Lay the Mountains Low

by Terry C. Johnston

  Where had they come from?

  “Ho! Ho!” Rainbow called, throwing up his hand as he yanked back on the horsehair rein wrapped around his horse’s lower jaw.

  Why were these soldiers camped here on the upper reaches of the Cottonwood? Did they intend to attack the Non-Treaty camp? Perhaps they were planning to march all the way down the creek so they could prevent the warrior bands from forming a junction with Looking Glass’s people on the Clearwater?

  “Let him go, Wahlitits!” Five Wounds ordered gruffly.

  Shore Crossing was the last to stop his horse, finally halting farther down the slope than the others. His pony was lathered and excited, having just caught its second wind, raring to finish the race its rider had started it on. The animal pranced round and round, tossing its head in protest.

  “I know; I know,” he told it, bringing the horse under control, patting its damp neck. “Angry disappointment sours in my stomach, too. I could almost feel that Shadow’s hot blood on my hands!”

  “RIDER coming!”

  Second Lieutenant Sevier M. Rains turned at that strident cry from one of the outlying pickets. In fact, there wasn’t a man in Whipple’s battalion who didn’t immediately stop what he was doing and turn to watch that lone civilian streaking down the long slope toward the wide gulch where their bivouac stood among the abandoned buildings of Cottonwood Station.

  Just as he was shading his eyes with a hand, Rains watched at least four horsemen break the skyline right behind the lone rider. From the looks of things, they had been gaining on the civilian and—had not the soldiers’ bivouac been where it was—those Nez Perce warriors would have clearly turned the scout into a victim.

  “Where’s the other’n, sir?” asked Private Franklin Moody.

  Private David Carroll replied before the rest, “I s’pose he ain’t coming back at all.”

  “We don’t know that!” Whipple snapped as he lumbered out of his tent, yanking on his blue blouse with its two rows of small brass buttons sewn down the front. He stopped at Rains’s elbow.

  “Captain, he can’t be bringing us good news,” the young lieutenant said quietly, hoping that most of the enlisted would not hear.

  For a long moment, Whipple gazed at his second lieutenant. Then he said, “Mr. Rains, you’re my most trusted second. As adjutant of this command, I want you to select five men from our L Company, and call out five more from Captain Winters’s E.”

  “Rescue detail, sir?”

  “Exactly,” Whipple answered, roughly shoving the last button through its hole, every man around him watching one warrior slowly turn his horse around and rejoin the others at the brow of the hill, where they eventually disappeared from view. “You’ll go in the advance and I will come on your rear with a larger force in your support. A word of caution: don’t extend yourself too far, keep on the high ground, and report back to my command at the first sign of the Indians.”

  “Fifty rounds for our carbines?” Rains asked.

  “Yes—and your service revolvers will require another twenty-four.”

  Rains wheeled on Moody, excitement hot in his veins. “Private, now you and Carroll have the chance to ride with me.

  “Sir, respectin’ your authority an’ all,” Moody replied, “but them red bastards is just gonna run when they see us riding out after ’em.”

  Rains’s eyes crinkled with a smile as he replied, “Then we’ll all just get a chance to see a little more of the country as we chase the buggers off. Now you and Carroll go draw three hundred rounds of carbine ammo and one hundred and fifty cartridges for our Colts. I’m going to call out the rest of the detail.”

  Captain Henry E. Winters was returning from the trench latrine dug in a dry wash downwind of camp, his shirttails flying as Rains met him in the middle of the company street. The lieutenant quickly explained Whipple’s orders, at which Winters began calling out the first five men of E Company he spotted nearby. From nothing more than their names, the young lieutenant immediately figured they all had to be Irishmen. Seven Irishmen in all now, along with his three Germans.

  It was Foster who galloped into camp gripping that halfcrazed, snorting horse on the verge of lathering. The civilian was swinging out of the saddle and lunging to the ground even before the animal had completed its bouncing, four-legged skid to a halt.

  “Captain Whipple!” he gasped as more than half a hundred soldiers pressed close to listen.

  “You are?”

