The Captain's Dog (6 page)

There was no one more cheered by this news than me. The captains sent a dozen men out onto the prairie to help Joe bring the meat back to camp, and every one of them was needed.

The buffalo was covered in woolly brown fur. It had a hump on its back, stubby horns, bulging brown eyes, and a beard, and it tasted better than anything I had ever had in my mouth. When we had all feasted to our satisfaction, the captains had the men cut the leftover meat into thin strips, salt them, then lay them in the sun to dry. They called this jerking. The dried meat was light to carry and didn't spoil.

Despite having their bellies filled with buffalo, some of the men were still dispirited by the loss of Sergeant Floyd. Those closest to the sergeant, including the captains, seemed to be spending more time on their own than they had prior to his passing. In the evenings when the work was done, they would wander off and find a spot away from the others and sit for long periods of time preoccupied with their thoughts.

August 27, 1804

Private Shannon did not come back to camp last night, and we are greatly worried about him. We don't know if he's lost, had trouble with Indians, or has met with some accident. Reed's desertion, Floyd's death, and now the disappearance of the youngest member of the party...

SHANNON WAS NOT
a good hunter, and the Captain was afraid that he might starve to death if they didn't find him quickly. John Colter was sent out to look for him, but he came back without picking up his trail. Drouillard tried next, but he didn't have any luck, either.

I started sniffing around and came to the conclusion that they were searching in the wrong direction. Shannon wasn't behind us. He was in front of us. He must have missed our camp and thought that we were ahead of him.

When I made the discovery the captains were both aboard the keelboat. I tried to get one of the men walking onshore to follow me, but they were tired and hungry and in no mood to pay attention.

"Quit pestering me!"

"Shut up, Sea!"

"Not now, you big skunk."

Humans can be so dense at times! Even if I had gotten them to follow me, they probably would not have understood what I was trying to show them. I had found Shannon's moccasin prints and a dead fire where he had roasted a small rabbit. The captains, Drouillard, and Colter were probably the only men who would have recognized that the prints and fire were Shannon's and not some passing Indian's.

I decided to wait for another opportunity and arrived back at the river in time to see three Indian boys jump in the water and swim out to the keelboat. Dorion spoke with them and told the Captain that they were Yankton Sioux boys. The rest of the tribe was a few miles upriver.

"Good," Captain Lewis said. "We'll set up camp here. I want you and Sergeant Pryor to go up there and invite them to parley with us."

That evening the Captain and I went out for a ramble and I picked up Shannon's trail again. I started barking and whimpering and carrying on to get his attention.

"What is it, Sea?"

I ran ahead, with the Captain following close behind. After half a mile I came across a clear moccasin print near some berry bushes where Shannon had been grazing. I barked at the print and the Captain bent down for a closer look.

"No wonder we can't find Shannon," he said. "He's ahead of us! I wonder how far ahead?"

Three days and moving quick, I knew, but I had no way to convey this information.

When we got back to camp, Captain Lewis explained "his" discovery, and the following day he sent Colter out to catch Shannon, loaded with extra provisions, knowing that Shannon would likely have a hollow belly.

Two days later Sergeant Pryor arrived with a group of Yankton Sioux.

"These Yanktons are real friendly," he reported. "They wanted to carry me into their camp on a buffalo hide, but I declined, telling them that I wasn't the chief. When I got there they fed me a fat roasted dog. Delicious!"

I looked around at the men, expecting to see them disgusted by this horror, but all of them just stood there grinning like a bunch of fools. At the time I thought they were just hiding their revulsion.

That night, after Captain Lewis had given his speech and handed out gifts, the men built three large bonfires and had a party. The Yanktons put on their best buffalo robes and vests decorated with beads, feathers, and porcupine quills. They danced and sang in the firelight to the sound of skin drums and rattles made from deer hooves, which I liked much better than the squeak of the fiddle. The Yankton women danced next, waving around human scalps that had been taken by their fathers and husbands in battles.

