Sacajawea (147 page)

“For how long?” She looked at him, her yellow-rimmed eyes filled with words that could not be spoken. “The old days are gone. They were gone when I came here to you. The white men can move over all the land, and will.”

“Ai,
but what of that? There has always been someone taking land from someone else. We took this land from the Apaches. We can fight the white soldiers.”

“Perhaps. It is not for a woman to say, but you know that I must say I do not believe so. I believe that we must all learn to live in peace and there will be less Quohada blood spilled on the plains.”

“You have always talked much for a woman,” laughed Jerk Meat deep within his throat. “I like the way you do it.”

“And I have been thinking.”

“My
pia
talks and also thinks,” grunted Ticannaf sleepily from his couch.

“I have been thinking that the nations of Indians need someone like a go-between to talk to the whites for them, someone who understands both people.”

“My
pia
talks like some chief,” Ticannaf teased his mother.

“Someday this may come,” said Jerk Meat seriously.

“It will come,” said Sacajawea. Suddenly she thought of her old friend, Chief Red Hair. He could understand both people, talk with either, live with either, and be friends with both. Then, as suddenly, it dawned on her that she was the mother of a
cholo,
half-white, half-Indian. She was a go-between herself already. She would save this to tell Jerk Meat when they were alone again. It would help him to understand that the whites and Indians could live together.

In the spring the band moved again into the buffalo range on the rolling plains. Ticannaf had a woman, Happy Heart, the daugher of old Dancing Foot, to whom he’d given his two horses. Sacajawea made a beautiful marriage tepee, painted in reds, blues, and yellows. Happy Heart fastened her tepee next to the tepee of Jerk Meat and Sacajawea. She was part of their lodge. In time Dancing Foot, a widower, came to live with them.

Jerk Meat told Happy Heart that she must have plenty of strong braves because he had only Ticannaf, who was not even brave enough to spank his woman the night she fed him cold soup. Happy Heart smiled, remembering the evening she had visited with Sacajawea and her cooking fire had gone out. For Sacajawea, the everyday work went much faster with someone to talk to and laugh with like Happy Heart.

The next spring, plans were made for a small raid into the Mescalero country to replenish the dwindling Quohada horse herd. No women were going. But many young braves were going who had not been on more than one or two raids. Bites Hard, the elder son of Kicking Horse and Gray Bone, was going. Ticannaf and Wild Plum were going. Ticannaf was busy for a day painting himself and checking his shield and bow; then he and the others danced the War Dance with the older warriors, trying to keep from showing too much either of pride or nervousness. That night, all members of the raiding party moved out in the dark.

The camp settled into the waiting period. The old men left behind watched the small horse herd, leisurely hunted antelope, worked on weapons, and slept. The women did not worry much. They knew that the raiding party had been strong in numbers and had gone for sport as much as for serious raiding. Jerk Meat, Ticannaf, Pronghorn, Dancing Foot, and Wounded Buck had gone. Sacajawea worked as she saw fit, going often to visit and gossip with Hides Well and Spring.

Sometimes Sacajawea sent Happy Heart to take the horse kept hobbled near camp to graze in the grass meadow. Sacajawea sometimes went out to the meadow to dig roots, Crying Basket strapped to her back. The sweet peas were beginning to put out their pale-lavender flowers, and she dug their roots for food. Occasionally she went for an hour’s walk from camp to a hill where yucca grew thick and where the soil was easy to dig. The roots of the yucca were good to use in bathing and washing things, also to put in a tanning mixture.

Out by herself, she would take Crying Basket from the basket and hold her under the arms, teaching her to walk. When the baby was tired, she would let her sit and crawl in the grass, poking at the bright wild flowers. Sacajawea thought of her life with the Quohadas and felt it was only good and satisfying when Jerk Meat was home.

It was nearing the time for Happy Heart’s child to be born. Sacajawea spent more and more time with her. The girl did not want to be left alone if her time came early because some old woman had predicted that ifthat happened the baby would not take a breath. Sacajawea was making a robe for the new baby from the tattered remnants of her beloved old blue coat. She had opened up the sleeves, which had frayed cuffs and holes in the elbows. She tried to sew them to the top and bottom of the coat, but the material was old and rotten. Finally, she gave up and sewed the coat to the underside of a soft white doeskin. Now the small robe reminded her of the quilts Judy Clark had shown her so many years back.

