Chapter 28
The Fiddler’s Shot
The Missouri River, present-day western North Dakota
On 11 August 1806, Pierre Cruzatte, the expedition’s fiddler, who had only one eye and was near-sighted in it, mistook Lewis for an elk in the willows and shot him through the backside. The wound was very painful but not dangerous, and Lewis recovered.
28 July–10 August 1806
After the fight at Two Medicine, Lewis and his three men ride hard to the Missouri. As they reach the river, they hear gunshots, and see the rest of their group coming downstream in the canoes. It is a lucky meeting. Together they race down the Missouri as fast as they can paddle.
At the mouth of the Yellowstone they find a note from Clark, who has gone on ahead downriver, and they hurry to catch up.
11 August 1806
On 11 August Lewis goes hunting elk in a thick stand of willows on the riverbank, with Pierre Cruzatte. Cruzatte is the Corps’ fiddler and one of its best boatmen. He is also, Lewis writes, “near sighted and has the use of but one eye.”
Lewis is dressed in brown leather, like an elk. He writes: “I was in the act of firing on the Elk a second time when a ball struck my left thye about an inch below my hip joint, missing the bone it passed through the left thye and cut the thickness of the bullet across the hinder part of the right thye.”
At first Lewis thinks they are being attacked, and he shouts for Cruzatte to run. There is no answer. He staggers back to the canoes, calls the men to arms, and sends them into the willows to fight off the attackers. They come back with Cruzatte, who says he never saw Lewis, and thought he had shot an elk. Lewis believes him.
12 August 1806
The next day Lewis’s canoes catch up with Clark’s party. The Corps of Discovery is together again. Lewis is lying face down in a canoe, in a lot of pain. Clark cleans and dresses the wound.
That day Lewis writes his last journal entry of the expedition. “As wrighting in my present situation is extreemly painfull to me,” he writes, “I shall desist untill I recover and leave to my frind Capt. C. the continuation of our journal.” But even now he cannot stop himself from being a naturalist. The very next words are: “however I must notice a singular Cherry.” He goes on to describe a kind of cherry tree he has found.