July 20, 1806
Very few trees. We walked along the top of the bluff, which was nearly 200 feet above the river. Made 28 miles.
July 22, 1806
After 29 miles we arrived at a grove of cottonwood in the river bottom. I can see 20 miles ahead, to the foot of the Rocky Mountains. We will camp here so I can make the necessary observations with my instruments. The game here is very shy, an indication that there are Indians in the vicinity hunting them.
July 26, 1806
We have met a group of Blackfeet Indians.
Colter closes the red book. "That's all the Captain wrote." He looks at Drouillard.
"But that's not the end of the story," Drouillard says. It's clear that Mountain Dog, Watkuweis, and the others all want to hear what happened when we met the Blackfeet...
"We had gone as far up Maria's River as Captain Lewis wanted. We had just turned south and were heading back across the prairie toward the Great Falls...," Drouillard begins.
DROUILLARD WAS riding along the bank of a small river, hunting, and we were above him walking on the prairie. We had climbed a hill above the river and stopped to look around.
"Horses," Captain Lewis said. "About a mile distant."
Joe Fields followed the Captain's gaze. "Sure enough. A whole herd of them."
The Captain took his eagle eye out for a closer look. "Indians," he said. "But I don't think they see us yet They seem to be looking down at the river bottom."
"Drouillard," Reubin said.
The Captain frowned. "There are at least thirty horses. If there are as many Indians we may be in for an unpleasant time, gentlemen."
"Blackfeet?" Reubin asked.
"That's my assumption, Private, and it looks like a couple of them are carrying rifles. We can't leave Drouillard down there.
"We'll try to make the best out of this situation. Joe, get that flag out. Let's see if we can get their attention off our friend in the river bottom."
It worked. One of the Blackfeet saw the flag and whipped his horse forward in our direction. Captain Lewis calmly climbed off his horse and stood waiting for the Blackfeet's approach.
The brave was disconcerted by the Captain's reaction to the charge and brought his horse to a stop a hundred paces away. Captain Lewis held his hand out to him, and the brave wheeled his horse around and galloped back to the others.
"I only count eight of them," Joe said, greatly relieved.
The Blackfeet were mere boys—younger than Mountain Dog and his friends.
"But there may be more." The Captain climbed back up on his horse. "Several of the horses have saddles on them. We'll walk up to them, but if there is trouble I plan to resist to my dying breath."
"We're with you, Captain," the Fields brothers said in unison.
When we got within a few paces, the Captain had the brothers stop. He approached the boy who had charged us alone. When the Captain got up to him, he put his hand out again. This time the boy shook it.
Joe and Reubin let out long breaths of pure relief, and rode up behind the Captain.
With poor hand-talk, the Captain explained that the man in the river bottom was with us and suggested that Reubin and one of the Blackfeet ride down and bring him up.
"I was pretty surprised when Reubin rode up to me with an Indian behind him," Drouillard explains. "When we got to the top we were met by Captain Lewis and the others. The sun was just going down, and the Captain said that he had invited the Blackfeet to camp with us...."
BEFORE WE MET Drouillard, the Captain had given the Blackfeet the medals he had with him, a handkerchief, and the flag.
We found a good spot to camp at a bend in the river. The Blackfeet made a domed shelter out of sticks, threw some tanned buffalo hides over it, then invited the Captain inside for a parley. Drouillard did the hand-talking.
They said they were from a large band of Blackfeet about a day's march away. They also told us that another band of Blackfeet was out hunting buffalo and would arrive at the mouth of Maria's River in a few days, which was not welcome news, as our men were near the mouth getting the pirogue and our supplies ready to go down the Missouri.
The talk lasted late into the night. Captain Lewis gave his speech about their great white father, and told them that it would be to their tribe's advantage to cooperate with us. He asked them where they had gotten their muskets. They told him they had traded furs for them at the British fort to the north.