Happy Heart was pleased with the new blanket for her coming papoose. “It is the warmest robe a Quohada papoose has ever had,” she said, feeling the soft thickness of it.

“Ai,”
agreed Sacajawea. “That blue coat has kept me warm for more seasons than I can count on my two hands. The man who gave it to me must be a grandfather several times over now.”

“A man? Not your man, Jerk Meat?” asked Happy Heart in surprise. “I thought probably Jerk Meat took it in a raid on a white man’s fort and brought it to you as a gift.”

Sacajawea clapped her hand over her mouth, instantly realizing what she had said to the girl. “Well, and so—it was from a
taibo.
This white man lived in a fort. He saw my need for warmth and gave me the coat. Even though you think the whites are our enemies, there are some who are friends and who do not have forked tongues.”

“Oh, Mother,” said Happy Heart, wide-eyed. “It was Jerk Meat who brought you to our camp. And then you were cold and hungry. He brought the warmth back into your body. Perhaps your mind wandered when you were so hungry and you supposed it was a white man who gave you the coat. Maybe it was Jerk Meat after all. You have forgotten.”

Sacajawea answered,
“Ai,
my daughter. Starving causes the mind to wander outside the body and see things no one else sees. You are right.” She thought, The man who gave me that coat had the reddest hair and the bluest eyes I have ever seen. His deeds will be told among the whites for many seasons. He will never be forgotten.

Several days later, some of the old men decided one morning that they should go to check on the raiding party in case they needed help. Two days after some of the old men had left, three scouts came back. They galloped to the center of the village. One of the men said, “They are coming soon now.”

Everyone asked at once about their own men. The scouts would say no more. Some women began to push their way back to the edge of the village. Some of them stopped first to paint their faces and put on their best clothes to meet their men, or fathers, or brothers.

Sacajawea hurried to her lodge and painted the pretty yellow circles around her eyes and tied the sky blue stone on the thin thong around her neck. She put a leather band around her flying hair and tied a string of blue-and-white trade beads around her waist. She went out with Crying Basket hung in a blanket on her back, following the crowd in anticipation.

One look at the dejected men, whose eyes were glued on their shuffling moccasins, caused Sacajawea’s heart to fall. She looked for Jerk Meat. Spring and Hebo ran out to look for Wild Plum. Some of the women were already keening with high-pitched shrieks. Sacajawea’s eyes fell on a couple of mules and a few spent horses, all with no manes or tails. Wild Plum had long red gashes along his arms, soot on his face, and a shorn head. He hardly looked at his woman, Hebo, but went directly to the front of the Council Lodge.

Sacajawea’s mouth was so dry she could not speak. She hardly recognized Ticannaf, who was skin and bone. A hard knot grew in her belly as she looked over the worn-out riders and did not find Bites Hard, Kicking Horse, Dancing Foot, Pronghorn—nor her beloved Jerk Meat. She wanted to sit in the dirt and pour dust over her head. It was unthinkable, but obvious, that no others were coming back.

Ticannaf kept his head low. It was hard to hear his words. “All I bring is a tick-infested mule and this Mexican captive.
¹
Her name is Choway.”
²

The girl had not been noticed. She hung back, her black eyes darting from one to the other. She was about twelve or thirteen summers.

The women began crying and moaning. Some fellupon each other’s necks sobbing. Sacajawea was stunned. It just was not true. This could not happen. Jerk Meat was coming over the hill in a few minutes now. He would be here.

Hides Well was sobbing, “Pronghorn! Pronghorn! Where have they left you?”

The men who had returned got up and went to their lodges. The village was in mourning. During that first black night Happy Heart delivered a stillborn boy. The Mexican girl stayed outside Ticannaf’s lodge, bewildered and frightened.

