Devil's Backbone: The Modoc War, 1872-3

by Terry C. Johnston

Yet she had never felt so alone, so much a stranger, as she did when she reined up within the heart of the Stronghold itself.

  They inched forward, like coiling snakes, each of those warriors. Behind them the women and old people. Their faces each bore the same unmasked hatred for what they saw as her betrayal of her people.

  Reluctantly she slid from the saddle, refusing to release the rein, as if it were her last remaining link with her husband’s people, with their life together, her only link with life itself at this terrible moment—as first one, then a handful, and finally all of the Modocs closed in about her and began to fling their venomous words at her.

  As suddenly as they had started to defile her, calling Winema the most vile of names, the Modoc men and women fell silent. Then slowly parted.

  Before her stood her uncle by birth. Captain Jack. Chief Kientpoos of the renegade Modocs.

  He strode up to her dramatically, then took his time circling her, appraising her up and down—as if stripping her of all self-respect here before her own people. Then he stopped and spoke.

  “Why did you tell the peace talkers we are going to kill them?”

  She started to choke, sensing the bile at her throat. “It—It is true, Kientpoos? You have murder even in your heart?”

  “What right do you have to judge?” he shouted into her face. “You are no longer Modoc! You have a white heart. No Modoc blood flows in your veins!”

  The words stung, but no more than the horror she felt as the crowd jostled and surged around her, yelling their profane oaths at her.

  “I am Modoc,” she replied quietly, raising her head high. “I tell the peace talkers because I do not want to see the little ones, the old ones, the ones so ill they cannot fight—I do not want to see them killed when the soldiers charge in here. And they will come, Kientpoos.”

  Jack was shaking, his hand trembling terribly with undisguised rage as he raised it to strike her. But as she stood there, not shrinking from the blow, not flinching in the slightest, he stayed his hand.

  “Who told you we plan to kill them? Who!”

  “I know it is true in my heart, Kientpoos. I have eyes—I can see when I come here that your heart has become bad toward the peace talkers. I have ears—I can hear for myself—”

  “No!” shrieked Curly Headed Doctor. “Who told you? One of these warriors—who?”

  Winema looked back and forth between the two men: Jack and the shaman. Here at last she was totally certain. The two of them allied in this terrible act. “My dream spirits tell me you kill them—”

  Jack grabbed the front of her coat angrily, his other arm shoving the shaman back. “No dream spirits come to you—tell you of this! A man—one of these men here—tell you. Who!”

  “I know in my heart—”

  He yanked her about by her coat again. “You tell me, now, or these men kill you, Winema!”

  She watched the rifle and pistol muzzles come up to stare at her with cold eyes. Then she swallowed, certain of her own death coming. And with one swipe of her forearm, bravely knocked Jack’s grip from her coat.

  In a fury that she knew would be her dying moment, Winema flung the rein aside and hurled herself into the crowd, pushing the shocked men and women aside. She reached the low outcrop of black rock that overlooked the main gathering area of the Stronghold, where the war councils were held.

  There on high she stood, turning herself toward them, tearing open her coat. “Here beats the heart of a Modoc. Brave and strong. If you must kill me—then do it now, you yellow-spined cowards!”

  There was a loud rattling of hammers as guns were leveled and men jostled below her. Jack and the shaman surged through the crowd toward the outcropping.

  “Shoot me—Kientpoos—you frightened dog! You are right. No dream spirits told me. Yes—one of your warriors told me of your treachery. He looks upon me with his eyes now.”

  She watched the warriors glance at one another suspiciously.

  “But I will not speak his name. I will never betray him—because my heart is Modoc.”

  “You have a white squaw’s heart!” yelled the Doctor.

  Winema wheeled on him. “I am brave enough to die here—now. You are so brave to kill an unarmed woman! Is your medicine so weak that you cannot face an armed warrior, shaman?”

  “I curse you—”

  “Kill a brave woman if you dare, cowards! But do not kill the four white men who come among you to make peace.”

  One by one the muzzles of those pistols and rifles fell away. Hatred on those faces now replaced by something close to grudging admiration. She turned to her uncle.

