Sign-Talker (55 page)

The immense distances of those rolling plains kept reminding him of the precarious state of the expedition now: divided into small groups and spread over hundreds of miles, each with its mission to do before they were to reunite at the mouth of the Yellow Stone, next month if all went well. Every evening, Lewis expressed his anxiety and mentioned things that could go wrong, but he always tried to end on a confident outlook.

The captains had divided the corps almost three weeks ago, near the place in the Bitterroots where they met the people called Flatheads last year. Lewis with Gass and one group had come by the Nez Perce short route to the Great Falls, and as the guides had said, it was an easy route for horses. From there, Lewis, with
Drouillard and the Field brothers, split off and came up here to seek the head of Maria’s River.

Captain Clark with the major part of the corps, York, and Charbonneau’s family, had gone south into the Shoshone country to dig up caches and to refloat the canoes they had left sunk in a pond. If still usable, they would be floated down to the three forks of the Missouri. From there Sergeant Ordway would take them on down the Missouri to meet Sergeant Gass at the old Great Falls upper camp, while Clark turned east over a pass east of the forks, to seek the headwater of the Yellow Stone, where the Shoshones said it began. It was country that the Bird Woman might remember well enough to be of some guidance. Clark then was to explore the Yellow Stone all the way down to its mouth on the Missouri. There, according to the daring and hopeful plan, all the corps would reunite—except Sergeant Pryor and two or three men, who would spin off from Captain Clark on still another mission: they would take fifty of the horses straight overland to the Mandan towns, as gifts to warm them up for the return of the white soldiers. Then Pryor was to find Hugh Heney, a British trader for the North West Company, and deliver a letter to him. Heney had been friendly to the Americans during their stay at Fort Mandan two winters ago, and smart enough to foresee how America’s purchase of the territory would shift the Indian trade advantage to the Americans. He had hinted that with sufficient incentives, he might switch his loyalty to the Americans. Captain Lewis’s letter invited Heney to do just that, and asked him to use his influence with the Sioux on behalf of the United States. Lewis’s letter offered him good pay to escort Sioux leaders to Washington, where they might be impressed or intimidated into cooperating with the President’s trade scheme along the Missouri. The letter also offered Heney a well-paying post as U.S. agent to the Sioux Indians if he succeeded in bringing them into the fold.

Lewis had made this grandiose and bold offer because he knew of no other way to overcome the Sioux leaders’ defiance and open their part of the river. It would, of course, put Sergeant Pryor and the other soldiers at awful risk; three or four men with
valuable rifles and a herd of horses passing through five or six hundred miles of plains would tempt any sizable band of Crows or Hidatsas or Assiniboines they might encounter.

Drouillard thought Lewis was a perfect fool to divide his little troop of men into such small bands, all so far scattered. But he understood why he had done it: Lewis was afraid he had failed his President in many important ways, and was desperate to accomplish what he still might on the long trek homeward. He had reached the Pacific Ocean, conducted his men safely, and studied and amassed an incredible amount of information for the President. But Lewis wouldn’t be able to go home and tell Jefferson what he most wanted to hear: that there was an easy water route to the western ocean with a short and easy portage from the Missouri to the Columbia, or that all the tribes along the way had succumbed to his persuasions about peace and profit. In fact, the only way to conduct merchandise over the mountains would be with the great horse herds of the Nez Perce and the Shoshones—who were timid about coming down east out of the mountains because of their enemies in the north. The powerful Sioux, Blackfeet, and Chinooks were certain to be troublesome on the road of trade.

Drouillard knew that even some of the amiable tribes didn’t really intend to change their ways, make unnatural alliances, or provoke their jealous neighbors, just to please some distant Great Father these strange young soldier-chieftains had told them about. Lewis perhaps was beginning to realize that himself. Now that he was heading back to face his president, he was trying to do several things at once to make up for these short-fallings. Likely some of his depression along the return route had been aggravated by his doubts.