"Ask them if they'll come with us to the mouth of Maria's River," the Captain told Drouillard. "Ask if a couple of them would like to go with us even farther, to Saint Louis."
Drouillard made the signs, but the boys didn't respond. We got their answer the next morning.
Captain Lewis was afraid the Blackfeet might try to steal our horses during the night. We were all exhausted and the Fields brothers had the late sentry duty.
I lay down next to the Captain, closed my eyes, and didn't open them until I heard Drouillard shout—
"Damn you! Let go of my gun!"
It was just dawn. Drouillard was in a tug-of-war with the Blackfeet who had his rifle. Captain Lewis jumped up and reached for his rifle, but found it gone. We saw one of the Blackfeet boys running away with it. The Captain pulled the horse pistol out of his holster and ran after him.
The boy stopped. Captain Lewis pointed the pistol at him and motioned for him to lay the rifle on the ground. The boy started to do so, when the Fields brothers came running up with their rifles loaded and cocked.
"Don't shoot him!" Captain Lewis shouted at them.
The boy dropped Captain Lewis's rifle and ran. As Captain Lewis retrieved it, the Fields brothers explained that a Blackfeet had stolen their rifles when they weren't looking.
"We chased after the Indian who took our rifles," Reubin said. "I pulled my knife on him and stabbed him in the heart He's lying dead right over there—"
For a moment the men and I were stunned. We had been traveling for months through Indian territory and there had been some tense moments, but none before this had led to a death. Then I noticed the Blackfeet were trying to scatter our horses. I started barking.
"The horses!" Captain Lewis shouted. "Go after them, boys. We're dead if they get our mounts."
Captain Lewis and I ran after the two Indians driving the horses upriver. The Fields brothers and Drouillard ran after the others, who were driving the horses downriver.
We chased the Indians nearly three hundred yards, until they reached the vertical wall of the bluff. They ran the horses into a small alcove and tried to take cover behind a pile of rocks in front of the alcove. One of them had an old musket with him. We couldn't see if the second boy was armed or not.
"Let our horses go!" Captain Lewis shouted.
The Blackfeet boys didn't move or say a word.
Captain Lewis shouldered his rifle, aimed, and fired, wounding the boy in the belly. The boy fell over but got right back up and fired at Captain Lewis. The ball missed.
In his hurry the Captain had left his shot pouch back at camp and could not reload.
"Let's go, Sea."
Captain Lewis and I ran back to camp. Drouillard was there with four horses. The Fields brothers came back with four more.
While the men saddled the horses, Captain Lewis threw everything he could find that belonged to the Blackfeet into the fire.
"We've got some hard riding to do, gentlemen," he said. "When word of this gets to the other Blackfeet bands they are going to seek revenge. We need to get to the mouth of Maria's River and warn the other men."
They rode off. For the first couple hours I was able to keep up with them, but then I started to fall behind.
"We rode all day and half the night," Drouillard says. "We stopped briefly to let the horses graze late that afternoon. After we rested for a bit, we got back on our horses and rode until dark, figuring we had gotten about eighty miles away from the Blackfeet. We shot a buffalo and ate, then started out again and rode until two in the morning. We rode a hundred miles in less than twenty hours."
"And the dog?" Watkuweis asks.
Drouillard looks at me. "We kind of lost track of him. Didn't really notice he wasn't with us until we stopped that afternoon. We weren't overly concerned—Sea was a good tracker and we thought he'd be able to find us. We couldn't go back for him, that's for certain. We had our men on the river to think about. Captain Lewis was confident Sea would catch up to us. He always had in the past..."
MY LEG WAS bothering me and it was impossible for me to keep up with the horses. It was dark by the time I reached the place they had let the horses graze. By the scent, I knew the men were a good four or five hours ahead of me. If I had kept going I might have been able to catch them by morning, but I was too tired to continue and, like Captain Lewis, I was sure I would catch up eventually. I slept.
