The Captain's Dog (7 page)

"Could be a trick," Captain Clark said.

Captain Lewis nodded. "But if it isn't, we don't want to insult them. We still need to do what we can to make peace. I'll take a few men up to the village and see what their intentions are."

Until we saw the village I don't think we knew how lucky we were to have avoided a fight with the Tetons. There were at least eighty tepees spread out over a long distance, housing eight hundred to nine hundred people.

In the center of the village, under guard, were fifty women and children taken prisoner from the Omaha tribe during a recent raid. When Captain Lewis asked about them, Black Buffalo boasted that the Tetons had destroyed forty Omaha lodges and killed seventy-five men and children during the raid.

We wandered around the village for several hours, learning as much as we could about the tribe. The Sioux possessed large herds of horses, which they used for hunting buffalo. They moved the village whenever it
suited them, in order to follow the buffalo herds or to find better shelter during the harsh winter. Scattered throughout the village were a number of scrawny dogs, which were made to fend for themselves on whatever bones and scraps of meat they could scrounge from the refuse heap. The Tetons treated their dogs with great contempt, throwing sticks and rocks at them, and kicking them if a foolish cur got within moccasin range. I was glad I was not a Teton dog.

That night there was a big celebration at the village, although there wasn't really anything to celebrate, as there was not a sliver of trust between our two tribes.

Captain Clark asked the chiefs to release the Omaha prisoners. "This gesture would help establish peace with you and the Omahas." The chiefs said they would, but we all knew they had no intention of releasing those poor people.

October 22, 1804

It has been nearly a month since my last entry in this journal, but this is not because the days have been uneventful. To the contrary.

We have had a successful council with the Arikara people—a very friendly tribe. They were astonished by our airgun. When we offered them a taste of whiskey, they refused, saying they were surprised their great Father to the east would offer them whiskey, which would make them act like fools. They gave us bushels of corn, Indian tobacco, and buffalo robes, which we will need now that winter is upon us.

Several men have joined us on our final push to the Mandan village, including an Arikara chief who is hopeful that we can help him achieve peace between his people and the Mandans....

CAPTAIN LEWIS
had not been scratching in the red book because he was in a serious rambling mood, despite the
prickly pear alongshore. The ground was covered with this spiny cactus and it was hard to find a place to walk without it biting you. On most days we left camp at sunup and walked until after dark. It was as if he knew the coming winter would curtail his rambling and he wanted to get in some extra walking while he still could.

We explored a number of abandoned Indian villages. The Captain went through the empty lodges, looking closely at what was left behind, pacing off how big each village was, and piecing together what it had looked like before the Indians moved on or died from diseases. He wrote this information down in the journal he and Captain Clark were keeping for President Jefferson.

There were thousands of buffalo on the prairie and dozens of wolves hunting them, a fatal dance I never tired of watching. The wolves came to the hunt with a plan in their hearts. They ran at the herd, then watched carefully through the billowing dust for a sign of weakness. When a weak animal was found they cut it out from the herd, running it to exhaustion before moving in for the kill. A wolf snapped at its hind legs, two or three others worried its flanks, and the fastest, strongest wolf latched its teeth onto the buffalo's nose, riding the massive head down until its beard collided with the ground. Sometimes the wolves chose badly. They
were gored. They were trampled. They died on the flat dusty prairie. Their steps faltered, but the dance never ended.

Around this time there was another dance going on in our camp. Private Moses Reed was leading it, and the only partner he could find was Private John Newman.

About the only thing Reed had learned from running the gauntlet was not to open his mouth against the captains in the presence of most of the other men. He now transferred his words into Private Newman's head, who in turn spoke them with
his
mouth. Whenever Reed got a chance he would slink up near Newman like a wolf and prey on his mind with poisonous words.

"Do you believe me now? I ran away to get me a better life and now I'm being treated just like a slave—in fact worse than a slave. The captains treat York better than me, better than all of us!

"It's time we did something about this. If we can get a few men on our side before we get to the Mandan village, we can take our oppressors down. Next spring we'll trap a few weeks and go back to our gals with our pouches filled with money.

"We won't get that land they promised us, I can tell you that. Those Tetons almost killed the lot of us and some of the Indians up ahead are worse. We're going to die out here. Every last one of us, we're all going to die.
And that girl of yours back home? How long do you think she's going to wait around for you?"

Hearing these words day after day was just too much for poor Newman. One night the men sat around the fire talking about this and that—the Arikara women, what the Mandan women would be like, would it ever stop raining, how cold the winter would be....

Newman was sitting quietly, as he usually did, staring into the fire, holding a cup of hot coffee in his hands to warm them—when suddenly he stood up and threw his mug onto the ground.

"I'm sick of being a slave!" he shouted. "Aren't all of you? It's time we knock the captains down a peg or two and take this expedition over! Who's with me?"

The men stared at him in mute bewilderment. Not even John Colter, who was seldom wordless, had anything to say.

"You're all cowards!" Newman spit. "I'm a young man with my whole life before me, and I intend to live it as a free man!"

Captain Clark, having heard the commotion all the way from the keelboat, strolled up to the fire. "Private Newman, would you care to recant those mutinous words you have spoken?"

Private Newman glared at him defiantly. "No sir, I would not."

"Confine him," Captain Clark said calmly, and strolled back to the keelboat.

The next day a court-martial was held and Newman was charged with expressing mutinous words. He was sentenced to seventy-five lashes, removal from the permanent party, and hard labor until he could be sent back to Saint Louis in the spring with the French boatmen.

After the lashing Newman was a changed man. He recanted what he had said and stopped listening to Reed. He hoped he could get back into the captains' good graces and continue with us in the spring, but the captains could not afford to have a weak-spirited or mutinous man as a member of the permanent party.

