Sacajawea (120 page)

“Ai,” sighed Sacajawea. “Tess will find us already back in the warm cabin when he returns. We will keep it warm for our man.”

The fire burned out. Eagle and Sacajawea watched the moon return to normal, and they went to their sleeping robes.

On the day the first snowflakes fell, Charbonneau came galloping into the yard. Baptiste came from behind the horse shed where he had been cutting wood. He had heard Charbonneau coming, singing one of his favorite French songs about a lover and his young bride. Charbonneau was drunk. “Hey!” he called, not seeing

Baptiste standing against the side of the cabin, barging through the door and throwing his pack down. “You two squaws come on out and see what your man has bought with the pay Monsieur Herr Duke Paul Wilhelm of Württemberg, nephew of the King of England, cousin of King Friedrich I of Württemberg, gave to me.” Charbonneau pointed proudly toward a black stallion pawing the earth impatiently and then to the young, shy girl standing beside the horse. She was emblazoned with all the trappings and painting of her Ute tribe. Her ears were pierced four times on the rim, and several long blue-and-white glass beads were pushed into the holes. She wore a string of these glass sticks around her neck; otherwise she was naked.

“She is my new bride,” announced Charbonneau, leering in her direction. “And that is not all.” He swaggered around outside the front of the cabin. “I found a barrel of brandy in the sunken wreckage of an old double pirogue two days from here. Wahoo! What drinks have come from that barrel!” Unsteady, Charbonneau untied the straps holding the barrel to the stallion. “Chief Wakanzere and his Kansas band traded her to me for about half of this fine brandy. She was taken in a raid not over three weeks ago. He said she was too young to be his woman and too old to stay with his children. Some brave, whose face was painted with red stripes and whose head was shaved as smooth as my nose, said the chief was pleased that I’d take her off his hands. He really wanted rifles for his braves, better than those the British make. So—I promised him I’d bring in a load of good American rifles soon as I got back to Saint Louis. He’s still waiting there for me, by gar!”

Eagle gave the Ute girl, who now did not look too shy, a wicked glance.

A covey of partridge, alarmed by the stamping of the stallion’s feet, took to the air, and as they passed over a prairie-dog village, there was a shrill, quarreling bark among the creatures, angry over the disturbance, defensive at once. Sacajawea thought, Brave, empty sounds they made, retreating instantly when real danger threatened. Some people, she thought, were like that. All talking and no doing.

The newcomer stared at Sacajawea and Eagle. Her face was daubed with vermilion.

“She is younger than your youngest son. She is a papoose who does not yet wear clothes!” shouted Eagle, her hand over her mouth the instant the words were out.

Charbonneau stumbled inside and hunkered over the front of the fireplace, steaming.

Sacajawea looked at him. He had seen more than sixty winters; his hair was long and salted with white among the dark, mangy curls. She waited for him to tell what he would about the trip up the Missouri.

“Remember Charlie McKenzie? They call him King Charlie now. He’s with the Arikaras for trading.”

Baptiste came into the cabin and squatted on his haunches near the fire, watching his father, then the newcomer, the Ute girl.

“One whole day, canoes of Ashley’s men came downstream.” Charbonneau looked into the fire. “Most of the men were wounded. They had a fight with the Arikaras after they’d fished up a brandy keg and were for the most part drunk as hoot owls.”

He would not tell much about his trip. He had left the duke at the Grand Detour post, where he was visiting with the agent. Charbonneau had come to Council Bluffs in a dugout he’d found among some cattails. He was certain that the duke was on his way down the Missouri by now.

Baptiste nodded. “The aspen are orange and the oaks red and yellow against the sky. He will be here soon.”

“The duke lost two of his hunters from overexertion and heat.
Sacre
, it was hot.” Charbonneau rolled his eyes remembering how the two men showed symptoms of a nervous and gastric fever. Then the duke had asked him to act as hunter in their place. He had refused, reminding Duke Paul he had been hired as interpreter. The duke had insisted Charbonneau use his rifle and hunt game. He had given Charbonneau his interpreter’s pay and said from that day on he was engaged as a hunter. Charbonneau explained how he had been able to leave at night and get out of the camp. It wasn’t defeat; Charbonneau saw it as keeping his pride andprotecting his feet from the prickly pear, rocks, and mud they would have trod upon if he’d become a hunter.