There was no certainty that all, or any, of these scattered groups of soldiers would succeed, or find each other again, or even stay alive. Drouillard in these three years had seen narrow survival of hazard after hazard; there was not a man who had not had at least one brush with death or crippling injury, and most had been grievously ill at least once. It was amazing how often the Master of Life had spared them, and Drouillard wondered
why that was so, as Lewis apparently prayed to no God, unless Jefferson really was his God.

Suddenly, Drouillard felt a chill, that first warning instinct that he might be prey instead of predator.

He raised his rifle from across the pommel, looked all about, sniffed the air. He felt he was being watched, but saw nothing. High above the bluff on his right he detected in the edge of his vision a movement. Looking up, he saw an eagle soaring against gray clouds. Nothing else. An eagle looking down on him, on the valley. But why would an eagle have given him the warning sense?

After a while he urged the horse forward and rode into the open, then in among some more small cottonwoods, where he halted, waited, looked around, listened, smelled the breeze. Then he moved on, slowly, half hunting for prey, half for predator.

About five miles farther on he saw a doe step daintily to the river’s edge, look up and down, and lower her head to drink. He dismounted, tethered his horse, and slipped through the brush, stooping, to get within a hundred paces of the doe in silence. He was aiming his rifle at her when she raised her head, looked at a place up the river, and bounded away. Drouillard heard the grate of gravel on gravel in that direction, then his horse whinnied softly. He saw nothing, but heard hoofsteps, hooves in gravel, and in a stooping run returned to his horse, who was looking upstream. As he took the reins, he smelled smoky, sweaty clothing. It smelled like whiteman.

A pair of riders emerged from beyond a screen of foliage, and it was a sight he had not expected to see.

One of them was Reubin Field.

The other was a lean Indian warrior with a bony face and hair cut very short, a shield on his arm and a lance in his hand. They were riding together at a walk, as if they knew each other. Just then Reubin cupped his hand beside his mouth and yelled, “Heyyyy, Drouillard!”

He rode out from concealment so suddenly he startled them, and said, “Rube, if that’s your brother, he’s starting to look more civilized.”

The Indian was looking at Drouillard with keen interest, and the slightest nod and smile suggested that he was surprised and pleased to see a man of his own race. Drouillard signed to him:
Great Spirit put us here to smoke together
.

The Indian signed,
My heart rises up
.

Reubin began explaining quickly: “There’s eight of ’em. With about thirty horses. Lots o’ saddles, so there may be more close by. We found ’em on the bluff watchin’ you down here. One rode at us but backed off. Cap’n told ’em you’re our pipe man so we should fetch you to do a smoke. They thought that was a good idee so here we are. Let’s go join ’em. Joe and the Cap’n’s got ’emselves seven real dancy young bucks around ’em. Need you to talk. They’re comin’ down.”

“They have guns?”

“A couple.”

“From Canada, then. Blackfeet, probably.”

“Well, come on. Cap’n’s worried,” Reubin said.

They were Piegan Blackfeet, all very young, two just boys. It was obvious they would have liked to race off to their band and get older and more experienced reinforcements, but it was almost sundown, and their band was a day’s ride west, almost at the mountains. They said there was a white trader with their band. “I’d like to be rid of ’em and get out of here quick,” Captain Lewis told Drouillard. “But I don’t want them bringing a big band after us. I think we can handle this many if there’s any trouble. So let’s propose we all camp together tonight, and who knows but we might win them over a little. I don’t doubt they already trade with the British companies up north.”

The young men quickly and skillfully assembled a coneshaped frame of green limbs and covered it with hides, and the Field brothers built a fire out in front to smoke away mosquitoes and cook some venison they had left over from morning.

It was good that Drouillard carried his own supply of ceremonial tobacco because these young men seemingly couldn’t get enough, and Reubin and Joe had been out of tobacco since Fort Clatsop.

The Blackfeet were paying keen attention to Drouillard’s hand signs as he relayed the usual Jefferson peace message. The captain told them he had a large body of soldiers coming down the Missouri, which was an exaggeration. Then he told them he had come all the way up this river to find the Blackfeet and speak council with them. In truth he had been hoping against hope to avoid them.

