The Captain's Dog Read online

  "Done!" Brady snatched the coins from the Captain's hand like a hungry gull after a minnow.

  Captain Lewis got down on one knee and scratched me behind my ears. He seemed well pleased with the bargain. I hoped he remained that way.

  "Now that he's yours, what do you plan to do with him?" Brady asked, more out of curiosity than concern.

  "He'll be going to the Pacific Ocean with me and back."

  Brady looked across the yard at the half-completed keelboat. "In that?"

  The Captain nodded.

  "With all due respect, sir, the craft you're building is not seaworthy. Not by a long shot. It will never round the Cape. You'll be lucky if it doesn't founder when the first ocean swell strikes it."

  "I'm not going by sea," Captain Lewis said. "I'm going down the Ohio, up the Mississippi and the Missouri, and from there—"

  "Ah ... so it's the Northwest Passage you're looking for."

  The Captain nodded. "Among other things."

  "They say there's nothing out in that wilderness but red savages, monstrous animals, and disease," Brady said, warming to his subject. "No one has ever—"

  Captain Lewis ignored Brady and turned his full attention to me. "I'll call you Seaman," he said. "Before this is over you will have seen both the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans."

  So I went from Runt to Champion to Seaman in the span of a few minutes.

  "You'll be needing a rope to tie him up with," Brady said. "I have one on the barge."

  "I will not need a rope. Let's go, Seaman."

  After the keelboat was completed, we took it down the Ohio River to Clarksville in the Indiana Territory, where Captain William Clark joined us. Captain Clark was a red-headed man cut from the same sturdy material as Captain Lewis. Both men were hard muscled and six feet tall. They complemented each other in just about everything. Captain Clark was a better boatman than Captain Lewis. Captain Lewis was a better navigator. Captain Clark was a better mapmaker. Captain Lewis was a better botanist and biologist. Captain Clark took comfort in the company of men, talked easily with them, and enjoyed a good laugh. Captain Lewis was partial to solitude—a man of few words—but there was strength in those long silences. What one lacked the other had. Our tribe would have two chiefs, but they would lead as one.

  From Clarksville we traveled up the Mississippi to Saint Louis and from there to Wood River, where we wintered with the men the captains had recruited along the way. In those days and the many that followed, the only rope the Captain needed was my devotion, and by the time we started up the Missouri he certainly had that.

  That day sitting on the bluff was the first time I saw the red book. He pulled it out of his knapsack and started scratching words on the first page with that little spear he dipped in the black water he called ink. Sometimes he stopped scratching and looked down at the muddy river with a look of contentment After an hour or so he closed the book and put it back in his knapsack.

  "We better go and check on the men," he said, starting back down the trail to the river.

  The winding trail was more like a ledge than a trail, not much wider than I was long. Below the ledge was a sheer drop of nearly two hundred feet I ran ahead of the Captain, thinking that if I hurried I would have time to sniff around for that mouse near the hickory.

  As I rounded the first bend I glanced back to see how far the Captain was behind me and saw the ledge he was walking on suddenly give way.

  He disappeared from view. I was so stunned that for a moment I just stood there staring at the spot. When my wits returned I hurried over to the edge, expecting to see his broken body on the rocks below.

  But Captain Lewis was alive! Somehow he had managed to pull the knife from his scabbard and stick the long blade into the cliff face to stop his fall. He was hanging about twenty feet below me, in a very precarious position. Gingerly he squirmed around until he found an outcrop with his moccasins and got his legs under him. He looked up and must have noticed the worry on my face, because he gave me a reassuring grin and said, "Everything's fine, Sea. With a little luck I'll be with you presently."

  Using his knife, he clawed his way back and pulled himself up over the edge. He sat there for a few seconds, gathering himself. When he caught his breath, he said, "And that, my dear Sea, is why we have two captains on this journey."

