Sacajawea (57 page)

“Ai,”
was the unanimous reply.

“So—it shall be. You have spoken.” Chief Cameahwait turned to an elderly man. “Our bravest warrior, you have the most knowledge of the trails west over the mountains. Will you act as guide to these white chiefs?”

The old warrior, whose face was as dark as weather-worn leather and wrinkled as a dried persimmon, nodded approval.
“Ai,
my four sons shall come, also.”

“Good,” said the chief. “Now I wish to honor this Chief Red Hair who has shown kindness to my blood sister and shared his food with my people. To this white chief I give my tippet of furs, and to the black white man I give a
poggâmoggon.”

Ceremoniously, he placed the snow-white tippet across the shoulders of Captain Clark, and in York’s hand the chief placed an instrument consisting of a handle about the size of a whip handle, about two feet long, made of wood and covered with dressed leather. At one end was a thong, two inches in length, which was tied around a stone weighing about two pounds and held in a cover of leather. At the other end was a loop of the same material, which was passed around the wrist so as to secure the hold when striking a severe blow to a small animal or some other game food.

“I also give to this Chief Red Hair my name, Cameahwait.” By signs he showed it meant “One Who Never Walks.” “I will keep my war name of Tooettecone, Black Gun. My people know this war name and know that it was given to me by an enemy warrior during a fight. I had fallen from my horse and saw a long black smoking-stick as I got to my feet. I pulled it from the hands of a wounded Blackfoot, and he yelled my new name as I hit another enemy across the back with the stick. The stick jumped from my hands, shot lightning, and ripped open the man I had hit. Again the enemy yelled ‘Black Gun,’ and they ran down a hill for a cover of trees.”

Modesty about personal achievements had no place among the Shoshonis. When a man did something big, he told it and retold it.

“Henceforth, I shall be known as Tooettecone,” said the chief. “This will be as a reminder of the black shooting-sticks the traders will bring to us when they bring the trading post close to our camp. And hereafter, among the Agaidükas, this Chief Red Hair will be known by the name of Cameahwait.”

To give a friend one’s own name was an act of high courtesy and a pledge of eternal friendship among the Agaidüka Shoshonis.

“Chief Black Gun,” said Captain Clark, moved by the gifts and the bestowal of the name, “I am honored greatly. I would like to think of you as a brother, as does Janey here—the one you call Boinaiv.”

The chiefs dark, impassive face broke into a wide grin. He was very pleased.

York opened up the pack sack on orders from Captain Clark, and he and Sergeant Gass passed out mirrors, beads, paint, and fish hooks to the pleased Agaidükas.

“That about skins it out,” said York, shaking the empty sack.

The next day was windless, with an unnatural warmth, as if summer had finally reached beyond its peak. In the morning, John Collins and George Gibson brought in several buffalo. Near noon, Hugh McNeal and John Ordway came into camp with three deer. Sacajawea went with some of the women to dig turnips in the valley beside the River for the People. Early in the afternoon, Captain Clark sent word to Chief Black Gun that the white men would like the Agaidükas to have a feast with them.

As the crier went around the lodges telling the people of the meal with the white men, wild whoops were heard and the Agaidükas descended on the camp. Without waiting for the meat to roast on the cooking sticks York and Charbonneau had placed around the fires, people began to eat and tear at the meat as if they had not seen any in weeks. They fought over their shares, pulling and jerking and greedily devouring the warm, dripping, raw flesh; they pulled great handfuls of Mandan corn from the kettles with their bare hands, not seeming to mind the heat.

“Do your people always act this way?” Captain Clark asked the chief. He was appalled by the scene.

“Game is scarce for us. Usually each hunter keeps what he kills for his own family. This is the first time many have had fresh game in weeks,” said Chief Black Gun sadly. He was standing next to Sacajawea, who looked on in silence.

Captain Clark turned his back on the blood-smeared scene and ordered Ordway and Collins to divide the three deer with the Agaidükas. In addition, he distributed what was left of the Mandan dried corn and beans.

“It won’t be many years before these people can live below the mountains and feed on corn, beans, and squashes,” said Captain Clark. “If they put their minds to it, they could become good farmers.”

