CHAPTER 3
Ten barechested men on shore pulled a sixty-foot keelboat on the Fever River. A line passed through
their hands to the bow where it was attached to a longer line running up to the top of an eighteen-foot-
high mast near the boat’s center.
The crew heaved on the cordelle in a rhythm synchronized with the bars of a work ditty sung by the
French Creoles from Louisiana and Canada on the expedition of eight boats. Sprays of fresh river water
washed away the salty sweat rolling down their faces, arms and legs in time with the rise and fall of the
verses:
“Dans mon chemin j’ai recontre
Trois cavalieres bien montees
L’on, ton, laridon danee
L’on, ton, laridon, dai
Trois cavalieres bien montees
L’une a cheval, l’autre a pied
L’on, ton, laridon danee
L’on, ton, laridon, dai.”
The song ran through Jim’s head while the work taxed the muscles in his thighs. He felt nothing his first
day on the journey but today, the upper part of his legs hurt, especially, when he stopped and moved
forward again. Yet even the trodden pain could not deter his heart from soaring. The total surrender of
his body to this exhausting travail freed him from the worries of St. Louis. He pulled with a zest deep
within. He was happy on stolen time. The country and its unexplored neighboring regions lay at his
feet. He had accepted the challenge of leaving home and seeing the world. He was proud.
While Jim was still a secret guest in his bedroom, John had visited Colonel Hiram Johnson at Le Barras’
Hotel. The colonel, an Army career officer, had come from back East on this official mission of his
government. He had never traveled west of Chicago and he looked sedentary. Johnson was a middle-
aged man who carried a distinct paunch on a lanky body. He smoked a pipe as an affectation of a
cultured city man when he was really a country gentleman with much compassion and no formal
education. John managed to convey to the colonel, without revealing the details, that Jim was in
trouble. Johnson did not care to hear the intricacies of Jim’s personal story. He needed men. He knew
that many of those who had come forward were running from something. “It is a peculiar sort who goes
out exploring,” Johnson had said. “Yes, it is,” John had agreed. John arranged for Jim to meet the
colonel and the others at the boat’s dock rather than in town.
Yesterday, Jim had crept through St. Louis while it slept before the sun came up. Jim asked John to wait
a few days before explaining his sudden disappearance to his father and Eliza. Jim had answered to
Casner for so long that he thought it unnatural that John could not also report to the blacksmith.
Casner did not need a messenger. Whatever Casner’s feelings toward Jim, he knew him well. For four
years, he worked side by side the boy, directing him in ways to hone his craft and live his life. When
Jim first came to Casner, the boy confided in the man. Casner listened. When Jim had problems with
friends or girls, Casner offered sensible advice. Practical advice. He suggested caution in every
situation. The master attained an intimate knowledge of the student and the student of the master. As
Jim gained more of a sense of himself, however, the blacksmith perceived a waning of his blind loyalty.
Jim stopped talking with him about his life. Casner sensed Jim’s discontent with blacksmithing. He
knew of his desire to travel. He observed his charge’s determined character.
Casner loved Jim. He had no children of his own and had never married. Teaching Jim offered Casner
the pride of fatherhood without complete responsibility. Jim looked up to him as the person who knew
everything and had all the answers. Casner had grown accustomed to that relationship. Change terrified
the man. He did not know how to change. His work tools were a hammer and an anvil. He forced
things into shape. It was the only way he knew.
A few days after Jim vanished from town, Casner figured he knew how to track him down. He spotted
Johnson’s advertisement in the Missouri Gazette, made some inquiries and then hired a small crew to
advance on the expedition which had left yesterday. The blacksmith and his crew had only been on the
river a few hours but the speed of the thirty-foot-long bullboat surpassed that of the larger keelboat
which at its fastest accomplished eighteen miles a day. The second vessel veritably skimmed the water.
No one sang on this boat that traveled under a cloud.
Casner pursued his obsession with single-minded vengeance. He spoke little but frequently spat out
curses under his breath. The other men on board would steal glances at him, look at each other and
shrug their shoulders. His antics stupefied them. What did he plan to do when they caught up with the
expedition? Why hadn’t he alerted the authorities to his hunch? Why, on his own, chase someone down
who might hurt him?
Casner’s crew did not know what to expect from him when they pulled their boat up behind the lead
keelboat.
“Careful, sir,” they warned Casner, as he received permission to board the larger vessel.
Strong arms reached out to help hoist him on board while Casner’s men steadied their boat. Casner
presented himself to Johnson as Jim Beckwourth’s former employer who had some unfinished business
with him. He asked for a word with him. Johnson assumed that money was at issue. The colonel had
no objection to a few minutes of Jim’s time.
Ice flowed through Jim’s veins when he saw Casner on the bullboat. He had underestimated his
teacher’s stubbornness. He despised Casner and the feeling that this man inspired in him of being a
small child caught and reprimanded. Casner’s actions seemed so unjust and irrational to Jim that the
young man construed them as racist. What other explanation could there be? However, Jim in his
typical manner of avoidance did not voice this assumption. Jim hated to be reminded of who he was. In
not airing his accusation, he gave it credence and power and made it real.
“Jim Beckwourth,” shouted Johnson, after talking with Casner. “Come forward.”
Jim climbed on deck thinking that the drama of the past few days had not yet ended.
“This man claims that you worked for him,” Johnson said. “Is that true?”
“Yes, sir,” Jim said.
“He says that he has business with you and would like a few minutes with you. What do you say to
that?”
“That’s fine, sir. I’ll talk with him.”
“Make it brief. We’ve got a lot of miles to cover today.”
“Yes, sir.”
“You can talk over there, starboard, with some privacy,” Johnson pointed to the other side of the boat.
The two men walked over. The crews on both boats pretended to work but all eyes and ears were on
Casner and Jim.
“How did you find me,” Jim asked.
“It wasn’t hard. I’ve been seeing the way your eyes glaze over when you talk with mountain men and
people who have been out. This was the only expedition leaving town now.”
“Why did you follow me out?”
“To bring you back home,” Casner said.
“Who appointed you the warden with the key,” Jim asked. “You’ll go to any length, won’t you, to
punish me. For what? What have I done wrong?”
“Dream,” was the answer, but neither said nor thought this.
Casner took in a long breath. The fury of the mood broke.
“You shouldn’t have run away, Jim,” he said.
“Shouldn’t have run away? Should I have stayed in St. Louis and face a charge of assault?”
“I only accused you of trying to kill me because I thought it would bring you to your senses. Make you
see that your confusion about your trade is unwarranted. I wanted you to realize that abandoning it
would snuff out any hope of a normal, stable life.”
“Trying to kill you,” Jim repeated slowly, as though he had imagined hearing the words. “What are you
saying? Did you file such a charge against me, one of attempted murder?”
“My God, man,” Jim said, quickly. “What would you have the authorities do to me! Hang me by my
nails?”
“You’re young. You’re impetuous. You think now that blacksmithing bores you. But not too far away
is a time you’ll be thankful you stuck with it.”
“Mr. Casner. I don’t understand how sending a constable after me was to have brought me to my
senses. More likely, it would have brought me to a premature death.”
“Jim, no. I would never have let the charge stay. I would have dropped it.”
“You’re crazy.”
