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

  With a wag of his head, Joseph argued, “Once we are here, you will try to make us like the upper bands who are under the spell of your Christian missionaries.”

  “What do you mean by that?” Perrin Whitman demanded from the side. He knew the language and did not require an interpreter.

  “We are afraid you just don’t merely want us to abandon our long-held tribal lands,” Joseph declared firmly. “We believe that once we have come here, you will do everything in your power to make us into Christian Indians like those you already have here at the agency … the ones who have cut their hair like a white man, wearing the white man’s clothes, reading and believing the white man’s religion.”

  The agent shook his head, arguing, “You have evidently gotten the wrong impression, Joseph. We do not want to interfere with your religious rites. There will be no restraint of religion here on your reservation while I am in charge.” Monteith tore his eyes off the young chief and glanced a moment at the older Toohoolhoolzote. “Only when one of your tewats disturbs the peace with too much drumming and too much savage zeal will I forbid those extreme practices.”

  Cut-Off Arm was already standing in front of his chair, ready to speak his mind as soon as the agent finished. “It makes no difference what church a bad leader belongs to. White or Indian. Dreamer or Christian. If one of your religious men gives bad advice to your people, advice that causes disobedience to the requirements of the agent or the army … then that leader will have to be punished and taken away to Indian Territory.”

  “But what of the women and children?” Joseph asked. “Must they be punished for the sins of the men?”

  “No one is going to punish any of your people if you peacefully come to this reservation as my government tells you to.”

  “I think you are already preparing to punish my people in the Wallowa,” Joseph announced, and watched the surprise cross the soldier chief’s face.

  The hairy-faced Cut-Off Arm asked, “What do you mean?”

  “We know they are already in the Wallowa, ready to attack my people.”

  The soldier chief shook his head, waving his one hand. “No, no. There will be no attack on your camps. My soldiers have gone to the Wallowa only to help bring your people here as soon as you can get them under way. And those soldiers are there to help protect your people from angry settlers if there is trouble.”

  Bolting to his feet, Toohoolhoolzote grumbled, “There is not a shred of truth in what you say! Already the white man has taken what was not his in the Wallowa. And now the soldiers have come to take away more of what my Creator never intended the white man to have!”

  “Don’t you understand that the majority of your people signed the treaty?” the agent protested.

  Toohoolhoolzote, leader of the small Pikunan band that wandered the area between the Salmon and Snake rivers, took a step forward, his thick neck tortoised into those powerful shoulders to give him an even more intimidating appearance. “You must stay off the land Tamalait gave us long ago. Take all that belongs to you and go away, now! The earth is my mother, and she must not be disturbed by your plow and hoe. For generations my people have lived just the way our Creator made us, surviving only on what grows in the forest, the animals in these hills. This has always been our land. Soon there will be a great reckoning for those who would use violence to take from us what has always been ours!”

  “This matter has been decided,” Monteith said as calmly as he could. “The majority of the Nez Perce signed the treaty.”

  But Toohoolhoolzote shook his head vigorously, loudly protesting, “Lawyer’s people had no right to do that! Tamalait made us chieftains over the earth, to care for it, protect it. That chieftainship cannot be sold, nor can it be given away. You white leaders must accept that we are all chieftains of the earth.”

  Cut-Off Arm slapped his left thigh with his one hand, clearly growing agitated at how the arguments of this persuasive orator were stirring up those Nee-Me-Poo spectators ringing the council’s awning. “I told you already: I do not intend to interfere with your religion. So it is time to stop all this talk and get on to practical matters. Twenty times over you tell me the earth is your mother, and twenty times over you tell me about being a chieftain over the earth. I want to hear no more of such talk! You must come to business at once!”

  How the soldier chief’s words slapped the old tewat, stinging his pride.

  Joseph grew saddened, beginning to realize that perhaps the white man and the soldiers did not really want to listen to the complaints of his people in these council talks. Instead, he was coming to believe that Cut-Off Arm and the others were here only to convince Joseph and the others that they were being listened to.

