Sacajawea (68 page)

The captains learned from local Nez Percés that by canoe travel the Snake River would join a larger river in one day’s time. Both captains talked with Twisted Hair, studied his map, and decided everything was in order.
¹
Captain Clark treated several of the Nez Percés with silver nitrate solution for red, inflamed eyes. He discussed the Indians’ health with Lewis. “Most of them have sore eyes. Must be from looking at the water with the sun reflecting off it as they fish. Or the reflection off snow and ice in winter. I’d guess they fish through ice or in fast water even in winter.”

“Or the constant blowing of fine sand,” said Lewis.

“And have you noticed the bad state all these river Indians’ teeth are in?” asked Clark. “Rotting down to the gum line or no teeth at all.”

“That must have something to do with this constant diet of sandy fish,” said Lewis.

That night Collins volunteered for guard duty and sat around with a flintlock on his lap eyeing the canister, which now seemed to have a life of its own. The lid often worked loose, and then there were small whisperings of escaping gas; at times the lid could not be kept tight at all. In the morning he again stored the softly gurgling container in the bow of his canoe.

At midmorning, Sacajawea pointed to the sky and the little bay ahead of her canoe. “This is what Old Toby said to watch for,” she called to Captain Clark. “Ducks we can eat!” The sky was dark with blue-wing teals, and many were feeding on the shallow shoreline of the bay. Clark motioned for the other canoes to hold back as he loaded his rifle and shot. Before the five canoes had gone downriver four miles, they had enough ducks for their evening meal. The thought of a meal without fish picked up everyone’s spirits.

By afternoon, the canoes were among rocks, rapids, shoals that ran from bank to bank, and a narrow crooked channel. Just as spirits were slipping with the work and worry of keeping the canoes upright, the channel opened and they could see the confluence of the Snake with a large river.

“It must be the Columbia!” shouted Clark. “Nothing else would be that wide. Beautiful!”
²

Drouillard looked for a place to beach and found sand all along the shoreline. As soon as the canoes were pulled up and the men were unloading the gear to set up camp, the neighborhood Nez Percés were greeting them. This group came with beating tom-toms, singing and dancing, then forming a ring around the party and swaying to and fro.

“At least they don’t carry us around,” said York. “I’ll choke the next one that tries that!”

Captain Clark had several blankets spread on the sand and asked the chief and his important men to sit and smoke with him. This gave York and Charbonneau time to clean the ducks and start a fire with dried sagebrush they pulled from the sand. While the ducks roasted, they sat with the others and watched Captain Lewis give the chief a Jefferson peace medal, a shirt, and a handkerchief. The second chief was given a small Washington medal and a handkerchief. Then Lewis announced through Drouillard that if the Nez Percés would trade for some decent firewood the white men would dance for them after they had eaten. This was the first night on the Columbia—a night for a big celebration. There was no doubt now that they would soon see the Pacific Ocean, the Stinking Waters as the Indians called it.

Sacajawea bathed Pomp and pulled a new shirt over his head before she came to join the men at the evening meal, the first in a long spell with no fish on their plates. Some were already finished when she sat down with her plate of savory roast duck. Charbonneau sat himself beside her and fed Pomp some of the soft, well-done meat and gave him a bone to try his newly cut front teeth on. As she ate, Sacajawea noticed that her man did not have his capote on and he was bright red in the face, as though he had been heaving an ax against a large tree. Sweat appeared across his forehead.

“Are you sick with a fever?” she asked.

“Non.
I am celebrating.” He stood up and began dancing clumsily while repetitiously singing an old Mandan three-note song. When he came close Sacajawea smelled the sour, moldy bread on his breath. Some of the men were laughing at his attempt to dance.

Sacajawea saw the canister on the sand. It was lid-less and the liquid inside was down from the top. The men were freely dipping their tin cups for swallows of the sick-smelling, pale-yellow liquid. They were careful to avoid dipping up the brownish froth or any lumps of sour bread.

Charbonneau was kicking up sand with his dancing, laughing and weaving this way and that, careful not to tip his cup too far on its side. He took Captain Clark’s cup, managed to fill it about a quarter full, and did the same with his own cup. Then he announced boldly to Clark, “You get the dog bone and beat on this here big canister tonight. Soon now, she will be empty, then I am going to dance for those Nez Percés right along with York.” He threw back his head and drank greedily.