In two days Tess rode in from the Washita post, tired but glad to see that his father was there.

“Even less room now for that painted papoose,” grumbled Eagle.

“She is a little thing—you will make room,” said Charbonneau.

Eagle looked at him. “With two grown boys, this is no place for her unless you wish to raise her as a daughter.”

“She is right,” said Sacajawea. “Your sons learn the white man’s way. One woman. How can they learn from a father who has two women and brings home another?”

“Sons no trouble,” said the Ute girl coquettishly. Men and boys were her stock in trade. Her father had often gambled off a night or two of her alluring company to traders. Now she felt her luck changing. She would not have to serve this old, wrinkled mountain man, but she could use her charms on the sons. She looked at the stocky Tess, who saw her from his squinted eyes as though seeing her through bright sunlight.

“My old man knows good merchandise!” exploded Tess. “Just look at those straight, strong legs.”

Baptiste stood with his mouth wide open, staring at the Ute girl. “Doesn’t she have a name?” he asked finally. “For a couple of days we just stare not knowing what to call her.”

“We could call her Kitten, huh?” said Tess. “I bet she is playful.”

Sacajawea seemed resigned to the whole affair, feeling that the girl was actually too young to influence the boys. She looked at Kitten as if she were an errant child. In fact she treated her as a child. She combed her hair in the mornings and scrubbed her face in the evenings. She sent her on errands and showed her how to mend moccasins.

Charbonneau, strangely, was not jealous of Kitten’s flirting with his sons. He seemed quite amused by the entire situation. Perhaps it was amusing to him because he knew very well that Eagle, now about eighteen summers, previously the youngest of his women, wasnow seething inside. She was jealous of this adolescent child.

The snow lasted a week; then the weather warmed, and one day it was sunny. “Duke Paul will be here any day to get supplies before he goes south to New Orleans,” said Charbonneau. “I would rather be on a trading trip with the Sioux than meet him right away.”

“You are leaving?” asked Sacajawea.

“Oui,
by tomorrow night. I will take my son on a short hunting trip.”

“You will not take Baptiste. You have given a promise that he will wait here for Duke Paul. The leaves are turning red. He will be here soon now.”

“Femme,
how could I forget that?” sighed Charbonneau. “Each evening that duke reminded me of it and what he could do for my son. He said the same words Générale Clark uses. ‘Your son is one smart fellow, but you, his father—no brains that show.’”

Sacajawea put her hand over her mouth and smiled. She thought how peaceful it would be while Charbonneau and Tess were on the hunting trip. She hoped maybe she and Baptiste could visit Chief Red Hair once while he was gone. Then she remembered that Baptiste, too, would be leaving before the next snow. She was ready for Baptiste to go, but the thought of the day of his return made her want to sing. That would be the time she would set her face toward the sun.

The wind blew cold that evening, and Charbonneau sat on the floor with his sons playing the game of plum pits. Sacajawea sat sewing. Eagle was looking through her belongings for a missing necklace and beaded belt. Kitten sat close beside Tess. She was covered by a loose gingham Mother Hubbard that Eagle had given her. Kitten had left one shoulder free and had belted the dress around the middle with a blue-and-scarlet sash. Her waist-long hair rippled free over the glass sticks in her ears. She wore a silver squash-blossom necklace and a string of dark brown seeds.

“Zut,
I would like to take that trip to the duke’s fatherland,” grumbled Charbonneau. “I could be a big man when I came back with all the knowledge from there.”

Abruptly Sacajawea stopped her sewing. A song stuckbetween her teeth. Her face went dark and dead. She sat staring. Eagle looked up at her. Sacajawea was jerked out of her daze by Eagle’s words.

“Our man is foolish—nobody at home—you know.” She pointed to her head. “No one would take an old man to a strange land across so much water. The water sickness would affect him.”

Sacajawea pushed hard to get the needle through two layers of hide, and pricked her finger. She frowned and sucked at the tiny drop of blood, then set her face and fixed her wary black eyes on Charbonneau.

“I need some warming before I high-tail it to a hunter’s camp.” Charbonneau pulled Kitten closer to him.

“The papoose is too young for any warmth,” warned Sacajawea, remembering her fate among the Minnetarees with sudden remorse. She clicked her tongue and thought now about getting Baptiste away from this situation.

