Free Charbonneau by Win Blevins Page A

Or they represent the people in government.” He stopped, needing to say nothing more.
    Baptiste had been wondering whether the girls of prominent families went to school: “Will you be going east, too?”
    “Such an idea,” Pélagie giggled.
    “I’d like to go,” Baptiste said. Bernard and Pélagie looked at him strangely. “But I don’t think I can,” he backed up. “I have to do what Governor Clark says.” He hesitated and then jumped in headlong. “I’d like to be a soldier, like Governor Clark, or a governor. Or maybe a lawyer.”
    “A governor? A lawyer? But.…Papa,” he laughed across the room to Pratte, “this boy wants to be a governor or a lawyer.” Pélagie tinkled with laughter.
    Baptiste roared with hatred for Bernard. “I can—”
    “Bernard,” Clark interrupted, “Baptiste is an extraordinary young man.” He stepped over, put a hand on Baptiste’s shoulder, and turned to the group. “You know his background,” Clark began, “and you can hear that he speaks French and English well. He also speaks Mandan, Minataree, and some Shoshone. Paump is the most accomplished linguist among us. And he reads and writes well.
    “I think you will be of service one day, Paump,” he said turning back to the boy. “To commerce. To the government. Being Indian, you see,” Clark said at large, “he understands Indians. Being white, he understands whites. Our country and our businessmen need youngsters like him.”
    Baptiste was catching on. He rattled off several strange phrases. “That’s how the Minatarees say ‘I give you my deepest respects and pledge my everlasting sincerity,'” he said with a smile and a slight bow. He sat back down and glared haughtily at Bernard.
    When Baptiste was leaving with Isaiah, Clark saw him to the door. “Governor Clark,” Baptiste asked looking up, “can’t I be a lawyer if I want to?”
    Clark looked at him seriously for a long moment. “I hope so, Paump, if you want to. Remember, though, some whites are not as Christian as they ought to be to balfbreeds. But don’t fret,” he said with a clap on the back. “We’ll find something suitable.”
    Clark did wonder, as Baptiste stepped out, what would prove to be suitable. He was a little afraid for the boy—afraid that Paump might not be satisifed with his lot, that education and exposure to the way of the white world might raise yearnings in him the boy would never be allowed to fulfill. But that was far in the future, and Clark did not trouble himself unduly about it. For William Clark was above all a practical man, a man who worked within realities as they were given to him, never one to dally with fantasies, speculations, might-have-beens. He had a will, within that context, to work good, and he did. He was a responsible husband, father and civic leader, an appropriately ambitious politician, a well-wisher for his adolescent country. He was also a man concerned for the welfare of the Indians, whom he understood better and cared about far more than did most white men of his time. He loved Paump as a kind of godfather, and intended to do as well for him as was possible. Further than that the matter was out of his hands.
    Reverend Welch’s Bible lessons ran to four subjects—the amazing sacrifice of Jesus, the terrors of the Last Judgement and hell, the insidiousness of sin (which he saw creeping and clinging everywhere around him, like poison oak around a tree), and the long-suffering virtue of Job. Welch had a colorful, even lurid, imagination, so he was able to make his stories vivid. Baptiste didn’t know what to make of Jesus, he delighted in the terrors of hell just as he delighted in ghost stories, and he was uneasy about the insidiousness of sin. The one that made no sense to him was the story of Job: He thought Job shouldn’t just have stood there and taken what was dished out. He should have fought back.
    Welch never talked about Sacajawea’s death to Baptiste, but the boy noticed that