Sign-Talker Read online

  The black servant emitted a short, deep laugh from the other side of the room, where he was working grease into a pair of boots.

  “What, York?” the captain said, turning to him, fists on thighs.

  “Oh, Mast’ William, ain’t I heard them words in that Clark family all my days!”

  “Aye, y’ have. Get better answers thataway.” He turned back to Drouillard. “Any praise for those men? And let’s have a smoke on it.” He was filling a handsome brass pipe-tomahawk he had picked up from his table, and Drouillard guessed that the captain understood the old ritual about smoke and truth-telling. So they turned the pipe and smoked.

  Drouillard said: “The corporal you can count on, but he says he has a short enlistment left. One named Potts, not a complainer. The ones named Howard and Hall don’t tire easy. They might do you well if there’s not too much whiskey around. It’s the main thing they talk of.” He didn’t mention Reed’s fear of Indians.

  The captain nodded. “We have several already who are way too fond of whiskey. And all the bootleggers in the neighborhood have already found us.”

  “Corporal says one of the others is a carpenter, I don’t know which one. He might help you finish this camp, anyway. That is all I can say, Cap’n Clark. I’ve run out of good words about them.” He was not comfortable. This was like spying. But if that task had been his test, he had passed it.

  The captain leaned back. “Thankee, Drouillard. Cap’n Lewis was disappointed with ’em too. But maybe some will prove out.”

  “Don’t ask me to take back the castoffs, Cap’n. I’ve about had my fill of escorting.”

  Clark laughed. “No, we’ll just give ’em to Cap’n Bissell. We took some o’his. Now, you, Drouillard: Going with us?”

  “I’ll tell you what I told Cap’n Lewis yesterday: I can’t say yet. I need council time, without any soldiers around.” He needed something he did not want to have to explain. He had his own way of seeking answers. Talking to his uncle was a part of it, but only a part of it.

  “Well, if there is anything I can do that will help you decide, ask me.”

  Eh bien alors, Drouillard thought, there won’t be a better time to ask this. “I have one need, sir. I need to get money before I can go away. Not just a little. For some needful relatives. To help them until I return.”

  Clark drew his fingers down his chin, and just a hint of a cautious look passed in his eyes. “What? Wages ahead? I’ll have to ask Cap’n Lewis whether he has authority to do that. He’s in charge of all the accounts. He has understandings with the government that I don’t. Maybe a loan? Would any of those St. Louis people take a signed note? Or how about your kin, Mr. Lorimier? Could you make a note with him?”

  Drouillard knew his uncle was strict against lending to relatives. He had done it too many times, and his policy now was an adamant no. He was profusely generous in other ways. He would rather give it than lend it. But not as much as he needed. “I will ask him,” Drouillard said.

  Clark said, “Cap’n Lewis visited your uncle. He was very favorably impressed. Talked on and on about him. About the whole family. Enchanted with the girls. He did carry on.”

  “Yes. I am blessed in my uncle and aunt, and my cousins.”

  “Well. Please keep thinking of us. I’ll ask Lewis about the pay in advance, or loan, or whatever can be done. Might just write him about it now. Sergeant Floyd carries so many messages back and forth he sometimes meets himself. Go ask Floyd where he wants you to berth.”

  “No need for that, Cap’n. I’ll sleep out. I’m not much for walls.”

  “Even in this weather? Are you serious?”

  “Hunting camp. I’ll bring meat.” And he had other plans once away from these soldiers.

  “Yes, meat. But I’m afraid this place is hunted out. Our boys bag a few turkeys and grouse, that’s about it. Good luck. Oh, and aren’t you due another month pay?”

  “Cap’n Lewis took care of that yesterday at Cahokia.”

  “Good. Well, I’m going for a look at those men from Tennessee y’ brought me. Rest here and warm up, if you like. York’ll get you some bread and preserves, or another dram, if y’ like.” He slung a cloak over his shoulders, put a black chapeau on over his thick, copper-colored hair, and shook Drouillard’s hand with a warm, strong grip, then went out into the drizzle.

  Drouillard picked up his whiskey and drained the rest, head back, looking up at the peeled pole rafters and the canvas, which diffused the dim daylight into the smoky room and hissed with the drizzle.

  “’At’s the boat sail,” the black man said. “’Nother whiskey, s’?”