  “William F-Foster.” He breathed it hard. Not so much from any exertion as from the hot flush of adrenaline that must be shooting through his veins.

  “Where’s the other one? I sent two of you out. What happened to—”

  “His horse bucked him off,” Foster interrupted. “Too far back for me to get him, too close to the Injuns for me to pull ’im up to ride double with me—”

  “You left the man?” Rains interrupted now accusingly, taking a step right up to the civilian’s knee.

  Foster glared at the lieutenant, jaw jutting. “I’ll take you back, any of you man enough to go,” he rasped. “Get me a fresh horse and we’ll go back for Blewett.”

  Whipple put his hand on Rains’s shoulder. “The lieutenant here is preparing to do just that, Mr. Foster. Sergeant! Get this civilian a fresh horse, immediately!”

  In less than ten minutes the lieutenant’s detail was armed and mounted, moving out as a trumpeter played “Boots and Saddles” in that bivouac they put at their backs. Rains and his men followed William Foster, who had climbed atop a fresh army horse. The civilian rocked forward, then backward, trying to get comfortable in the McClellan saddle already cinched around the belly of the animal given him to ride.

  “Wish I’d swapped for my own saddle, Lieutenant.”

  “Don’t you fret, Mr. Foster.” Rains kept his eyes on the brow of that hill where the half-naked horsemen had disappeared as soon as they spotted the soldier camp. “I don’t believe we’ll be in the saddle all that long. Just enough time to collect your friend, perhaps learn what we can as to the location of that war party jumped you, then return to our camp.”

  “Location?” Foster repeated. “You mean you’re going to follow them warriors to find out where the sonsabitches are camped?”

  “No,” Rains replied, tugging at that leather glove he wore on his left hand, the one he had pulled over his West Point class ring. “But if we happen to see the direction they ride off in … that will he a good indication of where their village lies. All the better for us to protect that pack train due down from Fort Lapwai any time now.”

  * Shore Crossing and Red Moccasin Tops killed only four of five men they shot in their first spasm of revenge; Samuel Benedict was only wounded and feigned death until the war starters rode away.

  ** This is the historical figure who, after the Nez Perce War, changed his name to Yellow Bull (Chuslum Moxmox)—as recorded by most of the war’s historians.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  KHOY-TSAHL, 1877.

  Cottonwood, 4 P.M. (Tuesday)

  One of our scouts just in reports seeing twelve or more Indians from here toward Salmon River. On returning he was fired upon by a single Indian and he and the other scout returned the shots. In some way one scout was dismounted and took to the brush and the other was obliged to leave him. These Indians were coming from the direction of the Salmon river on the trail leading toward Kamai and crossing the road passing the place about eight miles from here. The whole command starts in a few moments and may bag the outfit unless the whole of Joseph’s force is present.

  Babbitt, commanding.

  “LOOK BEHIND YOU, WAHLITITS!”

  He twisted half-way around on the bare back of his pony when Red Moccasin Tops shouted and pointed. A long way back, they were coming. A short, wriggling worm of suapies riding out from that soldier camp down in the Cottonwood gulch. Already, Seeyakoon Ilppilp, the young warrior called Red Spy, had killed the lone Shadow who had taken refuge in the brush, and came riding back to show o
ff the dead man’s guns.

  “Five Wounds! We must find a place where we can greet these Shadows!” Wahlitits cried in anticipation. Shore Crossing could feel the excitement flushing away the disappointment that had surged through him when he had to give up the chase minutes ago.

  “Yes!” Five Wounds cried with similar enthusiasm. “Up there in those trees. We’ll wait for the others. Red Moccasin Tops—go get them. Tell Two Moons we have some good quarry coming and we want them to help us close the trap.”

  Shore Crossing asked, “We’ll put the Shadows between us?”

  This time Rainbow smiled. “Yes. We’ll wait to ride out of the timber until they are past us.”

  “Then they will be caught between you and Two Moons’s men!” Red Moccasin Tops whooped, taking off like a shot, shrieking in glee.

