Sacajawea

  That evening, the three Nokonis were made welcome by Chief Pronghorn. Kicking Horse danced around the fire for them in his finest headdress. He had taken a new woman to share the lodge chores with his young woman, Flower. The new woman was Pahahty, Together, a widow with two small sons. Kicking Horse was like a grandfather with the boys; he wanted to show them to all the Quohadas in one evening. He could not stay away from their side; he wanted them to know about his medicine, and his raiding abilities, and his horsemanship. The little boys were only hungry and sleepy; they wanted to curl up in their mother’s lap. Together was a pleasant-looking young woman whom Sacajawea had seen around the camp. She wished them both much happiness.

  Together served hot broth to the three Nokoni strangers at the request of Kicking Horse so that the good cooking ability of his new woman would be known by all the camp.

  Round Belly came simpering outside the tepee and eyed the warrior with the large silver plates in his hair. She moved a little closer to him, until finally she was very near. He looked at her and forgot to drink his broth. She asked him a question. He nodded his approval. Round Belly ducked into the tepee and came out with a dried buffalo tongue and began to undo his long braids, taking out the silver plates. She brushed his hair all the while the men spoke of planning a raid against the white men.

  “We do not want the white men to plan a raid against us,” said Pronghorn. “There are white men and more white men. There are only this many Quohadas,” he said, extending his arm around his camp.

  The men talked more. “Will you come if we plan a raid?” one warrior asked once more.

  “No, we will not go on large raids against the whites, only small ones to keep them back. Small ones are irritating and keep them from moving into our lands completely. We like the old way of keeping to ourselves unless provoked.”

  “Then you will not stand up as our brothers?”

  “We will help your old women and old men and children when you are all killed by whites,” answered Pronghorn.

  One of the warriors pulled on the fellow having his is hair combed.

  “The only way you can get her to stop is to take her as your woman,” said Kicking Horse, joking.

  “I will take her, then,” said the Nokoni warrior, laying all the hammered silver disks at the feet of Kicking Horse; then he brought the horse he was leading over and tied him at the side of Kicking Horse’s lodge.

  Round Belly smiled shyly and went inside the tepee. In minutes she came out dressed in her finest tunic, with whangs at the bottom, and her hair slicked with deer tallow until it shone. Flower said, “Your father will miss you.” Together said, “Obey your man, my daughter. Send us word when you can.” Round Belly smiled as she mounted the Nokoni’s horse behind her wooer.

  Kicking Horse himself was dumbfounded. He was attracted to the silver disks, but he never in the world believed that his daughter would find someone who would take her, and he never believed he would have such fascinating medicine objects as the silver disks. His smile of approval came finally and was broad, showing his straight, horselike teeth.

  The Quohadas cheered and clapped as the three Nokoni men and Round Belly rode off. “She was lucky to find a rich and brave man,” they said. “She was lucky.”

  In the year following that summer, Spring was given trinkets by Wounded Buck, who had lost his woman during a siege of the winter sickness. Wounded Buck had taken Wild Plum out on short excursions looking for deer and antelope. Once when he brought Wild Plum back to Spring, he told how the boy had shot the deer. Spring was proud. “Now, my son, you can supply our tepee with meat.”

  “It is my place to do that,” said Wounded Buck. “I am going to care for you and the boy as my own.” After that, their ensuing marriage was the talk of the camp.

  Wounded Buck had proved himself a strong warrior, but not until he had brought in a Kiowa scalp. Before that, the most he had done was to steal a rifle and a couple of horses. He had lost the rifle before he got back to camp, and the horses were not staked one night and wandered off.

  The women talked about the match. Some said they were surprised that Spring had not taken a man sooner because she could have had her pick of the bachelors. Someone even suggested they were surprised Kicking Horse had not chosen her, because he was always at the lodge of her brother, Jerk Meat, eyeing and jabbering with the one called Lost Woman. A few laughed at this sly joke.

  Wounded Buck brought three fine horses to the lodge of Pronghorn. He and Hides Well came out dressed in their best; then Big Badger came out and acted surprised. Spring led the horses to her father’s herd, and Wounded Buck led her shyly to the tepee that Sacajawea and Hides Well had fixed for them. Pronghorn sent Big Badger around to announce the event and declare Wounded Buck a member of his family, which everyone already knew.

