Cries from the Earth: The Outbreak Of the Nez Perce War and the Battle of White Bird Canyon June 17, 1877 (The Plainsmen Series)

by Terry C. Johnston

  He felt the hot blood thicken at the back of his throat, swallowing hard in hopes of speaking more clearly to his son. “Promise me—,” and he squeezed his son’s wrist.

  For a long time the young warrior’s face was suspended over his in the fading light. Eagle Robe didn’t know if he would live long enough to hear his son answer with his promise. Then, finally, Shore Crossing spoke softly, reluctantly, and very, very sadly.

  “I promise you, Father.”

  Eagle Robe closed his eyes at last, sensing that last breath gushing up in a ball from his punctured lungs, spilling across his tongue and over his lips. His head gently sagged to the side as he felt the release come at long last.

  Anguished, Shore Crossing sobbed, pressing his head against his father’s bloody breast, “I promise … promise not to kill this man who has killed you!”

  Chapter 1

  May 1, 1877

  She scraped the thick sulphur head of the lucifer across one of the rough boards lying beneath her shoe and watched the match leap into life. Emily FitzGerald cautiously inched the wavering flame to that stubby, blackened wick protruding from the top of the half-used beeswax taper and lit the candle she and the Doctor kept atop the tall bureau near their bedside at night. The flame struggled a moment, then caught, spreading a small womb of warm light around her.

  Emily peeked over her shoulder at her sleeping husband. He was turned toward the wall, snoring gently. After sliding the candleholder to the side, she quietly removed the glass stopper from the top of the inkwell, dipped her pen, and started scratching the nib across that first small sheet of paper she held in place beneath her reddened left hand.

  Fort Lapwai

  May 1, 1877

  Dear Mamma,

  Emily got that far, then caught herself staring at the red knuckles of both hands as she considered how to begin this letter. With those two children of hers, there was so much washing of clothes grown so grimy in their play, doing her best to keep her children scrubbed as much as possible with what seemed to be one bath right after another. While Jennie, their Negress, did lend her efforts with the washing, as well as the cooking and keeping after the house, Emily did not allow the servant girl to assist in bathing Bess or her little brother, Bert. Mending and sweeping the floors, baking and peeling and snapping beans, scrubbing chamber pots, and boiling the doctor’s underthings were all tasks Jennie had performed dutifully for the family over the last few years now, ever since the Doctor—that was the name Emily always used for her husband, John—had first shipped north for that assignment in Sitka, Alaska. But bathing these young, precocious, grimy children remained Emily’s domain alone.

  My brown babies are still the picture of health. Such solid, round, little brown toads you never saw.

  She gazed at the slim hand holding the long pen there in the pulsing candlelight, that tiny flame stirred only by her breath, remembering those vibrant red spots showing up on little Bert’s arms just before they left Sitka for the Nez Perce country last spring. The Doctor had vaccinated his son in one arm; then two days later, when it appeared the vaccination wasn’t going to take, her husband vaccinated Bert in the other arm. Then both arms took! How sore her little Bert had been, pouting so badly that it really hurt his father.

  Emily remembered those first months after coming here to Nez Perce country—a land where the Doctor said he wanted to return once he finished his service to the army. It was undeniably beautiful, she agreed, in spite of the half-wild Non-Treaty bands who came and went past the fort and agency every now and then. She recalled the frightening hubbub of last summer’s Indian troubles so many hundreds of miles and many days to the east over in Sioux country and reassured herself again that her little family really was far enough removed from those scenes of such horrid disasters that were on everyone’s lips for a time last year. Then she thought of how she had written to her mother giddily celebrating that the Doctor wasn’t going to be among those outfits posted to Sitting Bull’s country.

  The Indians respect no code of warfare, flags of truce, wounded—nothing is respected! It is like fighting to exterminate wild animals, horrible beasts. I hope and pray this is the last Indian war. Don’t let anybody talk of peace until the Indians are taught a lesson and, if not exterminated, so weakened they will never molest and butcher again. These Sioux Indians will give trouble as long as they exist, no matter how we treat them, “for ’tis their nature to.” They will never stay on their reservations and the lives of settlers in this entire western country are not safe as long as the Indian question is unsettled. This is all we talk about out here.

