. You know that.”
After eating, Frémont and half his party moved south to gather news from traders and trappers at Lupton’s about passage over the western mountain range. Then they planned to move down to Bent’s for mules. Tom Fitzpatrick stayed behind with the other half of the party to gather further information about travel through the mountain passes.
The sun was high when Gray Thunder’s band came in sight. Already the Utahs and Shoshonis were having a riding competition. Sacajawea and the little girls watched dancers. Two tepees had been pitched together, the poles crossed, and the lodge skins rolled up to form a large pavilion. A half-dozen men beat time on a hollow-log drum, while another half-dozen squatted in a row and played on tight leather hand drums. All seemed orderly confusion. Elderly men moved about quietly. Women with infants openly at their breasts, and others with small children, were arranging pallets on the ground in the little shade they could find from piñons and chamisa.
Louis Vasquez moseyed around the fort before taking his supplies, including two bags of salt, back to his own trading post a couple of miles north. St. Vrain insisted Vasquez first meet the Shoshoni squaw who claimed to be Bap Charbonneau’s mother.
Sacajawea smiled politely and asked slowly, in Spanish, when Vasquez thought Bap would be back around these forts.
“I’ll be a ring-tailed racoon,” said Vasquez to St. Vrain. ‘The woman does speak fair Spanish and knows more about that dude Charbonneau than you or I together.” Then he turned to Sacajawea and said, “I think that son of yours is on his way to Gabe’s Fort. Then he’ll be in and out of this area sooner or later.” Vasquez was still shaking his head in wonder over the Shoshoni woman who talked Spanish with French phrases scattered here and there, as he left St. Vrain’s Fort that afternoon.
A noisy game of hands was in progress. It was a game Monsieur Fontaine had played many times—the Indians’ version of the old shell game. He loved it. Sacajawea watched the drummers beat time on hand drums and heard everybody sing a noisy accompaniment to the rhythmic movement of the one-who-hides-some-thing, who manipulated the small, polished bone. She found the game did not intimidate her. The unpleasantness of my girlhood is a thing of the past. Those bad things have healed over, she thought.
Kit Carson seemed bored with the games and went out along the other side of the fort to the horse races.
Old Bill Williams nudged Monsieur Fontaine. “Let’s get in that there game,” he said in a thin, cracked voice. Bill was about six feet, one inch, gaunt, redheaded, with a hard, weather-beaten face, marked deeply with smallpox. He was all muscle and sinew. He had heard of the festivities going on at St. Vrain’s Fort and being in the vicinity had come in to see the goings-on. Generally he avoided crowds. He preferred his own company. He had lived with one Indian tribe or another for years. He was called Lone Elk by his friends.
There was a log-sawing contest, and Sacajawea moseyed there with the girls to watch.
Gray Thunder left his men, who were unpacking, preparing to do some trading, and he came straight for the games. Monsieur Fontaine spoke his regards to Gray Thunder and offered to let him play hands in his place. Bill Williams seemed to look neither to the right nor the left. He did not look at Gray Thunder as he spoke, but seemed to be thinking of something else as his voice whined out, “Once you sit here, there can be no exasperatin’ hagglin’ over where the bone is. I hain’t gonner stay if this game gets slow and bound up.”
The wrinkled, tough-minded Gray Thunder sat down to play the game with vigor. Monsieur Fontaine, now standing, watched as the Cheyenne Medicine Man lay his tobacco pouch on the blanket. Others followed Gray Thunder and put down their bets. Gray Thunder tossed in two silver dollars on top of the pouch he’d just put down. Bill Williams bent forward, which gave him the appearance of being humpbacked, and moved his head from side to side. The Cheyenne singing commenced. Gray Thunder moved his hands in time to the singing, allowing occasional glimpses of the bone as he passed it from one hand to the other. Bill pointed to his right hand, but it was empty.
“Ee-yah!” exclaimed those who had bet on Gray Thunder. But the round was not over, the Cheyennes having merely gained the advantage. Gray Thunder smiled as he handed the bone to Bill Williams. If the old Indian guessed right, he would win. Bill Williams gently placed his worn Bible on the blanket. “Lucifer, get behind me,” he said.
Gray Thunder guessed right and won. ‘That there Bible will do you no good, but it will do you no harm, either,” commented Bill. “I’ll get my Good Book back, you varmint.”
Both Gray Thunder and Bill guessed right on the next round, so no bets were exchanged—though some additional wagers were made by the onlookers. It was fairly even for a while; then Bill Williams began winning more consistently. After a long losing streak, Gray Thunder looked at Bill admiringly. “Lone Elk, he is much alive,” he said.
