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The Coming
The Coming
The Coming
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The Coming

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Winner of the 2018 Spur Award for Historical Novel

A sweeping historical novel of the American West that follows the dramatic life of Daytime Smoke, Nez Perce son of explorer William Clark.

The Coming
is an epic novel of native-white relations in North America, intimately told through the life of Daytime Smoke--the real-life red-haired son of William Clark and a Nez Perce woman. In 1805, Lewis and Clark stumble out of the Rockies on the edge of starvation. The Nez Perce help the explorers build canoes and navigate the rapids of the Columbia, then spend two months hosting them the following spring before leading them back across the snowbound mountains. Daytime Smoke is born not long after, and the tribe of his youth continues a deep friendship with white Americans, from fur trappers to missionaries, even aiding the United States government in wars with neighboring tribes. But when gold is discovered on Nez Perce land in 1860, it sets an inevitable tragedy in motion.

Daytime Smoke's life spanned the seven decades between first contact and the last great Indian war. Capturing the trajectory experienced by so many native peoples--from friendship and cooperation to betrayal, war, and genocide--this sweeping novel, with its large cast of characters and vast geography, braids historical events with the drama of one man's remarkable life. Rigorously researched and cinematically rendered, The Coming is a page-turning, heart-stopping American novel in a classic mode.
LanguageEnglish
Release dateFeb 7, 2017
ISBN9781632863867
The Coming

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    Book preview

    The Coming - David Osborne

    THE COMING

    This book is dedicated to the Nimíipuu, the Nez Perce people

    BY THE SAME AUTHOR

    Laboratories of Democracy

    Reinventing Government (with Ted Gaebler)

    Banishing Bureaucracy (with Peter Plastrik)

    The Reinventor’s Fieldbook (with Peter Plastrik)

    The Price of Government (with Peter Hutchinson)

    Contents

    Part I:    Contact

    Part II:    Friendship

    Part III:    Betrayal

    Part IV:    War

    Epilogue

    A Note on History

    Acknowledgments

    Glossary

    Family Tree

    List of Maps

    Lewis and Clark’s Route, 1805–06

    Nez Perce Territory

    Flight of the Non-Treaty Nez Perce, 1877

    PART I

    CONTACT

    1805–1806

    Our songs prophesized the coming of a strange people with white skin who would have a book to tell us more of these things.

    —Allen P. Slickpoo, We, the Nez Perces:

    Culture and History of the Nez Perces

    ONE

    September 1805

    William Clark tucked his head down as the rain dripped off his hat. He was a large-boned man, with a long, reddish face and nose and a high brow. It was a rough face but confident, accustomed to command. He rode at the head of a long procession—31 men, one woman, and one child—snaking its way up a steep, forested slope. Clark’s horse slipped on the mud-slick trail, and those on foot stopped every few minutes, breathing hard, while the packhorses strained under their loads, snorting and blowing.

    Would they ever make it over these godforsaken mountains? Clark thought back to the day, less than a month ago, when he had first reached the Divide. It had been a warm afternoon, and he had been sweating from the climb, his heart pounding in his chest. Lewis had warned him, but when the view finally opened up, he had stopped dead. Spread out before him were range after range of immense, snowcapped peaks, as far as the eye could see. He counted five ridges, all higher than any mountains he had ever beheld.

    The wooded trail they now ascended had settled on top of a ridge that rose from south to north, no more than ten feet wide. Much of the timber on the high points had been burned and blown down, so they had to pick their way around and over a jumble of fallen trees. As Clark wound his way off the ridge around a downed spruce, the bay mare that carried his trunk and writing desk slipped and rolled. He watched as she slid for 40 yards before the desk slammed into a tree and splintered. Son of a bitch, he muttered.

    He dismounted, grabbed a rope that lay coiled against his saddle, and walked back to where a knot of men had gathered. He threw one end of his rope to Peter Weiser: Tie this to a tree. When it was secure, he let himself down the slope until he reached the mare, which shied from him. He spoke to her in a low voice, standing quite still, until she gentled enough for him to get close. He cut off the broken desk and trunk, then tied the rope to the trunk so the men could haul it up. He would leave the desk. When they threw the rope back down, he tied it to the mare’s lead. He stepped back and gave her a swat on the hindquarters; Collins, Weiser, and York heaved on the rope, and the mare struggled up the slope.

    Clark started up behind her but slipped and fell to his hands and knees in the mud. God damn this mountain to hell! He wiped his hands on his wet leggings and got to his feet. Collins threw him the rope, and the men slowly pulled him back up.

    The trail grew steeper as they fought their way upward. Two other horses fell and rolled. It took ten men to get one of them back up on the ridge; the other came up so lame, they had to shoot it. They unpacked its load of cooking pots and utensils and parceled them out to other horses.

    We should butcher that animal, young Shannon told Clark.

    You volunteerin’ to carry the meat?

    No sir. But …

    You think these other horses can carry more weight?

    No sir, the 19-year-old admitted. But couldn’t we cook it?

    We stop to cook now, we’ll never get up this mountain. They left the dead horse where it lay.

