Sacajawea (35 page)

The council had been meeting many hours when they arrived, but the sun had not left the sky and everyone was in the center of the village watching and listening to the white chiefs, the chiefs of the Mandan and Hidatsa villages and the two Arikara chiefs who had come to make peace with the Mandans. The women and children stood in a circle behind the men of the village. Sacajawea stood on tiptoe to see the pale strangers and hear what they said. She could not understand the sounds these pale eyes made, but one of them, the red-haired chief, used hand signs well, so that she could follow some of what they talked about.

Otter Woman lifted her cradleboard from her fore-head and handed it to Corn Woman. Otter Woman then scooted in between several other women and closer to the circle of men so that she could see better. Sacajawea followed on her heels, and was pleased to find Sun Woman in the crowd. Earth Woman was in the cradleboard on her back. Sacajawea started to ask after the welfare of Four Bears and his other women, but in the council circle Kakoakis had stepped forward, holding himself erect so the crowd could see. He towered over everyone; his good eye pierced through the crowd. He looked down at the other chiefs and rubbed the scar that slashed across his face and cut his right ear in half. Finally, spreading his feet for better balance, he spoke.

“I can no longer stay and listen to the long speeches of the Great White Father’s subchiefs,” Kakoakis said. When the rumble of his deep voice had died away, he threw the medal and the flag he had received as gifts to the ground and stamped them over and over in the earth. “While I talk of peace here, my village could be attacked in my absence!”

Sacajawea turned quickly toward Corn Woman and let out an uncontrolled ”
Paugh!”
Then, in a voice louder than she had intended, she said, “Who would come to his village except some poor trader who needs only the comfort of one of his women?”

Suddenly all eyes turned upon Sacajawea. Some had merry twinkles, but others looked at her with scorn. In this unguarded moment she again had broken the Indian code, ancient as the rocks she stood upon. Women did not speak out when any man was talking. To speak out when a chief was talking was unpardonable.

Sacajawea felt hot with shame and embarrassment, then cold with fear. Her head bent, her long braids trembled. She dared not raise her eyes. The punishment for what she had done could be terrible.

In the stillness the Wolf Chief stepped forward and bent to pick up the Jefferson medal and American flag. “Keep these as tokens of goodwill,” he said to Kakoakis. The crowd’s eyes returned to the two chiefs, momentarily forgetting the squaw with no manners. “Look at all the fine gifts these pale eyes have brought us. Look at this beautiful coat and hat I have.” The Wolf Chief brushed his hands over the blue Army coat Captain Lewis had given him and the black felt hat that had been placed upon his head. “I trust the pale eyes,” he said. “Let the speeches continue.”

Chief Kakoakis took a deep breath and spat at the blue uniform jacket and sniffed at the plumed hat; then, turning his back on the Wolf Chief, he left, his head held high in the air. Pushing his way through the thick circle of women and children, he tossed the silver medal in their midst. The women passed the medal around like a hot potato. When Sun Woman found it in her hand, she held it. The child on her back squirmed. “Be still, Earth Woman,” she whispered. The medal was shiny, like the warm sun, and Sun Woman thought perhaps it was the light of the sun that was, by some magic, captured inside. It fit easily in her hand. She looked more closely and saw it had a man’s face on one side. Turning it slowly, she saw a peace pipe and a battle ax, crossed, and clasped hands, and strange markings she did not recognize.

“So, you are still speaking out,” Sun Woman said softly, when the speeches continued.

Sacajawea dared raise her eyes somewhat. None of the chiefs was looking at her.
“Ai,”
she sighed. “My heart lies on the ground. My tongue burns.”

Another squaw standing beside Sun Woman whispered, “It is true, what you said. But none of us has the courage to speak as you did. I hope your family is not too hard on you. They may only cut the tip of your nose off.”

“They would not,” said Sun Woman. “She is the squaw of a white man. But she must stay out of Ka-koakis’s sight.” She turned to shield Sacajawea from the eyes of the two Minnetaree subchiefs who had taken the time to deliberate and had deduced it was correct manners to follow their leader. They had dropped their medals and were pushing through the crowd, past the women, and returning to their village lodges. Sun Woman then pushed Sacajawea to the edge of the crowd. “I believe these white men want us to live in peace with all tribes as they say. They show it by marks on a shining stone.” Sun Woman’s hand opened a little so that Sacajawea could see the shine of the silver.