  “What? Sail? They plan to sail up that river?” He handed him the empty glass and York poured in a deep shot.

  “Mast’ Billy’s a good river man.”

  “Soldier and sailor both, is he?” Drouillard took a long sip.

  “Heh heh! He do jus’ ’bout anything real good.”

  Drouillard wondered how a slave could admire his master so much. He said, “Such as what, does he do so good?”

  The slave put his palms together and looked at the ceiling. “Well, s’. Planter. Wagoneer. Surveyor. Hunter. Talks law. Build houses, forts, anything. Boats. Maps too, real good at maps. An’ can he fight!”

  Drouillard was feeling mirthful and mocking as the whiskey stirred his brain, and it was odd to be talking to a Negro. It had been a long time since he had done that. He remembered a girl who had been Lorimier’s servant in the war times, and a black man, a former slave, who had lived among the Shawnees.

  “You’ve seen him do all those things? Or he just tells you he’s good at ’em?”

  York laughed deep. “I seen. Been with ’im all his life.”

  “All his life?”

  “Yes, s’. His daddy own my daddy. Gi’ me to Mast’ Billy when we’s both pickaninnies.” York put his head back and roared with laughter, ending up bent over, slapping his knee. He wiped his eyes with the back of his wrist. “I jus’ love t’ say that to ’im!”

  Drouillard blinked and wondered what was funny. It had sounded like he said Pickawillany, the name of a Shawnee town not far from Lorimier’s store back in Ohio, in the war times. He said, “Cap’n owns you! How d’ you feel about that?”

  York was still chuckling. He said, “Feel? I guess I feel well ’nough. He real kindly.”

  Drouillard wondered if this man pretended good feelings and ignorance because that’s what whitemen wanted. Drouillard himself as a half-breed among whitemen had learned to pretend in similar ways and keep his resentments and understandings to himself. Looking at York’s broad black face, he felt both an affinity and a revulsion for him. He said:

  “I’ve been thinking. Everybody going on that voyage out West is a whiteman, except you. And me, if I choose to go. Any good comes of it, all goes to them. Not to you, not to any Indians. Whatever profit, and la gloire, it will all be theirs. That’s how it is.” He shook his head and looked down into his whiskey glass.

  “What’s ‘lugwah’?” York asked.

  “Glory.” He thought of eagle feathers, which had been the tokens of glory when his people had been free in their own land, warriors. “I remember a man, a slave, that got some glory. Looking at you reminds me. Let me tell you about him.”

  York sat down, his face eager and intent. The promise of a story made people look like that.

  “When I was a boy, where my people used to live, there was a man looked just like you. Name was Caesar. Been a slave. Sometimes slaves ran off and came to hide with my people. They made that Caesar a Shawnee, adopted him into a family. He went out with warriors. He was happy shooting white folk. He got glory. Earned eagle feathers. Think how you’d look with your head all shaved except a scalplock in back with feathers in it. Big silver ear bobs. One side of your face painted red. Wouldn’t you be pretty!” York had drawn back and was looking at him, eyes big with amazement, or horror. “Eh!” Drouillard went on. “Grand man, that Caesar! Had a beautiful Shawnee wife.
Happy man, all his own, no one owned him. See, I wonder how a man strong enough and brave enough to be a warrior, would stay and let a whiteman own him.” He fixed on York’s eyes that hunter gaze that he knew agitated people.

  York rose, went and knelt to poke the fire and add wood, taking a long time about it. His hands were shaking. Outside, men were working in the sleety rain: ax blows, talk, laughter, saws rasping through green wood. York said, as if speaking into the fire: “That all ’at story? What come of Caesar?”

  Drouillard didn’t know the end of the story. That had been a quarter of a century ago, in a place long lost to him. He had seen Caesar no more than two or three times. But somehow the story seemed very important, both to York and himself.

  As Drouillard rode south in the cold rain, he wished he had not drunk the whiskies. Liquor got into his blood too fast and upset his balance. Not just his physical balance, but that more delicate thing in his spirit that guided what he said and what he did. By keeping his inner balance, he could rely upon himself. If he could rely upon himself, anyone else could rely upon him. If he got off balance inside, he could go too dark, or he could go too light. If he went dark he could get morose or cruel. If he went too light he might be the sort of childish fool people were looking for a half-breed to be. Or he could say things from the heart without thinking how they would sound to people who were in their own worlds. He had almost said cruel things to the slave. He had wanted to taunt him about being owned, had wanted to dare him to run away. Then, on the other hand, he had started telling his story about Caesar, with a light-headed hope that it would inspire York to free himself, to run away.

