The Captain's Dog, Page 5

We went back to camp and enlisted a few of the men to help us conquer the rat town.

  "Our mission is to capture one alive," the Captain informed them.

  A French boatman accompanying us said the animals were not rats, but prairie dogs. He must have been mistaken, because they didn't look or act anything like dogs.

  The men tried to dig one out of the ground but gave up after going down six feet without so much as seeing one of the little rat-dogs.

  "Any other ideas?" the Captain asked.

  "Maybe we could use water to flush them out," Sergeant Gass suggested.

  "It's worth a try."

  With great difficulty they hauled two barrels of river water up to the rat town and poured the contents down a hole. After a time, one of the soggy animals crawled out into the open and a man grabbed it. We had our live prairie dog. Captain Lewis was delighted with the homely creature. He put it in a box and said he planned to send it back to President Jefferson when the keelboat returned in the spring.

  It was a few days after this that we made our best discovery. We came around a sharp bend in the river and Labiche shouted out from the bow, "By god, it's Shannon!"

  Sure enough, Private George Shannon was sitting on the bank, grinning from ear to ear despite his pitiful condition. But I don't know who was happier to see whom—the captains and the men nearly wept with joy when they laid eyes on him. He was the youngest of the men and a favorite with everyone.

  He said he'd had nothing to eat for the past twelve days but a handful of grapes and a rabbit. "I sat down this morning figuring I was done for. I knew I would never catch up with you, starving like I was. I was just waiting for the Grim Reaper to come along and take me away."

  Shannon went on to explain that a few days after he left us he ran out of balls for his rifle. "I managed to kill the rabbit by whittling down a hunk of wood into a musketball for my gun. Thank god it worked! If it hadn't been for that bit of luck, you'd be burying me right now, boys."

  September 24, 1804

  I am fearful that our meeting with the Teton Sioux will not go as well as our meeting with the Yanktons. Earlier this afternoon Private Colter informed us that a group of Indians had stolen his horse. A few minutes after we received this information, five young Tetons hailed us from shore, asking if they could ride in the boat. We told them that we would not even talk to any of their people, including the chief, until our horse was returned...

  I MISSED THE initial meeting with the Teton Sioux because I caught a glimpse of White Feather and had run off into the forest looking for him. When I got back to the men, Captain Lewis had completed his speech and demonstration, and Captain Clark was handing out gifts to the three chiefs. The captains had anchored the keelboat in the middle of the river with men manning the blunderbusses and swivel gun. Along shore were at least two hundred Teton warriors armed with bows and arrows. The air was saturated with the scent of fear and anger. My hackles came to attention.

  The three main chiefs—Black Buffalo, the Partisan, and Buffalo Medicine—stared with surly indifference at the gifts they had been given. The Partisan began yowling about his pitiful gift, loud enough for everyone to hear. Buffalo Medicine and Black Buffalo were not about to be outdone by the Partisan, so they started yowling, too.

  The captains were dismayed by this turn of events and tried to make it up by inviting all three chiefs out to the keelboat for a tour. When they all got there the captains offered the chiefs a little taste of whiskey, which seemed to settle them down some, but when it was time to take them back to shore in the pirogue the Partisan started stumbling around the deck as if he were drunk, saying that he would not leave.

  The captains were furious, but they kept their tempers under control, knowing they could not bodily force the chiefs from the keelboat with a throng of warriors standing alongshore watching their every move. Using several of the men, they were able to gently herd the chiefs back into the pirogue. Captain Lewis stayed aboard the keelboat while Captain Clark and a couple of men quickly rowed the chiefs to shore.

  When they got there three of the Partisan's warriors wrapped themselves around the mast of the pirogue and two other men took hold of the mooring rope. The Partisan said that they would not let the boat go until he was given gifts worthy of his rank He reckoned that one of our pirogues filled with supplies might do for starters.

  Captain Clark's face turned as red as his hair, and he drew his sword from his scabbard.

  "Release our pirogue," he shouted. "Now!"

  "Prepare arms," Captain Lewis said with icy calmness, lighting a taper and holding it above the keelboat's cannon.

  The men on board shouldered their rifles and pointed them toward shore. The Tetons alongshore strung their bows and pointed them at our men.

  "On my command," Captain Lewis said quietly. "Not a second before. Steady..."

  For a few moments there was complete stillness, as if every living thing were holding its breath. If one of our tribe discharged his musket, or a Teton let an arrow fly-even by accident—the Missouri would flow with blood and our journey would end.

  Black Buffalo put an end to the tension by calmly walking over to the warriors holding the rope and telling them to let it go. Reluctantly they obeyed.

  "Take the pirogue back to the keelboat," Captain Clark said.

  "What about you, Captain?"

  "I am not afraid of these Indians and I will not retreat from them, but I don't want them to take our boat. So get it out of here, Private."

  As the boat pulled away, Captain Clark was quickly surrounded by Teton warriors. He did not show a hint of fear and began speaking very roughly to them.

  As soon as the pirogue got to the keelboat, a dozen men jumped into it and furiously rowed it back to assist Captain Clark The sight of our men rushing back toward shore with their guns dispersed the crowd.

  Captain Clark did not want to leave the situation on a bad note. Before he boarded the pirogue, he approached the chiefs and put his hand out in friendship. Not even Black Buffalo would take his hand, which turned Captain Clark's face red again. He harangued the chiefs with another barrage of choice words no one translated, but the meaning was clear enough. When he'd finished he stomped off toward the pirogue and told the men to shove off.

  They hadn't gotten ten feet from shore when Black Buffalo and a couple of his warriors waded out into the water to their waists, begging Captain Clark to take them to the keelboat with him so they might ride in it. Captain Clark softened and picked them up.

  As soon as they got to the keelboat the anchors were hauled up and we proceeded a short distance upriver, to an island the captains named Bad Humor. That night no one slept a wink. Even with Black Buffalo as our guest, the men were still fearful the Tetons would attack.

  By morning things looked a little brighter. The Partisan joined us and behaved as if nothing had happened the night before. He and Black Buffalo invited the captains up to their villages. The captains stepped away to discuss the invitation.

  "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 want
s 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.