Monsieur Fontaine, sitting cross-legged next to old Bill, glanced briefly at Gray Thunder. Gray Thunder smiled quickly, his little twinkling eyes everywhere, then he resumed his masked emotions. Monsieur Fontaine thought about these two travelers, Bill and Gray Thunder, of merging trails, who did well to keep an eye on one another’s attitude. Fontaine felt alive himself this day, and he was enjoying himself more than hehad in many months. He felt now he had something to live for, a motivation. He was going to have both little girls educated so they could read and write and make something of themselves.
As the stakes in the game increased, Fontaine’s confidence increased, and he spoke aside to Sacajawea, who had come to sit beside him so the girls could watch the game. Bill Williams once in a while paused in his game to make laughing grimaces at the two little girls, who in turn hugged their knees in laughter.
“Madame Charbonneau, get St. Vrain. Tell him to bring something for higher stakes. This will be my day! Gray Thunder is finding he cannot stretch Bill Williams on the fence to dry!”
St. Vrain came back with Sacajawea. Both were laden with trinkets and a roll of white strouding. The Cheyennes began leaving the circle of the game to reappear carrying loads of furs. They could not resist the white man’s trinkets and cloth. The game resumed and new bettors arrived and others entered or withdrew as their luck prompted them. Besides quantities of foofaraw, Monsieur Fontaine was soon betting good three-point blankets to entice the Indians to risk their whole winter caches of beaver and fox.
Gray Thunder played it cautiously, sometimes sitting out a game or two and letting one of his warriors play. The games were now fairly even and the Indians were well satisfied until Old Bill had another run of luck and took three games in a row. “I gotter keep that white cloth for the two pretty little papooses here. They plumb took my fancy,” he said, closing down on one eye as if to wink at Suzanne and Crying Basket. Because of the number of Indians betting against him and also the size of the stakes, Old Bill’s winnings were beginning to make an impressive pile. St. Vrain lifted the pile of furs and skins off the blanket. “Nice easy way to trap,” he commented.
“Aw,” said Bill, “you all know I have no glory except in the woods, and my ambition is to kill more deer and catch more beaver than any other man. But these here I’m giving to this here Fontaine so’s he can give his papoose some book learnin’. I say it won’t do ‘em much good, but it won’t hurt ‘em, neither.”
Just then, Gray Thunder looked over at the huge pile of furs and skins. He stood up using hand signs as he talked. “Your winnings against what I have left.”
“Hi! Ti! Good! Agreed!” shouted the Cheyennes behind him.
“One pile of furs,” Old Bill said. He broke a stick in two and set half of it, to represent the pile, at the edge of the blanket.
Gray Thunder matched the half stick and nodded to the Cheyennes to sing.
Old Bill nodded toward Gray Thunder’s left hand and missed, but when he, too, succeeded in concealing the bone, Gray Thunder lost the advantage. St. Vrain sat at the edge of the blanket letting himself be drawn into the merrymaking. Old Bill passed the bone to St. Vrain, and a new game was started. Old Bill withdrew his precious worn Bible from the blanket.
Gray Thunder placed a whole marker at the edge of the blanket. “A horse.” St. Vrain matched the bet. The round was deadlocked. The sticks increased until both St. Vrain and Gray Thunder had bet a fourth of their animals. Old Bill clapped his hands and yelped in a voice that left the hearers in doubt whether he was laughing or crying. Then St. Vrain guessed wrong and Gray Thunder guessed right and won the game. A riotous shout went up from the Cheyennes. They knew they could sell horses at their own price to the loser. The dancing gyrations became wild, and Monsieur Fontaine feared it could lead to mayhem. He looked at the Cheyennes’ dark faces and knew it would not take much to start trouble. Other traders had had their hair lifted for less. He shrugged and tossed the short length of polished bone to Gray Thunder.
“Start it off, ami,” said St. Vrain, who was determined not to be beaten. St. Vrain lost the round and was minus at least half his horses. Monsieur Fontaine shook his head. “That enfant’s a fool to even have started in a chance game,” he said to Old Bill.
Bill sniffed the air, and even though he appeared to look straight ahead, his eyes were everywhere. Gray Thunder resumed the game. St. Vrain won a round, and another. Then Gray Thunder won. The stalemate began again. The Cheyennes became as possessed, swaying back and forth, in and out, stamping their feet and raising their arms with the beat of the drummers. Some called to the players to move on more quickly. Bill Williams edged around beside Sacajawea and tweaked the nose of each little girl; then he whispered something to Sacajawea and moved his hands rapidly so that she’d be certain to understand. Her eyes rounded, and she caught her breath a moment. Then he seemed to reassure her with a touch of his hand, as he held the old Bible toward the heavens.
