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

  These bastards likely stole that clothing from their victims and dressed in their plunder. Stole the rifles and abandoned their bows and war clubs. And those horses too, along with their saddles taken from some ranch where the settler and his family now lay dead in a pool of their own blood.

  Holding her breath, Isabella shrank back into the brush as the first of them came parading by, headed down the canyon, back to their camp, where they would drink their whiskey and work themselves into a frenzy for another foray onto Camas Prairie. A second warrior, then a third, and a couple more … she wasn’t certain, but she thought she had counted a dozen of them when a gap appeared in their line.

  Those dark faces surrounded by their shorn hair, shaded by the wide-brimmed hats, slipped on past, and still she heard even more riders coming from her left. Isabella was confused as to why these warriors had chopped their hair off to shoulder-length when those who had raided her place had worn their long hair in a very traditional manner.

  At first it was the buttons she spotted on those coming out of the gray gloom of swirling mist, damp shreds of the fog like macabre fingers clinging to the riders as they drew closer, closer. The big brass buttons on those soldier coats … when she recognized the wide, pale stripe down the leg of those next two horsemen coming toward her. The same stripes ran down the outside of the britches worn by the next pair. Riding two-by-two-by-two.

  The dull sheen of a double row of buttons, the faint metallic sheen of the rifles they clutched, the muted squeak of those hooded stirrups, the gleam of their brass spurs—

  Praise God!

  She hurtled back into the brush, scrambling like a mother fox out to protect her young from a voracious weasel come to raid their den.

  “Children!” she whispered sharply as she parted the branches and pulled them against her breast. “Come! Come!”

  Her daughter whimpered, “Th-the Indians?”

  “Soldiers!”

  A pair of horsemen were almost on top of the three of them by the time Isabella crabbed her way back out of the brush on all fours and suddenly stood in the middle of the narrow trail. Those next men in the column suddenly yanked back on their reins, horses grunting with the clatter of bit-chains, the soldiers throwing up their arms to halt those behind.

  “A woman!” one of the riders shouted. “It’s a god-blamed white woman!”

  Chapter 33

  June 17, 1877

  Captain David Perry could hardly believe it himself when word came back from Theller’s skirmishers, thrown out to advance down the canyon behind his Nez Perce trackers, of what they had stumbled across on the trail.

  Not so much what, as who: a white woman and her children—the tinier one encircled in her arms, the other welded to the woman’s side. Survivors of terrible depredations, refugees from the unspeakable destruction the savages had committed up and down the Salmon River somewhere below.

  Perry loped forward as the column of twos parted for him, two thin slivers of blue peeling aside as the damp mist took on a whitish glow here while the sky was swelling with predawn light. The long, sleepless night had been cold and damp as the men huddled, garbed in their heavy wool greatcoats. Close to 4:00 A.M., as the first gray streaks peeled off the horizon to the east, the captain had ordered the column to mount up and resume their march, starting their descent into the canyon. They had been following an old wagon road down through the steep and narrow gorge for several miles along the winding gut of a dry creek bed, occasionally forced to knife their way through and around the thick, damp underbrush that eventually soaked their legs.

  The captain had been thinking just how good a hot cup of coffee would feel in his belly when one of Theller’s men came racing back with news that they had stumbled across the civilian and her children.

  Perry stopped before her on the trail, struck with how the woman and her two daughters all had hair so blond it was almost white. “Ma’am?”

  “I-I’m Isabella Benedict. Wife of Samuel—”

  “A trader at the mouth of White Bird Creek, Colonel,” explained Ad Chapman.

  “You escaped from the enemy village, ma’am?” Perry asked, his heart tugged as she stepped closer to his mount.

  So poorly dressed were they: all three muddied, bloodied, scratched, and worn—days of terror etching their sunken eyes with blackened rings of both fatigue and the horror of what they had been forced to witness.

  “Please help me,” she pleaded. “We been running from the Indians, hiding in the timber since Thursday.”

  “Good Lord,” whispered Captain Joel Trimble.