    At noon the land flattened out a bit. Old Toby, their Shoshone guide, found a spring hidden amongst a thick stand of tall pines, their bases choked with huckleberry. Stop here, eat, he signed. Clark nodded, directed Collins to light a fire and heat up some parched corn and portable soup—a vile mixture Lewis had procured in Philadelphia in powdered form. As the men straggled in, they took the soup and corn silently, too spent to do more than grumble.

    The rain had stopped now and the clouds had begun to lift. Lewis sat down beside Clark, a bowl in one hand, his spyglass in the other. He raised the glass, trained it on the mountains to the south, their peaks like a wall of teeth bared against a foe.

    Did it snow up there again? Clark asked. Yesterday, at a stony summit they’d crossed before descending to the river, it had snowed for two hours.

    Lewis lowered the glass and nodded. Lewis had an odd combination of a gentleman’s face—serious gray eyes, long black lashes, small, tight-lipped mouth—atop a woodsman’s frame. We’re five days in, and Toby said the Pierced-Nose Indians do it in six days.

    You think we’re traveling as fast as Indians?

    I do.

    We don’t even know if we’re on the right trail.

    Lewis gazed at him. We will not spend a second winter east of these mountains.

    Clark remembered the day they had met, a decade ago, when the younger man had reported to his command at Fort Greenville—stiff, bowlegged, standing so straight as he saluted it seemed he would fall over backward. He was the most determined man Clark had ever encountered.

    When they started back up, Clark’s horse proved fatigued beyond all endurance. He had little choice but to proceed on foot, though his left leg still ached from a fall he’d taken exploring Lewis’s River.

    Behind him, two more horses fell and rolled until they wedged against downed trees, but only one had to be left behind. Though the rain held off, the temperature was dropping.

    Near the top the trail wound around immense granite knobs that erupted out of the mountainside. Finally they intersected a ridge running east-west, where the real trail appeared, some five feet wide and clear as day. Drouillard and Colter lay supine on a fallen pine, waiting for them. As they rose to their feet, Clark and Toby stood mute, completely spent. As far as they could see, in every direction, lay mountains, the highest peaks frosted in white.

    The hunters had killed but two pheasants; up this high, they said, game was scarce.

    Ain’t much of a Northwest Passage, is it? Colter muttered.

    Toby led them west along the narrow ridge. The rest of them spread out, searching the hillsides for any sign of a spring. As dusk came on, Toby stopped where a bank of old snow lay protected on the northern edge of the ridge. Melt for water, he signed.

    Clark felt as if they were at the top of the world, exposed to anything Mother Nature should choose to inflict upon them. There was no flat spot to camp but right on the ridge.

    When the first cook arrived, Clark ordered him to broil the remains of the colt they had killed the day before. The rest of the men trudged in through the dark: the Field brothers together; Cruzatte limping; Labiche swearing in French. Charbonneau staggered in last and collapsed, his ample girth flat on the ground. They devoured what little was left of the horsemeat, along with the pheasants and portable soup, but it was not enough.

    Clark sat by the fire to record the day in his journal, as he did every evening. Lewis lowered himself onto a log beside him. I trust you have confidence we’re on the correct trail now?

    Clark nodded. But we’re traveling half as fast as the Indians do.

    How would you know that?

    Old Toby.

    He hadn’t got us lost, we wouldn’t have had that climb today.

    The truth of it weighed on Clark. Yesterday, when Toby confessed that he had missed where the trail turned north, in the snow, Sacagawea had let her disgust show. When Clark took her aside, she told him Toby hadn’t been on this trail since he was a boy. Clark kicked himself for not consulting her sooner. A few days earlier, she had explained that had they simply bought horses from the Mandans, they could have reached the head of this trail in four days’ ride from the Great Falls. Instead, they had spent two months struggling southward up the Missouri, trading with her people for horses, carrying their goods across the Divide, then riding back north for two weeks. Why had it not occurred to them that the girl might know the upper Missouri country? If they were to reach the Pacific, they could not afford another such mistake.

    We’re nowhere near the end of these mountains, Clark finally said.

    Lewis met his gaze. Have faith, my friend. One way or another, we’ll make it.

    If we don’t starve first.

    When the colts run out, we’ll eat horses.

    And carry our goods on our backs?

    Lewis’s face knit in exasperation. Do we have a choice?

    We could go back, winter in the valley, with the Flatheads.

    Chief Three Eagles had treated them with every politeness. His people had been hungry too, their dogs so desperate they ate four pairs of the men’s moccasins. But they had secured the corps from want, then sold the captains 11 horses. And their women. Clark had not enjoyed the nightly company of a woman since Fort Mandan, and he should not have partaken, he knew. Julia—pale, dark-haired Julia—was waiting in Virginia for his return, becoming a woman herself. But when these Indian women came to him he could never resist—their brown skin, brown breasts, so lovely, their unselfconscious pleasure unlike anything he could imagine in a white woman.

    You just want another winter with loose women.

