Before I’d even steadied myself from landing, Sacagawea was off and running. We followed as best we could, but she was fast. Zack is the fastest runner in the whole third grade and even he was having trouble keeping up with her.
She went structure to structure, teepee to tent, looking for something. Or someone. Only when she found her husband did she finally stop. We were tired and my feet hurt.
“It’s hard to run in moccasins,” Zack said, wiggling his toes in the thin leather slippers. “I don’t know how the Native Americans do it. If we ever come back here, we should bring extra tennis shoes. I bet we can trade one pair for four horses.”
I laughed, imagining what Mr. C would say if we brought horses back to school.
Sacagawea was crouched low to the ground, speaking softly to Toussaint Charbonneau.
“Please, go tell Lewis and Clark that Chief Cameahwait is leaving Camp Fortunate,” she said in a calm but urgent voice. “They must catch up to him and get his help with the map.”
Charbonneau nodded, but didn’t get up from where he sat in the shade of a willow. Sacagawea explained to him once more what she knew, but Charbonneau still didn’t move.
“We’re in trouble,” I told the boys.
“It’s worse than you think,” Jacob said, studying the computer screen. “We only have six minutes.” We decided to speed things up and look for Lewis and Clark.
“What’s the deal with Charbonneau?” I asked Bo as we headed off.
“He was a good translator,” Bo replied. “But he was really useless to the Corps. To be honest, Lewis and Clark didn’t like him very much. Sacagawea did not choose to marry Charbonneau. The Hidatsa tribe sold her to him. Lewis and Clark wrote in their journals that he was lazy and mean to Sacagawea.”
I imagined my own sixteen-year-old sister traveling with a husband she didn’t know very well, a man whom Lewis and Clark disliked, and carrying a baby through the wild. She’d keel over and die the first day. Sacagawea was a true hero!
We quickly changed back to our own clothes, then found Lewis and Clark standing near the river.
I handed Captain Clark the pile of army uniforms and moccasins. He put them away, then said, “Chief Cameahwait instructed us to meet him here. He said he will draw a map in the sand showing us how to cross the great Rockies.”
Captain Lewis looked so excited that he was about to finish this section of his map, I really, really wanted to break the bad news to him.
Bo shot me a look that meant I could NOT tell Lewis and Clark the chief was ditching them. “It’s up to Sacagawea,” Bo said just to me. “She has a dream now. Or two. Following one’s dreams takes hard work. For Sacagawea, convincing Charbonneau is part of that hard work. We can’t solve this problem for her.”
I knew Bo was right, so I bit my tongue. Literally.
William Clark was digging around in a nearby supply box. He had his journal in one hand, a compass in the other. He handed me the journal, Bo the compass, and went back to searching through the box.
He gave the two-pole chain to Zack. A triangle-shaped object with a telescope-looking top went to Jacob. William Clark explained that the tool was called a sextant and was used for judging our exact location.
They were ready for mapping. Only no one else had arrived. Not Chief Cameahwait. Not Sacagawea. Not Charbonneau.
Jacob looked at his watch. “Two minutes and counting.” Over my shoulder, I saw a flash of yellow.
“Somewhere in those bushes,” I told the boys, “Babs is spying on us.”
“She still hopes Sacagawea will quit.” Jacob shook his head, totally disgusted.
“Babs is wrong,” Zack said, punching his hand in the air. “Way wrong.” He pointed and said, “Because, look—Sacagawea’s coming.”
Sacagawea was running. The baby was bouncing on her back. Next to her was Charbonneau. He wasn’t exactly sprinting, but he was walking fast enough. Sacagawea had brought François Labiche with them too.
In rapid-fire French, Charbonneau explained to Labiche, who then explained in English that the Shoshone chief was leaving. He was not going to help Lewis and Clark make the map.
Lewis asked Sacagawea what they should do.
Sacagawea turned to us and said quietly, “After all these years, I am happy I found my brother, but I am choosing to stay with Lewis and Clark and make the map. They really do need me.”
She told the explorers, through the translators, that they must go to a mountain area where the Native Americans were secretly gathering. If they hurried, they could stop Chief Cameahwait.
I almost laughed when Sacagawea told William Clark, “In the future, the USGS EROS Data Center will build on our map using SRTM and Landsat 7 imagery.”
William Clark asked François Labiche to repeat the translation twice before he gave up trying to understand.
Lewis and Clark took the equipment from us before dashing off to find Chief Cameahwait. Charbonneau followed slowly behind, obviously in no hurry to keep up.
Before she left, Sacagawea turned to us and said, “Thank you. I now walk strongly with the spirit of the bear beside me.” She smiled. “Let the animal spirits guide you as you continue on your many journeys through time.” Then, she handed me her stone and went to stop her brother.
It was over. We had done our job and succeeded. Sacagawea now had a dream, many dreams, and it was time for us to go back to school. We knew history was back on track.
As we moved to a private place between two trees, Bo said, “Even with the directions the Shoshone will give them, it will take the Corps eleven days to cross the mountains. They will nearly die. Hunger will hit them so hard, they’ll have to eat two of the Shoshone horses just to survive.”
I wished the route across the mountains would be easier. But I knew that Sacagawea was so determined to help make the map and to see the ocean, nothing would stop their success.
Jacob pulled the cartridge out of the back of the computer. The time-travel hole opened, and we were ready to go.
“What’s that?” Zack asked, looking off into the distance at another area between some trees. Green smoke was swirling over there. The same green smoke that was swirling on the ground near us.
“Babs!” Jacob, Bo, and I all said at the same time.
Our green hole was closing. We had to get back to school.
When we jumped back through time, we knew that Babs Magee was time-traveling too.
I swear, really swear, that as my feet left the ground and I began to fall through the hole, I heard a loud noise come from Babs Magee. I recognized the sound as the squeaking cry of an animal I’d only ever seen at the zoo.
It was the call of the weasel.