  “I thank my Lord for our deliverance,” Mrs. Benedict said as she raised a grimy hand to Perry, imploring.

  It was easy to see how her children were shivering in their damp and inadequate clothing. Their lips blue with cold—it was clear all three had been suffering from the elements over the past three nights.

  The captain turned to his bugler. “Trumpeter Jones, bring up a blanket from our company supplies.”

  The moment Perry turned back to look at her again, the woman begged, “Please take me to Mount Idaho with you, sir.”

  “Mrs. Benedict, we are on our way to attack the camp of those hostiles who have caused all the trouble for you,” the captain started to explain. “I cannot take you back to Mount Ida—”

  “Just a few of your men to see us back safely,” she interrupted, glancing quickly down the canyon, “for the savages are all over these mountains.”

  “I truly regret that I can’t afford to dispatch any of my men to accompany you,” he replied, touched by her plight.

  Wagging her head, the woman warned, “None of you should go down there, sir. That’s a camp of hellions. My husband knew ’em for what they are: the devil’s own whelps. And they’re just waiting for you to set your foot down in their trap so they can spill the blood of all your men; then they’ll dance over your bodies this very night!”

  Perry stared at her a moment, sensing the hush swell around him as Mrs. Benedict’s words struck these soldiers he was leading into battle. With confidence he said, “Ma’am, this is a force of trained cavalry going into action against a ragtag band of warriors who have never fought against the U.S. Army. It’s utterly scurrilous for you to tell my men they will be killed in the coming fight—”

  “You’re all gonna die!” she wailed witchily. “And there’ll be no one left to get us to my friends at Mount Idaho!” She took her arm from the shoulder of her child and pointed down the canyon. “A massacre is what waits for you in the jaws of the White Bird, sir. You go in there, ain’t none of your soldiers coming out!”

  The captain didn’t like such talk. Not that Perry was superstitious, but this woman’s wild claims could do nothing but undermine the readiness of his men as they advanced for the dawn attack. Take some of the edge off their fighting ardor. He glanced at the skyline over his shoulder. Up there, the grasses on the ridgeline were glowing with the fires of sunrise. The light was coming and he had to get his men into position around the village before he could spring his attack.

  Perry looked into the woman’s ravaged face, her pale skin all the more milky from her deprivation and struggles on behalf of her children. He must do something—

  “Mrs. Benedict, I can instruct one of my trackers to return on our backtrail and see you through to Mount Idaho.”

  “Trackers?”

  “One of the Treaty Nez Perce who came along to guide us to the enemy village,” he explained. “A friendly Nez Perce—”

  “An Indian?” she shrieked. “That’s what you’ll give me to get us back across the Camas? An Indian?”

  “Yes, ma’am. He’ll know the way—”

  “No!” she cried, shaking her head violently as she took two steps back from Perry, dragging her young daughter against her hip. “No Indian!”

  It was plain to see the very idea of being escorted with one of the trackers repulsed her. No matter that he knew the man was one of Jonah’s Treaty band, Mrs. Benedi
ct had likely suffered unspeakable outrages at the hands of the raiders and could not be made to look rationally at her situation for the moment.

  “All right,” he said in a soothing voice. “It’s the best I can offer you, because I will not send any of my soldiers with you.”

  “I beg you, sir,” she said, taking one step closer, her dark-ringed eyes imploring him. “My children haven’t had a bite to eat in three days—”

  “We’ve marched from Lapwai on limited rations,” he apologized, immediately sensing a twinge of guilt for his sudden shortness with her.

  “Th-then we’ll stay here … me and my children,” she said, grim resignation clouding her face as she inched back from his horse. “You ain’t got no food for us, we’ll just have to wait right here for any of your men who will survive what is going to happen when you reach the valley down there. If … if any of you return from what waits for you at the bottom.”

  “If that is your wish, Mrs. Benedict.” Perry straightened in the saddle as Trumpeter John M. Jones came forward to give the woman an extra blanket from H Company’s stores, then turned his horse back to rejoin the head of the column.