“Ai,” she nodded and left to move inside the fort, leaving the girls watching the game.
Bill Williams sniffed the air and remarked boldly, “Do’ee hyar now, boys, thar’s sign about?” His high-pitched voice quavered. “This hoss feels like caching.”
“Don’t go off and hide now!” called Monsieur Fontaine. “The fun is just beginning.” But off he went to find his horse and then make himself scarce in the woods again. Though most mountain men sensibly believed there was safety in numbers, Bill was known to leave a large group when he sniffed the possibility of Indian attack.
“He’s crazy as a hoot owl,” said St. Vrain. “But nobody can say he’s not shrewd, generally acute, and original—and far from illiterate.”
Monsieur Fontaine, who was daydreaming again, felt a light touch on his shoulder. He turned, half expecting to see Bill Williams again, but it was Sacajawea, who hurriedly indicated that she wished to enter the game—on the side of Gray Thunder and his Cheyennes.
“Sauvage,” he chuckled and nodded toward St. Vrain. He studied Sacajawea, wondering what had prompted her, a squaw, to get into a man’s game. There seemed no reason for her wanting to enter the play, but it certainly would do no harm. He and St. Vrain had lost much already. To lose a little face by having a squaw play opposite them and win a few rounds would please the Cheyennes and might be a way to finish the game more quickly. He shrugged. Sacajawea wedged in between St. Vrain and Gray Thunder.
She put several pairs of white moccasins on the blanket and touched the ones she wore so that the others could see their beauty and value. Gray Thunder gavea deep grunt of displeasure. This was no place for a foolish woman. Ignoring him, Sacajawea looked along the line of bettors opposite her. Her blanket slipped off her shoulders. Her eyes sparkled and there were red spots in the center of both cheeks.
“Against one fine horse of St. Vrain,” she said in her best Comanche English and fast hand signs.
“Ai,” Gray Thunder agreed, his face still dark.
“I will be the one who is hiding something,” she said and picked up the bone from Gray Thunder’s hands.
St. Vrain looked at the woman and then looked at the hoard of skins Gray Thunder had won back. “Go to it, sauvage,” he sighed, signaling for the Cheyennes to begin their song once again.
Gray Thunder shrugged, and Sacajawea manipulated the bone. The onlookers stood a moment, hypnotized, as St. Vrain successfully guessed the hand in which Sacajawea held it. Then she guessed his hand correctly.
Then he pointed to her left hand. It was empty. A rumble of disappointment arose from the Cheyennes. There would be no sale of horses. St. Vrain had won back all his animals.
Gray Thunder looked across at St. Vrain and began making arrangements for delivery of the horses, and Sacajawea sent for the one horse she had lost to St. Vrain. In the moments of going to pick out and deliver the horses, gunfire was heard beyond the fort in the direction of the Cheyennes’ horse herd. The alarm was relayed through the various Indian camps, and Sacajawea heard, “Horse thieves! Many horses stolen!” There was instant tumult. Monsieur Fontaine was forgotten as Gray Thunder and a group of his young men broke from St. Vrain and scattered for their camp. Sacajawea watched the Cheyennes leave, then she reached deep into her blanket. Only Monsieur Fontaine, who had been bundling up some of the peltries St. Vrain had won back, saw what she did. She had cheated Gray Thunder that last guess. The bone had not been in either hand.
Monsieur Fontaine’s eyes narrowed. A man did not always hanker to be beholden to any fool squaw, but sure as he was no drinking man—his tastes ran moreto horse liniment for horses—St. Vrain owed something to this sauvage. On second thought, maybe it was Bill Williams he owed it to—what had that old coot said to her just before he left, anyway?
Monsieur Fontaine watched while Sacajawea went leisurely in the direction of the fort, followed by the pair of little girls. Then he hoisted a bundle of furs to his shoulder and went toward the fort himself, thinking he’d better get his horses and hightail it inside the fort before they were raided out here.
Coming in from the horse races, Kit Carson turned toward the fort. With Cheyenne horses driven off by enemy raiders, there would be a chase and likely a fight. He would not miss that. Carson felt it lucky for his friend St. Vrain. If the white men could help the Cheyennes recover their horses, without a doubt Gray Thunder would not be reluctant to pay off his losses. And the Cheyennes would do more trading at St. Vrain’s Fort than at the others nearby. In the joy of victory, Cheyennes would do anything for brave warriors, red or white. Carson went off to saddle up and follow Gray Thunder’s men in search of the raiders.
Monsieur Fontaine, out of breath and panting from carrying the bundles of furs into the fort, began to hunt out his fast horse in the corral. Sacajawea could be counted on to look after Suzanne while he was gone, he was confident. Other men from the fort came for their horses to join the Cheyennes in their chase.