  “You, Kientpoos? Will you kill a brave woman?”

  Finally he shook his head. “No—no man will kill you. Not today. Not any day. Your heart is as brave as any warrior’s.” He turned back to the crowd. “Help this woman who is possessed with a strong spirit down from the rock.”

  A half-dozen warriors shoved forward as the crowd surged back, among them her informer. For an instant their eyes met in that noisy throng. Winema read gratitude written in his, there among the mist that moistened his admiration of her courage.

  “Accompany this woman back to her husband in the white soldiers’ camp,” Jack ordered. “Let no one do her harm!”

  “She told them of our plan!” shrieked the shaman.

  Jack whirled, grabbing the front of the Doctor’s shirt in both hands, shaking the older man in rage. “Today this woman did a brave thing. With my own bare hands, I will kill the man who harms Winema. You and your kind are cowards. She is right, shaman. You have made me a coward with you. So understand my words I spit into your face now: like her, I too am not afraid to die. But I will take you with me, Doctor.”

  Jack hurled the shaman back against some of his supporters. “If any of your men lay one hand on my niece—with my dying breath, I will rip your heart out.”

  * * *

  While Frank Riddle’s Modoc wife was gone to the Stronghold, Seamus Donegan watched with growing alarm as two warriors expertly played on Reverend Thomas’s most fervent hopes.

  At the civilians’ evening fire the Irishman listened while the preacher swallowed the Modocs’ professions of a change of heart.

  “We no longer have bad hearts for the white man,” Bogus Charley said, waiting while John Fairchild interpreted.

  “We want to live as God’s children beside our friends—the white man,” added Boston Charley.

  “My sons,” the reverend said, glowing in pride. He clamped hands on the warriors’ shoulders. “God has truly performed a miracle among the Modocs. I must tell General Canby and Mr. Meacham of this immediately. We cannot betray this work of the Lord by carrying weapons into that meeting.”

  Seamus sloshed his coffee across the ground as he set his cup on a fallen log, heading to cut off the Methodist minister.

  He put out a big hand and slowed Thomas to a crawl. “You surely aren’t buying all that cock and bull, are you, Reverend?”

  Thomas stopped, his face twisting. “How dare you speak to me of the Lord’s business in that blasphemous tone, Irishman!”

  Seamus felt the sting of the last word, spoken as if it were some profane oath of the devil himself. “They’re lying to you.”

  “Unhand me, heathen.”

  Donegan took his hand off the man. “I’m no h’athen. Me mither always taught me to respect men of God. But you’re something else, Thomas. You’re a ruddy fool.”

  Thomas shoved an arm before him, pushing past Donegan. “Get thee behind me, Satan!”

  He watched the minister go, and was standing there shaking his head when Fairchild came up on one side of him, Uncle Ian on the other.

  “I always wonder why they called the Indians savages,” Fairchild said. “Seems some of them Modocs are a bunch smarter than a lot of us, don’t it?”

  O’Roarke agreed. “He’s the sort of small-minded Christian makes me think of the Inquisition. That preacher’s got God and miracles on the brain—and n
othing will keep him from convincing the others to go to their deaths … unarmed.”

  “We can’t allow that,” Seamus vowed in a whisper. “If Thomas’s God wants him to go to that council with the Modocs unarmed—by the saints, my God has bound me to see the others are not so foolish.”

  * * *

  Canby remained unswayed, believing with the fervent Thomas that the Modocs had undergone a change of heart.

  “Despite what Toby has told you?” Meacham demanded of the soldier.

  “Yes—she is Modoc. But perhaps she misunderstood something. My own instincts tell me to trust these Modocs. After all, Mr. Meacham—I’ve been dealing with Indians for over thirty years.”

  “You’re going ahead with this meeting you’ve scheduled for tomorrow at noon?”

  Canby nodded. “Yes. Good Friday, Mr. Meacham. Don’t you agree it will be an auspicious day upon which to make peace with Captain Jack’s people?”

  Meacham wagged his head. “No peace meeting, General.”