“Yes,” said Casner, reclaiming his angry posture while remembering the pain of Jim’s rejection of him.
“I’m crazy for trying to reason with you.” Enough of it. Get into the boat. We’re going to see your
father.”
“My father? What does he know about this? What have you told him?”
“He knows everything. He wants to speak with you.”
Johnson cleared his throat on the other side of the boat. He began to pace back and forth with his hands
clapped behind his back. Jim could see that Casner’s time was up. Jim had to decide whether or not to
return with Casner. How did he know that Casner was telling the truth about his father and about
dropping the charge. Jim was scared of Jennings, but he also wanted his approval.
“All right. I’ll go,” he said.
The boatswain cleared the way for them. The two walked through the parted crowd of men who had
kept a respectable distance while they talked. It was apparent to all that this was a family dispute.
“Everything all right,” one man called out. Others joined in the question.
“Yes, yes,” Jim answered. “I’ll be back pulling this barge – if you’ll have me,” Jim said to Johnson.
“Sure, Jim. Sure. We’ve got some more time on this river. Time enough for you to catch up and take
your place on the line.”
“Thank you, sir,” Jim said.
“Come on, Jim,” said Casner, as he nudged Jim forward.
They left side by side, a chasm between them. Casner had, long ago, lost Jim. Both men adopted a stoic
attitude on the interminable river journey back to town. Jim hated him. They rode together in the night
to Beckwourth’s Settlement where Casner deposited Jim at home to explain the last few days to his
father. The blacksmith wanted to humiliate his student. Casner immediately headed back to St. Louis.
The dark colors of the interior of the house at Beckwourth’s Settlement produced a heaviness that
suffocated Jim. The velvet maroon drapes at the windows blocked out any moonlight in the drawing
room where Jim waited for his father. His feet rested on a handwoven Persian rug whose flowers
appeared blood red because of the absence of light. One candle burned in the room, near Jim on a small
table. He sat on a long divan upholstered in the same fabric as the drapes. The wood beams in the high-
ceilinged room and the corner tables and desk seemed black in the house’s somber tones.
It had been two years since Winifred Beckwourth’s death. Jennings grieved silently. He withdrew into
himself, avoiding his children and visiting her grave every Sunday afternoon with a fresh bouquet of red
roses and purple violets from her garden. It was as though he was still courting her, still trying to win
her complete love. Life lost its spontaneity for him. He was waiting to die and be buried beside her.
Jennings handed over the business of running the estate to his eldest son, Randolph, and James Teasdale,
a hired manager. Teasdale had been at Beckwourth’s Settlement since its founding. He acted as
Randolph’s teacher.
Jim was the only son of the six who had asked for a higher formal education. The others were
complacent. Matilda, the second eldest of the thirteen children, begged to be sent to a finishing school.
Her brow often knitted together as she contemplated a provoking subject in her active mind. She craved
learning for its own sake unlike Jim who enjoyed it, foremost, as a way out of his precarious
predicament. But Jennings refused to send his daughter to school because she was a girl. She had had
enough school. More of a book education, he felt, would be wasted on her. And after Winifred died, he
needed her to run the house and care for the children as a surrogate mother. The levelheaded Matilda
shouldered the responsibility as a matter of course. However, after everyone retired and the house
quieted, Matilda would light a candle and happily read the books that Jim smuggled home for her on his
vacations. Matilda had become Jim’s confidante. She had inherited her mother’s empathy and
generosity.
Jim thought back to when the house was light and airy. He remembered his mother and then, as quickly,
remembered the newfound exhilaration he felt when the river water splashed on his body. Oh, how he
wished he were there! His freedom had been snatched from him so suddenly! He vowed that he would
get back to the river.
Legally, there was nothing to keep Jim in St. Louis unless his father demanded that his son, his property,
not leave. Casner had rescinded his charge against Jim before pursuing him. Jennings had talked the
one-armed constable out of pressing charges against his son. He would have done the same for any of
his sons. But especially for Jim who was his favoured son. He reminded him of himself; he went after
what he wanted regardless of the consequences. Jennings admired this quality but also feared that it
would cause Jim’s downfall. After all, Jim was not a white man. What would be applauded as
aggressive for one race would be criticised as impudent for another. Perhaps his son was too much like
him for his own good. Jennings was never sure how Jim should act. Though he had married and lived
with a woman of mixed race for years, he had not lived as a black man. Neither had Jim.
Jennings felt remiss in educating his son on the question of race. He did not know how to teach his son
shrewdness in dealing with people who could not see past his color. Jennings usually avoided
discussion of racism. He was overwhelmed by it. He wished it did not exist. But then, Jennings did not
consider his children wholly a part of the race issue. Their mother, after all, had a white father. His
children were almost white. The problem laid with outsiders who did not respect that. When he
received word that Jim was wanted by the law, he agonized that it might have been the ignorance of
outsiders that led to his fugitive status. And he feared that Jim’s troubles resulted from his failure as a
father. A surge of gladness shot through Jennings’ body when a servant ran upstairs with news of Jim’s
return home. He bounded downstairs with an energy that had been untapped since his wife’s laughter
rang through the house. But when he reached the door to the drawing room, he stopped short, took a
breath and slowly opened it.
Jennings held out his hands to Jim.
“Welcome home, son,” he said.
Jim rose and took his hands.
“I’m happy to see you,” he said.
They stood like this for a minute. Then Jennings shocked his son. He took him into his arms and
rocked him back and forth with unbridled joy.
“Son, son, son,” he said. “Thank God you’re home.”
They both sat down and in Jennings’ typical roundabout fashion discoursed a few minutes about town
politics, memorable meals Jim had relished at the homes of friends, and his father’s loss of appetite. Jim
chided his father for neglecting, what he called, “one of life’s finest pleasures.”
“Next you’ll be scolding me for not paying enough attention to the opposite sex, also one of life’s finest
pleasures that I hear you’ve been enjoying. How is Eliza Shepheard these days?”
“Well, Father. She’s doing quite well.”
“And how does she feel about your recent escapade?”
“I haven’t spoken with her about it.”
“I’ve heard several different reports about what led up to your disappearance. Why don’t you tell me
what happened,” said Jennings, in a no-nonsense voice.
“First of all, Father, I would never try to kill someone unless my life was in danger. I don’t know what
came over Mr. Casner. I was a few minutes late last Wednesday. He threw out some unsavory
accusations and physically attacked me. Why, he hurled a hammer at me. I fought him in self-defense.
Fortunately, we were interrupted by a customer. I walked home to the boardinghouse. Mr. Casner had
told me to leave and never come back. Which was just as well, Father. He had no reason to do those
things. He –“
“Then what happened,” Jennings asked.
“Then Mr. Casner had the gall to follow me to Mrs. Jacobo’s place and try to get me kicked out. I didn’t
even know what I was going to do yet. It was like Mr. Casner was trying to knock everything out from
under me. And I couldn’t understand why. I worked so hard for him. He tried –“
“And then what happened,” Jennings cut in a second time.
“I challenged his attempt to get me thrown out. I told him I didn’t need his money; I had plenty of my
own and I was going to stay put. My remark enraged him, Father. He completely lost control and
lunged for me again. I thought it most unseemly to fight like that in the parlor of the house. But what
could I do? He acted like an unleashed mad dog.
