Sacajawea (101 page)

A waterman took up the big pot full of tea from the fire and leaped into his canoe with it. The others threw blankets and guns into their canoes. There was some cheering, and a voyageur began to sing. Laurier let out a long, wild yell, and someone fired a gun. The noise of the shot thundered into the village; it was caught by the bluff behind the shadowy town and thrown back at them.

“On to Saint Louis,” called Miquelon.

Just above the junction of the Missouri and Mississippi rivers locmed the mud chimneys of the log Fort Bellefontaine, where Colonel Thomas Hunt was in command and Dr. Saugrain was chief surgeon. Sacajawea listened as the men talked. She knew of the use of Dr. Saugrain’s pills. She stared intently at Colonel Hunt walking along the bank as he was pointed out to Charbonneau. Hunt had a large face, burned brick red, graying hair, pale blue eyes, and a quick grin for his little daughter, Abby, who walked beside him.

Pomp and Little Tess climbed out of the beached canoe. The little white girl, Abby, ran toward them. Her eyes sparkled. “You are like the children who came with the other two Indian ladies a long time ago. One of the men looked like him.” Abby danced up and down and stared at Charbonneau.

“That was two years back, my dear,” said Colonel Hunt. “That was a more important party than this, I daresay. Lewis and Clark were on board those canoes.”

Abby giggled and put her hand to her mouth. “There was the manservant—he was a big black Indian. I remember.”

Sacajawea’s heart leaped. It was probably Jussomewho reminded the child of Charbonneau, and the other men Sacajawea knew for certain.

Two days later, in August 1808, they sighted the old stone forts of the Spanish in Saint Louis. The frontier village was noble, rising on a high terrace from the rock-bound river. They landed the three canoes in the center of the village beach. Down the banks came people to greet them. These people never suspected, as Colonel Hunt had not suspected, that three members of this small party were from the famous Lewis and Clark Expedition.

“Laurier!” called a small, black-eyed Frenchwoman in blue.

“Susette,” called the hunter, and with a leap he was out of the canoe and upon the shore.

“Mon dieul”
cried Charbonneau. “Many people. It is like Montreal. And where do we find Capitaine Clark?”

“I have become quite a galant and somewhat taken with the fair creatures,” Clark wrote his brother Edmund from Washington, but his real interest was in Judy Hancock, whom he soon persuaded to marry him.

When Clark confided his engagement to Mr. Jefferson, that constant friend presented him with jewelry for Judy—a necklace, two bracelets, earrings, a pin and a ring, of pearls and topaz.

Judy set the date of their marriage as January 1808.

Excerpt from p. 383 in
Lewis and Clark: Partners in Discovery
by John Bakeless. Copyright 1947 by John Bakeless. By permission of William Morrow and Company.

L
ate in the afternoon, Charbonneau left his two women and two sons on the rocks beside a pier. He went to find William Clark.

The sun streamed like a red glaze over the limestone bluffs that stood behind the town, filtered through the trees and smoke of grass fires, and glinted on the surface of the Mississippi. The street above the river was filled with confused and unfixed shadows, the clash of voices, and the strains of fiddle music. In this hour before sunset the street was raucous with voyageurs, tanned and sallow, quick of gait, graceful and gay; blackeyed Frenchwomen, and little French children in red petticoats; here and there a
coureur de bois,
a Kentucky hunter, lank and lean; Creole
engagé
; and the Negro, breed, and Indian
filles de joie
who filled the shops and bars.

That summer there had been heat and no rain. Now there were grass fires burning in the Grande Prairie beyond the bluff; small orange tongues licked at the yellowed grass, and smoke rose above the land diffusing the strength of the sun and forecasting an ominous end to summer.

Sacajawea looked about, feeling small and frightened. She searched through the crowds that milled about the pier. Could that be Broken Tooth, Jussome’s woman, there, sweltering in a dirty cerise blanket, speaking sharply to the children beside her? And was that Sheheke dressed in the blue coat with gold braid and the eagle feather worn proudly in his hair? She was not sure who these people were, and her head swam with so many unfamiliar things in view.

“Well, bless my soul,” said a voice at her elbow, “it is the little dancing boy. I thought my eyes played tricks.” It was big, grinning Ben York.

“York! York!” Sacajawea was overcome with joy to find a familiar face. She pushed Pomp toward him, but the child was shy.