  Before the exciting day was over, Sacajawea felt the first stab of pain go from her abdomen around to her back. She hated to miss the fun, but quickly she dragged an old robe behind a thicket of low-growing piñons. She did not want to have the others miss the festivities bystopping to build a birth lodge for her. It seemed to take a long time to get to the flat place behind the chaparral. The baby was born quickly. It was a girl. Sacajawea was glad, even though there would be no celebration for a girl. She wrapped the papoose in a thin, soft skin after tying the cord with rawhide whangs from her skirt. Then she dozed off and on for the rest of the afternoon. The sun was beginning to turn the thin streak of clouds bright pink when she awakened and lazily watched a brown butterfly hover over the sleeping papoose. Sacajawea got weakly to her feet and drank several handfuls of cool water from the stream. She cleaned herself slowly, then cleaned the baby, who cried as the cold water hit her little back and front. That evening, the women ooed and ahed over the new Quohada. “Tiny,” someone said, “but well formed. See her hands flutter like the butterflies.”

  They moved south for the winter, which passed easily. The stream around which the camp was centered froze, and the boys and girls slid and played games on it. The stream did not go dry; sometimes the antelope came to drink from the holes the men had chopped in the ice, and the men would lie in hiding to kill them. The Quohadas had fresh meat regularly. They had not seen any sign of the taibo, white hunters, or their wagon trains for some time now, and they were feeling more secure and free in their own lands, more like the old times.

  The members of the band now seemed to accept Sacajawea. They spoke to her freely, and when she had a heavy load to lift, any of the women might come over to help. She felt more relaxed and willing to help when a mother came to her with an ailing child. The Medicine Man, Kicking Horse, did not seem to mind that she had special knowledge, such as how to cut a cross on a rattlesnake bite, then suck the poison out.

  One time, a warrior came to her with a huge piece of lead lodged in his side. The side had become red and inflamed. She had him go to the spring and stand in the pool waist-deep, bathing the wound. The warrior could not stand straight. After a while, she commanded him to stand up and push out on his stomach muscles.

  The warrior did with great effort, and the black blood oozed from his side. The second time he did it, the lead popped out in his hand. Sacajawea had him stand with the wound in the water for several minutes. Then she warned him not to put his hands near the wound, nor to put the fur of a beaver over it, nor wet buffalo dung. “You must keep only clean grass and a strip of soft skin over the hole.” Her reputation as a wise woman grew in the band.

  As the seasons followed one another, she taught many little girls to sew and make beautiful patterns of flowers and trees and animals on the yokes of their tunics. This knowledge she had gathered partly from the memory of her own grandmother’s teachings, partly from the Mandans and Minnetarees, and partly from Judy Clark. The Comanche women had never seen anyone so creative. They encouraged their girls to learn her patterns of embroidery with colored quills.

  One evening, Jerk Meat stared into the dying lodge fire thinking that it was now ti
me for Ticannaf to go to his place of dreaming. To him, the boy did not seem old enough, although he had been alive fourteen summers. “I know a place Ticannaf must go,” said Jerk Meat.

  ‘That is only part of what you know,” teased Sacajawea. “Our boy must go alone. You cannot help him. That is the way.”

  “Ai, but I must show him the place.” He leaned forward. “All this—the stars, the tepee fires, the ways of our people—all this is good. But I know other things. There are now dead buffalo on the plains; there are soldiers and hunters on our hunting grounds.”

  “My man, there are no soldiers around here.”

  “They will come.”

  “And so—the Quohadas will move.”

  Jerk Meat smiled. “The Quohadas will fight.”

  “I have heard those words many times,” she said. “You will fight, and I will fight with you when the time comes. But before that our son must go to his place of dreaming. And we will think of a better way than fighting.”

  Jerk Meat looked across the fire. Ticannaf and Butterfly were already asleep on their robes.

  At daybreak, Ticannaf called to his father, who was getting out of his sleeping robes. “Let’s go! Come on! We can race the wind!”