After several games, Charbonneau wiped his face with a red bandanna. “Play something with a good stake—something worthwhile.”

Tess nodded, his eyes glistening and his breath coming fast with the excitement of the game and the glances and sly handclasps of Kitten stirring him.

“Me!” suggested Kitten boldly, smiling at all three men.

Baptiste drew in his breath and let out a low, shrill whistle.

Sacajawea exploded. “No!” she said. “You will never do this.”

Charbonneau laughed and tugged at his beard. “She is mine for tonight. If you win, Bap, she is yours tomorrow.”

Tess nodded. “And mine the next?” He burned with desire.

Charbonneau went on dipping his hand into a bowl of bear’s oil and tree sugar mixed with hominy and venison. “You learn to cook like this, and you be number one around here,” he said, winking at Kitten and licking his fingers. At this single moment Charbonneau felt contentment about the coming deep fall days, and he thought nothing could approach the joy of having two nearly grown sons and three fine-looking womento keep him feeling young. Afterward this evening seemed more like a dream. It was nearly a dream now, with shadows in it. Kitten snuggled near Baptiste, sidestepping Charbonneau to get near him.

Sacajawea appraised the situation quickly. She noticed the bare feet of the girl, ankles tied with colored leather cords, the long gingham dress making her young body seem shapeless, yet the one bare shoulder revealing its soft skin, the small parfleche Kitten wore at her waist, now bulging, where it had been flat several days before.

Kitten, suddenly conscious of Sacajawea’s eyes, turned her face toward her.
“Pase,”
she said in Spanish. “Come in. You wish to play the game?”

Sacajawea remained quietly sitting, her hands in her lap.

“This house is yours also,” Kitten said. “You keep it clean. You can play.” The tone expressed contempt.

“No! You stand!”

The flat, terse answer halted Kitten’s look. She slowly drew her eyes from Tess and turned to face Sacajawea with her whole body. What she saw was a mature squaw who threatened her friendship with the two boys. Kitten’s face held an expression of indolent cunning. She had known squaws long enough to know the arrogant assumption of some that all men bowed to the wishes of the eldest squaw in the lodge.

“So then, you do not have to. I would be the last to force you to play the game,” she said affably. “You can come and watch. Maybe you will learn how it is played, then.” She paused, and in a conciliatory voice that did not mask her disregard of Sacajawea’s demand, she added politely, “Sit with us and have some boiled coffee.”

Kitten was resolute enough to know that to this polite offer should be added the casual gesture of turning around and going about the game. But she could not. The deathly quiet of Sacajawea held her, and the look in her eyes. They had hardened like obsidian. Kitten saw behind the look too late.

As she slowly got to her feet, Sacajawea was already standing, weight balanced evenly on both feet. Sacajawea reached for the small parfleche.

“Let us see what sort of beading is done by your people.”

Kitten held the bag close to her waist and lowered her sulking eyes.

Tess looked up, his eyes bright. “Come on, Kitten,” he pleaded. “I would like to see what you make. Do you have Ute trinkets in there? Beads you have strung?”

She took a step backward.

Tess lurched toward her and grabbed the bag, breaking the strings that held it to her waist.

“Do not lay your warty hands on that, you filthy son of a bitch!” she cried in her pigeon English learned from white traders. She scratched at Tess.

“See, she is plenty strong.” Tess grinned. “And wild like a kit of the mountain lion.”

Kitten staggered back to swing her fist, her feet spread apart. The movements of Sacajawea caught her eye and froze her an instant too long. Before she could drive in a blow, Tess had an arm around her. They went down in a heap.

Sacajawea had emptied the bag’s contents upon the floor before the amazed eyes of the family. All sorts of trinkets and jewelry spilled out. There were pearl earrings belonging to Sacajawea, a gift from Miss Judy. Eagle reached for her missing necklace of pink seashells and her multicolored beaded belt. There was Sacajawea’s small snap purse of American coins she had saved from sales at Chouteau’s, and the peace medal, which took up all the back space in the purse.

Kitten, flailing with her fists and pushing with long, strong legs, pulled away from Tess. With slashing dark eyes she grabbed the bag and began scooping the trinkets into it. Sacajawea shoved her aside and began searching for her own things. She found the blue stone, the piece of sky, still attached to its thong. Beside it was her pewter mirror and bone comb, and the round, rusty red glass with the white bird raised on one side.