September 20, 1805
Today we found the remains of a horse Captain Clark left us. It was very agreeable....
"More agreeable than what we had, I reckon," Colter says.
Drouillard shakes his head. "It's a wonder none of us died from that root."
THE MEN HAD GOTTEN very sick from eating too much camas. The following morning some of them had so much pain in their bellies they could not stand up. Captain Clark sent those who could walk out hunting, except for Reubin Fields. He was sent back toward the mountains to find Captain Lewis with a load of dried salmon and camas root the Nez Percé provided.
"Make sure you tell them to go easy on that root," Captain Clark said.
"Yes, sir," Reubin said.
While the men were out hunting Captain Clark rambled over to another camp along the river where it was said their chief, a man named Twisted Hair, was fishing.
I did not go with Captain Clark, nor did I join Reubin or the men hunting. Instead I stayed in camp with Mountain Dog, following him around as he proudly showed me off to his friends. I had never been around a young boy and found it very much to my liking. He and his friends were filled with enormous energy and a boundless sense of fun. They were constantly laughing, racing their horses, and playing jokes on one another. It brought to mind the fun we'd had before we started up the Missouri.
Mountain Dog lived with three other boys his age in a lodge not far from his grandmother, whose name I learned was Watkuweis, which meant "returned from a faraway country." That night I learned how she had gotten this name.
Mountain Dog and his friends were gathered around Watkuweis's fire exchanging stories. When they had exhausted their supply, one of the boys asked Watkuweis to tell her story.
"But you know my story," she said.
"Please."
Watkuweis looked deep into the fire and began....
"When I was a young girl I traveled east of the mountains with my family to hunt the buffalo. We had been there for some time gathering and preparing the meat and the skins, and we were ready to come home. But on the day we were to leave, the Blackfeet fell upon us. They killed everyone in my family and took me with them.
"I lived as a slave in their village for a long and terrible time. The Blackfeet are as cruel as every story you have heard about them. The only thing that kept me alive was the thought that I would one day escape and return here.
"After a time the man who owned me took me north for many days. We arrived at a huge lodge made of trees stacked together, higher than one can climb. The lodge was called a fort. The men who lived inside had white skin, and hair on their faces and chests, like the men who have come to visit us here. They trapped and traded for furs, and their ways were very different from ours.
"The Blackfeet who owned me traded me to a white man for a musket. At first I was very frightened, but the white man who bought me was a good man. He treated me well. We lived together for many years and I bore him a son, but still I dreamed of returning home.
"When our son was still small, I was told by a white woman living at the fort that the men were going back to their home across the big water. 'They are never coming back,' she said. And they are taking you with them.'
"Of all the bad things that had happened to me, this would have been the most terrible, because it would have meant I could never see my home again. The white woman helped me to escape. She gave me a hatchet and some food. One night as the men slept I put my son in a cradleboard and left the fort.
"I went east toward the mountains. Suns and storms beat me down. Wild animals chased me. Streams and rivers barred my way. I was constantly afraid the Blackfeet would find me. But I continued on.
"Whenever I was too afraid to take another step, my wyakin—a great wolf—encouraged me to continue and told me which way to go.
"I made a raft to cross a big river. As I crossed, a bear attacked me but I killed him with my hatchet.
"My baby began to weaken because we had no food. I found a pile of old bones that still had some meat on them. I cooked this meat and fed some to my baby, but the meat was bad. My baby died. I dug a shallow grave with my hands and buried him.
"When I finally reached the mountains my strength left me. I lay there for many days waiting for death, but instead a group of Nee-mee-poo hunters found me and took me across the mountains to my home."
September 22, 1805
Private R. Fields found us today and brought camas root and salmon. These mountains will soon be behind us....
Colter stands and stretches. "We're getting toward the end, but I've had about enough for tonight."
"What do you mean, we're toward the end?" Drouillard asks in surprise.
"The end of the red book. The Captain doesn't make another entry until January 1, 1806, when we were at Fort Clatsop."
Drouillard takes the book and flips through the few remaining pages. "Guess we can finish it up tomorrow, then." He explains this to Watkuweis.