    I want to survive. He turned to Lewis. What happens when it snows again, Meriwether? We’re up high enough we’ll be in the gut of it. What happens if it doesn’t stop? If we can’t find the trail?

    Lewis glared. We winter on the Pacific.

    TWO

    September 1805

    Swan Lighting on Water awoke expecting to see her husband’s face. She had been dreaming of him; they were riding side by side, toward the Smoking Place. He rode gracefully, his slender back swaying in rhythm with his horse. He wanted to show her something: he had told her strangers were riding toward them on the Buffalo Road. But when she opened her eyes, it was Black Eagle shaking her awake.

    Go to your lodge, Sister. It is time for bed.

    Her mind cleared as she sat up. A moon lit the prairie; around her, tipis cast deep shadows. Across the meadow she could make out the council fire. Will there be war?

    Yes.

    She shivered; her fire had died down. How many will go?

    All our young warriors.

    Who will protect our camps?

    A few older men.

    But I had a dream. My husband warned me about strangers coming west, across mountains.

    She could see the worry that was in Black Eagle’s eyes so often now when he watched her. Go to bed, Sister.

    *  *  *

    The next morning her mother prepared camas cakes and pemmican, mixing dried meat and berries, crushing them with a stone pestle and storing them in hide pouches. Swan Lighting was not allowed to prepare food during her mourning, so she wandered the camp. The entire Nimíipuu nation had gathered on the Oyaip Prairie for the harvest of camas roots. A dozen camps dotted the prairie, surrounded by thick pine forest that sent its dark fingers snaking into the meadows.

    The warriors would spend the day visiting the Old Man to purify themselves for battle, and she longed to do the same. Bitterness welled up in her; she wanted to go with her father, to kill as many Snakes as she could. And why not? Had she not killed a Lakota warrior when their camp was attacked in Buffalo Country?

    Her mind drifted back to her dream. She could still see her husband sitting tall on his black gelding, just as he had last spring. He had departed in the Time of Qawas Bread with Horse Blanket and Black Feather—ridden south from their camp at Ewatam, after Kaooyit. He had been so proud to be chosen to visit the Snakes and offer peace. She had learned his fate in the summer, at the great gathering of nations at Celilo Falls. The three had made it safely into a Snake lodge, undetected, their friends from the Umatilla River had told them. Custom had prevented the Snakes from harming them when they were discovered, until they stated their purpose. They had counseled, made their offer of peace. And the Snakes had rejected it.

    She shuddered, walled off her mind. She could not let herself think of how they’d killed him.

    The war dance began at sundown. Swan stood with the women around the great circle. The others wore their finest dresses, ornamented with beads, shells, quills, and painted designs. She wore the same shapeless dress she had worn for two moons since learning of her husband’s death.

    She watched the men, in two lines, moving slowly around the circle in the bull dance. Heavily painted, most wore little but loincloths and the headdresses of their wyakins: eagle feathers, bear heads, wolf heads, buffalo horns. In their hands they carried weapons: bows, spears, war clubs, tomahawks, rawhide shields.

    Her father danced at the front of one line, his face painted red and yellow, his headdress an enormous bear’s head. In his hands he carried his tomahawk and his long war club. Around his thick neck he wore an otter skin with the fur and head still attached. It came down to his knees, and the scalps, thumbs, and fingers of his many victims hung from it, bobbing as he danced.

    The drummers pounded out a rhythm and sang out their war songs as each man in turn performed his dance, asked his wyakin to protect him on this journey. When each finished, the warriors let out shrill cries.

    At dawn, the women served komsit. The men retrieved their horses and lined up for departure, and the few women who would ride along to cook lined up behind them. Swan saddled her best horse, a spotted mare. In the cool morning air the animal trotted with ease, happy to be with her, anxious to travel. Swan nudged her with her heels and loped to the front of the procession, where her father sat his white mare. Heavy and solid as an oak, he needed a big horse, broad across the chest.

    I will go with you, she said.

    He stared at her for a long moment. You are in mourning.

    I will avenge my husband’s death.

    Your sadness will infect us, weaken our power.

    My desire for vengeance will infect you, make you stronger.

    He hesitated. It was not easy for him to say no, she knew; he had always indulged her, his only daughter. What you ask is impossible, he finally said. You will stay here, care for Black Horn.

    I am coming.

    Daughter, I sent your husband. I cost him his life. The pain was clear in his dark eyes. I will not lose you.

    Angry tears clouded her eyes as he turned in his saddle, raised his war club, and motioned forward. She watched him lead the procession in two great circles, the women following behind their warriors on foot, singing. Then they all stopped and, facing the center, sang a final song.

    Her father nudged his horse forward, into the center of the huge circle. He raised his war club for silence; his eyes moved around the circle, taking in the 500 warriors who would join him. Hear me, my friends! Today we ride toward warm lands, in search of Snakes. We have sent our young men to them with a peace pipe, and they have broken this pipe and killed our men. Now we will avenge them! We are many. We are Nimíipuu! We will teach these Snake dogs a lesson they will never forget!

