Hello again, reader population! Chapter 8 is here!
So. I really meant for the Lewis and Clark expedition to last only two chapters, but this one got a tad bit lengthy... so now it's three.
Thanks so much to WeAllFlyHigh, ShippudenFlower, One-Eyed Lady, In The Mix, Amelia Mills, SamLjacksin, and RasalynnLynx for your wonderful reviews!
A thank-you as well to RomericaGO and again to In The Mix, One-Eyed Lady, and RasalynnLynx for your alerts and favorites!
Here you go! I disclaim, and own nothing.
The prairie dog had been given to one of the soldiers for transport back to Washington, and Alfred found himself envying the creature. The voyage was going just fine, but it was late October, and the chill in the air promised an icy winter ahead.
Not to mention the narrowly avoided crisis they'd had with the Teton Sioux just a month before. Alfred had been ready to strangle Lewis for that one. He'd blown events out of proportion with his temper and already negative attitude toward the natives. He'd also assumed that negotiations with the Teton would go just as well as they had with the Yankton Sioux (whom they'd met shortly after leaving the Otoe), and such an assumption had very nearly cost him.
Luckily, the Teton chief, Black Buffalo, had resolved the situation before either his men or Lewis's could come to blows. His reception of the peace medals had been the most questionable yet, but Clark had written it in his journal as a success.
Never mind that he spelled "Sioux" no less than twenty-seven different ways, something he was incredibly embarrassed to discover and Alfred had laughed at him for.
"Just don't do that on your maps," was the only advice he'd had.
But that was a month ago, and though Alfred was concerned about the actual success of the diplomatic meeting with the Teton (as he was with all of the previous meetings, for that matter) he was currently more concerned with not freezing to death this coming winter. You've survived Valley Forge with less than you have now, and farther north, his brain chided. Don't be such a wimp!
Alfred wished his brain would shut up and stop making sense.
He was pondering his fate whilst attempting to breathe warmth into his stiff fingers when, in a very similar fashion to when they'd found the Otoe, a soldier returned from scouting to announce that another Indian camp had been spotted.
"Was it close to the river?" Lewis asked, leveling the man with his intense I'm-asking-you-a-question-and-want-satisfactory-answers-now stare.
"Yes sir, on the banks, actually," the man replied.
"Excellent! Men, we're going to meet with these savages, and we're doing so today! So put your backs into it and row!"
Alfred, left in charge of steering while Lewis stalked the decks for motivation, thanked his lucky stars that he was technically a politician, and therefore couldn't be forced to row unless Lewis and Clark themselves did.
_V~-~-~V_
This particular tribe, again in a parody of the meeting with the Otoe and the Missouri, turned out to be two, the Mandan and the Hidatsa. These two, represented in a meeting with the expedition with their two chiefs, were also very hospitable. In a fit of goodwill, they allowed Lewis to build a fort across the river from their main village for the expedition to winter over in.
It was a few days after construction began that Alfred met Charbonneau. He, accompanied by a few Hidatsa, crossed the river in a canoe one morning and became the first European they'd seen west of the Mississippi.
"Hello, monsieur," the man said, immediately identifying himself as French, though he didn't really look like a Frenchman to Alfred (whose only exposure to that demographic was the strange officer with the plumed hat from the Revolution). He wore deerskin clothes and moccasins, all the trappings of a white fur trader making a living out west. The fur trade was incredibly profitable, but usually only for the merchants, not the trappers themselves. Otherwise, Charbonneau (judging by his age) would have retired years ago a rich man.
"A good morning to you as well," Alfred replied, unsure of what the man wanted. The rest of the soldiers hung back and watched as Alfred did what he was paid to do: his job as lead diplomat of the expedition. Lewis and Clark were off doing science-type things in the surrounding area, and had left early that morning in opposite directions to cover as much ground as possible, thus making it his duty to deal with a foreigner.
"I simply came to bid my good wishes to the Americains I heard were camping for the winter over here."
Alfred gave the man his most friendly smile in reply. "Thank you for that, Mr…?"
"Charbonneau," he said, smiling slightly as well. "Toussaint Charbonneau."
"If you don't mind my asking, Mr. Charbonneau, what's a Frenchman like you doing all the way out here?"
The man stiffened almost imperceptibly at the mention of French. "I am from Canada, monsieur, something you would do well to remember. And from your assessment of me when I first arrived, I would imagine you know perfectly well what it is that I am doing here."