“This is great medicine. You can see your own face in it,” said Sacajawea.

“If it is learned that Kakoakis means to have you punished, I will send you this stone to keep you from harm. Then you must find a way to escape to the Shoshonis, your own people, that day,” said Sun Woman. Her eyes were wide and serious.

“You are a friend. But it is foolish. I have thought of it many times. I could not find the People now. It is nearly winter, and I have been gone too long. To take that trail would pull my heart out and leave it on the ground to be picked at by the crows and hawks, and risk the papoose I carry. If Kakoakis comes for me and Charbonneau is not here, I must take the punishment I surely deserve.”

“If your nose is cut off, I will not bar our lodge door to you. You will always be welcome to visit at the lodge of Four Bears.”

Earth Woman began to cry. Sun Woman pulled the cradleboard from her back, untied the child, then began to nurse her. Sacajawea helped straighten the empty board and pulled the old buffalo robe around her friend and the papoose. Sun Woman was still young, but already her face had the lines that come from hard work in the hot sun and cold snow. Her clothing was plain, with very little beadwork, and her only jewelry was white shells hanging from her ears. Her tunic was bleached from the weather, and her knee-high moccasins were patched. When there are seven wives and many children, there are not so many things to go around, Sacajawea thought.

When Earth Woman finished nursing, Sacajawea helped her friend arrange the child on her back. Then Sun Woman took the warm silver medal from Sacajawea and dropped it safely into the cradleboard.

Reluctantly, Sacajawea found Otter Woman and Corn Woman and set her moccasins in the direction of their lodge. Her mind flew over the trails of memory to the time she was not called Sacajawea and not known as the youngest woman of the white Squawman who traded pelts to Indians and other white men from the north. Her name had been Boinaiv, Grass Child. She wondered why. She tried to recall. Her memory pushed back into the past. She smelled the pungent burning pine of the Shoshoni morning cooking fires. She promised herself to talk to Otter Woman in their Shoshoni tongue more often.

Charbonneau had been gone for nearly half a moon, and so much had happened that Sacajawea no longer worried that he would not believe. The presence of the white men of the Lewis and Clark Expedition had become a reality of day-to-day life, for they would stay until the spring. The Mandans told the white chiefs that there was no longer fun in killing the Arikaras— they had killed so many—and agreed to make peace. The news that the white men would build a camp of wood and that fifty lodges of Assiniboins would winter in peace with the Minnetarees spread through the village like a prairie fire. They brought many parfleches of wild rice to exchange for dried pumpkin and squash. Crees and Ojibwas from the north began to appear about the villages. They had all heard of the white men and were curious.

Winter was coming fast. The wind blew colder, and the snow became thicker. Sacajawea and Otter Woman put extra clay around the sides of their lodge to keep it warm during the time of the Snow Moon. Sacajawea listened to the honkings of Canada geese moving south. She rubbed her fingers over the blue stone dangling from the thong around her neck. She had thrown off her fear of punishment by Kakoakis and spent what free time she had watching the strange activities of the white men who were using the Indian’s land, his trees, his river, and his game. Mandan men came and squatted over their pipes along the new walls in the afternoon sunshine. Women with children on their backs came and worked rawhide or sinew or beading. Sometimes several men played a little game of chance, shaking a gourd bowl with marked stones or plum pits while they kept an eye on all that was going on. Sometimes Sacajawea watched, but never if they played a game of hands. When mess call came, the Indians expected to eat, too, for they were guests.

One clear night, long, brilliant tongues of cold flame licked over the Indian villages and the white men’s camp. The northern lights had returned to stream and shimmer over the plains, and in the morning Charbonneau returned.

“Sacré diable!
Is it true the Americans are here? People get gifts? About these fellers—they build huts with cottonwood for winter?” Charbonneau came bursting into the lodge.

“Ai,”
said Sacajawea.

Otter Woman and Corn Woman were busy at the cooking kettle. “She can tell you about it,” said Corn Woman. “She heard them talk with the chiefs.”

Sacajawea scowled at Corn Woman and flushed, fearing she would tell how she had loosened her tongue at Chief Kakoakis.

