Sacajawea (13 page)

Grass Child shrugged her shoulders and smiled.

Antelope looked at the girl and wondered how she could give her a fitting name. She was learning there was a whole world of difference between them. She did not really know how this girl had been reared. It took a thing or two now and then, like her wanting to bathe after receiving a new dress, and her swimming with great poise, to bring to mind that this girl had been brought up with favor among her tribe. Antelope had never heard this girl utter one word of complaint at the conditions of her life now. She ate what there was to eat, worked as hard as the other grown women, gotdirty and smelled as high as any of them, picked lice off her sleeping couch, and kept, mostly, a good heart. She was ignorant about the Hidatsa ways and didn’t pretend she wasn’t. She didn’t put on airs about her learning in other matters, though she had let slip once that she could sew beautiful patterns with elk’s teeth and quills. She listened, in these present circumstances, to women who were her betters, but she learned so quickly she never made the same mistake twice. There were plenty of girls and women on the prairies who were slaves with the old grit in them, but they had not all been beaten and punished, and they took to the life of a slave without strain. Antelope had to grant courage to this girl. She didn’t know if she could have done as well. This girl seemed to fly through the day and still have time for a cheerful song in the evening, much the same as a bird in the forest.

“That’s it!” cried Antelope. “Bird! You ought to be called Bird.”

“Well, what kind of name is that?” asked Grass Child. “Bird what? What kind of bird? One that chatters or scolds, or one with beautiful, graceful wings?” And Grass Child got up from the sand and raised her arms in the air and ran. “Do you see me running about like this?” she laughed. Then she dived into the water and pretended she was the long-legged water bird diving for fish, graceful and sleek.

“Ah, that is it—
Sac-a-ja-we-a!
Bird Woman! You do look like a bird diving into the water. Sacajawea, that is your name!” Antelope danced around Grass Child. Then she turned to Little Rabbit and told her to say Sac-a-ja-we-a two or three times to hear how it sounded so Little Rabbit would not forget. Little Rabbit toddled around and around the two, calling, “Sacajawea, Sacajawea, Sacajawea.”
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Grass Child felt pleased. She smiled and thanked Antelope for the gift of the name. It was melodious. More than that, it was good to have a name to be known by, rather than just Girl. Sacajawea was not the name her grandmother had left her, but it was right to have a new name, for now she was with different people. This was a more grown-up name. She recalled that many people changed names as they grew older, dependingupon the deeds they did or what befell them in life. There was Yellow Eagle, who had previously been called Afraid of His Horse until he had shot the great pale eagle and brought the feathers back to decorate war bonnets.

Sacajawea began to rub sand in her hair to take out the rancid grease and soot. She shook it in the water and smoothed it back from her brown face. She sundried it to a glossy blue-black. Then she dressed.

More Hidatsa women were coming to the bathing place. They all swam in the bold and graceful manner of the Minnetarees, as confidently as so many otters, their long black hair streaming behind, while their faces glowed with jokes and fun. The evening sun was creeping lower in the sky and the dew was forming on the grasses when Sacajawea, Little Rabbit, and Antelope returned to the lodge.

As it grew dark, Catches Two came from the prairie, where he had played games with some other braves. They had ridden their horses as fast as they could, passing a stick among them. The rider finishing at the designated stopping place with the stick in his hand was left out of the game next time.

“I’m hungry as a bear in early spring,” he said.

“No food,” announced Talking Goose with a hiss and a dark look toward Sacajawea.

“You lazy squaw. There is plenty of food. Take the winter squash from storage. It is time to use it before it spoils.” Catches Two looked from one face to another. The women stared back, their faces blank. “Didn’t any of you do anything today?” Again he looked at the women.

“She took a bath,” said Talking Goose, pointing to Sacajawea.

“A bath!” He jerked Sacajawea toward him. “And a new dress! You get the squash and boil it fast,” he snapped.

Sacajawea looked about frantically. She did not know where the squash was stored.

“She went for a bath, also,” said Old Mother, pointing a sharp, ragged fingernail at Antelope. Her mouth bunched. “She knows the grease keeps her warm, but she scrubbed it off today. And she gave a name to ourslave girl. She is now to be called Sacajawea.” Her voice became high-pitched and singsong. “Soon she’ll think she is too good even to fetch water. Her head will be in the clouds with her namesakes, the birds.” Then, quickly, she turned to Catches Two. “And you—you played games. You did not go after meat.” She began to scold everyone.