    THREE

    September 1805

    The cooks had slaughtered the last colt. Seven days into the mountains, the men had vacant stares, their faces gaunt, their buckskins soaked from the snow and mud they had slogged through for two days. When they fell today, they cursed less and stayed down longer.

    Clark decided to take their best hunters on horseback and get out of the mountains as fast as they could, find game, and send it back up to those on foot. He chose Drouillard, Shields, the Field brothers, Colter, and Collins.

    They left at sunrise, the morning clear and cold. All around them was silence, save for the whisper of a breeze in the tops of the pines and the occasional call of a jay or chatter of a squirrel.

    They had gone only a mile when the trail emerged out of the forest into a snow-covered meadow, on top of a large knob. A vista opened before them: ridge after ridge of dark, forested mountains gave way in the northwest to sharp granite peaks gleaming with new snow. All seven stopped, their breath still steaming in the early morning air. The horses reached down to graze on the thick grass that poked up through the melting snow.

    Once the sun began to warm the earth, the mild air felt like a reprieve. They rode through green glades carpeted with grass. In places where the sun speckled through they found huckleberry bushes heavy with ripe fruit, which they picked and ate. Occasionally they passed trees whose bark had been stripped as far up as a man could reach, to get at the soft, edible layer underneath. Clark wondered if Indians or bears had done it.

    In the early afternoon they ascended another steep mountain. As the trail wound its way down the west side the view opened up. Drouillard, in the lead, was the first to see it. He reined in and pointed.

    Far to the southwest, beyond several more wooded ridges, they could make out a level plain. It was unmistakable: a low, golden-brown area, 40 or 50 miles away, before another hazy blue range on the horizon. The Field brothers broke into whoops and hollers and flung their hats in the air.

    Boys, Clark said with a grin, there’s good eatin’ ahead.

    They doubled their pace. It was downhill for three miles, but then the trail ascended another mountain, and they had to stop repeatedly to rest their horses. When they reached the top the trail turned south and dropped into a watershed broken into steep, forested canyons. It was a tough, rocky decline, and the men had to dismount and lead their horses much of the way. It was almost dark when they reached a creek tumbling through rocks and boulders.

    By Clark’s calculations, they had come 32 miles. His hunger gnawed at him, and he was weary in every muscle. Even the horses were starving and thin. We’ll call this Hungry Creek, he told the men. But tomorrow we’ll hit that prairie and fill our bellies.

    As he lay on his back and watched the stars wheel up in the night sky, he was not so sure. A violent headache had come on, and nausea swelled in his empty stomach. He felt cold and weak, almost dizzy, and he was beginning to lose sensation in his feet.

    The thick band of the Milky Way lay across the heavens as if it had been sprinkled there by a beneficent God. Silently he sent up a message: If you mean for us to survive, Lord, you could help by bringing some game across our path.

    Clark’s mother and father sat at either end of the table, his father in a black wool suit. His sisters and brothers lined both sides: George, Annie, Lucy, Elizabeth, Johnny, Edmund, and Fanny. Even Jonathan and Dickie, who had been dead for so many years, were there. The table was piled high with turkey and ham and potatoes and grits, and he could smell the gravy, heavy with fat. From the kitchen came the scent of sugar and plum pies. His mouth watered and his stomach growled. But he could not understand a sound he kept hearing. It was like a birdcall but soft and melodic, almost a cooing: oooh, oooh, oooh. He opened his eyes and saw large, straight pines rising far up into a gray dawn. In one of them sat a bird he had never seen: it looked like a dove, but it was gray, with a long pointed tail bordered with white.

    The sense of loss was so sharp he ached. His family, his long-dead brothers and parents, but even more so the food … It had been so close: turkey and gravy and potatoes with butter, sugar and plums. He rose to his feet and staggered, nearly blacked out, sat down again, put his head between his knees. Angry red boils had broken out on his calves and thighs, for want of anything but meat.

    He rose again and went to the creek to slap its icy water on his face. In the dawn light he could feel autumn in the air, could smell it in the damp, cold earth.

    The trail paralleled the creek, edging higher up the side of the canyon as the creek fell. Within two miles they were 80 yards above it, the trail a narrow foothold. At times, when rocks jutted out of the side of the canyon, the men had to dismount and lead their horses. The animals laid their ears back, the whites showing as their eyes rolled in fear. Clark’s legs wobbled as he walked; he felt stricken and hollow. If it got any steeper, the horses would refuse to move, and they would have to shoot one of them and eat it.

    At midmorning the trail dropped down toward a small glade, where to Clark’s astonishment he saw a horse grazing, a spotted gray. He looked around the glade for any sign of its owners but saw no one.

    Sir, Colter whispered, can I kill ’im?

    Clark hesitated, still looking for some sign of Indians. Finally he nodded. No sense lettin’ him get away.

    Colter raised his flintlock, sighted, and pulled the trigger. The gun roared and the horse buckled. Eagerly the men rushed forward—all except Drouillard, who kept his horse at a walk. Half French, half Shawnee, he was their best woodsman. His long black hair fell on his shoulders, Indian style, and a dirty red headband kept it out of his eyes.