In the Cheyenne camp, the warriors hurriedly painted themselves and their horses; they were beginning to sing their war songs for courage. Then a wolf cried out. It was a long, quavering trill of sorrow, indescribably mournful.
The spell was not so easily broken. Monsieur Fontaine kicked his horse into motion and fell in beside St. Vrain. He seemed eager to be on his way as the great wolfs sobbing cry still echoed down the hills, and even riding his horse he remained in a tense attitude of listening long after the final eerie note trembled in the distance and was lost in the kiyi-ing of the warriors.
St. Vrain’s eyes narrowed as he looked at Monsieur Fontaine. “The wolf calls to you, monsieur? What does he say?” asked St. Vrain.
Monsieur Fontaine looked sharply at him. He was startled. “Do you ridicule me?”
“Of course not, ami. I only observe your reaction to the howl of a prairie wolf.”
“Some say the French are superstitious.” He returned to what seemed an endless gaze into the low hills. But he came back. “This day has been something so different from my usual days and I have felt so blessed to be alive and the wolf’s cry did seem to come directly to my ears. Gray Thunder would say, ‘It is a good day for dying.’” Monsieur Fontaine paused. “Céran, am I not truly blessed to have such a fine woman to care for my little Suzanne?”
St. Vrain smiled, then laughed, and rode past Louis Vasquez and Charley Bent to the front riders beside Gray Thunder.
Sacajawea stood just inside the gates to the adobe fort wondering how such a fine day could change so rapidly. She let her musings carry her to other summer celebrations with the white men. She could almost hear Cruzatte’s fiddle as Chief Red Hair danced and the tall pine crackled into a fiery blaze.
Tom Fitzpatrick remained inside the fort with his men to celebrate the fading Fourth of July with tin mugs half-filled with bacanora, a clear white liquor distilled from cactus juice. There were some Utes at the gate asking to buy the crazy-water. Fitzpatrick sent an order that the few barrels of bacanora his party had left could be sold to the Utes if it were watered half and half.
Sacajawea took the little girls back to the cell-like single room she had been given by St. Vrain the previous night. She left the door partially open so that there was some light so she could wash the children with water from the pump and put clean doeskin tunics on them. She washed their calico dresses at the pump and spread them over the single bench in the room for drying. She felt she needed a bath, but did not dare go outside the fort now. She let the pump water run over her face and arms and neck. In the room she removed her calico dress and petticoats and slipped on a simpletunic. She rinsed out her dress and laid it beside the girls’.
The bell announcing supper rang. She was not sure she should go into the dining hall without Monsieur Fontaine. The girls were hungry. She slipped to the courtyard and stood by the mess hall. A Cheyenne woman looked at her and made a clicking noise with her tongue. “You are not in the white woman’s dress, so you cannot go into the place of eating.” Sacajawea’s heart sank, but the woman came back almost immediately with a plate of pinto beans and corn bread and a mug of steaming black coffee with a layer of sugar syrup at the bottom.
“You hear el lobo? Señora, when the wolf cries before dark, it is a bad sign. It means someone is marked for death.” The woman walked away rustling her huaraches.
Sacajawea let the children eat the warm corn bread as she blew on the coffee to cool it for drinking. Suddenly she felt exhausted. This was a new life. Each day was so different, with so much to think about and put in the right place in her mind. To try thinking of tomorrow would surely fatigue her. She fell asleep with the coffee half-drunk beside her on the dirt floor. The little girls were already curled up together on a bright Navaho rug.
At sunrise, Sacajawea was up and standing by the mess-hall door. Someone told her to vamoose. She stepped a little way from the door, and someone else put a tin plate of steaming biscuits and a cup of black coffee in her hand. At that moment she saw St. Vrain come past on her pony, headed for the corral inside the fort. My horse, she thought—oh, no, it is his since yesterday. He was leading another horse with the rider thrown facedown across the saddle. There was a small hole in the rider’s back from which blood had oozed, but it was black and dried now.
“It’s a shame”—St. Vrain beckoned to her—“old Fontaine was shot in the back.”
Sacajawea’s hand shook, and she spilled a little coffee.
“We were behind some boulders with Gray Thunder’s men. Nine Crows made a dash for a stream. Monsieur Fontaine waited until they were within fifty yards; then he fired on them. He hit two before they turned back. He missed a third, and the Crows charged him. He was a good rider, but could not get around the rocks fast enough. The bullet struck just as he dodged for the far side of his horse, hanging by one foot. I got that Crow with my old Silver Heels, and we managed to recover the horses for the Cheyennes. A savage sport.” He spat at the ground.
