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 top of the soldier’s head was cleaved off in a pulpy mess. His brain was exposed, torn; some of it oozed down the side of the crushed skull. The sight spurred him into the mouth of the canyon.

  As that Sunday afternoon aged and evening came down, Brice struggled up the side of the grassy slope, following the soldiers’ trail, staying with the imprints of all those boots and iron-shod hooves. After a while, he told himself he couldn’t bear to look up at the top of the ridge anymore, since it made his heart faint to see just how long it was taking them. So he vowed to keep his eyes only on the trail just ahead of him. Step by step as twilight fell, when he didn’t have to worry about seeing the faraway top of the prairie above them. It was too dark to see anything that far away.

  Every hundred yards or so, he set Maggie down and they would rest a few minutes. But he did not allow himself to lie down anymore. He knew he would fall asleep and then he would awaken right there in the morning—if the Indians hadn’t found him before sunup. Better to force himself to stay awake. On through the dark, up, up, up … until he realized his legs were no longer climbing. Now he was carrying little Maggie over ground more level than the ordeal of the last few hours.

  The quarter-moon had risen late that night of the seventeenth, so late that Patrick wondered if it wasn’t long past midnight when he realized a part of the starry sky ahead was blotted out by a black shape. Large, angular, squat against the horizon where the rest of the skyline was bright with a jumble of stars.

  He wanted to hope. Even more, he wanted to tell Maggie. But more than anything he wanted to shout for joy, because that had to be a house. Black as it was, with nary a candle or a lamp lit in the window—by damn, it just had to be a house!

  Stumbling into the yard, Brice recognized these buildings that stood near the head of Rocky Canyon. “It’s the Harris place, Maggie dear,” he gasped with relief.

  “We saved now?”

  He dropped wearily to one knee, and she slipped off his back. “Not yet. Soon. C’mon with me.”

  Patrick took the tiny hand in his and led her up to the house. Every door, every window, had been smashed. Plain as paint the warriors had been here to loot it of all worth carrying off. Cold as they were, with the way the wind had come up after dark, the place was welcome shelter from the ravages of the night. Chances were, he convinced himself, the warriors had already been here. Likely wouldn’t return.

  “We stay here, Mr. Brice?”

  “Just the place for us tonight,” he answered.

  After settling her on one of the small tick mattresses the Indians hadn’t slashed too badly, Patrick searched in the dark for a candle or a lamp. He finally located a candle, and with it spreading a warm, flickering light he continued his search. Behind a pantry sideboard he located some foodstuffs the Nez Perce had ignored. A few loaves of bread and a small slab of bacon, along with some tea and a little sugar. It made for a right fine supper after he got a fire started and Maggie huddled up close to its warmth.

  While water for the tea was heating and he had strips of the bacon sizzling on a cast-iron griddle over the flames, Brice took his candle on another search. When he came back to the fireplace he had an old dry-goods crate in one hand and some leather harness draped over his shoulder. After feeding himself and the girl, the Irishman knocked off one of the crate’s four sides, then rigged the straps around this makeshift “chair” so that he could carry it on his back like a pack-basket, with little Maggie perched inside.

  “Look what I made for you,” he said proudly as he turned it around to show the child, discovering that she had fallen asleep there beside the fire, her plate emptied, half of her warm tea gone.

  Brice covered Maggie with a torn section of burlap sacking, since the Indians hadn’t left a blanket in the place; then he banked the fire and curled up beside her.

  By the time he awoke gritty-eyed and cotton-mouthed, Brice found the fire had burned itself out and the sky outside was renewing itself for another day.

  “Come along now, Maggie,” he coaxed her gently after she had herself some breakfast and returned from the outhouse at the side of the yard. “Time for us to hit the trail again.”

  “We gonna get to town today?”

  “Yes, Maggie dear. We’ll be there before another night.”

  When he knelt, he had her sit down inside the crate, holding onto the two sides where her head and shoulders protruded from their tops; then he stood, clutching the harness straps over his shoulders.

