“Le Borgne say thees: that he go to the fort only for one cause: his people talk of a man all black. He say he is tired hearing this lie from people who are fooled, and go to see.”
William was amused by this transparent excuse, but managed not to laugh. “Tell him I agree a man should see things with ’is his own eyes—er, eye—and that the black man will be happy to prove himself. Tell him our chief, Captain Lewis, will give him gifts and smoke with him. Tell him my boat-makers up yonder are expecting me, so I can’t go down with him. But say I might be back to the fort before he leaves. Got all that? And listen: you’re our Minnetaree talker, so you go to the fort with ’im. They’ll need ye there more than I will here.”
T
HE WIND WAS LESS FIERCE AMONG THE COTTONWOODS
, and the boat-builders were hard at work in the trampled, sooty, bark-littered snow. From large bonfires they were transferring shovelfuls of coals into the hewn-down cottonwood trunks, to burn the wood and make it easier to hollow the logs. A canoe would be burning inside one end while a man, black as a chimneysweep, would be swinging an adze in the other, routing out the charred heartwood. One of these laborers looked up, bloodshot white eyes in a black face. William smiled, and said, “Is that you, York?” The man grinned, and answered:
“No, sah, Massa! I’s Collins!”
Sergeant Gass came over, laughing. The barrel-chested Pennsylvania Irishman was in charge of the canoe detail. A blast of wind shook the woods, and Gass flinched as hot coals and ashes swirled around him. He unreeled a string of colorful epithets.
“How goes it?” William asked.
“Well, Cap’n, well enough, considerin’ what we got to work with. The goddamn trees up here’s growed up so windshook and stunty and cankerous, y’ might’s well whistle a jig to a milestone
as look for a good tree. Lookee there at that cockled-up eel’s turd of a log, f’r instance. Look at that grain, would ye? Crapy as nigger hair, and carvin’ ’er’s like tryin’ to chaw gristle without no teeth. And when she dries, she opens up like a squaw’s cunt.”
Gass went on and on in his campfire eloquence; obviously he had been rehearsing his complaints and storing them up for the captain’s visit.
“Aye, Sergeant, I’d give a pretty for half a dozen nice down-home tulip poplars, wouldn’t you? Eh, well. Shields has got plenty o’ tin to cover up splits. It’ll have t’do. Now, listen. Here’s what I came to say: we took inventory of what we have to carry, and we’re going to need two more canoes. So start a couple more.”
Gass looked stricken for a moment, then seemed to be having a tantrum deep in his innards, but finally just nodded.
“Well,” William said for pleasantry, “how ’bout Indians? Ye had many visitors?”
“All day every day,” Gass growled. “They hunker in our hutch an’ eat our jerky an’ supervise like a gang o’ grand vi-zeers. Be glad when th’ river thaws so they can’t walk over here.”
William cocked an eyebrow. “But then how would you get over to the village evenings, to y’r sweethearts?”
Gass winked and popped his cheek. “We’re boat-builders,” he said.
Gass and his party were close to Black Cat’s village and also to the town of the Hidatsas, and, being detached from the fort, had an unusually free rein to fraternize with the squaws in this vicinity. Between the sleepless nights and the constant smoke, they were all getting the most spectacular red eyeballs. But they liked the duty. Strenuous as it was, it was easier than being at the fort. Down there, everyone was always working like a beaver from dawn to dark, making crates and rope and parfleche bags, calking and repairing boats, smoking meat, making leather clothes and moccasins, and cutting and splitting wood for the charcoal that fueled the smithy’s forge. Bad as this boat yard was, it was easy compared with the fort.
“Here, Sergeant,” William said now, “I brought up your ration o’ spirits. I’m going over to smoke with Black Cat ’fore I go back down.”
“Ah! Have a good, ah,
smoke
, sir.” Gass nodded toward the distant town. “My compliments to the ladies.” He winked again, a lewd, face-twisting exaggeration of a wink. Gass wondered whether the captains partook of the squaws’ favors. There was speculation that Captain Clark had bedded some of the towns’
handsomest maidens—even chiefs’ wives—as many of the women spoke of the great beauty of the Red Hair Chief. So far none of the men had gotten any first-hand knowledge of any such liaisons, but they were happy to believe it. As for William, he let them wonder. Some things an officer and a gentleman did not discuss.