  June 12, 1804

  The past few evenings we have been serenaded by nightingales. Their song reminds me of my father. They were singing that morning so many years ago when my father came home on leave from the army and paid his final visit to us. I remember feeling so intimidated and shy I could barely utter a word in his presence. He was more than a man. It was almost as if some god had entered our home.

  The two days he stayed with us were wonderful, and then he was off to his command. None of us could have imagined that on his way there he and his horse would be swept away crossing the Rivanna River. That his horse would drown and that Father would return to us in a terrible condition, drenched from the river and a downpour of cold rain. I remember Mother stripping off his clothes, putting him into bed, and making him drink hot herbal tea. Despite her efforts, he contracted pneumonia. I watched him shiver and sweat for two days. And when he passed from us, I learned that gods can die, too.

  We have taken on a man by the name of Pierre Dorion, a trader who has lived among the Yankton Sioux for many years. We were lucky to run across him....

  "If you ask me, Dorion was lucky to run across us," Colter says. "Probably the luckiest day of his life. How else would an old reprobate like him get to meet the president of the United States?"

  THE MEN WERE always talking about luck. It came in two versions—good and bad. After a time I got a sense of what they meant by this word and began to recognize it myself. And the day Dorion arrived was a day of very good luck for me.

  I was on the trail of a buck, which took me up a tree-covered hillside. When I reached the small clearing on top I stopped my pursuit, realizing the buck was traveling too fast for me to catch up with him. I had just lain down in the cool grass to catch my breath when I heard Private Cruzatte call out from the river, "Boats ahead!"

  Cruzatte was our one-eyed, fiddle-playing boatman. He and Private Labiche were experienced rivermen who had traveled the Missouri before and were therefore assigned to permanent duty on the keelboat. One of them manned the stern paddle while the other hung over the bow, pushing logs out of the way with an iron-tipped pole and calling out what lay ahead.

  A day or two before, we had encountered two boats with French trappers in them making their way down the Missouri to sell their furs. They had rim out of powder and food. The captains gave them some of ours. But these pirogues that Cruzatte was hollering about had a different smell to them. The wind blew a scent up to me that made me drool. My paws moved beneath me like they had sprouted wings, and I flew down the hill a hundred times faster than I had come up it.

  I burst through the trees, jumped a short bank, and landed onshore still running. The keelboat and pirogues were already tied up and the men were milling about, taking advantage of this unscheduled stop to lick their wounds. I ran directly for the source of that beautiful smell, which was coming from one of the newly arrived canoes. Standing next to it was an old man, and I guess I gave him quite a start, because when he saw me he reached for his rifle.

  Fortunately, before he could get a bead on me, Drouillard stopped him and explained that I was Captain Lewis's dog. Pierre Dorion nearly laughed his gray-bearded face off at the revelation, then made a big fuss over me, never having seen a canine my size. He said he'd thought I was an angry black bear. When he finished scratching me all over, he reached into a bucket and gave me a handful of buffalo grease. It tasted even better than it smelled, and I thought happily of the meals to come when we reached the buffalos' feeding grounds.

  Dorion and the captains spent several hours talking about what lay ahead, with Drouillard translating their words. It turned out that Dorion had lived with the Yankton Si
oux for nearly twenty years and had a Yankton Sioux wife, and a son by her. Captain Lewis was delighted to hear this and asked if Dorion would accompany us upriver to help us talk to the Sioux.

  "Part of our mission," Captain Lewis explained, "is to make friendly contact with all the tribes we meet along the way. We want to set up trading posts, which cannot succeed unless there is an atmosphere of peace. To this end we would like to send some of the Sioux chiefs to Washington to meet with President Jefferson."

  Dorion thought he could arrange this, but he warned the captains that the Yanktons were just one branch of the Sioux nation and that farther up the Missouri we were going to run into their cousins, the Teton Sioux.

