Lay the Mountains Low

by Terry C. Johnston

  As the sun rose higher, and hotter, too, talk was Howard had designs on trapping the enemy between their column and McConville’s gutsy volunteers who had gone out days ago to locate the village and were known to be under seige somewhere north of the advancing soldiers.

  Captain Joel G. Trimble’s H Company was about a half-mile in the vanguard, just emerging from a forested area onto more open prairie, where clumps of brush and small stands of trees made for a thick fringe on either side of the rolling grassland. Three of the civilian scouts in the lead came racing past, on their way to Howard with a report that they had just spotted some Nez Perce herders driving stock over the edge of the bluffs toward the Clearwater below.

  Within minutes Howard ordered the artillery to the edge of the bluff and his vanguard to about-face. Far in the lead, McCarthy’s H Company was marching slowly, deliberately watchful, when they heard that first distant cannonshot off to the south. Trimble halted his skirmishers and sent a courier back to headquarters to learn what had developed. In minutes the order came racing back that they were to turn about and support the pack train. After all, it contained the many thousands of rounds of ammunition—just what the Nez Perce would covet most.

  Dashing up on the double, McCarthy’s men found Captain George B. Rodney’s D Battery of the Fourth U. S. Artillery—assigned that morning to protect the pack train—taking some harassing fire. Already one of the packers had been killed. As McCarthy’s H Company came to their assistance, another packer was struck in the head, dead before he flopped to the ground. There followed a sudden rush of motion on the far side of the frightened packers and their bawling mules when the pack train suddenly split in the middle and a handful of mounted warriors belched through the widening gap, waving blankets at the terrified mules.

  Through the heroic efforts of both companies, only one of the mules galloped off behind the raiders. But that mule was carrying two large crates filled with ammunition for the twelve-pounder, a mountain howitzer.

  One thing was for certain, McCarthy thought. These sure as hell weren’t reservation Injuns!

  In a moment more both Rodney and Trimble were shouting orders for their officers to prevent a repeat of that sudden, frightening rush by the red horsemen on their small ponies, warriors who seemed to appear one minute and be gone the next. Dismounting their cavalrymen, Rodney formed his troopers into a column of fours on the prairie side of the bawling, braying, anxious mules, while Trimble likewise formed him men up on the bluff side of the pack train before they started the mules back to the south, carrying that valuable ammunition to the rest of the command.

  McCarthy hadn’t really noticed the terrain as they marched north, figuring he had been half-dozing there with the rocking of the saddle, the heat and intensity of the sun at its midday strongest. Now as they steered the pack train around the head of a deep ravine, the sergeant saw how this patch of ridge-top prairie was cordoned off north and south by a pair of rugged ravines less than a mile apart. Thick brush not only lined both gulches, but tall trees shaded the sides of those ravines—which meant the enemy had ample cover on three sides of this field where Howard was just now setting up an extensive perimeter: north and south, as well as to the west, along the edge of the ridge itself.

  Escorting the pack train around the head of a deep ravine and into a slight depression at the center of that crude semicircle some seven hundred yards across, which the deploying troops had established on the grassy flat, Trimble and Rodney brought the balky mules to a halt near the head of that ravine, where Howard and his staff were just then establishing their headquarters. It was plain to see that their delay in getting the pack train and their companies around that wide ravine had allowed the Nez Perce those critical minutes they needed to establish themselves in the shady timber on both sides of the draw.

  Trimble must have realized the threat those snipers represented to the mule train, for he gave the order for his men to leave their horses with holders and follow him to the edge of the timber, where they were suffering the hottest battering at the hands of an unknown number of Nez Perce snipers. They dodged around a number of small boulders and a few sparse trees, grinding to a halt in the tall grass just then going to seed and turning brown with the first real heat of the summer.

  And realized there were even more warriors popping onto the grassy plateau from a second ravine. Now Trimble’s H Company was pinned down, taking a deadly cross fire.