“How do? You all remember me? You were only a papoose when we left you standing on that Mandan beach. I’se your old nursemaid. I taught you to dance.

See?” York took a couple of quick jog steps despite the rocky ground.

Pomp slowly imitated him, then smiled up at York, who picked him up in his big black arms. Tears streamed down his face. Pomp put his cheek against York’s. “I looked for you,” the child said softly.

“I would have come back looking for you, but I’se a slow walker,” said York. Then, pointing, he said, “Who’s that?”

‘Tess, my brother. His
umbea,
Otter Woman—see? There.”

“How do?” said York, remembering now that Charbonneau did have more than one woman. “Your man, that rascally Charb, come with you ladies?”

“Ai,” said Sacajawea, shading her eyes with a hand because she thought she recognized someone else. “Pryor! It is you!”

“Certainly, it’s me,” said Nat Pryor, laughing. “I see York found you first.”

Pryor was the official escort for Sheheke and his family and now took the job of being escort for the Charbonneau family. Charbonneau came trotting into sight, and Pryor took them by horse and buggy to the barracks of Saint Louis. They were housed with Sheheke’s family under the protection of the militia.

Sheheke did not have on a blue coat, but a black cutaway.

“This lodge is so large I could be lost in it,” said Otter Woman.

Sheheke laughed, amused that once he had felt the same way. “You will not get lost if you sit in one corner and do not move.”

“Master Clark will be along soon,” said York, finding a lump of sugar somewhere in the depths of his pocket for Pomp, and one for little Tess. Then, suddenly, he had an ear-to-ear grin on his perspiring, shining face. “I think Master Clark like me to fetch you all to his house. Come, you hear? You young’uns, too.”

Charbonneau followed him down the long steps, and Sacajawea, with her hand tight on Pomp’s, came close behind. Otter Woman held Little Tess by one arm, stating flatly she preferred to stay behind listening to the tales Sheheke’s squaw, Yellow Corn, was telling aboutthe white man’s food. She was really afraid to go out into this unfamiliar, noisy village.

Sacajawea’s shoulders jerked slightly under her loose deerskin tunic. “We will go without you.”

Otter Woman had turned her back.

Outwardly, Sacajawea was composed, almost stoic, but inwardly her heart throbbed violently. York turned and picked up Pomp so he could ride on his wide shoulders. Sacajawea looked first at York, then at Pryor. She could scarcely keep up with them on the hilly street to Main and Pine. Charbonneau paused frequently to peer into doorways, speak with Canadians, and observe the gamblers knotted about buffalo robes on the dirt floors of bars. York led them to a small wooden building adjoining a shining white one-story house. They were inside the stuffy Council Hall—General Clark’s Indian museum.

Clark came in. He was clean, shaven, beautiful — more beautiful than Sacajawea had remembered. In the warmth of the summer afternoon, he had opened the chest flap of his blue cotton shirt. The wrappings of his moccasins held brown homespun breeches snugly about his ankles. Under his reddish brows his eyes remained a cool blue. His hair, a red-orange shade the sun might have created in its burnings, was thick and long against his neck and tied with a leather thong.

“Janey!” Clark gasped. “This is the best surprise I’ve ever had. Why didn’t you tell me you were on your way downriver?” he said, turning to Charbonneau. Then: “Pryor, did you know they were coming?”

“No, sir. It was a complete surprise to see Charb, here, in the middle of the cigar store, Le Bureau de Tabac. Then I found Janey, here, and Pomp talking with York.”

“No time; we get ready; we leave.” Charbonneau shrugged his shoulders under his sweat-stained buckskin shirt. The shirt was fringed at the shoulders and embroidered with strands that once had been brightly painted, but now were stained and blackened.

“Well, I’m glad you are here. Welcome to Saint Louis!” Clark shook Charbonneau’s hand as if he could not let go.

Sacajawea controlled herself, although she wantedto run beside Clark, throw her robe about his shoulders, and weep for joy. But seeing him here, in his own lodge, made him seem different, larger. He was shining, clean. She glanced at her tunic and robe. She was embarrassed and wished she had changed to clean ones, and fresh moccasins.

“My little dancing boy, Pomp, come here.” Clark stooped to pick up the child. “Come, let me see how you’ve grown.”