Not to be outdone, Private Cruzatte played some whiny tunes on his fiddle and the men danced to the music. One of the French boatmen showed the Yanktons how he could dance on his hands, then York got into the fray, dancing until he nearly collapsed, which impressed the Yanktons greatly. The young girls looked at the ground and covered their shy smiles every time York caught them staring at him in admiration.

The next morning the Yankton chiefs met with the captains before we proceeded on. They told the captains they needed guns, not medals and beads, to protect them from their enemies. The captains said they could not give them guns, but assured them that their new father would give them gifts beyond their imagination if they would go to visit him in Washington. The chiefs said they would go, and Dorion stayed behind to guide them there.

September 6, 1804

Still no sign of our man Shannon ... This is truly the land of plenty. Everywhere we look there are deer, elk buffalo, and other creatures previously unknown to me. But Shannon is no hunter, and I fear he may be dead...

ONE OF THESE
new creatures was a small hoofed animal with stiff, buff-colored hair, large eyes, and short-pronged horns. It was an awkward-looking beast, but it was the fastest thing on hooves I had ever seen. It sped across the ground in long graceful bounds, faster than a bird could fly.

"I swear to god," Colter said, "that animal can outrun a musket ball." It took several days and dozens of shots to prove this theory wrong.

Another animal we discovered during this time was
the whistling rat—at least that's what I thought it was when I first laid eyes on it.

Captain Lewis and I were on a ramble one afternoon when I heard a strange whistling noise in the distance. I ran ahead to see what it was and I came across a whole town of rats. There were thousands of them popping in and out of these holes in the ground, warbling like a flock of songbirds. I tried to catch one to bring back to the Captain, but they dived down their hatches faster than I could snap my jaw closed.

The Captain came along and watched me for a time, then said, "I think we'll need some help with this, Sea. Let's go."

We went back to camp and enlisted a few of the men to help us conquer the rat town.

"Our mission is to capture one alive," the Captain informed them.

A French boatman accompanying us said the animals were not rats, but prairie dogs. He must have been mistaken, because they didn't look or act anything like dogs.

The men tried to dig one out of the ground but gave up after going down six feet without so much as seeing one of the little rat-dogs.

"Any other ideas?" the Captain asked.

"Maybe we could use water to flush them out," Sergeant Gass suggested.

"It's worth a try."

With great difficulty they hauled two barrels of river water up to the rat town and poured the contents down a hole. After a time, one of the soggy animals crawled out into the open and a man grabbed it. We had our live prairie dog. Captain Lewis was delighted with the homely creature. He put it in a box and said he planned to send it back to President Jefferson when the keelboat returned in the spring.

It was a few days after this that we made our best discovery. We came around a sharp bend in the river and Labiche shouted out from the bow, "By god, it's Shannon!"

Sure enough, Private George Shannon was sitting on the bank, grinning from ear to ear despite his pitiful condition. But I don't know who was happier to see whom—the captains and the men nearly wept with joy when they laid eyes on him. He was the youngest of the men and a favorite with everyone.

He said he'd had nothing to eat for the past twelve days but a handful of grapes and a rabbit. "I sat down this morning figuring I was done for. I knew I would never catch up with you, starving like I was. I was just waiting for the Grim Reaper to come along and take me away."

Shannon went on to explain that a few days after he
left us he ran out of balls for his rifle. "I managed to kill the rabbit by whittling down a hunk of wood into a musketball for my gun. Thank god it worked! If it hadn't been for that bit of luck, you'd be burying me right now, boys."

September 24, 1804

I am fearful that our meeting with the Teton Sioux will not go as well as our meeting with the Yanktons. Earlier this afternoon Private Colter informed us that a group of Indians had stolen his horse. A few minutes after we received this information, five young Tetons hailed us from shore, asking if they could ride in the boat. We told them that we would not even talk to any of their people, including the chief, until our horse was returned...