Anyway, what the troops envisioned with the greatest amusement was the brusque, rigid Captain Lewis with squaws. “He don’t need a hard-on,” Private Colter had joked, “he
is one.”
W
ILLIAM EMERGED FROM HIS LONG, SHUDDERING SPASM OF
pleasure, growing aware of the murmur of voices outside the lodge, of moans in his ear, fingers on his back, the smell of woodsmoke and oiled hair and musky flesh, and as the intense tickle ebbed from his loins, he opened his eyes and saw her delicate red-brown ear and neck and open mouth and trembling eyelashes. She was still convulsing, her pelvis surging against him, and her moans were turning up at the ends, becoming little cries. Outside, the voices rose into laughter and cheers: “Hai-ee! Hai-ee-ee!” The Mandans had been listening outside and now were happy because he had satisfied the girl. William doubted that he would ever get used to this, to being publicly applauded for such a private act. But he understood. They were happy enough that the blood of the Red Hair Chief was coming into their tribe; they were even happier that he was pleasing her, too, as she was a select maid. He did not really know
how
she had been selected for this, but she was a pleasing choice indeed, comely and smooth, clean, and a very cheerful and passionate giver. He had supposed, when she first entered the lodge wrapped in a blue blanket and stood looking at him, that she was the daughter of a chieftain. She had taken the blanket off then to reveal her whole self, making his throat feel engorged, and she had acted neither brazen nor coy, but had smiled, as if at calm inner thoughts, gone around him and lain down on the pallet, all russet-brown on the black buffalo robe, and watched him undress with glinting dark eyes.
Now she was descending into languor under him, happy, nameless, her fingers caressing his hard, freckled shoulders, her breathing deep and full, the gleam of oil on her face and bosom moving as she breathed, and William looked at her with simple gratitude and admiration, trying not to think of Judy Hancock. Judy Hancock had nothing to do with this; it was a matter of
this
world, not the safe and elegant world in which she moved.
But now he
was
thinking of Judy Hancock, and telling himself
that this did not affect his love for her. This was a thing of the flesh only; his love for Judy was a matter of the soul. She was a far away dream-picture, golden like summer sunlight, scented like lilac and camphor, not smoke and bear-oil; he was a Clark and would marry a virgin Hancock of Virginia; it was as unthinkable that he could have real affection for this dusky flesh-woman under him as that he could have affection for a slave woman.
That, at least, he thought, I’ve never done.
Almost every Virginian gentry-man he knew had lain with slave women; even Jefferson had a slave mistress; indeed, it was said that he loved her. But William had never done that, never lain with a slave woman, and was fairly certain none of his brothers ever had.
But this with an Indian girl, he thought, now easing himself off her to lie beside her on the buffalo robe and stroke her and return her wordless smile and look at her anonymous eyes and fine thick eyebrows, how natural a thing this is, yet how odd. Here we’ve crossed all the boundaries of flesh and nerves, but can never cross those of our souls because of who we are. Maybe she’ll have a red-haired baby someday and will have that baby all her life out here on the plains to remind her of the day she did this for her tribe, but we can’t love. A red woman and a white man can’t really love, can they? Do Charbonneau and Sacajawea really love? I don’t see much sign of it. He just
owns
her.
He was looking at the face and body of this nameless maid on a buffalo robe, feeling all languid in his loins, and was seeing Sacajawea in her buffalo robe with the little dark-haired baby boy at her breast, and he was thinking of her, and was thinking of her with a true affection, he realized, and that was confusing.
But this of a man out of his own world doing the body act with a maid in her own world at the request of a Mandan chief—this, he thought, it’s only diplomacy, and, o’ course—he smiled at the little
moues
she was making with her mouth—it’s a fairer duty than some we’ve got to do.
A
S
W
ILLIAM PLOWED THROUGH SNOW RETURNING TO
F
ORT
Mandan in a twilight of driving snow, the scene of morning repeated itself. Once again five horsemen materialized in the swirling snow dust; once more they proved to be Le Borgne and his escort. This time Le Borgne was smiling, though it looked more like a death-rictus than an expression of pleasure. William saluted him.
Charbonneau was not present now to interpret, so there was a
moment of awkwardness. But Le Borgne opened the front of his robe. He was wearing a scarlet shirt from the expedition’s stores, a shiny metal gorget, and a Jefferson medal. On his arm an American flag was draped. William nodded, and made hand signs meaning “good” and “I am glad.”
