Sacajawea Page 11

  "Do your friends have many things like this among them?" he said. "Look, it is like hard water! And it is brilliant like the sun sometimes. Other times it shows me my face."

  "Five winters ago," I said."... Yes, he is named York and is my friend ... Wonderful things like that are as common among these people as pebbles along the shores of the river. They have great power."

  That gave them much to think about. They rode for a while in silence.

  "Maybe," said the first young man who had spoken, "it is true what your pale-skinned friends say. Maybe they will give us many guns like this one to keep. Then the Pahkees will no longer be able to raid us. We will be able to go out onto the plains and hunt buffalo whenever we wish. We will no longer have to hide in the mountains and starve."

  I looked more closely at him and the other Shoshone men. In my excitement I had not noticed before how thin they all were, how the bones of their faces showed so clearly. I hoped that what he said would become true for my people.

  22. WILLIAM CLARK

  The Welcome

  August 17th. Saturday. 1805.

  Those people greatly pleased. our hunters killed three deer & an antilope which was eaten in a Short time the Indians being so harassed & compelled to move about in those rugid mountains that they are half Starved liveing at this time on berries & roots which they geather in the plains. Those people are not begerly but generous, only one has asked me for anything and he for powder.

  JOURNAL OF WILLIAM CLARK

  SHOSHONE COVE, IDAHO

  WHAT A DAY that was for us all, Pomp! After we met Drouillard and the few scouts sent ahead with him, we proceeded to the place by the forks where Captain Lewis was camped awaiting us. There were sixteen more Shoshone men and women there with him. Their main chief had gone back to the camp, Camp Fortunate we called it, to make ready our welcome, so we did not meet him just then.

  "Billy," Meri said to me as we shook hands amid the blizzard of Shoshone hugs that came at me from all directions, "these poor people are starved."

  And it was the truth. Not a one of them—man, woman, or child—had an extra ounce of flesh on his or her bones. Meri told me later how Drouillard managed to shoot a deer for them, and the starving men with him immediately cut open its belly to eat the guts raw. They behaved more like a parcel of famished dogs than like men. Yet he also noticed that they did not touch any of the better meat of the deer, but ate only those parts that they felt Meri and his companions would not want for themselves.

  Hungry and savage as they were, they behaved better than most civilized gents would in such a state. When Captain Lewis took only one haunch of that deer for himself and gave the rest to the Shoshones, who had enjoyed no success at hunting for weeks, they were mightily gratified, thanking him again and again. I saw right away that we would have to do some serious hunting for these poor devils with no firearms.

  But any discussions Meri and I might have had at that moment of reunion was brief. As soon as we were done with the round of national hugs, the whole party of Indians started to sing. They sang the whole way to Camp Fortunate.

  ***

  Ah, you are right, Pomp. I'm forgetting something. Where was your mother during this first welcome? As you might guess, she was beside herself with joy at meeting her very own people. She and your father had been the first to sight the oncoming Indian horsemen, whose party included Drouillard, who seemed a very Indian himself that day, all dressed in a fine Shoshone ermine mande. When I limped up to them, your parents were dancing about together as if doing a jig, your mother shouting and waving and sucking her fingers to let me know those were her people.

  Excited as she was then, it was to get even better for our Janey. As soon as we reached the place where Captain Lewis was waiting, one of the women among those sixteen Indians recognized her. She ran up to your mother and about knocked her off her feet in an embrace. The two of them began talking and laughing all at once. They were both filled with excitement. It turned out she was a friend from your mother's childhood. Her name was Jumping Fish. The two of them had done everything together. That day when the Minnetarees took your mother and Otter Woman, they had captured Jumping Fish as well. But she had always been a great runner. Somewhere along the way she had managed to escape and make her way back home to her nation. She had been certain she would never see Sacajawea alive again.

  ***

  When we got to Camp Fortunate, the Indians had a kind of a shade made of willow branches woven together all prepared for us. The camp was set up in a circle, with antelope skins laid down on top of evergreen boughs for us to sit. The three chiefs met me with great cordiality and embraced me. They did it more restrainedly than had been the case with those first Shoshones we met. Being chiefs, they were supposed to control their emotions and keep their dignity. But you could see they were all as pleased as Punch about our visit.

  The main chief—Cameahwait was his name—came up to me. Yes, I know who he is, Pomp. But when there's a surprise in a story you have to be patient and work up to it. Cameahwait was only one of his names. He also had a war name: Tooettecon'l. That meant Black Gun and it showed how important guns—or the lack of them—were to your mother's people. He owned one of the only two guns your people had back then, even though he didn't have any ammunition for it. Cameahwait, his everyday name, meant something like Always on a Horse. As their main chief, he was the one who came up to me where I had been seated on a white skin. He tied to my hair six small pieces of shell that resembled pearls.

  Meri caught my eye as he did that. He looked at that new jewelry of mine and mouthed the word, "Seashells!"