York moseyed over and decanted a little of the pale liquid into his cup. “Ah! That there is mighty fine beer!” He grinned at Collins. “Aren’t you glad I saved the spoiled bread for you?”

Collins grinned back, then joined Hugh Hall, who was singing. At first the songs were soft and slow, then Hall’s voice rose and gained power. Sacajawea stared at him, scarcely believing what she saw and heard. He had always been quiet and shy. It must be that the drink has a magical power, she thought.

Charbonneau stopped his awkward dancing and sand spreading long enough to pass his cup to Sacajawea. “Drink,
femme.
She is good for you.”

The smell was like rotting food scraps that only camp dogs would touch. Sacajawea held her breath to try again. The mouthful of liquid burned her throat and she felt it glow in her belly like heat from a live red coal. She saw Captain Lewis sample some as he talked with Shannon, who also had a cup of the foul liquid. Slowly she drained the cup and passed it back to Charbonneau.
³

Wiser called out sleepily, “Man, it’s hot out here tonight!” He took off his shirt and dropped it on the sand at his feet.

Charbonneau and Collins had begun dancing, their arms around each other. They were singing, but each a different song, and Charbonneau was singing in French. The two songs did not blend together; they sounded terrible. Charbonneau started laughing. His booming voice shook Collins, so he stopped singing, but kept right on dancing.

A strange, magical power had grabbed everyone. Sacajawea felt the ground move under her feet. Shannon took her hand and began to move around her in what he supposed was a heel-toe dance, laughing foolishly and encouraging her to follow him. She saw from the corner of her eye that York was tipping the canister over his empty cup, decanting the last drops of juice—most of it dripping into the sand at his feet.

The Nez Percés had formed a circle around the camp to watch these strange white men entertain them. They seemed to be staring in amazement. Collins walked around shaking hands with the Nez Percés. Cruzatte walked around playing his fiddle with his eyes closed. Gibson hummed along beside him with a funny grin on his face. LePage spun around, with his arms out like a bird. Ordway started dancing. He had not entered into dancing much before, but now he started off whirling, bending his head, and stamping his feet in wild imitation of a buffalo about to mate.

Charbonneau grabbed the smelly container, turned it upside down, and watched the scummy bits of sour bread and dark froth run out on the sand. He had a bone in his right hand which he whacked on the bottom of the large metal can. York heard the drum-beating Nez Percés trying to keep time with Charbonneau, the men laughing, and he began dancing around the fire. The light made his black face shine and reflected off his white teeth. Sacajawea looked up, noticing that he wore the clothing made by Old Toby, which complimented him in every respect. His basic garments, shirt and leggings, were of the finest, softest goat skin bought from the Nez Percés back on the Clearwater and worked to a pleasing sepia tone. Over these he wore a perfectly fitting knee-length frock of the same material, the hem and seams accurately cut into frills an inch or so in length. At his wide elk-hide belt he carried an excellent nine-inch-long razor-edged knife in a strong leather sheath, and his favorite weapon, the war club made of a heavy smooth stone the size and shape of a large goose egg sewn into wet rawhide that had dried and tightened around it to a hard finish, with a strip of this same rawhide covering a strong hickory handle. This was the poggâmoggon given to him by Sacajawea’s brother. On his feet he wore very soft buckskin moccasins covered over by a rougher over-moccasin of heavy elk hide, which reached to his knees.

John Potts linked his arm with Cruzatte’s and brought him to the center of the ring. “A square dance!” Potts announced, calling out, “Allemande left, dos-a-dos, cast off,” as most of the men joined in to dance. Shannon brought Sacajawea in, and it seemed to her that she was tall as a lodgepole with long, straight legs. The papoose on her back weighed as much as a handful of breath feathers.

“The men needed a bit of fun,” sighed Clark.