The captain suggested that some of these warriors might ride to their nation and summon leaders to a peace council at the mouth of this river, where they would receive gifts and honors. He invited the rest to come with him. Then he explained why his whitemen were coming through here: that they had been all the way to the western sea. The young Indians were duly impressed, which seemed to encourage Lewis to brag. For the first time, Drouillard heard him expressing his pride in the achievement. Lewis boasted of the bond of friendship he had forged among the Shoshones, the Kootenai Flatheads, and the Nez Perce, exaggerating as he went along. His eyes were shining. Drouillard had a chill. He saw the woman with bloodied arms. He remembered the captain climbing the Bad Spirit Hill. He recognized in Lewis again the dark demon, now wearing a bright mask. Lewis was acting too pleased with himself. He told of the greatness of the American goods and in particular the guns. He told of winning a shooting match in the Nez Perce mountain camp by hitting a mark twice at 220 paces.

Then Lewis bragged on his hunters, these three men with him, who often killed elk and antelope at twice that distance. The young Blackfeet were looking at the rifles with covert fascination, so he told them of his wonderful silent gun that would shoot again and again without reloading. “Damn, I wish we had it with us!” he exclaimed with a grin and a shake of the head.

“Tell them,” Lewis said then, “that they can get excellent guns too, if they will make peace with the tribes who are already our friends.”

Drouillard signed that statement, and the young braves stiffened and glanced at each other. Suddenly they were as cold and
wary as before the eating and smoking began. He said, “Cap’n, with due respect, I don’t think you should have said that.”

“What?”

“You told them that you promised to sell great medicine guns to their enemies. Or that’s what they think you said.”

He saw the comprehension in Lewis’s eyes, and the captain said, “Well, quick then, tell ’em we haven’t actually
done
any such thing.”

“I’ll try, sir. But it’s hard to unsay something. Especially when you’re smoking a truth pipe.”

Drouillard’s watch passed, from about two to four in the morning: moonlight and firelight, a light breeze rustling the foliage in the tops of the three tall cottonwoods, while Lewis and the Field brothers breathed in deep sleep near the fire. All eight of the young Indians were in their hut asleep, or pretending to sleep, though he heard some of them now and then whispering and murmuring. Keeping a watch on the horses was easy, as the campground was a moonlit, bowl-shaped bottom between the river and the steep bluffs, the grass here in the bottom being so much better than anywhere else that the horses had no urge to stray. Captain Lewis had told each watchman to wake the others if any Indian left the camp, because he feared they might try to steal the horses. The captain kept the first watch, till almost midnight, then wakened Reubin to take the next two hours. Now Drouillard sat up. Occasionally he felt eyes watching him, so he knew that the young Blackfeet were too suspicious to go to sleep without sentries of their own. Thus the peace of the moonlit night was not as it seemed. With the warriors on edge, Drouillard was uneasy.

He was annoyed that Captain Lewis had overspoken. These were inexperienced and high-strung young men. They were probably half afraid, but also half eager to have an exploit to make names for themselves. He imagined he could hear their minds changing in there, about whether to try something or not. One thing he was sure they were thinking of: that these whitemen intended to bring guns to the enemies of the Blackfeet. As
long as only Blackfeet had guns in this part of the country, they were happy and secure. That was the way it was now, but these whitemen had brought troubling words. And they seemed to be liars.

This could have been a pleasant, if nervous, encampment. These were fine young men, bold and proud and untamed, obviously very tough. Young as they were, two of them had impressive scars: one from his forehead down across his nose to his upper lip, another missing half his hand. When the captain had invited them to ride down to the mouth of the river with him to meet his soldiers, they had been too wary to accept, even though he offered them horses and tobacco if they would go.

So now no one could trust anyone, and the warriors would carry their dubious impressions back to their people, and President Jefferson’s imaginary smooth road would be even more rough, because this captain always had to be a little overbearing with Indians. He really believed he was their better, Drouillard thought.

He reached out and squeezed Joe Field’s foot until he opened his eyes. “Your turn,” he said. He put two more sticks on the fire. When Joe was sitting up, yawning and blinking, Drouillard stretched out on the ground, his head on his crooked arm and one hand on his rifle, and went to sleep.