Fireweed and wild hollyhock grew on either side of the trail. Blue harebells were scattered alongside. The trail was marked with wagon wheels and vaguely resembled the streets of Saint Louis.
Sacajawea was pleased to see the good timber and plentiful grass near this fort, which was made of a log wall eight feet high running around the buildings of logs and white clay between. The roofs were made of branches and poles, covered with grass, leaves, and dirt.
Outside the wall were several Indian lodges and small wooden houses. Sacajawea was sure white men lived in the log houses. It did seem a shabby concern compared with Bent’s Fort and St. Vrain’s and Lupton’s. Sheclimbed from her horse and hoisted both children down. Then they walked slowly into the Indian village, leading the string of six horses. Suddenly Sacajawea noticed that the markings on some tepees were Shoshoni. There were a few camp dogs and some near-naked children staring as she passed. A young woman carrying water in a huge grass bucket stopped and asked in Agaidüka Shoshoni, “Mother, have you lost your way?”
“Is this the home of one called Jim Bridger?” asked Sacajawea in stumbling Shoshoni.
The squaw signified that she had heard so from many lips, but he was out now, trapping beaver on the Sweetwater with many braves.
“Will he be back before winter?” Sacajawea then made the sign of the Shoshonis to indicate she was a member of this tribe. The squaw put her hand to her mouth in surprise. She turned away.
“Café, señora? Coffee?” Sacajawea called.
“Huh—no café here,” said the squaw, turning back. “We have not had coffee for a long time.”
“Sí, señora. ” Sacajawea ran to her packs and brought back a little sack.
“Café bueno,” said Sacajawea, giving the sack to the squaw and dropping back into her Spanish-Comanche tongue. “I will live here among my people and wait for the man called Jim Bridger.”
Sacajawea chose a small, grassy spot to put up the leather tent Frémont had given her. She staked the horses. When there was an evening campfire, she took the girls and sat on the outer circle listening to the Shoshonis talk about the land from which they had come, the Shining Mountains. Some of the women who came to the campfire were wives of the trappers who lived in the little wooden cabins outside the walls of the fort. They talked about their chief called Washakie, Gourd Rattle. Sacajawea longed to ask about Tooettecone—her brother, Chief Black Gun—but she did not open her mouth. Soon she learned that Washakie was the civil chief and he had several smaller tribes under him. The tribe of Nowroyawn was due at this camp anytime now.
The next morning, at the water hole in the nearbycreek, Sacajawea spotted the squaw she had given her small bag of coffee to.
“Nowroyawn?” asked Sacajawea. “He is a chief? Of what band?”
“Ai, he is chief. He was recently chosen to take the place of the great Chief Black Gun.” She spoke softly, speaking the name of their dead chief quickly. She continued, all the time studying Sacajawea, “Three summers ago, Black Gun was killed in battle against the Apaches. Nowroyawn was chosen partly because of his slowness to bring the tribe into war and partly because he is nephew of Black Gun and the one called Spotted Bear.”
Once again Sacajawea was struck with information she was not prepared to receive. She sat down and stared openmouthed at the squaw. When her mind cleared she asked softly, “So—then, where is Shoogan?”
The squaw drew in her breath. “You come as a stranger, yet you know the name of the chiefs cousin! Who are you?”
Feeling dizzy, Sacajawea whispered, “Black Gun and Spotted Bear were my brothers. Shoogan is my sister’s baby. She died and he was left with Spotted Bear.”
“What?” asked the young squaw, leaning forward and showing her wide-spaced teeth.
“I have come home to the People,” Sacajawea said.
“For what?”
‘To be with my relatives. I was taken captive when I was a child.”
“What does that have to do with coming back? Things have changed.”
So she told the young squaw at the water hole she was looking for her firstborn, who had accompanied her on a visit once before to the People. “Does anyone in the tribe recall that visit when many white men came up the river?”
“Ai,” said the squaw. “My own mother told the story often. Are you the one called Grass Child who returned with a child on her back?”
“The same one,” said Sacajawea in a whisper.
The squaw looked and finally nodded approval. This could be. For had not Grass Child come once before as a young woman, and now she was here again as an oldwoman. She did not have an infant son, but two little girls this time.