This man was sharp, Alfred conceded, to have noticed his study. He supposed it came from a long life of living in the wild. Still, Alfred merely laughed.
"Good catch, Mr. Charbonneau! I meant, what's a fur trapper such as yourself doing living all the way out here with the Hidatsa?"
Instead of replying, Charbonneau turned away, motioning to someone in the small cluster of Indians to come forward. Alfred felt his breath hitch.
It was an Indian woman, still incredibly young (no more than seventeen by Alfred's best guess) and quite beautiful in her deerskin dress, with her long black hair wound over her shoulder. Shyly, she glanced up at Alfred, a tiny smile playing across her delicate features.
She looked strikingly like a young Nek.
Charbonneau didn't seem to notice Alfred's eyes widen at the sight of the girl. "This is my wife," he said, placing a possessive hand on her shoulder, "Sacagawea."
"I see," Alfred said after a moment's pause, finding his voice.
"She was taken by the Hidatsa from her home. I purchased her from them."
Alfred blinked in surprise. So the trapper had married a captured slave? That was a bit unexpected, but good for the girl in the end, he supposed. And if the less-than invisible bump on her stomach was anything to go by, Charbonneau had a few other reasons for not wanting to move around now aside from just needing a place to winter.
"How kind of you," Alfred replied, unsure of what else to say.
"I'm glad you approve," Charbonneau said, nodding firmly. "What is your name, Americain?"
"I'm Alfred, Alfred Jones." He stuck out his hand, which the Canadian took in his own heavily calloused one. "It's nice to meet you, Mr. Charbonneau." Releasing his grip, Alfred gave a polite bow to the girl beside him, smiling as she blushed when he kissed the back of her hand in true gentlemanly fashion.
"It's a pleasure to meet you as well, Miss Sacagawea."
_V~-~-~V_
When Lewis returned from his scientific activities, his arms full of the notebooks he used in the field, Alfred was surprised to see him take the arrival of Charbonneau and his wife very well indeed, especially when he found out that Charbonneau could communicate fluently with the natives. He was hired on the spot as an interpreter for both while they stayed with the Mandan and Hidatsa and for after they'd continued west once winter was over.
Sacagawea, Alfred found, spoke limited English, but enough to communicate with only a bit of difficulty. To help her, he tried to engage her in as much conversation as possible, and it soon became known that he was the only one of the expedition's members that she would speak to freely.
She turned out to be from the Shoshone tribe, captured by the Hidatsa during a raid and then sold to Charbonneau, who she said was very kind to her.
"So, what're you going to name the baby?" he asked one day, while they were taking a brief walk outside. The snow had stopped, and the midday sun provided some warmth as they made their way around the perimeter of the camp.
"I do not know," she replied. "My husband decides."
"He'll probably pick something French, then…" Alfred muttered. It'd be extremely ill-suited for a Shoshone, which was for sure. "Are you hoping for a boy or a girl?" he asked.
"Girl," Sacagawea said, "Toussaint wants son."
"That's what Nek always told me," Alfred replied, chuckling slightly. "She always said she wished I was a daughter, but instead she found a misbehaving boy. 'Why can't you be more like Amitola,' she'd ask."
"Nek?" Sacagawea asked, clearly confused.
"My mother," Alfred explained. "I spent my childhood with the People."
Sacagawea's eyes widened. "Then… you speak my language?"
Alfred shook his head. "Nah… Nek could, but all I speak is Algonquin, and bits of a couple others I picked up from my siblings."
"Your Nek… she speaks all languages of the People?"
Alfred nodded. "Yeah. She was pretty amazing. She took these trips, pretty often actually, all around, visiting my other siblings, and she'd always come back with stories of the faraway places she'd been…" Alfred sighed, remembering when he'd been small, sitting outside her birch bark house in the village, listening as she told him of the vast plains of grasses where the buffalo were plentiful, of the great mountains far west where it always snowed, and of the icy ocean beyond the land where it was never cold.
Sacagawea looked incredulously at Alfred. "Your Nek, her name is Sitala?"
Alfred whirled. "You know her?"
The young Indian woman's face took on an expression of amazement. "Your Nek is she who remembers, remembers for the People! All People know her!"
