Sacajawea (24 page)

It was a long but easy ride to the village of the Roop-tahee once they passed the edge of the Knife River. From there they rode on sandy ground to the Big Muddy River. They forded the river and soon passed an old abandoned village. The weeds grew waist-high in it. The girls, who had fallen back to ride with the other Minnetaree women, followed the men through the center of the old village. The mud huts were falling apart. The wooden doors on many were gone or swinging with the wind.

“Where are these people?” Sacajawea asked Rosebud. “Why did they leave their homes?”

“The coughing sickness came on the back of the north wind,” said Rosebud. “Half the village died. Those who were left did what they could, and with heavy hearts moved across the river to the Mahawha village where their cousins the Ahnahaways live.”

“But their medicine men? Where were they when the sickness came?”

“Ai,
the people were told to make use of the sweat lodges, then to run directly to the river to cool off their hot bodies. Many never came out of the river.”

“So—was it the sweat lodges of the medicine men or the river that killed them?” asked Sacajawea.

“You forget the coughing sickness.”

“Did they take it to the Ahnahaways?”

“Ai,
they did. But they had a great fear about staying in the same lodges where so many had died, and so they had to move.”

“But they did not fear crossing the river where so many had died? And you do not fear riding through their old village?”

“You ask puzzling thoughts,” said Rosebud.

Eighteen-foot-high timbers formed a stockade around the round mud huts of the Rooptahee village. Rosebud pointed out to Sacajawea where some of the timbers were spaced apart to permit firesticks or arrows to be fired between them. There were great shouts of greeting, and the village gates were opened to them. The Minnetaree men dismounted and let the old women of the Rooptahee take the reins of their horses and lead them away.

“They will be kept in the grazing ground, and we will find them again,” Rosebud assured Sacajawea.

Close against the inside of the stockade ran a three-foot ditch, which, Rosebud explained, further screened warriors from the view and weapons of attacking enemies.

Then a tall man, naked except for a loincloth, his broad, heavy chest covered with the symbol of the sun in red and with the sign of lightning in yellow, his arms hidden from his wrists to his elbows with bands of woven grass and leather, pushed his way through the crowd.

“That is the Wolf Chief,” said Rosebud. “He is a friend of Chief Kakoakis and chief of all the Mandans. See, over there, they talk now.” She pointed to where the two men, Kakoakis and the Wolf Chief, were standing encircled by men from the two villages, Metaharta and Rooptahee.
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The people were hushed so they could hear the two leaders speaking with one another.

“What makes you think you will leave here alive?” asked the Wolf Chief, looking directly into the forbidding face of Kakoakis.

Sacajawea felt herself breathe in and out six times before Kakoakis replied, “It is known that the head chief of the Mandans is the greatest leader of all time. It is known that he respects truth and bravery. It is known that he commands respect and is a crooked-tongued snake in the grass.”

The last words might not have been spoken. Therewas not a flicker in the eyes of the titular head of all Mandans to indicate he had heard or understood. Kakoakis waited quietly.

“You are a brave man to come to one of my villages,” the Wolf Chief said, his face straight. “I am honored. But what are you doing outside your own village without guards?”

“I do not need protection when I am among people who are soft as prairie chickens. With one twist of the neck by my one hand, the head of any one of your braves would drop off. The men in my village stay strong the whole year. The men of your village remain weak, like women, until it is hunting time. Then they pretend they are strong by showing how loud they can make their voices. They are like barking dogs who are afraid to bite.”

The Wolf Chief was a haughty and overbearing man, more feared than loved by his people. He had inherited his high office from his father, and he had managed to hold on to his authority in spite of his shortcomings as a governor and warrior. He and Chief Kakoakis enjoyed pretending each was an object of misery almost beyond belief. The Wolf Chief knew and encouraged his people in the knowledge that the moment Kakoakis was replaced by a weaker, less cruel man, the Mandans would extend their totalitarian rule to the Minnetarees.

Now the Wolf Chief turned and inspected Chief Kakoakis with an air of pity. “I’d almost forgotten what an ugly old dog you are. It is always a shock.”

