Sacajawea (113 page)

If Sacajawea did quarrel and leave home, and Charbonneau and the boys could not find her, they would probably assume she was dead. Baptiste and Toussaint were in school in Saint Louis. They might have seen Clark and told him Sacajawea was gone. Old Charbonneau might have said he thought she was probably dead. With these facts Clark would certainly write “dead” after Sacajawea’s name in his 1825–1828 cash accounts book.

It is now known that both Dr. Hebard and Dr. Eastman were incorrect in their belief that Jean Baptiste was buried at Fort Washakie, Wyoming. Jean Baptiste Charbonneau is buried on the Inskip Ranch on Cow Creek in Jordan Valley, near the small town of Danner, Oregon, close to the Idaho line.
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Who, then, was the man who called himself Baptiste Charbonneau at Fort Washakie? Could he have been an intruder, as Dale Morgan believes, or could he have been the other boy, Toussaint, who was Otter Woman’s son? Neta Frazier believes the latter might just be the case.
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History has a way of being lost or misrepresented. Personal testimony has a way of being slanted or falsified to please the questioner. People die, so statements cannot be checked. On the other hand, a statement in print tends to become fact when in truth it may not be fact at all, but only a myth written down.

It seems that no one will ever know positively Sacajawea’s fate. No one knows with certainty the date of Sacajawea’s death.
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But if she lived longer than December 20, 1812, and the old Comanche and Shoshoni winter tales reflect her later life and travels, she did influence many of our famous military men, mountain men, traders, trappers, chiefs, and their women. So, for the moment, assume that it was Otter Woman who died at Manuel Lisa’s fort and that the evidence found for Sacajawea’s living a long life is inspiration enough to continue her story as if she truly lived until April 9, 1884, and was buried on the Wind River Reservation, Fort Washakie, Wyoming. The remainder of this novel is based upon these interesting Comanche and Shoshoni stories.

My little breath, under the willows by the water-side we used to sit,

And there the yellow cottonwood bird came and sang.

That I remember and therefore I weep.

Under the growing corn we used to sit.

And there the little leaf bird came and sang.

That I remember and therefore I weep.

There on the meadow of yellow flowers we used to walk.

Alas! how long ago that we two walked in that pleasant way.

Then everything was happy, but alas! how long ago.

There on the meadow of crimson flowers we used to walk.

Oh, my little breath, now I go there alone in sorrow.

O
n December 24, Sacajawea and the two boys dressed warmly. They strapped saddle blankets to two of the horses that stood close together in the drafty stable behind the cabin. They were going trading at Chouteau’s.

Inside the store, Sacajawea traded several pairs of thick-soled moccasins for a small sugar sack of hard candy—a Christmas treat for the boys—a canister of tea, and a sack of dried beans. The boys listened to the rivermen standing around the potbellied stove telling stories of how the land around New Madrid rolled and burst open, shooting water, sand, and black, oily slime into the air during one of the larger earth tremors.

“This here child seen birds frozen with fear so’s they couldn’t fly,” said one old-timer.

On the trail home, the surface was swept with a screaming wind. The trail was broad as it ran through the heart of the city. The air was full of sifted white snow, and the wagon furrows were rapidly filling. The horses panted and struggled as they plodded forward. Through the muffled scream of the storm Sacajawea turned and shouted back at the boys, “Stop there, at the lodge of Chief Red Hair!”

The boys grinned and nodded. Her order needed no explanation. She always had good reasons for her actions. They remembered she had kept aside a small pair of leggings and a small shirt at the store, telling the clerk she did not wish to trade anything for them. They were to be gifts for the two youngest children of Miss Judy and Chief Red Hair. Inside Clark’s kitchen she emptied her own sons’ half of the hard candy into the sack of dried beans. She tied the cloth sugar sack down tight against the remaining candy. “This is for the older children, Looie and Mary,” she said, half to herself.

