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

  “They wanna stampede your horses, boyos!” he warned them—knowing that if the Nez Perce got his men running in retreat, they wouldn’t stop, and Perry’s outfit couldn’t help them. No—if these survivors of that fight down in the belly of the White Bird didn’t hold here, then they would be running all the way to that narrow cleft in the Camas Prairie where these soldiers would be slaughtered like fish in a rain barrel.

  “Hold that left flank and don’t let ’em roll you up!”

  These were good men, surely the steadiest of the lot. Even more grit to them than those twelve hanging with Perry. Time and again that Sunday morning, Parnell’s dozen held the end of their line against overwhelming odds. Against a fifth charge they threw back their attackers. Then Parnell gave the command for an orderly retreat once more.

  “Load your carbines and move out at a walk!” he bellowed, knowing they really needed no reminding by now.

  Good soldiers, these. Covering the rear, and closing the file for lesser men. Goddamn, but he was proud to lead them!

  Minutes later Parnell’s men entered a marshy area at the edge of the prairie where the grass and reeds grew as tall as a man’s shoulders—

  Lord, if he didn’t spy a head bobbing along through the waving stalks! Some lone soldier caught out there between his right flank and the Nez Perce horsemen who were dogging his squad’s every step, waiting for an opportunity to pick off any stragglers, constantly harassing, forcing Parnell to turn around repeatedly and prepare to fire by volley before the warriors would immediately back off.

  “Corporal!” he shouted to the closest soldier. “Take three men and move to the right! There’s some lone bugger about to be cut off!”

  The corporal saluted and dragged away three of his men, loping to the rear and the right, slogging their way over the soggy ground, piercing the tall grass and reeds, shouting every step of the way for the lone soldier to stop.

  “Halt!” Parnell ordered the moment he spotted the Nez Perce preparing to make a charge on that solitary soldier and his rescue party. “Right oblique! By fours—and prepare to fire on my command!”

  They came around smartly. All eight of them … only eight. But the way they brought up those carbines and held them at the ready … the Nez Perce weren’t about to trifle with this bunch of hardcases any more that morning.

  The rescue party lunged back out of the soggy marsh, emerging from the waving reeds with that soldier clutching the corporal’s stirrup. Soaked to his armpits, caked with mud to his groin, the man lumbered to a halt at Parnell’s knee. He saluted the lieutenant breathlessly.

  “Hartman?” Parnell asked.

  “Yessir. Private Aman Hartman, Lieutenant.”

  “Welcome back to H Company, son.”

  “N-never thort I’d get outta that swamp alive,” the private admitted. “They was coming for me p-pretty hard, sir.”

  “Weren’t you with Sergeant McCarthy at the rocks?”

  “Sure was, sir. But I lost my horse below and everybody run off on me,” Hartman gasped, still somewhat breathless. “Me an’ ’nother was the only ones got out with the sarge. After I lost my mount, I come out on my own, sir.”

  “No others with you?”

  Hartman shook his head. “No, sir. Dunno what happened to the sergeant. I figger he didn’t make it out, since I never see’d him with them others what left me behind. When I lost my horse, the whole bunch of ’em got far ahead of me. But I kept a’coming.”

  “By damn if you didn’t, Private.”

  “I been hearing your guns for some time,” Hartman declared. “I was sore afraid—I stayed away from the gunfire till I see’d you soldiers. Then I come running through the bog. But them Injuns see’d me too.”

  “Stick with our line, Private,” Parnell ordered. “We’re on our way out of here.”

  “You can ride behind me,” one of the corporal’s rescue party offered, helping Hartman up behind him as Parnell started the bunch moving once more.

  “Left by fours! In a walk: keep it slow!”

  He wondered what time it was and gazed at the gloomy, cloudy sky. It felt as if they had been retreating for a week, crawling to the rear a hundred yards or so, then halting to form on a skirmish line. Sometimes they had to fire. But most times the Nez Perce stayed back once his men merely halted and prepared to unleash another volley.

