Sacajawea (130 page)

“It is the perfect time,” he said. He put his foot against the backs of her feet, bent his knee, and gently brought her down to the grassy ground.

She forgot the wet tunic. She brushed her lips against his closed eyes, over his nose, and down to his lips. She lingered there, kissing him. He forgot the orangewood bow stocks.

“At,” he whispered, “my Shoshoni sister has magic in her lips. What you do is good.”

“It is loving,” she whispered.

For a while they were aware only of their own heightened feelings. This arousal was something wonderful to be savored and fully enjoyed.

Freely and honestly they had admitted their love, and with the simplicity of a man who always goes straightforwardly toward an objective, Jerk Meat feltthat the next hurdle should be taken. They loved each other, and they had said so. There had been no arrangement between families; this love was something they had felt for themselves.

“I shall round up some of my best horses this minute and put them outside Pronghorn’s lodge. I think you should be my woman very soon.”

“Oh, not yet, not so soon.”

“And why?”

“Can we leave things the way they are awhile longer? When everyone knows, it will not then belong only to us. Let us keep it to ourselves.”

“I do not want to keep it,” said Jerk Meat flatly. “I want to tell everyone. Why are you afraid to face up to it?”

“Oh.” She leaned against him and knotted and reknotted the fringe on his shirt. “Face up to it?” After several seconds she began again. “Oh, I face the fact I left a man I did not love. I thought I would leave here after a while and look for my son. I would live with him. Now I do not want to go.” Her face was troubled, and her eyes lowered. “I did not think I would ever take a man again. This feeling is something I have not planned, but it is strong with me.”

“Can your son take care of himself?”

“Ai!”

“So—then you must get used to that and think that maybe he is what you trade for me.”

“But then—” She thought for a moment. “There are things you do not know.”

“There is much time for me to know them.”

“I should tell you about the time I was ready to leave camp and follow the wagon train.” Sacajawea felt she must tell him. She did not look at his face. She kept her eyes on the ground, speaking slowly, but telling it all to the end. She admitted she was not an ordinary squaw. Her life’s trail had already passed by more experiences than many pass in one long lifetime. When she finished, she looked at him. Instead of being shocked as she expected, he was ablaze with indignation and tears were close to spilling from his eyes. He did not hide anything from her.

“I watched that day. I knew you were thinking ofleaving. I wanted to bring you back. Then I wanted you to go to the whites and never return. I scolded you for going out alone, but I wanted to shake the devil from you. I wanted to tie you so that you would never be able to leave. And then, the time Kicking Horse brought horses for you, I wanted to jam his big silver earring around his scrawny neck and pin his green foreskin between two stones. His offer of six horses was so generous that I cannot see why Pronghorn turned it down.”

“So—maybe he is sorry,” she said, making her eyes squint at him and her mouth turn up in a smile.

Stoutly Jerk Meat replied, “Well, then, I shall offer my father two or three times as many horses, and he will have to make you my woman.”

The mild weather stayed, and there were those who chose to take advantage of it. Jerk Meat hurriedly talked four other braves into going south to Mexico with him on a horse raid. Big Badger shook his head in wonderment over the folly of this grandson who would traipse off in search of a raid when he could have the excitement of a marriage ceremony. Big Badger’s eyes were not blind to the feelings between Sacajawea and Jerk Meat.

One afternoon the camp crier rode through the village. “Trading tonight! Trading and feasting! Bring your robes and trade goods!”

Hides Well and Spring made a pile of all the things they wanted to take for trading that night. There were a couple of leather boxes, several good buffalo robes, moccasins, and some clay cooking vessels. Sacajawea helped the women carry the trade goods outside the village where there was a grassy flat spot next to a small, nearly dry creek bed.

Sacajawea stood openmouthed with surprise. She had thought the Mandans and western river Indians were the only ones that held trading fairs. Here were several huge fires with delicious-smelling meat held above the flames by long poles.

Spring moved close to Sacajawea and said in a low voice, “Do not get hungry for that meat. It is probably swine.”

“So?” asked Sacajawea.

“Well, no good Comanche eats meat that is associated with mud and filth.”