Mountain Dog puts the red book into the pouch, and he and Watkuweis walk back to their tepee.
Colter rolls his blanket out next to the fire. "They got most of them buffalo hides cleaned up this afternoon. I suspect they'll be moving on soon. You think Twisted Hair will be back tomorrow?"
"Or the next day," Drouillard says. "Funny the Captain didn't write much after we got over them mountains."
"He wasn't the same after that."
The evening is warm and clear and windy. I feel restless and ramble out onto the prairie, where the yellow moon is so bright the buffalo cast shadows on the ground. I think about Captain Lewis and the men during that final year. Colter is right, the Captain was not the same after crossing the mountains—but neither were the other men, and neither was I.
I find a sheltered place among some rocks and lie down. A great deal happened during the months the Captain chose not to write in the red book. I close my eyes and remember....
WHEN CAPTAIN LEWIS and the other men arrived at the camas camp they looked more dead than alive—cheeks sunken, buckskins filthy and torn, moccasins shredded—and they barely had the strength to pull the packs off their thin horses.
The Captain lay down outside a lodge, clutched his knees, and began to moan. He wasn't alone.
"I told them to take it easy on that camas and fish," Reubin said. "But they were so hungry they couldn't help themselves."
Bird Woman, Pomp, and Old Toby were not afflicted. In fact when Bird Woman saw me she smiled broadly, scratched my ears, then reached into her pouch and gave me a dead mouse.
The Nez Percé gathered around as the men unloaded the horses. They were astonished at the collection of goods, but what impressed them most were the rifles.
That night the Nez Percé men met at the lodge next door to Watkuweis's. They talked for hours about our tribe and our goods.
"If we had those rifles we could protect ourselves from our enemies."
"We could kill deer and elk in the winter when the salmon is gone."
"Did you see the metal tomahawk for cutting trees? With that we could build shelters and cut wood for our fires in no time at all."
Watkuweis sat outside her lodge pounding camas root on a flat stone, listening to their conversation.
"The white men are very sick," one of the men said.
"Even their chiefs are weakened," another added.
"It would be easy to have these things for ourselves."
Watkuweis got up and walked over to them.
"I hear your talk," she said. "The white men were very good to me even though I was a stranger to them."
"We are just talking, Watkuweis. There is no harm in talk."
"Bad talk leads to bad actions. You talk like the Blackfeet."
The men stared at the fire, chastened.
"These men have done nothing to you," she said. "Do them no harm!"
And they didn't. Instead they were very kind to our tribe. We moved our camp to the Clearwater River. Captain Clark had the men who felt well enough cut trees for dugout canoes. The Nez Percé showed them an easier way to hollow out the logs by using hot coals from the fire. Chief Twisted Hair said he would care for our horses and saddles while we were gone in exchange for two rifles. He helped us brand the horses so we would know which ones were ours when we returned. Every day people from different villages came to camp with food to sell. In the evenings Captain Clark treated the Nez Percé ills in exchange for horses and other items.
We stayed with the Nez Percé for several weeks, preparing for the last leg of our journey to the Pacific Ocean.
During most of that time Captain Lewis was so sick he could not sit up. I stayed with him most nights, but during the day I spent my time with Mountain Dog and his friends, who had built a shelter close to the canoe camp so they would not miss any of the excitement of having us there.
They took me hunting with bows and arrows, although we rarely saw any game. Hunting was just an excuse to get on horseback and race each other to the tops of hills. They took me upriver, where they speared salmon, which were more numerous than the buffalo east of the mountains. In some spots the fish were so thick you could have crossed the river on their fins. They took me up into the mountains, a place Mountain Dog knew very well, and with him I lost my fear of the mountains' bite. And there I discovered something.
Mountain Dog and his friends were on foot tracking a deer up a draw when I heard "Caw! Caw! Caw!" I had not seen White Feather since Traveler's Rest. He was perched in a lightning-struck tree. I stopped and barked.
"He's scaring the deer!"
Mountain Dog ignored his friend's complaint and looked up at the tree. "What's he looking at?" he asked.
I stared at Mountain Dog. Surely he and his friends could see and hear White Feather.
