Sacajawea (151 page)

Choway, who was now close to fifteen summers, and Crying Basket, who was nearly four summers old, ran out from the crowd to welcome Sacajawea home.

“I do not know whether to laugh or cry,” said Sacajawea softly as she nuzzled her child and wet her neck with tears.

At times such an aching loneliness came through

Sacajawea that she could not stay in the tepee with Choway. She moved out under the open skies and sought some nameless comfort in the sage and mesquite. At night the aching became a weight against her very breathing. The people pointed to her and whispered behind their hands. Hides Well no longer visited with her, and Spring became so busy with her own family that she seldom went out of her way to see Sacajawea.

Sacajawea began to wonder more and more about her firstborn. Her wonderment grew and fed on itself with the memory of old Gray Bone’s last words. Was it true she had seen Baptiste? Had he reached Saint Louis? Was he working for Chief Red Hair? Was it possible she could travel north and find him? She felt isolated and alone on the barren plains, with no one to turn to. Sometimes she pulled Crying Basket into bed with her so that she could hear the child’s breathing and faint cries, which seemed a comfort.

At sunrise one morning, her mind was made up. She brought her horse to the tepee door and tied a large package of dried meat to its side. She filled a water bag and fastened it to the animal’s other side. She kicked at the old lodgepoles behind the tepee, which had been discarded at the beginning of spring. She tied them travois-fashion to the horse. She went inside and brought out a bundle of old tepee skins and tied them on the travois. Then she brought out her clothing and the clothing of Crying Basket.

By this time, Choway was up. “What are you doing?”

“I am leaving.”

“But where?”

“I am not sure,” she said. “I cannot stay here and be at peace with myself any longer. Everyone looks crosswise at me, even my own family, since I did not bring the crazy woman’s rotting bones back to the camp for a Comanche burial. They looked the same way when I let her into the camp. I want to go away.”

“I do not understand,” said Choway.

“I will try to pick up the threads from my other life. It will not catch up with me, so I will try to find it.”

“I still cannot understand.”

“Tell my son, Ticannaf, I have gone a long way,
avajemear,
and do not seek me.”

“But you know he will.”

“Ai,
but he will not find me. I will be many miles from here.”

“You can’t go. You will be back before nightfall — within two suns. The Wichitas will tell us where you travel. You are my mother now.”

“You may have this tepee as your own,” said Sacajawea. “Ticannaf will bring meat and hides to you. You have been a good helper for me. I have not been a good mother for you. But just the same, you have become a good Quohada, and that is something to be proud of.”

She was ready. She took up Crying Basket and tied her to the travois. Sacajawea took another horse from the herd and put a robe on its back. “Ticannaf may have the rest of his father’s horses. Tell him and he will know for sure I have gone.”

Choway nodded, knowing she would miss this squaw who had been kind to her. But Choway had sensed there was conflict between the Quohada band and this woman they called Wadzewipe.

Sacajawea mounted, pulled on the rawhide of the packhorse, then, relenting, she touched Choway and said in Spanish, “I love you and these people. Only there is something beyond this that I must go to. I do not know where it is myself.”

Once, Sacajawea looked back, and it seemed tears were streaming down Choway’s face. Sacajawea could not be sure. Her own tears were a continuous stream down her face. She had spent more than twenty-five summers with the Quohada band, and now she was going into some unknown kind of life.

She headed straight north across the country. She traveled fast at first through the arid, unproductive country, where a broad, shallow river, some six hundred yards wide and only a few inches deep, seemed to struggle for its life among yellowish white quicksands. The first few days Sacajawea sang, and the words floated back to Crying Basket. She tried to think of English words she’d learned, then of French words. Many were lost to her. She could remember better a little Spanish. She sat astride her horse as if it were part of her. She watched the sun set, then stopped and made camp for the night.

They wound around hills and dry creeks. Crying Basket sat up front on the horse with her mother for company. Occasionally they could see the timbered course of streams out to the right or left.

