Sacajawea by Anna Lee Waldo

Author:Anna Lee Waldo
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Publisher: Harper Collins, Inc.
Published: 2010-11-02T07:00:00+00:00

Most of the women were in the fields harvesting the fall crops. A Canadian trader on his way to Fort Assiniboin, then east, stopped by a belt-high stone fence and called out, ”Bonjour, mes amies!”

Sacajawea looked up and squinted her eyes into the sun. She could see him talking to one of the women, his hands jerking. The woman wiped a hand across her perspiring face and motioned toward Sacajawea. “He calls in the same tongue as your man. I think he looksfor the one called Toussaint Charbonneau, sometimes called Chief of the Little Village.”

“Ami! she called, and walked to the narrow passageway in the rock fence. Out of the field, she noticed the man was short and his black hair trailed down his neck through a bone ring. There was no bridle on his horse, only a single rein tied to its lower jaw.

“Alerte!” The face of the French-Canadian turned redder than the inner bark of the red pine. He licked his lips and spoke in French. “I want to speak to the man Charbonneau. You know where I can find him?”

“Oui,” said Sacajawea, nodding her head. She also spoke in French so that this stranger would know that she spoke with a straight tongue. “He has just returned, this same day, from the Côte Noire.”

The man stared unbelieving at the sweating squaw who laid her hoe against the rocks and motioned him to follow. He began unscrewing the cap of his powder flask, and pulled from the flask a cylinder of tightly rolled paper. Just inside the lodge were fur bales that Charbonneau hoped to exchange later for supplies. The man looked at them, then looked into the center of the lodge where Charbonneau was pouring water into a sack of flour to make galette.

Sacajawea tied the man’s horse to Charbonneau’s, which was hobbled at the side of the lodge. She saw a twitching around Charbonneau’s mouth, the beginning of a grin that anticipated a meeting with an old friend. But he did not know this man.

The stranger took Charbonneau by the arm. “Charbonneau—Toussaint?”

“Oui.” He let the water go unkneaded in the small flour sack. “What you want with me?”

“I am André La Croix. I have a letter.” He unrolled the bit of paper.

“Wait! Can you read it?” Charbonneau reached for the paper. “Name of a name, who would write all this to me?”

“We find out who he is.” André La Croix read the letter. His English came with difficulty, his lips exploring every sound.

Sacajawea looked over La Croix’s shoulder and drewin her breath. She stared frozenly. To her the neat script meant only one person, Chief Red Hair.

August 20, 1806, in board Pirogue near Ricara Village

Charbono:

Sir: Your present situation with the Indians gives me some concern—I wish now 1 had advised you to come on with me to the Illinois where it most probably would be in my power to put you on some way to do something for yourself. I had not time to talk with you as much as I intended to have done.

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