  Toohoolhoolzote’s eyes were like the slits of a prairie rattler in those moments before it attacked. Flecks of foam collected at the corners of his angry mouth. “What the Treaty bands talk about is born of today. Their Christian beliefs aren’t the true law at all! You white people get together, measure the earth back and forth with your ropes and poles, then divide it among yourselves! Yes—I agree with you, Cut-Off Arm: we should talk about practical matters.”

  He drew a deep breath, then continued, “So I want you to tell me exactly what you mean for me to do now that you are moving soldiers into my country to frighten my people.”

  But the agent stepped to the soldier chief’s side and spoke first: “The law says that you must come to this reservation. That law is made in Washington. We did not make this law, but we must enforce it.”

  Jabbing a finger at the agent, Toohoolhoolzote snarled, “We did not make any agreement with you or your government. We made no trade. Only part of the Indians gave up their lands to you. I never did. Joseph didn’t either. Not Looking Glass or White Bird, not Hahtalekin3 or Huishuish Kute of the Palouse either! The earth is part of my body and I can never give up the earth!”

  With his one hand braced against his left thigh, Cut-Off Arm shot to his feet, towering over the squat Toohoolhoolzote. He glared down at the chief and argued fiercely, “You know very well that our government has set aside a reservation for your people and your people must go live upon it. If any of you become a citizen, then that Indian can claim land outside the reservation just like any citizen in accordance with the law. But he has to leave his tribe to do that, and take up the land on his own the way the white man does.”

  Shaking his head violently, Toohoolhoolzote shouted, “We will never live as the white man lives!”

  Angrily the soldier chief snapped, “Then you and your children must live on the reservation my government gives you, where you will prosper in peace among your own kind.”

  Quaking with fury, the old chief whirled on the other leaders and asked them in a harsh whisper, “Who are these white creatures who stand before our Creator and tell us that they will divide His people and scatter us across the land we alone were given long ago?”

  “What was that!” Cut-Off Arm was shouting, stomping one way, then the other, demanding a translation from the half-breed Reuben as well as from the one called Whitman. “What did this old man just tell the others?”

  The Christian missionary stood and reported, “He says, ‘What person pretends to divide the land and put me on it?’”

  As Toohoolhoolzote took a step closer to confront Cut-Off Arm, the soldier chief stiffened noticeably and clenched that one fist at his waist. “I … am … that … man. I stand here for the President—and there is no spirit, good or bad, that will hinder me. My orders are plain and will be executed. I hoped that your people had good sense enough to make me your friend, and not make me your enemy. But I see I am mistaken.”

  The nervous half-breed stammered and stuttered through his translation, trying to keep up with the soldier chief’s spiteful words as angry feelings flew about the council tent. Joseph and the other chiefs and headmen, not to mention the young warriors surrounding them, were growing more and more upset.

  Then White Bird lowered the eagle fan from his fa
ce and said in a much calmer tone, “If I had been taught from early life to be governed by the white man, I would be governed by the white man. But, as it is, I have been brought up on this land, and it is this earth that sustains me.”

  Instead of acknowledging White Bird, the soldier chief turned back to the stocky Toohoolhoolzote and asked, “Then you will not comply with the orders of the government?”

  “No,” the shaman replied firmly. “As long as the earth keeps me, I want to be left alone. You are trifling with the law of the earth.”

  Quickly glancing over the other chiefs and headmen, Cut-Off Arm said, “Our friend here does not seem to understand that the grave question before you is: Will your people come peaceably upon this reservation? Or … do you want me to put them here by force?”

  Of a sudden Toohoolhoolzote was fairly spitting, “I did not give these Christian Indians the right to give away my lands!”

  An equally aroused Cut-Off Arm demanded, “Do you speak for yourself alone? Or the rest of these chiefs?”