The next day, the young squaw, who was called Toward Morning, unseen, followed Sacajawea and the little girls to Black’s Fork, where they spent the morning fishing. When Toward Morning could no longer stand to sit still and watch, she came out of her hiding behind the brush.
“How do you catch the fish?” Toward Morning asked.
“We use the metal hook,” answered Suzanne with hand signs, pulling her line from the water. “See, I put a strong grass string on the cottonwood pole, then the hook is fastened to the string. It is a new way. Much like the way of the white men. It is easier than the old way of making a willow or grapevine net, my mother says.”
“Ai, I can see that,” answered Toward Morning. “Your mother knows much. She should be called Porivo, Chief Woman.”
Sacajawea came up to the squaw, wondering if she were criticizing or approving.
“Can you sew in the white woman’s way?” asked Toward Morning.
“Ai, there are metal needles and string finer than thinnest rawhide.”
“If I can trade for metal needles inside the fort, will you show me tomorrow?” asked Toward Morning shyly.
“Ai, of course. I will show you how to make designs on tunics that will make your friends’ eyes widen,” said Sacajawea, pleased that she would have a friend to sew and chat with.
“Porivo,” said Toward Morning as she left.
From then on, Sacajawea was called Porivo, Chief Woman, by the Shoshonis.
She noticed in this tribe some relaxing of the strict old ways. First was the mentioning out loud of her dead brother’s name, even in a soft tone, but it had been mentioned. She noticed, too, that some of the women spoke of themselves by their own names. To have a name was something sacred and meant some trait or deed of the bearer. The name was never to be spoken out loud by the bearer for fear of losing some of its sacred power from overuse. Some of the women told
Sacajawea their names as in the white man’s introduction of new friends.
Sacajawea showed Toward Morning how to fry fish on a flat stone near the cooking fire to make it crisp.
“You do not put fish in a pot of hot water?” asked Toward Morning.
“No, then they are mushy. Much better this way. Try one.” Sacajawea put the crisp brown fish on a board.
Toward Morning was amazed. “Good. Good.”
“Better with salt.” Sacajawea sprinkled on a little unrefined salt she had in a leather pouch.
“Ummm. This something.”
Toward Morning asked Sacajawea to sit with her during the evenings’ campfires.
“Ai, we have come home,” repeated Sacajawea.
“Home!” said Crying Basket, sucking the first two fingers on her right hand—an indication of the sharing of the family food, or being at home.
CHAPTER
52
Bridger’s Fort
It was on a lovely evening in April, 1843, that the opportunity came for my first trip across the Great Plains. William Sublette was elected as chief guide, as he had been all over the western country several times. Sir William Drummond Stewart, from Scotland, was going along to hunt Buffalo. One of the cart drivers, Baptiste Charbonneau, was the son of the old trapper Charbonneau, and Sacajawea, the brave Indian woman who had guided Lewis and Clark on their perilous journey through the wilderness. He had
been born about the time they built Fort Mandan, far out in the Dakota hills and had been carried as a papoose on his mother’s back all through the Indian country. By a singular coincidence he was now again to make the journey and guide the son of William Clark through the same region.
From Persimmon Hill, by William Clark Kennerly. Copyright 1948 by the University of Oklahoma Press, pp. 143–44.
The sunlight filtered through the crevices in the adobe walls to dabble the hard-packed ground. Inside Fort Bridger there was a blacksmith shop and a trading store and more log cabins. Many Shoshonis crowded into the store to trade and gossip. Some had furs and leather leggings for trading. The flies buzzed around their heads and walked about on their seemingly intractable faces.1
When it was her turn, Toward Morning traded new-made moccasins for three large metal needles. Sacajawea placed willow baskets on the counter and pointed to the little squares of hard peppermint candies, which she thought were sugar cubes.
“Hey, Louis, haven’t seen anything like this before!” called the storekeeper, a plump, baldheaded man whose fringe of hair made a wispy halo around his elfin face. “Are these here Shoshoni basketry?” he asked in French. The other man, Louis, sorting out pelts behind the broad plank counter, was nearly hidden from view. He grunted and made some motions with his hands, but did not hurry to look at Sacajawea’s baskets.