Alfred's expression mirrored Sacagawea's. "Really…? And here I thought… well… she was just my mother, nothing special… I mean, people looked up to her, but I never thought that much…"
Suddenly, he looked up to meet Sacagawea's eyes. "You look a lot like her, you know."
Sacagawea just stared. Then she shook her head, smiling faintly. "I could not look like Sitala. I do not think so well of myself."
From that day on, her attitude toward Alfred was one of a mixture of friendliness and a sort of soft respect she didn't even show her husband. It left Alfred puzzled, but whenever he asked her why, she would simply tell him in her broken English that he must be special, for Sitala to have raised him.
_V~-~-~V_
Spring couldn't come fast enough for Alfred. Fort Mandan, which had been completed Christmas Eve, had begun to give him a distinct sense of claustrophobia ever since the snows had lessened. The Mandan and the Hidatsa were already out and about, preparing for the coming warm seasons, and watching them only further developed Alfred's itch to move.
Sacagawea's baby was nearing two months old. It was a boy, as Charbonneau had wanted, with a mixed skin tone, dark brown hair and his mother's brown eyes. Also as Sacagawea had said, he'd named the boy, and Alfred swore little Jean Baptiste had tried to bite his fingers off the first time he'd held him. She'd just laughed and said that was the way it was with babies.
On April fifth, Lewis announced that they were going to move on, and expected everything packed and ready in no more than two days. Half the expedition would be going downriver, returning to the states with maps, reports, and scientific specimens for Jefferson. Among them was a letter Alfred had penned, detailing the successes and failures of the trip thus far, as well as his opinions on the tribes they'd encountered, including the Mandan and Hidatsa.
Two days later, as instructed, the fort was empty of necessary possessions, the tribes were thanked, and Lewis and Clark (accompanied by half the soldiers, Charbonneau, Sacagawea, and Alfred) set sail again, heading upriver with a confidence that the headwaters of the Missouri wouldn't be far.
It was a little over two weeks later when Lewis decided to go hunting with one other soldier. He'd left fairly early in the morning, but it was nearing dusk and he still hadn't returned. Clark paced the deck of the keelboat, his anxiety showing through his normally placid exterior.
"Where could he be? He's been gone for hours! Insufferable, irresponsible, idiotic..."
"Clark!" The man stopped his pacing long enough to look up at Alfred.
"You're being stupid! Lewis is perfectly capable of taking care of himself, so stop being such a mother hen!"
"But he's been gone all day! Not even he has ever taken this long to finish hunting before…"
"If something had happened to him, don't you think the other soldier would have come back and told us? But nothing should happen anyway, because that soldier was with him for his protection and assistance! And isn't Lewis a soldier too? He can handle himself well enough without your protective instincts!"
"I'm glad you have such faith in me, Jones." Both men spun around at the sound of the familiar dry voice.
"Lewis!" Clark exclaimed, practically flying across the deck to where Lewis stood, dirt on his clothes, grinning in a somewhat unhinged manner while his partner chewed him out. "Honestly, Meriwether, what are you thinking, being out all day with no word, not once! I was expecting you back hours ago, but no, you just leave me here to worry all day that the leader of the expedition has gone and gotten himself killed—"
"Relax, I'm fine," Lewis said exasperatedly. "But you'll never guess what I found!" Instantly, Clark's expression went from irritation to excitement. "Bring 'er up, men!"
At the general sound of commotion on deck, Charbonneau and Sacagawea, as well as the remaining soldiers, emerged from the ship just in time to see a giant furry… something get hauled up.
"A grizzly bear!" Clark exclaimed, immediately rushing forward to examine the specimen. Now that Alfred looked closer, he could see that it was a bear, albeit a huge one, with silver-tipped black fur and very sharp-looking teeth.
"I've never seen one that big…" Alfred muttered, staring at the grizzly's glassy black eyes as the men crowded around it, touching the fur and rubbing its limbs in collective interest.
Glancing sideways, Alfred could see Charbonneau's expression, indifference tinged with faint amusement. Just beyond him, Alfred caught sight of Sacagawea's distraught face before she spun around and disappeared off the ship, unnoticed by anyone else.
_V~-~-~V_
That night, the air was warm with the scent of a fast-approaching summer when Alfred found that he couldn't sleep. Emerging from his tent, he made his way out of the grove of trees the expedition had camped in, careful to tiptoe lest he wake the others.