“Finally, when I was able to safely do so, I stepped aside and apologized profusely to Mrs. Jacobo who
witnessed the entire nasty incident. Mr. Casner followed my example and left.”
“And then,” said Jennings, sensing that his son was about to attempt another diatribe.
“And then I went upstairs and started to pack, not knowing where I was going or what I was going to
do. I was apprehensive that Mr. Casner would come back. I don’t know, Father. I was confused. While
I was upstairs in my room, a constable came to take me away on a charge of assault. Assault. And he
wasn’t even telling the truth. It was a charge of attempted murder. Father, they would never release me
if I had turned myself in. Mr. Casner’s charge would stick because of who he is and who I am.”
“What is that supposed to mean?”
“I mean that Mr. Casner is a well-known, successful man who happens to be white. And I am…I am
who I am.”
“That’s right, Jim. You are who you are. A Beckwourth. Don’t try to weasel out of any deserved guilt
here because you’re not one hundred percent white. I won’t allow it. I will not tolerate any
shenanigans.”
“Yes, Father,” said Jim, who did not dare disagree with him.
“So then, what happened when the constable arrived?”
Jim paused and looked away from Jennings as if to recall the events. Then he looked him square in the
face and said:
“I thought I spotted a bulge on his left side and took it to be a weapon,” Jim lied. “I ran inside my room
and got my revolver, then kept him at bay at the bottom of the stairs. I told him not to come up or I
would shoot.”
“Jim, he was a man of law,” Jennings said. “As a man of law, he might very well carry a gun.”
“Yes, Father.”
“Well, was it?”
“Was it what,” Jim asked.
His father stared at him stone-faced.
“Yes, it was, Father,” Jim lied again. “He drew his gun. I did not shoot. We held each other off with
our weapons. He left shortly thereafter.”
“Well, son. What then?”
“I hid out at John Hierophant’s for a few days and joined Colonel Johnson’s expedition on the Fever River to Sac Indian country.”
“Is that it? Anything else?”
“No, Father.”
In an uncharacteristically small voice, Jennings asked:
“Jim, why didn’t you come home?”
Jim’s face flushed with remorse. He had hurt his father deeply. He had not expected this. He did not
know how to say he thought his father helpless in this situation. So he apologized instead.
Jennings wanted his son to stay. He wanted to protect him from the world. He urged him to apologize
to Casner. When Jim refused, He offered to set him up in his own blacksmithing business on
Beckwourth’s Settlement.
“You’ll be assured customers,” Jennings said. “Owning your own business might give you the passion
that you haven’t found in the trade itself. Please, Jim, give it a chance.”
Jennings was pleading for himself, not blacksmithing. “Give me a chance, Jim.” This is what he was
saying. He was doing what he knew well: making enslaved life so comfortable that it would be difficult
to leave.
Jim thanked his father but insisted on going. His time had come. He knew that he had to go. Jennings
recognized that there was no talking him out of it. Jim then announced that he should rejoin the Johnson
expedition. It had started out depending on him being a part of it. He had been hired as a hunter.
Jennings argued futilely that its leaders probably did not expect him to return; they usually planned on
losing some men, there would be other expeditions. But Jim would hear none of it. Jennings would not
even have time to fantasize that his son was settling home. Jim asked him to explain matters to Eliza.
He loved her; he would be back, but he had to go now. Jim did not want to dilute the freedom he had
tasted by listening to her arguments. And he did not want to risk her breaking up with him,
He could not, however, escape Matilda’s watchful eyes and relieved heart because her brother was safe.
She waltzed her six-foot-tall frame into the room and held Jim close to her breasts in much the way his
mother had held him. Jennings left them to chat. He went back upstairs to be alone with his Winifred.
Matilda rejoiced in the news that Jim was on his way to pursuing his life. She longed to do the same.
They sat down together on the divan.
“You know what I would love to do. I’d go to Paris where I would write stories of love and romance
and dreams all day. Then, in the evening, I’d dine with friends and talk about my work and their work.
They would be artists, too. Other writers, painters, actors, dancers. What an exciting milieu! There
would be parties where guests would come from artistic and aristocratic circles. Imagine how grand that
would be! And they would throw masked balls where people would spend the first hours guessing
identities until they became enraptured with the sound of romantic waltzes, the mixed scents of ladies’
perfumes and the tingly taste of ice cold champagne bubbles. Then no one would care who was who!”
Mattie’s eyes were glassy like a drunken person’s. She had transported herself to the French capital that
also reigned as the capital of Western culture. Select Parisian salons showcased the most brilliant and
creative minds of the continent in vivacious conversation.
Matilda was not trying to steal Jim’s moment. It was just that she never got to talk about her dreams
with anyone but him. Now that he was going, those talks would come to an end. His departure,
however, also excited her because it meant that there was hope for her dream. Jim understood. He let
her talk.
“I can’t wait ‘til I meet Madame Germaine de Stael! She is so talented and fiery. She is Napoleon’s
nemesis, can you imagine! Her novels, Delphine and Corinne are so beautiful and sad.
“The social climate is much freer in Paris than here. Who knows what Madame de Stael would be doing
if she lived here. In Europe, she is a real woman of the world – thinking, writing and loving freely –
except when Napoleon banishes her, of course. I know that there are political problems there. But there
are those problems here, too. Everywhere there are problems. I would be legally free there. I have no
allegiance to a country that allows me to be owned like a horse. Did you ask Father for your freedom?”
“No. It wouldn’t have worked today. I’m relieved he didn’t put up a fight about my decision to leave.”
“I suppose you’re right. Father has been even more emphatic about keeping us since Mother died. He is
so strange these days. Father is in his own world. Maybe you will have had enough of the West after
this journey and you’ll decide to come to Paris with me. Then we can both live happy and free lives.”
“As much as I’d like to be with you, I doubt I’ll spend my fascination with the West on just one
expedition. If I visit Paris, I will be a free man when I set foot on foreign soil. I won’t relent on that.”
“All right, little brother. I will be waiting.”
“The grandfather clock in the corner struck twelve o’clock midnight. It was quite late. Jim and Mattie
kissed goodnight. Jim went upstairs to his room where Randolph snored loudly. Tonight, Jim did not
mind. The sound lulled him to sleep.
The next morning at breakfast, Jim saw all his brothers and sisters assembled to wish him well. He was
the first of them to leave home. Though they already saw less and less of him after he went away to
boarding school, they felt they would miss him. Jocelyn, Evangeline, Abigail, Ellen, Amy and Louise
gave him kisses. Matilda offered a delicate filigree square locket that she had designed for her
eighteenth birthday four years ago. At the table, Jennings announced that one of the family’s hardest
riding horses, Diablo, would carry Jim to the boat. Then he passed a maroon money bag tied with gold
string from his head of the oaken table to Jim at the other end. Randolph, Caswell, Benjamin, Peter and
Raymond stood after breakfast and took turns shaking Jim’s hand and hugging him.
Later, Jim counted five hundred dollars in the money bag, enough to run a business for a year, enough to
support himself on the Grand Tour of Europe, enough to start a family. He put the bag back into his
breast pocket and turned back to the business of pulling the keelboat’s cordelle.