Sacajawea was about to tell Spring that white men ate pork with no bad effects, then closed her mouth. She saw the dark-complexioned men wearing trail-stained wool trousers, holding up colorful gourds, strings of beads, woven reed mats. One man held up a squawking chicken. He had more in a wooden crate at his feet. These men wore wide-brimmed hats and had silver spurs attached to their leather boots. They were trading their wares for all the
anta blanca
—well-tanned buffalo hides—the Comanches could furnish.

The Mexicans also had large, dried tobacco leaves displayed for trading. The Comanches that bought the tobacco later cut the leaves into strips and pounded them to shreds after adding some dried, crushed sumac leaves. The Comanches rolled their cigarettes in cottonwood leaves or blackjack oak leaves. Both men and women smoked, though some preferred to smoke pipes.
⁵

The Mexican traders brought metal barrel hoops, metal box bindings, and iron frying pans that could be used for fashioning arrowheads and spear points. They sold files to work the arrowheads and spear points so they would be symmetrical and sharp.
⁶

The Quohadas made it clear by pointing and motioning that they wished to trade for everything they saw. Moccasins for a dried gourd, a wing-bone whistle for a yellow crook-neck squash, a rabbit skin for a small woven mat. Some were interested in the chickens.

Kicking Horse squatted on a flat stone and laid out a thick mat into which he inserted wooden pegs. He covered these with the halves of dried gourds, six of them, which he moved here and there on the mat. Two braves squatted in front of him. Sometimes one pointed to a half gourd, which he lifted, then they would shout gleefully. When several of the Mexicans gathered around to watch, the Quohadas, by hand signs, persuaded them to point to the half gourds. The pegs did not seem to stay in their old patterns after they were covered. At first the Mexicans pretended to be unaware of the point of the game, but the Quohadas took it seriously, even though they doubled over with laughing. The stakes were the chickens.

An impulsive hope ran through Sacajawea. Maybe these men would know of the one called Baptiste Charbonneau. She could send a message through them. She looked warily about, her eyes seeking something in the faces of the leather-clad visitors. She could not find it. Instead of friendliness she saw something hard, knavish, and shrewdly acquisitive. She sensed that these were not honest merchants who were trading powder and cartridges for beautiful furs and well-tanned hides. The traders carried weapons, but the Quohadas outnumbered them ten to one, so she walked from the side of Spring and went directly to the largest Mexican she saw, somehow believing size meant rank and knowledge.

“Seńor, I am
umbea, madre,
mother,” she stammered in a pidgin mixture of English, Comanche, and a little Spanish she’d picked up from the Quohadas. “My son is smart man, like you. He is important in the white man’s village—the one called Saint Louis. Have you been there?”

“Out of the way, squaw, I want no traffic in women. Sell your wares to your own chief.
Adiós!”
He pushed her roughly to one side, and the men around him glared rapaciously.

“Baptiste Charbonneau? You hear of him? He can read the markings on paper. He is important in trapping. You know?”

“I know much, but I don’t want a dirty, stinking Comanche squaw telling me anything, no matter how good-looking she is.
Vamos!”
His black mustache curled over thick lips.

She lowered her eyes and walked away. She was humiliated. Her cause was hopeless, and there was no way to make these traders understand. How could they ever believe she was the mother of a boy who could read and make the marks on paper?

“Did you see the wonderful travois!” exclaimed Spring breathlessly. She pulled Sacajawea forward to look over the wooden carts. Never before had she seen such large wheels. The Comanches never used wheels.
⁷
“There has never been anything like this!” She pulled again at Sacajawea. “Come, Lost Woman, you can trade later.”

Hubbub and confusion reigned. Sacajawea tried toget Spring back to the trading tables where braves stalked gravely from tent to tent, boldly fingering the articles on display and demanding to be waited on first. Women, loaded down with robes, pressed behind their men, jabbering excitedly and admiring the goods with the zest for shopping typical of women of all races.

Spring ran her fingers over the wooden carts. She pointed to the many sleek horses and the few mules that were night-grazing on the prairie grass. Sacajawea pulled her over to see the hawk bells on the mules’ harnesses. She laughed as she rang each one. Every trader packed a generous supply of the tiny bells, which had been used in the East in the sport of falconry.

“I’ll trade for some. A present for you,” said Sacajawea.

“Oh, Lost Woman, I do like them.” Spring shifted a strap on her shoulder that held Wild Plum’s cradleboard. “A string of elk teeth ought to bring a handful.”

