Sacajawea (40 page)

Sacajawea tried to lift the kettle from the fire, but had to set it back and bend over to ease the pain. York came in with an armload of wood for the fireplace.

“Oho, missy, I’m going to get Captain Lewis if it’s the last act—if your time has come.” The huge dark fellow helped her climb to the loft and to her buffalo robe. He spoke softly to her, saying that he would return right away. She answered with a spasm that spread to her face, and her body writhed under the robe. When the spasm passed, her small brown face seemed loose and tired. Sacajawea opened her eyes, and in that instant, in that second of knowing, Ben York saw not a little Indian squaw; he saw his mother and his sister, he saw Mrs. Clark, mother of the captain, the mothers of all the men on the expedition. He saw womankind. Then he saw himself and knew her look was the humble, hurtful, anxious look that was hope and bone-deep in all of mankind.

York climbed down, meeting Lewis coming in. York pulled the big kettle off the wall hook, filled it with snow, and hung it over the fire. “Always heat the water to boiling.” He smiled at Lewis. “I’se seen birth an’ dying long before either was a shock, so I reckon I’m going to help with this here birthing. Biemby I ‘spect I’ll have to sing lullabies.”

They sat near the door wondering if they should get some Indian woman to help, but Lewis reasoned that Indian women can take care of these things by themselves. They heard Sacajawea calling, her voice low and indistinct at first, then rising in shrill terror. She was afraid to be alone. Her own body frightened her. It had turned and set itself against her. It gripped her with such a building up of one agony on top of another that she was afraid to trust herself with it alone, as if its system of torturing her was something secretive and intimate that the presence of somebody else could hold back.

York suggested they make a couch by the fireplace and bring her down from the loft. “Too hard going up and down that ladder,” he said.

York dipped cloths in boiling water and laid them on Sacajawea’s distended abdomen. Once, for a breath, he dared look into her eyes again, and again he knew that she was kin to him and to all other men—red, black, or white, it did not matter. Their entrance into this world was the same.

The pain did not seem to increase much, but the sudden blasts of it stiffened her body for two or three minutes at a time, leaving her weak. The sun moved up and down the roofs on the fort. Toward evening, she felt the sharp spasms closer together, one almost on top of the other. The constant pushing—the pushing she could not stop—was doing no good; the papoose did not come. York wiped her face with a cool cloth, then her hands and arms. Lewis smoked his pipe wishing that Clark were here—maybe he could think of something to do to help.

Suddenly there was a yipping and a loud “Whoa there,” and Jussome came bursting into the cabin, letting in the frosty air. His sled dogs yipped and growled, then quieted.

“Dieu
, I looked everywhere for you,” he said to Lewis. “I wanted to ask if we could keep that grinding machine here after you leave in the spring. We could get a lot of cornmeal from it.”

“Ssshhh! Cain’t you see this little squaw is having a monstrous time?” hushed York. “Don’t you know some native potion hereabouts that hastens this here business?” he asked anxiously.

“Monsieur York, you have asked the right man. Snake rattles. Make a powder of them, and
le bébé
, he will come within
un moment.
Make a tea from rattles. Have her drink it. The Assiniboins and Arikaras use it.”

“Rattles! That sounds like voodoo,” said York sarcastically.

“Try it,” urged Jussome, taking off his blanket coat and stomping his boots on the hearth.

Lewis remembered some huge rattles he had collected a little way out of Saint Charles. He went to his cabin to look among the bottles and jars and boxes. He found them wrapped in some writing paper.

Jussome took two rings, put them in a tin cup, and with his fingers broke them into little pieces. He put hot water into the cup and stirred. York held Sacajawea’s head up so that she could drink the concoction. Jussome explained to her what it was supposed to do. Sacajawea’s hands grabbed for York. Lewis looked out the door at the sinking sun and wondered how long this could go on.
¹

Sacajawea knew that this was the time she must make the push count. She was beyond calling out or speaking. Her thoughts were her own, but she was one of a million women before her, and a sister to every woman who had been along this path. Her feelings were as primitive and as civilized as any woman’s. There was no distinction between primitive and civilized in the event of birth. This was an involuntary thing. It possessed her. She was not in control. She felt herself sinking into a black void; then, from far off, she heard York’s excited voice.

