She kept walking and led him up a slope until the trees parted, and he saw they had come to a high overlook, a bluff that dropped down to the river. Sacagawea set down her basket of roots and berries and sat near the edge of the precipice, looking down at the glistening ribbon of the river in the twilight.
For a moment, Meriwether had the horrible idea that she would jump, but she just stared out at the river. After a while, she spoke. “Before we return to the camp, I should explain.”
Hesitantly, he took a seat next to her. “Explain?”
“How I came to be the wife of Toussaint Charbonneau.”
A thousand guesses fled through Meriwether’s mind, but he could think of nothing that didn’t sound stupid, so he just waited. Presently, she spoke again in a dreamlike tone. “I was stolen from my tribe at twelve.”
“By Charbonneau?” Meriwether decided that he should have killed the man while he had the chance.
She shook her head. “No, by the Hidatsa. Enemies of my people. They made me do much work and follow their tribe for years. Three years, I think. I learned some languages then, because they came in contact with French and English fur traders and trappers. But then—” She stopped. “Toussaint Charbonneau came to the Hidatsa, and he won me and another girl in a card game, and we became his wives.”
Meriwether thought he heard a loud whistle in his ears. “A card game?”
“He won. It is a fair way to marry someone among my people. I belong to him, until he should release me. I owe him loyalty. And he treated me well enough, far better than the Hidatsa did. He gave me food, clothes, and moccasins.”
“And that…that is the extent of your feelings?” Any woman from the more civilized parts of the world would have broken under such treatment, taken away as a child, badly used by hostiles, and then given away in marriage as a gambling prize.
“Life is food, clothing, and shelter. Everything else is just a bonus.” She gave him a look over her shoulder, one he could not interpret. “I believe that one should abide by the terms of a bargain, and Toussaint lived up to his. I have a contract with him, and we have a son together. Jean Baptiste will require his father’s influence and protection as he grows. I can’t simply let Toussaint die.”
Meriwether could say nothing to that. “Thank you for telling me,” he said, understanding her more fully now. It made it easier to comprehend her behavior as the demands of duty. He himself had served in war, and he understood the need to save or rescue comrades with whom he had no other connection. After what Sacagawea had suffered, she would bury her inner feelings and concentrate only on survival. And Toussaint meant survival.
He extended his hand to her as he rose from the overlook in the thickening twilight. “Let us say no more of this. I understand your sense of duty, if nothing else, as well as the desire to heal the father of your son. I will do what I can to help. We really should get back to camp.”
Her expression was filled with deep thought, perhaps calculation. Maybe she had meant to throw herself down to the river, but he didn’t think she would give up that way, not from what she considered a solemn duty. She was not acting desperate, but rather showed disappointment, or perhaps exasperation, with him, but Meriwether couldn’t understand why.
She took his hand and stood. Her hand had a rough texture, quite different from the ladies he’d grown up with. Her life had consisted of rough work, fetching and carrying, digging for roots. “My eagle saw no trace of the Snake People, but I will continue to look.” She picked up her basket.
Following the path Meriwether had marked, they stepped over broken branches and walked through areas of disturbed dirt. Why had he been so desperate when she left? What sick fancies had taken possession of his brain? And why should it matter to him? Perhaps because she was the only other person he knew who could send forth a spirit animal. Idly, he wondered if he should summon his own dragon from inside his mind, inside his spirit. Maybe his spirit dragon could see what her eagle couldn’t.
He felt a quickening of excitement within himself that drove away the syrupy gloom that had so plagued him. What were the powers of his spirit dragon? He remembered his dreams of flying, as well as the power in his great body. It felt like an itch, an uncontrollable desire to send forth the dragon.
“I didn’t find my people,” Sacagawea said quietly. “But I did see something.”
He paused. “Yes?” He held up a branch to let her pass through.
“I saw a raiding party, ten warriors on good horses, headed in our direction.”
“Good heavens, Madam! We have to get back to camp as soon as possible. They may be hostile.”
“They were too far away to arrive before sundown. They will make their own camp, and we’ll be gone by morning. Our paths may not even cross.”
Something in the way she dragged her words, and the distance in her voice made it seem as if she was thinking of something quite different. He waited for her to continue.
“Something about them disturbs me,” she said. “I sense that I should know them, but I can’t quite fully explain it.”
“You could not recognize anyone from the eyes of a spirit eagle so high above,” he suggested. Or did she mean in a general sense? Maybe they belonged to the tribe that had taken her captive at a young age and grievously mistreated her.
There were howls suddenly, echoing from many places. “Coyote,” Sacagawea said.
“Yes, I presume they are,” Meriwether said. He’d seen the canids, though not yet shot one for his collection.
“No, no,” Sacagawea said. She pulled a knot of colorful string from inside her tunic, and clutched it. “Coyote. The…spirit. The god.”
Lewis looked at her bundle of string curiously. “That’s his symbol?”
“No. It is what banishes him.”
“You’d banish a god?”
“He is the god of chaos,” Sacagawea said, seriously. “And we’ve had too much chaos. It can be good or bad. But it’s often bad. As…as you know.”
They hurried back to camp, delivered their news, and Clark dispatched additional sentries while the rest of the men settled down to dinner, using the roots and berries Sacagawea brought back.
They had just finished dinner when a tall native man on a dark horse rode into the firelight, carrying a long, deadly lance and looking quite warlike.
The Man on the Dark Horse
The man on the dark horse was quite handsome, even regal in a way, Meriwether thought. He had an air of being accustomed to command. He wore clean new garments made of soft hides and a sort of fur hat topped with feathers. The horse was in good condition, the spear was new, the point wickedly sharp. He wondered if this meant their owner was skilled at rapine and pillage.
Around the camp, men moved into position, rearranging themselves for defense as they stared silently at the warrior. They did not yet reach for their rifles, but they could reach them easily. Many of the natives they had encountered thus far dealt in trade rather than war, but with a party of young warriors, well-armed and provisioned, Meriwether expected the worst.
The thought struck him, though, that after all the expedition had survived, from revenants to fire demons, river monsters, and giant lizards, a mere raiding party seemed almost quaint. But Meriwether knew that a spear could kill them as easily as a dragon sorcerer.
The dark rider was isolated, but his proud confidence spoke of strength, and Meriwether guessed he must not be alone. With a whistle, he called Seaman to his side, and under the pretext of looking for his dog, he swept his gaze around the perimeter of the firelit camp. He could discern little beyond the circle of light, but he thought he could see darker shadows out there in the trees, the size and bulk of men on horseback.