From Sea to Shining Sea (110 page)

“Amazing what brandy makes ye
think
it does,” William said, “It’s heat, too, though, isn’t it? Merry Christmas, my friend.”

“The same, my friend. Now I’ve something to say to you.” He squinted, as he seemed to need to do before declaring something from his heart, and said: “All my life, it seems, it’s been the darling project of my life to make this crossing to the Pacific. I’ve wanted the doing of it. I’ve wanted to be the first white man to see the head of the Missouri. I’ve wanted to be the first to peek over the Great Divide, and the first to reach the Pacific Ocean overland. I’ve wanted the first doing of it, and I’ve wanted the repute of it. I wanted men to say, ‘Meriwether Lewis made the crossing, it was he.’”

“And so it shall be, my—”

“No, listen. I’ve not told ye this, and I might not be moved to say it again; I’m no humble man, as you know. But I’m not obtuse, Clark, and I see it clear, that you’ve carried more than your half of this command. I…”

He paused, and William could see that this was costing him something, this heartfelt talk. Then Lewis went on.

“I just want y’ to know that I’m not blind to it. And I intend to make Mister Jefferson know, when God willing we get back, that you’re every bit my equal in whatever credit comes to us.” His eyes were misty, and he set his jaw to keep his sentiments from showing too clearly. “That,” he said, “is what I wanted to say.” He added, “Clark.”

William put out his hand and they gripped. “God bless ye for sayin’ it.”

Both turned their eyes into the fire now, and cleared their throats. After a while, Lewis said, “Guess this is as good a time as any to give you this.” He reached into his duffel kit and brought forth a small object wrapped in doeskin. William held up his finger, then bent to pull a long package from under his cot.

“Not much out here in the way of shops,” he said, “but here’s this, and a Merry Christmas.”

“And Merry Christmas to you.”

A whoop and a new outburst of fiddle music came through the wall as they sat unwrapping their gifts.

“By God, that’s choice!” William exclaimed, holding up the
silver pocket flask Lewis had given him. “Just like yours, the one I’ve coveted! And it’s full, too!”

“Got it in St. Louis,” said Lewis. “And hey!” he exclaimed, lifting from a long box an Indian belt of the most delicate beadwork, depicting mounted hunters in pursuit of buffalo. “Thank God,” he laughed. “I saw that long parcel and feared you were tryin’ to give me that blamed umbrella of yours!”

William laughed. “No. Brother George would put it up me from behind and open it if I tried to give it away! Ha, ha! No, I got that belt from that Arikara chieftain who was so anxious to give us his wife. Remember? I told him, ‘No, but I will trade y’ a pretty for her belt.’ And so that’s what we did.”

Chuckling, they drained their brandy, and William refilled their glasses with drams from the new flask. “Cognac,” Lewis said. “The best in St. Louis.”

It diffused like sweet fire in their mouths. “Furthermore,” William said, “probably the best anywhere
west
of St. Louis!”

T
HE TROOPS OF COURSE HAD HAD NO OPPORTUNITY TO
shop in St. Louis that winter that now seemed so long ago and otherworldly. But no matter. Today they dug into their duffel kits and came forth with an astonishing variety of gifts for their captains, their sergeants, and each other: sheephorns, Indian artifacts, samples of beadwork, pieces of scrimshawed bone and antler, beaver skulls, eagle-feather pens, handmade belts, bear’s claws and wolf fangs, snake rattles, quill toothpicks, awls, tobacco pouches, even maple-sugar chunks they had been husbanding since last spring at Camp Wood. Somehow they had managed, even during those long strenuous days ascending 1600 miles of river, to find minutes here and there, now and then, to make things and collect things. And they had accumulated these things, even though every item added to the enormous weight they had to haul against the Missouri’s swift current. And now they gave their little treasures away, because it was Christmas and they were with the only family they knew now.

The frolicking, eating, dancing, singing, and gift-giving went on all day and into the evening, when sentiments and homesicknesses began running wide and deep. Several men made it a point to visit the cage of the captive prairie dog, to bark at him and give him morsels of grain or dried fruit. And Scannon dined like a king’s pet on handouts.

