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

  The Indian surprised Rowton by leaping off his pony, spilling in the grass. But the warrior rolled onto his feet and lumbered away, hobbling unsteadily along the fence line in a futile race.

  Rowton leveled his pistol at the Indian’s back and pulled the trigger. He knew the bullet struck the bastard from the way the Indian jerked, paused in his ungainly flight, then lurched away again in a painful hobble. Maybe, John figured, he’d hit him in the leg or hip.

  By now Rowton was slowing his horse, so quickly was he closing the gap on his prey. Shearer was off to his right, and some of the others were sprinting up to fill in the gap between them. More guns popped now—pistols and carbines both.

  Arms and legs flailing crazily, the warrior flew through the air a good five yards, just as if there had been a small charge of powder exploded underfoot. He went sprawling in the knee-high grass. While Rowton hauled back on his reins, Shearer’s horse slid to a halt directly beside the warrior who dragged himself up on his hands and one knee, his back clearly bleeding in at least three places already. The Nez Perce had lumbered forward no more than a yard, clawing with one hand at his back, when Shearer pointed his shotgun off the side of his horse, holding the muzzles directly over the Indian’s back, then pulled the first trigger.

  The impact of that arm’s-length shot hurled the warrior against the ground, where his hands clawed at the grass, a pitiable high-pitched squeal escaping his throat. Shearer’s horse pranced around to the other side of the prostrate Indian, where the civilian leaned to the side, positioning the shotgun’s muzzles inches from the back of the warrior’s neck, and pulled the second trigger.

  With a violent spasm, the body convulsed once, then lay still. Blood darkened the Indian’s back, beginning to pool in the grass beneath him. The warrior’s shirt smoldered a few moments until the dead man’s blood extinguished the powder burns.

  “Goddamn, if that didn’t feel good!” Shearer roared triumphantly, shaking the double-barreled shotgun overhead as a half-dozen of the volunteers leaped their horses on over the fence, sprinting after the two escaping warriors. “Get em!” Shearer goaded. “Get those sonsabitches too!”

  Rowton was staring now, transfixed on the body, when the rest came to halt in a tight circle around Shearer and the Indian. It caught him by surprise when Shearer kicked himself out of the saddle and landed beside the bloody corpse.

  “Can you believe it, fellers?” Shearer drawled. “This bastard’s still alive!” He pointed at the warrior’s hand flexing slowly in the grass as if the Indian was struggling to drag himself away from his killer.

  “Bet this son of a bitch was one of them what got to Chamberlin’s woman!” someone in the bunch hollered.

  “This’un prob’ly killed that li’l girl too,” another voice chimed in.

  A third man growled, “Likely this bastard chopped off the other girl’s tongue!”

  “Well now, boys,” Shearer declared as he stepped across the warrior, placing a boot on either side of the body so that his feet were planted just below the Indian’s armpits. “I s’pose we ought’n show all them other red niggers what we’ll do to ’em if’n they go raping our women and killing our young’uns!”

  Whirling his shotgun in both hands, Shearer seized the muzzle of the weapon, raising it high overhead for an instant, then hurled it downward into the top of the warrior’s head with a dull, moist crack.

  “Sakes alive, George—you got the first’un for sure!” one of the volunteers shouted at their leader.

  He grinned at those around him. “This neegra’s just the first!”

  Then the bloodied shotgun was back in the air as Shearer held it poised over his head before bringing it down a second time, now with all the force of both shoulders, driving it into the warrior’s head with an even more sickening, mushy sound. Blood oozed from the one exposed ear, gushed from the lips that no longer quivered.

  As he pulled the splintered shotgun up and inspected it, Shearer started laughing crazily. “Lookee here, boys! I’ve gone and busted the goddamned stock on this here red neegra!”

  Rowton wagged his head, mesmerized at the blood and gore splattered over the shotgun’s glistening stock and breakaway action. He spotted the half-dozen riders returning from the base of the hill, loping back across the pasture to rejoin Shearer’s posse. Some of those around Rowton were climbing out of their saddles, shoving through the ring of horses to take their turn kicking the lifeless body again and again.

