The Revenant

“Make sure your brother’s ready in the morning,” said Langevin. “I need his paddle.”

“He’ll be ready.”

“And remember the task at hand,” said Kiowa. “Don’t be laying up with the Mandans all winter. I need confirmation that the Arikara won’t attack traders on the river. If I haven’t heard from you by New Year’s, I can’t get word to St. Louis in time to effect planning for the spring.”

“I know my job,” said Langevin. “I’ll get you the information you need.”

“Speaking of information”—Kiowa switched seamlessly from French to English—“we’d all like to know exactly what happened to you, Monsieur Glass.” At this, even the dim eye of Professeur flickered with interest.

Glass looked around the table. “There’s not much to tell.” Kiowa translated as Glass spoke, and the voyageurs laughed when they heard what Glass had said.

Kiowa laughed too, then said: “With all due respect, mon ami, your face tells a story by itself—but we’d like to hear the particulars.”

Settling in for what they expected to be an entertaining tale, the voyageurs packed fresh tobacco into their long pipes. Kiowa removed an ornate silver snuffbox from his vest pocket and put a pinch to his nose.

Glass put his hand to his throat, still embarrassed by his whining voice.

“Big grizzly attacked me on the Grand. Captain Henry left John Fitzgerald and Jim Bridger behind to bury me when I died. They robbed me instead. I aim to recover what’s mine and see justice done.”

Glass finished. Kiowa translated. A long silence followed, pregnant with expectation.

Finally Professeur asked in this thick brogue, “Ain’t he gonna tell us anymore?”

“No offense, monsieur,” said Toussaint Charbonneau, “but you’re not much of a raconteur.”

Glass stared back, but offered no further detail.

Kiowa spoke up. “It’s your business if you want to keep the details of your fight with the bear, but I won’t let you leave without telling me about the Grand.”

Kiowa understood early in his career that his trade dealt not only in goods, but also in information. People came to his trading post not just for the things they could buy, but also for the things they could learn. Kiowa’s fort sat at the confluence of the Missouri and the White River, so the White he knew well. So too the Cheyenne River to his north. He had learned what he could about the Grand from a number of Indians, but details remained sparse.

Kiowa said something in Sioux to his wife, who retrieved for him a well-worn book which they both handled as if it were the family Bible. The book wore a long title on its tattered cover. Kiowa adjusted his spectacles and read the title aloud: “History of the Expedition…”

Glass finished it: “… Under the Command of Captains Lewis and Clark.” Kiowa looked up excitedly. “Ah bon! Our wounded traveler is a man of letters!”

Glass too was excited, forgetting for a while the pain of speaking.

“Edited by Paul Allen. Published in Philadelphia, 1814.”

“Then you’re also familiar with Captain Clark’s map?”

Glass nodded. He remembered well the electricity that accompanied the long-awaited publication of the memoirs and map. Like the maps that shaped his boyhood dreams, Glass first saw History of the Expedition in the Philadelphia offices of Rawsthorne & Sons.

Kiowa set the book on its spine and it fell open to Clark’s map, entitled “A Map of Lewis and Clark’s Track, Across the Western Portion of North America From the Mississippi to the Pacific Ocean.” To prepare for their expedition, Clark had trained intensively in cartography and its tools. His map was the marvel of its day, surpassing in detail and accuracy anything produced before it. The map showed clearly the major tributaries feeding the Missouri from St. Louis to the Three Forks.

Though the map portrayed accurately the rivers that flowed into the Missouri, detail usually ended near the point of confluence. Little was known about the course and source of these streams. There were a few exceptions: By 1814, the map could incorporate discoveries in the Yellowstone Basin by Drouillard and Colter. It showed the trace of Zebulon Pike through the southern Rockies. Kiowa had sketched in the Platte, including a rough estimate of its north and south forks. And on the Yellowstone, Manuel Lisa’s abandoned fort was marked at the mouth of the Bighorn.

Glass pored eagerly over the document. What interested him was not Clark’s map itself, which he knew well from his long hours at Rawsthorne & Sons and his more recent studies in St. Louis. What interested Glass were the details added by Kiowa, the penciled etchings of a decade’s accreted knowledge.

The recurrent theme was water, and the names told the stories of the places. Some memorialized fights—War Creek, Lance Creek, Bear in the Lodge Creek. Others described the local flora and fauna—Antelope Creek, Beaver Creek, Pine Creek, the Rosebud. Some detailed the character of water itself—Deep Creek, Rapid Creek, the Platte, Sulphur Creek, Sweet Water. A few hinted at something more mystical—Medicine Lodge Creek, Castle Creek, Keya Paha.

Kiowa peppered Glass with questions. How many days had they walked up the Grand before striking the upper fork? Where did creeks flow into the river? What landmarks distinguished the path? What signs of beaver and other game? How much wood? How far to the Twin Buttes? What signs of Indians? Which tribes? Kiowa used a sharp pencil to sketch in the new details.

Glass took as well as gave. Though the rough map was etched in his memory, the details assumed new urgency as he contemplated traversing the land alone. How many miles from the Mandan villages to Fort Union? What were the principal tributaries above Mandan, and how many miles between them? What was the terrain? When did the Missouri freeze over? Where could he save time by cutting across the bends in the river? Glass copied key portions of Clark’s map for his own future reference. He focused on the expanse between the Mandan villages and Fort Union, tracing both the Yellowstone and the Missouri rivers for several hundred miles above Fort Union.

The others drifted away from the table as Kiowa and Glass continued into the night, the dim oil lamp casting wild shadows on the log walls. Hungry at the rare opportunity for intelligent conversation, Kiowa would not release Glass from his grasp. Kiowa marveled at Glass’s tale of walking from the Gulf of Mexico to St. Louis. He brought out fresh paper and made Glass draw a crude map of the Texas and Kansas plains.