William stayed indoors most of the afternoon, near the fire with the hot rag on his neck to ease the rheumatism, but did put on boots and coat and a lynx-fur cap to go for a walk in the snow
down to the river and watch the sunset. He had to get away by himself, because a medley of carols now echoing through the fort had suddenly made him so homesick for Mulberry Hill and his family that he almost strangled on the lump in his throat.

There was a crust of ice on the snow, and it crushed so loudly under his boots that it nearly drowned the voices and music from the fort. When he would stand still, the Yule sounds would wind out to him over the dry, blue snow. There was no wind this day, but he could see where the wind had been; he could see it in the carved, curved, crested snowdrifts, where the constant blast from across the unmeasured prairie had scoured out sinuous depressions. What a blessing is any rare day, like this, when that murderous wind stops, he thought. But it hardly ever stopped. Summer and winter it blew, whistling and moaning, sandblasting the sunburned skin or slicing through clothing like a razor of ice, sculpturing and polishing stone, turning up the fur of animals, riving trees, turning prairie fires into infernos, whipping the river into whitecaps. But today there was no wind.

Above the chalky blue of the snow, the sun lay like a small blood-hued ball in the ruddy layer of smoke and haze that hung over the Mandan villages to the west.

Now William stood on the bank of the frozen Missouri and looked toward the sunset. The keelboat lay, unrigged, locked in the river ice with snow drifted up against her windward side and more snow covering her main deck. Far up the river he could see Indians walking on the frozen Missouri.

William watched the Mandans walking on the ice now and thought about the various chiefs who were forever visiting the fort, and of the Mandan men, who were so eager to trade, and of the Mandan women, who were so eager to breed with the white men. Generally the Mandan husbands encouraged their women to lie with the Americans, and except for one early unpleasantry, in which an Indian had beaten his squaw for fornicating with Sergeant Ordway, everybody seemed quite happy with this form of diplomacy. Its only apparent drawback so far had been a few cases of venereal disease that lately the captains had begun treating along with the troops’ other maladies. York’s penis may have been the only one frostbitten, but it was not the only one in for consultation.

William sighed, desperately lonely for his family.
Back home the sun’s already set and it’s deep dusk, I’ll wager.
He turned to gaze back eastward, where the sky was darkening already, where the faraway willows in the afterglow looked as fine and red as fox fur, and he tried to remember how his favorite overlook on Mulberry
Hill looked at dusk in the Yule season. Imagine a land so broad, he thought, that it can be daylight at one end and night in another! He had never had that thought before, and wondered if anyone ever had. Only Mister Jefferson, if anybody, he thought. Perhaps friend Lewis, though surely if he’d thought it I’d have heard him say it.

It might be the first time ever a man’s had that very thought, he told himself. Now wouldn’t that be something, to be the first soul on earth to have a particular thought! It’s privilege enough to be the first man to do a thing, he thought; though that can be done easy enough, so long as there’s frontiers.

But to be the first to have a thought!

His head almost reeled at the notion.

You can know and prove, of course, if you’re first to do a thing. Like crossing the Great Divide. Reaching the Pacific Ocean. But a first
thought:
Why, no, there’s just no way o’ knowing.

I must speak of this with Lewis, he thought; it’s a notion worthy of such a Christmas Day as this. I wish I could tell it to Brother George, and see if he’s ever thought it too.

He started back up toward the fort with his thought, eager to share it. The sun was under the horizon now, and the triangular fort, with its spiked pickets and double gate of fresh willow logs and puncheons, and a pair of elk antlers above the gate, looked shadowy and insubstantial now, like a figure of geometry set down in a rolling infinity of snow where geometry did not belong.

But no, it was not a mere shape; it was a
home
—the singing and the woodsmoke and fiddle music spilling from it proved that—and it was the home where all the people lived who were his family now. Friend Lewis had said that well.