  He did not like the nature of what rugged terrain lay below them. The rounded tops of a few hills poked their heads through the rumpled, ragged quilt of ground mist. He did not like what he saw below at all. Perry called to the dark-eyed civilian, “Mr. Chapman.”

  “Colonel.” Ad Chapman urged his horse over to Perry’s.

  “Take some of these trackers with you and scout ahead for signs of the camp.”

  The civilian reined away without another word, signaling to four of the Nez Perce to join him. They disappeared down the canyon. Once the five were out of sight, Perry turned to look over his shoulder and called out, “Mr. Theller?”

  The lieutenant nudged his horse out of formation and came to a halt before Perry, saluting. “My compliments, sir.”

  “Pass the word back to the companies, Lieutenant: this is where I want the men to strip off their overcoats and load their carbines. Then I want you to select eight men from your troop. I’m detailing you to lead a squad to serve as the advance guard from here on out.”

  “What of those trackers you just sent off with that civilian?” Theller asked.

  Perry considered them a moment, become wary because of the closeness of the enemy camp, mindful of possible treachery … or, perhaps, grown cautious because of this woman’s wild claims that a massacre awaited them in the valley below.

  “I prefer you to lead our advance, Mr. Theller,” Perry explained. “We don’t need the help of civilians or these trackers from here on out. We should find the village on our own in the valley.”

  “Very good, sir.”

  It took only a matter of moments for the lieutenant to return to the front of the march with his chosen eight. Perry recognized “Jonesy,” his bugler, who rode right behind Theller. As he approached, the private pushed his brass trumpet back behind his shoulder and reached down to unbuckle the straps to his saddlebag. As Jones reached the woman and her daughters, he pulled some of his rations from the saddle pocket and held the bread down for the woman.

  “We’ll be back for you soon, ma’am,” Jones promised. “Just soon’s we’re done with the dirty work and we got this camp of heathens on the run back for the reservation.”

  “Bless you, sir,” she said, her red-rimmed eyes filling with gratitude as the bugler rode past. “Thank God for your kindness.”

  Theller’s men pushed around the knot formed by the rest of the trackers and civilians left on the trail ahead of the column. Perry turned at the sound of the rustle of the brush and found Mrs. Benedict shuffling her children back into hiding. She disappeared among the shadowy willows.

  He shifted around in the saddle and stared at the backs of Theller’s men as they descended the slope. Dawn was all but upon them. The moment of attack was almost at hand.

  “Mr. Parnell!” he called as Theller’s detail disappeared one hundred yards ahead. “Column of fours, Lieutenant! Lead them out at a walk!”

  Into the valley rode the one hundred.

  * * *

  His name was Heinmot Hihhih, meaning “White Thunder.”

  But history would remember him as He-mene Moxmox, or Yellow Wolf, although that was not his chosen name.

  Yellow Wolf’s mother and Joseph were first cousins. Yellow Wolf had seen twenty-one winters already, so he was no youngster. For the past few summers he had hunted with his friends in the buffalo country beyond the mountains, and he was already an accomplished horseman.

  But this would be something he had never done before. This morning Yellow Wolf would be pitting himself against these sua-pies, these Boston Man soldiers. None of these Nee-Me-Poo had ever fought against the white men the way the Lakota and Cheyenne had struggled against the soldiers for untold summers.

  Now he burst from his lodge, just as he had done that night the gun fired and a bullet ripped through Joseph’s lodge at Tepahlewam. Over his head he pulled the narrow cord from which dangled his whistle made from the wingbone of a sandhill crane. Blowing on it as he rode into battle would summon his wyakin, his own personal helper, a warrior’s guardian spirit. With his bow and quiver of arrows in hand, Yellow Wolf was ready to fight at No Feet’s first cry of alarm: that caw of the raven—warning of soldiers coming.

  “O-o-oh! O-o-o-o-o-oh! Sua-pies!”

  All around the lame one, other Wallowa emerged from their lodges and willow-and-blanket bowers to hear the astonishing news. Then Toohoolhoolzote appeared, shouting encouragement. And White Bird too. Summoning their warriors.

