Sacajawea (98 page)

The man stared unbelieving at the sweating squaw who laid her hoe against the rocks and motioned him to follow. He began unscrewing the cap of his powder flask, and pulled from the flask a cylinder of tightly rolled paper. Just inside the lodge were fur bales that Charbonneau hoped to exchange later for supplies. The man looked at them, then looked into the center of the lodge where Charbonneau was pouring water into a sack of flour to make
galette.

Sacajawea tied the man’s horse to Charbonneau’s, which was hobbled at the side of the lodge. She saw a twitching around Charbonneau’s mouth, the beginning of a grin that anticipated a meeting with an old friend. But he did not know this man.

The stranger took Charbonneau by the arm. “Charbonneau—Toussaint?”

“Oui.”
He let the water go unkneaded in the small flour sack. “What you want with me?”

“I am André La Croix. I have a letter.” He unrolled the bit of paper.

“Wait! Can you read it?” Charbonneau reached for the paper. “Name of a name, who would write all this to me?”

“We find out who he is.” André La Croix read the letter. His English came with difficulty, his lips exploring every sound.

Sacajawea looked over La Croix’s shoulder and drewin her breath. She stared frozenly. To her the neat script meant only one person, Chief Red Hair.

August 20, 1806, in board Pirogue near Ricara Village

Charbono:

“Read it once more,” urged Sacajawea.

Charbonneau made a noise in his throat that signified nothing. “What does it mean?”

La Croix sucked in his breath and expressed exasperation. He had an owllike face and round, lightless black eyes; he was darker than Charbonneau. His fat shoulders and short back were blackened by the sun and wind. He wore a white mussel-shell necklace with a pendant of bear claws.

“Did you see Chief Red Hair?” Sacajawea ran her hands lightly over the paper.

“When I left him, he and his men, they were going to Saint Louis.” He read the script again.

Charbonneau shook his head in two short, impatient jerks, as if the suggestions had enraged and awed him. He was in a quandary. Which offer was best for him? How should he get down to Saint Louis? When should he go? Should he go at all? He argued and considered, and then decided not to go. He did not have enough pelts yet.

“Pouf!” said La Croix, fastening his belt up another notch, “you’re too damned toplofty for your good, my man. A chance like that? You decide not to do anything. A bigger fool I’ve never seen.” He pulled on glossy skin gloves and went out to mount his horse.

Sacajawea turned so the firelight touched her eyes. They were half-closed, narrow; their polished gleam was no wider than two splinters of sharp flint. They were hostile, and her voice was hostile. “You have shown yourself to be a jackass and a fool.”

She darted after La Croix. “We have pemmican and
galette.
Eat; then you’ll be ready to start out.”

“Merci; au revoir.
A free trader like myself ought to be moving before sunset, Madame Charbonneau. I was paid fairly to get the letter into Charbonneau’s hand. Now that the job is finished I’m heading toward the Lake of Rains—there’s a long enough trail ahead. If I sit around, I hear things that are not there—the wind in the grass, the sound of running hooves on the earth, the murmur of water about a canoe bow, the beat of a skin drum, the chanting of watermen. So I go back to trapping and living among Assiniboins and Ojibwas.
Savez-vous
? I like white man’s luxuries, though — mashed potatoes with salt.”

“Vous attendez.”
Sacajawea ducked inside the lodge and was back in a minute with a handful of sugar cubes. Some were stained purple because they had been kept in a bag with dried currants and plums.

“Merci!”
called La Croix as he rode off, first looking up and around to orient himself by the sun as Sacajawea stammered her gratitude to him for bringing the letter. Then he rode in a beeline for the north, going through the back gate of the village and keeping on across the prairie to the edge of the forest.

Sacajawea shivered with sudden anticipation. She thought of holding the letter, looking at the markings that Chief Red Hair had made. She thought, He does think of us as I think each day of him. We will meet again.

Charbonneau went to Fort Pine to trade his furs. The days turned to winter, and the country was changed. Sacajawea’s memories crowded together and moved in a tightly woven parade, overlapping and merging until they blurred before her eyes as if in a whirl of snowflakes. When she could stand it no longer, she reached into the sack that held Charbonneau’s valuables, such as his government money order, his French harp, three or four tallow candles, and Clark’s letter. She looked at the markings on the paper in the light of the lodge fire and found some that were similar. But she could not read them.

She now lived in the present, using events gone by only as a measure of comparison, as a guiding experience for the future, which never emerged. There was an inherent vitality in Sacajawea’s coppery figure, an ability to adapt, a placidity and devotion to her child, that gave no sign of weakening. Otter Woman observed this vital force in Sacajawea through the searing monotony of the days when the snow spread a white cover over the quiet hills and the river froze.

