Sacajawea (155 page)

Monsieur Fontaine colored. “I am not, but I have a fine housekeeper for my little girl. This is Madame Charbonneau and her daughter, Yagawosier.”

“Charbonneau?”

“French, huh? Baptiste Charbonneau works for youand Bill Bent? Out? He worked for Louis Vasquez?
Oui?
This woman is looking for him. He is her son.”

“Vasquez?”

“Charbonneau, Baptiste.”

St. Vrain slapped the side of his leg with fine calfskin gloves. “That man is one of the finest men in the mountains, on foot or in a
bateau.
He always wears his hair long—down to his shoulders, sort of Indian-style. I loaded him down with furs early this spring, and he is on his way down the Platte to Saint Louis. Probably there now. If not, he’s camped somewhere reading to Jim Bridger. Ha-ha. Those two even argue about what Bap reads. Bridger can’t read a word, but he’s got a thinking head. That Bap has had a good deal of education. And you say Bap is
her
son?” St. Vrain looked at Sacajawea.

“Ai,”
said Sacajawea. “You know my boy well?”

“Do I? That fellow has been working for me since he came back from Germany. He can get a mule or a man to do anything he says.”

“Did the Duke Paul come here again from his village across the Great Eastern Waters?”

St. Vrain stared at Sacajawea and brushed his hand across his mouth. “First time I ever heard a squaw say so much in good English and make sense. By God, you just could be Madame Charbonneau.”

“I am!” flared Sacajawea, moving herself so that her skirt rustled on the floor.

“Now I can’t wait until he comes back up here from Saint Louis,” said St. Vrain. “But he may just go to Bill Bent’s or across the mountains to that ramshackle Fort Bridger first. He and Bridger talked about doing some trapping.”

The bell for supper rang, and Sacajawea and the girls followed the men into the large dining hall. Wooden benches lined each side of the plank tables. Many of the workers at the fort were men with Indian women and children. These women looked curiously at Sacajawea in her gingham dress and the little girls in pink.

Across their table sat St. Vrain next to his young wife, who was languidly beautiful, dark, and serene. Sacajawea thought she looked more Mexican than Indian; then, when she looked again, she could not be sure.

The food was good. There were chunks of fresh mutton stewed with peppers and dried onions, slabs of goat’s-milk cheese, and fat red Mexican beans. In place of bread there was
atole,
a cornmeal from which was cooked hot mush, and
pinole,
a mixture of parched corn flavored with sugar and cinnamon. St. Vrain told Sacajawea that mixed with hot water,
atole
and
pinole
made good porridges for children.

Next to Sacajawea sat a mountain man. He was thickset, towheaded, blue-eyed, bandy-legged, and quiet-spoken most of the time. This man was telling about a skirmish with the Blackfeet. He pointed to the shoulder in which he had been shot. “Not even beaver fur would stanch the wound,” he said. “But the subzero temperature of them mountains saved my hide. My blood froze, and the wound closed.”

Sacajawea made some derisive noise and spoke the name of the Blackfeet in Shoshoni. The sun-haired mountain man looked at her and spoke in the Shoshoni tongue. She was delighted and asked him how far away the mountains were from here.

“Long ways,” he said. “Long. But they are worth gaping at.” The mountain man looked at Crying Basket and then at Suzanne. “Them yours?” he asked.

“This one,” she pointed.

“I have a little girl not much older. She is in school in Saint Louis. It’s been a year since I’ve seen her. Her mother, Waanibe, an Arapaho, is not living.”

“Shh,” Sacajawea warned him. “Do not speak the name of those who have gone away.”

“Hey, it’s been awhile since I’ve seen one of these,” he said, reaching behind Sacajawea so that he could tug at the necklace her child wore. It was a narrow wooden paddle, whittled from a willow and pierced for the woven and beaded buckskin necklace. “That’s a goose stick. Every time the wild geese migrate, a notch is cut on the stick. Right? This here papoose is five winters old.”

“Ai,”
answered Sacajawea, pleased that the man knew what the necklace meant.

“Are you Yankton, then?”

“No, Shoshoni.” And she made the special movement like weaving in and out in a grass basket. “But I have learned from others about counting winters.” She then looked fully at his face. “I have a son. Maybe your age.”

“So—you cannot be that old,” teased the man.

“Ai,” she said. “My son works in the white man’s forts and goes to Saint Louis.”

“So—has he a name?”

“Baptiste. Jean Baptiste Charbonneau.”