Sacajawea did not answer. She had suddenly heard a forgotten but beloved sound. She listened as she looked at the Quohadas haggling over clusters of beads, vermilion, looking glasses, shells, awls, iron buckles, steel rings and bracelets, copper wire, buttons, ribbons, and other trinkets spread on a dirty Navajo blanket. The Quohadas could not resist the foofaraw. Some had left the noisy game of the half gourds to paw through the looking glasses. The strange musical sound cannot possibly be out here, thought Sacajawea. It is the sound of a French harp, but surely this is impossible. Her eyes sought the player of the harmonica. Her footsteps were directed to the sound.

Indolently playing the harmonica was a Mexican boy who looked to be about the same age as Sacajawea remembered her own son, dark-haired Baptiste. But the Mexican’s nose was broad and his face was pitted with tiny scars. The whites of his eyes were yellow in the firelight.

He leaned against a stack of newly acquired tanned hides, eyes not focused on anything in particular. His cheeks moved in and out with his breath as he played.

Sacajawea gazed in wonder. By firelight the dented, scratched, tarnished brass glowed, radiating a sensation of warmth. She stood close enough to see the instrument move back and forth in the Mexican’s mouth as his hands went one way, then the other. The haunting sounds floated out into the evening air. Once he stopped and pounded the harmonica on his leg to clear out the saliva. She crowded in closer. She felt her temples throb. Impulsively she bent over and said in pidgin English, “Seńor, I like to blow once.”

The boy looked up. His brown eyes were wide open.

Sacajawea made hand signs as she spoke. “I used to make music for my son. A boy about your age.” For the first time she noticed a strand of copper wire threading through the brass plate on one side of the mouth organ and encircling the shoulders of the player. She saw that the loop was large enough for him to slip over his head. The boy said nothing, but raised his hand and motioned frantically toward an older man.

The Mexican was greasy-looking and busy eating a piece of roasted meat. He talked with his mouth chock full. “José, I said if any of the bucks gave you trouble. Don’t call me for some skinny, doe-eyed bitch. She ain’t going to skin you alive.”

Sacajawea watched, not understanding his Spanish. She decided the two resembled each other. He is giving the boy some fatherly advice, she thought.

The man blew smoke from his brown-paper cigarette into Sacajawea’s face so that she coughed.

The boy said, “She wants to blow in my harmonica.”

“So let her. What harm is there?” said the man.

“Maybe she puts lizards and snakes in her mouth.”

“Her spitting in that music-maker might just keep these thieving redskins in good humor while we get away with all their leather goods.”

The boy looked sullen.

Sacajawea ran her finger over the harmonica. She smiled at José and his father. She pointed the instrument toward the north, east, south, and west, then with a wide flourish of her arm, toward heaven and down to the earth. She felt it necessary to show appreciation to the Great Spirit for this lucky opportunity. She was also thankful Jerk Meat was not around, because she was working on a plan. If she could attract some attention, maybe one of the Mexicans would listen to her, then she could ask him a question, and he would listen and give an answer.

“She makes the sign of the cross,” said José with surprise. “You said they are heathens.”

“Well,” the elder Mexican stuffed more meat in his mustached mouth to give himself time to think. “Hell, it is some
si,
some
no
with these people. Some are, some not.” He motioned with his hands.

Sacajawea was still rubbing her hands on the smooth, hard, warm brass. She noted the worn, dirty reeds and their wet, fetid odor. She slipped the braided wire loop over her head and placed the harmonica up to her mouth.

She puffed and made a long, sustaining, plaintive note in the night. Then she inhaled for a longer, deeper note. The low, gurgling sounds startled her and she pulled the wire back over her head and tapped the harmonica on her skirt in order to drain it.

She sat down on the sandy red earth not far from José, tucked her moccasined feet under her skirt, and slowly started to play “Skip to My Lou.” The rhythm was not right. She stopped, hummed a little to herself, licked her lips, and started again. Her throat was tight, her breathing was hard to control, her hands shook, but after a few minutes she relaxed. Her tongue moved over the holes more easily. She inhaled and exhaled and darted her tongue here and there to cover the wind channels. Old tunes came back to her. Suddenly she was playing the mountain men’s and traders’ songs taught her by York and Cruzatte.