The Spirit Woman Read Online Free PDF Page A

land. She said, “Lewis and Clark thought they were exploring the wilderness, where no one had gone before, but everywhere they went, they found Indian trails. After the expedition, everything changed for Indian people.”
    Laura beckoned the waitress. She waited until the woman had refilled the mugs with boiling water, fished a couple more tea bags from her apron pocket, and turned way. Then she said, “Okay, a hundred years ago Shoshones thought Sacajawea betrayed her people. But for Godsakes, Vicky, this is now.”
    â€œTraditions live on,” Vicky said. “Sacajawea stepped ahead of the men; she did something outstanding. She acted like a chief and made her husband look like a fool.” You goin’ off to Denver to make yourself into a ho:xyu’wu:ne’n. The grandmothers’ voices in her head now. You think you’re better’n Ben?
    â€œToussaint Charbonneau was a fool.” Laura swished a new tea bag into her cup. Steam wrapped around her thin fingers like a glove. “The Lewis and Clark journals make that very clear. Sacajawea was smarter and cleverer. She knew what to do in emergencies. She was the one who saved the expedition’s scientific instruments when they washed into the Missouri River, not Toussaint.” She hesitated, as if a new idea had overtaken her. “Maybe that’s why he beat her,” she said, almost to herself.
    Vicky closed her eyes against the image. The young Indian woman, an infant on her back, the husband’s raised fists. Did nothing change? Was the past always part of the present? She looked at the woman on the other side of the table. “What makes you so certain someone named Toussaint has the memoirs?”
    Laura opened the journal again and flipped rapidly through the pages. “Here’s what Charlotte wrote on November sixteenth, the day she disappeared. ‘Toussaint called this morning. The elders have agreed to allow me to use Sacajawea’s memoirs. He’ll bring them this evening. We’re going to dinner to celebrate. This is the most important day of my life.’ ”
    A glance up. “The day I hold the memoirs in my hand will be the most important in my life,” Laura said, then began paging backward through the journal. “Here are the names of the elders Charlotte interviewed. One of them may know Toussaint. Mary Whiteman.”
    â€œShe’s been dead almost twenty years.”
    A stricken look came into the other woman’s expression. The bruise seemed to darken. “James Silver.”
    Vicky shook her head. “I’m sorry.”
    â€œFlorence Rain.”
    â€œShe was buried a month ago.”
    Laura dropped back against the booth, the journal limp in her hand. “I should’ve come to the reservation last summer when I got the manuscript. I should’ve finished the biography by now. What am I going to do?”
    â€œPerhaps you could talk to Florence’s daughter—Theresa Redwing.”
    â€œHer daughter.” Laura repeated the words and stared blankly across the café. “I could have talked to Florence herself last summer. So much is lost with each generation.” After a moment she brought her eyes back. “Could you arrange an interview?”
    Vicky tipped her mug back and forth, watching the thin brown liquid roll up the sides. She regretted making the suggestion, and yet—Laura was so determined, so desperate. “Sacajawea was Shoshone,” she began, searching for a way to explain how the past had melded into the present. “I’m Arapaho. Our people were enemies in the Old Time. We share the reservation because the government thought it was a good idea. We try to make it work, but that doesn’t mean we love each other. I very much doubt I could arrange anything with a Shoshone grandmother.”
    Pinpricks of panic flared in the other woman’s eyes, and Vicky hurried on: “There’s someone