  "And they, gentlemen, are a very different breed from the Yanktons," Dorion explained. "They are brigands and will try to stop you from going upriver, or at the very least charge you a heavy toll to pass safely."

  "We don't want to make trouble," Captain Lewis said. "But we are prepared to stop trouble if need be."

  The captains took Dorion to the keelboat and gave him a demonstration of what they meant by this. Normally I didn't like these loud displays—the ruckus hurt my ears and made me jump. But I stuck next to Dorion all through it, hoping he might give me another handful of that delicious buffalo grease.

  The keelboat had a thing on it called a swivel gun, which was a small cannon set on a stand that could be swung around in any direction. It could be loaded with a single lead ball weighing about a pound, or with several handfuls of musket balls. To fire the cannon off they lit a small candle called a taper, touched the flame to the charge, and boom! Branches blew off trees, and every animal within five miles stopped what it was doing. The boat also had two guns on board, called blunderbusses, which swung around and spit out noise and destruction of a smaller nature.

  The captains fired each of these guns in turn for Dorion, and when they finished, Captain Lewis brought out his pride and joy—a rifle called an airgun that whispered when it was fired. Air was pumped inside the rifle and when he pulled the trigger, the ball came out with hardly a sound. The Captain loved this marvelous gun.

  "Those will certainly make an impression on them," Dorion admitted after the white smoke cleared. "But your guns will have little affect on two hundred Teton warriors shooting arrows if they decide to take your goods away from you. They can notch their arrows much faster than you can charge your rifles. Do not underestimate any of the Indians you meet. Their ways are different from ours, but they are smart and they'll know that your guns and supplies would make them the most powerful tribe on the continent."

  The captains exchanged worried glances—but I didn't hear what they had to say about Dorion's warning, because about that time Cruzatte broke out his fiddle and started making the squeaky noises that I liked less than the sound the swivel gun made. Though it meant parting from Dorion and his buffalo grease, I went for a ramble until the music stopped, which wasn't until late that night.

  July 4, 1804

  At sunset we celebrated our country's 28th birthday by firing the cannon and giving the men an extra ration of whiskey.

  We still have not determined which of the men will become part of the permanent party and proceed west with us after we winter at the Mandan village. Some of the men have indispensable skills, others we are watching carefully to see what they can add to help our efforts....

  DURING THE WINTER I'd grown very attached to this tribe of men and now considered them my family. I knew their moods, their sense (or lack) of humor, their sleeping habits, which foods they enjoyed and the foods they could not abide. I knew which of them were the best marksmen, and which if separated from the tribe would perish for lack of skill.

  As we made our way upriver my role within the tribe became clearer to me. I could not paddle or pull the boat, cook meals, or play the fiddle, but I had other talents that were just as useful.

  I had discovered long ago that human beings have pitiful noses. About all they can do is breathe through them, which is a shame and a great handicap in the wilderness. If the wind is blowing right, my nose can smell a deer two miles away and a skunk a considerable distance farther. I can tell the future with my nose and sometimes figure out what happened a day or two before if the scent is strong.

  Another almost useless appendage is the human ear. The men couldn't hear anything until it was right in front of them, and sometimes not even then. My ears work in concert with my nose. I can conjure a pretty clear picture of what lies ahead long before I get to it or it gets to me.

  These skills came in pretty handy during our journey, although conveying what I knew without the use of words was a challenge at times. Every night the captains posted sentries to forewarn us if we came under attack. This was not the men's favorite duty, but I didn't mind it, so whenever I could muster the energy I spent my nights patrolling the camp.

  If I heard or scented something unusual, aside from the men snoring and breaking wind, I'd low-growl, and if that didn't rouse the men from their sleep, I would let out a series of deep barks. This got everyone swearing and stumbling around in a hurry, which was great fun to see, but I was careful not to use this alarm unless there was good cause.