  It was enough to send a shiver down his spine and cause goose bumps to sprout on McCarthy’s arms—the war cries of those savages, the braying of the frightened mules Rodney’s men were fighting behind them, the yells and cheers of his fellow soldiers, the harsh orders shouted by the officers, all of it mixed with the unsteady racket of Springfield and carbine fire as well as the unfamiliar clack-clack of the two Gatlings as they were brought into the fray.

  For a moment he considered hurrying in a crouch to the right so he might reach the edge of the bluff and have himself a look down at the enemy camp, maybe even watch for McConville’s civilians when they made their appearance. That would throw the village into an uproar, McCarthy thought. To find themselves between the soldiers on one side and that citizen battalion on the other! Any time now, McConville’s volunteers would be riding into this fray from the north.

  McCarthy quickly turned and gazed over his shoulder at the sky, feeling just how hot the sun was that seared its heat through his wool jacket and gray undershirt. He inched his head up but a moment, looking around the prairie—a mile in any direction now was commanded by General Howard’s army.

  Already McCarthy’s throat was parched, his tongue pasty against the roof of his mouth.

  The sergeant wondered if there was any water within the sound of his voice. Hell, if they had any water within the army’s perimeter.

  * Lewiston, Idaho.

  * The two ravines taken by Toohoolhoolzote’s warriors extend east away from the river on either side of a geographical feature that today is called Dizzy Head.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  JJULY 11, 1877

  BY TELEGRAPH

  —

  Particulars of the Indian War

  in Oregon.

  —

  Russians Abandoning the

  Seige of Kars.

  —

  OREGON.

  —

  The Indian War—Details of the Late Fight, and

  List of the Killed and Wounded.

  SAN FRANCISCO, July 10.—Dispatches from Lewiston, via Portland, give the details of encounters with the Indians on the 3d, 4th, and 5th inst., near the Cottonwood. Tuesday, Colonel Whipple sent out Foster and Blewett scouting for Indians in the direction of General Howard’s camp on Salmon river. They had not gone far when they met three or four Indians, who ran them back toward camp. Foster reached camp, and Whipple ordered the command in readiness to move. Meantime, Lieutenant Raines and his men rode over the first rise this side of the Cottonwood and down into the ravine where the road crosses before the ascent of Craig’s mountain, and were attacked before Whipple could get to them, after he heard the firing. Raines and his whole party were killed, including Foster. Whipple’s command came forward and formed in line of battle on the east side of the ravine, and the Indians on the west, all on open ground, about one thousand yards apart, and only the ravine between them. Here they remained menacing each other for about two hours, till darkness came. Whipple retired to his camp, and the Indians passed over to a point on the Cottonwood trail to Craig’s crossing. No more was done that night. Next Morning Whipple with his men started this way to meet Colonel Perry, who was expected with a supply train from Lopway, and kept out his skirmish lines along the route. They met Colonel Perry with his train near Board house and escorted him to camp. Baird and two men arrived from Mount Idaho soon after, and about 5 p.m. the rifle-pits were placed in position. The Indians made several attempts to storm the rifle-pits, but were kept at a distance. About 9 p.m. the firing ceased for the night. On th
e morning of the 5th two couriers arrived from General Howard, chased into camp by the Indians. Soon after they moved their camp, with about sixteen hundred head of stock, across the prairie in the direction of the Cottonwood. No move was made to intercept them. Soon after, Captain Randall and sixteen volunteers from Mount Idaho approached. About one hundred Indians intercepted them at the junction of the Elk City trail with the stage road. At this crisis, being seen from Perry’s position on the hill at the rifle-pits, the Colonel was urged to go with troops to their rescue, to which he replied it was no use, they were gone, and he would not order a rescue. The volunteers say that their captain, seeing his position, ordered them to charge and break the line of Indians, dash over toward the creek bottom, dismount, and return the fire, and hold their position, partly under cover of a small hill, until the force at Cottonwood could reach them. The command was no sooner given than Captain Randall and his sixteen men made a charge, broke through the Indian line, reached the position named, dismounted, and returned the fire. In the charge Captain Randall was mortally wounded, Benjamin Evans killed, and three others wounded. They fought there for nearly an hour, and kept the Indians at bay. In about half an hour after, it was known that the Indians had the volunteers in a tight place. Colonel Perry gave orders for fifty men to go to their relief. It was quickly obeyed, and they were relieved in about an hour after the charge. No pursuit of the Indians was ordered, but a retreat was made to camp and no pursuit had been made since, up to the time of Morrill’s leaving on the night of the 6th. The volunteers say they know they killed several Indians and wounded many others, as they saw the Indians packing off their dead and wounded the same night. McConville, with a volunteer force, has arrived at Cottonwood from Howard’s command. On the 6th a detachment of seventy-five men, under McConville, was sent as an escort to a wagon carrying the killed and wounded to Fort Idaho. Morrill says that Randall, after he was mortally wounded, had got into position, sat up on the ground, and fired many shots at the Indians, the last not more than five minutes before he fell back dead. Not one of the seventeen faltered in the least, or showed the white feather, though hard pressed by 100 Indians, nor did one of them seek to run for Cottonwood after they had broken the Indian lines, but strictly obeyed orders to hold their ground …