“Ha-na-ta-nu-mauk
,” said Chief Kakoakis. “What has happened to your beautiful yellow hair? It is becoming red like the sunset.”

“Well, so, it is better red with paint than black with soot and vermin as is yours. Have you forgotten the way to the river for a wash? Your smell is worse than ten horses kept in a tight enclosure for ten suns.”

“My smell is of the earth itself. I would not have my woman fix me like a dandy with crushed mint in my mouth and sage rubbed over my body so I smelled as you, which is more like a roasting duck with herbs.”

“And so,” said the Wolf Chief, smelling his underarm, “now that you have found my village, have yourpeople put their temporary skin tepees in the usual place.”

The lodges of the Mandans were similar to those of the Minnetarees, yet more elegant. The streets were wider and much cleaner. It was obvious to Sacajawea that the Mandans were the leaders of this type of culture. Somewhere in forgotten history, the Minnetarees had moved in and copied the ways of the Mandans. Some said the Minnetarees were once a band of frightened Sioux fleeing from the Blackfeet. The stockadetype village was built to keep out these deadly fighters.

When they reached the campsite, Sacajawea and Rosebud undid the packs and strung up a temporary skin lean-to, a type that did not need heavy lodgepoles. Other women did the same with the gear they had brought. While they worked, Rosebud told Sacajawea what she knew about the Mandans, and about the Wolf Chief, who practically never said exactly what he meant, and never told the entire truth about a subject if there was an opportunity to make up a better story.

Redpipe, sitting a few feet away, added information to what Rosebud told her, and now he took a long drag on his pipe, spat upon the ground, and said, “That is the way the Wolf Chief gets his amusement.”

Fast Arrow, who was pretending to be asleep in the shade of a low sagebrush, said in a hushed voice, “He is a first-rate storyteller at heart; he is a mockingbird wasting his song on the wind, generally.” Then he, too, began to speak of the Mandans.

His friend Four Bears, a well-loved subchief of this village of Rooptahee, still remembered the words of his old father, Ddraig Goch, Red Beast.
⁵
He had told Four Bears years ago that his name was very old and that it was in some way related to the several sacred gold disks kept in the large sacred ark. The markings on those disks were as foreign to him as the scratchings found on a few flat stones on the prairie. He said that they were the last remnants of ancestors who had pale eyes and pale skin. Now there was only one golden disk or ancient coin left. No one knew what had become of the others. The Mandans, the People of the Pheasants, were descendants of a man ages ago called Madoc.
⁶
Thiswas something to be kept safe and not talked about. Four Bears’s fathers said they had not always lived at the headwaters of the Big Muddy; they had lived farther to the south, but enemy tribes had pushed them north until finally they had settled here in several villages. More villages had been in this area then, and they were all well fortified in a manner remembered from some remote, enigmatic land called Cambria, from which these ancient ancestors had come. They had traveled in large canoes, the number of which was indicated by the fingers on both hands, to the land in the south by the huge salt waters. After many ages of men, they had come to this place, near the Big Muddy and Knife rivers, to live.

But there came a time when the people became tired and lost their strength, and the young did not follow in all the ways of the old. The young made sport of the old ideas and invented new ones. Ideas such as not planting as many crops and depending upon the spring fairs for meat and animal skins, instead of hunting both in spring and fall. Hunting kept a man’s eyes sharp, but now the young ones did not believe that. Hunting was a waste of time to them if someone else would do it for them. The young braves of the Mandans had become soft and lazy, willing to let the women work in the fields and harvest crops while they raced their horses or played games of chance. Even hunting had become a game for them. They raced to see who could ride the best-decorated pony or shout the loudest on the way to the hunt.

Sacajawea listened as she began smashing dried corn in a bowl. Rosebud had started a fire in front of their lean-to, keeping pace with the other women who were doing the same. Sacajawea was excited and wanted to explore the village. She noticed a small girl with pale eyes and yellow hair skip past them, then climb a ladder made from saplings and leather bindings to the top of a lodge where several old women were gossiping in the sun. The women had snow-white hair. Sacajawea pointed at them.