  “But I quite agree with Reverend Thomas that God has wrought a miracle in that Stronghold. While I have slowly pressed in my army making for an ever-tightening noose about them, their own hunger and desperation has brought about their change of heart. God is to be praised—”

  “Dammit!” Meacham cursed, flinging down his tin plate and standing. “God had nothing do with this—can’t you see? God has been nowhere near the Lava Beds … and God most certainly will not be with us at that meeting tomorrow!”

  That night, Bogus Charley slept in army blankets with the reverend’s blessing, just outside Thomas’s tent at the center of the soldier camp.

  Not long after sunrise that Good Friday morning, 11 April, Boston Charley showed up as well, again professing that the Modocs were to surrender if a favorable home could be found for Jack’s band of holdouts.

  “That runt of a pie-faced one stayed with Thomas all night,” Donegan whispered to his uncle as he soaked hardtack in his bitter coffee that clear morning. Out of the clear blue of a cloudless sky, a chill breeze rattled the restless canvas of nearby tents.

  Ian nodded. “Aye. Bogus Charley doesn’t want to see anything happen to their murderous scheme now.”

  “And the other one showed up to press the case,” Seamus replied. “Look how he plays the part of the dutiful lap dog to the preacher.”

  Ian set his plate aside. “I’ve lost my appetite, nephew. Just look at that—Boston Charley: eating his breakfast off the preacher’s plate now, drinking his morning coffee from the preacher’s cup.”

  “Thomas really believes he has wrought his miracle with those two cutthroats—believing peace will be made on this holy day.”

  “Good Friday—the day long ago when Christ was crucified for our sins,” Ian muttered, staring down into his coffee cup. “A day when Thomas will see the others butchered for his sin of pride.”

  Seamus drew the chill air of a spring morning deeply into his lungs. “Odd, isn’t it, Ian—for it’s the sort of morning a man offers his thanksgiving for being alive.” He turned at the bustle of talk across the fire.

  From bundles of brown waxed paper tied with manila twine, Thomas pulled new clothes he had purchased from the camp sutler, McManus, for his Modoc wards. Colorful cotton hickory shirts and woolen button-fly britches were given both Bogus Charley and Boston Charley.

  “He makes gifts to those bastards,” Ian muttered as he rose from his seat. “I can’t take any more—watching this … hearing those two butchers telling Thomas that the fighting is over and that peace will be made with the white man today.”

  “You’re leaving, Mr. O’Roarke?” asked Canby as he strode up with his orderly Scott.

  “You have business with me, General?”

  “Why, no. I’m here to dispatch these two Modocs to their Stronghold with word to their chief.”

  Canby stepped away, around the fire, as O’Roarke glanced at Donegan, deciding to stay.

  “Mr. Fairchild—tell these two men to carry my message to Captain Jack,” Canby began, accepting a cup of coffee from Commissioner Dyar. “I will meet with his men at the council tent—and no farther. At noon, as agreed.”

  Fairchild translated as the two Modocs finished donning their new clothing, proudly smoothing it with their palms. They nodded without reply and loped on foot from the camp, headed east to the Lava Beds.

  Seamus looked into the blue of that clear sky overhead, finding the sun bright, warming the chill from the air.

  “Noon,” was all he said as he went back to soaking his hard cracker in the bitter coffee gone cold in his cup.

  Chapter 20

  April 11, 1873

  “I’d put them both in chains, were it up to me,” Seamus said to Meacham as the leader of the peace commission stood and smoothed the points of his vest.

  Meacham wagged his head. “The gall of Boston Charley—begging me while I’m dressing … then bullying me to wear my new boots to the conference.” He gazed down at the old shoes he had put on just to spite the Modoc.

  “If that doesn’t convince you they’re up to no good, I don’t know what will.”

  “Seamus,” he sighed, “I’m about to walk into the unknown. But one thing I’m certain of—Boston Charley wanted my new boots.”

  “He plans on taking them off your feet.”

  Meacham glowered as he took his coat off the army cot and slipped it over his arms. “Off my cold, dead feet.”

  They pushed from the tent flaps to find Frank Riddle ready to burst in on them.

  “Meacham—Toby wants me to beg you not to go today!” Riddle pleaded, wringing his hands.

  “Easy, Frank,” Meacham said. “You look a mess of it.”