Tess and Baptiste tethered the horses and stomped snow off their moccasins as they followed Sacajawea through the back door into the kitchen. Sacajawea had dropped the half-filled sugar sack of hard candy on the kitchen table, telling Rose to try a piece before dividing it between the two older children. Beside the sack shelaid the neatly folded packages, explaining that they were for the two younger children.

“There are only two children in this here family,” said Rose, peering closer into Sacajawea’s face. “Has the quake left you addlebrained?”

Sacajawea smiled and took a moment before answering. “Oho, there will be three boys and one girl adding to the laughter and to the crying in this house before long,” she said in a prophetic whisper. Then, in a louder voice, she asked, “I wonder where Miss Judy is? She is as affected by chills as the little girl will be. You will have to remember those two are frail. Care for them even more than the others.” Now her voice cracked and ended in what sounded like a sob.

“She and Master Clark, they’se taken their horses out somewheres,” said Rose. “With this wind a-blowing they’se be back shortly. You stay. Get your thoughts straight. That snow and cold wind is getting you as muddled as some far-seeing sorceress who dreams up happenings so close to the truth that it makes a body’s hair stand straight on end.”

Sacajawea stepped toward the back door, nodding her head to indicate that the boys, Tess and Baptiste, should prepare to leave.
“Merci.
We go to our lodge before the snow is deep and before I have to sleep in your kitchen once again.”

Rose laughed but shook her head and smoothed down her kinky hair as from the window she watched the small boys mount their horse and follow Sacajawea along an invisible white trail. “Watch out for them earth cracks—hear?”

Rose’s voice was snatched away by the wind. A pall of white enveloped the figures. Upon them beat a wind of stinging sleet. The snow was getting deeper. Once or twice Sacajawea’s horse stumbled, but he did not fall. The words Tess shouted up to Sacajawea were almost lost in the roar of the shrieking wind.

“…helluvatime…riding.”

“Not far…up ahead is our lodge,” she shouted back, trying to keep the boys as close behind her as possible. Her attention then concentrated on sticking to the back of the horse. Numb though her fingers were, she had to keep them fastened tightly in the frozen mane of theanimal. At the cabin she pulled the boys off their horse and sent them inside to start up the fire.

“Got to stable the horses,” she yelled, and hurried with the chore.

After a time she was standing before the warmth of the fireplace, and circulation was flooding back into her veins. She endured a half hour of excruciating pain. She had to clench her teeth to keep back the groans that came from her throat as she walked the floor and nursed her hands and fingers.

When the storm moderated enough to let her go out with safety, Sacajawea went to the stable to check on the horses. When she came back she was triumphant. Upon the table she dropped two packages held in the crook of her arm.

“The makings of our Christmas dinner,” she announced with a grin. “Chief Red Hair has been here. We just missed each other. He left a supply of meat and hides in the stable and these two tins of plum pudding, a favorite of the white man.” She had not noticed the gifts the first time, when she’d put the horses in and been no numbed with cold. “He came to see us while we were at his lodge trying to see him,” she repeated.

“Merry Christmas!” shouted Baptiste.

“Aw, let’s eat,” said Tess. “I’m nearly starved.” He snatched a hunk of frozen meat from under Sacajawea’s butcher knife.

“Put that down,” she said. “You will have your food cooked the way the whites prefer. My boys will grow up civilized and not eat raw meat with blood dripping from their mouths. You are not savage Blackfeet.”

That winter and all next spring, Sacajawea had strange dreams in which a spume of whirling, blinding snow clung to everything it touched. The snow was wet and soft. Once she thought she saw Charbonneau with snowshoes heavy with white slush. But each time she saw densely laden spruce boughs brush Otter Woman’s face and shower her with little avalanches. Otter Woman’s face was white and her voice low, saying, “Oh, my sister, keep my papoose as your own.” Then there was no sign of life in the vast whiteness, only a mass of ice and snow. The dreams were always similar. There were more earth tremors that winter.
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General Clark brought more meat and hides. The first week in January, Sacajawea sent the boys back to school with him. Then she busied herself making moccasins and leggings and shirts to sell at Chouteau’s store for her other needs and the luxury of hard candy.