“You will see more,” said Rosebud, “and some of the men have pale skin and much face hair.”

Sacajawea laughed. “Do they wish to look like the white men?”

“That is hard to believe,” agreed Rosebud. “Each nation believes it is best. We think we are better than the Mandans. And they think they are better than us. They think having hair on the face is something grand.”

“Do the white men believe they are better?” asked Sacajawea, laughing. “We know we are better than they. Come, I would like to go to the council area for a look.” She helped Rosebud fill a clay pot with the ground corn, and they left it soaking on a low fire. Redpipe was still enjoying his pipe with half-closed eyes, and Fast Arrow was asleep.

All of the lodge doors of the village opened toward a large arena in the center, at least thirty man-lengths in diameter, in the middle of which stood a large structure made of hand-hewn planks and hoops, almost two man-lengths high. There was a hole in one side where sacred objects could be removed or replaced. Fast Arrow had said the structure represented an ark or canoe used by the First Men when waters covered the earth. It contained the nation’s most precious medicine—buffalo skulls, bat-wing bones, eagle feathers, and the gold disk, which was smooth and worn from generations of handling, but still visible on one side was the distinct tail of a fish and some lettered characters. On the obverse side was an image of an instrument not too different in appearance from the gut-string and bent wood harp played today by Mandan musicians. There was also a flat quartzite stone inscribed on both sides with unknown characters, something saved from antiquity.

The Mandans told of forebears once finding some of the same inscribed characters fixed on a stone on top of a rock cairn, which they believed had been standing in the hills since time began for their people. Once in a great while on a buffalo or elk round, a young Mandan brave would still come back to tell of seeing one or more of these pillars, or walls formed of several pillars stacked on their sides. Now these walls were used as a blind to hide behind while stalking game. The Mandans could not remember who had been the first people to place these great pillars of stone in the woods and on the plains. But they were certain that they had been the

First Men, and they had a word for them that was remembered but not spoken, it was a taboo word, something to be guarded, a word that in certain circumstances would be used for safe conduct or an expression of trust.

Rosebud circled the medicine structure from a good distance, not daring to go too close. Sacajawea endured her curiosity as long as possible, but soon she was bending far over in the dark hole to see inside this huge landlocked canoe, smelling the musty smell of things dead for many seasons.

Rosebud called to her to come away quickly. A woman was never permitted so near such a sacred place, but Sacajawea did not hear. Rosebud moved to the shadow of the Council Lodge, not wanting to be part of something considered unwomanly, something never done.

Sacajawea’s mind went back to the time she had stood in the medicine circle with her father. It now seemed merely a dream as she thought on these things left by others who had lived in some distant age. These others had once been young and laughing in the sunshine, then old and sad in the cold of winter.

“Woman, why do you keep your eyes on the relics of the People of the Pheasants?” someone asked sharply, but with formal courtesy.

Sacajawea spun around and saw a stranger dressed in leggings rich with elk’s teeth and shells. He wore no shirt. His shoulders were splendid in the sun. On his bronze chest was a vermilion handprint with wide yellow streaks going around to his back, meeting in jagged lines, like lightning, on the rough scars there.

Sacajawea took time to gather her wits. She noticed that his moccasins were of fine white leather with dark blue whangs on the front, each with a white shell tied at the end. She raised her eyes, noticing he wore an eagle feather headdress, with the soft breath feathers framing his forehead.

“You are too bold for a woman. Your manners are disgraceful.”

“Ai,
you are right. I was carried away. I am a visitor in your village. I will go to my camp now.” Her voice was steady, but her knees felt like thin gruel.

He stood in her path. “The day is good.” He did not move to let her pass.

Sacajawea fell back one or two steps. He was standing with his back to the light, but she could see that his hair grew to a point on his forehead, that he had a long face, narrowing at the temples. His mouth was straight, almost grim, and he did not smile as he spoke. He did not look as if he ever smiled very much.