"Kee-o-kuk, The Watchful Fox", Chief of the tribe of Sac and Fox (1835) by George Caitlin
(From the Smithsonian American Art Museum in Washington, D.C.)
CHAPTER 4
Jim scratched his head in disbelief. Free!
This journey marked the beginning of the making of his life as James Pierson Beckwourth.
Explorer! His myth began to spin itself.
Jim stretched his legs out on his hard-bottomed berth and clasped his hands behind his head. The boat
rolled forward at its barely perceptible pace. A ray of rose and orange sunlight streamed through a chink
above Jim’s head. The work had exhausted him on the lead mining expedition’s nineteenth day. It was
the last day before reaching its destination. However, he had become accustomed to the feeling. The
achiness in his legs disappeared a few days after he returned to the boat. He developed new muscles and
strength.
The chunky beef, carrot and potato dinner stew drained him of the tiny reserve of energy he had when he
left the line. His eyelids grew heavier than his desire to think. But his mind disagreed. He dreamed of
Eliza. Her eyes shined with lust for their home. She looked past Jim into their future. She smiled
contentedly.
Eliza had never known loss, heartache, misery. Nor did she expect to. She thought that she would not
know despair because her wishes were calculatingly attainable. She played at life carefully expecting to
get what she wanted from it. She imagined herself and Jim posed, the top of their heads touching, in a
perfectly round, smooth bubble. Perfect. Absolutely perfect. Jim experienced the buoyancy in his
sleep. A soft sky blue color enshrouded him.
The nights flooded blue during the twenty-day journey to Galena, which was named for the primary ore
of lead, or lead sulfide. Ancient peoples, such as the native Americans, Egyptians, Romans and
Phoenicians had mined lead. Now, the Americans also mined it for use in ammunition, paint and pipes,
leaded glass, pewter and ceramic glazes.
Early the next morning before the keelboat’s arrival and the sun came up, Chief Lots of Stars combed
his lustrous, blue-black, waistlength hair. He oiled it with castoreum and scented it with sweet herbs.
He primped in preparation for the visit of the men from St. Louis. They came on a peaceful mission.
His runners had notified him of it days ago. He checked himself in a hand-held enamelled mirror
decorated with blue roses and pink camellias. The head chief of the Sacs adorned himself in the fifteen-
foot high, dome-shaped tepee lodge where he lived with one of his wives. His children dressed for their
guests in the lodge of his other wife who was their mother. His two wives and many other women
busily smoked succulent deer and boiled buffalo meat for the welcoming feast. They also boiled and
roasted several varieties of squash, beans and corn. Blue corn, rabbit-soft corn and corn-white and bean-
red, bean-navel-black and bean-white and pumpkin-black, soft-buttock squash and squash-white.
The aroma wafted on gentle May breezes into Chief Lots of Stars' nostrils. He smiled to himself. A
jutting chin and prominent cheekbones graced his face, which was the color of the earth. His eyes, the
color and hardness of obsidian, sparkled with the vitality that exuded from his whole person. His body,
long and muscular, looked years younger than its thirty-eight. A necklace of elongated horizontal cow-
bone beads tapped softly against his hairless, developed chest. He moved like the aristocracy he had
earned and been born into, not in a hurry but purposefully. He set aside the ceremonial tanned skin robe
whose hem depicted pictures of multicolored birds, fruit and flowers. These were the incarnations of
nature which Chief Lots of Stars resembled. He embodied brightness and good fortune.
Chief Lots of Stars felt things that were about to happen. He knew what others were thinking before
they spoke. At night before he retired with one of his two wives, he took time alone in the lodge. No
one was permitted to enter. His people believe that he offered gifts to the gods then. He did pray. He
meditated. He thought. Chief Lots of Stars, who was also called Black Thunder, was a gifted man, a
good man. He wanted a good life for the Sacs. His people planted and harvested. They ate and used
what they hunted and killed. They held ceremonies at the appropriate times.
The Sacs kept the universal order. They broke no sacred codes. Chief Lots of Stars ruled by consensus.
He imposed no orders. His people were like-minded and independent-minded. They wanted what he
wanted. He was a powerful man who gained his stature by keeping his people happy.
An impressive entourage of more than one hundred Sac men, on horseback, accompanied Chief Lots of
Stars to the edge of the Fever River. There they met Chief Bank of the neighboring Fox tribe and his
party of the same size. They assembled in rows of ten to twenty across. The two chiefs waited, side by
side, for Johnson’s tiny flotilla.
Comforted by Eliza’s illusion, Jim awoke from another night to the sound of Jean Louis on night watch
shouting the sighting of the end of the river journey. Jim and the others jumped up, pulled on their
trousers and washed best as they could with a dwindling ration of water. Their clothes looked rumpled;
their hair had grown over their ears; and their hands had lost their softness. They let out sporadic
whoops of joy as they prepared for their last day on the river.
Jim did not know what to expect once they went ashore. His adult encounters with native Americans
had been restricted to observation on the streets of St. Louis.
His childhood contacts, however, were many. When the family first moved to Beckwourth’s Settlement,
the region’s inhabitants regularly attacked the new settlers. Volunteers kept constant watch over the
land. They staked out at a blockhouse in the center of four neighboring houses. Nearly every day, the
settlers took refuge there. Many times, they sought protection needlessly. No one was willing to take a
chance on trust. Fear permeated the air. In the blockhouse, even more so. Mothers shushed their
babies. Fathers wielded weapons. Everyone alerted their senses to danger.
Once, a sparrow flew into the side of the house triggering the shots of many guns through the oblong
wall openings on the second floor. Silence followed the round of fire. A contingent of men left and
skulked about the house. Soon they returned. Hank Latham, the leader of the party, cradled the baby
bird in his palms, its right wing crushed from the impact. They fashioned a wooden splint for it. No one
attacked that day. The settlers returned to their homes, tired and worn. The sparrow took flight a week
later. The newcomers continued to live under siege.
One nightmarish incident, however, Jim could not forget. As a boy of nine, he had discovered the
butchered bodies of eight of his friends and their parents strewn about their house. The Atkins children,
aged one to fourteen, lay in contorted positions of pain in the front yard, their throats slit and their scalps
ripped off. Parents Richard and Virginia lay in the doorway in similar condition. Mrs. Atkins’s open
eyes stared at terror. The blood oozed from the family’s fresh wounds into pools of warm liquid. A doll
that belonged to four-year-old Aggie floated in the puddle beside her little mistress.
Little Jim fell into a daze. He galloped home a mile away. He did not know what happened to the sack
of corn that he had carried halfway to the mill. He ran into his house babbling the gory news to his
father. Jennings sounded the alarm in the settlement. He took up arms and recruited ten of his own
men. Stoked by revenge, the band of fifty stormed out. Two days later, the avengers returned with
eighteen Fox scalps. Nearly two for one.
“Why are you dawdling,” asked Pierre Charbonneau, who slept on the bunk under Jim.
Young Beckwourth shook himself out of the past. He threw water on his face. He joined the others on
deck for a breakfast of porridge. They ate as they worked. Frank, the boatswain, estimated an hour
before their arrival.
The depth of the quirky Fever River had changed overnight. It was too deep for the cordelle. They
pulled out ten oars from the cargo box on deck next to the cramped stateroom where Colonel Johnson,
his son, Darwin Johnson, and mining company officials Marcel February, David Simon and George
Kenneth stayed.