  A few nights before the men's big celebration, I'd learned that trouble didn't always come from outside the camp. That night I saw Private Collins tap a whiskey barrel after the other men had gone to sleep. He held his tin cup under the spigot two or three times and after a while he started to sing and sway. Pretty soon he was joined by Private Hall, and it wasn't long before their singing woke Sergeant Ordway, who changed their tune.

  The next morning the captains held a court-martial. All the men participated in these trials, passing judgment as a group after hearing the facts. In this case the men were not inclined to forgive Collins and Hall, as the whiskey they drank belonged to everyone and the two men's taking more than their share meant the others would get less.

  "Guilty!" The men shouted after hearing Collins's and Hall's side of the story. The punishment—one hundred lashes for Private Collins and fifty for Private Hall—commenced immediately, starting with Collins.

  The lash was made out of strips of leather and when applied to a man's bare back, it opened up long bloody cuts, which took weeks to heal. Collins's shirt was removed, his arms tied around a tree, and he was whipped, with all the men counting each stroke out loud until they reached... one hundred!

  Which was a relief to all of them. Collins did not hear the final call, as he had passed out on the fifty-second lash. Two men untied him and took him down to the river to clean and dress his wounds. Hall was next.

  As soon as the punishment was completed, camp was broken and the boats were loaded. Privates Collins and Hall were expected to pull their oars on the keelboat as usual.

  July 10, 1804

  If the number of furs we have seen coming downriver is any indication, this country's bounty is endless. I am confident we will prevail and find the Northwest Passage. With the discovery of the passage we will be able to move these trade goods easily from the Pacific to the Atlantic and beyond to other countries by ship, greatly increasing our nation's commerce.

  The scenery here is beautiful, but we are greatly afflicted by the heat and mosquitoes. The men are fatigued and several have boils on their skin. Private Joseph Fields was bitten by a rattlesnake a few days back. I treated the wound with a poultice of Peruvian bark. I think he will be fine. The snake was killed and I put the skin and rattle in my collection. Despite the afflictions the men seem to be in good cheer....

  THE MISSOURI'S current lowered and slowed a little more each day, which allowed us to increase our speed up the river. The men's muscles were as hard as rocks and their skill at handling the boats had increased a hundredfold since we left Wood River in May. On some days we made better than twenty-five miles. Despite this, the men were not always in "good cheer," as Captain Lewis said.

  The French voyagers, hired to take our two pirogues as far as the Mandan village, were con
stantly complaining about the pace the captains had set, and about the food. They were used to stopping several times a day to rest and eat. The captains rarely allowed any stops, except to make camp at night. The other men complained, too, but not as often, and not in the captains' presence. They were soldiers and this was not allowed.

  I noticed that within our tribe were smaller tribes. This was most easily seen by how the men clustered themselves at night. The captains usually slept in or near the keelboat. The French voyagers slept near the red-and-white pirogues. The three sergeants—Floyd, Ordway, and Pryor—camped together near their men. The privates, Drouillard, and Dorion pretty much stayed together in a big group. And York, the tribe's only black man, put his bedroll within earshot of the captains, although he sometimes visited the privates in the evenings, after Captain Clark's needs had been tended to.

  York was a big man, kind to everyone, even to those who were not kind to him. When treated unfairly, he responded with a smile rather than his fists, but I sometimes smelled fury beneath that easy smile of his. It rose to the surface every time a man made a negative comment about his color, but he had learned to hold that angry flame inside and quench it with the juice deep in his belly.

  The men claimed that York was Captain Clark's slave, and that this meant Captain Clark owned him. At first I did not believe them, but over the months I saw that it was true. I had more freedom to do as I pleased than he did.

  As we got farther west, I saw slaves among the Indian tribes, too. These poor Indian slaves, mostly women and children, were captured in raids and bartered back and forth like the cows I had seen in stockyards when I was with Brady. I wondered if Captain Clark had raided York's tribe and taken him away from his people. However it had happened, York never complained about it, and although he had ample opportunity, he never tried to escape.