  Rowton swallowed hard, his insides awash with a jumble of feelings. He sensed unmitigated fury at the Nez Perce for what they’d done to the women and children out on the Camas Road, sensed a bloodlust for those less-than-human warriors who could commit such savage acts against the innocent. Killing these sonsabitches in a stand-up, man-to-man fight was one thing …

  John watched the others finish kicking the body, then roll the corpse over to claw the warrior’s breechclout aside, two of the volunteers standing ready with their belt knives drawn.

  Without a doubt, Rowton wanted more of the warriors to fall, more of them to pay for what they’d done to the innocents.

  But with all the fury boiling around him, John knew this sort of cruel blood sport only made him and the rest of these men no better than the drunken warriors who burned and raped and murdered their way up and down the Camas Road, suddenly realizing that—just like those red bastards—he and the others mutilating this body had become no better than a pack of animals themselves.

  Chapter 29

  Season of Hillal

  1877

  The moment Going Fast and Five Winters raced into White Bird’s camp at Lahmotta, broadcasting the Boston Men’s attack on Jyeloo, young warriors came running from all directions. In less time than it took for a man to eat his breakfast, three-times-ten were mounting up with weapons in their hands or hanging from their backs, following Going Fast and Five Winters back to the north for that homestead where the two had abandoned old Jyeloo to his fate.

  But the Shadows were gone by the time the war party came tearing around the brow of the hill and sprinted across the pasture toward the rail fence. Just on the other side they found the lame warrior, his manhood crudely hacked from his body. Blood soaked the tops of his leggings where the Shadows had committed this outrage. Crimson blossoms dotted Jyeloo’s shirt where eleven bullets had struck his body. And blood darkened the trampled grass all around the old warrior’s head where flies blackened the crushed skull that oozed the dead man’s pulpy brain into the dirt already shiny with gore. Near the old man’s left hand lay his belt knife.

  “I gave him my soldier rifle,” Going Fast explained as he turned away from the body, feeling weak at the sight of such brutality.

  “The gun is no longer here,” said He-mene Moxmox, the one named Yellow Wolf, a young warrior of twenty-one summers from Joseph’s band of Wallowa. “The Shadows took it with them.”

  “And Jyeloo’s pony too,” Five Winters added, gazing around the pasture.

  “He died fighting those Boston Men,” growled Pahkatos Watyekit, the warrior called Five Times Looking Up.

  “For this bravery he will always be remembered by our people,” vowed Kosooyeen, the one named Going Alone.

  “He was lame, and long suffered that old battle wound in his back,” Going Fast explained as he looked into the angry, stony faces of the others. “But he went down fighting as a Nee-Me-Poo warrior.”

  “Perhaps we should see what we can find at the house?” asked Five Times Looking Up.

  “I will take Jyeloo back to camp,” volunteered Pahkatos Owyeen, the older warrior named Five Wounds.

  Going Fast turned aside from the group now and saw the long look on young Five Winters’s face. He figured his friend’s heart must feel very cold and small, perhaps even racked with guilt that he had been the first to flee, leaving Jyeloo behind without a way to defend himself against the onrushing Shadows. As a means to honor the lame warrior, almost half of the war party elected to accompany the body
back to their village near the mouth of White Bird Creek.

  The rest followed Going Fast on to the abandoned homestead. They were inside the house looking for clothing, any food, and even more whiskey if they could find it, when Yellow Wolf stepped into the open doorway and shouted.

  “A Shadow is coming down the trail!”

  “Only one?” asked Five Times Looking Up.

  “He is alone,” Yellow Wolf declared.

  “But we cannot be sure,” Going Alone snarled. “Maybe it is a trap.”

  “Yes,” Going Fast agreed. “Maybe he is one of those Boston Men who butchered Jyeloo. Hide! Hide!”

  Closer and closer the white man1 came, walking down the road toward the house alone and on foot, completely unaware of the danger.

  But as the Shadow neared the house, something must have aroused his suspicion. The man stopped suddenly, slowly turned around in all directions, and appeared to be listening carefully as he studied the house and the other small buildings from afar. Then he turned on his heel and started away as if he had heard something suspicious or spotted their war ponies secreted at the back of the house.