  ‘Take me! Take me!” Butterfly held up her arms to her big brother. “I will not cry. I will not make any trouble.”

  “This is no trip for girls,” Ticannaf growled. “It is only for braves.”

  “You are not yet a brave,” said Butterfly, pulling at the tassels that hung from the back of Ticannaf’s moccasins.

  “I will be in four suns. Count. I will be back in four suns.”

  Father and son were gone.

  Sacajawea tried to tell her small dark-eyed daughter how it was for a young man to go off alone and seek his personal medicine. “It is a time when Ticannaf has only the wind for company. He will not eat or drink. He will let his spirit flow with the animals and plants. When his spirit is free he will talk in a stronger voice than the others and he will remember it all his life. That one will be his protector, his personal medicine. From then on, in any time of need for himself or his people, Ticannaf will be able to talk with his protector and he will receive advice. This is a time for strengthening from the inside for Ticannaf. When we see him again, he will be a man. This is the Comanche way.”2

  Jerk Meat and Ticannaf rode until dusk. They made camp in a small grove of wind-stunted oaks where there was grass and a spring for the horses. The place was familiar to Jerk Meat. They built a fire. The evening was not cold. They ate the pemmican in silence. Jerk Meat waited for the sun to go down completely. Then he called his son to his side.

  “You are here,” he said.

  “I am ready,” Ticannaf nodded.

  “From this very spot many years ago, I set out for the Hill. It is now less than a day’s ride. Can you find it?”

  “Ai.”

  “You follow the stream toward the river until you come to the two hills that rise above the plains like the breasts of a woman. The hill that looks down upon the other is the Hill. The signs are good, I think.”

  “I will find my protector.”

  “Here, take these things with you.” Jerk Meat gave his son a bone pipe, tobacco, and an old fire drill in a buffalo-horn case. The boy had a good buffalo robe of his own. “Cleanse yourself in the spring tonight; go on in the morning.” Jerk Meat thought of the Hill sitting in a twisted, rough world of blown sand and jutting rocks, where brown-yellow canyons slashed the earth and the buttes reared into the high, searching winds.

  “I will return with the puha, medicine power. I swear it.”

  Jerk Meat’s sharp-lined face was dark and grim in the early blackness. “You are my only son, tua. Come back. Do not take risks. There are unknowns in this country. You will be weak from the fasting and nights with no sleep—”

  “A man must go himself when he seeks the vision,” Ticannaf said. “Nothing can harm me when I have my medicine.”

  “So it is said.” Jerk Meat wanted to tell him that he had seen many men die who had good medicine. That Big Badger was not always correct in his teachings, that good medicine was not everything, that he, Jerk Meat, was beginning to wonder if it was really anything. But he could not say these profane things to his son. Not at this time. “You must take great care.”

  Ticannaf was excited. He was in no mood to listen to words of caution. “I will remember what you have said. I must go now to the spring and make myself clean.”

  Jerk Meat watched his fourteen-year-old son, graceful as a young buck, as he ran toward the water. Slowly Jerk Meat went to his horse and headed toward the Quohada camp to sleep by the side of his beloved, Lost Woman.

  Halfway home, he saw the small white tents of the soldiers. He saw the horses staked behind the tents. There seemed to be only one cart carrying supplies, and the horses still wore their packs. The small fires werebarely visible through the mesquite. At first he did not understand this camp, then slowly it came to him—this was a war party camping. He crept closer to count the horses and tents. There were enough to fill both hands three times. He crept back to his horse, mounted quietly, and turned to circle the camp, avoiding the yedettes, the mounted guards, around the outskirts.

  Then he rode his horse to a lather, not bothering to picket him as he ran to the lodge of Pronghorn. He reported the party of white soldiers camped near. Between them they decided the soldiers would sleep through the night and move out during the daylight. “Let our warriors sleep,” said Pronghorn, “they will be more prepared to fight tomorrow.”

  “I cannot sleep until I know what these taibo intend to do,” said Jerk Meat.

  “They are not looking for us. We have done them no harm,” said Pronghorn.