    The Field brothers skinned and butchered the animal while Collins and Colter built a fire. They waited only until the first pieces were singed before they began to tear chunks off and devour them. No one said a word; all concentrated on their eating.

    When their bellies were full, Clark ordered the rest of the horse hung up in a tree for the corpsmen who followed them.

    Sated, the men sat back and watched their horses graze. It was warm now, the sun slanting golden through the trees and dappling the small meadow. They were giddy with relief: they knew now that they would get out of these mountains and find game, probably today, maybe tomorrow—but they knew. It had not been just hunger that had kept them silent for so long; it had been fear.

    FOUR

    September 1805

    Swan Lighting watched Winter Walking reach into the pit with her wooden bowl and lift out a pile of camas bulbs. The day was warm, and the heat of the pit made the sweat bead on the old woman’s forehead.

    Behind her, in the distance, two young boys raced through the meadow back toward camp, their legs barely visible in the long grass. Something about the way they ran made Swan take a second look. They were frightened. They did not slow until they neared three old men who stood before the lodges. Alarmed, Swan hurried over to hear what they said. Had a Snake war party eluded her father and his warriors?

    Strange men, on horses, the older boy gasped, pointing back from where they had come. Pale skin and hair like buffalo on their faces … Bad smell. He leaned over, trying to catch his breath.

    They gave us these, the other added, his chest still heaving. He held up a piece of long, thin, red material the length of a meadow snake.

    Buffalo Head took the material and lifted it into the sun, where it glistened like water.

    Buffalo hair on their faces? Three Elks asked.

    Yes, the older boy responded. Their leader had reddish hair—on his head and face.

    Almost white skin, the other said. And Snake saddles.

    Swan could see apprehension ripple over the men’s faces.

    But they are not Snakes, she said quickly. You said they were pale skinned.

    Yes.

    Swan’s people had heard of white-skinned men: Soyappos, Across-Water People. Several Nimíipuu who had been captured by other nations and taken far toward the rising sun had seen them. In the Time of Hot Weather some had heard stories from their Crow friends of a band of Soyappos on their way to the waters where the sun set.

    Go find Lone Elk, Buffalo Head said to the older boy.

    Lone Elk, their village headman, was her husband’s grandfather. He had seen more than 70 springs, his long hair white and his brown skin well creased. When he arrived, the boys retold their story. Lone Elk squinted as he stared to the south, where men on horseback were now visible.

    Every man in the camp had gathered. The women, frightened by what they had heard, were gathering up their children and riding north and east, into the forest. Who will go meet these white-skinned men? Lone Elk asked.

    There was silence. Finally Raven Spy, a gray-haired old scout, volunteered. Tall and loose jointed, clad only in his breechcloth, he mounted his horse and loped off toward the strangers. Swan Lighting stood with Lone Elk while the others hurried to gather their weapons.

    Raven Spy greeted the strangers and turned back toward the village, leading them peacefully.

    There were seven. Their horses were poor, their ribs protruding beneath their skins, and the riders looked worse. Camp dogs sniffed and growled at them, the hair on their backs straight up.

    The leader smiled as he dismounted. He was the oddest-looking human Swan had ever seen: his eyes were round and blue, his broad forehead a shocking shade of pink beneath hair redder than a sorrel horse’s, which was gathered in a single braid down his back. Below his round eyes his face was covered with hair of the same color, rough and curly, like a buffalo’s.

    She sniffed, then recoiled. He smelled like he had not bathed in two moons. He kept repeating something that included the word peace—a type of sinew used in sewing.

    Lone Elk signed a greeting, asked from where he traveled.

    From seventeen nations toward rising sun, the stranger signed back.

    The men glanced at one another, questions in their eyes. A Steelhead tewat had prophesied that a new kind of man would come from the rising sun, different from any they had yet seen. Many new things they would teach, and bring messages without speaking.

    We travel to great lake where sun sets, bad-tasting lake, the stranger signed.

    Ah-heh, Lone Elk said.

    You are Pierced Nose? The Soyappo made the sign with his forefinger, slashing under his nose.

    Cupnitpelu, Lone Elk said. This was their older name, People Who Walked Out of Mountains.

    Chopunnish, Red Hair said. Then he signed: Our hearts are happy to be here with you. We are hungry, have no food.

    Swan could see surprise in Lone Elk’s ancient, hooded eyes. His people always offered food to visitors, as any nation would; these strangers should have understood that. He turned and beckoned them toward his lodge.

    A few women had begun to return, reassured that there was no danger. Lone Elk gestured toward Winter Walking, asked her to gather food. Then he led the men into his tipi. Swan wanted to hear what was said, so she followed them in and spread buffalo robes around the dead embers of the fire.

    In a few minutes Winter Walking and two others returned with bowls filled with qawas bread, warm camas, a little dried buffalo meat, dried salmon, and dried berries. Their dogs trailed after them, noses in the air. Red Hair signed his thanks, and the Soyappos fell on the food like coyotes who had gone a month between kills.