“Well hang the boots and saddles! I’m Christopher Carson. And I would not have believed what you have said unless I’d heard it.”

She smiled and waited for him to say more.

“Your son, he left Bent’s Fort last year and came here to St. Vrain’s. He took furs into Saint Louis.”

She nodded; she already knew most of this.

“He was to check on my little girl. He knows his way around that town. Went to school there himself. Buys books in Saint Louis to read during the long winters in the mountains. That sound like your boy?”

“Ai,” said Sacajawea; then softly: “I was in Saint Louis while he went to school. He and Toussaint.”

“Not old Toussaint. You’re pulling my leg. He never saw the inside of a school!”

“No, Little Tess.”

“Yes, seems I remember that one, too—dark and rather thickset and short—about same build as me. He likes firewater and fights. Last I heard he lived down with the Utes or Crows, maybe. He has a woman there. He’s not the man Baptiste is, if you don’t mind me telling you.”

“Ai.”

St. Vrain came to the side of the table and bent to Kit Carson.

“So—you’ve met this woman who claims to be the mother of Bap Charbonneau. She’d like to see him when he comes in for more furs.”

“I think her best bet is at old Gabe’s Fort, on the Black Fork. It’s not so much, just some logs and a sort of stockade. I heard that Louis Vasquez, down the table there yonder, helped Gabe with the building. Fantastic the way it holds together. Say, this squaw—she speaksa fair sort of English and knows more than most about them Charbonneaus. How do you account for that?”

“I believe her.” St. Vrain then stepped over toward Monsieur Fontaine. “Why don’t you stay tomorrow? It is the Fourth of July, and we’ll shoot off the cannon and pass out some bacanora or cognac. I’ll start some book learning with those girls. And I’ll give you some books so that Lupton can help for a while this winter. In the afternoon the little girls can see horse racing and the games. They’ll enjoy the festivities. So will your Madame Charbonneau. Some Cheyennes are coming in for trade, and with them Gray Thunder, the daddy of Owl Woman. You know who she is? Bill Bent’s Cheyenne woman.”

“Will Owl Woman come?” asked Sacajawea softly.

“It’s possible. Knowing that his brother Charley is here, Bill Bent might just come in with his woman.”

“Hey, Jacques,” called Charley Bent from another table to Monsieur Fontaine, “tomorrow you show us how you can ride your horse and what a good shot you are! We’ll get a few bets going.”

The next day before noon, John Charles Frémont and his party, including Tom Fitzpatrick, arrived at St. Vrain’s Fort. There was much shouting and celebrating. They were invited to eat in the mess hall with St. Vrain and the others. During the conversation St. Vrain asked Frémont if he had heard any news from Saint Louis of Baptiste Charbonneau.

“Of course. Just last summer I met that old grizzly-fighter. He was taking peltries to Saint Louis. Said he was working for you and Bent.”

“True,” said St. Vrain.

“Well, he ran into a snag—that is, the spring rise had been too low to carry the boats, so they gave up and sent for horses. Didn’t you get word and send him some?”

“No, but maybe Bill Bent did.”

“Well, he had the nicest little camp not far from Fort Morgan on an island. Called it Saint Helena. Sounds like him, doesn’t it? There was this big grove of large cottonwoods and the tents were pitched under them.” Frémont waved his long arms about and moved hismouth around as he talked. “He made us mint julep from horsemint. Very good, as a matter of fact. We had boiled buffalo tongue, and coffee, with the luxury of sugar.”

“See there”—St. Vrain pointed down the table to the vicinity of Sacajawea, who could eat none of her noon meal as she overheard their conversation—“that is his mother.”

“Now, Céran. You must be coming apart. That is a squaw in a gingham dress, but the mother of Bap? Wagh! He’s an educated man. He studied some years in Europe.”

“She knows a lot about his early life in Saint Louis,” said St. Vrain.

“Probably heard something from white traders. Those Indians will tell you anything that pleases. You know that.”

After eating, Frémont and half his party moved south to gather news from traders and trappers at Lupton’s about passage over the western mountain range. Then they planned to move down to Bent’s for mules. Tom Fitzpatrick stayed behind with the other half of the party to gather further information about travel through the mountain passes.

The sun was high when Gray Thunder’s band came in sight. Already the Utahs and Shoshonis were having a riding competition. Sacajawea and the little girls watched dancers. Two tepees had been pitched together, the poles crossed, and the lodge skins rolled up to form a large pavilion. A half-dozen men beat time on a hollow-log drum, while another half-dozen squatted in a row and played on tight leather hand drums. All seemed orderly confusion. Elderly men moved about quietly. Women with infants openly at their breasts, and others with small children, were arranging pallets on the ground in the little shade they could find from piñons and chamisa.