Others gathered around them. “Gray Thunder and his men are just coming into their camp,” someone said.
Sacajawea stepped close to the body. Monsieur Fontaine had been a quiet, peaceful man who had gained back his life only to lose it quickly. She looked away. St. Vrain had brought out a double blanket, and Carson was there helping spread it on the ground. The body was laid on it. She bent to set the plate and coffee on the earth, then she moved in and pushed the white hair from the cold face and brushed the sleeves and straightened the jacket.
A fine man was gone. She felt sorrow and loss of something irreplaceable.
“By your garden, in the manner of the whites,” whispered Sacajawea to St. Vrain. By this time both little girls were standing beside Sacajawea. Suzanne stared at the form in the blanket, not understanding that it was the last remains of her father.
Someone opened the gates. Carson and St. Vrain grasped the ends of the blanket and carried the body to the back of the fort. The garden was lush and green. There were blue lupines near the front. One of the men from the blacksmith shop came with shovels. Finally they stumbled to the loose earth, and some six men lowered the body into the hole.
They dumped the earth into the grave. The clods bounced on the blanket. After some minutes Fitzpatrick took a shovel and the hole was filled and mounded over.
The men carried rocks to cover the mound. Sacajawea sat beside the row of lupines; her face was pale and trembling. The two little girls sat in front of her, somber.
The rocks left something lacking. Carson cut down a tall aspen and trimmed it down so that two sidebranches were left on the main stock to look like a cross. He inserted it in the loosened earth at one end of the grave and propped it with stones.
Spirits were low inside the fort, but a supper of potatoes, frijoles with chilis, corn bread, and buffalo roast seemed to lift them.
The following day, Sacajawea made ready to go back to Fort Lupton. St. Vrain quietly made her a present of half a dozen good packhorses, some tins of coffee, and bacon and flour. Some of the squaws living inside the fort brought moccasins for the little girls, beaded in bright designs. The squaw who had given Sacajawea food from the mess hall gave her a leather packet of jerky.
Tom Fitzpatrick shook her hand, Carson patted the children, and St. Vrain said something about if he were a few years younger he’d keep her. “I’d keep them, too,” he added, chucking the girls under the chin.
The news of the raid and chase for the horses had already reached Fort Lupton. Monsieur Fontaine’s death was not news when Sacajawea entered the fort. She stayed on helping in the kitchen under the watchful eye of Mrs. Ducate and Lancaster Lupton.
Sacajawea was mending a calico dress belonging to Crying Basket when Lupton sent for her.
“Madame Charbonneau, a Ute runner has come to my post only a few minutes ago. He brings news of the explorer John Charles Frémont, who is at St. Vrain’s Fort now. It seems the Mexicans are getting tough and have stopped all commercializing with Americans. At any rate, Frémont left Bent’s Fort with mules and supplies and did not attempt to go farther south for more trading. He is back earlier than expected because of the new Mexican laws, and he has sent word that he is going to Gabe’s, Jim Bridger’s Fort, and you might like to travel with his party. There are Shoshonis camped outside Bridger’s Fort, and they might be of your tribe. And the latest word from Bill Bent is that your son is coming to see Bridger before winter sets in. So—if you still wish to trail after that elusive son, here is another chance.”
Mrs. Ducate said over and over how hard it would be to find a replacement for Sacajawea in the kitchen.
Lancaster Lupton wished her luck and checked her six horses and the packs strapped to three of them. She seemed to realize that another part of her life was closing as she left Lupton’s. It was a heart-tugging moment at the fort’s gate. Amid laughter and good wishes, Sacajawea was pale and serious for a moment. She looked into Mrs. Ducate’s eyes and said softly, “Adiós.”
She rode with Crying Basket in front and Suzanne in back of her. No one questioned her right to mother Suzanne, the half-breed child left behind by Monsieur Fontaine’s death. Suzanne herself called Sacajawea umbea, Shoshoni for “mother.” Mrs. Ducate wiped her eyes on her apron as she bade them good-bye. Afterward she said to Lupton, “That there squaw is a saint. A genuine saint.”
The Ute runner rode close to Sacajewea, explaining in hand signs that a party of dirty Crows had attacked the Arapaho camp not far from St. Vrain’s the day before. Sacajawea clasped her mouth with one hand and scanned the hills. The Ute laughed and kiyi-ed for a moment, then assured her there was no need to worry as the Arapahos were too strong. The Crows had made a fast retreat this time.
Tom Fitzpatrick, whom the Indians called Broken Hand because one of his hands had been crippled by the explosion of a gun, was still at St. Vrain’s selling watered bacanora to the camps outside the fort. With furs and peltries he received as payment, he planned to repay St. Vrain for board and room for himself and his men these past weeks at the fort.