Catches Two flushed and swung about, letting go of Sacajawea. He snorted, “I am waiting now to be fed.” He sat himself cross-legged by the fire. “If you take much longer, the squash will sprout mold!”

A shift of wind gusting down the smoke hole blew up the ashes and made the fire in the pit smoke. Old Mother scolded the wind for its bad manners, scolded the fire for waywardness, made the fire tidy, set the pot of water more firmly, and went back calmly to measuring bits of hide for moccasins for Little Rabbit.

“You are expected to get the squash and prepare it,” whispered Antelope, her chin indicating the boiling pot.

“But I do not know where.” Sacajawea felt the old fear coming to her throat, making it squeezed up and tight. “Where do I find squash?” Her voice squeaked.

Talking Goose turned her back on Sacajawea to show her displeasure, and squatted, her well-padded backside spread on her heels.

Antelope led Sacajawea to the far side of the lodge next to the sleeping compartment of Old Mother. She pulled off large hunks of packed dirt and river sand. Underneath were poles and hides over a hollow space that had skins around the sides. Antelope pushed the poles aside so that anyone as skinny as Sacajawea could squeeze through. Into the darkness she went and blinked to accustom her eyes to the lack of light. Soon she saw the huge rounded squash stacked neatly on the ground of this cache. She pulled out two and, climbing out, felt their smooth, firm sides. They were orange as the summer sun. Sacajawea replaced the poles and skins, and Antelope helped push the dirt and sand in place. Talking Goose clucked. She gave Sacajawea a kick just as she bent to get the squash off the floor. This sent the child flying, and the squash broke. Again, Talking Goose scolded.

The broken squash was slippery and hard to handle.

Sacajawea wiped the dirt-soiled pieces on the edge of her skirt, smearing her new dress, and put the squash in the pot.

“You don’t put the seeds in the cooking pot, you dumb Bird,” snorted Catches Two. “Save those to plant. Dry them in the sun.”

Sacajawea reached into the iron cooking kettle to fish out the seeds. She cried out that the water was too hot and burned her fingers.

Little Rabbit began dancing around the cooking pot singing, “Bird Woman, Bird Woman, Bird Woman, Bird, Bird, Bird, Sacajawea.”

Catches Two looked up at Sacajawea, who was now seven or eight years older than the toddler, Little Rabbit, and laughed, his strong blunted teeth white against the dark of his face. “The clumsy girl burns her fingers,” he said. “You are careless. You are nearly a woman; you should act more like one.”

“At, it is hard to please so many,” whispered Sacajawea.

Antelope brought a horn dipper and a leather pouch. “Put the rest of the seeds here. Dried, they are good to eat. Save some for planting, and some for eating.”

Old Grandfather snored, and Old Mother reached over his head for the buffalo paunch. One eye of Old Grandfather opened, and he whacked Old Mother and laughed. She thrust his hand away and laughed with him, shoving the paunch into Sacajawea’s hands. “More water for the cooking pot.”

First Sacajawea stirred the boiling squash with the dipper, then she started for the water hole. Old Grandfather grinned as she walked past him and shot his foot out, bowling her over. She crawled up and scrambled for the paunch. Old Grandfather pinned her arms back. Catches Two let out a long, wild
“Yeeeeiiii, kiyi.”
Talking Goose mumbled something, and Antelope slunk off to her sleeping couch, not daring to interfere with the men as they continued to tease Sacajawea. After all, it was up to any slave girl to do the master’s bidding.

