Sign-Talker (4 page)

“Here it is about that,” Captain Lewis said, fondling the ears and scalp of his big dog, which sat by him grinning and half asleep with its tongue hanging out. “Napoleon made a treaty with Spain two years ago, recovering the territory from Spain. France is strong, Spain’s very weak, y’ see.…” He paused, looking at Drouillard as if gauging how much of this a half-breed woodsman could understand or care to know. “Understand, Mr. Drouillard, before I came on this mission, I lived in the President’s house. I was Mr. Jefferson’s secretary, if you know what a secretary is? Aye? So I know a great deal about such things as happen in Europe … y’ know where Europe is? And I knew how the President thought about such things …” Drouillard sensed that he was supposed to be awed by this information. “Mr. Jefferson,” the captain went on, “didn’t like France owning the territory, because Napoleon is strong and ambitious. The President is much relieved that Napoleon sold it to him. It
changes everything in this country. In our particular case, it changes the way we shall make our voyage.”

Sold it to him
. Captain Lewis had indeed actually said that! Again Drouillard felt that shiver and flush. One man, this Jefferson, believed he could buy a country too big for even ten eagles to see over. Even though it was full of the peoples that the Master of Life put upon it to live.

And Drouillard was beginning to deduce that he himself, as interpreter, was to be the one who would have to tell that to all those peoples. He could feel his spirit beginning to lose its balance, swayed by the powerful toddy and the outrageous story this whiteman in a blue coat was telling.

“Napoleon could never have kept Americans out of this Mississippi country, and he knew that,” Lewis went on. “And he needs money to support his wars in Europe. So he agreed to sell it. He knew the sale would spite England, which no doubt tickled him good. Heh heh. Now the United States will have free navigation of the whole Mississippi, and the port of New Orleans to the seas, without a by-your-leave from France, Spain, England, or anybody. Now all Americans this side of the mountains have a seaport for their goods, at last!” Captain Lewis was obviously very pleased with what his president had done, and enjoyed telling about it, even to a half-breed hunter out of the woods.

Drouillard’s head was beginning to whirl with thoughts that were half new, half familiar. He had several times floated down the Mississippi to New Orleans with his uncle’s cargoes of furs and hides from the Missouri country, or with lead from the mines of St. Genevieve, and had come back up in cargo boats rowed by chanting voyageurs, carrying brandies, chocolate, silks, and silver back up to the gay-hearted, luxury-loving French townfolk of St. Louis and Cahokia, Kaskaskia and St. Charles. On those journeys he had met Kentuckians and Pennsylvanians drifting in their huge, crude flatboats carrying corn and whiskey, salt pork, flax, hemp, cowhides, hardwood barrels, and sawn lumber down the river, where they would be at the mercy of greedy and hostile Spanish port officials. Of course
this new control of the waterways and seaport must be important to the Americans west of the mountains.

Now Captain Clark leaned toward Drouillard, eager to say something about all this. “About ten years ago, my brother George got so damn mad he was ready to go to war to make the Spaniards open up New Orleans for Kentucky trade. He was actually raising an army, till President Washington stopped him, from fear o’ diplomats. Washington all but called him a traitor over that, never mind it was George won the whole war this side o’ the mountains! Well, I say, good riddance to Spaniards.”

So! Then this captain is the Town Burner’s
brother!
Drouillard thought. He vaguely remembered all the alarm that General Clark’s invasion threat had stirred up in the Mississippi Valley: the frightened Spanish officials in St. Louis, his uncle’s seething rage toward his old enemy. Drouillard recalled he had almost had his chance to become a warrior back then, as militias were formed to repel Long Knife Clark’s Kentuckians. He looked anew at Captain Clark now, having momentarily almost liked him.

Captain Lewis uttered a hard chuckle, grinning, chin jutting, the first indication that he was capable of smiling. “You must admit, my friend, that things make better sense with Mr. Jefferson as our president.”

“Not that you’re partial, Mr. President’s own boy.”

They both laughed, and so did Bissell, their laughter seeping into Drouillard’s fuddled perceptions of these vast, grave matters. For a moment he tensed, thinking they might be laughing at him as a gullible Indian, to get drunk on toddy and believe fantastic jokes about the buying and selling of countries; whitemen had done that to him before. But no, they were joking with each other. He realized that these might be not just two officers thrown together on the same mission, but old familiars. Indeed, they did have a way of shifting their talk from one to the other and not losing the direction of it, as members of families can do. And both had the same accent, that of Virginians.

“The fact is, Mr. Drouillard,” Lewis said, “President Jefferson in his wisdom is changing this part of the world, and everyone in
this part of the world will have to understand the change. As this country is a Babel—you know what Babel is?—making them all understand will be one of our hardest tasks. If you can, as Captain Bissell tells us, talk to any Indian you meet, and to Spaniards and Frenchmen as well, you will be most valuable to us. And thus, well-treated and well-compensated. But of course, you’ll have to prove out. Fortunately, there’s time for that.”

They were staring into him again. In their minds they were making him into something they could use. Only this morning he had awakened in the woods a lone hunter with no purpose more complex than the ancient one of providing meat. Now, a few hours later, he was becoming burdened by a great piling-up of words, and he was off balance with whiskey in his head. This must have been how it was for the old chiefs when they were brought into treaty councils and persuaded to do things they never would have thought of doing.

But he was a free man, Drouillard thought. They couldn’t make him into something unless he agreed, and he very well might not agree. “What is it you want me to make them understand?” he asked. If nothing came of this interview, at least he would be able to tell Lorimier what their plans were.