Five crew members positioned themselves on either side of the boat. Jim rowed starboard through the
deep. No time seemed to have passed before he spotted a colourful blur ahead. It came into focus as the
boat approached it. The Sac and Fox parties, in their paints and feathers and bones and skins, aroused
Jim’s suspicion and his curiosity.
Everyone carried a rifle. The Sacs, the Foxes and the miners.
Mining officials Kenneth, February and Simon jumped off the boat when it touched land while Colonel
Johnson’s men secured it. They spoke to chiefs Lots of Stars and Bank as men who had come in peace.
They wanted to ensure continued peaceful relations. They had journeyed to request permission to
exploit the lead mines in the area. The two men listened. They offered no thoughts on the matter. They
invited the St. Louis men to the Sac village for an official welcome and feast.
A motley parade of visitors and hosts proceeded on the march. They hiked and rode through practically
indiscernible forest paths and trampled through tangled ravines. When they passed through an open
spot, the leaves of oak and maple and other deciduous trees shook from an occasional breeze and
shimmered a light green. A respectful quiet overtook the group.
While walking through a wooded cavern of darkened images, a rustle startled Jim on his left. An
antelope hid in the bushes waiting for the human cavalcade to go by. Jim cocked his rifle. He prepared
to lift it to eye level when Pierre clamped his hand on Jim’s.
“It is not necessary,” he whispered.
That was all he said. Jim did not argue though he had been hired as a hunter.
Pierre, a solidly built man in his late twenties, hailed from the clingy, moist air of the backwoods of
Louisiana. For a dozen years, he had hunted, trapped and mined in the wilderness. For about as long,
he had been married to a prairie woman twenty years his senior. But on his last journey to the top of the
Illinois, he was told by her people that Sweet Water had vanished.
Some said that enemies of the Illinois people had kidnapped her. Another story was that a grizzly bear
had eaten her. Another claimed that she had lost her way back to the village and starved to death. Pierre
did not know what to believe. Once a lighthearted man, his brown eyes now contained sadness. Some
nights, Jim had heard him cry. He did not know why.
"Two little braves: Sac and Fox" (1898) by Frank A. Rinehart
(From the New York Public Library)
When Jim stepped out of the forest into the Sac village, it was like falling into another world. Seventy
huge lodges dominated the scene. The village buzzed with activity. People moved definitively.
Jim was uneasy. He did not know what they were doing. He did not know these people. He was an
unaware outsider. Young Jim felt his first twinge of homesickness. But it disappeared as he feasted on
the food and then, the newness of the smells, sights and sounds. The welcome lasted into the night.
Negotiations began the next day. Colonel Clayton Morgan, the United States commander of troops
stationed in that region, represented the young government along with Colonel Johnson. Native
American officials Black Thunder, or Chief Lots of Stars, Yellow, Bank and Keokuk removed
themselves completely from daily routine to represent their peoples. The three company officials
attended as spectators. Two translators, one from each side, kept participants clear on whom was saying
what. The white Americans hammered away; the native Americans said little. They trusted the British
more.
The War of 1812 had raged for three years between the British and the young Americans. Both sides
smeared the other among the many western tribes. The Sacs had received many guns, gifts and lessons
from the British. The Johnson talks were the first formal ones between the Sacs and the revolutionaries
since the war’s end five years ago.
All emerged for recesses with frozen faces and unfocused eyes. The Sacs and the Foxes feared that
granting the white Americans permission to mine on their grounds would breed too much fraternization
among their peoples. They thought the new Americans brash, too direct and disrespectful and that
interaction should be limited to business. The newcomers thought the native Americans mysterious,
stoic and superstitious and that they would have to change to accommodate the times. But these
thoughts were not the issues on the floor. They were not voiced but were reflected in the length of time
over which negotiations lasted – nine days. Nine days of wrangling, smoking and pondering.
Finally, they signed a treaty in the spirit of necessity. The visitors bestowed presents on the Sacs and
Foxes as a show of good faith. They gave them what the natives had grown to want – the lethal mix of
whiskey, guns and gunpowder. Knives of different sizes, blankets of various textures, black coffee and
strong tobacco – the contents of a small general store – were presented one by one in a makeshift
ceremony.
The liquor did not keep long. The negotiators immediately shared it with their people. Most everyone
had a taste before it finished. Most got drunk, sloppy, fall-down drunk at the full-blown celebration.
Chief Lots of Stars did not drink. Once, when a previous treaty was signed with the white Americans,
he had tasted whiskey. The caramel colored liquid slid down his throat. It warmed him. He felt
exulted. Then his stomach retched. His head spun around. It only got worse when he shut his eyes.
Finally, he was able to go back to sleep. He stared into the beady, black eyes of a huge buffalo in his
dream. The shaggy animal ran toward its herd numbering in the hundreds. The herd raced toward the
sound of rifles. The buffaloes could not see or smell the men with the guns. They did not sense the
danger. Chief Lots of Stars did.
He woke up sober. He was not tempted to indulge again. But his people did drink. And some craved
liquor.
Jim and Pierre drank together. They and the other men had stood sentry at their nearby camp throughout
the treaty talks. Their superiors permitted them to drink at the feast but warned them to be cautious.
The travelers welcomed the taste of whiskey and forgot to stay on guard. They had been twenty days on
the river and nine on their feet. They were exhausted. One drink was all they needed to forget
themselves.
"Dance to the berdache" by Geoge Caitlin (1796-1872) depicts a ceremonial dance to celebrate the two-spirit person among the Sac and Fox Indians. Two-spirit is a modern term used by some native Americans to describe gender-variant individuals.
The cooks served them with more savory food than they had eaten on their arrival. They ate. They
drank. They took in the mime and dance performances. In a circle outside the lodges, the musicians
played different drums and wind instruments. The dancers often began inside a lodge, wearing the skins
of wolves and coyotes and buffaloes. After the opening bars, they would dance outside under the sky
rafters. The repetitive beat of the rhythm on the drums heightened Jim and Pierre’s enjoyment. It
hypnotized them into a lovely trance and seemed to portend an extraordinary occurrence. The dancers
became the animals whose skin covered them. The wolves slinked like wolves. The coyotes ran like
coyotes. The buffaloes grazed like buffaloes.
Much later, the plaintive wail of a young woman pierced the night. Her voice intertwined with that of a
shrill, straight-out flute. She sounded like Jim’s mother. He did not understand the words but felt the
meaning. An inexplicable sadness engulfed Jim. Pierre told him the story behind it:
“It is a song of the wolves. According to the storyteller, it is a song that, long ago, was overheard from a
wolverine outside its den by an older woman whose only baby had just died. She took it as an omen that
she would have another child. The woman later did become pregnant and sang the song to her unborn
child and then to the baby girl after she was born, who sang it to her children, and so on.”
Pierre and Jim withdrew. They stopped eating. The woman’s song affected half the village in this
profound way. The other half responded as to silence. They carried on carousing. Their noise sounded
a world away to the entranced ones who did not want her to stop. She paused and started again,
changing the mood and the tempo, several times. She ended on a quickened note of hope.