    Swan turned away in disgust. They had not even given Lone Elk time to thank Creator for the meal.

    More and more of the women, freed now from their fears, crowded into the lodge to see the strange visitors. Their children stared openmouthed. One reached out and tugged the hair on a Soyappo’s face. The man winked, speaking in his own tongue as he removed the boy’s hand. The Soyappos laughed, and though they did not understand the man’s words, the People joined in.

    When they had eaten their fill, the Soyappo leader rose and left the lodge. Swan moved away as he passed, to avoid his stench. When he returned, he handed a round, flat piece of shining stone to Lone Elk. The headman fingered the gleaming object, turned it over and over, showed everyone the designs on it—a face on one side, two hands clasped on the other. Next the Soyappo handed beads and other objects to the women, who oohed and chattered as they compared their gifts.

    Swan was not sure what to do with the curved, reddish metal band the Soyappo handed her. She had never seen an ornament such as this—not even among the goods they traded for at Celilo Falls. He reached over and slid it onto her wrist, and she recoiled from his touch.

    When he was finished handing out gifts, the Soyappo signed to Lone Elk, Can you show us how to get to Great Waters That Taste Poorly?

    Lone Elk thought for a moment. Twisted Hair can show you, he signed. His winter village is on Clear Water.

    Happy with their gifts and excited now, the entire village retrieved their horses and accompanied the Soyappos to Twisted Hair’s camp, a short ride across the prairie, toward the sunset.

    Lone Elk sent his village crier to the other camps spread throughout the prairie. Tell them about these strangers, Swan Lighting heard him say. Tell them we know not if they are friends or if they mean some treachery. Ask them to come for a council—and bring their weapons.

    Clark stripped off his filthy buckskins and stepped into the stream. He felt a bit ludicrous, his naked body so white. But he reeked, and in his experience, Indian women had little tolerance for that aroma.

    God, he needed a woman. Most of the men lay with native women every chance they could get. His slave, York, was a legend among the Mandans and Arikaras, who believed that if their women slept with him, their husbands might inherit some of his power. York had been more than happy to meet the demand—had got good and cocky about it.

    Only Lewis seemed above temptation. Not once, in the entire 16 months they had been gone, had he taken a woman.

    The stream was only three feet deep, its bottom soft and silty. But damn, it felt good. He sank into it, held his head under. He stood up and soaped himself, then undid the queue in his hair, rubbed soap through until he had worked up a good lather. Finally he sank back down into the stream and rinsed off.

    When he stood up and opened his eyes they caught something moving beyond the trees. It was the short-haired woman who’d been there when he and the men first arrived; she carried leather water bags in both hands. She was taller than the other women, but she had the broad face and high cheekbones common to her people. She wore a plain deerskin dress with no fringe, and her hair did not even reach her shoulders, but she was still striking.

    She stopped, stared in his direction. Clark smiled at her, let her take a long look.

    She turned abruptly and moved back toward camp, and Clark chuckled.

    The shadows were lengthening when the Indians served their evening meal. Clark watched the short-haired woman, the only one who wasn’t serving. She had broad shoulders and full breasts that floated beneath her dress.

    She stared back at him. Most of the Chopunnish squaws looked away, refused to meet his eyes, but not this one. She was like the elk, in a herd, who dares you to shoot.

    Well, he could take a dare. He put his bowl aside and walked to the cooking pits, where she stood watching other women lift out piles of bulbs. He smiled and pointed at the bulbs, then used sign language: What’s this?

    She looked startled, but she pointed to a pile of uncooked roots, white stems with a small black bulb at the bottom. Camas.

    The pit beside her was a good ten feet in diameter. It had been opened up, and the hot bulbs still gave off steam. The natives had heated stones, put the roots in with them, then covered it all with dirt and grass and built a fire on top. When it was done, they uncovered the roots and dried them—the pits were surrounded on two sides by drying racks. Clark stepped closer to the pit, reached down, and picked up a bulb. Still warm, it was brown and syrupy, like a roasted onion, but it tasted sweet, almost like licorice.

    Good, he signed, then rubbed his stomach.

    She looked away.

    He laughed, then said out loud, I don’t bite.

    Her eyes darted at him. He could see that others were watching them now, and he realized he’d best make a show of propriety for them. He pointed east and signed: You have been over mountains?

    Many times, she signed back. We hunt buffalo.

    It is safe for your people?

    Our men are great warriors.

    Who do they fight?

    Snakes, Paiutes, Bannocks, Blackfeet, Big Bellies. Blackfeet and Big Bellies have firerock guns.

    You need guns?

    Her eyes took on urgency. Yes. We have only three, and they no longer work.

    He held up a hand, as if to tell her to wait, and walked to where his flintlock, powder horn, and leather pouch of balls lay on his pack. When he returned with them, he held up the powder horn and said, out loud, You need powder and balls.

    She looked confused.

    He poured powder into the barrel of the gun, describing what he was doing in English. He pulled out a ball, showed it to her. We drop one of these in—he slid the ramrod down the barrel—and tamp it down like so.