Captain Lewis began: “The tribes along the Missouri have to understand they have a New Father. That their earlier Father, the King of Spain, has gone. That they live on United States land now, and that they will trade with only Americans, or agents of America. That their New Father means to make a road of peace and prosperity all the way to the West. The red children can choose to participate with their New Father and enjoy his benevolence, or they can do without. Henceforth, only American goods will be traded on American soil.”

It was obvious that Captain Lewis had made these statements often, because he breezed through them without pause, and apparently with no comprehension of how foolish and proud they were.

Trade with the Indians was a very complicated matter. It was interwoven with tribal enmities and alliances. Certain dominant tribes had established themselves as controllers of trade routes.
Such tribes as the Osage would trade only with Spaniards. The Sioux, far up the Missouri, preferred goods of English manufacture, and any less powerful tribes who wanted English goods had to obtain them through the Sioux. French and Spanish traders and trappers going up the Missouri were stopped by the Sioux and made to pay tribute, or were robbed, sometimes killed. Farther up was another trade bottleneck, the Knife River Mandans, eternal enemies of the Sioux and their competitors for the favors of English traders in Canada. Some tribes were bitter enemies, but for the duration of the great harvest trade fairs they would ritually adopt each other so that commerce could be done. Among the Omahas lived French traders in their third generation, their loyalty strengthened by intermarriage. In some tribes trade was entrusted to the women because they were considered smarter at such work, in others because the traders were afraid of the warriors. Captain Lewis was going to go through and tell them all to do it one way and to obey a new White Father they had never even heard of. If this was the President’s idea, the President must know nothing about Indians.

Drouillard wanted to talk to his uncle. He wanted to hear him laugh over the plans of these
naifs
. Lorimier knew more about the maze of complexities in Indian trade than just about anyone, with the exception perhaps of the Spaniard Manuel Lisa. What Lorimier could teach these
américains
, they desperately needed to know. But he hated them, so why should he teach them?

Drouillard wanted to ask his uncle’s opinion about accepting the officers’ invitation to go as interpreter. Lorimier might be furious with him for even considering it. Or he might encourage him to go along as a spy. Or even as a saboteur, to assure that their mission would fail.

The captains were waiting for him to say something, but he was not ready to say anything. He could feel them staring at him. Finally, Lewis said, “You seem to be what we need, Mr. Drouillard. Captain Bissell says you can be counted on. Twenty-five dollars a month, and a grant of land if you stay with us the whole way. Would you consider coming with us on those terms, I mean, if we decide we want you enough?”

“How long?”

“Two years at the least. More likely, three.”

“How big an army?”

“Of soldiers, maybe twenty or thirty. Some voyageurs who know the river. Perhaps forty or fifty select men, all told.”

Drouillard had to put his face in the mug again to hide his mirth. Fifty men to make half a continent obey their president! He swallowed the last of the toddy, which had gone lukewarm. “I am not decided. I must …” He started to say
pray over it
, but most whitemen were dubious about Indian prayers, so he said, “I should council before going away so long. With my relations.”

“Captain Bissell says you’re not married?”

“Not married.”

“Betrothed?”

“No.”

“Good. We don’t want married men along, or those with their hearts left behind ’em.”

“Whoa!” exclaimed Captain Clark. “That’d leave
me
out!”

“Hah!” Lewis smirked and tossed his head. “Cap’n Clark’s got a pretty nymphet back in Virginia he thinks will marry him if he lives long enough for her to come of age.”

“Mwahaha!”
Captain Bissell guffawed, and Clark blushed and grinned. Drouillard had never heard of a nymphet, but obviously it meant a girl.

Lewis said, “As for your relative Mr. Lorimier: I’d indeed like to stop and speak to him about the President’s Indian trade policy. Perhaps you could subscribe for us a letter of introduction to him.”

“I could do better. I could take you to him. It would be very interesting to me.” He could have said amusing.

“That would be kind of you,” Lewis said, “but I sh’d rather have you do us a more important service, if you’d agree to. I presume you know where South West Post is, in the Tennessee country?”

“I know the Old Trace goes to it. I’ve never been all the way there.”

“Eight soldiers from the outpost there were volunteers for our
party. I expected them to be here to meet us, but they aren’t, and not a word’s been heard of ’em. So I presume their commander misunderstood the orders and is keeping them in wait there. Or they’ve got lost or had trouble on their way here. Or, they may have got their travel pay and deserted, God forbid. So, Mr. Drouillard, if I gave you a letter to Captain Purdy at South West Post, and a month’s pay and some expense money, would you undertake to go down there and find those eight fellows, and bring them up so we can see if they’re good enough for us?”

Drouillard, astonished, stole a glance at Captain Bissell, who gave him a nod and a wink. “I told ’em I hate to let you go, George. We’ll hate eatin’ beans and keg meat while you’re gone. But, hell, these’re the President’s own boys!”

Drouillard thought these must be
naifs
indeed. These captains, who had met him less than an hour ago, would give a half-breed more money than he had ever had at one time, trust him not to run away with it or drink it up, and send him some three hundred miles through woodlands to a place where he had never been, to find eight men whom he didn’t know, who might already be lost, dead, or deserters?

There was only one explanation for such rashness, he realized: This was to test him. And talking to his uncle might be part of the test too. Maybe they weren’t such
naifs
at that. Well, he would show them that he could be counted on. He might be Without Eagle Feathers, but he was not without honor, and he always did what he said he could do.

Maybe the toddy had something to do with it. Despite his mixed feelings about these powerful fools, he stood up and extended his hand.

“Write our letters, then, Cap’n,” he said. “I can fetch your Tennessee soldiers for you. As for your long trip, I can’t say yet.”

His answer to that would have to come from all around and from deep inside.