“Oui,” she answered in French. “I learned a long time ago when I lived with my people. Then I showed the Comanches, and they showed me something different. Now I show you Shoshoni know-how woven with Comanche know-how.”
Both men looked at her incredulously.
She continued in French, “You like these?”
“Louis,” said the plump man, “did you ever hear a squaw talk French patois?”
Louis squinted his eyes and tapped his long fingers on the counter. He was almost as dark as the Shoshonis.
Sacajawea recognized him. “You are the man called Vasquez!”
He recognized her. “And you are the Comanche woman. The one who claims to be Madame Charbonneau! Well, I’ll be! Sacré amigo!” (Louis Vasquez’s parents were French and Spanish, and often he mixed the languages in a single sentence.) “Hey, Jake, this here fool squaw was at St. Vrain’s when the Crows cameraiding horses off the Cheyennes. She claims to be la mère of Bap Charbonneau, that Frenchman.”
“Oui, Baptiste. Je le connais.”
Sacajawea leaned over the counter to look more closely at Jake, and offer by way of friendship her outstretched hand. Patient-faced, he took it and stepped back so that he could trade with those Shoshonis who had formed a line beside Sacajawea. Vasquez hand-pumped heartily.
Jake turned from his new customer and said, powder-soft as the fall of a moccasin in deep trail dust, “You know, Bap was through here six, eight weeks ago. He traveled from St. Louis with some prosperous Scotsman, Sir Stewart. What a party!”
“I didn’t know Bap had come back west,” said Vasquez, his eyes sparkling like chipped obsidian as Jake’s soft voice rose to what seemed a shout to Sacajawea.
“They even had Bill Clark’s young son, Jeff. Fanciest hunting party I’ve ever saw.”
Toward Morning was jerking at Sacajawea’s arm. “Come, let us begin sewing. We have needles.”
Sacajawea pulled her arm away and pressed Jake further. “Where were they going?”
Jake was a half-breed Cheyenne, hard-reared among his mother’s people. He had spent his early manhood learning and walking the trails of the trappers and traders. There had always been trouble in the camps of the white men for Jake Connor, and he belonged neither there nor in the old Cheyenne camps. He was neither white nor red, until he met Louis Vasquez, who seemed to feel some empathy for the strange, friendless man who carried the fires of only one ambition in his breast—to belong to the white race of his father.
“Going? Why, they was on an enormous game hunt along the Oregon Trail.”
“How many men?” asked Sacajawea, flushing, starting to stammer, the yearning for sugar cubes now forgotten. “What does he look like? And Chief Red Hair’s son—what does he look like?” She stopped in mid-sputter and asked, “Who else was there?”
“Well, I don’t know exactly,” said Jake quietly, handing out a tin of coffee for three pairs of moccasins. ‘There was Bill Sublette—he was the leader for that Scotchdude—and Geisso Chouteau, Cyprian Menard, Bill Kennerly—all from St. Louis—and young Jeff Clark, the spittin’ image of his old man.”
Sacajawea’s hopes soared before the narrowed eyes of the half-breed. “It is close to thirty winters since I have put my eyes on my firstborn.” She held her hands up and opened the fists three times to show thirty. “I am looking for him.”
“That Bap is handsome as any breed I’ve seen,” said Jake, his face coloring. “I mean he is not too short and squat, but rather tall, and he holds his head high. He’s mostly a white man and knows how to use tools and wear a button shirt, went to school and learned names of strange lands and wars. But one thing he never learned—to wear boots. He prefers moccasins.”
Sacajawea never took her eyes from Jake as she spoke. “He loved the woods, and the river, running along quiet, but he also craved new things. He went to the land called Germany with a man called Paul—Duke Paul.”
“C’est fantastique, amigo! She is right. That is Bap!” cried Vasquez, his black eyes snapping as he came up from behind the broad counter.
Jake nodded to the next Shoshoni in line, but kept his eyes on Sacajawea as he talked. “Old squaw, you’ve come to the right place. Jim Bridger can tell you most. He’s been with Bap on hunting parties. He’s had Bap read to him. Bap is the readingest fool anybody’s seen. Brings books from Saint Louis so that he can read and argue with Jim.”