  When Baird and Morrill left, the Indians were in full possession of Comas Prairie except for Mount Idaho, Grangeville and the camp at Cottonwood. Yesterday several fires were seen in different directions, some about three miles from the creek, and appearance was that houses, barns and hay stacks were burning. From Lapwai it is reported that the Indians crossed Clearwater yesterday at 11 a.m. near Komia, with their stock. Settlers are being plundered and robbed on Cow creek, on the Colville and Walla Walla road. Forty to sixty volunteers have gone from Walla Walla to the scene of the difficulty.

  “YOU’RE A DAMN FOOL TO THINK YOU’RE GONNA WALK all the way back to Mount Idaho on foot!” Edward McConville growled.

  George Shearer finished tucking his pants into the tops of his tall boots, then straightened before he spoke.

  “Colonel McConville. It’s past noon and I don’t figger we’re gonna see a sign of any relief party sent out by that goddamned one-armed Yankee general. Anyone wants to walk out of here is more’n welcome to join me.”

  They had waited for the better part of a day and a half after Lew Wilmot and Benjamin Penny rode off with a second plea to Howard. As the hours passed, day becoming night, then night seeping into day once again, more and more it appeared that there was only one thing to think: Wilmot and Penny had been jumped and butchered by some roving war party haunting this rim of the Camas Prairie. Over time, George grew angrier and angrier, brooding how he had lost another friend. Lew Wilmot—lying dead and flyblown out there on the rolling prairie.

  By noon of this eleventh day of July, Shearer had decided he had had enough.

  “You’re like to g-get picked off out there!” warned Ben Morris.

  “Better’n dying in here from hunger or thirst,” Shearer had snapped.

  McConville wondered, “What of the Injuns?”

  George shrugged and asked, “What Injuns? We ain’t seen nary a one since early yestiddy, Ed. I’m gonna take the chance I can make it on shank’s mare all the way in to Mount Idaho.”

  He was the first to clamber over the low rock wall they had piled up for breastworks. A half-dozen of the men were right on his heels when he stopped and looked back at the rest.

  “Well, you boys comin’ or ain’cha?”

  That did it for most of the eighty-some men who stood arrayed across the flat top of that hill. They immediately bolted over the rock and timber barricades, gaping with grins as wide as if they were embarking on a spring social.

  Shearer started down the slope at the head of the bunch. After less than fifteen yards, he stopped and went to his knee, scooping up a handful of empty cartridges left by the warriors who had kept them under seige. His eyes slowly climbed back up the hill to their breastworks for a moment, as he realized just how close the enemy had come to overrunning them. Then he spotted Ed McConville standing stoic and unmoving behind their low barricades.

  Getting to his feet with a sigh, Shearer turned away and continued down the hill. In less than a minute Bunker loped up to his elbow.

  “E. J., g’won an’ sneak a look back—tell me if the colonel’s coming,” George whispered. Bunker turned his head and glanced back while he kept scooting on down the hill with George at the point of that arrow-shaped formation of white footmen. “Ed’s coming. He’s all the way back there … but he’s coming.”