Jim found himself the next morning in their miners’ camp. He did not know how he had gotten there.
Many found themselves in the same situation. Jim stared at a hard-backed black insect crawling on his
bedroll. The smallness of the strange creature made the largeness of his new adventure even grander.
He had never seen the bug before. He did not know its name. He had much to learn.
So began Jim’s fifteen months of living in Sac country.
The men spent weeks building the lead mining infrastructure. Jim despised the actual mining. He hated
going down into the earth with twenty other men, one after the other, all instructed not to speak like
soldiers. They might as well have been. Only the uniforms were missing. Grateful that he was hired as
a hunter, Jim mined fewer and fewer times as the days went by. And then, something happened that
ended his flirtation with a distasteful pastime.
Jim and the others were ascending through the narrow, winding tunnel of darkness. Jim crouched
because the tunnel’s ceiling was two inches shorter than he was. Suddenly, he began to get scared.
“I’m blinded,” he thought. “I cannot see Pierre in front of me. I can’t see my own hand in front of my
face.”
Nothing about this was new or different. But somehow, it dramatically affected Jim this time. And then,
he had reason for fear.
“We’ve stopped,” Jim thought. “I smashed into Pierre in front of me. I’m gathering myself up, dusting
myself off. Still, we are not moving. Why are we standing still?
“I can’t breathe. I’m sweating all over. Will we ever get out? Will we ever see daylight again?”
Jim thought that it was crazy to crouch motionless like a statue and wonder whether these were his last
moments. To hell with saving air! He hollered out:
“What’s going on here?”
“Shut up,” barked someone up front. “An accident. Almost out.”
No one else said anything. And so Jim waited. One second. Two. Three seconds. Four.
“They could at least do something,” Jim said to himself. “This is tormenting, not knowing anything.”
Five seconds. Six. Seven seconds. Eight.
Jim resisted a strong urge to ram into Pierre and the ten or so men in front of him so that he could barrel
his way out. Then the line creeped forward again. It seemed like an eternity before Jim surfaced. He
started dancing a whirligig under the open sky on the flat earth until he heard what had held up the line.
Death. Death had detained them.
A boulder had rolled onto the path of the miners. A few of them pushed it out of the way. One man’s
heart stopped beating as he pushed. Jim swore to himself that he would never mine again and risk a
forgettable death.
The mining brought out the melancholy in the men. Every day, they submitted themselves to the Fates
underground; every few weeks, they dug some other man’s grave. Jim despaired at times.
Hunting was not a fatal activity, at least not on a regular measure. A hunter might be surprised by an
American panther who pounced on him and tore out his throat, but that was not the ordinary state of
affairs. Jim reasoned that feeding the camp was a far more noble act than chipping away at the bowels
of the earth. It also brought back fond memories.
He had had some of the more cherished times of his childhood hunting with his father in Missouri.
Jennings and Jim, father and son, spent a few days regularly, hunting for game and discovering
closeness. During the day, they watched out for each other, avoiding the perils of the wild, and bagging
game. At night, Jennings described roaming the countryside of his native England as a boy.
“It was an emerald green carpet,” he said, “Skirted by treacherous cliffs overlooking jagged rocks. The
sea would range in color from blue to gray to murky green depending on whether the water was calm or
stormy. On most days, a cool mist would seep into the air. It would cling to the inside of my nostrils.”
The poetry flowed out of the man when he remembered his youthful home. Jim would become
infatuated with his father’s ruminations on the ocean. His father described the Atlantic like it was a
person with fast changing, unpredictable moods. Jim would keep silent hoping that his usually taciturn
father would talk more. The older man’s personal musings flattered his son. But Jennings limited his
conversation to the land where he was born a baron. The man had created a mystery about his youth and
family by not talking about them. He had started a new life for himself when he sailed alone from
Southampton to New York.
“Son, we have fun, don’t we,” Jennings would ask Jim over and over again on their hunting expeditions.
“Yes, Father,” Jim would always answer.
Jim and his father had hunted together for sport, not necessity. The family’s hired hands assured the
Beckwourth household a generously laid out table every day. It was different in Sac country. Here, Jim
and three other hunters shouldered the main responsibility of feeding the entire crew which varied in
size from forty to fifty depending on deaths, resignations and new hires. Jim had to shake off the air of
aplomb employed by his privileged class. He displayed his powers of concentration and discernment
that are crucial to the hunter. His new sense of purpose sharpened his already good aim. He stalked
wild turkeys, deer and bears so well that he shot the prey dead before it knew it was prey. The animal
had no chance of escape but neither did it have time to panic the way Jim had when he believed himself
trapped in the mine forever.
In the mining camp, there were no women. Jim lived in a world of rough woodsmen who followed the
call of survival and dropped all else at the border of settled places where women and propriety reigned
in homes. Many of these men did not have the upbringing that taught complex manners so they were
not leaving behind many courtesies. They spat on the ground in the midst of a sentence; they lunged for
food out of the pot, and they talked bawdily about their lust for women. Jim defended himself more
than once among them.
“Your mother must have been a looker,” growled one man named Donaldson one evening in front of a
campfire with five others.
“Yeah, Jim. She must have been,” shouted a crony.
“Shut up about my mother,” Jim yelled.
“What if we don’t, Jim? What if we keep on ticking off her virtues. Like, for example, her two big
eyes,” said Donaldson, sticking out his chest and laying his two hands on his breasts.
Jim breathed fire. Donaldson kept on.
“I always wondered what those hot blooded, African women feel like, if you know what I mean,” he
said, while gyrating his hips.
The other men laughed. They rolled on the ground. Jim popped up and threw himself on Donaldson,
swinging his fists as forcefully as he could. He got in a few good ones before the others pulled him off.
Then he took a few punches of his own before Johnson himself broke it up. Fights were common
among the men in the camp. Were they bored? Tormented? Or simply addicted? By and by, it
becomes all three. It becomes the life.
Much to Jim’s disappointment, he did not have many chances to meet with the Sac women. They
intrigued him with their graceful way of walking. Pierre sneaked out at night, everyone assumed, to
meet with a woman. He would not return until just before dawn. He yawned constantly during the day.
However, he also whistled and joked and laughed again.
Jim managed to befriend a few young Sac men. They sometimes hunted together. Jim learned the
choice spots for game from those who had been taught them by their uncles, fathers and grandfathers.
Blue Corn Harvest, the first son of Chief Lots of Stars, spent much of his free time hunting with Jim.
They were the same age and resembled each other in looks and manner. They were quickly drawn to
each other. They did not, however, talk much. They knew only rudimentary words in their friend’s
native language. Pierre, who struggled with English, translated when he shared their company.
After four months of residing in the camp, Jim felt confident that he knew enough to survive well in the
warmer seasons. However, it was September. The leaves started to turn colors. Some floated
prematurely to the ground. The air smelled crisp some days. Jim protected his arms and legs with
leather clothing. Now that autumn had shown signs of soon arriving, the young hunter experienced a
longing for home and the past.
It struck him that he was not on a summer holiday. He worked here and would remain through the
autumn, winter, another spring and summer and winter and part of the following year. The months
seemed to stretch out before him like an interminable road. He found it hard to sleep at night and eat
during the day. He moped about the camp and hunted poorly. He had no close friends at the camp.