The child drew shyly away.

Clark was visibly disappointed. Sacajawea bent to whisper to her child; he looked into her face for an instant, then, reassured, stepped out into the center of the room.

“Watch, Chief Red Hair,” the child said in a soft voice. Then he began to dance with his tiny knees bent, moccasins barely touching the floor, in perfect rhythm to his mother’s clapping hands.

“Wonderful!” said Clark, now satisfied and pleased. The child went to him and was pulled onto Clark’s lap.

Sacajawea had never seen chairs with arms and a back like the ones York brought in. “Sit here, Janey,” said York. “It’s better than the floor.”

She sat, but she felt stiff and uncomfortable. Soon she was on the floor, Indian-fashion, listening as the men spoke of getting in touch with the fur companies so that Charbonneau would get an interpreting job.

“You did get my letter, then?”

Charbonneau grinned, nodded, and reached into the bag hanging from his belt. He drew out the paper that had sung to Sacajawea. “I keep it safe, with me.”

“Let me have it, will you?” asked Clark. “I’d like to keep it in my files.” Clark took the letter, smoothed it flat, and slipped it into the back of his desk drawer at the far side of the room. Had he known it would turn up a century later to be studied and his intense interest in the Charbonneaus debated, perhaps he would not have preserved it so carefully.

Coming back to his chair, Clark said, “You should not have stayed behind so long, Charb. You and Janey should have gone with us to see President Jefferson last year when I took Sheheke.”

Clark explained to Charbonneau that each of theenlisted men of the expedition was entitled to three hundred and twenty acres of land, and that included Charbonneau. “And there has been talk of giving each man double pay. Lewis was given sixteen hundred acres of land; and I, one thousand. Can’t you just see Lewis when he heard about it? He wrote to the powers in Washington, and you’re right, I was given sixteen hundred acres also. That’s really more than I can use. Charb, if you want to buy some from me with your extra pay, you are welcome to do it.”

Charbonneau muttered something and blew on his mustache.

Nat Pryor scratched his head and spoke. “I know that Ordway bought the claims of LePage, Werner, and Goodrich, paying two hundred dollars for the first two and two-fifty for Si’s. So he got himself nine hundred and sixty acres.”

“Yes,” said Clark. “Young Shannon also bought extra, snapping up Tom Howard’s claim. Say, did you know Lewis was made governor of Louisiana, and he resigned his commission in the Regular Army a year ago last spring?” He did not wait for anyone to answer. “I was made brigadier general of the Louisiana Militia. That could mean some work if war breaks out. We all know the British will attack.” He slapped his knee. “I don’t think Lewis cares for those Britishers much, either. A more interesting job was also given me. I am agent for the Indians—Pryor works for me.”

Clark immediately saw the question in Sacajawea’s eyes. “I am a go-between for the Indians and whites. I help them with their problems. And they both have problems.”

On impulse, Sacajawea spoke up, clasping the sky blue stone that hung around her neck for courage. “Will you help the People? The Agaidükas need guns to hunt food and to keep away the Blackfeet. They have promised to trade well for guns and ammunition.”

“Femme,
shut that mouth. The men are talking now. What’s the matter with you?” said Charbonneau, getting his blood up.

“I had to ask,” she said softly.

“Now, now,” said Clark. “I want to talk to all of you. Charb, leave her be. And if I ever hear of you mistreating Janey, I’ll see that she leaves you, and I’ll have her well provided for.”

Charbonneau flushed. “She’ll be spoiled worse than a dead horse on the prairie.”

“I’ve not forgotten the promise we made to your brother, the chief. Manuel Lisa—he lives here, on Second Street—tried to reach your people, but he was sent back by angry Yanktons. Then Colter went. He was met by the Blackfeet. And Jefferson sent some men last year, under a Lieutenant Pinch, to build a trading post at the junction of the Lewis
¹
and Salmon rivers. Some of those men talked to me before leaving, and they were going to try to protect the tribes who are without arms against those who have been given British flintlocks.”

Sacajawea sighed, relieved. Chief Red Hair never broke a promise. Her people would be reached and strengthened.

“Charb, there are men in this town organizing the Missouri Fur Company. They will build a number of trading posts, just as we planned a couple of years back.”

Charbonneau nodded to Clark, understanding.