  “But Comanches have raided against the wagon trains and the small groups of whites in the forts,” said Jerk Meat.

  “We wait. By tomorrow night they will have moved out and be gone. I will send scouts out to watch them.”

  The alarm sounded before dawn. A party of mounted soldiers was seen approaching in the direction of the village.

  Some of the women were building the morning fires when the warning came. They gathered their belongings into baskets, boxes, and neat piles. The men were ordered to burn the tepees. Sacajawea collected her belongings and supplies, put on the old, worn, and faded blue coat, tied her leather bag of small treasures to her waistband, and placed a small bundle under Butterfly’s arm.

  Pronghorn deployed the men quickly and ordered the women out of the area of burning tepees, over the stream and into a small canyon. Sacajawea slipped a clumsy bundle of extra clothing for her family on her back.

  Pronghorn had sent half of his warriors around the enemy’s right, a trick taught him by the Mexicans, to move the point of combat away from the camp and give the women an opportunity to get away.

  The white soldiers had already received their instructions. Instead of moving in to fight off the counterattack from the right, or moving back to hinder encirclement, they split their forces, half of them going on the flank attack and the other half moving forward.

  The women struggled across the stream and down the sides of the canyon. Hides Well seemed to be in command. She motioned to this one and that. “Hurry, hurry, over this way, duck down. Drop the baggage,” Hides Well panted. “It is of no importance.”

  “Where is Spring?” asked Sacajawea, slipping the bundle from her back, glad to be rid of the clumsy burden.

  “She is coming. Save your breath and do not hurt yourself on these rocks.”

  Sacajawea looked around. Spring was coming down between two large rocks. Butterfly stood and waved to her. Then the child lost her footing and fell. Her foot wedged between a knotted cedar and a large boulder. She screamed. Sacajawea scrambled to her. She knelt and tried to loosen the child’s foot.

  “My leg,” sobbed Butterfly.

  There was a shrill cry from above. The soldiers had pushed their way across the camp, across the stream, to the ed
ge of the canyon. The air was filled with smoke from the burning lodges.

  Sacajawea lifted the cedar to free the tiny brown foot. She gave her child a pat to reassure her the foot was not hurt badly. “Hurry on,” she said. Butterfly straightened and moved toward the bottom of the canyon. Then a bullet struck Butterfly in the middle of her back, and she fell forward, sliding a little on her face.

  Sacajawea screamed when she saw Butterfly try to stand. The child’s mouth overflowed with blood, and she fell again. Her face lay on a jagged rock. Her breath came in shallow wheezes.

  Above, the soldiers had left the edge of the ravine and were milling around the smoking camp. They could not see anything in the blinding smoke. They were at a disadvantage. The Quohadas knew every inch of their ground and fought as individuals. The soldiers finally retreated.

  Pronghorn ordered his men to the ravine to join the women. He sent others to get their horses. He hurrieddown the steep incline, his eyes watering from smoke. He stumbled over Sacajawea, who held Butterfly in her arms. He bent down and saw the bright red stain on the child’s back. He gently lifted her and put her over his shoulder, then continued down the ravine, motioning for Sacajawea to come down beside him.

  The women had gathered in a shelter at the far end of the canyon. Sacajawea gently prodded Pronghorn’s elbow and motioned for him to lay the child on the cool sand. She bathed the little brown face with water from someone’s waterskin. Butterfly opened her dark eyes.

  “Do not be angry with me, Mother,” she said.

  “Oh, no!”

  Blood spilled down each side of her mouth. She looked at Sacajawea and smiled. Sacajawea held her in her arms and gently rocked back and forth. Tears streamed down Sacajawea’s face. The child was not breathing.

  Sacajawea covered her face with black mud. She wrapped her girl-child in a hide and placed her at the end of the ravine where she had died. Sacajawea piled stones around the body, then covered it with stones so that wolves and other prey could not get in. This was in the manner of the Shoshoni when there were no trees to put the body into. She sat at the side of the grave and tried to feel the presence of her little girl. She sat there through the rest of the afternoon and through the evening and into the night, picking up little stones and dropping them, staring at the grave.