  They ground through the last of that retreat a quarter-mile by a quarter-mile, following the rear of Perry’s squad across the prairie. It seemed the hours dragged by endlessly as he whipped his exhausted horse from flank to flank along their route of march, making sure his outriders kept a sharp eye peeled for any ambush the warriors might attempt.

  Of a sudden, he noticed that for no apparent reason Perry’s men had stopped ahead in full view, milling and jumping about.

  Apprehension immediately flooded through him with a cold pain. Parnell shouted to his men, ordering them to pick up the pace, waving both sides of his skirmish line forward on the double so the flanks would not be left behind his center. Fear gripped his throat as if it were a muscular hand, scared that the Nez Perce had somehow swept around on one flank or another and gotten ahead of Perry’s detachment to spring a trap on the colonel.

  But when Parnell turned in the saddle, he found the warriors still behind them, coming on with deliberate speed. But … perhaps there was another jaw to the trap, these who remained behind and those who had closed the ambush in their front—

  Then he heard cheering and laughter, realizing some of Perry’s outfit were calling out to his soldiers as Parnell’s skirmish line approached. Of a sudden, he saw that there among the blue-clad soldiers were more than twenty civilians.

  “They’re from Mount Idaho!” Perry was gushing when he reined his horse back to greet Parnell.

  The lieutenant’s heart sang as he twisted around, peering at their backtrail, finding that their pursuers were halting, turning away, disappearing at long last.

  Giving up the chase after more than three hours. It was shortly before 9:00 A.M., and these soldiers had been gone from the settlements no more than twelve hours.

  By now his men were dropping from their saddles, hopping around together like old school chums, pounding one another on the back and shouting fervent, heartfelt greetings to these civilian strangers not one of them knew. But they were friends this day!

  By damn—every last one of these citizens come riding out from Mount Idaho were all good friends this terrifying, bloody day!

  * * *

  What a day it had been!

  Yellow Wolf rejoiced with the others as they rode over the battlefield, yelping like coyote pups, searching for any of the enemy wounded who could not make it out of the creek bottom, looking for any firearms the Shadows had abandoned in their precipitous flight.

  But they did not scalp the sua-pies, did not mutilate or strip the clothing from these soldiers. Those might be the custom of other tribes over east in buffalo country. But such was not a practice of the Nee-Me-Poo.

  By late morning, the captured weapons had been brought to the village: something on the order of sixty-three carbines and perhaps half that many pistols. Along with the cartridge belts they had torn off the dead soldiers—these warriors were ready if the army should want any more fighting!

  Considering how many soldiers had marched against them that morning, Yellow Wolf was amazed there were not more casualties among his people. Bow and Arrow Case had been wounded in the side during the early stages of the soldier retreat. Land Above had received a painful bullet wound in the stomach, but he was nonetheless expected to live. And all that had happened to Four Blankets was a minor cut on his wrist when he fell from his horse among some rocks as they pursued the fleeing soldiers. The fourth man1 suffered only a broken bone from a bullet that pierced his leg.

  Not one Nee-Me-Poo warrior had been killed!

  Now the chiefs had the fate of three prisoners to deliberate. Robinson Minthon and Joe Albert—whose real name was Elaskolatat�
�were both agency Indians who had taken Christian names. The third, Yuwishakaikt, was a member of old Lawyer’s Treaty band too, but he had never been baptized with water and given a white man name. It was he who explained to their captors that the three had come along with the soldiers solely to assure that the women and children were not harmed in the attack.

  Frightened for his life, Yuwishakaikt did his best to convince the angry Non-Treaty warriors that he had been left back with the soldier horse-holders rather than engaging in the battle himself. And when the Shadows began their retreat, he had hurried along with them until his pony gave out and he was forced to continue on foot. That’s when the warriors caught up to him.

  Much the same thing had happened to both Albert and Minthon during the frantic retreat of the terrified soldiers.

  When the three were bound with rope and brought to the center of camp, Albert’s father stepped forward. When the tensions with the soldiers had increased, the old man had chosen to remain among the Non-Treaty bands, the victors in this day’s fight. Although the young man had come with the soldiers to attack the village, he spoke up for his son. And Yuwishakaikt had an uncle among the old warriors in the camp who spoke on behalf of his relation too.

