“Oh, Great Spirit, do not let the thong snap,” she prayed. Twice it dropped, and she was sure she would have to give up. Her arms ached, and her head throbbed. Then, with a final exhausting heave, the bundle rested on top of the poles. She sat a moment, watching the morning mists rise, holding up her left hand to ease the pain. Above the mountains to the east, the sun appeared, but there was little warmth this time of the year in the morning sun. She was sweating, however, and her hands were wet as she wrapped the long thong around the poles and tree branches, and once again around the bundle, and tied it securely. She felt the stirring of triumph within her aching body. The wolves would not get Old Grandmother now. Old Grandmother was safe.
Grass Child slid down the tree and started down the hill toward the northwest without once looking back.
She followed the same route she had taken with her family nearly half a moon before.
Grass Child did not stop. Childhood seemed to be gone, but a feeling of gratefulness came to her.
“Thank you, Great Spirit, for looking after me during the night. You were there, and I did not know. Look after Old Grandmother on her journey to the Land of Everfeasting.”
Timidly she picked a dried rose hip and placed it in her mouth. It was dry and mealy. She picked more. She made a face with the unpleasant taste. Her mother would be wondering about her, she thought. Maybe grieving, thinking that she had been carried off by enemies or some animal—a wolf. Her father would not think too much about her—a girl-child was not as valuable as a boy. Yet deep inside she knew her father had some feeling for her—that was why he answered her questions and chided her when they went on walks together, saying, “Keep your mouth closed, your eyes and ears open, and your head up. Walk into life bravely like an Agaidüka Shoshoni.”
A weakness came on her again, taking her strength. There was no use trying to be a small child anymore. She had no one to share her wonderment for Mother Earth, no one to make clover chains for, no one to take the time to listen to her stories, or to tell her stories. She loved her mother, but mothers were always busy with cooking, tanning hides, mending moccasins, and talking with the other women. Grass Child straightened, her head pounding to her step, her eyes following the horse and travois tracks on the trail. Her bare arms prickled with the chill of the wind; she quickened her pace.
Ahead, near the trail, she saw a patch of ripe buffaloberries. The bitterness of the berries gagged her. Fresh meat would taste better. She replaced the alder leaves on her finger with buffaloberry. Her little finger had turned black and blue, but it was not swollen, a good sign it would heal quickly. She picked up a pine-cone and pulled it apart to find the nuts at the base of each hard petal. She left a trail behind her of broken cones. For a fleeting moment she wished she had taken her grandmother’s firestones so she could make a smallwarm fire, and later at the edge of an aspen grove, she lay down wishing she had kept one antelope skin as a robe. Sleep closed in upon her.
Morning came, wet and dismal. Grass Child’s left hand throbbed. She sat up, squirmed the cramps from her muscles, and pushed her tangled hair back. Her long black hair was unkempt, for she thought no more of caring for it than the horses her people rode cared about their manes. She liked it best when she ran in the wind and it fanned out behind. She looked at her scratched and bruised legs. She crumpled the yellowed grass with sage leaves and rubbed the juice on the cuts. Then she set out, hunched against the rain. She was wet to the skin, but soon became warm from moving. She walked quickly; already she had a well-developed pigeon-toed gait, making it easier to go uphill or downhill. She hoped to reach her camp by nightfall. After all, she could travel faster alone than with a tra vois and squalling babies trailing after it, who had to be fed four or five times a day.
She ate more berries. Chokecherries made her mouth pucker and did not satisfy her insides—besides, they brought to mind the story of the Shoshonis’ origin, and Old Grandmother. She found wild carrots and munched on them as she walked.
She began to wonder if Rain Girl and Willow Bud would notice she was no longer a papoose, or would they scold and tease her for running off? Would they remain at the temporary camp or move on? Even her father would not stay for one girl-child when it was time to move. To a man’s way of thinking, she was not worth much. She was aware that boys were worth more because they could defend the camp and hunt. But were not women useful? They kept the camp together and made warm tepees for the men and boys to come home to. They cooked and made clothing. They had the babies. Ai, she decided, she was worth something, if only a nebulous thing in the back of her mind. She thought maybe she could find the right time to talk to her father about it. Maybe she ought to talk with Willow Bud first to see how she felt.
It was still early when she caught sight of smokeand stopped to consider. It could not be her camp yet. If she circled it, she would lose time and might lose the trail. She pulled away from the thought of entering the ravine, of being caught by an unfriendly tribe. She ate a few huckleberries she had saved by making a pouch of her tunic, holding the skirt sides together in front with one hand. Her stomach made an uneasy turning; the ache in her hand seemed to be fading. She turned from the trail and struck an arc around the thin line of smoke below.
Beyond it, the tracks were harder to find because of the rain. No longer could she feel sure that it was the right trail, because the travois marks were washed out. The horse tracks might have come from other horses, not the People’s.
She traveled all day, walking even-timed, thinking about her mother and father, her sister and brothers, her friends, and always about her grandmother. Grass Child could no longer speak her name out loud. Old Grandmother was dead, and the dead were not spoken of. The living must go on, keeping life for themselves, leaving the dead behind with silence.