Sacajawea turned away. “Good farmers,” she mimicked. “They have no taste for it yet.”

“They’ve eaten enough Mandan corn and beans to get the taste,” he flashed. “Lord knows, they could poke seeds into this ground in the spring.”

Sacajawea shook her head sadly. Then suddenly she looked at Chief Red Hair, her mouth rounded. “Please,” she said, “I would like to boil a little squash for my brothers to taste. Lord knows, they would like that. And I can show them how.”

Forgetting herself, she bolted for the cooking fire. Out of the tail of her eye, she saw Chief Red Hair settling down on a boulder and chuckling.

Chief Black Gun and his woman, Dancer, Spotted Bear and his woman, Cries Alone, Shoogan, Willow Bud and her man, Yellow Neck, ate the orange squash greedily. Sacajawea watched their mouths rounding as she pushed squash toward Shoogan.

“Leave me half my thumb,” she hooted.

As she fed the child the fragments left in the kettle, she hummed an ancient tune that lost itself now and then in her pleased chucklings.

“Miss Janey!”

Her song stopped short. York’s voice was not loud, but Sacajawea caught its excited pitch. “Whooo! You look here. I’se fetched something sweet for after supper.” York had a sly smile on his face, and a crowd of children behind him. The children were sucking their fingers. He handed her a handful of sugar cubes and put more on the ground beside Chief Black Gun. “It appears like it’s the first time they’se had such fine tastes.”

“These sweet stones are finer than anything I have ever dreamed of eating,” Yellow Neck told Sacajawea, smacking his lips loudly.

“Will the white traders bring these?” asked Spotted Bear.

“Ai,
they will bring all good things to the People,” she answered, and then began to show them how to put squash seeds into little holes in the ground and cover them, then look for the rain clouds and wait for the green shoots and then the fruit.

“Yes, sir,” York told Clark later. “They’se wild, but they’se like children when it comes to liking sweets. Lord, they’se still be licking their fingers. If the traders bring lots of sugar, there will be no reason to be scared of Injuns.”

A feeling welled up in Clark. York knew, right enough. He knew how to make friends. He knew people. Of its own accord, his hand reached out and took hold of York. “Thanks—I’ll make a note of it in my journal this minute.”

“Write how Miss Janey looked when she saw her kinfolk. You could’ve lit a lamp wick off that smile. I’se never seen the sun rise up in nobody like it done in her then—just as sudden as the rain pour down like it never going to stop.”

Now that he had begun to succeed in getting horses, Lewis evidently thinks that Sacajawea deserves a reward for her help. He gives Charbonneau some merchandise with which to buy a horse for her. What effect this has on her Indian women friends one can only guess. Certain they must be startled, since in their tribe it is the man of the family who rides if there is only one horse. If he owns a second animal, his wife and children may share rides, unless the horse is too heavily loaded with the family possessions. Possibly the women are jealous of Sacajawea when they see her mounted while they have not only to walk but help carry the white men’s baggage as well. Perhaps this is the beginning of her second separation from her people.

NETA LOHNES FRAZIER,
Sacajawea, the Girl Nobody Knows.
New York: David McKay Co., 1967, p. 71.

C
aptain Lewis and a couple of the men busied themselves packing and caching supplies for their return trip. They sank the remaining dugouts in the river. It was time to start on the portage over the mountains.

But Chief Black Gun was not interested in having the white men hurry on. He was enjoying the food the white men provided, and the entertainment they gave each evening around the campfire. The chief sent Big Moose, Spotted Bear, and several other hunters to look for buffalo in order to prepare the winter’s supply of meat. It was now the edge of the cold weather, and he had known throughout the last days of summer, when the autumn taste was in the air, that he would make the annual hunting trip sooner than usual, sending out most of the good horses with his hunters. Each year these Shoshonis joined their neighbors, the Flatheads, to go down into the plains with the hope of getting a winter meat supply before the Blackfeet could drive them off. The hunters took their skin sleeping rolls and leather sheaths filled with arrows and rode out leading the best Agaidüka horses.

When Lewis expressed impatience with the lesser grade of horses left at camp, the chief said, “Wait a few days until my hunters come back with the good horses packed high with meat.”