Old Grandfather heaved chestily and crawled over Sacajawea. She felt her hands sweat and her throat go dry. He pulled down his breechclout. Her scream of horrified disbelief attracted attention, which turned atonce into a general roar of laughter. The next minute Catches Two imitated Old Grandfather and pulled down his breechclout and tumbled Sacajawea over in his robes, wanting her intensely, suddenly. Old Grandfather pushed him to the floor. Sacajawea whacked the old man’s chest, pummeling him angrily but again he caught her hands and held her helpless. Her back and legs hurt; her hands felt squeezed between two stones. Old Grandfather was heavy against her, and he pushed the wind from her lungs. Her thighs ached, and a searing pain went to the pit of her stomach. Then, feeling the blood warmth in his old bones, Old Grandfather shoved her away and stood, arranging his clout. Catches Two heaved himself on her. Her breath came in gasps, and she felt his hot, piercing fire, the pain spreading through her buttocks. In another instant she was certain her breath would be gone; then, suddenly, her breath came back in small gasps and a great spasm shook the body of Catches Two.

Talking Goose began to laugh hysterically. It was a sight to see these grown men entertained on such a skinny little girl. Sacajawea was resigned to the certainty that she herself would not live through the night. Catches Two snatched a stick from the fire and began to run about the room, waving the blazing end and crying
“Kiyil”
Old Grandfather at once took it away from him and threw it back in the fire. Sacajawea inched her legs up and pushed down her skirt. Her legs moved, she turned on her side, and slowly, on hands and knees, she crawled to her couch while the others smacked their lips over a meal of soft, boiled squash.

There crept over Sacajawea a colder apprehension than she had felt when she had taken it for granted that she was soon to die. The threat that now appeared was more real because it was more familiar.

The Shoshonis did not practice incest—not because they understood the genetic principles of the inheritance of recessive defects, but because it prevented alliances gained through marrying-out. There was no advantage in marrying a granddaughter, since a man would be marrying into a kin group with whom, because of his previous marriage to the grandmother, he already maintained good relations. If a man married his ownsister, he gave up all possibility of obtaining aid in the form of brothers-in-law. But if he married some other man’s sister, and yet another man married his own sister, he then gained two brothers-in-law to hunt with or to avenge his death in a quarrel. The Shoshonis looked upon incest as something more threatening than repulsive. Incest established no new bonds between unrelated groups; it was an absurd denial of every man’s right to increase the number of people whom he could trust. Marriages in the Shoshoni society were alliances between families rather than romantic arrangements between individuals. The alliances between families were maintained during the very long periods in which the families never saw each other. Each family spent approximately 90 percent of its time isolated from other families as it wandered about in small groups or tribes in quest of food. Yet when families or tribes did meet, marriage alliances served to make interfamily relations less haphazard, for kin cooperated with kin whenever possible.

The Minnetarees did not have an aversion to incest. They were not a people that had to range for food, and their camp was permanent, which gave them much security. Incest did not appear to have caused them any deleterious effects from inbreeding. Their people were strong, healthy, and intelligent, and they had survived many generations of sexual contact between mother and son, father and daughter, brother and sister.

Sacajawea could not remember a time when she had wanted a man, although she had heard other girls speak of the desire. But this attack of Old Grandfather and Catches Two was an abomination—she had not been ready, she had not thought of it, and it was as a punishment, a vile hurt. They would come again and again merely because she was not to be considered—she was a slave among these people, and her feelings were of no importance.

By the time the lodge fire was dead, the hurt in her loins had quieted to a dull throb. Sacajawea eased herself from the couch and hunted for the buffalo paunch Old Mother had shoved into her hands as she ordered, “More water for the cooking pot.” She found the paunch and crept outside. Her whole body felt bruised.

An animal about the size of a wolf or large coyote skulked in the brush. Sacajawea hurried past the slinking animal, swinging her water paunch. The crackling brush became quiet. She heard a whine or whimper, then the animal was in front of her on the trail. She stopped. It looked like one of the camp dogs, but Sacajawea instinctively knew it was not used to human contact. It cautiously sniffed the ground. She could not move, her thoughts came in slow motion. She saw its eyes—deep amber in the moonlight. Its coat was a grizzled yellow to buff. The tail was dark-tipped.
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The paunch slipped from her stiff fingers and rolled on the ground. The dog slowly pounced on it and growled deep down in its throat as it gnawed the rawhide wrapped around the water container’s neck. Then its head lifted and its ears twitched nervously. One ear looked as though something had chewed it. There were pinkish patches of bare skin on one shoulder. The dog barked, leaving the paunch, and stood in the center of the dusty trail, moving its head as though catching a sound or smell.