"Captain Lewis woke us up at sunrise," Drouillard continues. "I'd never been more sore in my life. I thought we had another full day of riding in front of us, but we reached the river after a dozen miles. We headed down a ways and ran right into our men paddling the canoes and pirogue downriver. We took our bags off the horses, put them in the boats, and floated down to the mouth of Maria's River.
"When we got there we quickly checked the caches we had left the previous year. Most of the supplies were ruined by water, but we took what we could and left in an awful hurry..."
I WAS UP AT SUNRISE, too, with my leg hurting worse than it had the day before. I limped along, following the men's track throughout the day, stopping briefly to feed on the buffalo they had shot the previous evening. Wolves had been at the carcass but had moved on by the time I arrived. After my meal I continued following the Captain's trail. It was well after dark when I reached the point where he had gotten to the Missouri. I slept again.
The next morning I followed the river down to the mouth of Maria's River. When I saw the open caches I figured the men had gone on without me. If they had, they were running with the current now and catching up to them would not be easy, but I was going to try.
I had started sniffing around the caches for something to eat when I came across the Captain's knapsack. The Captain must have forgotten it in his rush to leave. It was open. The only things inside were a bottle of ink and the red book. I pulled the book out, knowing the Captain would want it, and I had just started heading downriver when I heard horses coming up behind me fast.
It was a large band of Blackfeet! I ran. A couple of them broke off from the band and pursued me.
As I had so many times before, I jumped into the river to escape, holding the red book above water so it would not get damaged. About halfway across I felt a searing pain in my front shoulder. I glanced down and saw an arrow sticking out of it. I continued to swim as best I could and finally reached the opposite shore. Another arrow came my way, but it missed. With the river between me and the Blackfeet, I was safe. They weren't about to get wet chasing a dog.
I pulled the arrow out with my teeth, which was the most painful thing I had ever done. Exhausted and hurt, I crawled under some bushes and went to sleep.
I don't know how long I lay there, but it had to be days. I didn't even have the strength to get up and walk to the river for a drink. I thought of Captain Lewis and the men, and knew I would never see them again. I grew weaker and weaker. I waited to die.
"Caw! Caw! Caw!"
When I heard that sound I used the last of my strength to crawl out from under the bush. And there was Mountain Dog. His horse was still wet from the crossing.
"Yahka?" He ran over to me and looked at the wound in my shoulder. "So, this is where the crow was leading me."
"Caw! Caw! Caw!"
Mountain Dog turned and looked up at the crow with the white feather on his wing. He had found his wyakin and his wyakin had found me.
"We met the rest of our party where the Yellowstone and Missouri meet," Drouillard continues. "From there we proceeded on to Saint Louis, arriving there in September 1806 ... and I guess that's just about it.
"Now tell us, Watkuweis, how you got ahold of the Captain's journal."
Watkuweis smiles. "If you take a close look at the cover, perhaps you can tell me."
Drouillard holds the red book close to the fire and examines the cover. "Teeth marks?"
He looks over at me.
"My wyakin led me to Yahka," Mountain Dog says. "When I crossed the river, Yahka crawled out from beneath a bush with an arrow wound in his shoulder. Under the bush where he had lain was the red book."
***
MOUNTAIN DOG brought me food and water and treated my wound. After two days I was able to stand. After a week, I could walk to the river and get a drink for myself.
The evening before we left, White Feather appeared in a tree above our campfire and stayed there all night. The next morning he led us home.
In the morning my old friends pack their horses. Colter gets to his knees in front of me and takes a handful of fur on either side of my face. He looks into my eyes and bugles like a bull elk looking for a cow. "Guess this is it, Sea," he says. "Unless you want to come with us."
I am sorely tempted. Not a day has gone by that I haven't thought of Captain Lewis and the rambles we took and the things we saw. I've thought of the men and wondered what paths they have followed. I could go with them—Mountain Dog would understand. But I feel my place is here with my new tribe.
I watch Colter and Drouillard ride east across the flat prairie until I can no longer see them.
* * *