  Running away was an old matter down in Drouillard’s dark side. Far back in the war times he had to run away from the Town-Burning soldiers. Later he had run away from the Black Robes who tried to make him a Jesus Indian.

  Most Indians believed that one’s spirit had to walk in balance. For a half-breed, balance was even more crucial, but it was harder.

  He rode toward the mound-hills made by the ancients, noting game trails and hoof tracks. It was almost dark when he rode up to the top of the biggest mound. From the west, across the Mississippi, a few feeble points of yellow light twinkled, sometimes entirely lost in the rain and mist, probably outdoor slash fires and wharf lanterns at St. Louis. Closer below, on this side of the river, near the oxbow-shaped lake, a few glimmers: Cahokia town, where Captain Lewis was buying provisions and trying to impress the merchants and the prominent citizens with his new authority in the territory. Nowhere else was there any light. He was alone in a world of darkness, high above the floodplain, in a place sacred to his people. The long, old songs were in the air around him but were as faint as the distant lights, and like them, they sometimes faded to nothing. Even when they were silent he could feel a hum through the soles of his feet. Long before whitemen had come to this continent there had stood here a great city of the ancient people, greater than any whiteman’s city anywhere, and all its people had gone suddenly when a great death had come through. All their houses, and the temple on this hill, had fallen and rotted away, all so long ago that this old forest had since covered the mounds and town site and plazas. The story of the old city had come down through more than twenty generations, and almost everything had been forgotten, except that they were ancestors. There was nothing to show what had been here, except these hills shaped as the Creator never shaped hills, and the bones and the old clay pots, the weapons, pearls, and the copper ornaments that sometimes emerged from the dirt when rain gullied the slopes. But the descendants had kept coming here to pray, and their boys came here to seek their Spirit Helpers.

  Drouillard had come for that purpose at the age of thirteen, after escaping from the Black Robe mission. The Black Robes had tried to fill his soul with fears, and had exerted powers over him that only finding his Spirit Helper had finally wiped away. On his quest, Drouillard had sat four days and nights naked and without fire, when the weather was mild. Now he hunched down in the wind and rain with a blanket over his back, and with flint and steel he struck sparks into charcloth and wadding tinder, blew into the smoking wad in his palms until flame glowed, then set it on the ground in the lee of a fallen tree and fed it dry punk from inside a log, then twigs and sticks until a good fire crackled and fluttered. Smoke swirled away into the cold, dark, misting sky. He drew a leaf of dry tobacco from a bag and rubbed it into fragments between his palms. These he sprinkled into the flames, a bit at a time, and each puff and tendril of smoke carried prayer into the heavens. He sat with the fire at his feet, his back leaning on the fallen tree, his blanket over his head and shoulders and held open to the fire, the wind from behind him.

  The wind is always full of messages, he knew, but they cannot always be understood. Here the messages were under the wind, and it was not ears that heard them. They were the old songs, and they were inside him as well as outside, or they were through him as if he were but part of the wind itself.

  Sometimes the songs seemed to draw the smoke of his fire into song-shapes, seemed to draw sparks up into spirals. The ancestor spirits were present and strong, but they were not fearsome. Whitemen were afraid of their ghosts; Indians invited theirs, calling on them for help and wisdom and foresight.

  After midnight the drizzle stopped. Drouillard slept leaning back against the log. Two forms came to him. First was a man form with a dull-glinting ornament in the middle of his forehead. This one rose and floated over him and flew away over the Mississippi.

  The other was the form of a woman. Her eyes were intense with generosity; she was holding forth something in her hands and imploring that it be taken. But there was blood pouring down her arms.

  When the cry of an owl woke him, it was raining again, not a drizzle now but a blowing rain that had soaked his blanket until it was heavy. Even in the rain the little fire was still burning. On these places water did not quench fires. The sky was fading to gray in the east. Behind him the last murmur of the old songs was fading into the dark beyond the great river as if retreating from dawn.

