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Day after day, throughout the winter, We hardened ourselves to live by bluest reason In a world of wind and frost.... —Wallace Stevens |
Bluest Reason William Clark Meriwether Lewis EXCERPT FROM BLUEST REASON (Interior of Fort Mandan, winter of 1804-5. LEWIS, CLARK, and BLACK CAT, chief of the nearby Mandans.) BLACK CAT We could use some rifles. LEWIS No rifles. CLARK Make peace with your enemies. Here's tobacco for you and a hatchet for your squaw. (CLARK gives BLACK CAT a twist of tobacco and a hatchet. BLACK CAT looks at the gifts, looks at the food he brought.) LEWIS Do you have beaver pelts? When our traders come, they'll give you beads, blankets, iron pots, knives, hatchets for beaver skins. BLACK CAT I'd be ashamed to hunt an animal that burrows in the ground. (BLACK CAT exits.) LEWIS Their lives are ruled by superstitions. They say that long ago the Mandan nation came out of a lake, where they had abundant gardens. But I think in the past they might have been civilized, the descendents of great nations. It's their surroundings and their primitive way of life that makes them savages. These light-skinned Mandans might be the rumored Welsh Indians. CLARK The lost tribe of Israel. LEWIS You don't believe that old fable, do you? No, I think they're Welsh. The Welsh are superstitious, aren't they? (CROSS FADE to BLACK CAT and EAGLE FEATHER in another area.) BLACK CAT What's the use of beaver? EAGLE FEATHER Do they make gunpowder from beaver? Medicine? Do beaver serve them beyond the grave? BLACK CAT Their minds are primitive. EAGLE FEATHER They tried to get me drunk. BLACK CAT Maybe they used to be smarter. EAGLE FEATHER Maybe, long ago, they were Indians. BLACK CAT But then what happened to them? EAGLE FEATHER They forgot the old ways. They stopped telling stories. BLACK CAT When I was young, there were no white men. EAGLE FEATHER We didn't need a thing. BLACK CAT Our arrows were pointed with flint, our lances were stone, and our enemies' wounds were mortal. EAGLE FEATHER Our villages rejoiced when the men returned with many scalps. BLACK CAT There are only two sensible men among them, the worker of iron and the mender of guns. EAGLE FEATHER Make peace, they say, with this tribe, that tribe, a hundred tribes! BLACK CAT If we don't fight, how will we choose our chiefs? EAGLE FEATHER A chief has to prove himself in battle. BLACK CAT Boys become men by counting coup and stealing horses. EAGLE FEATHER These guys are crazy. BLACK CAT They're one dried fish short of a picnic. EAGLE FEATHER Bats in their teepees. (Each tries to outdo the other, finding it funnier and funnier.) BLACK CAT One oar in the river. EAGLE FEATHER A few arrows short of a full quiver. BLACK CAT A few ponies short of a bride. EAGLE FEATHER They send smoke signals at night! BLACK CAT Smoke buffalo chips in their pipes! EAGLE FEATHER Late to the powwow! BLACK CAT The white people brought some good things—trade items, guns. EAGLE FEATHER Liquor. BLACK CAT Smallpox. EAGLE FEATHER Smallpox killed most of my people. BLACK CAT Mine too. EAGLE FEATHER They gave us syphilis, gonorrhea. BLACK CAT Which our women give back to them. (In another area, EXPEDITION'S MEN come to LEWIS for venereal disease medicine.) EAGLE FEATHER We used to be happy. BLACK CAT Will they ever stop coming? EAGLE FEATHER Will they ever be satisfied? Our way of life may not be perfect— BLACK CAT —but it works for us. EAGLE FEATHER Their way of life— BLACK CAT It's primitive. EAGLE FEATHER Selfish. BLACK CAT Greedy. EAGLE FEATHER And their warriors! Always lecherous. BLACK CAT Don't they have anything else to do? EAGLE FEATHER They're insatiable. Except the two chiefs. BLACK CAT I've offered them our most beautiful women. An Indian would give a hundred ponies for just one of them. EAGLE FEATHER The red-headed chief looked interested. BLACK CAT You could tell the other chief didn't approve. EAGLE FEATHER Do you suppose the two chiefs…? You know… BLACK CAT No. You saw the way the red-headed chief looked at the women. |
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