“Je ne sais pas!”
Charbonneau said. “There’s talk; talk everywhere. Big boats there; I don’t happen to see. Jussome is not home. Can anyone tell me?”

Speaking with hand signs and much Minnetaree, Sacajawea tried to explain. “The pale eyes are downriver by the village of Chief Black Cat making their own village from great logs. I have never seen anything like it. I heard they asked Jussome to tell them what the Minnetarees and Mandans say, so Jussome works for the pale eyes now.”

Both Otter Woman and Corn Woman nodded in agreement. Sacajawea had told him the truth.

“That sneaking cheat, that mean, dirty louse, that pissant! I stop to visit, and he goes off to the strangers to take work with them.
Zut!”

“It is also said that Jussome and his squaw and children will live the winter with the pale eyes in their camp,” said Sacajawea, hoping that by now the day of the council of the chiefs had been forgotten and Charbonneau would never learn how outspoken she had been. Maybe Corn Woman and Otter Woman would keep their mouths shut and not hint about her humiliation and the tongue she had wagged at Chief Kakoakis.

“Our Chief Kakoakis does not trust the white men or Chief Red Hair,” said Otter Woman, shooting a sidelong glance at Sacajawea.

“Rouge?”

“Ai,
it is true, hair as bright as red war paint. And the greatest wonder of all—they have a man who is black all over, with hair like burned prairie grass.” Otter Woman felt important with her information, and a certain loyalty made her give it all to her man.

“Charred wood used as paint,” sniffed Corn Woman, who had seen the man but could not believe her eyes.

“No, I heard that Four Bears rubbed his arm and face. The black did not come off, even when he licked it with his wet tongue,” announced Otter Woman, significantly licking the back of her hand.

“Oui,
the
noire
people, called Negro. I have seen them. They can do the work of three men. These fellers, they are like the giant. By dang, these fellers make a trading post here?”

“I hear they come to make peace between enemy nations so that they can all live as one family under the hand of a white chief who lives far down the river in a place called Washington,” said Otter Woman.

Sacajawea and Corn Woman had heard this also, and had laughed behind their hands. Imagine all the nations living under the leadership of one chief! Otter Woman scowled at them.

“One family?” Charbonneau threw back his shaggy black head and laughed so that his yellow teeth showed. “There is always somebody who wants to be the chief. No tribe lives peaceably forever. There is always chief somewhere who wants to get even with some enemy.” He kicked off his boots and held out his feet for Sacajawea to put on his moccasins. “They come to get ideas from Hudson’s Bay and the Northwesters and get the Indians’ help. They think what they hear is the thing.
Zut!
I got plenty know-how. I go visit those men in the morning. I will take four packhorses loaded with pelts and meat to trade. I will show Jussome! I can interpret for them, too. Now, feed Charbonneau! He is hungry.”

Next morning, Corn Woman rose early to take extra hay out to the four packhorses. Otter Woman rolled the pelts and called Sacajawea to pack the meat to carry on the horses.

“Can we all go?” asked Sacajawea, curious to see the inside of the pale eye’s camp.

“Ai.
Otter, carry these buffalo robes, then help Sacajawea with the meat. Her load is getting plenty large!” he added, extending his arms suggestively around his belly. “Corn, stay and take care of Charbonneau’s lodge and my son.” He bent in front of his boy. “Little Tess, shake hands with your papa.”

The boy hung back against Corn Woman’s skirt. “Mother,” the child called, looking pleadingly at Corn Woman. He felt as secure with Corn Woman and Sacajawea as he did with Otter Woman, for Indian children were raised so that any of the women in the lodge where the child lived would act as the mother.

“Mon dieu! L’enfant
believes his own papa is actually the Bear of the Forest. I put a scare in him!” His head rolled back and he laughed. “He knows his papa is boss.” Charbonneau grabbed the little boy’s hand and shook it wildly. “That’s
au revoir.”

“Do I ride?” asked Sacajawea. “Horses walk faster than I with all this to carry.”

“Bonne nuit!”
said Charbonneau. “Squaws, they are lazy.” Finally he relented. Charbonneau, Sacajawea, and Otter Woman rode to where the big sandbar showed itself in the middle of the river. There they forded, letting the horses swim in the cold water until they could touch bottom again. Crossing the sandbar, they had only a few yards to ford and the water was not deep.