  Over his shoulder Yellow Wolf heard the familiar voices. Turning, he found Ollokot assembling the Wallowa men for action and leading them toward the center of the main camp. With No Feet’s first alarm, the young war chief had rushed to the lodge of the aged Black Foot, who owned a great number of both cattle and horses. Many summers ago the old one had traded for the white man’s far-seeing glasses when he discovered how they helped him locate his wandering strays in the pockets and ravines, on the rumpled hillsides that had been the rugged homeland of Joseph’s people.

  As the fighting men from all the bands gathered, Joseph himself came up to stand beside his young brother, distress creasing his face with deep lines of worry. Quickly the chiefs and subchiefs huddled together at the center of the lodges while all around them groggy, fog-headed men stumbled out of camp to catch up their buffalo horses. Nearing the herds, the warriors found the stallions fighting, the mares squealing. Here in the heart of the breeding season many of the animals were hard to manage as they were dragged back to the noisy camp where the women were shrieking and children beginning to whimper with the first twinges of uncertainty and fear.

  “Perhaps we can get across the Salmon before they reach us!” one of the little chiefs suggested.

  “Yes,” another little chief agreed. “In the maze of hills and ravines on the far side, the soldiers will never find us, never threaten our camp. But here at Lahmotta … we might lose our women and children—”

  “You are old women!” Toohoolhoolzote snarled an angry interruption. “This is war.”

  “Perhaps it does not have to be,” Joseph pleaded.

  The other chiefs stared at him incredulously. Yellow Wolf could not understand why his chief could be so wrong: could there be any doubt that with the soldiers coming to attack it meant war?

  White Bird spoke next. “Joseph could be right,” he asserted in that stunned silence. “Perhaps these soldiers have only come for the murderers.”

  “We will never turn a single man over to them!” Toohoolhoolzote roared. “Kill all the soldiers!”

  “No,” White Bird counseled. “If they have come only for those who have murdered or stolen from the whites, then we will know soon enough.”

  “We must fight no matter what!” Toohoolhoolzote bellowed frantically, recognizing how the other chiefs were being swayed to White Bird’s persuasion.

 
“There doesn’t have to be a fight,” Joseph said. “We should choose some men to go out to talk with these soldiers who are coming. Go meet them some distance from our camp so our women and children are safe. Let’s see what these soldiers want from us. Perhaps we can make a peace with them after all the troubles with the settlers.”

  White Bird turned to Toohoolhoolzote. “But while our chiefs talk to the soldiers we must prepare to defend our village if the white men came to make war on us.”

  It was agreed and five peace emissaries were chosen to set forth with Wettiwetti Houlis, the one known as Vicious Weasel. While they mounted up and set off, a white cloth fluttering on a long staff before them, the chiefs ordered the rest of the men to bring their war ponies into camp—indeed, to drive in all the horses so they would be at hand when the women needed them, should they have to flee the soldiers on their way into the valley.

  But all around him Yellow Wolf could see how few people there were to hear the chiefs’ commands. Too many still slept the too-deep slumber that comes quickly after drinking so much of the white man’s whiskey. How they had danced and sang and filled their cups from the keg again and again last night! So now fewer than half the camp were stirring to the alarm!

  Those prepared to take up arms were fewer than half of the warriors in the village—much, much less than they would need to defend their families if the Shadows came not to talk, but to attack.

  Turning quickly, Yellow Wolf counted on his fingers. Including those emissaries who were departing to talk with the soldiers, there were no more than seven-times-ten ready to ride against the certainty that the white man had sent far more soldiers than that to attack this camp!

  Once again the Nee-Me-Poo were outnumbered.

  All through the village older men scampered about, lashing the young men with their quirts, pummeling them with short, sinew-backed bows, trying to awaken the many still suffering the powerful whiskey sleep. Shouting, slapping, striking—the old men moved among the bodies curled here and there where the younger ones had fallen in their revels. Not one more awoke to join those who would protect the camp behind Ollokot and Two Moons.