“I certainly am glad that fermented mash is gone,” said Lewis. “Lord, there would be hell to pay if this fun got out of hand.”
⁴

Slowly, a few at a time, the Nez Percés crept into the center to dance with shuffling feet around the square dancers. Some of the Nez Percé women became bolder and began feeling Colter’s shoulder-length blond hair, shaking their heads in amazement over the light color. When they saw the red hair of Captain Clark, the women put their hands over their mouths in disbelief that hair could be that color at all. York laughed loudly, yelling, “Now you know how it is to be so different that people touch and pull at you. Ha, ha, ha! As long as I dance they’ll leave me alone.”

He was right. The minute he stopped to catch a breath, the Nez Percé women were at him, the greatest wonder of all, their wet fingertips finding his arms, pulling his frock up, working their hands under his shirt so they could see his chest and back as they tried to rub the color off. When a couple of the older boys boldly pushed a few women aside so they, too, could try the old wet-finger test, York exploded.

“I’ll take your ears off with this long tooth”—he waved his knife in the air—“and I’ll feed ‘em to the dogs. I’ll make a fierce face at your chief and he’ll fall over with a bellyache!” His voice boomed as he waved the war club about his head with the other hand. “I’se sick, sick, sick of wet fingers and mauling my black body. If anyone touches me, I’se the one to say who!”

The women and boys screamed and moved back. Nez Percé children ran to the back circle to hide.

“Stay away from me or I’se pin you to the earth and leave you there to dry out with all your flea-bitten salmon!” He tested the knife edge with the edge of his thumb.

There was a sudden silence as a Nez Percé warrior jumped into the circle close to York waving a flint knife and with hand signs making it clear he would use it before York could use either of his weapons.

Sacajawea steadied herself as she saw some of the other Nez Percé men pull out their flint knives. This could get out of hand, she knew.

The Nez Percé in the ring with York slapped his chest. He was solid, with muscles that stood out gnarled as weathered bark. His arms were as thick as most men’s legs. Sacajawea had been right; here was trouble. York looked around at the now silent faces and staring eyes and knew that he could not refuse the challenge. He did not want bloodshed, but could it be avoided?

Sacajawea kept her eyes on the ground so that it would not sway or heave upward, and she began to sing, her voice at first soft, then ringing out strongly. She moved slowly, with short, toe-heel steps along the circle of men. She told York to put the knife away. He slipped it in the sheath and stood quietly as she added more words to her song, telling the men to dance slowly in place as she sang. The Nez Percés copied and they, too, danced toe-heel in place. This was something new to them, a woman leading a dance and singing aloud in public.

Captain Clark moved in close to York. “That song is something you taught her. It worked once, and it is working again.”

“Yes, sir, something I’se taught her.” York smiled and relaxed a little, putting the war club under his elk-hide belt. “Women—ain’t they something else, though? She saved me from myself.”

“You sit down and let the others dance. You’ve had enough celebration tonight.”

“But, sir, I was looking at a pretty little gal who looked like she was all moon-faced for me.”

“How can you be woman-hungry after the other morning?” Clark said, mostly teasing, relieved now that York was not the center of attention and the knives were all out of sight.

“I’se just looking. Ain’t that Janey a pretty sight? She’s just a-swaying those Nez Percés to be peaceable and singing out orders to us. She can use our words about as well as her old man can now. She’s kind of like one of the family.” Then, glancing over his shoulder, York saw a young squaw moving up closer to him. “Just look at that little gal there”—he pointed her out to Clark—“she’s asking for it.”

“Your kinky hair will be scattered clear across the North American continent, from the Mississippi to the Pacific Ocean,” chided Clark.

Charbonneau never remembered how the dance ended because he and Collins were sitting out in the sand, back to back, snoring deep in their throats. McNeal, who was on guard, checked on them once in a while during the night to make sure they were still there.

Sacajawea remembered the dance afterward. Her head was perfectly clear before it ended. She could hardly wait for morning so that she could ask Captain Clark about the sour bread in the canister and how the men had turned it into a powerful medicine that could cure shyness.

When all but the guard were asleep in the camp, Sacajawea left Pomp wrapped in her blankets and walked through the grass to the water’s edge. The wind pulled at her loose hair, and she slipped from her tunic, carefully folding the blue-beaded belt. The wind was chilly. A quarter moon rode low over the river, the expedition’s camp, and the Nez Percé village. She threw her arms up toward it. She moved knee-deep into the clear, cold water and bent to fling it over her body.