  “Good,” Shearer whispered with a deep sigh, picking up the pace a little now. They had a long, long way to walk if they were going to make it to the settlements by morning. “I was afraid to go off an’ leave the man all on his lonesome, standing back there on principle an’ nothin’ else if them red savages was to come back for us.”

  NOTlong after Toohoolhoolzote’s small band of warriors had stopped the soldiers and forced them to take cover in the tall grass on that dusty plateau,* Ollokot, Rainbow, and Five Wounds came bounding up the north ravine and burst into the middle of the white man’s pack train—waving blankets, firing pistols, and yelling like demons.

  It was a pretty charge, Yellow Wolf had to admit. A rush into and on through the soldiers that he wished he himself had been part of. As it was, the fighting men around him had their hands full once the suapies stopped, turned around, then spread out in a great circle with their baggage and animals protected at its center. The few guns carried by those first warriors had forced more than ten times their number to hunker down in the grass without giving a fight!

  It was the old war chief, Toohoolhoolzote, who had killed the first soldier with his ancient muzzleloader. Then he quickly reloaded as the rest of his war starters crawled up behind him in the timber, and the chief killed a second soldier. The swelling puff of muzzle smoke from his old gun betrayed his position and brought a shower of bullets his way … but none found Toohoolhoolzote.

  “Come, young ones; come!” he cried again and again, goading his warriors into daring to pit themselves against unimaginable odds. “Let’s show these soldiers how to fight: rock-to-rock, tree-to-tree! If they gain any ground on us, let them leave blood on every step!”

  Eeh-heh! The old fighter’s wyakin was mighty strong that day!

  As the soldiers began to fire wildly at the shadows in the timber, random bullets began to fall among their ponies. The horses grew scared, making noise and stomping around where they were tied, drawing even more soldier bullets.

  “Four of you, go back to the ponies and take them to a safer place,” Toohoolhoolzote ordered, then named the four young men he selected for this task. “I am afraid they will break loose; then we will not have them when we need them in the fight.”

  Right after this, their old leader and the two-times-ten set up a hot fire into the soldier lines. Then from two directions, more soldiers came in at a run, diving into th
e tall grass once they found themselves within range of the Nee-Me-Poo rifles. As Yellow Wolf watched and the sun started to slowly slip off midsky, the suapies massed, beginning a gradual movement against the timber from which the young riflemen had poured the first fire at the white men.

  Back, back, back the soldiers pushed, slowly gaining ground … but only one hand span at a time. Although they now outnumbered the young warriors some twenty-to-one, the suapies paid for that ground with some blood and plenty of sweat under the broiling sun. Although Toohoolhoolzote and the other fighters rallied one another with cheers of encouragement, the pressure finally became too much and the old chief gave the order to leave the timber and slip down into the edge of the ravine. The instant the soldiers found the warriors were no longer keeping them pinned down, their fighting chiefs ordered them to make a charge.

  On they plunged toward the timber. Toohoolhoolzote stopped and whirled around in a fury, kneeling as he aimed his old one-shoot muzzleloader. It hissed and the round lead ball found its mark, driving a soldier backward off his feet at the same moment the squat warrior scrambled to his feet and joined the others in running from that timber where the bullets buzzed like angry bees, smacking the trunks of trees, zinging through branches—

  Suddenly Yellow Wolf slammed his bare feet to a halt. He had forgotten his horse! All of them had forgotten their ponies!

  Wheeling about, he squatted and peered off to where the horse holders had taken their animals. The four were nowhere to be seen! They had abandoned the ponies as soon as the firing grew too intense even for Toohoolhoolzote. And the rest of the fighters were scampering behind the old chief toward another patch of timber west of the suapies.

  Yellow Wolf felt the anger rising in him like a fever. The holders had abandoned their horses, and the others had abandoned him. That was a good horse and he wanted it back, even though the soldiers approached the edge of that narrow patch of timber. It was a disgrace for a fighting man to lose his horse to the enemy in battle.