"Perhaps he sees his spirit guide," one of his friends said, laughing.
"A dog with a spirit guide?" the other scoffed.
"Caw! Caw! Caw!"
I was bewildered. How could they not see and hear White Feather? Mountain Dog and his friends continued up the draw after the deer, but I stayed below the tree staring up at my companion, trying to make sense of what had just occurred. I thought back to all the other times White Feather had appeared, trying to remember if my human companions had ever acknowledged his presence. If they had, I didn't recall it. It would be some time before I discovered what this meant.
The men began complaining about having nothing to eat except salmon and camas roots. They killed a horse to eat, but this did not slake their appetite. One day as I returned to camp from a ramble upriver with Mountain Dog, I smelled meat roasting, but it was not horse or any other animal flesh I had smelled before. I hurried along and when I got there, I found the men standing around the fires pushing meat into their mouths. Captain Lewis was with them, and so was Bird Woman. She had Pomp in her lap and was feeding him little pieces she had pulled off a bone.
"I believe this is the most delicious meat I've ever eaten," the Captain said between mouthfuls. "It is far superior to either deer or elk, and it is certainly better than horse."
Several Nez Percé stood off to the side. They were trying to hide their smiles and whispering to each other as they watched the men eat.
I walked up to the Captain, happy to see he was feeling better, and hoping he might part with a morsel or two.
"You've been out with those Indian boys again," he said, seeing my wet fur. "Don't forget whose dog you are. Try this." He tossed a meaty bone about twenty feet away from me.
I ran over to it, and I was about to try this new food for myself when Sergeant Pryor came into camp pulling a whimpering Indian dog behind him with a rope. He cinched the poor dog to a stump, pulled his knife out, and slit the dog's throat.
I stared in disbelief, too horrified to even bark. I looked at the men. They continued talking and didn't even glance in the dog's direction as he bled out. When the dog stopped struggling, Reubin untied the rope and gutted him like a deer.
I looked down at the bone. I looked at the meat roasting above the fire. I looked at the Nez Percé, still smiling and whispering. The Nez Percé did not eat dog. In fact the very idea disgusted them, but this did not stop them from selling every dog they could get their hands on to our tribe.
I left the canoe camp and did not return that night or the next.
I had never been so sorry to leave a place in my life as I was when we left the Nez Percé. Mountain Dog stood on the bank with Watkuweis and waved to me with tears in his eyes as the Clearwater River pushed us westward to the Pacific Ocean.
For the first time in our journey we floated with the current instead of struggling against it, which presented new challenges and no small amount of fear, especially among the men who could not swim. Instead of portaging around the rapids, we took our dugouts down the center of these chaotic flows, which at times scared everyone, including me. Old Toby, who had decided to travel downriver with us a ways, spent the first evening around the fire removing splinters from his hands, buried there by gripping the sides of the canoe. By the second evening he'd had all he could take. He left without claiming the two horses the captains promised him for guiding us through the mountains.
After Old Toby left, Twisted Hair and another chief joined us and rode in the lead canoe to tell the Indians downriver we were coming and we were friendly.
Wood for our campfires was as scarce as game along the river. We proceeded down the Clearwater onto the Snake River, stopping every night to buy wood from the Indians, and dogs to cook over the fires. The captains did not want to take the time to send the men out hunting for other meat. The only thing on their minds was to get to the Pacific Ocean as fast as the current would take us. Not wanting to eat dog, I spent a good portion of my evenings scrounging for food among the Indians.
When we reached the broad Columbia River we met the Chinook Indians. They crowded around our camp every night, more curious about our goods than they were about us.
Little items started to disappear from our supplies—a tomahawk, a spoon—which made the men very angry, but none more than Captain Lewis, who treated the Chinooks very roughly for stealing our things. Once again he had been overtaken by one of his dark moods, but this time he was not alone. In their hurry to reach the Pacific, all of the men seemed to have lost their patience with the Indians. The men's mood was not improved when Twisted Hair told us that he had heard the Indians below intended to kill us and take our goods.
The Indians below did not try to kill us. They thought the water would take care of that for them.