From St. Vrain’s Fort, on July 23, 1843, Frémont left with Carson as his guide, Charles Preuss, map-maker, Louis Zindel, Prussian expert in explosives, and Sacajawea and her two little girls. Fitzpatrick’s portion of the party consisted of Alex Gody, hunter and scout, much of the heavy baggage, and most of Fremont’s men. They had decided to split because they could find no one who knew the character of the mountain passes due west. They were heading straight for the ford of the Green River beyond the mountains. Fitzpatrick took the emigrant road by way of the mouth of the Laramie
River to Fort Hall, the Hudson’s Bay Company post on the Snake River.
Frémont’s group set out to cut through the mountains of the South Pass by way of the Powder River Valley. Soon they found themselves in one of the wildest and most beautiful parts of the Rocky Mountains. Sacajawea’s heart was singing. She could almost feel herself as a child in the land of her people, the Agaiduka Shoshoni, even though these mountains were more tree-covered than those she remembered from her childhood home. She began to feel more certain she would find Baptiste, and then daydreamed a little about reuniting with her own people. There were towering walls all around where they traveled; the sides were dark with pine forests. There were long waterfalls coming down the sides of the mountains to the river below. The river bottom was covered with flowers—shooting stars, buttercups, yellow bells, and trillium.
Sacajawea busied herself digging yampa roots in the low-timbered river bottom. She took them to the expedition’s cook and showed him how to make them into a fine mashed vegetable for the men’s supper.
“Wagh,” said Carson. “I’m half-froze for meat and we get mashed dill roots, which we have to pretend are turnips.”
“But there is turkey tonight,” promised Frémont, who had sent four men on a hunting party.
From here, their way, even in the smoother parts, was made rough by dense sagebrush, four to six feet tall. Then the party counted itself fortunate in spotting a small herd of buffalo. For two days they camped about two hundred miles out of Fort St. Vrain to dry the buffalo meat for future use. Sacajawea made herself useful whenever possible and with her skinning knife cut strips of fresh meat thin so that it would dry quickly over the smoky fires.
The summer air was hot, and the charrettes2 moved with some trouble along the ground. The little girls were permitted to ride in one of the charrettes. Kit Carson had perched them high on top a pile of rolled pelts and skins.
Several days out from the meat-drying camp, the horses struggled over deadfall and huge rocks. Frémontlooked around, then rode ahead to a high point and saw a range of mountains in the north that he felt sure were peaks of the Sweetwater Valley Range.
“Yes,” said Frémont, grinning, “those peaks would break our backs. No sense rambling about it, we’ll abandon any further efforts to struggle through this impracticable country and head back to St. Vrain’s.”
“I’m sorry as all glory!” said Carson. “I’m more than a little sad to turn around. Let’s keep going for one more day or two northward.”
The party proceeded north-northwest along the east side of the Medicine Bow Range until it reached its northern extremity, then they moved west,3 crossed the North Platte, and moved slowly up the Sweetwater Valley and over South Pass ahead of Fitzpatrick’s division.
Sacajawea put her hands on the little girls at night, but said little. There was not anything to say. The children’s eyes were big as plums as they saw how the land changed from plains to mountains and hidden valleys. They passed porcupines sitting in fir trees eating and sleeping there so they could chip away the outer bark with beaverlike teeth, then cut off and eat the tasty inner bark, leaving the bare wood showing. Some of the dead trees and deadfall showed evidence of the eating habits of those porcupines. The slow-moving porcupine can do more damage to a grove of fine timber than almost anything but a forest fire, thought Sacajawea.
Frémont did not find a more southerly route to Oregon and northern California than this one. Sacajawea found she was not truly accepted as a member of the party as she had been with the Lewis and Clark Expedition so many years before, but no matter, she was going closer to the land of her people and her firstborn. Carson was friendly and spoke often with her. She watched him pull off the dry leaves from the jimson-weeds, powder them between his fingers, and sift the powder into thin papers that he rolled and moistened with his tongue to hold together so that he could smoke. “Relieves my congestion in this high country,” he whispered to her in a confidential manner.
Sacajawea shrugged, knowing that the weed gave a lift to his spirits as he smoked.
When Frémont’s party reached the Oregon Trail on the banks of the Sweetwater River, they found a broad, smooth highway where the constant passage of emigrant wagons had beaten the sagebrush out of existence. It was a surprise and a happy change from the sharp rocks and tough shrubs through which their horses had been pushing. From this point onward, their path was easy and, despite dust and heat, progress was rapid.