  Brice felt renewed, just like this day. What a wonder a little food and some sleep had done him. He felt as if he could walk with her strapped to him all day if he had to, which is just what they did. Mile after mile, they plodded around the edge of the hills, skirting the prairie and staying high enough on the timbered slopes, avoiding the road to the settlements for fear of the Indians. Stopping only for rest and water and to let Maggie slip off for some privacy in the bushes.

  But he grew concerned as the sun quickly slipped off behind them that afternoon and the light began to fade. A little scared they would have to spend another night out in the cold after he had promised her—

  Brice smelled woodsmoke. He stopped dead in his tracks, realizing it could be anyone’s fire, even a war party’s. Did he have the heart to beg for Maggie’s life again and not beg for his own?

  The closer he got, the stronger became that sweet fragrance in his nostrils. Then he heard voices … and a familiar song bursting from some man’s melodious throat, a heartfelt melody sung with such fondness and warmth that Patrick knew this had to be a place farthest from the Nez Perce War there ever could be.

  Out of the twilight he thought he recognized some of the storefronts, then made out the barricade of logs, rocks, and hundredweight flour sacks down at the end of the town’s long street.

  “Who goes there?” a voice demanded out of the inky dark.

  “P-Patrick … Patrick Brice!” he cried, tears pooling in his eyes, starting to stream down his dirty cheeks.

  “By God … he says he’s Patrick Brice!” The voice was flung at others noisily shuffling up to the barricades.

  “Who was that, Mr. Brice?” Maggie asked in her tiny voice near his ear.

  “I don’t know his name.” He choked on a sob as a half-dozen men pushed through the wall of wagons and barrels erected across Mount Idaho’s narrow street and continued toward the barricade lit with flickering lamps. “All I know for sure is that we’re back among friends, Maggie dear. We’re back among friends.”

  Chapter 48

  June 19, 1877

  BY TELEGRAPH

  An Indian War.

  WASHINGTON, June 19.—General Sherman has received from General McDowell at San Francisco, the following dispatch from General Howard at Fort Lapwai, Washington territory, of the 16th instant: The Indians began by murdering a white man in revenge for a murder of his, killing three others at the same time. They have begun a war upon the people near Mount Idaho. Captain Perry has started with two companies for them. Other troops are being brought forward as fast as possible. Give me authority for twenty-five Indian scouts. Think we shall make short work of it.

  Signed, HOWARD.

  General McDowell adds: I had already informed Howard of your direction that the division has all the Indian scouts that can be allowed.

  These rubber miner’s boots flopped and flapped with every step as he trudged over the broken, brushy country, but First Sergeant Michael McCarthy was grateful to God that he had found them when he did.

  When they had set out from Fort Lapwai, the soles of his cavalry boots were already scraped thin as parchment, hardly worth riding in, much less when he had been forced to go afoot like an infantry doughboy the way he was. After lying so long in that stream, the stitching had come apart, and he left the all-but-useless boots behind to continue his escape. Mile after painful, tender-footed mile, the first sergeant had trudged up the canyon and over to Camas Prairie in nothing more than a pair of grimy stockings that eventu
ally became nothing more than tatters flopping around his ankles.

  Then he had stumbled across an abandoned cache of supplies, which included these rubber boots. No weapons, no bullets, and no food … but damn if these boots weren’t just about the sweetest discovery he had ever made!

  His journey to the settlements had taken McCarthy a lot longer than he had planned for the simple reason that he got himself lost more than once. By avoiding the wagon road and staying far off that trail left by Perry’s retreating survivors, McCarthy hoped to avoid any unexpected encounters with Nez Perce war parties. Three times he had gotten himself turned about and covered a lot of miles headed in the wrong direction.

  Then he would notice something about the sun and the path it was taking—rising of a morning or sinking of an afternoon—realizing that he had eaten up valuable time and strength pushing away from the settlements instead of pressing on for the bivouac Colonel Perry was sure to make once the Indians let off the pressure on their rear guard.