“I can see! It is a boy! His face is as round as his belly. He is just as lively as a cricket in the embers.”

When she opened her eyes, Lewis was holding the baby awkwardly as York washed him in warm water. The baby was yowling like a little coyote. York wrapped him in the soft skin robe she’d made. His eyes closed, and his fist came up beside his mouth.

“Black hair—no red,” she sighed.

“What?” asked York. But she was asleep, secure and safe, hardly stirring with the afterbirth. She dreamed of her child bronze and shining with golden-red hair, playing happily at the foot of snow-topped mountains. She dreamed of the many trails that had brought her here to the white men’s village.

In the morning Charbonneau came in with the other hunters, to learn the news of his new papoose. The men were tired from tramping through knee-deep snow and carried in two antelope and one buffalo.

Looking deep among the robes around Sacajawea, he found his son and put a big hand near the baby’s face. “Oooom, she is nice. I call her Jeannette.”

York laughed, showing white teeth. “When she asks you why and craves to raise Cain ‘cause of her name, don’t come crying to me. This here ain’t no little gal.”

“She is a boy?” asked Charbonneau, his face falling. “I already have a boy.”

“Give him a good name,” suggested Lewis. “One he can handle when he’s a man. One that spells easily, like—Jean.”

“Oui,
I call him Jean Baptiste,” said Charbonneau, looking up and grinning so that his yellow teeth caught the firelight. “That is a good French name. My brother and LePage, they have this name. My squaw will like him. She will like the name I give papoose.
Mon dieu!”
He slapped his knee, and the tiredness seemed to drain away. “Jean Baptiste Charbonneau!
Yiii!
I can see this
enfant
refused his milk before his eyes were open, and called out for the bottle of red-eye! That’s my papoose! Talk about grinning the bark off a tree—that ain’t nothing! One squint of mine at a buffalo bull’s heel right now would blister it!”

Clark’s Journal:

March 12th 1805

Our Interpeter Shabonah, deturmins on not proceeding with us as an interpeter under the terms mentioned yesterday, he will not agree to work let our Situation be what it may nor Stand a guard, and if miffed with any man he wishes to return when he pleases, also have the disposal of as much provisions as he Chuses to Carry in admissable and we Suffer him to be off the engagement which was only virbal

1805, 17th of March Sunday—

Mr. Charbonah Sent a frenchman of our party [to say] that he was Sorry for the foolish part he had acted and if we pleased he would accompany us agreeabley to the terms we had perposed and doe every thing we wished him to doe etc. etc. he had requested me Some thro our French inturpeter two days ago to excuse his Simplicity and take him into the cirvice, after he had taken his things across the River we called him in and Spoke to him on the Subject, he agreed to our tirms and we agreed that he might go on with us etc. etc.

BERNARD DEVOTO,
ed.,
The Journals of Lewis and Clark.
New York: Houghton Mifflin Co., 1953, p. 85.

C
apitaine,” said Charbonneau. “You are a man in authority, and there can be no scalping between us. So tell me, will that man-child I begot turn into a log-leg or leather-breeches like me? Will he be a green-shirt or blanket-coat, land-trotter or river-roller, or a man for a massacre?” Then, giving himself a twirl on his foot, he proceeded to other antic demonstrations of joy. “Ain’t he a ring-tailed squealer?”

Clark had come with Charbonneau to have a look at Sacajawea‘s papoose. “I’ll just have to see for myself,” he said.

The door to the cabin had been left ajar. Probably York had forgotten to pull it tight. It was still not light, but the sky was graying near the horizon. Scannon plodded up and, ignoring the two men, sniffed at the door. Just inside the threshold he halted. Up went his splendid head.

“Shhhh,” said Clark. “That old dog wants to have a look at your papoose. See there, how he goes gently?”

“Oui
—that
femme,
she like dogs to keep her feet warm when the nights get cold, but I don’t like dogs—small dogs or large dogs.” Charbonneau stopped at the door and watched with Captain Clark to see what the big Newfoundland would do.

Scannon’s eyes sought out the sleeping figures before the dim fireplace. For a second or more, Scannon stood. Then he began to creep toward Sacajawea—hesitantly, one slow step at a time. The cold air blew from the opened door, and Sacajawea was roused from her sleep enough to pull the robes more tightly about herself and her papoose.