Toward Morning stood sulking beside Sacajawea. She couldn’t get into perspective the curious fact that this woman could speak another tongue and get so excited about something these men were saying.
Sacajawea turned to her and said in Shoshoni, “Take the girls to the lodge. I will be there soon. It is important to talk with these men. I have to talk now.”
Toward Morning shrugged her shoulders and walked to where the little girls were petting a large yellow dog. She beckoned to them, then left through the open front gate, still puzzled by the behavior of her new friend.
Jake leaned toward Sacajawea just a little, saying, “Now, just tell me a thing. What you want to get by tracking someone you haven’t talked with in thirtyyears, besides maybe a kick in the backside and a heartache?”
Sacajawea looked thoughtful and bland. “So what?” She made quick hand signs. “He is my papoose. I can rest easier if I see for myself that he is a man.” She shook herself and disturbed a dozen flies that had settled on the blanket covering her.
Louis Vasquez came to the other side of the counter and frowned. “Jake is right. Let me ask you, old woman. You ever think about what’s in front of tomorrow?”
This French-Spanish trapper and trading-post operator was glum and serious. He pointed his finger accusingly. “You’re not so young anymore, and you might find it hard to reckon with the way your son lives and thinks. Haven’t you ever thought that he might not want to meet up with his mama particularly?”
Sacajawea looked skeptical as her mind worked. “Do you ever think about having somebody look after you when you can do nothing?” She looked at Vasquez appraisingly. “My people,” she went on, “take care of fatherless children and the old. They are proud to help. When I am old, it will be in my own way and I won’t beg from my son.” For a moment Sacajawea’s eyes clouded with anger; then they were devoid of expression.
“I understand what she’s saying,” said Jake. “If she no longer belongs with her son, she wants to know, and she’ll make out best she can. Happen she gets hurt, she’ll crawl off to lick her own cuts.”
Vasquez grunted. “Well,” he said obliquely, considering Sacajawea, “it’s none of my business.”
Sacajawea smiled as if
to acknowledge an apology. “Ai,” she said. “It would give me a fine feeling to know someone worries about me.”
Jake smiled and nodded, motioning her to follow him into the blacksmith shop. They left Vasquez trading with the remaining Shoshonis. Sacajawea put her hand over her mouth, not able to speak as she looked at a suit of armor hooked up on pegs by the inside door. Jake lifted the metal visor to show there was no one inside. Never had she imagined such clothing. She wondered how a man could walk or ride a horse in such asuit. Finally she asked, “What manner of tribe wears this?”
Jake spat between his feet. “I only know that the man who financed Bill Sublette’s party, that Scotsman, Sir William Drummond Stewart, brought it from England and gave it to Jim Bridger for letting all his party rest at this here fort. Thought you’d enjoy seeing the suit Bap rigged Jim Bridger in. When he had him locked inside, Bridger tried to mount a horse. He fell. Bap rolled in the dirt with laughter. And that same day I heard Stewart tell about them Sioux at Fort Laramie—thirty, forty lodges of ‘em. Some of the chiefs—Red Bull, Bull Tail, Little Thunder, and Solitary Dog—came to visit the party when it stopped. Those chiefs recognized young Jeff Clark right off because he looked so much like his old man, Bill Clark—red hair and everything. They all knew old Bill Clark.”
Sacajawea drew in her breath.
“And I remember Bap adding something to that there conversation. He said he’d been on a long trip with his old man, and Bill Clark was leader of that trip. Then he said the funny thing. He said he and Jeff were given the same baby name—Pompy.”
“Pomp!” she gasped. Her hand slapped against her mouth in astonishment.
“Yea, that’s it!” shouted Jake. “That’s what Jeff said it was. Them chiefs were so impressed they invited Jeff Clark and Bap Charbonneau to a real feast of boiled dog.”
“Non, not dog,” said Sacajawea, her eyes large.
“Oh, it was. The Sioux think it the greatest kind of meat.”
Sacajawea shook her head.