  And now with the bright sun rising this Tuesday, the nineteenth of June, McCarthy trudged on in his noisy boots, skirting along the timbered hillsides, his eyes scanning the vast, rolling sweep that was the Camas Prairie. That’s when he spotted the few small buildings on the horizon.

  It ended up taking him more than two hours to reach the place, what with those clumsy boots and the weary state of his legs. He hadn’t much strength left to go on—nothing more than water for better than a day now—but still figured he was bound to reach the settlements before he dropped from hunger. At the edge of the tree line he stopped, licking his lips unconsciously as he looked the place over, wondering if he should take a chance since the ranch seemed deserted.

  Just as he was emerging from the timber, the sergeant spotted two horsemen loping toward the place from beyond the ranch. He ducked back into the shadows and watched until he recognized them for white men.

  His throat was hoarse with disuse when he called out to them, lunging their way in those ungainly rubber boots, bursting from the timber as the two horsemen reined up in the yard. Instantly they both pointed their weapons at him. McCarthy started to laugh. Crazy, gut-busting, tear-rolling laughter.

  “I ain’t no god-blasted Injun!” he roared at them, sensing the relief wash over him like a warm flood as he lumbered toward the house where the two had stopped.

  “By Christ!” one of the pair exclaimed. “It is a soldier.”

  “Y-you seen any more soldiers?” McCarthy asked as he lunged to a halt and squinted up at the two astonished horsemen.

  Nodding, the second man said, “Yep—them what made it out of the fight.”

  Then the first man explained, “They’re hunkered down over at Grangeville.”

  “C-can you get me there?” McCarthy begged, dragging the back of his muddy hand across his mouth.

  “Sure, we can get you there,” the second man declared. “Doubt the Injuns left a horse here, though—so you’re gonna have to ride double with us.”

  “C’mon,” the first civilian instructed, offering his hand and an empty stirrup. “You start the ride up here with me.”

  McCarthy stepped around the rear of the settler’s big horse, reaching the back of the saddle, where he peered at the saddle pocket the instant the thought struck him just behind his belt buckle. “B-by the way, mister … you got any rations in there? Anything to eat?”

  Then the pair dug out a half-loaf of bread and a handful of dried bacon, watching in amazement how the sergeant wolfed it all down greedily in less time than it took to drag those vittles out of their saddlebags.

  “You ain’t got no more, do you?” he begged, swiping the back of his hand across the lower half of his hairy face.

  The first man shrugged. “You just ate all we brung out for the whole damned day, soldier.”

  McCarthy grinned lopsidedly and held up his hand, jabbing his foot into the offered stirrup. “All right then. If you ain’t got no more food … I s’pose it’s ’bout time to take me on in to them soldiers at Grangeville.”

  * * *

  This was their country.

  From birth the Nee-Me-Poo knew all the rivers and streams, knew where to ford at what seasons. So it was that the leaders chose to cross to the south side of the Salmon at Horseshoe Bend, where the swollen waters slowed as the river curved around a jutting thumb of land. It was here to the south of White Bird Creek they migrated the day after driving off the army. Then, just after sunrise the next morning, the women began to gather their children, the old ones, and all their possessions on the north bank.

  Since the Non-Treaty bands were able to locate only one of the white man’s canoes, the women and some of the older men had constructed rafts and bullboats for their perilous journey across the river. For much of the previous day they were busy chopping sturdy lengths of green willow, while others laid out their buffalo hides, hair side up, on the grassy bank. They crisscrossed the limber poles over the hides, then drew poles and hide up together to form a bowl-shaped vessel. Two more willow saplings were then lashed completely around the outside of the bullboat to form the lip of the bowl that would hold all the inside supports in place.

  By the time the sun was making its appearance over the heights to the east, the first of these floating bowls were being led into the current by a few of the young men riding the strongest of the war ponies. In addition, two strong swimmers accompanied each boat for its dangerous journey, then were ferried back to the north shore by those on horseback. Inside the vessels the women had placed their lodge covers, kitchen kettles, and the rest of their family possessions. Atop some of the heaping piles of baggage rode the small children in their woven basket hats, even the very old who were too weak to sit astride the horses that would be driven into the river only when everyone else had completed the crossing.