Clark stepped quietly inside. Charbonneau motioned frantically at the huge dog. He did not want the dog sniffing at his newborn child. “Shhh!” said Clark. “He will not harm either mother or child—watch.”

The dog was large inside the small room, with his black coat shining in the firelight. His deep-set dark eyes seemed to have a soul behind them. The tip of his tail twitched uncontrollably. Then all at once he began to lick the outstretched hand of Sacajawea. He lay down beside her pallet and put his huge head beside her hand. Half-asleep, she stroked his head and called him Dog in the Hidatsa tongue.

Charbonneau moved, but Clark pushed him back against the wall. Sacajawea rose up on her elbow, but she saw only the dog. Her eyes took in the whole color and shape and hide of the dog; she studied his massive shoulders and powerful legs, his drooping ears and intense eyes. The dog sneezed. She looked at him with curiosity and slowly crawled from the robes to close the door, stepping across Scannon’s legs and waving tail. Her hair was neatly plaited, and her tight braids hung over her shoulders. The linsey nightgown she was bundled in would have held two of her. It was the one nightshirt Lewis had brought. He had insisted she wear it. She was lost in the fullness of the floor-length garment. It fit her like a circus tent; she could hardly walk without stepping on the hem. A second step checked her so quickly that she fell head first on the hard dirt floor.

“That
femme
don’t much like a night-dress on,” Charbonneau told Clark.

He did not have to point that out, because Sacajawea had slipped her arms out of the wide flapping sleeves and pulled the fluttering material up over her head. Her head was out of sight. The more she pushed and pulled upward, the faster she kicked her slim, brown legs. She twisted from side to side in the manner of a squiggling, hatching butterfly shedding its soft, fibrous case. Getting on hands and knees, she wiggled away from the yards of flannel, at the same time muttering some incomprehensible Minnetaree gutturals.

Charbonneau said, “If that ain’t a tent-moth hatching out a cocoon, I ain’t a proud papa.” Charbonneau began to titter. Clark chuckled. Then the two men broke out in loud guffaws, clutched each other, and laughed until their sides ached. Charbonneau pulled away and put his hands on his belly as if to save the lacing on his shirt. He moaned and tears ran down his cheeks. Clark wiped his eyes.

The young mother sat on the voluminous nightshirt contentiously, as if to prevent it from engulfing her or smothering her in its wide folds. She clamped her lips together, sat up straight, and shook both her fists at the laughing men.

The door banged open, and Ben York peered into the dim room. “Hey, Master Clark, you got here before you have breakfas’!” Then he looked at Sacajawea, and his eyes moved from the heap of linsey to the two men. They shook. Their laughter would not stop. Charbonneau’s hands slipped helplessly to his thighs and beat upon them.

The young mother turned to the new voice. With a small, scurrying rush, she flung herself upon York’s leg and clung to it. With a wide sweep he scooped up the nightgown and dropped it over her head.

York scowled at the two men. “She’s not used to wearing clothes in bed.”

The men sobered and nodded.

“Lend me your whittle, Charb,” York said.

Charbonneau’s forehead puckered as he drew his knife.

“You can trust me,” said York. He thrust the blade into the twisted thong that held up his trousers. “Got more here than I needs,” he said as he hacked off a strip of the leather and held it up. “We’ll make a sash of this.” He pulled it around Sacajawea’s waist and tied it in back as he turned her around. “There, it’ll be comfortable and warm and let you walk. Go on back to bed.”

Her black eyes glittered. She tucked herself among the robes, letting Scannon smell at her and nose gently at her papoose. She was upset by the laughter.

“That papoose, he has hands and feet in the right place. ‘Magine me playing nursemaid to an Injun and her papoose,” laughed York, shooing the two men off toward the door. ‘Too many in here. Let the little mother rest.”

“You’re enjoying your nursemaid role,” Clark joked as Lewis unexpectedly pushed open the door, letting in another draft of cold air. The morning sky was now light gray.

“Oh, Lord, that damn dog is here!” whispered Lewis rather loudly. “Scannon, you have no good business here. Lord, who let him in?” The other three men stared blankly at one another as Lewis sent the dog bounding out the cabin door. “Now there is more room to admire that papoose,” he said, kneeling beside the pallet of furs and hides. “So now, little mother, may we see your fine son?” His hands moved as he explained to her that he wanted to admire her child.