Each evening now, Sacajawea took the little girls to a stream for bathing. She washed out their tunics and hung them over a rock or on a tree limb to dry. She let them dance by the campfire, even encouraged them whenever the men began to sing. They learned the words to the mountaineers’ songs, not always understanding their meaning, which was bawdy, or sad, but always about a woman left behind.
“Wish I had some of that lettuce in the garden at St. Vrain’s,” said Carson wistfully to no one in particular one evening. “You know, if you take a handful of lettuce, crumble it up in a ball, and put a little sugar on it, you’ll find it tastes pretty much like an apple.”
“This child’s hankerin’ for some apples right now,” said one of the mule cart drivers.
Sacajawea left the firelit circle and came back with her skirt full of small wild plums, which she had cached at the edge of the camp.
“These will fill my hankerin’,” said the cart driver, diving in with both hands.
“I didn’t see any plum trees,” said Frémont. “That Snake squaw has a nose for eating off the land. Those were fine blackberries you brought in that cold night on the mountains, ma’am.” When he spoke to Sacajawea he looked where she’d been standing. She had disappeared, but not for long. She came into the firelight again with a grin as broad as the Mexican cart drivers’ sombreros.
“By jing!” Carson turned to Sacajawea with a grin as wide as her own. “Ay, muchísimas gracias.” He bowed with mock gravity. “This watercress will be as good as lettuce from Céran’s garden. This is a wondrous thing. All I did was wish and here it is true. Sugar, amigo?” Carson had turned to Frémont.
Twice within the next week the expedition passedthe new-made graves of emigrants, and once they fell in with a stray ox wandering aimlessly.
Carson came riding back after scouting a mile or so ahead of the party late on the hot afternoon of August 18, 1843. “You’re here, Madame Charbonneau!” he called. “See up there? That is Ham’s Fork, on the Green River. Jim Bridger’s Fort is a mile or two southward down the wide path. There.”
She could see. Her heart began to thump as she pulled her packhorses from the train. What lay ahead she was not sure, but she felt she was closer now than she had been for many years to her firstborn.
“If you are still at Bridger’s Fort when I come by here again, I’ll stop and say ‘Greetings,’” said Carson.
Sacajawea wished to thank Frémont in some special way for taking her this far, but she was at a loss to say anything when he handed her a small leather tent. “Take it. I no longer have any use for it, and it will be a place for you and the little girls to sleep if you have to live outside the fort.”
Sacajawea did not protest; instead, she put her hand out to shake Frémont’s in the manner she knew white men did to seal a bargain or show good friendship.
Then she waved her farewell to the others, and the little girls called “Adiós,” shaking their brown hands as the expedition of Charles Frémont went on to catch up with Fitzpatrick and the rest of its party.
At this place the river valley was wide and covered with good grass. Cottonwood timber was plentiful. The streams looked cool and clear.
Fireweed and wild hollyhock grew on either side of the trail. Blue harebells were scattered alongside. The trail was marked with wagon wheels and vaguely resembled the streets of Saint Louis.
Sacajawea was pleased to see the good timber and plentiful grass near this fort, which was made of a log wall eight feet high running around the buildings of logs and white clay between. The roofs were made of branches and poles, covered with grass, leaves, and dirt.
Outside the wall were several Indian lodges and small wooden houses. Sacajawea was sure white men lived in the log houses. It did seem a shabby concern compared with Bent’s Fort and St. Vrain’s and Lupton’s. Sheclimbed from her horse and hoisted both children down. Then they walked slowly into the Indian village, leading the string of six horses. Suddenly Sacajawea noticed that the markings on some tepees were Shoshoni. There were a few camp dogs and some near-naked children staring as she passed. A young woman carrying water in a huge grass bucket stopped and asked in Agaidüka Shoshoni, “Mother, have you lost your way?”
“Is this the home of one called Jim Bridger?” asked Sacajawea in stumbling Shoshoni.
The squaw signified that she had heard so from many lips, but he was out now, trapping beaver on the Sweetwater with many braves.
“Will he be back before winter?” Sacajawea then made the sign of the Shoshonis to indicate she was a member of this tribe. The squaw put her hand to her mouth in surprise. She turned away.
“Café, señora? Coffee?” Sacajawea called.
“Huh—no café here,” said the squaw, turning back. “We have not had coffee for a long time.”
“Sí, señora. ” Sacajawea ran to her packs and brought back a little sack.
“Café bueno,” said Sacajawea, giving the sack to the squaw and dropping back into her Spanish-Comanche tongue. “I will live here among my people and wait for the man called Jim Bridger.”