  It was a long time to wait, those heartbeats while they kept an eye pinned on the approaching Shadows. At times none of the warriors could see the soldiers for the broken hillsides, then the short line of suapies would reappear from behind a slope, still coming on and on. As they got closer and closer, finally passing just below the copse of dark timber where the warriors waited in the shadows, Shore Crossing could see how the white men kept turning their heads this way and that. Not only did they appear to be keeping their eyes open for an ambush, but they seemed to be looking down for something in the tall grass—

  Then Wahlitits remembered. “The other rider!” he whispered to Five Wounds beside him. “They’re searching the grass, looking for the other dead man!”

  Close enough, they could hear the persistent cough of one of the soldiers who slowly passed by them just down the slope. He was not a well man—his cough sounding full of noisy water. Then the suapies had moved on by. And Shore Crossing found himself all but squirming on the back of his pony, anxious to get about the killing.

  Rainbow inched his pony forward one length, then turned it so he could face the others. “When we ride out of the trees, we must race down the slope behind the soldiers. That way we will keep them up the hill from us.”

  “And that way the Shadows can’t get out of our trap by racing downhill,” Shore Crossing said, anticipation squirting through his veins. “We must go now! Hurry before the others kill them all!”

  “These are not unarmed Shadows asleep in their beds, Wahlitits,” Rainbow scolded. “These are soldiers.”

  “I fought soldiers at Lahmotta! “ Shore Crossing snapped angrily, wounded by the criticism. “I wore my red coat for the enemy to see me! And I rode right past their lines, time after time!”

  “Which is why we don’t want any of these soldiers to escape us today the way some soldiers escaped from Lahmotta,” Five Wounds emphasized. “Let them get a little farther on the hillside before we ride down on them. There—you see that low brush on the slope ahead of them?”

  “Yes,” Rainbow answered. “Near those low rocks?”

  “Yes—we will have Strong Eagle stay in sight by that dead pine tree while we turn back to the timber uphill. Tipyahlahnah Kapskaps will be the decoy to bring those soldiers on and on,” Five Wounds explained his plan. “When they have gone past those rocks, the rest of us will ride out and show ourselves, then chase them into the ground.”

  “LIEUTENANT!”

  Rains heard the war whoops and those hoofbeats at the same moment the rest of them realized the Nez Perce were swooping up behind them.

  “They want to get between us and our relief!” the lieutenant shouted. “Shut off our escape! But they don’t realize Captain Whipple is coming!”

  “There ain’t that many of ’em,” Private William Roche said.

  Private Patrick Quinn agreed. “We can knock ’em all down, Lieutenant!”

  Yanking back on his reins, Rains spun his horse around in a half-circle, staring farther up the slope at the barren hilltop. In an instant he realized he had been a little too eager, too anxious to distinguish himself—and had outrun his support. In too much of a hurry the lieutenant had followed Foster along the ridge that angled away from the valley of the Cottonwood toward Craig’s Mountain. After loping two quick miles to the northwest of Norton’s ranch, the scout led them down into a broad swale before they began their gentle ascent of the mountain slope. At their rear now, cutting south from the saddle, extended a shallow coulee, but … Whipple and his support were nowhere in sight.

  “We better get onto the high ground, men,” Rains ordered the instant he caught sight of those warriors. He knew they could hold out until Whipple’s outfit arrived in a matter of minutes. “C’mon!”

  They had just kicked their horses into motion, these dozen men no longer clustered in formation—no more than thirty yards from the top of that rise when the patch of skyline that had been their destination suddenly bristled with at least eighteen warriors.

  “Shit!” Private John Burk cried as they all sawed backward on their reins, horses colliding with one another, bumping their riders as they milled and wheeled about.

  “I’ll take my chances against them others behind us!” Sergeant Charles Lampman roared. “Ain’t as many!”

  “We can ride right through ’em!” Private Daniel Ryan proposed, pointing.

  Private Frederick Meyer bobbed his head. “Ride through ’em. We can do that, can’t we, Lieutenant?”