  Captain Lewis was hoping that we were only a few days' journey from the ocean and that those shells were a sign of how close we were. In truth, those shells did come from the nations residing near the seacoast, and they were much valued by the Shoshones. But they obtained them from the Flatheads, who got them from the Nez Percé, who got them from the Wanapam, and so on, in a long chain of trade from one nation to the next, across the mountains and down the Columbia River.

  ***

  I had taken off my moccasins, as had Meri and the Indians. Cameahwait's green stone peace pipe made its way around our new circle of friends. That done, we were ready to have our first conference. Captain Lewis could hardly wait to have your mother start her work as interpreter. He had managed to say the basic things by means of sign, but there was a great deal he still needed to convey to the chief. Our great need for finding a way through the mountains and for horses were the two most important things to our group.

  Up till now, our Janey had been busy with her old friend, the two of them sitting together off to the side. They were whispering when they thought they could not be heard.

  "Charbonneau," I said, "ask our interpretess if she'd like to join us."

  Then your father went over to your mother and brought her into our little group. He was about to sit her down by the chief's side so she could hear his words and give ours back to him. But before he could reach her, she peered over at the chief for the first time. I could see her face and it appeared she had been hit by a bolt of lightning. And just about as swift as lightning, she leaped up and ran across the circle, right to Cameahwait, who looked as if he was recognizing her, too. As he stood up, she pulled off her blanket and threw it over both their heads—you know the way your people do when they want to share a moment of privacy, Pomp. Then as she embraced him, she cried profusely.

  Charbonneau looked at us. He lifted up his palms.

  "The chief," your father said, "he seems to be her family."

  23. SACAJAWEA

  New Names

  One day Coyote's wife died. On that day he changed his mind about death. He decided it was better that people not stay dead forever. So he went to the place where the spirits of those who have died stay. It was a long journey. When he got there those who had died greeted him. His wife was glad to see him.

  "I thought you would never come here," she said to her
husband.

  "I am only visiting," Coyote said.

  Then he put his wife's spirit into a basket and started carrying her back to this world. If he could get all the way back without opening the basket, she would be able to come back to life. It went well for a few days, but it was a long journey. Coyote began to wonder how his wife's spirit was doing.

  "It would not hurt to take a look and see if she is well," he said to himself. Then he opened the basket just a crack. But that was enough. As soon as he opened it, the basket was empty. Coyote's wife was gone. And ever since then no one has ever come back to this world after they have died.

  DID CAPTAIN CLARK NOT MENTION how Stays Here acted when he saw you for the first time? Yes, he was very glad. It was as if I had come back from the land of the dead. Usually, when one of our people was taken captive by the Minnetarees, they would either escape soon or never be seen again.

  But you must remember that as the chief it was his job first to think for the people. At that moment he had to speak for his nation. Their hunger was more important than his joy.

  Even so, as I held you in my arms while I sat next to him, he would look over now and then at you. Then his eyes would meet mine briefly and a small smile would come to the side of his mouth. From the very first, you were important to your uncle Stays Here.

  ***

  It was not easy for me to translate. My eyes kept filling with tears. My voice caught in my throat. There was so much happiness for me that day. I had been reunited with my dearest friend from childhood, Jumping Fish, who had earned her new name when she tried to escape the Minnetarees by running across the river. It had not taken her long to start teasing me just as she used to do in the old days. She called me not Boat Pusher, but Wadze Wipe, Woman Who Was Lost. When I let her hold you, she got that familiar mischievous look in her eyes.

  "Look," she called out. "My good sister Lost Woman has given me a son to adopt. He has been too much trouble for her. Now I will keep him."

  But she gave you back to me. I would never have allowed anyone or anything to take you from me when you were a baby, Firstborn Son.

  ***

  When I had grown calm enough, we began the business of translating. It was slow. First Captain Lewis would speak. I was understanding more of his words now. After all those many moons of travel with the white men, their language was no longer quite so strange to me. Then Labiche would speak those same words in French, another language I could understand in a small way, to your father. Charbonneau would try to repeat them to me in Minnetaree. Only then would I change all those languages into words that really made sense by speaking our beautiful language as only a Shoshone woman can.

  As I translated the words of Captain Lewis, I also explained to your uncle Stays Here that the two captains were brave and honorable men. They had great power and their spirit helpers were very strong. Wherever they went, they tried to bring peace. They would help our people however they could. They would be followed by other men who would trade with the Numi. Those men would bring guns so that our people could hunt and defend themselves against the Pahkees. First, though, our party had to make its way to the Great Water That Tastes Bad on the other side of the mountains. To do that, the two captains needed to trade for horses. They had many useful things to trade, though they did not have enough guns with them to give any of their weapons to the Numi.

  It was the season when your uncle should have been leading the people west to hunt buffalo. Everyone in the village deeper in the mountains was half starved. It was not an easy thing for him to decide to help the captains now.

  But without help the white men would not succeed. They needed not just horses. They needed Indians to help them carry their baggage. They needed guides to lead them across the mountains.