    He held the gun up to his shoulder and sighted, lowered it and pointed to the trigger. We pull this, it falls on a flint, creates a spark inside. The spark makes the powder burn. You hear thunder, and the ball flies.

    She stared at the gun, confused.

    He held it up to his shoulder, sighted at the trees in the distance, and fired. A child cried out, and as the smoke cleared he could see that everyone was staring at him. He grinned and winked at them, then handed her the gun.

    She shrank back, did not take it. It’s all right, he said. Just hold it so I can load it again. He held the gun barrel up, its stock on the ground, then gestured to her to hold it, nodded when she seemed to understand. Tentatively she reached out, gripped the barrel.

    That’s it. Now I pour in the powder—he did so—and drop in the ball. Then I use the ramrod. When he was done, he grinned at her and stepped back, motioned for her to pick up the rifle.

    Swan held it in both hands, felt its heft, then swung it to point at his chest. He flinched, and everyone laughed. He grinned at her, then staggered back, held his heart, collapsed onto his knees, and fell face forward onto the grass. The laughter stopped abruptly.

    He opened one eye, looked at her, then sat up, grinning. Everyone laughed again, and she felt sheepish.

    He stood and said something, then moved to her side, held the rifle up, and moved her left hand down the barrel, talking the entire time in his strange tongue, like a slow-moving stream. She drew back from the contact, but he moved her other hand to the trigger, then moved behind her and showed her how to aim down the long barrel. He stood close to her, his arms holding hers in place, his fuzzy cheek against her head. Her face turned hot; she could not believe he was touching her like this. He was a crazy man; what would he do next? He held her hand on the trigger and pressed down, and the gun kicked back into her shoulder as it roared. Pain shot through her, and she dropped the gun and stepped away, her other hand holding her shoulder.

    He smiled at her, amused, and she had an impulse to kick him between the legs. Suddenly he winced, as if she had actually done it, and bent over slightly. Then he almost doubled over, one hand on his stomach. I’m sorry, he signed, straightening up. I must go.

    Aieee, these white men are strange, she thought, watching him pick up the gun and hurry toward the forest. First he bathes in our drinking water; then he shows himself to me naked; then he touches me, in front of everyone else. She felt shamed, soiled.

    She saw another Soyappo rise and hurry toward the forest, half bent over. Suddenly, she understood: they had eaten too much after fasting. They were not only strange and rude; they were stupid.

    FIVE

    September 1805

    The sun was almost down the next day when the rest of the Soyappos emerged from the forest. Swan Lighting on Water, who had been scraping hides, dropped her work and hurried toward the southern edge of camp. A few men mounted horses and raced for other camps to spread the word.

    The Soyappo leader rode a large white horse through the deep prairie grass; most others were on foot, strung out in a long line, leading packhorses. Like the others, these Soyappos were pale and emaciated, their clothes filthy, their horses thin. If they were a war party, it was a defeated one.

    A black dog almost as big as a bear trotted behind the leader. And one of the pack animals was not a horse: it was smaller, with large ears—like a pony with rabbit ears. It opened its mouth and made a hideous blare, and Swan jumped.

    She counted as they straggled toward camp. Twenty and seven! And one was a woman! With a cradleboard dangling from the pommel of her saddle! But she was not a Soyappo; she wore a dress beaded in a pattern favored by Snakes. Quickly Swan scanned the others and saw that two of those on foot were Snake men. How dare they walk into a Nimíipuu camp after their people had murdered her husband!

    She found Lone Elk and pointed: Snakes!

    Yes.

    Chief Red Hair said nothing about Snakes.

    He watched in silence for a moment. One Soyappo is painted black.

    She followed his eyes, saw that the largest Soyappo wore black paint all over his body. The Flatheads painted warriors black when they returned from battle if they had shown heroism. But why were Snakes here? Were they captured slaves?

    She strode toward them; her rage demanded some reaction to this affront, this appearance of enemies in their camp. One Snake was old, she saw, the other just a boy. Both were shorter than her, and fear showed in their eyes as she bore down on them. You are slaves? she signed.

    The old one shook his head. Guides.

    You walk into your enemy’s camp! Are you fools?

    The old man glanced at the Soyappo on the white horse, unsure how to take this; she was a woman, after all.

    Her eyes flared at his lack of respect: Have you no hands?

    We live across Shining Mountains. We make no war on your people.

    Sheep eaters?

    It was an insult, but he nodded.

    Behind him a group of boys had surrounded the painted warrior. He pounced at them, and they scattered, shrieking. He made the whites of his eyes huge and round and growled like a bear—his teeth white in his dark face—and all the Soyappos laughed. Swan realized he wasn’t painted; it was his skin. Was he a man or some kind of monster?

    Soon men began to arrive from other Nimíipuu camps. Swan and Lone Elk took them to see how many Soyappo warriors had arrived, showed them the firerock guns they had brought, the sharp knives.

    Bear Head stared at the guns: These would be ours if we killed them. His people lived on the River of Hemp, where they regularly had to fight off Snakes who lived further south.