  Although Sun Necklace and the “Red Coats” wanted to kill these Treaty men and be done with it, most of the others felt that the decision should be left to the chiefs.

  “This is not so easy a matter to decide,” Yellow Wolf told his companions early that afternoon. “For Nee-Me-Poo to decide to kill Nee-Me-Poo is a bad thing. The Shadows kill their own kind all the time. But do we want to stoop so far that we become just as evil as they: That we could kill our own kind? To murder our own people simply because they have been led astray by the white man and his religion?”

  Yellow Wolf decided it was important that he stand among those who would guard this trio of Treaty prisoners until morning … when the chiefs would decide their fate.

  Chapter 45

  June 17, 1877

  David Perry didn’t quite know what to say to Captain Joel Graham Trimble when they finally reunited, face-to-face at last, in the tiny settlement of Grangeville after their disastrous fight on White Bird Creek. It was nearing ten o’clock in the morning when Perry and Parnell dismounted in front of Grange Hall with their two dozen men.

  “Colonel Perry!”

  The captain turned at the cheery call, stunned to find Trimble striding up as if nothing untoward had occurred during their retreat. Perry struggled to subdue his immediate impulse to seize Trimble by the throat and throttle the man within an inch of his life for abandoning the battlefield and the rest of the command.

  “C-captain Trimble,” he steadied his voice, one eye quivering. “You’ve been here for some time, I take it?”

  “Yes, Colonel.”

  “I quite imagined you had.” Perry fought to keep an even tone to the words he so carefully chose. “I spotted you and your men ahead of us, at the top of the ridge. I waved, attempting to call you back to assist us. I saw you and your men signal back to me … then turn and continue on your way—”

  “N-no, I—I didn’t see you at all, Colonel,” Trimble asserted.

  Perry could see the lie of it in Trimble’s eyes. “A little later, you couldn’t help but see Lieutenant Parnell and me at the ravine on the divide—”

  “Sir, I said I didn’t see you,” Trimble defended himself bravely, although his voice had taken on the air of a plea. “I would have come to your aid if I had. You must believe that, Colonel.”

  By then Perry had become aware of the number of men—officers, noncoms, and line soldiers—who had inched closer to listen in on their disagreement.

  Clearing his throat, eyes narrowing, Perry grappled to keep a rein on his anger. “How many men did you bring with you in your retreat, Captain?”

  Trimble wiped the back of his hand across his mouth. “I don’t have a firm count, sir. I reached this settlement with some men from both companies.”

  Peering over Trimble’s shoulder at those standing nearby, Perry asked, “Where is Theller? Perhaps he will know how many men we have—”

  “Why … Lieutenant Theller hasn’t shown up, Colonel,” Trimble admitted, his brow furrowed with worry. “I thought he c-came out with you.”

  Perry turned immediately, gazing at their backtrail—somehow hoping against all logic that he would see Theller and more of the battalion coming up the rutted wagon road that would bring them into Grangeville. The welcome around him had been raucous, swollen with rejoicing, but now the air fell silent—only the pawing of weary horses, the scraping of cavalry boots on the ground. Perry ground his teeth together as he turned back to Trimble.

  Don’t ask him for an explanation here, the captain brooded as he gazed steadily at Trimble. There’s time enough for that later, when you don’t have a war to fight and citizens to protect. Time enough to bring him up on charges of desertion in the face of enemy fire.

  “Who’s in charge of these civilians?” Perry asked.

  “A man named Crooks,” Trimble answered. “Owns the biggest place, close by.”

  “Crooks?”

  “That’s me.” An older man stepped up, presenting his hand.

  Perry shook as Crooks introduced his two grown sons, both standing at their father’s shoulders. “How many riflemen can you muster, Mr. Crooks?”

  The rancher spat out a stream of tobacco, then answered, “Twenty-five at the most. Lot more folks made it in to Mount Idaho.”

  “How many you figure are there?” Perry asked.