Sacajawea chose a small, grassy spot to put up the leather tent Frémont had given her. She staked the horses. When there was an evening campfire, she took the girls and sat on the outer circle listening to the Shoshonis talk about the land from which they had come, the Shining Mountains. Some of the women who came to the campfire were wives of the trappers who lived in the little wooden cabins outside the walls of the fort. They talked about their chief called Washakie, Gourd Rattle. Sacajawea longed to ask about Tooettecone—her brother, Chief Black Gun—but she did not open her mouth. Soon she learned that Washakie was the civil chief and he had several smaller tribes under him. The tribe of Nowroyawn was due at this camp anytime now.
The next morning, at the water hole in the nearbycreek, Sacajawea spotted the squaw she had given her small bag of coffee to.
“Nowroyawn?” asked Sacajawea. “He is a chief? Of what band?”
“Ai, he is chief. He was recently chosen to take the place of the great Chief Black Gun.” She spoke softly, speaking the name of their dead chief quickly. She continued, all the time studying Sacajawea, “Three summers ago, Black Gun was killed in battle against the Apaches. Nowroyawn was chosen partly because of his slowness to bring the tribe into war and partly because he is nephew of Black Gun and the one called Spotted Bear.”
Once again Sacajawea was struck with information she was not prepared to receive. She sat down and stared openmouthed at the squaw. When her mind cleared she asked softly, “So—then, where is Shoogan?”
The squaw drew in her breath. “You come as a stranger, yet you know the name of the chiefs cousin! Who are you?”
Feeling dizzy, Sacajawea whispered, “Black Gun and Spotted Bear were my brothers. Shoogan is my sister’s baby. She died and he was left with Spotted Bear.”
“What?” asked the young squaw, leaning forward and showing her wide-spaced teeth.
“I have come home to the People,” Sacajawea said.
“For what?”
‘To be with my relatives. I was taken captive when I was a child.”
“What does that have to do with coming back? Things have changed.”
So she told the young squaw at the water hole she was looking for her firstborn, who had accompanied her on a visit once before to the People. “Does anyone in the tribe recall that visit when many white men came up the river?”
“Ai,” said the squaw. “My own mother told the story often. Are you the one called Grass Child who returned with a child on her back?”
“The same one,” said Sacajawea in a whisper.
The squaw looked and finally nodded approval. This could be. For had not Grass Child come once before as a young woman, and now she was here again as an oldwoman. She did not have an infant son, but two little girls this time.
The next day, the young squaw, who was called Toward Morning, unseen, followed Sacajawea and the little girls to Black’s Fork, where they spent the morning fishing. When Toward Morning could no longer stand to sit still and watch, she came out of her hiding behind the brush.
“How do you catch the fish?” Toward Morning asked.
“We use the metal hook,” answered Suzanne with hand signs, pulling her line from the water. “See, I put a strong grass string on the cottonwood pole, then the hook is fastened to the string. It is a new way. Much like the way of the white men. It is easier than the old way of making a willow or grapevine net, my mother says.”
“Ai, I can see that,” answered Toward Morning. “Your mother knows much. She should be called Porivo, Chief Woman.”
Sacajawea came up to the squaw, wondering if she were criticizing or approving.
“Can you sew in the white woman’s way?” asked Toward Morning.
“Ai, there are metal needles and string finer than thinnest rawhide.”
“If I can trade for metal needles inside the fort, will you show me tomorrow?” asked Toward Morning shyly.
“Ai, of course. I will show you how to make designs on tunics that will make your friends’ eyes widen,” said Sacajawea, pleased that she would have a friend to sew and chat with.
“Porivo,” said Toward Morning as she left.
From then on, Sacajawea was called Porivo, Chief Woman, by the Shoshonis.
She noticed in this tribe some relaxing of the strict old ways. First was the mentioning out loud of her dead brother’s name, even in a soft tone, but it had been mentioned. She noticed, too, that some of the women spoke of themselves by their own names. To have a name was something sacred and meant some trait or deed of the bearer. The name was never to be spoken out loud by the bearer for fear of losing some of its sacred power from overuse. Some of the women told
Sacajawea their names as in the white man’s introduction of new friends.
Sacajawea showed Toward Morning how to fry fish on a flat stone near the cooking fire to make it crisp.
“You do not put fish in a pot of hot water?” asked Toward Morning.
“No, then they are mushy. Much better this way. Try one.” Sacajawea put the crisp brown fish on a board.
Toward Morning was amazed. “Good. Good.”
“Better with salt.” Sacajawea sprinkled on a little unrefined salt she had in a leather pouch.
“Ummm. This something.”
Toward Morning asked Sacajawea to sit with her during the evenings’ campfires.
“Ai, we have come home,” repeated Sacajawea.
“Home!” said Crying Basket, sucking the first two fingers on her right hand—an indication of the sharing of the family food, or being at home.