    This is not a war party, another said.

    Swan Lighting on Water’s husband and his friends were not a war party either, a third replied.

    Heads nodded as the men contemplated this. Swan wondered if her father and brother had attacked yet.

    We do not know their customs, said Low Horn. From Lahmahta, he had been a great warrior when he was younger, almost as feared as her father. Perhaps they are a war party.

    The black warrior, began an old man she did not know—we would be foolish to attack him.

    Bear Head scoffed. They send him to do women’s work—to get water and build a fire.

    We could trade with them, said Low Horn. They need fresh horses.

    We should kill them while they sleep, Bear Head said.

    Swan stared at the Soyappos. They were rude, yes. But it was Snakes who deserved to die.

    She heard a horse approaching from the west and turned to peer into the dusk. As it drew closer, she saw that its rider, a woman, was barely hanging on. Swan hurried forward to help her.

    It was Returned From a Far Country. She was covered with dust, and she clung to the horse’s lathered neck like a drowning woman clings to a log. She must have ridden from Twisted Hair’s winter village, on the river far below. When Swan helped her off, she slumped into her arms. Swan reached down under the old woman’s knees and lifted her. She was as light as a child.

    Everyone knew her story: as a girl, she had been kidnapped by Big Bellies, made a slave, taken far toward the rising sun. The Big Bellies had traded her to others, farther east, who had traded her to a Soyappo. He and his people were kind to her, and he married her and fathered her child. When he traveled across the Great Waters and did not return for a full snow, she had escaped, walked for many moons over great prairies, her son in a cradleboard on her back. She had forded streams and crossed rivers, holding onto rafts cut from willow bushes. Each day, she had managed to find a few roots and berries or wild onions. Whenever she lost her way, her spirit guide, a raven, had called to her.

    But she grew weaker and weaker. Her body no longer produced milk, and her child died. By the time she reached the Shining Mountains, she was so weak she knew she could not cross, but she no longer cared. Wanting to be with her son in the Land Above, she lay beside the trail to die. Flathead hunters found her and fed her, kept her for the winter while she healed. The next summer, she joined a buffalo-hunting band of her own people.

    Swan ducked through the flap into her lodge, a large tipi made of tule mats. Her sleeping area was behind the fire to the right, and she carried the woman over to that corner and lay her down. She unrolled her sleeping robes, then picked up the old woman and settled her on top of them. The air inside the lodge was still warm, though she could feel a breeze slipping between the tule reeds. She retrieved qawas bread from a woven bag that hung behind her sleeping robes and dipped a gourd into the water bag, which hung from another pole. The old woman took the water, sipped it as Swan Lighting held her up, but refused the food. Then she closed her eyes and slept.

    Clark unfurled a large American flag and sunk the pole into the moist soil at the back of the circle. It was a new flag, and the red, white, and blue stars and stripes almost sparkled as they waved in the breeze. He could tell from the Indians’ faces—and their murmured conversations—that it impressed them.

    Lewis had gathered the chiefs and their principal men under the noonday sun; they sat in a large circle on buffalo robes. He wore his military jacket, navy-blue wool with brass buttons up the front and two silver captain’s bars on the right shoulder, to deliver President Jefferson’s message. Clark didn’t see the point; they were no longer on American soil, and besides, all the chiefs and warriors were away. But Lewis had insisted; he did this with every tribe they encountered, and he was not about to stop.

    Children, Lewis began, "the Great Spirit has given a fair and bright day for us to meet together in his sight, so that he may inspect us in all that we say and do. I take you all by the hand, that you may form one common family with us.

    Our Great Father, the president of the United States of America, who is benevolent, just, wise, and bountiful, has sent us to all his red children to know their wants and inform him of them upon our return. We have seen all our red children all the way to your lands, and we have taken them by the hand in the name of our Great Father, the great chief of our people.

    Lewis paused to give Drouillard, who was signing his words, time to catch up. Then he continued: The object of my coming is not to do you injury, but to do you good. Our great chief, who has more goods at his command than could be piled up in the circle of your camp, wishes that all his red children should be happy. He has sent us here to know your wants, that he may supply them.

    The women standing around the edges exchanged glances, excited by the mention of trade goods. Children, our Great Father intends to build a house and fill it with such things as you may want and trade with you for your skins and furs. He has directed me to inquire of you, at what place would it be most convenient to build this house, and what articles you are in want of, that he might send them immediately upon my return.

    As Drouillard signed, the Indians began to exchange words and gestures. They always wanted plunder, Clark thought. For a few beads and knives, Indians would do almost anything.

    Now that Lewis had the hook in, he gave his peace pitch, urging them to make peace with all tribes, so white men could travel safely to bring them goods. Clark could see skepticism begin to grow as Drouillard translated. For Indians, war was a way of life.

    Clark’s eyes wandered to the women who stood around the edge of the circle, and he spotted the one he had talked to three nights before, half a head taller than the others. He would have to try his luck with her again tonight. He would give her something special—a piece of tradecloth, perhaps.

    Clark waited

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