The day darkened. Grass Child kept walking. When she could no longer see the trail, she burrowed under the heavy, wet grass to where it was warm and dry. She piled more dry grass around her legs to keep the wind out. Soon her shivering stopped and sleep came.
Grass Child was awake before dawn. She flopped on her belly and poked a stick into the reddish-brown earth and thought how really hungry she was. There was no stream nearby for a drink to take the night taste from her mouth. She sat up and found more rose hips. Then she thanked the Great Spirit for leaving these bushes near her by throwing several berries into the grass, then some at the four corners of the earth and some at the sky.
She started on her way, made a turn on the path, and suddenly there was Willow Bud riding toward her.
“Willow Bud!”
True to her word, Willow Bud had found Grass Child. It was just as she had told Grass Child’s grieving mother.
Grass Child had gone back to comfort her dying grandmother.
“Did you find Old Grandmother?” asked Willow Bud, dismounting and letting the horse rest and feed on the grass.
“At, do not speak her name,” said Grass Child. With tears running down the faces of both girls, Grass Child told her friend the story of her grandmother’s camp, carefully avoiding the name Old Grandmother.
Willow Bud looked at Grass Child’s little finger and shook her head in approval. “You are true Agaidüka,” she said, looking away.
“How did you find me?” Grass Child asked.
“Before sunup I left the camp and came this way for you. Only your brother Never Walks knows I have gone. He tried to stop me, saying I was just throwing myself after someone already gone on the same journey as the old woman. So I threatened to tell your father that Never Walks spends time with Yellow Eagle’s daughter in the willow grove,” said Willow Bud with a wide grin on her broad face.
Grass Child giggled. “Never Walks is older than I thought!”
The horse stopped munching the long, wet grass and stood still for the girls to mount. Willow Bud had spread a deerskin over the back of the horse and fastened it on with leather tongs tied under his belly. Willow Bud guided the horse with leather cords tied in the fa
shion of reins.
Grass Child pointed back up the trail. “There’s a camp, maybe a day’s ride.”
“Our braves are still out hunting. It is their camp, I suppose. I hope they found a large deer or two. I want a new winter robe.”
“I need a new tunic,” said Grass Child, looking down at her soiled and torn one.
Overhead, the sky stretched blue and immense. Here and there a little pearl-white cloud sailed high and majestically. A fresh wind blew over the land, stirring the short, dry grease grass into ripples like those on a gentle sea. The dry leaves crunched under the hooves of their pony. Gradually the shadows of the trees grew longer, and the flies and yellow-jackets that had plaguedthe girls all day gave way to the stronger wind that came from the north.
Then they heard the happy shout of Spotted Bear as he informed the People that Grass Child was riding behind Willow Bud.
CHAPTER
2
Captured
Lewis’s Journal1
From the Lewis and Clark Expedition, Saint Louis to the Pacific, 1804-1806.
Sunday July 28th 1805
Our present camp is precisely on the spot that the Snake Indians were encamped at the time the Minnetares of the knive R. first came in sight of them five years since, from hence they retreated about three miles up Jeffersons river and concealed themselves in the woods, the Minnetares pursued, attacked them, killed 4 men, 4 women a number of boys, and mad[e] prisoners of all the femals and four boys, Sah-cah-gar-we-ah o[u]r Indian woman was one of the female prisoners taken at that time; tho’ I cannot discover that she shews any immotion of sorrow in recollecting this event, or of joy in being restored to her native country; if she has enough to eat and a few trinkets to wear I believe she would be perfectly content anywhere.
BERNARD DEVOTO, ed., The Journals of Lewis and Clark. New York: Houghton Mifflin Co., 1953, p. 171.
The days grew shorter, but the winter held off. The pleasant haze of a belated Indian summer persisted through half of the Agaidükas’ journey into a warm winter camp.
The band remained no place for long. The life of the Agaidüka Shoshonis was migratory. The People were profound realists. They hunted as they moved. Often the men brought in a deer or several antelope or a fat bear. The women cut the meat in strips and dried it over hot coals during the day camp. There were no fires at night to attract raiders. Many times now they moved only at night, heading into the foothills of the Shining Mountains for protection from the Blackfeet and Sioux.
One night Grass Child felt the piercing loneliness more than ever. Her thoughts were back on the Big Horn. She wondered if the spirit of Old Grandmother made this great show of northern lights spreading in shimmering waves over the dome of the sky. Sometimes it formed bands of pale green and rose; sometimes there were great beams slowly climbing upward.
“Far in the north it will talk,” said Fragrant Herbs that evening. “It crackles and hisses. Our people do not go that far these days. There, winds do not stop howling, the snow blows, and the fires go out. The People leave that land to the Blackfeet.”
“Where will we stop for our encampment?” asked Grass Child.
“We will cross the ridge to the waters of the Big Muddy, then slowly we will go on to the place where the river divides into three forks,” answered her mother.
“Will the Blackfeet be there?”