  He shook his head. “Didn’t get much sleep last night. Neither of us. Thinking on what those butchers are going to do to you and the others.”

  Meacham tried a weak smile as he glanced at Donegan. “I’m praying Toby misunderstood something, Frank. Things are very tense right now. The Modocs are acting unpredictably because Canby has them ringed so tightly.”

  “No telling what a trapped animal will do, Meacham,” Seamus said.

  Meacham glanced at the Irishman then started away. “C’mon, Frank. Let’s go find the others and let you tell them what you’ve told me.”

  Through the trees, they came to the tent where Thomas and Dyar slept. The Klamath subagent rose from his stool, coffee cup in hand, when the others approached.

  “Where’s Thomas?” Meacham asked.

  Dyar pointed with his tin cup. “He headed over to Gillem’s tent. Wanted to find out just what we were going to say when he goes to sit down with Jack today.”

  “It’s close to time we were going, Dyar.”

  The subagent glanced at the sky. “Damn if it ain’t.” He sloshed his coffee into the little fire he had built beneath the blackened pot.

  “Let’s join Thomas and see what Gillem has on his mind.”

  The entire group went to the colonel’s tent, where Meacham rapped on the pole.

  “Come in.”

  The four pushed through the tent flaps to find Thomas seated on a canvas camp stool and Gillem still huddled beneath his blankets, his uniform draped over his footlocker and his boots askew by the sheet-iron stove standing nearby.

  “It’s time we were getting ready to set off for the council, Colonel.”

  His lidded eyes found Meacham, held for a moment, then shrank away. “I’m in no condition to attend any meeting today.”

  Meacham inched forward. “You’re that ill, Colonel?”

  “Would that I could die,” he growled.

  The four new arrivals looked at one another quickly. Scratching his chin whiskers, Meacham stepped closer to Gillem’s cot. “That’s … that’s just what we’ve come to discuss with you. This threat the Modocs have made to kill us.”

  “Thomas has told me all about that,” Gillem replied offhandedly. “Sounds like a nervous rumor to me. We’ve got the Modocs where we want them—bott
led up. So they’re bound to rattle their sabers a lot because they see no way out of this mess they’ve backed themselves into.”

  “This isn’t saber rattling, Colonel.”

  Gillem’s eyes found the tall Irishman who had spoken. “You a settler around here, mister?”

  “No. But I figure I’ve better reason to trust Frank Riddle and his wife than I do two Modocs who talk from both sides of their mouths when they’ve got the preacher’s ear here.”

  “I told you, Colonel—I’ve had a hard time convincing these men that the whole situation has changed among the Modocs,” Thomas said.

  “Nothing’s changed.” Riddle stepped forward, dragging his hat from his head. “Colonel, my wife heard ’em admit it. Two men going to kill each one of the commissioners going to that council at noon.”

  “Balderdash!”

  “For once in your life—hush, Thomas!” Meacham ordered.

  “By the Lord in heaven, I hope you’re proved wrong,” replied the reverend.

  “By the Lord in heaven, I pray I am too.” He turned to Gillem. “Colonel, with you being sick—I believe we should call off the council for today. We really need you as military representative to accompany us if progress is indeed going to be made.”

  “I can’t possibly make it out of this cot—much less make it down to that tent.”

  “I’ll be going—to represent the military, Colonel Gillem.”

  Every head turned as General Canby entered the tent with Scott, his orderly, and Monahan, his personal secretary.

  “It does not change the fact that the Modocs have made plans to kill us all,” Meacham said.

  Canby smiled genuinely. “I’m not about to show my backside to a bunch of starving, ill-equipped Indians, Mr. Meacham. My soldiers will be close enough in the event of any trouble.”

  “You’re taking an escort?” Donegan asked.

  Canby shook his head, not even looking at the Irishman. “Our pickets will be watching from the bluff, and from the lookout post atop the signal tower. I’ve had field glasses trained on that meadow since sunrise. We won’t be surprised by Jack’s bunch.”

  “They’ll have you shot and scalped before any help can arrive, General.” Seamus watched Canby breathe deeply with the sudden sharpness of the image.