Then Le Borgne inhaled and drew up to make himself seem huge. He made a wavy motion over his head with his fingers. He licked his forefinger and rubbed it on his chest. Then he reached down and cupped his hand before his groin and waggled it up and down as if hefting a gigantic penis, looking down with an expression of astonishment.
William smiled and nodded. He understood. York had once again proven that he was real. William made another hand sign, one that meant:
“What I told you is true.”
A
FEW DAYS LATER
W
ILLIAM RETURNED TO THE FORT FROM
another visit to the canoe factory. The parade ground of the fort was full of working men. Some were stretching and coiling hide ropes, some were shelling corn, others were moving crates about, still others were carrying charcoal to the forge, where Shields’s, Bratton’s, and Willard’s hammers clanged tirelessly. In addition to the Corps’ own blacksmithing work, they were making axes and tools to trade to the Indians for corn, tallow, and jerky. William had been hearing the hammers from two miles up the river. The good smell of smoking meat hung thick in the compound, but so did the stench of urine and animal brains used in the curing of hides.
“Problem. Big problem,” Lewis announced gloomily as he came in.
“Eh? What now?” He stamped snow off his boots and laved his hands over the fire.
“That Charbonneau. I suspect the damned Britishers corrupted him, or maybe the One-Eye did. Anyway, he made demands today. Says if he goes with us he won’t work or stand guard like the ordinary men. Wants to be free to turn back if ’e gets miffed with anybody, and bring away any provisions he wants to carry.”
William made a chirp with the corner of his mouth. “What a bloat-head. Ye sent ’im packin’, I reckon?”
“Aye. He’s moved out, takin’ his squaws. But I told ’im to think on it. I said we’d forgive and sign ’im on if he got those grandiose notions out of his head.”
William unbelted and peeled off his leather coat and hung it on a peg. “The problem’s not him but Sacajawea, o’ course.”
“O’ course. We’d be better off without him, that’s my opinion. But we’ll need her.”
William paced, lit a pipe, and paced some more, in the little walking space remaining among the scientific cargo. He stopped. “Reckon we could take her regardless of him?”
“He’d call it kidnap. The British could make a hue and cry of it, and would.” Lewis shook his head. “Shame, isn’t it, we find a Shoshoni just by a good hap, and by ill hap she belongs to that bumptious cock-a-hoop.”
William sucked his pipe stem and gazed into the fire. He knew that the Shoshoni girl was almost a-quiver with eagerness to make the journey back to her people. She’d never be the same if that French fartbag ruined it for ’er, he thought. The poor thing would never dare hope again. “What let’s do,” he suggested, “let Charbonneau think we might hire Gravelin or Le Page or Jessaume in his place. How long d’ye think he’d swell up over that before bustin’?”
Lewis tapped his temple with three fingers and his face brightened a bit. “I wager he might change his tune in a week at most. Give him time for his pride to deflate a bit.”
“I’d say five days. Now, why don’t we fetch Gravelin, in such a way as Charbonneau will know of it?”
I
N THE NEXT FOUR DAYS THERE WAS ENOUGH SUNSHINE TO
permit the Corps to spread clothing, bedding, collections, and parched corn out to dry. Joseph Gravelin came to the fort, walking right past the tepee Charbonneau had erected outside the pickets. Charbonneau saw Gravelin move his gear into the fort.
And on the fifth day, Charbonneau sent word by his colleague Le Page that he was sorry for his foolishness. He asked to be forgiven for his simplicity.
They called him in and signed him up on their original terms, and he was so elated he even boasted that he could cook for them the best Creole food they’d ever taste.
P
RIVATE
N
EWMAN STOOD BEFORE
C
APTAIN
L
EWIS AMONG THE
piles of baggage. He had been called in, and he was full of hope.
“I want you to know, Newman, that I’m writing a report on you that will stand you in good stead at your next post. In our minds you stand acquitted by your behavior.”
Newman began to glow.
“We are sorry to lose you, but I can’t rescind my judgment. You’ll …” Newman’s gaze stayed on Lewis’s face, but he
seemed to shrink half a foot. “You’ll pack your gear to go on the keelboat party back to St. Louis.”
“That, that’s final, sir?”
“It is. That’s all, Newman. Regrets.”