  Under his blanket he filled the bowl of his pipe with kinnikinnick and lit it with a twig from the fire. He smoked to the four winds and asked the Keeper of the Game for a good day of hunting. When he rose to get his horse, his limbs were so cold he was stumbling, but in his center he was glowing with heat.

  Satturday 24th Decr.

  Cloudy morning, men Continue to put up & Cover the necessary

  huts. Drewyear returned with 3 Deer & 5 Turkeys

  William Clark, Journals

  A private named John Colter was assigned to go out with a packhorse and help Drouillard bring in the venison. Colter was said to be a very good hunter, but he admitted that he had brought in nothing but turkeys and rabbits, and had thought the bigger game had long since been killed off in the vicinity. Drouillard told him there were more deer than one would think, and that furthermore he had seen bear sign.

  Colter was compact and square-jawed, with narrow lips, a tight, mocking smile, and deceptively sleepy-looking eyes. He was one of those whom Drouillard had seen at Fort Massac on the day he met the captains. This was the one who had stepped out of Captain Bissell’s door and called him “chief.” As they skinned out and butchered the deer, Drouillard noted that this Colter must indeed be a hunter because he was as swift and sure with a knife as any whiteman he had ever seen. Drouillard thought the man could probably be very dangerous, but he gave off good humor and did not seem to resent helping an Indian. He wasn’t jealous that Drouillard had found deer when he couldn’t. Instead he went on about how good Christmas would be with all this venison. When they started cutting up the third deer, a buck with ten antler points, Colter noticed that part of the heart had been sliced away, but he didn’t ask about it, so he either knew or something kept him from asking.

  Instead Colter asked him, “I been a-wonderin’. How in the hell did Indians celebrate Christmas before we came?”

  Drouillard looked up blank-faced from the flesh
he was slicing. He couldn’t believe he had just heard such a question. Colter was looking at him with that sly, mocking smile.

  Then Colter started laughing. And after a while he said, “Eh, I actually made ye smile, chief!”

  * * *

  Drouillard could feel that snow would come before daybreak, and he was so tired that he accepted a bunk in one of the log huts. The soldiers had their Christmas Eve whiskey rations. Then more whiskey mysteriously kept coming in, and it soon became apparent to Drouillard that he could have slept better under a brush shelter out in a snowstorm. The soldiers boasted, smoked, sang, toasted the newborn Savior, gave each other tobacco, belt buckles, and scrimshaw pieces, stomp-danced to Jew’s harp music, and arm-wrestled on the small puncheon table in the middle of the cabin. Some of the revelers began drifting from cabin to cabin, challenging each other to wrestling contests, their voices louder and louder. Some began bitching about being stuck in this bleak place all winter just a few hours’ journey from the women and saloons of St. Louis with no freedom to go there. Drouillard had accepted a few shots of the bootleg that the men had offered in honor of his great contribution to the larder, and he was half drunk and half asleep when the inevitable fight erupted. It started when a soldier named Frazier objected to being called for guard duty by a corporal named Whitehouse, and called the corporal a pride-swollen pimple. Soon, stools and bodies were bouncing off the walls so hard that clay chinking was falling out from between the logs. Drouillard had seen hundreds of fights along the river in which rivermen, soldiers, wagoneers, and hunters broke fingers and bit off noses, and had been drawn into a few himself, but it was his policy to avoid them because too many people looked for excuses to kill an Indian or a half-breed.

  So he snatched up his bedroll and rifle and slipped out of the thundering hut. A snowfall had begun. Every cabin but the captain’s was alive with muffled noise. Maybe Captain Clark had drunk himself to sleep; it was hard to imagine that he couldn’t hear the whooping drunks and thumping objects. Light seeped through cracks, and now and then a door would creak open and a soldier would step out to pass water, belch, hum tunes, and fart proudly into the darkness. He wanted a place to lie down and sleep. So he slipped down toward the keelboat, past a sentry who leaned dark and motionless under a corner of the tarpaulin that covered a stack of crates and kegs near the vessel. He climbed up the chocks and pry-poles onto the deck of the keelboat. In the stern cabin he found bunks built along the bulkhead, evidently to be the captains’ onboard quarters. Though not furnished yet with bedding, they were strung with rope webbing. It was the quietest place in camp. He wrapped himself in his blanket, eased back onto the creaking ropes, and fell at once into a dreamless sleep.