I MISSED THE
initial meeting with the Teton Sioux because I caught a glimpse of White Feather and had run off into the forest looking for him. When I got back to the men, Captain Lewis had completed his speech and demonstration, and Captain Clark was handing out gifts to the three chiefs. The captains had anchored the keelboat in the middle of the river with men manning the blunderbusses and swivel gun. Along shore were at
least two hundred Teton warriors armed with bows and arrows. The air was saturated with the scent of fear and anger. My hackles came to attention.

The three main chiefs—Black Buffalo, the Partisan, and Buffalo Medicine—stared with surly indifference at the gifts they had been given. The Partisan began yowling about his pitiful gift, loud enough for everyone to hear. Buffalo Medicine and Black Buffalo were not about to be outdone by the Partisan, so they started yowling, too.

The captains were dismayed by this turn of events and tried to make it up by inviting all three chiefs out to the keelboat for a tour. When they all got there the captains offered the chiefs a little taste of whiskey, which seemed to settle them down some, but when it was time to take them back to shore in the pirogue the Partisan started stumbling around the deck as if he were drunk, saying that he would not leave.

The captains were furious, but they kept their tempers under control, knowing they could not bodily force the chiefs from the keelboat with a throng of warriors standing alongshore watching their every move. Using several of the men, they were able to gently herd the chiefs back into the pirogue. Captain Lewis stayed aboard the keelboat while Captain Clark and a couple of men quickly rowed the chiefs to shore.

When they got there three of the Partisan's warriors
wrapped themselves around the mast of the pirogue and two other men took hold of the mooring rope. The Partisan said that they would not let the boat go until he was given gifts worthy of his rank He reckoned that one of our pirogues filled with supplies might do for starters.

Captain Clark's face turned as red as his hair, and he drew his sword from his scabbard.

"Release our pirogue," he shouted. "Now!"

"Prepare arms," Captain Lewis said with icy calmness, lighting a taper and holding it above the keelboat's cannon.

The men on board shouldered their rifles and pointed them toward shore. The Tetons alongshore strung their bows and pointed them at our men.

"On my command," Captain Lewis said quietly. "Not a second before. Steady..."

For a few moments there was complete stillness, as if every living thing were holding its breath. If one of our tribe discharged his musket, or a Teton let an arrow fly-even by accident—the Missouri would flow with blood and our journey would end.

Black Buffalo put an end to the tension by calmly walking over to the warriors holding the rope and telling them to let it go. Reluctantly they obeyed.

"Take the pirogue back to the keelboat," Captain Clark said.

"What about you, Captain?"

"I am not afraid of these Indians and I will not retreat from them, but I don't want them to take our boat. So get it out of here, Private."

As the boat pulled away, Captain Clark was quickly surrounded by Teton warriors. He did not show a hint of fear and began speaking very roughly to them.

As soon as the pirogue got to the keelboat, a dozen men jumped into it and furiously rowed it back to assist Captain Clark The sight of our men rushing back toward shore with their guns dispersed the crowd.

Captain Clark did not want to leave the situation on a bad note. Before he boarded the pirogue, he approached the chiefs and put his hand out in friendship. Not even Black Buffalo would take his hand, which turned Captain Clark's face red again. He harangued the chiefs with another barrage of choice words no one translated, but the meaning was clear enough. When he'd finished he stomped off toward the pirogue and told the men to shove off.

They hadn't gotten ten feet from shore when Black Buffalo and a couple of his warriors waded out into the water to their waists, begging Captain Clark to take them to the keelboat with him so they might ride in it. Captain Clark softened and picked them up.

As soon as they got to the keelboat the anchors were hauled up and we proceeded a short distance upriver, to an island the captains named Bad Humor. That night
no one slept a wink. Even with Black Buffalo as our guest, the men were still fearful the Tetons would attack.

By morning things looked a little brighter. The Partisan joined us and behaved as if nothing had happened the night before. He and Black Buffalo invited the captains up to their villages. The captains stepped away to discuss the invitation.