Sacajawea wondered what the white man’s fort was like. She was certain it would be made in the same way as Fort Clatsop or Fort Mandan, with logs. She thought of bluebonnets that bloomed in damp areas, the purple violets, and white buttercups. She could see her firstborn picking spring flowers. She tried harder to visualize more detail. Actually it was hard for her to remember exactly what Baptiste had looked like—round face, black eyes and hair, like any papoose.

They came to a little valley where there was nothing but dry, strawlike grass for the horses. The dried meat was gone and they found little water. They were exposed to the burning sun and the only water they found in two days was in a stagnant pool in which several stray buffalo wallowed. With her horses she drove off the buffalo, then the horses put their noses down and sucked up the alkaline water. She deliberately pulled them away before they had their fill, knowing that too much would kill them, and no water at all would also kill them. She washed Crying Basket’s face and then her own with the warm bitter-tasting liquid. She permitted the child to suck her fingers, only to avoid distressing cramps. They rode around overhanging limestone cliffs and through rough sandstone gullies. The soft skin on Crying Basket’s arms and legs became dry and parched. Her face was scaly and her lips cracked. Sacajawea tried to keep the child covered, but it was hot and the child pulled the clothing off. Sacajawea longed for animal fat to soothe the child’s dry skin and relieve her own itching.

One night they stopped in the bottom of a little dip where water ran down a rocky channel into a tiny bed of grass. The water was sweet, but could not be dipped up without mixing it with mud. Sacajawea showed her child how to lie on her belly and draw the water up through her lips. They chewed on the grass stems, pretending they were the wild potato. She let the horses drink several times and before morning the little patch of grass had been cleaned off the red earth. She filledthe water paunch with the muddy spring water and they moved on in the morning.

They rode over sharp stones and through thorny brush to the base of a high bluff. They followed the bottom of the red sandstone bluff until they met a gap in the wall. The gap was a pass that sloped upward and she turned the horses in, clambering through the scree until they reached a ledge nearly a third of the way to the top. There was no way to continue the upward climb so they stopped there before the sun was halfway across the sky. There was grass and some other plants growing in the sheltered places close to the high-cut bank.

It was hot and muggy. Clouds hung low in the east. Crying Basket ran naked on the red earth. Finding a little shade among the chaparral, she sat there and dug in the dirt with a small stick. Sacajawea found a few wild onions and several small sego lilies in the bunch grass. She cleaned them on the bottom of her tunic and pushed them close to the hot coals of her small cooking fire. She turned the bulbs frequently and let the coals cool. She watched her child and noticed the small body was thinner than when they had left the Quohada camp. Crying Basket did not say she was hungry until the afternoon wore on and the clouds grew. Sacajawea peeled the outer skins from the onion and lily bulbs, which were still warm and very soft.

Sacajawea felt wet all over, yet there was no rain. The air was heavy and hard to breathe and made her feel anxious. She balanced the child on one arm and moved closer to the bank where the horses were tied to a stunted, post oak covered with a catbrier vine. She pulled the robe from her riding horse and spread it on the ground for the child to sleep on. She sat on one corner, brushed the dark hair from the little girl’s face, and kissed her cheek. She had not used this white man’s gesture much on this papoose.

The thunder roared like a long tattoo on a tight skin drum. Sacajawea watched the chain of lightning in the clouds. She sang an old Shoshoni lullaby that had come to her:

“This day is good,
The baby sleeps,
Content with food.
Under dark clouds,
The voice of thunder
Sounds soft to her ear.”

It seemed that Mother Earth was talking as the rumbles of thunder penetrated even into the ground. Sacajawea got the bundle of old tepee skins and spread them over her back and around her child. It felt good; the gusts were cold.

Lightning flashed more frequently as the clouds rolled in like dirty water boiling in a kettle. Crying Basket moved, pulling her knees against her chest for warmth. Sacajawea remembered an old saying of her mother’s. “Roast the porcupine and when you have eaten it, mash the bones, then the frozen rain will come.” The wind blew dirt into her face, so that she pulled one of the skins higher for protection. The grass was pushed nearly flat. The horses stayed close to the wall with their heads down. The dust swirled one way, then another just before the hail peppered them. Sacajawea held the skins over her child and herself as best she could in the thrashing wind.