Leaving the grove, Alfred found himself in a refreshingly open landscape, with nothing but grass and mountains in the distance. You could lose yourself in a place like this, just wander forever with nothing to stop you, all alone.
So it was to his surprise that he found a certain young Indian woman sitting on a grassy hillside, gazing upwards with an odd expression on her face, a strange mix of peace, worry, and sadness.
"Fancy meeting you out here," Alfred said quietly, not wanting to disturb the stillness.
Sacagawea whirled around, but relaxed when she saw who had spoken. "Ah, Alfred."
Kicking off his boots, Alfred sat down beside her, and trained his eyes upward. The Milky Way glowed brightly, flowing across the sky in one enormous band of foggy lights, the twinkle of millions of stars surrounding it on all sides. "What were you thinking about?"
"The bear."
"You mean the one Lewis killed?" Sacagawea nodded morosely.
"Why?"
"It is sad," she said. "He goes to the Eternal Hunting-Grounds."
"The Eternal Hunting-Grounds?"
"All people go. See?" She pointed upwards at the Milky Way. "The Bridge of Souls."
Comprehension dawned on Alfred. "You mean, the bear's going to heaven? In the stars?"
Sacagawea nodded. "Like bear Wakinu. He was sent away by bear Wakini, away to Snow Country. He found the Bridge of Souls."
"Who's Wakinu?"
"You do not know?" Sacagawea asked, looking genuinely surprised. "You say you live with Sitala for a time!"
"Not your people, the Algonquin, back east of here," Alfred replied. "Nek didn't tell me a story like that."
"Oh."
Tentatively, Alfred asked, "…Could you tell me?"
"You wish to hear of Wakini and Wakinu?"
Alfred nodded, and Sacagawea smiled faintly. Then, eyes gazing upward again at the Milky Way, she began her story.
v~v
Wakini was a small black bear, who was one day feasting on the contents of an ant hill when a big strong gray grizzly, Wakinu, rudely tried to take some. There was of course a great fight, with many gray and black hairs flying, because no animal can take another's prey. No one knows how, but Wakini overpowered Wakinu, and like a defeated warrior, Wakinu of course had to leave his tribe.
He made many protests, but they were in vain. He said goodbye to all his familiar surroundings and, blinded by tears, didn't notice that he was nearing Snow Country until his fur was frozen and white, and he found himself in a land where there was nothing but deep night, where he could hear nothing but the sound of his great paws in the snow.
Above him there was a bright glow of the night sky, and in the distance, Wakinu could see the very fringe of Snow Country and the heavens, with a bright white trail ascending to the sky. Running, Wakinu reached the edge of the trail, and ascended from the ground, as light as a feather, up and up.
The animals who were awake saw the wide white trail in the sky, and on it, a gray bear. The wise black bear Wakini said, "Wakinu has found the Bridge of Souls, and is on his way to the Eternal Hunting-grounds."
Wakinu really was on his way to the Eternal Hunting-grounds. The only thing he left behind was the white snow shaken from his coat.
v~v
"So today, grizzly killed by Lewis is sent up the Bridge of Souls, like Wakinu," Sacagawea finished, still gazing upward.
"Then all that," Alfred said, gesturing to the bright white glow in the sky, "is snow from Wakinu's fur?"
Sacagawea nodded sagely. "That is what my people say."
Alfred hm'd. "Well, that's a good thing for the bear. He's following a path that's already clearly marked, thanks to Wakinu, isn't he?"
The young woman looked surprised. "I… have not thought like that. But…" she smiled again, "I think you are right."
_V~-~-~V_
It was another lazy day on the keelboat, sometime in late May, when Alfred found Clark making his maps on the deck instead of wandering off somewhere as he usually did.
His equipment was complex, that was for sure. Papers covered in lines representing rivers and altitude marks, others had forest blotches and areas labeled for the specific native tribes that lived there, and lines of approximate latitude and longitude (calculated by the stars, of course).
Clark was also the arbitrary name-giver to all the places they encountered. Lewis often voiced his opinion, and some landmarks Sacagawea or Charbonneau knew the native name for, but other than that it was up to Clark. He'd been nervous about the task at first, but now he usually just named things after famous people or whatever was on his mind that day.
Alfred leaned over his shoulder as the man worked, sketching out lines, checking and rechecking them with his compass, and glancing up every so often at the changing direction of the river.