  With a shrug, Crooks replied, “Don’t rightly know, son. But I wouldn’t doubt that Brown’s got him more’n twice as many as what come in here.”

  “That’s where I’m going,” Perry announced, his decision made.

  “Sir?” Parnell said as he stepped up. “You want me to form up the men to march on to Mount Idaho?”

  For a moment the captain peered over the weary two dozen who had fallen out and were either already sleeping for the first time in more than two long days and nights or kindling some fires to heat coffee and rations. Their exhausted horses were cropping a nearby patch of grass.

  “No, Lieutenant Parnell. You and Captain Trimble will stay here while I go on to Mount Idaho. Post some pickets on a perimeter to warn you of the approach of the hostiles. And keep your eyes peeled for any sign of Theller and his men.”

  “He’s dead, sir,” Parnell announced gravely.

  That stung Perry, made him speechless for a moment. Then, clinging to a spider’s thread of hope, he said, “Perhaps. But we don’t know for sure.”

  “Anyone not outta there by now,” Crooks growled, “they ain’t coming out. ’Cept maybe hung over the back of a horse.”

  The captain’s belly went cold with that image. Lord, didn’t he know enough men had been killed that morning, bodies left behind on the battlefield for the Nez Perce to mutilate and scalp in their victorious glee.

  “Mr. Parnell,” he said, turning to the lieutenant, “before I leave, I want you to get me a count. Tally how many of both companies we do have here. How many made it out. I want to know before I see what fortifications they’ve undertaken at Mount Idaho.”

  Crooks stepped up closer and asked, “Are you figgering to drop back to Mount Idaho with your men?”

  “If their defenses are stronger than what you’ve constructed here … then yes. I’ll recommend all of you come with us when we leave.”

  “Me and my boys ain’t leaving, son,” Crooks declared evenly. “This here’s our home and there ain’t no Injuns gonna drive us off. We didn’t ever steal nothing from ’em, so they better not come around here fixing to take anything away from us. Me and my boys ain’t never hurt a one of ’em, but them sassy warriors come high-feathering it onto my place … I’m gonna kill ever’ last one of ’em I can to protect what’s mine.”

  There would be no sense in discussing withdrawal any further with Crooks, the captain decided. “Very well, sir. You’ve
made up your mind.”

  “Made it up a long time ago, son,” Crooks explained paternally. “This here’s my home. We put down roots, my boys and me. We ain’t going nowhere. I cain’t speak for my sons, but as for me … I’ll die before I let them Injuns run me off my land. Even for a day.”

  Perry saw Parnell returning.

  “Colonel, I have your report,” the lieutenant said as he walked up.

  “Go ahead,” Perry instructed.

  “There are thirty-eight, sir.… I count a total of thirty-eight missing.”

  “Th-thirty-eight?” he repeated, just the echo of it punching him hard in the gut.

  “Only two of the men present and accounted for are wounded,” Parnell continued.

  “Only two? Why s-so few?”

  Parnell shook his head. “I don’t know, Colonel. Only thing I can figure is that none of the other wounded made it out of that valley.”

  Turning on Trimble, Perry sensed his anger flaring. As evenly as he could, he told his fellow officer, “Captain, you are in charge while I am gone to Mount Idaho. Prepare camp here until I return with more news so I can write my report and get it off to Howard by messenger.”

  “As you order, Colonel.”

  Then Perry sighed as he turned away and stuffed his left boot into the stirrup. “And by all means, Captain … if the enemy shows up and you’re forced to retreat … don’t abandon any more of these men. And be mindful of your wounded.”

  * * *

  “Y-you’re certain you got the translation right?” Oliver O. Howard demanded of the agency interpreter. John Monteith had hurried over to Fort Lapwai that midafternoon.

  A pair of the reservation scouts who had departed with Captain David Perry on Friday evening, the fifteenth, had just come racing in atop exhausted ponies here on Sunday afternoon. Even though he hadn’t been able to understand their garbled, incoherent Nez Perce tongue while they awaited a translator, General Howard had no trouble comprehending the fear and despair in the tone of their voices, in the furtive look of their dark eyes, in their anxious wringing of hands.