Where was Mattie to console him? Where was John to talk with? Where was his father to be strong for
him? And Eliza, where were dreamy brown eyes to gaze into and get lost in?
Jim missed the privacy of his room at Estelle’s boardinghouse. He missed making love with Estelle.
Somehow, with the passage of time, it seemed that they had been lovers for a long time. He missed
Casner and his crotchetiness. They had been together a long time. Jim wondered how his brothers and
sisters were doing. Young Beckwourth was alone and lonely. But he confessed his feelings to no one.
It was easy to see that something was wrong with the usually gregarious, young man. Blue Corn
Harvest sensed that the animals to whom his St. Louis friend granted a continuing life were the
casualties of a brooding sadness. It was clear that Jim did not want to talk about it. He did not press
him. However, after a few weeks of the same behaviour, Chief Lots of Stars requested that Jim visit
with him one morning.
Young Jim was excited. He felt important. The only men in camp who talked with Chief Lots of Stars
were the expedition’s leaders. Blue Corn Harvest had said that his father wanted to know Jim. The
chief spoke English fluently and several American languages so there would be no language barrier or
need for a translator.
The homesick adventurer spruced up for the visit. He wore freshly washed clothing. He trimmed his
moustache and his beard that he had grown that summer.
As Jim strutted to the lodge of Chief Lots of Stars, leaves that had fallen to the ground in last night’s rain
stuck to the bottom of his boots. When he arrived at the Sac village, he slowed down some. And as he
was about to enter the lodge of his friend’s father, he straightened his back with the rigidity of formality.
He had never been inside an Indian house. He thought it odd that he could not knock. Jim was both
curious and scared of what he would find. Maybe bodies of scalped white men would cover the ground
or Indian women slaves would serve him food with the numbed, passive look of captivity. Maybe Chief
Lots of Stars wanted to keep him there against his will. Imagine, being enslaved twice! What did Chief
Lots of Stars want with him anyway?
Jim lifted the buffalo skin flap of the tepee opening. A rush of smoke smacked him in the face, burning
his eyes and making them water. Now he was really scared. They were trying to disorient him. Jim let
go of the tent and started to walk away quickly with his eyes squeezed shut.
“Jim Beckwourth,” a man’s voice called from inside the lodge. “Where are you? This is the right
lodge. I am Chief Lots of Stars. Wait outside a few minutes. We’ll clear the smoke.”
The authoritative voice arrested the young man. The chief must have been shouting to make himself
heard but somehow he sounded as though he spoke effortlessly. To Jim’s ears, this man sounded
refined.
“All right, I’m waiting,” Jim shouted. The stinging in his eyes stopped shortly after he opened them.
“Try coming in now,” Chief Lots of Stars said in a few minutes.
Jim lifted the leather flap again to the right. A water droplet rolled onto his hand. He rubbed it into his
skin as though it were a perfumed oil. As he entered the house, the delightful, earthen smell of moist
leather masking the three-pole cone opened his nostrils. Being encased by animal skins gave Jim the
sense of being in a womb. He felt contained, safe, quiet. Then his eyes adjusted to the darker interior of
the lodge compared with the light of an overcast, late morning outside. When he could see clearly
again, his eyes focused on a working fireplace in the center of the circular house. Smoke streamed
straight up through an opening in the tent. A young girl of eleven or twelve attended to the fire with a
long stick that she used to nudge the twigs and brush. She fanned it by blowing on it. She had stolen a
glance at Jim and blushed as he walked in before he trained his eyes on her. Pots of rawhide, stone and
soapstone of various sizes and shapes surrounded her in a clutter that imprisoned her.
“Forgive her,” said the voice, still issuing from an invisible body. “Her mother asked her to make the
fire because she doesn’t do these things well. I’m sorry that you experienced an example of my
daughter’s awkwardness.”
The girl turned around and looked at the man sprawled on several buffalo skins spread on a two-inch
high wooden platform deep in the rear of the lodge. She entreated him in their language. He answered
her curtly. She turned back to tending the fire and blew angrily with a force that nearly outed it.
“My girl has no patience,” he said. “Not a bad trait for a boy but a tragic one for a girl. She must
practice patience all her life every day with her children, with her husband and in her duties. Making
and keeping the fire is a good lesson for her. Do you have sisters? Come closer. Sit with me. We’ll
have a smoke.”
Jim did not know that he was being honored by receiving an invitation to the rear of the tepee.
Chief Lots of Stars appeared kindly to him. As Jim got closer, he saw that there was no one else in the
lodge which was home to forty people. About eighteen feet in diameter, it was large enough to be
comfortable.
“I do have sisters,” Jim said, as he approached the chief. “Many sisters. Seven.”
“Seven! Wonderful! Why, that’s grand. I didn’t know that Americans grew such large families. And
how many brothers?”
“Five,” Jim answered.
“How many wives does your father have?”
“One wife. My mother,” Jim answered, so aghast at the possibility that his father might have more than
one wife that he forgot to mention that his mother was dead.
“It’s amazing that she has all these children for your father. We dole out the childbearing more evenly.
Come, sit down,” he said, patting the skins beside him. Jim sat down beside the sprawled man. He
leaned against a backrest of willow strung with sinew, covered with skins and braced with a wooden
tripod.
Carefully, Chief Lots of Stars dipped into a pouch with his long fingers, a long-stemmed calumet in the
other hand, and filled the pipe with shredded tobacco.
“Have you smoked before,” the chief asked, as he shifted to a sitting position.
“No. Not even in St. Louis with my father.”
“In St. Louis? Oh, I understand. You mean smoke as a habit. We sometimes smoke for fellowship only,
but we also smoke before ceremonies, before battle, before peacemaking. There is always a reason for
smoking tobacco and whatever the reason, we always pray before the ritual.”
Chief Lots of Stars crossed his legs and pulled them in close to his body. He lifted the pipe above his
head, then lowered it so that it pointed toward the ground. Next, he pointed it north, south, east, then
west. Silently, he prayed to the winds of the earth. Jim could only observe the gestures. Since he sat
beside the chief, what he saw was an elaborate sign of the cross made with a pipe. He did not
understand it. However, he began to think that the Sac system of living was an elaborate, deliberate and
structured one. Jim was surprised by its rationality and impressed by it. He wondered what Chief Lots
of Stars’ reason was for smoking with him.
The knot unknotted itself in Jim’s stomach. However, he maintained a respectful demeanor toward this
man who was widely known for his wisdom and fairness. The chief said nothing. So neither did he.
Chief Lots of Stars brought the pipe to his lips and inhaled deeply before slowly releasing the smoke
from his mouth. He passed the pipe to Jim who took it into his hands with the reverence accorded a
sacrament. He imitated the chief and inhaled with a vengeance which produced a choking cough in the
back of his throat. Chief Lots of Stars slapped him on the back a few times. He did not laugh at him.
Jim was relieved about that.
“It’s normal. It’s your first time.”
Jim passed the pipe back to his host who smoked and returned it to the novitiate. This time, Jim muffled
the cough. His head felt light and his stomach nauseous.
“I feel queasy, Chief Lots of Stars,” Jim said, as he handed the pipe back to him.
“Don’t worry. It will go away shortly,” he said, before smoking.