Soon after his appointment as territorial governor of Missouri, Clark came for a visit.

“You have come to tell me about Charbonneau,” said Sacajawea, making a pot of tea and slicing some cold roast venison.

“Well, I have. How could you know?”

“I’m not sure, but I had the feeling.”

“And there is this little girl.” Clark unwrapped the bundle he held on his lap. Inside was a dark-haired papoose, about a year old.

“Ooo,” said Sacajawea, making sucking noises with her mouth. “Where did you find this little owl—on the trail to this lodge?”

Clark handed the papoose to Sacajawea, who rocked her gently. “She is Charbonneau’s daughter. Her mother, Otter Woman, died last December. The baby was about four months old then.” Clark watched Sacajawea, whose expression changed subtly.
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Slowly she stopped the rocking motion. Her dark eyes swam with tears, but she did not let them roll down her cheeks. She was more beautiful than the young woman Clark remembered from the expedition.

Clark’s mouth sagged partly open. He blinked against his own tears; then he stood up, scraping the packing crate on the floor. “A man belonging to your people would leap from a cliff before he would cry,” he said gruffly.

“But you are not Shoshoni. You are a white chief,” Sacajawea said, surprised at the excess of her own feeling.

“The clerk at Lisa’s Fort Manuel came to Saint Louis in August with this baby girl and left her at the Orphans’ Court. She’s been nursed by a squaw living near the barracks. When I found out about her, I put my name on her guardianship papers. I want you to take her. She’ll be good company while the boys are at school. Raise her as your own. Otter Woman would have asked that. Teach her to sew and to sing.”

“Mon dieu!
It cannot be. Yet I know it is. Otter Woman is not coming back.” She began shivering. “Where is Charbonneau?” she asked as if afraid to say his name aloud.

The baby cried. Sacajawea rocked her to and fro.

Clark paused and kicked at the crate. “Luttig, the clerk, says he went out with a party of Northwesters and never came back. He suspects he was killed by the Sioux during one of their attacks. It’s been pretty bad up in the Missouri.” Clark’s head was lowered.

“It is hard to believe.” She shook her head. “Everybody is dead. All those we knew; never to see them again.”

“I am so glad you did not go up the Missouri,” said Clark, “that I don’t even care if you let your tears roll down your face. We will both miss that old rascal Charbonneau.”

“I will keep her.” She hugged the baby eagerly, while anxiety and grief fought in her heart. She knew that any moment now she might let the tears slide down her cheeks. She felt, deep inside, that where the frail Otter Woman had succumbed, so also had her tough, hardy man. Their life’s trail had ended.

When Clark tried to speak, his voice broke. “Janey — little Janey. You’re safe. Thank God, I still have you.”

The tears brimmed over. Then, somehow, she was weeping in his arms. A stress of emotion had swept her into his arms. Now she drew away from him shyly, peeling the blanket from the baby. The maturity of her own experiences asserted itself.

“Does this papoose have a name?” She was deeply moved by the presence of Clark and his admission of fondness for her; she was also embarrassed by the display of so much sentiment.

“The baby is called Lizette.” Clark could not take his eyes from her as she held the sleeping papoose lovingly in her arms. It seemed that a bird sang in his heart the gladness he had tried to express. He saw her primitive beauty vivid as a flame. He was now her sole protector. He thought her rocking movements a miracle of supple lightness. Her body had the swelling roundness of vital youth, and her eyes were alive with the eagerness that time dulls in most faces. They spokelittle now, but drank tea from hot granite-ware mugs. Clark allowed his feelings no more expression. Love for her ran through his veins like old wine. He knew she lived in a world primeval. Would she waken to real love one day, or more disillusion? Now there was only wonder at the world in her soft eyes, he thought.

“Little Lizette,” she said. She stopped rocking only after she had drunk her tea.

Clark held out his hand to say good-bye.

She gave him a quick, shy little nod, turned without shaking hands, and moved outside, carrying the baby under one arm. She took up the reins of his horse and handed them over to him.