Below Celilo Falls, where Twisted Hair and the other chief said their good-byes and headed back upriver, was a narrow chute of raging water. Rather than portage around it, the captains decided to float right down the center of it, against the advice of several Chinooks who said that not even they would attempt such a feat.
Those who could not swim were put on shore with the captains' papers, instruments, and other valuable items.
"See you on the other side!" Captain Lewis shouted up to them.
It was a wild ride, but all of our canoes made it through unscathed, much to the disappointment of some of the Indians waiting below.
A wolf howls. I open my eyes. Such a sweet sound. Another howl comes from the west. I look at the Nez Percé camp. No light comes from the tepees. The fires have died down to embers and smoke.
I think about getting up and going to Mountain Dog's tepee, but I am so comfortable where I am. I close my eyes again....
WHEN AT LAST we reached the Pacific Ocean, the bad weather took some of the joy away from achieving that long sought-after goal, but not all of it. The men shook hands, laughed, and clapped each other on the back. According to Captain Clark we had traveled 4,142 miles from the mouth of the Missouri River.
Our first week there, we were stranded in a large estuary, unable to move because of severe winds, high tides, and fog. The men went hunting every day but could find nothing to shoot.
Once again we were helped by Indians. A group of Clatsops appeared at our camp and sold us food. Their sleek canoes were better designed than our dugouts and they had little trouble managing the rough water.
As we had traveled down the Columbia we had started to see white trade goods—iron kettles, old muskets, blue coats with brass buttons, even a sailor's cap or two—brought upriver from trading ships anchored in the mouth of the river. The captains had hoped and expected there would be a ship they could buy supplies from anchored in the bay. They had even talked of putting a man or two aboard the ship to take their maps and journals back to the East Coast, around the horn of South America. But there was no ship.
At a spot they named Cape Disappointment the captains gathered the tribe around them and listed our options.
"We can winter where we are, at the mouth of this river," Captain Lewis said. "We can cross the bay to the south shore, where the Clatsops say there are plenty of elk and deer, and build a fort there. Or we can proceed back upriver to Celilo Falls and winter with the Chinook."
"We've decided to put it to a vote," Captain Clark said.
Everyone voted, including York and Bird Woman. We decided unanimously to explore the south side of the bay.
"What if we don't find a good place for a fort over there?" Private Shields asked.
"That leaves the two other choices," Captain Lewis said.
They voted again, half saying they would want to stay at the mouth of the river and the other half saying they would want to return to Celilo Falls. We didn't have to resort to either, though, because we found a good site on the southern shore and built a fort, which the captains named after the Clatsop Indians.
The morning sun warms my fur and I smell buffalo meat cooking. I stand, stretch, yawn, and pee, then return to camp and to Mountain Dog's lodge to get some food. His wife, Little Deer, smiles when she sees me.
"Yahka," she scolds. "Mountain Dog looked all over for you this morning, but you must have been out courting wolves. He rode off to meet Twisted Hair without you."
I heard him ride away and thought about joining him, but I want to spend the day with Drouillard and Colter. After they finish trading, they will leave, and who knows when I will see them again. Little Deer gives me a buffalo bone. When I finish it I head off to find Drouillard and Colter.
They have spread their blankets and are setting trade goods out on them. Beads, buttons, knives, looking glasses ... The people are already gathering to see what they have.
"Hey, dog," Colter says, and grabs the fur on the sides of my face.
An hour later Twisted Hair arrives with several people from our other camp. The trading begins and doesn't conclude until after dark.
When the trading is finished and the camp is settling down for the evening, Mountain Dog and Watkuweis again come to Colter and Drouillard's fire, but they are not alone. Twisted Hair and several others are with them.
"Got a full house tonight." Colter takes the red book from Mountain Dog and opens it. "The grand finale," he says, and begins to read....
January 1, 1806
Our fort is now complete. We were awoken this morning by the men firing their rifles in front of our quarters. This was the only respect we paid this important day. All of us are eagerly anticipating January 1, 1807, when we will be back with our friends and family....
IT RAINED AND stormed nearly every day. Nothing ever seemed to dry out, and the men were constantly sneezing and coughing from the damp coldness of that place. The weather aggravated my injured leg, making it difficult to run on some days.