  While the other leaders remained in stunned silence, the old man waited a moment before he eventually answered, “These others may do what they wish. As for me, I am never going onto a reservation.”

  Joseph watched the crimson fury bring a blush to the soldier chief’s neck, that color climbing up his bearded cheeks like a swell of storm clouds.

  Cut-Off Arm said, “This is very bad advice you give the others, old man—so you best shut up. On account of your bad words, I am going to send you to Indian Territory. Look here, Joseph and White Bird appear to have good hearts, but it is plain your heart is very bad. You will be punished in the hot land of the Indian Territory until you have a good heart again, even if it takes years and years—”

  “Do not threaten me with your faraway land!” Toohoolhoolzote interrupted the soldier chief that instant a translation was made. “This is my land—where I was born, where I will fight, and where I will die if need be. Not in some hot, faraway—”

  “When I heard you were coming, I feared you would make trouble for the rest of these leaders,” the soldier chief grumbled peevishly. “You say you are not a medicine man, but you talk strongly on behalf of your religion. I think these people can see no good while you are their spokesman. You are telling them to resist what is law, telling them to fight what will be, to lose their horses and cattle and have unending trouble because of your hard-headed foolishness.”

  As the interpreter was translating, Howard stepped past Toohoolhoolzote and stopped before the other chiefs to say, “Will Joseph, White Bird, and Looking Glass go with me to pick out their land on the reservation? This old man will not go, so he must stay here with soldier chief Perry.”

  With the half-breed’s translation, Toohoolhoolzote stomped up to the soldier chief’s empty sleeve and demanded, “Are you trying to scare me about my physical body?”

  Cut-Off Arm glared down at him, turning squarely on the squat chief with his left hand raised into a claw, as if he intended to seize the old man as he growled, “For now I am going to leave your body right here with soldier chief Perry!”

  With that threat Toohoolhoolzote lunged backward, bent at the knees, clearly prepared to knock the soldier chief’s hand aside should Cut-Off Arm make his advance.

  Instead, the bearded white man wheeled around to shout orders to the other soldiers gathered there, most of them getting on their feet, too.

  “What did he just say to them?” Joseph demanded of the half-breed Reuben, unable to understand a word of that flurry of English.

  Reuben gulped. “He told them to bring a guard, so the guard can take the old man to the small iron house.”

  “Small iron house?” Joseph repeated. “What is that?”

  “Iron bars cover the windows, bars on the doors,” Reuben explained with fear in his eyes as they darted back and forth between Joseph’s and Toohoolhoolzote. His fingers started to pantomime the iron bars on the doors and windows. “But, hold on, now the soldier chief won’t wait for a guard to come—”

  At that instant Cut-Off Arm whirled on his heel and with his one hand clamped a lock on Toohoolhoolzote’s elbow, jerking the tewat into motion. “I will take you to the guardhouse myself!”

  The stunned chiefs sat frozen as the other white men and soldiers parted their ranks for Cut-Off Arm and the shaman. A few of the soldiers fell in behind their leader as he dragged the old chief away. A tense, stony silence settled over the council.

  Later, by the time Joseph spotted Cut-Off Arm returning across the open meadow that lay between the fort’s buildings, some of the women had quietly begun to keen behind their leaders. Closer and closer the soldiers came until Cut-Off Arm stopped once more, directly in front of Joseph and the other chiefs.

  Cut-Off Arm quickly glanced over the leaders, then spoke to his interpreter.

  “Now, I want you to ask these leaders if they are going to listen to that old troublemaker I took to the guardhouse myself … or are they going to accompany me to look for their new homes on the reservation?”

  Chapter 5

  Season of Hillal

  1877

  BY TELEGRAPH

  CHEYENNE.

  Indian and Deadwood News.

  CHEYENNE, May 19.—General Crook with Major Randall and Lieutenant Schuyler leave here in the morning for the agencies, where the final grand council will be held, which must be simply a formality, as the disarmament of the Indians renders their consent to any proposition easily obtained. A small band of Cheyennes arrived at Red Cloud Wednesday, bringing in some two hundred horses. The Indians are convinced that the government is acting in good faith, and are evincing a like fidelity to the terms of the surrender.