  But did she want to tell her mamma about what rumors of trouble loomed on the horizon now?

  Best not to worry that gentle Quaker soul, she decided. Better that she fill her letters home with only news of the children and the Doctor, reports on the spring flowers carpeting the hillsides in a brilliant blaze of color despite one gloomy, rainy day after another.

  The Doctor finally found us another Chinaman to be our cook. At first I had a soldier, but he was not nice, and the Doctor sent him off. I don’t think I am very fond of kitchen work. I don’t wonder at cooks asking 30 or 35 dollars a month. I will cheerfully pay Mr. Sing his thirty dollars in gold a month, though it does seem awful. All the other officers here, except Colonel Perry, have Chinese help. Mr. Sing moves around the house like a mouse in his soft shoes. Bert calls him a “lady.” Mr. Sing’s long hair and gown confuse Mr. Bert! Just think of paying 35 dollars in greenbacks to a man who does not do nearly as much as a woman in the East does for 14.

  My Chinaman, I hope, is going to prove a success. He made delightful muffins for breakfast and is now making a cake for dinner. I am going to have a baked stuffed salmon for dinner tomorrow night. It is such a comfort to go out and sit down to a nice, full table and not have to fuss over things before hand.

  Bertie finally had his turn with the mumps, and he is getting his big teeth at last. Everything with my Mr. Bert now is a horse! He insists upon you singing about a horse when you put him to sleep, and everything he gets he sticks between his legs and says, “Get up, horsie!” Last night John was going out and took Bert up in front for a few minutes. The horse started to gallop, and Bert laughed out loud! Bess delights in her dollies, and, much to my delight, Bertie does, too. Doctor has an idea boys won’t play with girls’ things.

  Yes, Bess and Bertie are brown as berries, so delighted to be out in the sunshine after Sitka. You never saw such sunburnt little scamps in your life. They get so dirty that the bath tub is brought in and we scrub them every night.

  None of the three ladies here has any children. Always before, I and my whole set of intimate friends have been engaged in wondering how to prevent any more babies coming. Now I get among these people who would give their heads to have a baby and are just as busily engaged trying all sorts of means to have one.

  Lapwai is a pleasant post, as far-away posts go, but it is very quiet and lonely here. Doctor thinks we will be east of the mountains before 1879.

  Then Emily realized that her mother might well hear a disquieting report from this faraway post, any fragmentary news item about the Nez Perce that might frighten her mamma if Emily did not mention it first, preparing that dear old Quaker soul for the upset. Best for her to mention certain things in a calm, reassuring way.…

  Indians are passing by the post continually, but Indians are no novelty to us now. We are all very much interested in the news from the Black Hills and the Sioux War as we all have friends with the troops, and as we are surrounded by Indians here, we are all the more anxious that victory doesn’t crown the Plains Warriors. You know, two-thirds of the Nez Perces are Non-Treaty Indians, and they are intimate with the Sioux and other tribes on the warpath.

  She re-read that part, wondering if she buried the threat of trouble in a letter her mother would not grow as concerned as she might if she happened upon it in the papers one day. Quickly she dipped her nib into the ink bottle and continued with
her flowing hand beneath the flickering candlelight:

  Certainly these Nez Perce are jealous of what they once owned for this is a lovely region, of rich prairie land with such pretty wild flowers and such herds of fat sheep and cows as it would do you and father good to see. Remember that we live in one half of a double house. The other side is occupied by the Commanding Officer, Colonel Perry.

  Emily stopped, put the end of the pen between her front teeth, and chewed thoughtfully on the wood, listening to nothing but silence seeping through the thin wall that separated their bedchamber from that of Colonel Perry and his wife. Suddenly struck with a thought, she dipped the pen and wrote:

  Already Joseph’s band has been driving settlers from that valley they claim, Wallowa Valley.