  Man, woman, and child went about their duties, knowing what was now at stake. The chiefs had not elected to escape far to the west for the Imnaha. Nor had they decided to go to the land of Joseph’s Wallowa band. Instead, the chiefs merely wanted to put the river between them and the soldiers they knew would come again, making another try at driving the Nee-Me-Poo onto the reservation where no free man should be forced to live.

  It was decided that when the soldiers came—and everyone knew they would—the bands would simply re-cross the Salmon and make for the Clearwater to the northeast. So all their efforts that morning would serve only as a delaying tactic by these People of the Coyote. From the youngest who could understand to those few ancient ones so frail they had to be carried in another’s arms and laid in the bullboats, every person realized that back there at the Lahmotta camp on White Bird Creek their lives had irrevocably changed for all time to come.

  No more would they be left in peace to wander their long-held homelands in that ages-old circle of the seasons. By the same token, they would not be forced to live as paupers and farmers on the reservation with the Treaty bands. The Nee-Me-Poo were going to have to forge a new life for themselves now—if not in their homeland … then they would seek out a new country.

  “Teeweawea,” Ollokot called out to that trusted older warrior when the last bullboat was on its way across the roiling surface of the Salmon.

  Yellow Wolf joined the many warriors, fighting men both young and old, all of them moving over to listen in on the conversation.

  Laying his hand upon Teeweawea’s shoulder, Ollokot told that veteran of the buffalo country, “I want you to pick from among our men to go with you: choose three-times-ten.”

  “What do you wish us to do? Take the horses and cattle across the river?”

  “No,” Ollokot replied. “The rest of us will do that and protect the camp. Instead, I want you and your party to do something very crucial for our survival—you must stay back and watch for soldiers.”

  The veteran warrior nodded with a grin. “We’ll ride back to Tepahlewam and keep watch for soldiers coming across the Camas Prairie in pursuit of our village.”

  “
Send a runner with any news,” Ollokot suggested. “And we will let your courier know where our camp is moving.”

  Teeweawea turned, regarding the crowd of eager warriors elbowing one another there in the first ranks—mostly young men who no longer lived with their families in lodges, men who slept beneath blanket bowers with other young fighters. Yellow Wolf stared intently at Teeweawea, praying the older man would sense the intensity of his gaze, desperately willing the veteran to choose him for this vital mission.

  Slowly, one by one, the first ten were chosen from those close around Yellow Wolf. Then Teeweawea turned away slightly as he stepped on around the circle, continuing to choose those who would ride with him on this scout. When the veteran passed right by Yellow Wolf, the young warrior’s heart sank to the ground and turned hollow with growing despair. The leader went on to choose three more from the crowd of expectant men.

  Then Teeweawea surprised them all by suddenly wheeling around, a big smile across his face. The instant his eyes landed on the young man, the veteran announced, “Yellow Wolf—you will ride with us too!”

  His heart soared! His blood surged, pounding loudly in his ears! How he wanted to shriek with joy, now that he had truly been accepted as a warrior of his people!

  Before long the thirty followed their leader away from the Salmon. Like Yellow Wolf, most every one of these scouts gazed back over his shoulder at those families and friends who were already across the river, their village slowly moving west into the heights, marching away from the army. As he watched, those men left behind were beginning to drive their great herds1 into the water.

  How it made Yellow Wolf’s breast swell, knowing that he was one of the few who now stood between the Nee-Me-Poo, a free people … and those soldiers who would be coming to snuff out the last vestiges of their liberty.

  These men loping north across the White Bird battleground, climbing into the canyon, and making for the Camas Prairie were prepared to lay down their lives when the Shadows came to avenge their disastrous defeat on this bloody ground. For it would never be a question of if the soldiers would come.