When Charbonneau returned from the north, he was in a black mood because he felt he had not received enough for his fine pelts. He began to grumble over the food his women brought him. He did not like the steady diet of corn and squash and elk jerky. Both women explained that he had not brought in enough other meat to use in the stew or to make pemmican.

Grimacing, Sacajawea told Otter Woman of the steady diet of fish that winter in Fort Clatsop.

“Fish would taste good now!” exclaimed Otter Woman, pulling her soiled woolen blanket more tightly around her shoulders.

“We will get some, then,” said Sacajawea, and she told the boys to pull on their warm leggings. They walked upstream to fish through the ice, away from the places where the young boys of the village fished, sothat none would tease or taunt them with shouts of how their man could not provide enough food. They caught small bass. Sacajawea told how the white men did not eat the insides, not even the heads of fish. Otter Woman shook her head, thinking of all that good food going to waste.

In the evening, Charbonneau was cheered for a few moments as he ate several fish rolled in flour and fried crisply. The two women chatted in Shoshoni, softly, so as not to bother him as he ate. The winter was getting him down, with nothing in his trap line, no traders in the village, and the family of Corn Woman demanding more meat and hides in payment for the life of their daughter. The less Charbonneau did, the less he wanted to do this cold winter. He spent the afternoons playing the stick game with Chief Kakoakis. He never asked anymore where the evening’s fresh fish came from. He reasoned that they could be from the old woman, Grasshopper, who came to visit his women often.

Charbonneau did not know exactly what day it was, but one morning when the sun shone on the sparkling white snow he declared it was Christmas, crossed himself, and played his French harp.

Sacajawea recalled the merriment and gift-giving of the white soldiers. She gave Pomp and Tess the last little sugar lumps, and Otter Woman was given some short pieces of blue satin ribbon.

“Nous avons envie de danser,”
suggested Sacajawea.

“Mon dieu,
dance then,” said Charbonneau. He watched her strong legs and vigorous body as she danced around the lodge with the little boys following. She was no longer
petite et delicate
as she had seemed the night she sat on the blanket for the hand game. He had known this change for many months and had asked himself questions for which he had no ready answers. She was the leader. It was obvious as she moved to the center of the lodge with quick, certain steps, and there was an excitement stirring within her, as if she were again making her own plans to see the country in its immense richness. Charbonneau told himself he disliked energetic, headstrong women. Still, there was a nymphlike quality about Sacajawea. He was most attracted to the elfin, submissive qualities of very young girls.

In the spring of 1807, there were moccasin telegrams sending word that “American trade boats are coming up the Big Muddy.” One group was going to the mouth of the Bighorn. One group would build a trading post at the Five Villages, and another would bring Big White and his family home.

“That subchief on his way home?” Charbonneau shook his head. “A man can’t do a thing nowadays without it getting upstream faster than a bird flies away from winter. There will be too many people around here presently.”

“jussome will be coming, too,” Otter Woman reminded him.

“Pah! This is something to think about. My eyes won’t hurt none to have another look at his ugly face. I have missed that old Picardois. I think he is one fine bird. This time next year I will have him pluck,
non?”

Charbonneau’s round belly and winter fat shook as he chuckled. It was plain he thought well of his joke. “Jussome will strut around the street of this village, and I will pull those tail-feathers out of him.
Hein!
I think his feathers turn to dry leaves when he gets home,
pardieu.”

“Who will build the trading post on the Bighorn’s mouth?” asked Sacajawea, her lips quivering.

“Les rats de la rivière ne reconnaissent pas leur ancêtre maternelle une fois partie
,” Charbonneau swore softly. “It will be the first fort built above the Five Villages. I would like to be there.”

“Could you go?” asked Sacajawea, her eyes wide. “It is not far from the camp of my brother, Chief Black Gun. The People will dance when they see traders coming.”

“Ah, ça!
It is not that easy.
Nom d’un nom,
you make it so simple. Can’t you see the job for me is here? I can be an interpreter here for the men who come up the river. Many will be coming, and I will have much to do.”

There was a timid knock on the rough plank lodge door. Otter Woman turned to Charbonneau, who satwith his eyes shut, leaving morose creases in his face. “I was not expecting anyone.”

“It is visitors, though; the knocking continues.”

Charbonneau opened his small eyes and opened his hands and fairly flung them at Otter Woman.

She went to the heavy door, made from soft cottonwood cut to size with an ax and chiseled to fit the opening. It was hung with wide leather strips tied around the doorframe and the first plank in the door. The whole thing was stained a deep ocher with clay mixed in bear’s grease. The door swung open slowly and strained the leather bindings, making a groaning sound.