  The news makes us all feel worried and anxious because it is probable the troops will be sent out to try and prevent bloodshed. The Indians have forced the settlers to leave, and the settlers, about seventy or eighty, have joined together and are armed. The Indians are determined that they shall not settle in the Valley, and they are determined that they will, and, of course, have the right and must be supported by the troops.

  Everybody wants to prevent bloodshed, for this lot of settlers in the Wallowa are an awful set of men and have made all the trouble for themselves.

  I am in terror for fear Doctor will have to go out with Colonel Perry. Everybody is waiting to see what is going to happen. I hope it will all blow over as it did last summer, but the gentlemen seem to think it means business this time. We are between sixty and seventy miles from the Wallowa.

  That really was too close to allow her heart any real comfort. Doctor had seen enough of the horrors of combat during the Rebellion.

  She continued to stare at the flickering, hypnotic flame, hoping her husband, hoping none of the other officers and these young soldiers stationed at Fort Lapwai would be sucked into an Indian war.

  Oh, how it weighed on her mind—these matters of the Nez Perce and how trouble was brewing like a foul broth. Too much for a body to take at times. All the way to the core of her she felt such a weariness from the tension of these days that she believed she might just be able to sleep now—

  Emily heard one of the children coughing: a harsh, dry hack. She listened for a long moment but heard nothing more. The child must have fallen back to sleep.

  As promised I will write at least once a week. Promise me you will write me once a week too. Doctor sends much love to all. Give my love to all at home.

  Your daughter,

  Emily F.

  She carefully lifted the blanket and the comforter and slipped beneath them, gently rolling against her husband’s back, snuggling against his warmth as she looped an arm over him, pulling herself against his bulk reassuringly. He grunted in his sleep, then resumed breathing deeply.

  She reminded herself she must sleep, no matter her fears of his leaving with the troops and not returning to the three of them. Never again walking through that door, calling out in that quiet, reserved way of his, “I’m home, Emily.”

  She hadn’t known him before or during the Rebellion of the Southern States. Hadn’t been in love with John FitzGerald back then, hadn’t given her heart and soul and every fiber of her being to him in those long-ago times … so why did this threat of another Indian war have to hang over their heads like a sword suspended by the thinnest of threads now?

  With a sigh, Emily wiped her damp cheek against the back of the Doctor’s sleeping gown.

  And silently cried herself to sleep.

  Chapter 2

  Season of Hillal

  1877

  Yesterday’s council with the trio of Shadows beneath the canvas awning had not gone well. But this second meeting this morning with the soldier chief his Nee-Me-Poo people called Cut-Off Arm was turning all the worse.

  Leading his Wallamwatkin band here to this fort and agency from their ancient home in the Wallowa Valley, Heinmot Tooyalakekt had arrived a day ago for the first of these talks he had hoped would be a turning point in the relations between his tribe and the “crowned ones,” so called because of the tall top hats the white men wore. At first the Nee-Me-Poo had referred to these Americans as the “Big Hearts from the East,” because they were more liberal in their trading practices than were the stingy and niggardly British traders.

  Some thirty-two summers old now, he was a civil leader of these people sometimes called Iceyeeye Niim Mama’yac, or People of the Coyote. Simply put, he was a village chief who saw to matters involving the women and children. He did not have much military experience, if any at all.

  Through the interpreter, this chief, whose name meant “Thunder Traveling to Loftier Heights Upon the Mountain,” had told Cut-Off Arm that fellow chief White Bird would not arrive with his people from their Salmon River country until the next day.

  “You must not be in so much of a hurry,” he tried to explain to the soldier chief. Some of his people claimed he had the singular gift of oratory. “White Bird’s people are already in the Craig Mountains and will be here before morning.”

  “Mr. Monteith and I,” Cut-Off Arm replied, gesturing toward the agent, “have pressing business we must see to.”

  “We will all be here tomorrow,” the chief repeated, smoothing one of the long braids that fell down his chest. Above his smooth, copper-skinned forehead, the black hair was combed in the tall, upswept curl of their traditional “Dreamer” religion. “Then we can talk about this matter of you telling us we must come in to this reservation or you will send the army to drive our women and children to this place.”