October 26, 1804

Tomorrow morning I will walk ahead to the Mandan village and make certain of our welcome.

I spent a good portion of the morning looking over my animal collection, in particular the prairie wolf Captain Clark managed to kill a few weeks ago. The animal is quite different from the larger gray wolfand is definitely a different species, but certainly a canine of some type. It was a female....

IT WAS MY LITTLE
beauty, whom I had not seen since the captains had fired upon her and missed. I knew she was still following us, but she seemed to have grown cautious again after her brush with the captains. I had hoped that experience would prevent her from showing herself again. It did not.

Captain Clark shot her while I was on a ramble with Captain Lewis. When we got back to camp we found her
stiffened body lying on the keelboat deck, her golden eyes dulled by death. I could not watch as the Captain measured her and stripped her fur away.

Colter yawns.

"How much more is there?" Drouillard asks.

"A good bit more," Colter says, flipping through the pages.

Drouillard looks at Mountain Dog and Watkuweis. "Colter's eyes are getting sore. We will continue reading tomorrow."

Watkuweis takes the red book, slips it back into the otter skin pouch, and hands it to Mountain Dog. "We will return tomorrow night," she says.

Colter and Drouillard watch them walk away and spread their blankets on the ground.

"So where the devil do you think they got that book?" Colter asks.

"Guess we'll find out after you finish reading it," Drouillard says.

Within a few minutes both men are asleep.

EARLY THE NEXT
morning I follow Mountain Dog out onto the prairie to help search for buffalo. It takes us all day to find a herd, and we don't get back to camp until after dark.

After we eat, Mountain Dog gets the otter bag from his tepee and we join Drouillard and Colter at their fire.

"Are Colter's eyes rested?" Watkuweis asks Drouillard.

"I suspect so," he says with a smile. "He's had them closed most of the day."

"What did she say?" Colter asks.

"She wants you to read."

Colter opens the red book....

October 29, 1804

We are now with the Mandans, trying to find a good spot to build our winter fort.

There was a prairie fire this morning in which several Mandans were burned to death while they were out hunting buffalo....

WHEN THE INFERNO
died down, I followed Drouillard and Tabeau out onto the scorched flatland to view the devastation. We found the charred remains of buffalo, wolves, foxes, rabbits, and humans.

"Gray Squirrel and his wife, Running Water," Tabeau said, looking down at two bodies. "Grass fires move as fast as the wind. They didn't have a chance."

"
Caw! Caw! Caw!
"

White Feather landed on a burnt buffalo skin not far from the bodies. It had been a long time since I had
seen him, and I figured he had stopped following us. I was happy he was back.

"
Caw! Caw! Caw!
"

Drouillard and Tabeau continued their conversation and did not give the crow a single glance. I walked over to the buffalo skin and White Feather flew away. Something moved beneath the skin and I started digging. There was a cry to go along with a movement, which quickly turned into a loud wailing. Drouillard pushed me aside and Tabeau flipped the skin over. It was a child making the noise.

"I'll be," Tabeau said. "Gray Squirrel's son. When the fire came they must have rolled him up in the wet skin. There isn't a blister on him."

"Why didn't they crawl under the skin themselves?"

"Not big enough."

Drouillard picked the boy up and carried him back to the Mandan village.

November 3, 1804

We have started building our fort. It is located across from the first Mandan village....

THERE WERE TWO
Mandan villages, one on the east side of the Missouri and one on the west side. A little farther north were three Hidatsa villages situated on the smaller Knife River.

The Mandans lived in large earth lodges about forty feet around. In each village there were forty lodges, with at least ten people living in each lodge. At night they brought their horses and dogs right into the lodge to sleep alongside them.

The men built our fort across from the first Mandan village. The gated wall surrounding the fort was made out of stout trees and stood eighteen feet tall. The captains had the swivel gun put on top of the wall in case we were attacked. Inside were two rows of small huts for
the men to sleep in, a foundry, and a plaza to hold council with the Indians, of whom there was a steady flow.

The Mandan and Hidatsa villages functioned like the wharves I had grown up on, but instead of using money, transactions were based purely on trade. Each lodge was a store filled with goods. Cheyenne, Arikara, Sioux, Otos, French and English from Canada, Spaniards, and men and women from half a dozen other tribes traveled across the prairie sea to trade their wares here. A good horse might cost three tanned buffalo robes, one hundred blue beads, and twenty pounds of corn. The Indian who traded the horse would take what he got and trade it for something he and his family needed.

The Mandans were experienced traders. When we first arrived they offered us a few gifts of meat and corn, but after that it was all business. Dozens of Mandans showed up at the fort every day with bushels of corn and squash, meat, buffalo robes, furs, and other items. The men would sit down with them in the plaza and the long process of haggling over prices would begin.

It wasn't long before the cold descended and held us in its icy fist. The river froze solid and our men walked around with buffalo robes wrapped around themselves, the hair sides against their bodies. The Mandans didn't seem to be bothered by the cold. They wore thin moc
casins and often spent the night out on the windswept prairie without a fire or a robe to keep them warm. Because of my fur, I was not particularly bothered by the cold. In fact I preferred the cold to the heat of summer.

When the men were off duty they huddled around the fires in their huts, trying to keep the chill away, or walked over to the Mandan villages to visit with the women.

The captains spent most of their time inside the fort. Captain Lewis worked on his notes for President Jefferson, and Captain Clark refined the maps of where we had been.

One day a Frenchman named Toussaint Charbonneau showed up at the fort and walked in on Captain Lewis unannounced, catching him in the middle of working on his animal collection. Charbonneau did not know better than to disturb the Captain when he was working.

"My name is Toussaint Charbonneau," he said with a heavy accent. "I would like to be your interpreter."