Crying Basket woke up and climbed to her mother’s lap, clinging from fear, her eyes wide. She did not cry, but her tiny heartbeat quickened. The hail fell in streaks and bounced on rocks; the horses shone in the frequent flashes of lightning, their hooves smeared with gummy clay. Then the wind slacked off and the rain came, but did not last long.

The roiling clouds moved away, and their grumbling was not so loud. The bright stars seemed to hang low in the sky. Sacajawea was soaked. She found a partially dry skin and wrapped the child in it. She lay down, trying to forget the wetness and was soon asleep.

Sacajawea was awakened suddenly by some subconscious sense. She was stiff and sat up slowly. Her eyes became accustomed to the starlight as she looked around. Her eyes fell on a small hole nearby where the ground had been kept dry by the robe. The robe corner was now folded back so the movement at the hole was visible. Two dark, hairy legs were feeling the outer edge. Then the hairy body of a wolf spider emerged, lookingfor food. Silently it moved on long, fuzzy legs to examine Crying Basket’s exposed foot. Sacajawea involuntarily stiffened. She breathed deeply and forced herself to remain motionless. She knew any sudden movement might make the creature lunge and drive its fangs deep into the tiny, bare foot, releasing its poison.

She sat quietly, praying to the Great Spirit that the child would not move. The hairy, dark spider backed away by inches, fell off the robe into the dirt, and scrambled away silently and out of sight. Sacajawea let out her breath, closed her eyes, and thanked the Great Spirit for the creature that intended no harm. For all living beings life was a constant hunt for food and avoidance of enemies. She could have squashed the spider, taking its life, but what would have been the purpose of that?

In the morning, Sacajawea repacked the damp skins, led the horses farther along the ledge, and checked the end horse hitched to the travois. She scooped up Crying Basket, tied her in a blanket, and swung her over her back. The ledge narrowed, then circled around a sharp sandstone point. On one side was a high bank of rock, with some precarious overhangings that looked as if they could fall at any moment. On the other side was a sheer drop-off down to the plains. Far below, the river looked like a pale green satin ribbon thrown carelessly on a red-brown floor. The lead horse would go no farther and there was no room to turn around.

Sacajawea could not look down without feeling a helplessness that fostered the urge simply to let everything go and topple over the edge. Forcing the thought away, she took a deep breath and looked only at the ground where the horses’ hooves touched. She inched forward hugging the wall, to investigate further.

To her surprise and joy, on the other side of the point the ledge widened and a broad incline led all the way to the top. Carefully she coaxed the horses forward inch by inch. She held her breath when the travois teetered once, then let her breath go when it settled upright.

She finally got to the summit and could see what appeared to be another wide, expansive plain, carved with dips, crevasses, and small canyons. Below, the river still meandered.

As the morning sun moved higher and bathed thehigh plain with light, Sacajawea, with Crying Basket still on her back, moved down a game trail to seek a way to the river. They found a crevasse in the sandstone and came out on a wide ledge. A fog bank had now moved in above the river and was only a few hundred yards away. It was like a wide wall in front of them. Sacajawea stood at the edge of the stone shelf, feeling stimulated from the exertion and clear-headed in the warm rays of sunshine. She turned and caught her breath. There was the most astonishing sight.

Mirrored on the fog’s wall-like surface was the side view of an enlarged shadow of a woman carrying a child on her back! Sacajawea moved, and the shadow moved. She made a quarter-turn to face the fog bank and held out her arms. She made a shadow image of a large bird, larger than any thunderbird she had ever seen drawn inside rock caves or on high rock cliffs. She moved her arms and the bird’s wings seemed to flap as if readying itself to soar into the sky.

Then she noticed a glow, similar to a rainbow, encircling the upper half of the shadow picture. She stood motionless, her arms widespread, transfixed with awe. She was certain this phenomenon had some significant meaning for her. Sacajawea moved so that the silhouetted woman and child were haloed by the light. The colored, concentric rings all about her larger-than-life shadow could only mean one thing, she thought. The disk of colors was a protector: it was a totem to care for her and the child in this harsh land. What else could this extraordinary sight possibly be?