  His eyes scanned the distance, quickly trying to calculate how far back it would be to make their run, to figure just how long before Whipple would show up on the next hilltop. Foster had done it. The civilian had made it back in one piece. Maybe they could ride downhill right through that smaller band of warriors and be at a full gallop before the rest could be on their tails—

  “Them rocks, Lieutenant!” Lampman shouted, pointing along the slope. “We can hold out in them rocks!”*

  At that moment those boulders seemed to be a far smarter idea. Far more inviting than a long, ten-mile horse race back to Cottonwood. Rains hollered, “To the rocks!”

  Private Otto H. Richter was the first to start at an angle for the boulders, William Roche right behind him. Rains twisted around in the saddle as the others broke past him. “C’mon, Dinteman! Ride, goddammit, man!”

  The private was having trouble with his mount. The animal sidestepped as George H. Dinteman kicked and flailed it, trying to goad it into motion. Just as it started to rear onto its hind legs, the horse suddenly twisted aright and flung itself into motion. The private was suddenly ahead of him, less than a full length … making them the last two riding for the rocks—

  That sound was like no other on earth. He immediately remembered what his father—that great Confederate hero—had repeatedly said: A man always heard the bullet that got him.

  But by the time Second Lieutenant Sevier M. Rains turtled his head into his shoulders, the bullet had already passed and struck the private in the back less than three yards ahead of him. Dinteman screwed off his horse, his arms flailing, hung momentarily in the off-hand stirrup, then was flung free to tumble through the grass like a sock doll.

  Rains shot past the private before he could react, yanking back and sawing the reins to the side at the same time. For a moment he could not locate Dinteman in the tall grass; then he saw the private’s knee sticking up. Just the one knee. Unmoving. And coming on at a full gallop was not just one bunch of bare-chested, feathered, screeching horsemen but a second: streaming out of the broad coulee behind them!

  Dinteman was dead already. If he still breathed, Rains told himself, it wouldn’t be for long. Since he wasn’t moving, then he couldn’t help in his own rescue—and the lieutenant realized he didn’t have enough time to make that rescue on his own. Step out of the saddle, kneel and lift the deadweight, hurl it onto the back of his horse, then remount … none of that was possible now.

  There went Foster, the son of a bitch, racing off to the south on his own. Rains hated him: a man who could run away from his friend minutes ago, and now the civilian was scampering away from this fight. The lieutenant almost felt good a moment later when
he watched a bullet knock Foster off his horse and a pair of warriors ride up to fire down at the body sprawled in the tall grass—

  “Lieutenant!”

  One of Winters’s men was shouting, standing exposed there in the smaller of the two rings of low boulders. Patrick Quinn, good Irishman that he was. The private was waving Rains in, urging him on.

  As Rains wheeled his horse and goaded it with those small brass knobs at the back of his spurs, he gradually sensed something not quite right. Quinn’s face suddenly began to swim, growing more and more watery as the horse carried him closer and closer to the boulders. The lieutenant looked down, saw the black molasses stain of blood spreading across his belly, seeping into his crotch.

  “Hep! Hep!” he growled at the horse, angry at himself for getting shot, then yanked at the bottom of his blue blouse, pulling it up to have a close look at the wound.

  A small finger of intestine was already protruding from the exit wound. As he watched, more of the gut squirted from that ragged hole with every rugged lunge of his exhausted horse. By the time Quinn and Moody grabbed hold of the bridle and were dragging him down out of the saddle, Rains had his forearm filled with his own sticky gut.

  “Set me down! Set me down where I can shoot!” he shouted at them through gritted, bloody teeth. Bright crimson gushed up at the back of his throat, hot and thick. He struggled to swallow his gorge back down. Better that than to puke it up in front of his men.

  Lord Almighty, Rains thought as they positioned him against the rocks and knelt around him, a gut wound is a slow way to die. A damned slow way to die.

  “Make every shot count!” Quinn was reminding the others for him. “Shoot low for the horses first!”

  Sergeant Lampman whined, “And ours run off with the ammo!”

  “Hol’ … hold ’em back till Whipple hears the gunfire. He can’t be far now,”. Rains told his men, wanting to inspire more hope in them than he felt for himself.