The chief promised that Jim would feel better after the third turn. Sure enough, the older man was
right. The mystical communion between the two could be furthered without the distraction of sickness
which creates an emotive union. They finished smoking the bowl, taking no more than the customary
three puffs each time.
“Why have you invited me to smoke,” Jim asked.
“Because I like what I hear about you from my son. You sound like a true adventurer, someone who
loves to take chances if they might bring fame. But I hear that you are sad these days and I thought that
I would be able to help you see things from a longer perspective than you can on your own. You are a
man of action, a young man now, whose life can swing two ways. You have the power to be a great man
who leaves a treasured legacy behind. Or you may commit destructive acts to others and yourself which
will make you infamous. There is no middle ground for you, Jim. It’s funny, isn’t it, that most people
are destined to live quiet lives. You are not one of them.”
“Thank you,” Jim said, and smiled. He was flattered that a man so admired should be telling him that he
was different from most people, that he was unique, that his name would be well known.
“I can tell these things about you from what Blue Corn Harvest says and from your presence here before
me. But I want to tell you more and I can. I need to hold something of yours in my hand while I do
this. What about your knife? That will do fine.”
Jim was taken aback by this request to hand over a weapon.
“Why my knife,” he asked. “Why not something else? My bandanna?”
“That’s good, too,” said Chief Lots of Stars. “I didn’t see it. It doesn’t matter what it is as long as it’s
something of yours.”
Jim relaxed again and pulled his red and black triangular design handkerchief from inside a pocket of his
leather shirt. He thought the chief’s request hokey but he was still under the influence of Chief Lots of
Stars’ spell. The exotic lodge, the ritual smoking, the promise of guidance and, most of all, the
compliments encouraged Jim to go along with it.
Chief Lots of Stars took the crumpled bandanna in his right hand, recrossed his legs so that his left ankle
lay on top of his right, and he rested his hands on his knees. Jim kept his back pressed against the
backrest with his legs stretched out. He did not feel relaxed enough to take a more relaxed or more
direct position. The chief looked at Jim but seemed to be staring beyond him. Then the words tumbled
out of his mouth with a rapidity that nearly precluded interruption.
“You are sad these days because you are removed from the familiar. Your family misses you too.
Especially your father. He is a good man. He tried to do right by you. But you are not honest with
him. You tell him what he wants to hear. He does not lie to you. But he does not tell the whole truth.
You love him very much. And you are afraid of him. He loves you deeply and he is afraid of you.”
“How can I be honest with my father when he owns me and dangles my freedom several steps in front of
me? It’s impossible for me to be completely honest with him. And he doesn’t want that anyway. If he
did, he would have set me free long ago. He would never have enslaved me. And I could have grown
up on equal terms with him, man to man. Instead, he chose this demeaning master and son
relationship.”
“He doesn’t understand that he has created an imbalanced relationship with you, a relationship that is
based on fear all because of his choice. But he will realize it. And he will give you your freedom.
However, he will not feel the stifling effect of slavery until after he frees you.”
“When will he free me?”
“I don’t see it happening when you see him after this journey. I know that you hope for that. It is
possible but not very likely. A cataclysmic event will jolt him into granting it to you. But still, he won’t
offer it to you. You’ll have to ask him for it at the right time. He will be happy to repair the damages in
a terrible situation by giving you your papers.”
“Why do you say my father is afraid of me?”
“Because he is afraid of losing your love. He is so frightened that he keeps you imprisoned in an
inhuman cell so that he can be certain you won’t desert him. You should begin to see the power that you
have over your father. Instead, you fix on the power that he has over you. Your father, Ja- Ja- James,
no, Jem- Jennings, is a man for whom love is the most important thing in the world. He believes in love
at any cost. You do not, Jim.”
“But I do believe in love. I do. I do.”
“Not to the extent your father does. He would do anything for love. Marrying your mother. He didn’t
have to do it. He could have sneaked around. But he wouldn’t think of not marrying the mother of his
children. He wanted to prove his love for her by sanctifying their relationship. Also, because she was a
slave and his slave, a degrading beginning, he worked hard to show your mother that their relationship
was not debasing. It was special and loving.”
“I never doubted that,” Jim said, softly. “Father loved Mother very much and she breathed for him. Our
house was so happy and spontaneous before Mother went away. It’s very gray these days. Father acts
like a tired, old man.”
“Your father misses your mother terribly. She is dead. He is living in the past. She was the great love
of his life. He will not get over her death. He will not take another wife.”
Chief Lots of Stars was still staring beyond Jim. But Jim was accustomed to it. He kept his eyes
focused on the red and black bandanna in the chief’s right hand. Jim was caught up in this exercise of
finding the seminal truth of his life. As he thought it, Chief Lots of Stars began focusing on him.
“In your own life, Jim, you will have no home where your heart is quiet. The contentment of a married,
settled man with children will not be yours. A family will not satisfy you. You will always search for
contentment in new challenges and places. You will marry many times for different reasons. There will
be marriages of convenience, marriages for business purposes, marriages for companionship and for
social status. Your last marriage will be your happiest.”
“What about Eliza? Will I marry Eliza? I can’t see marrying her and then several other women. Why
would I do that?”
“It is possible that you will marry someone you know now. But you will not be marrying anyone for at
least seven years.”
“Well, that can’t be right. I wanted to wait until I’d travelled before marrying Eliza and settling down.
But not seven years.”
“You will not be settling down, Jim, ever. There will be periods in your life where you won’t be moving
about quite so much but you will always pick up and leave. You have begun a new life by joining up
with this expedition. There’s no going back. You will see.”
“What about children,” Jim asked, in an effort to prove his point. “Eliza wants children. How can I
have children if I’m not settled?”
“You will have children. Not many. Two. A son and a daughter. The boy – “ the chief sighed.
“The boy what,” Jim demanded. “Tell me.”
“The boy is very confused. His head is scrambled. He needs you very much. He needs to feel that you
love him. Be affectionate with him. Do things with him. Teach him. Spend time with him. He is a
strong character and like you, he can either be extremely constructive or destructive. Both of you are
capable of violence toward family members. Be careful.”
Jim was struck dumb for a few minutes. Then he asked:
“What about the girl?”
The chief said nothing while he stared. Then he said that he did not know what to say. He saw nothing.
“I don’t know what that means,” he said. “For some reason, I’m not able to see her. I think that I’m
getting tired.”
Chief Lots of Stars paused before continuing.
“This feeling of sadness will haunt you again and again throughout your life. One day you will realize
that the familiar is no longer the same nor familiar. You must never look back. You must embrace the
unknown so that you can accomplish the greatness meant for you. You will not have to look hard for
opportunities. They will fall into your hands. But you must use them, and use them well.”
The chief fell forward with exhaustion. He breathed loudly for several minutes and sat up again.
His eyes met with Jim’s this time before he stood up and stretched his long, graceful body like a cat
coming out of a deep sleep. The mood was broken; it was no longer mystical. Jim was stunned. He
was scared. He was sceptical.
“How did you know those things,” he asked. “How did you know about my parents and my future?”
The chief yawned, scratched his back and sat down again. He handed Jim’s handkerchief back to him.
“Jim, my son, didn’t you know? I was in a trance,” the seer answered. “I don’t remember anything that I told you.”