  With a yelp, Going Alone and Five Times Looking Up were the first to break from hiding, followed by the others streaming out the door. Some went sprinting after the white man while the rest raced around the corner of the house to grab their horses.

  Sneaking a look over his shoulder, the Shadow saw the warriors racing after him on foot, probably heard those who had mounted and came clattering around the house, hooves pounding, war cries leaping from their throats as the Boston Man scampered for the bottom of a steep hill at the base of which lay a deep, brush-choked ravine.

  On horseback, Five Times Looking Up easily pulled beside the Shadow while he nocked an arrow against his bowstring. He positioned the weapon over his victim, drawing back the string at the very same moment the white man turned and reached out in desperation, seizing the arrow and stumbling at the same time.

  As the Shadow tumbled into the grass, he yanked on the shaft, nearly toppling the warrior from his pony. Instinctively tightening his knees at the horse’s ribs made his pony lunge to the side, away from the white man who vaulted back onto his feet and bounded away in a different direction.

  But Going Alone shot into that gap atop his pony, bringing his repeater down, pointing at the Shadow’s back as his horse brought him closer. With the first shot from his carbine the Boston Man tumbled forward onto the ground, rolling across the grass. But again he scrambled back to his feet, stumbled away clutching his side, lumbering into his valiant dash for freedom once more.

  Working the lever of his repeater before another warrior could claim this kill, Going Alone leveled his rifle squarely at the Shadow’s back and pulled the trigger a second time.

  With this shot the white man spilled headlong into the tall grass, his legs thrashing a moment before he lay still.

  As the warriors dismounted around the Shadow, they discovered that the man was not young to run so far so fast, nor was he old.

  “Look!” Five Times Looking Up shouted as he toed the body onto its back. “The Shadow has a pistol that is now yours, Going Alone!”

  Bending down, Going Alone freed the gun belt and holster, gazing at the dead man’s face, bewildered. “I wonder why he didn’t shoot at me with his pistol.”

  * * *

  Now his newborn daughter would be a wanderer.

  Although Joseph and his people were still in country long roamed by the Nez Perce, he realized his Wallowa would never be allowed to return to their ancestral lands. Though his father’s bones slept there in the valley of the Winding Waters—a land he loved as he did his mother—Joseph realized it would never again be his home. He had abandoned it hoping to avoid war.

  But even that was beyond his power now.

  The morning after the bullets were fired into his lodge, Joseph gathered up his wife and infant daughter, leading his Wallowa northeast from the rendezvous place at Tepahlewam to Cottonwood Creek in hopes of joining more of their people just inside the southern boundary of the reservation. No matter that yesterday’s was a short journey—the miles taxed the strength of his wife, who had lost a lot of blood delivering their child in the birthing shelter.

  As the sun fell that day, four young scouts rode away from camp to watch the Shadows’ wagon road, stationing themselves where the trail left Camas Prairie and started over Craig’s Mountain, descending to Fort Lapwai, where the Treaty bands lived in subjugation. These four were to keep an eye out for any messengers headed north to the soldier post or the mining community of Lewiston beyond.

  And now, this morning, with the alarm raised that bands of white men were roaming the countryside, his Nee-Me-Poo hurriedly dragged the buffalo-hide covers from their lodge-poles, preparing to leave Sapachesap, this place they called the “Drive-In,” a cave situated at the bottom of Cottonwood Canyon where they often cached saddles and other camp equipage as they moved back and forth across the Camas Prairie.2 But Looking Glass’s people would not be leaving with them. Instead, the Alpowai chose to hide and endure on the Clearwater. The women had their gardens planted there, the older chief had explained. His people wanted nothing of Toohoolhoolzote’s war … so they would simply go home where they belonged.

  “My hands are clean of the white man’s blood,” Looking Glass angrily told White Bird and Toohoolhoolzote, “and I want you to know they will so remain. You have acted like fools in murdering white men. I will have no part in these things, and have nothing to do with such men. If you are determined to go and fight, go and fight yourselves and do not attempt to embroil me or my people. Go back with your warriors; I do not want any of your band in my camp. I wish to live in peace.”