  Joseph stretched out his arm and tapped his younger brother on the shoulder. The moment Ollokot turned to look, Joseph laid a finger against his lips, then pointed that same finger at the brush more than an arrow-flight away at the edge of the ravine.

  Ollokot nodded and started away cautiously, creeping wide across the side of the grassy hill. Joseph remained still, watching his brother, then moving only his eyes to watch the brush below them, and listened. He smiled, feeling confident that they would bring even more meat into camp before the sun set beyond the valley.

  One by one, the days had been growing longer, allowing the brothers to leave their wives and lodges earlier every morning, to return from the high slopes later every evening. Today’s would be their last hunt together in these hills blanketed with huckle and gooseberries the women usually harvested in the heat of the Wa-wa-mai-khal,1 hills the two had roamed as boys.

  That melancholy thought stabbed him again in a place well-protected by his breastbone. Joseph swallowed at the sharp pain of loss and watched his brother continue across the breast of the hill above him as they both slowly worked their way in on the deer that had taken cover in that copse of timber. Just the way it had been when they were boys, back when they carried toy bows and tiny knife-sharpened stick arrows, hoping to kill a ground squirrel or a vole with their mighty weapons. Because their father, an important chief, did not often have time to train his youngest son, it was Joseph who had taken his brother under his wing and helped the younger one along. So many hunts, so many trips through these hills, had they shared over countless seasons.

  They were truly more than brothers of blood. Joseph and Ollokot were friends. And that made them brothers of the heart.

  But now, things would never be the same again. These hills near the lake at the edge of the Camas Prairie,2 just like the hills in the Wallowa where they both were born, would never again be theirs to hunt. Monteith and Cut-Off Arm had convinced the chiefs that any further resistance, any more stubborn attempts at delay, were nothing less than futile.

  The day after Toohoolhoolzote had been locked behind the iron bars inside the white man’s log house, Cut-Off Arm had taken the Nee-Me-Poo leaders on a day-long ride across Monteith’s reservation so each of them could select the sites where their bands would make their n
ew homes, there to live out the rest of their existence the way the Christian bands were living out theirs attempting to be white men.

  “This is the land of your father,” Old Joseph had instructed his eldest son in those moments before the old man died six winters ago.

  Tuekakas was his Nee-Me-Poo name, meaning “Old Grizzly.” When so many thousands of white people began to flood in upon a few hundred of his people, contrary to the guarantees of the white peace-talkers, Old Joseph tore up his copy of an early treaty he had signed and even burned the Bible he had kept in his lodge for more than thirty years, ever since his Christian baptism.

  Nearing his final breath, he clutched the hands of both sons weakly and made them promise, “You must never sell, you must never give away, the land of your father.”

  Later, as their long-held customs dictated, Young Joseph had laid the skin of his father’s favorite horse over the covered grave where they put Old Joseph to rest for all time. Thin, peeled lodgepoles painted red were planted all around the grave. A pair of bells hung from the very top of each pole so that the stirring of the slightest breeze might make a gentle music above this place.

  Ever since, Joseph tried time and again to convince himself that he and Ollokot had not given away the land of their father.

  Why, the Nee-Me-Poo did not even have a word for “enemy” in their language. However, the concept of a “coming force” had been well understood ever since the first hairy-faces had arrived.

  So Joseph had long struggled to reconcile the death-watch vow he had given his father with the inevitability of the white man closing in around what had once belonged only to the Wallowa people. By choosing to go to the reservation, by doing as Monteith and the soldiers ordered, chiefs like him had ultimately decided that the lives of their people were more important than the pride of their warriors.

  “Rather than kill a white man in a war,” Joseph had explained to Cut-Off Arm, “I will bring my people to Lapwai.”