  Cut-Off Arm scratched at his beard with his one hand, then spoke to the interpreter, an agency layabout named James Reuben, one of the chief’s own nephews, who sat in a chair translating for the white Boston Men.

  Reuben cleared his throat nervously and said, “We have received our orders from Washington City. The President sends us to your people. I want to repeat myself—to underscore the importance of complying at once so your people can get the pick of the land offered you for your new homes.”

  With the soldier chief’s words, this leader of the Wallowa people—who had been born in a cave and was later baptized by the missionary Henry Spalding with the Shadow name Joseph—wagged his head and said, “I am not the only leader of the Nee-Me-Poo. The other chiefs must be here to listen to your words, and decide upon them.”

  The exasperated soldier chief nearly interrupted Reuben’s translation when he grumbled, “Very well, Joseph. We can wait another day for White Bird if that is your wish. But my instructions to him will be the same as what I have instructed you.”

  With Reuben’s translation of the soldier’s words the squat, muscular chief sitting to Joseph’s left bolted to his feet. This leader of a small band of Nee-Me-Poo who made their home on Asotin Creek turned from the soldier and directed his ire at Perrin B. Whitman, a nephew of the famous missionary Marcus Whitman, who served as the government’s representative to this important council at the army fort beside Lapwai Creek, in the Valley of the Butterflies.

  Standing at least a half a foot shorter than Joseph, old Toohoolhoolzote growled at the young Whitman, “Because of the generations of my people yet to come, for the children’s children of both you white people and the Nee-Me-Poo, you must interpret correctly.”

  Whitman blinked, clearly surprised at the scolding, and glanced at the soldier chief’s interpreter, James Reuben, before he swallowed and vowed to the old chief, “I promise you I will translate every word to you with complete satisfaction.”

  “We want to talk a long, long time,” Toohoolhoolzote continued, “talk many days about the earth, about our land you want to take from us.”

  “Please,” begged the agent John B. Monteith as he stood and took a step toward the homely, barrel-chested Toohoolhoolzote, “you must understand that the time for debate is over.”

  As Reuben’s translation was given, Joseph saw how the finality of those words struck the rest of the chiefs, es
pecially Toohoolhoolzote, a tewat, or shaman, among the Nee-Me-Poo. Joseph and the older man shared a belief in the Dreamer religion, rather than have anything at all to do with the Christian agency schools or the nearby Catholic missions—which was the way of the Treaty bands who had agreed to live on the confines of the reservation.

  “Your people were given until the first day of April to come here to the reservation, where they will take up your new homes,” the agent reminded them sternly.

  Joseph felt sorry for Monteith. The two of them first met six winters ago upon the death of Joseph’s father, Old Joseph. The following year the agent had exhausted himself attempting to convince his government that the part of the Wallowa Valley Joseph’s people wanted most was not really suitable to settlement and cultivation. Better to let the white farmers keep that portion of the valley where they had already been putting down roots following the 1863 treaty that had been signed by a majority of the Nee-Me-Poo bands, an agreement that even gave away the land of those who had refused to sign, those who steadfastly refused to recognize the authority of the white man’s government.

  Then something terrible had gone wrong when the government finally relented and agreed that Joseph’s Wallowas could stay in their valley. Just last year Monteith had tried to explain that a grave mistake had been made: The newly drawn boundaries dictated that the Nee-Me-Poo had to move to the ground where the white settlers had been grazing their cattle, and the whites were told to move to that part of the Wallowa where Joseph’s people had lived for more generations than any man now alive could count.

  Although a terrible error had been committed by his government, Monteith declared that there was nothing anyone could do.

  A long descent had brought them to this impasse: season after season they had suffered the crimes of the white men, or repeatedly been threatened with soldiers coming to change things forever …

  “You must come to the reservation now,” Monteith said firmly. “There is no getting around it any longer. You chiefs here, and White Bird too, must return for your cattle and horses, bring your people here.”