She did not reach Pierre in time.

She found the camp, and she found her husband dead.

And then she made another decision: to turn west, to use the knowledge she carried, to keep her children alive through the weeks and months that followed.

The decisions she made during those three months are largely invisible in the historical record.

They were made in isolation, in the mountains, without witnesses who could record them for posterity.

The outcomes of those decisions are recorded: she arrived at the Columbia River.