At first, Alfred was just impressed by the precise lines Clark drew, but when he started to really study Clark's script running across the map, a particular name caught his eye.
"The Judith? You're naming that river the Judith?" he asked, tapping the particular spot on the map, and noting with amusement that Clark's face flushed.
"Oh, yes. I thought it was a nice name."
Alfred grinned slyly. "Any particular reason? Is there a certain someone named Judith who makes this name 'nice'?"
Clark blushed again. "Actually… she's a girl back home in Virginia," he almost-whispered. Even quieter, he continued, "I hope to marry her someday, when we get back."
"Really?" Clark nodded, avoiding Alfred's eyes. "Well then, I hope that goes well for you."
"So do I."
_V~-~-~V_
It was only a few days after passing the newly-named Judith River that the expedition encountered its most difficult (land) obstacle yet. The keelboat was at a standstill, and just about the entire crew, including Sacagawea and little Jean Baptiste, was on deck, examining said obstacle.
It was a fork in the river, nothing more, but it presented a rather serious difficulty. When trying to get to the headwaters of the Missouri, one must first find the Missouri. Previously, the expedition had always just done a little advanced scouting and picked the bigger river, a strategy that was working fine until now. Because when you don't have any maps other than the ones you've made yourself, there's little you can do when nobody knows which of the equally-large forks is the right one.
"I say the north fork," one of the men said. "There's mountains over that way, aren't there? And all rivers come from mountains." He glanced at Charbonneau, who nodded.
"There are indeed mountains north of here." The soldier looked smug, as if that proved his point.
It certainly convinced the rest of the men, who all quickly sided with the north fork as well. Alfred even reluctantly agreed that they were probably right.
"Well," Lewis said, "I say we go south."
Immediately, the men were up in arms, shouting down the suggestion in a manner which struck Alfred as rather rude, seeing as they were addressing a superior military officer.
Clark glanced at Charbonneau as well, who merely held up his hands. "I've never traveled by boat this way before, so I am of no help to you here. My guess is as good as yours."
"I say south as well," Clark declared, interrupting the argument, though he looked a little unsure. "What about you, Alfred?" he asked, with a glance begging Alfred to please fix the problem.
Alfred was silent for a moment. The soldiers all turned to look at him, unsure of whether he was one of them or one of the politicians, as his position on the ship wasn't all that clear in the first place.
Taking a deep breath, Alfred said, "I would have to say north as well." But before the men could start up again, he continued, louder than before, "However, I think the expedition leaders have the right to decide, as the most educated here. They're the ones hired to run this expedition, not us. If they're wrong, we could always turn back, but haven't we trusted their judgment before, and done well every time?"
A collective murmur rose from those assembled. Finally, one man spoke.
"We agree with Jones."
"Aye, whichever you choose is fine by us."
Clark looked relieved, and shot Alfred a grateful look. Even Lewis seemed to breathe easier at the aversion of a crisis.
Taking charge again, Lewis shouted, "Well? What are you waiting for? Get back to your stations, and turn this thing hard to port! We're going south!"
V/~-~-~\V
First off, some historical info: the Teton Sioux confrontation-that-almost-was did happen, and was stopped just in time by chief Black Buffalo.
Toussaint Charbonneau was very real and picked up at the Mandan/Hidatsa camp along with his formerly-a-slave wife, Sacagawea, who gave birth to baby Jean Baptiste Charbonneau on February 15, 1805. She was considered useful to the expedition because her people, the Shoshone, live at the headwaters of the Missouri, but the expedition was really after Charbonneau for his interpretation skills. She was just a bonus.
The grizzly bear, which had never before been described for science, was really killed by Lewis and one other man.
The legend of Wakini and Wakinu is a real Shoshone story, explaining the Milky Way.
Clark did have a girl back home named Judith, and did name the river after her.
There was a fork in the river, and the vote was soldiers for the north, Lewis and Clark for the south. But the soldiers, just as they do here, deferred to Lewis and Clark's judgment.
And Clark really did spell Sioux twenty-seven different ways in his reports and journals.
So, I've kept this chapter quite close to real-life events, aside from the fact that Alfred's present. Next chapter, look forward to the conclusion of the expedition!
And, as always, I hope you enjoyed reading! If you've the time, don't be shy to drop a review or comment!