SIGN-TALKER

Thom retells the Lewis and Clark journey, which he first visited in From Sea to Shining Sea (1984), from the point of view of Drouillard, a half-breed Native American.

Adapting the less romantic view of contemporary historians, Thom, again trying to evoke history from a Native American perspective, sees that famed expedition as a harbinger for the subjugation and annihilation of the Indians, who, though threatened by European diseases, weapons and whiskey, would soon find betrayal, slaughter, cultural destruction and slow starvation in the white man's bag of gifts. In Drouillard (his father was French, his mother a Shawnee), Thom has a reluctant, stranger-in-a-strange-land hero. Drouillard is a superb hunter with an almost psychic understanding of living things, as well as an illiterate linguist who can speak English, French, Spanish, and variations on his Shawnee dialect. Unmarried, shunned by whites and unattached to any tribe, Drouillard is at first reluctant to join the expedition, having suspected correctly that William Clark's brother, George Rogers Clark, massacred his tribal relatives. He decides that the money he might make could be of use to his mother, though, and becomes the odd man in among the Corps of Discovery, reacting with mostly silent contempt at the foul odors, hypocrisy, dishonesty, and management blunders of the group's leaders, especially Lewis, whose depressive rages Drouillard senses as an almost demonic possession. In numerous meetings with Indians, Drouillard envisions the seeds of conflicts to come, but also finds much to respect on both sides—until he becomes an unwilling accomplice as the explorers lie, cheat, and steal their way to the Pacific and back.

Uneven, heavy with ironic culture clashes, and as slowly paced as the expedition itself. Still, the narrative ripples with a luminous fascination for nature, both human and spiritual, as it rains down so much sorrow and wonder.