Louis Vasquez moseyed around the fort before taking his supplies, including two bags of salt, back to his own trading post a couple of miles north. St. Vrain insisted Vasquez first meet the Shoshoni squaw who claimed to be Bap Charbonneau’s mother.

Sacajawea smiled politely and asked slowly, in Spanish, when Vasquez thought Bap would be back around these forts.

“I’ll be a ring-tailed racoon,” said Vasquez to St. Vrain. ‘The woman does speak fair Spanish and knows more about that dude Charbonneau than you or I together.” Then he turned to Sacajawea and said, “I think that son of yours is on his way to Gabe’s Fort. Then he’ll be in and out of this area sooner or later.” Vasquez was still shaking his head in wonder over the Shoshoni woman who talked Spanish with French phrases scattered here and there, as he left St. Vrain’s Fort that afternoon.

A noisy game of hands was in progress. It was a game Monsieur Fontaine had played many times—the Indians’ version of the old shell game. He loved it. Sacajawea watched the drummers beat time on hand drums and heard everybody sing a noisy accompaniment to the rhythmic movement of the one-who-hides-some-thing, who manipulated the small, polished bone. She found the game did not intimidate her. The unpleasantness of my girlhood is a thing of the past. Those bad things have healed over, she thought.

Kit Carson seemed bored with the games and went out along the other side of the fort to the horse races.

Old Bill Williams nudged Monsieur Fontaine. “Let’s get in that there game,” he said in a thin, cracked voice. Bill was about six feet, one inch, gaunt, redheaded, with a hard, weather-beaten face, marked deeply with smallpox. He was all muscle and sinew. He had heard of the festivities going on at St. Vrain’s Fort and being in the vicinity had come in to see the goings-on. Generally he avoided crowds. He preferred his own company. He had lived with one Indian tribe or another for years. He was called Lone Elk by his friends.

There was a log-sawing contest, and Sacajawea moseyed there with the girls to watch.

Gray Thunder left his men, who were unpacking, preparing to do some trading, and he came straight for the games. Monsieur Fontaine spoke his regards to Gray Thunder and offered to let him play hands in his place. Bill Williams seemed to look neither to the right nor the left. He did not look at Gray Thunder as he spoke, but seemed to be thinking of something else as his voice whined out, “Once you sit here, there can be no exasperatin’ hagglin’ over where the bone is. I hain’t gonner stay if this game gets slow and bound up.”

The wrinkled, tough-minded Gray Thunder sat down to play the game with vigor. Monsieur Fontaine, now standing, watched as the Cheyenne Medicine Man lay his tobacco pouch on the blanket. Others followed Gray Thunder and put down their bets. Gray Thunder tossed in two silver dollars on top of the pouch he’d just put down. Bill Williams bent forward, which gave him the appearance of being humpbacked, and moved his head from side to side. The Cheyenne singing commenced. Gray Thunder moved his hands in time to the singing, allowing occasional glimpses of the bone as he passed it from one hand to the other. Bill pointed to his right hand, but it was empty.

“Ee-yah!”
exclaimed those who had bet on Gray Thunder. But the round was not over, the Cheyennes having merely gained the advantage. Gray Thunder smiled as he handed the bone to Bill Williams. If the old Indian guessed right, he would win. Bill Williams gently placed his worn Bible on the blanket. “Lucifer, get behind me,” he said.

Gray Thunder guessed right and won. ‘That there Bible will do you no good, but it will do you no harm, either,” commented Bill. “I’ll get my Good Book back, you varmint.”

Both Gray Thunder and Bill guessed right on the next round, so no bets were exchanged—though some additional wagers were made by the onlookers. It was fairly even for a while; then Bill Williams began winning more consistently. After a long losing streak, Gray Thunder looked at Bill admiringly. “Lone Elk, he is much alive,” he said.

Monsieur Fontaine, sitting cross-legged next to old Bill, glanced briefly at Gray Thunder. Gray Thunder smiled quickly, his little twinkling eyes everywhere, then he resumed his masked emotions. Monsieur Fontaine thought about these two travelers, Bill and Gray Thunder, of merging trails, who did well to keep an eye on one another’s attitude. Fontaine felt alive himself this day, and he was enjoying himself more than hehad in many months. He felt now he had something to live for, a motivation. He was going to have both little girls educated so they could read and write and make something of themselves.