The Clatsops and other Indians were regular visitors, bringing food and other items to trade. They were friendly, but our men were not the first white men they had traded with. As a result they drove hard bargains, reducing our remaining trade goods to nearly nothing by the time we left them.
The men went out hunting every day and brought back elk and deer, but they quickly tired of this meat, and not a day passed without at least one of the men mentioning his hankering for a slice of buffalo tongue. They also continued eating dogs when they could get them from the Indians.
Captain Lewis and Captain Clark spent almost all of their time in the little room they shared, Captain Lewis working on his animal collection and the official journal, Captain Clark drawing detailed maps of where we had been. The men had built the captains a small desk in front of the window so they could keep an eye on the fort while they worked.
Captain Lewis was unusually quiet the entire time we were at the fort. He woke up early, checked on the men, ate breakfast, then sat at the desk scratching words until evening, when he would check on the men again, eat dinner, then return to the desk and work by candlelight until he went to sleep. I began to wonder if this was what the Captain was like when he was at home. It was pleasant lying next to the warm fire in his room, but I wasn't sure I would like this every day. I had gotten used to rambling.
Whenever I could, I went out hunting with Drouillard. I also joined Colter hunting from time to time, and watched him perfect his bull-elk bugling in those thick, dark green coastal forests. He became so good at it that all he had to do when he wanted an elk was to find a comfortable spot to sit, let out a bugle, and choose which elk to kill.
About the only long excursion I took while I was there was with Captain Clark. The Clatsops told us a giant whale had washed up on shore south of us. Captain Clark wanted to go down and get some of its meat and oil to add a little zest to our diet.
Bird Woman asked to go with him.
"I don't think so, Janey," Captain Clark said gently. Janey was his nickname for her.
Bird Woman looked Captain Clark in the eye. "I did not come all this way to miss a chance to see such a giant fish. I am going!"
"Well," he said, somewhat flustered at her response, "I guess you are."
By the time we got down to see the whale, the Indians had stripped most of the meat, but the skeleton was still there. I had seen a number of whales spouting in the ocean when I was a pup, but I had no idea how huge these beasts were until I stood next to those bones. That creature made salmon look like fleas.
February 17, 1806
This afternoon Privates Shannon and Labiche brought in a buzzard they wounded I believe it to be the largest bird in North America. From wing tip to wing tip this one measured 9 feet, 2 inches, and it weighed 25 pounds. It was a poor specimen and I suspect it would have weighed ten pounds more had it been in good flesh. We saw a number of these magnificent birds soaring above us as we descended the Columbia River.
Pomp had his first birthday last week and I would venture to say that he has seen more of this country than any boy his age. One of the men asked for a few of the buzzard feathers so he could make the boy a headdress....
POMP HAD GOTTEN his feet under him and was running around like a young squirrel, which kept Bird Woman busier than a hen with a dozen chicks. Her husband, Charbonneau, was little help to her, but Captain Clark spelled her every once in a while so she could get some rest.
Captain Clark was like a different person when he was around that pup. He took him for walks, played with him, tickled him, and always seemed a little sad when he had to give him back to his mother.
White Feather made several appearances during the long winter when I was out rambling by myself or with one of the men. I tried to draw attention to him, but the men were deaf and blind when it came to that crow. He seemed invisible to all but me. I hunkered down in Fort Clatsop as the gray days dripped by, listening to the men talk about going home and what they were going to do when they got there. Several of them, including Colter and Drouillard, had no intention of working the land the army had promised them upon their return. Their intention was to sell their land as quickly as they could, outfit themselves with the proceeds, and travel back up the Missouri to trap and hunt until the day they died.
As far as I could tell, the captains had no intention of going back up the Missouri after they returned home. They were going to set up residences in Saint Louis, publish their findings, and along with fulfilling whatever official duties they were given, perhaps enter into the fur business.
I wondered what the Captain's plans meant to me. There was a time, when I was with Brady, that I envied dogs that lived in houses with their masters, getting regular meals and kind words. But this feeling had faded with every step I had taken into the wilderness.