Jonathan Clark stood beaming with pride, because the carolers sang beautifully and they were his four youngest children. Isaac was seventeen, Ann was twelve now, and Billy was nine, and they were old hands at this caroling business. But this was the first recital for the youngest boy, George Washington Clark; he was only six and this was the first time he had been entrusted to
carry a tune at a family gathering. He was singing with all his force until his face was red. Every listener in the ballroom was watching him intently, mouthing the words mutely as if this assistance would keep him from forgetting the words, and so far he had not missed a syllable or bent a note. His Uncle George was leaning on his cane with one hand and keeping time with his punchglass with the other, and now, craning toward the proud father of the choir, he whispered in his ear: “I do believe he’s going to make a perfect performance, unless ’e explodes first!” Jonathan nodded, grinning.

In the big fireplace at the end of the ballroom the Yule log was blazing, a great chunk of walnut. The room was lighted by three dozen candles in wall sconces, and more candles, on the sideboards, flanked the big old family wassail bowl that John and Ann Rogers Clark had brought with them from Caroline County. At the other end of the room stood a fir tree in a tub, its branches studded with small candles and festooned with ribbons and homemade decorations dating as far back as Jonathan’s childhood in old Albermarle.

“Hooray! Bravo! Fine, fine!” the audience cried, clapping and laughing. The room was full of Clarks, old and young. Jonathan was the eldest Clark now, a sturdy fifty-four years old, slower moving but still not sedentary. His wife Sarah was forty-six and now a grandmother, but still retained the youthful, firm handsomeness that was a trait of the Hite family. Here too were Owen and Ann Gwathmey with their children. And Bill and Lucy Croghan with theirs, and vivacious Fanny, who, though now twice a widow at thirty-two, looked radiant and coy as a bride-to-be, because she was, in fact, once again a bride-to-be. Judge Dennis Fitzhugh, her fiancé, was making himself as much a
part of this tight-bonded clan as he could, being careful not to say anything that might sound foolish to her elder brothers. They were an intimidating lot, those three Clark brothers standing there together near the fireplace. They were hearty, civil, approachable gentlemen all, but there was something around them, something which could only be defined as their
Clarkness
, which made them seem like a sort of an exclusive society.

The carolers were retreating from the ballroom now, singing, as they went, their parting “God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen” to the clapping and laughter of the crowd.

“A fine entertainment,” Edmund said to Jonathan. “Nearly makes me yearn for children of my own. But not, ah, not quite, not quite.” There was a little bit of wistfulness in this regular joke of his; Edmund was beginning to feel he was missing something important. He was forty-two, and certainly was prosperous enough to support a family, but it looked as if he never would. Edmund was neither planter nor businessman at heart. He brooded sometimes over the chances he had missed to prove himself a great soldier, a leader, another Clark on a heroic scale. Instead, he had become a trustee of the town of Louisville, and had slid gradually into the role of town record-keeper and historian. That was a dry, dusty, and solitary preoccupation that year by year was making him less and less fit for the role of suitor. He kept company with this and that lady, but clearly was not sweeping them off their feet.

“Well, you two bachelors,” Jonathan said now, laying his arms over their shoulders, “what sayee to a deep breath o’ brandy and a cupful o’ fresh air?” That was one of his favorite jokes.

T
HE NIGHT WAS MILD, JUST COLD ENOUGH TO KEEP THE
snow from melting off. Candlelight from the brightly lit house made soft-edged rectangles on the snow under the windows. The great leafless oaks and elms and mulberry trees reached for the starpoints. Voices and songs came faintly from the servants’ quarters behind the house; in the stables a horse blew and a hoof woodenly bumped.

Sleighbells jingled below on the public road. “Hear that,” Jonathan said, pausing, his cup in one hand. “Who has a sleigh in Louisville, d’ye know?” Edmund blew out a mouthful of tobacco smoke and replied:

“Well, if anybody does have, and it’s not y’rself, something’ll have to be done about that, eh?” Jonathan was as wealthy as anyone in these parts, and if there was something to be had in the territory,
he felt it was his natural prerogative to have the first one.

“Aye,” he said. “Jove, wouldn’t the youngsters enjoy a sleigh ride on a Christmas night like this, though! I’ll wager if I sent up an order to Philadelphia now, there could be a nice manufactory sleigh delivered by
next
Christmas. One with bentwood runners and a leather dash. Egod, I
do
love a sleigh! Aye, I’ll start inquiring right after the New Year. Hm. Hm.”