“Three days—I’ll wait no longer,” Captain Lewis told him. “Then I’ll buy horses from some other tribes—maybe the Flatheads, your neighbors.” In anticipation, Captain Clark and some of the men went on ahead to set up a forward camp.

Before leaving, Clark asked Chief Black Gun for several Shoshoni men to accompany him up a fork of the river he had named after Captain Lewis.
¹
No one but the old persimmon-faced warrior and his four sons volunteered. Even these five men looked as if they would turn back at any moment. Sensing their reluctance, York grabbed the hands of the four sons and jigged in a circle with them. Then he pulled the old warrior into the circle and began chanting. The warrior smiled, thinking that York had praised him and his sons with some great medicine. “I give you a name like one of us,” York said solemnly. “Here after we’se going to call you Toby.” He pointed a long black finger at the old man. “Toby—Old Toby.” Then he used hand signs to show it was a name.

The old warrior pushed out his mouth, and the corners quivered when he tried to speak. He appeared nearly to cry, he was so pleased. It must have been a considerable time since anyone had given him any sort of gift.

Captain Clark, Drouillard, and several others, under the guidance of Old Toby and his four sons, set out to explore the river and set up a camp. Once they stopped to watch some Agaidükas fishermen who used bone gigs fastened to short lengths of thin rawhide tied to poles. The gig struck the trout so hard that the sharp end passed through and caught the other side of the fish. They went on, following the river north, then turned west with it, after the entrance of a north fork. Then they saw the first canyons, whose steep sides and swift, rock-filled rapids caused Captain Clark to pronounce this a completely nonnavigable river. Toby pointed out that the Agaidükas called it the River of No Return.

By the next afternoon Captain Lewis was impatient when Big Moose and Spotted Bear had not returned to camp. The chief busied himself sending more men and some women with butcher knives made of chipped flint and more horses to the hunt. “Hunting is good when they stay!” the chief laughed.

Captain Lewis knew there was game in the area. His own hunters had come back with buffalo and antelope each morning, dividing their kill with the needy Shoshoni families, but now Lewis felt as though there were a cold wind blowing on him. The good horses were being sent out of camp! No, by God! The expedition was not going to be stuck here all winter, then have to turn back east in the spring. Suddenly he realized what Chief Black Gun was up to. He should have realized it by the way they had been greeted by these savages. The Indians were not only hungry for food, they were starved for comradeship. The expedition was made up of men who were compassionate and friendly. Chief Black Gun was trying to delay the expedition so that the Agaidükas would have food and company through the winter. That was why Charbonneau was encouraged to swagger around wearing his soiled ermine collar and to brag about his hunting ability, thought Lewis. By convincing Charbonneau he was a big man in camp, the Shoshonis thought to persuade him to encourage all the white men to stay for the winter. Well—they had the wrong man.

And Janey? Did she want to stay with her relatives? It would be a natural thing. But the expedition would be the loser. She and Pomp had kept the men’s spirits up when the going got tough, and she would be a continuing indication to future tribes that the expedition was peaceful. I will have to play my hand close to my chest, thought Lewis. All at once he laughed. “She’s the one. Thank the Lord for Janey!”

Captain Lewis devised a plan that afternoon with Sacajawea to get the goods carried over the foothills to the steep incline of the mountains where Captain Clark would be waiting. It was impossible to carry all the expedition’s supplies on the few horses the men had bought, so Sacajawea would ask the Agaidüka women who had strong backs to carry the heavy packs. The women would not say no; they had eaten much of the expedition’s dried corn and meat, and would be glad for a way of saying thanks.

Sacajawea moved from one tepee to the next. Finally she was standing in front of Willow Bud’s tepee. She felt a deep pain go through her when she noticed Willow Bud standing near the outdoor cook fire exactly as she had seen her own mother stand a thousand times, her arms folded across her bosom, quiet, as steady as the mountain behind the camp itself. Sacajawea felt like a child again, come home, eager to be enfolded in strong maternal arms, eager to be protected against all harm and hurt. Once again tears flowed down her face as she put her arms around her friend.