The story of the unsuccessful raid finally took shape through visiting and sorrowful talking. The men had gone deep into desert country, then on past El Paso, finding it well guarded. They spent one night on the desert and began their return the next day. In the region between the lower Pecos and the Rio Grande, they camped at a spring coming out of a cave. This was a deep rock well with a large basin of water, and on each side a cave ran under the rock from the water’s edge. During the night they were surrounded by a large force of Mexican soldiers, who killed several of the horses and forced the Quohadas to take refuge in a cave. These Mexicans had several Mescalero Apaches with them. Even though the Apaches were enemies of the Comanches, they called out in the Comanche language several times for the Quohadas to hold out.

Inside the cave, the men were without both food and water. The Mexicans watched them so closely that they could venture out to the edge of the water only under cover of darkness to get a drink or cut a few strips of flesh from the dead horses. They ate the putrefying meat raw. Kicking Horse was shot in the leg while getting a drink of water. The smell of the dead horses was almost unbearable, but the hunger and thirst were even worse. The men were brave, but they suffered. Some of them, led by Pronghorn, explored the cave to see if there was any way out. They found that it ran along at a long distance and at the end there was a hole opening to the daylight. Pronghorn climbed up and thrust his head out, but he was seen by the soldiers and shot. The men buried him behind a huge rock in the cave. The soldiers closed the hole with large boulders.

The Mexicans were afraid to attack the Quohadas and were determined to keep them penned up until they all died of starvation.

Soon the decaying horse carcasses made the water unfit to drink. After about one moon of suffering, they realized that a longer stay meant dying in the cave, so they decided to make one last desperate attempt to escape in the night.

Before starting the escape, Jerk Meat and several others chanted the Death Song, in which they hurled defiance at death.

The walls were steep and difficult, but there was a cedar growing from a crevice, its top reaching nearly to the top of the cliff. The men thought that it might just be possible to use the cedar to climb out. They managed to get to the top without attracting the attention of the Mexican guards. Only one, Kicking Horse, who had been shot in the leg, was unable to climb the steep incline. He begged his friends to leave him. They did not. Jerk Meat fell twice with Kicking Horse on his back. Wounded Buck said it was the life of Kicking Horse against theirs, and if they stayed with him or lost more time trying to get him out, they would all perish together in the cave. The men urged Kicking Horse to have a strong heart and die like a warrior. He calmly accepted the inevitable, saying, “When you get home, rest. Then come back and avenge me.” Then he sat down beside the wall to await daylight, then death, when the Mexicans would see him. He was a brave man.

Jerk Meat pushed and pulled the men to hurry them to the top. Wounded Buck was first, and he saw the fires of the Mexicans burning in many directions about the mouth of the cave. The Mexicans had good ears and heard something. They fired in the direction of the cave many times and wounded Jerk Meat, who was shot through the left side. Dancing Foot was shot, and Long Hand was hit in the back. Several others were killed, and more were wounded. The rest found horses to carry the wounded. They hurried away from that place until they reached the Sun Mountain Spring. The wounded men were placed near the spring and given water. Ticannaf stayed all night beside his father. Jerk Meat died in the early dawn. Long Hand and Bites Hard diedsoon after. The men covered the bodies with stones to keep wolves away and moved the wounded under the shade of an old mesquite. As they prepared their horses to ride, one of the men heard Dancing Foot’s death rattle and found him with his face in the spring, dead. They pulled him back and placed his body near the others and piled on more stones. Toward midday, the men spotted a band of poor Mexicans traveling slowly in the opposite direction. When night fell, Wounded Buck and Ticannaf went back and raided the Mexican camp, killing no one, but getting two old mules and the girl, Choway, who had run after the Quohadas waving an ax and shouting Spanish obscenities.

The men set fire to the prairie grass to hide their trail. They killed several skunks and dragged them behind their horses to stop the Mexicans from sending dogs to follow them.

Sacajawea wanted to go back and gather Jerk Meat’s bones to be brought home for burial. The men said it was too far and too hazardous. They would not let her go. Much of the time she sat alone at the edge of camp in an area of rocks and stunted cedar. Her grief was deep inside. She could not weep.

The sense of awe and of uncertainty hung over the Quohadas’ actions. They went about their activities quietly. Hides Well took the medicine bundle of the dead chief and placed it in the creek. She took down the big tepee of Pronghorn, which had always dominated the center of their camp, and burned it along with his other belongings.