  So as a peace chief, a thoughtful diplomat, Joseph no longer had it within his power to prevent the coming war. By tradition, it was not his duty to raise his hands for the coming fight. Instead, he would remain as a civil chief: seeing to the needs of the women, children, and old ones, besides caring for the immense herds of horses.

  At the same time, his brother Ollokot would join with the war chiefs. It was they who would make plans for battle. There was no doubt now; the soldiers would be coming. A big fight loomed on the horizon. Joseph would take care of the camp and its people. His younger brother would see to the fighting men.

  Taking the reins to his pony in hand now, Joseph stepped up beside the travois that carried his wife and daughter. Not yet able to sit astride a horse, Driven Before a Cold Storm instead lay awaiting the start of the day’s journey, clutching the sleeping baby against her.

  “I pray we can find rest soon,” Joseph said as he knelt beside the travois.

  She smiled wanly, reaching out to brush his cheek with her fingertips. “I so wanted this child to be born in freedom. But now we fear the soldiers will chase us down like the wolf runs down the hare. I am scared I won’t have the strength to run when Cut-Off Arm comes.”

  “Rest,” he hushed her, leaning forward to press his lips against her forehead. “Save your strength for our child.”

  Ollokot rode up as Joseph got to his feet beside the travois. “We are ready, Brother.”

  Joseph squeezed his wife’s hand, then turned to Ollokot. “Now we go to Lahmotta, the canyon where White Bird Creek flows.”

  White Bird’s people and Toohoolhoolzote’s band already had streamed across the southern edge of the Camas Prairie for that favorite campsite at the bottom of the canyon, a place the Nee-Me-Poo sometimes called Lockyah, meaning “Wood Built across a Stream to Hold Back the Fish,” a dam of sorts where his people traditionally fished the waters of the Salmon River every summer near the mouth of White Bird Creek.

  As the first of the band got under way, Ollokot sent out warriors to protect the flanks of their march. For the past two days scouts had come and gone from the encampment, carrying word of what they could learn from the movements of the wagon men along the road between Mount Idaho and the agency. Any wagons were sure to have th
e whiskey barrels on board. It caused Joseph’s heart to ache all the more, knowing how bad whiskey was for young men whose spirits already burned with war.

  When Joseph loped to the head of the Wallowa band, Ollokot reined in beside his brother. They rode together in an uneasy silence for some time, perhaps each of them remembering how they had argued that terrible night at Tepahlewam. Joseph understood that it was natural enough that his brother’s heart would follow the way of the eager young warriors.

  “Now that war has come,” Ollokot had argued, “a warrior cannot turn his face from it!”

  But in time Joseph’s powers of persuasion had convinced Ollokot that there had to be a better course than to confront the soldiers who were sure to come. When they rejoined the other bands on the White Bird, he planned to call for a council of the chiefs so he could propose that they immediately flee east to the illahie, the buffalo country.

  “There,” he had convinced Ollokot, “we can wait while the wounds of these killings have healed and this current trouble is forgotten.”

  “And then?” Ollokot had asked in resignation.

  “We will see what sort of peace Cut-Off Arm will offer us, so we can return to this country.”

  “I think the Shadows have a long memory,” Ollokot had grumped. “We might be fools to believe those Boston Men will give us a good peace.”

  For a long time Joseph had weighed their options. In the end he reluctantly vowed, “If Cut-Off Arm does not deal with us honorably while we are in the buffalo country, then I will lead our people north into the Old Woman’s Country, where we will find Sitting Bull’s Lakota.”

  No matter how cheerful he tried to make that option sound, all the paths that lay before them appeared equally grim. So Joseph’s heart lay heavy in his breast, not so much because other chiefs and warriors had openly called him a coward for wanting to wait at Tepahlewam so they could see what sort of peace the bands could forge with the soldiers when the army came, not even heavy because many had accused him of being a traitor and suspected he would be a turncoat for the Shadows … but heavy because he felt he could peer into the days and the seasons ahead, glimpsing what fate now held in store for his people.