“Oh, Grass Child, you ask so many questions. It is really not fitting for a young girl-child. Wait and see. Look and listen. You will find you can teach yourself.”
“Well? Will they be there?”
“No, the People have never yet found the Blackfeet at this retreat.”
“What if this time they are there?”
“It will be too cold to fight or raid horses. They will not be there.”
Grass Child tried to imagine what it would be like, however, if the enemy were at their winter retreat. She could feel their savage eyes, but what they looked like and what they would do was a mystery.
The warmth of the next morning’s sun had chilled by midforenoon, and the temperature began to drop so fast that ice was forming on the horses’ nostrils by noon. Several times Chief No Retreat stopped and had the men clean off the horses’ faces before going farther. The women would take that time to rearrange the travois loads or let the children who were riding on top of the household goods walk a bit, then snuggle down again inside a buffalo robe to keep out the fingers of cold. The sticks on the drags were checked, and the leather that bound them to the horses was checked and repaired if worn thin. The gale whipping out of the darkening northwest gave promise of the winter’s first blizzard.
Several days later, it was too cold to skin the hunters’ catch of several deer without risking frostbite. The squaws built a rough lean-to with a fire in the front and skinned the animals there. The small children sat around the fire for warmth and chewed small, succulent pieces of raw flesh that were handed them once in a while.
When they were on the trail again, thankful the wind was at their backs, the first stinging pellets of snow began flying. As they walked along the low gullies, their leggings became encased with ice from the knees down. They were half-frozen as they plodded along, always keeping sight of the river. Finally they dropped down into the welcome, comparative shelter of a cedar grove. This became their winter encampment.
That winter on the Three Forks was hard. They had set camp near water and good grass for the horses, in a place sheltered from the north wind, but the People had not killed enough meat during the summer to last the winter, and that which they had taken in the fall was soon gone. There was great concern, but thoughts of cold and weariness fled when a scout came to the village one afternoon shouting, “Buffalo, buffalo! There are many in a small canyon to the south!”
To the People, the welfare of the tribe came first. No Indian hunter practiced “free enterprise,” attacking and alarming a herd of buffalo alone in winter. Under the stringent laws of the winter hunt, he would have been put to death before he could climb down from his pony. The winter chase was communal, and the kill divided equally among all of the tribe. Soon the hunters were organized and riding to the south with bows and lances ready.
Chief No Retreat brought his hunting party back in a blizzard. The wind had struck in from the north in the afternoon, blowing sleet, and the People at the camp had taken to the shelter of their warm tepees. An old woman had been gathering buffalo chips against the cold, and she had not returned. Her family found her frozen body half-buried in the snow the next morning. Spotted Bear, son of No Retreat, brother of Grass Child, returned with his group just after the old woman was found. He raced his pony ahead of the rest and ran through the camp yelling, “Our group is back. More hunters are back!” The People spilled out of their tepees to greet the hunters in spite of the fierce wind, for they were returning heroes, and seemed saviors to those who had remained behind and were out of meat.
They brought eight fat buffalo; with the ten of Chief No Retreat’s party, each lodge was entitled to half a carcass.
Two weeks later. Chief No Retreat hunkered over the fire in his big tepee. “How much meat do we have now?” he asked Fragrant Herbs.
“We have only the bones of the half buffalo.”
“Were the scouts out while we hunted?”
“They have done their best, but the other herds went away.”
“Are you hungry?”
“No, we have the grass seeds.”
She put several flat, crisp biscuits before him. He mused as he munched the food. “Some laughed as you gathered the seed, but I hold with you. This will keep us from starving. We will divide what we have with the other lodges. They ought to be glad we saved the seeds.”
The chief portioned out the fine seeds carefully, cautioning the People about spilling them. They buckled down to the task of living on little, and they wasted nothing. The women could not dig for roots in the frozen ground. Children squabbled with the dogs for a warm place by the tepee fire. Ba
bies cried. The grass seed was used sparingly—making it last.
Grass Child missed the storytelling of Old Grandmother—with it she could have lost for a time the gnawing hunger pangs in her stomach as Old Grandmother carried her to another place and another time where wonderful things happened. She remembered one and told the story to Rain Girl.
“About as long ago as it takes three men to live, a large tribe of Shoshonis stayed behind in the land of the Shining Mountains to be safe from the Blackfeet. There was a storm, and all the warmth went from Mother Earth. The Shoshonis died, and there were no signs of life. The snow made a robe as tall as the tallest man. The buffalo were gone.”
“This is a terrible story,” said Rain Girl.
“It is true, though,” continued Grass Child. “Snow covered the land and did not melt. It hung heavy on the great pine boughs. When the time for melting snow came, there was so much snow that there was a great flood over all the land. Everything was covered with water except the very top of one mountain peak. On top of that peak one Shoshoni man and his woman rested in a canoe. When the water dried, they were the only ones left. There were no great animals, only small ones and lots of birds. Their lodges had to be made from small rabbit skins and feathers. That is why we still weave some feathers in our summer lodges. Then the birds can see how beautiful they look and know that we are still grateful to them for helping our old brother and sister so many winters ago.”