  "These men," I said, "have treated me like a daughter." I put my palm against your cheek as you slept in your cradleboard. "They have treated your nephew here like a grandchild. I am your only living sister, so I ask you as your relative. I ask you to help them."

  It was true. Your uncle had whispered to me the sad news as we stood together with our heads close under my blanket. All of our family except for one other brother had been killed. The raids by the Pahkees and the Minnetarees, and the hard hungry winters, had taken our parents and all our other sisters and brothers. So the tears that I wept had been tears of joy and of sorrow. I was given much that day, but I also found out how much I had lost.

  In the village Captain Lewis was able to trade for as many horses as our people could spare. He no longer seemed as worried as he had been. Some days later your good uncle Captain Clark joined us there. He had scouted the rivers and seen no way for us to continue along them. The only way to go would be to cross the mountains into the land of the pierced-nosed Indians on the other side.

  There was an old man among our people who had traveled that way across the Lolo Pass with a group of the Nez Percé. It would be a very hard journey, Stays Here told them. But with the old man and his son to guide them, it would take our party only a few days. We did not know then just how long and hard a journey lay ahead.

  24. WILLIAM CLARK

  The Terrible Trail

  September 3rd. Tuesday, 1805—

  hills high & rockey on each Side, in the after part of the day the high mountains closed the Creek on each side and obliged us to take on the Steep Sides of those Mountains. So Steep that the horses could Sourcely keep from Slipping down, Several sliped & injured themselves verry muvck, with great dificuelty we made——miles & encamped on a branch of the Creek we assended after crossing Several Steep points & one mountain, but little to eate

  The mountains to the East covered with Snow, we met with a great misfortune, in haveing our last Thermometer broken, by accident. This day we passed over emence hils and Some of the worst roads that ever horses passed....

  JOURNAL OF WILLIAM CLARK

  BITTERROOT MOUNTAINS

  WHAT WAS OUR JOURNEY over those mountains like, Pomp? Was there no other way we could have gone? My scouting of the Salmon River showed me clearly that we could not take boats down it. That was when Cameahwait introduced me to Old Toby. He was a man who loved to wander and had been more places than any other man in their tribe.

  I asked him about the way to the southwest. The lands there were barren, he told me, hard desert. Not only that, the tribes there were hostile and we would be entering into the lands of the Spanish. Both he and Cameahwait said the road over the mountains, which rose above us higher than any mountains I had ever seen before, was our only way.

  "No one," your uncle Cameahwait said, "can cross over those mountains so late in the season. The road is a very bad one."

  But time was now running out for us. We had to reach the ocean before the winter. There was no thought of turning back. Old Toby saw things differently from your uncle. He had been that way before with the Nez Percé Indians. He would guide us, and his son would help him.

  On September 1 we set out into the mountains. Old Toby led the way. The going was even harder than Cameahwait had described it. There were thickets through which we were obliged to cut a road. Up and down steep hills we went, with the greatest risk and difficulty. The horses were in perpetual danger of slipping to their certain destruction. There was no game to be had, and we ate the last of our salt pork. Snow fell, and then we broke our last thermometer. That was a blow Meri found hard to bear, since we had faithfully recorded the temperatures every day of our travel until then.

  Three days later we came to a huge valley in the midst of the mountains. The Indians there were allies of the Shoshones and had a great camp in the Bitterroot Valley. Three Eagles, their chief, had been out scouting and saw us coming. He hid in the brush, thinking we might be enemies. When he saw York, all black as if painted up for war, that really worried him. But then he saw your mother and you. Raiding parties never took along a woman and a child. He also saw we didn't have blankets and we all looked worn and tired. Figuring we were not acting like a wa
r party, he went back to the village and told his people to wait for us to arrive.

  Once again we were subjected to the national hug and treated as welcome guests. They shared what food they had, which was little. They said they were Flatheads, making the sign of pressing their hands to either side of their head. Their name for themselves was Ootlashoots, the people of the Red Willow River. They were all about to ride out over that tough trail we'd just taken, to join the Shoshones on the buffalo hunt.

  Their language was far different from Shoshone, and neither Old Toby nor your mother could speak it. But there was a Shoshone boy who'd been taken captive by a northern tribe and then freed by the Flatheads. He'd decided to stay with the Ootlashoots and spoke their language well. He was able to help translate.

  Both our parties were in a hurry to take to the trail, but we spent a good two days there at a camp we dubbed Travelers' Rest. Mostly we were horse trading. The Indians were generous. They took some of the poorer horses we had in exchange for better ones. By the time we were done we'd added fourteen fine horses to our herd and were in good shape to continue on our way. The mountains ahead of us, one of the Ootlashoots said, were much harder than those easy ones we had just navigated.

  I hoped they were just joking, in the way Indians will do with someone they like.

  "How long will it take to cross those mountains?" I asked two of those Indians, who said they'd been on the Lolo Trail to visit the Nez Percé on the other side.

  Perhaps they did not really know or were trying to encourage me.

  "Only a handful of days," one of them said, holding up five fingers.