* * *
Not that a man could get any sleep, even someone as bone-weary as Seamus Donegan, once the artillery opened up with their nighttime pounding of the Stronghold.
In the dark, the first mortar round landed less than twenty feet from Perry’s cavalry troop. As the shell whirled, spewing and hissing on the ground near them, the soldiers clambered to their feet and began to panic. Pandemonium: horses rearing and whinnying, men screaming in total abandon and anger. But the captain regained control of his soldiers, ordering them to flatten themselves on the ground. No man was hurt when the shell exploded.
Four times an hour either the mortars or the mountain howitzers were touched off. While little actual damage was done to the Modocs burrowed like badgers back in their caves, the noise did serve to keep the Indians awake, anxious and off-balance throughout the night.
After each new bombardment, the warriors would shout back at the soldiers who lay not that far away from the Modoc positions.
“Charley, say—you think soldier big-guns do good that time?”
Answered by another Modoc, “No, Frank. These boys don’t even shoot straight when they shooting between a woman’s legs!”
Whereupon the warriors would laugh until one or more of the soldiers would fire into the dark, aiming only at the sound of the sneering voices or the cackling laughter. Back and forth they would vent their spleens, hurling their profane oaths at one another—promising what they would do to one another once daylight came to permit a resumption of the fighting.
Seamus was certain the Modocs learned a few new words that long night—new expressions regarding a man’s sexual abilities or his lack of legal ancestry.
Nothing more to do than occasionally fire your rifle and try to doze between the artillery fire coming every fifteen minutes. Perhaps chew on the hard-bread and salt-pork stuffed down in your haversack. And wait for first light.
Few white men slept that night.
Captain Jack moved most of his strength to the west side of the Lava Beds during the blackest part of that night, feeling as he did that the great massing of soldiers on Green’s side of things meant he should meet the coming assault there. On the east, Mason had already disobeyed Gillem’s orders and stalled, allowing his men to dig in far from their objective. From where they sat in safety, Mason’s forces were little threat to the Modocs.
When dawn came, Gillem sent Mason his terse dispatch:
We will endeavor to end the Modoc War today. Try to join Col. Green’s right. Let us exterminate the tribe. Push when Green attacks. I will be over this A.M.
Minutes later Gillem received Mason’s reply:
The Indians are on our left and rear. We have to fight them, but will do all we can to help Green.
It was nothing more than pure fabrication, invented to excuse Mason with his superior for failing to punch his troops through to the south of the Stronghold and effect a junction with Green as Gillem’s battle plan outlined. Had Mason done his duty, the Lava Beds would have been entirely ringed, from one shore of Tule Lake to the other, with no means of escape from the Stronghold.
Further communication between Green and Mason themselves brought about another deviation from the original battle plan. The majors agreed to effect a junction between their forces on the north side of the Stronghold, along the shore of the lake. Both officers disobeyed Gillem when he ordered them to stick with his plan of attack and united their flanks, effectively shutting the Modocs off from their water supply.
Still, few men on Green’s right flank, or on Mason’s far left flank, gave much thought to the fact that there were several hundred yards of very rugged, jagged, yet very open terrain left between them.
“They’ve been firing all day up there,” the old sergeant muttered, turning to Donegan as he pointed north to the far side of the Stronghold.
They lay together with three soldiers in a shallow depression, within sight of Mason’s troops, who had advanced less than three hundred yards ever since the first moment of attack twenty-four hours before.
“Maybe that’s why things have been so quiet down here,” Seamus replied. “Maybe they’re making some ground, for all the lead flying up there.”
“I should hope, Irishman,” growled the sergeant. “I sure as hell didn’t get any sleep last night—what with all the noise meant to soften those red bastards up.”
“I figure those guns kept the Modocs up too, Sergeant.”
He grunted. “Gimme a chance to get my hands on a Modoc—or one of those artillery sergeants, either one. I’ll knock the cork out of his bunghole for him, I will.”
They laughed easily, the camaraderie growing by the hour among those black rocks occasionally smeared with blood.
“Those boys up north there push in much farther, they’re gonna have some up-close fighting to do,” Seamus said. “And that’s what them Injins will like—getting up close enough to see the fear in them sojurs’ eyes.”
* * *
His people were in the middle of the Shining Leaf Moon—five days since he had put the pistol to the soldier tyee’s face and pulled the trigger, twice.
Captain Jack had enjoyed little sleep since that day, and last night he had been moving, constantly, from one position to another to make sure his warriors were where he wanted them before the soldiers renewed their attack at dawn. The rattle and hiss and boom of the big guns every few minutes made the women and children scream at each report. But they were brave under the fire and quickly quieted down. By the gray of predawn, in fact, few of them screamed in surprise or fear any longer at the bombardment.
Yet, with the coming of the second night, one foolish warrior had attempted to pull a burning fuse from a shell fired from one of the big guns into the Stronghold. Jack had been crawling close enough to watch the explosion make the warrior’s head disappear in a blinding flash of flame and smoke and gore. What was left of the body lay thrashing on the ground for only a moment.
As soon as it had grown dark, Jack ordered some warriors north to attempt to sneak through the soldier lines to secure some water from the lakeshore. Their first attempt failed. As did a second and a third. The soldiers were completely in control of the shoreline. After a final attempt by some warriors failed, Jack pulled his men back to the council area just as a mortar landed in the council fire, scattering coals and burning limbs with a spectacular show.
“Listen to me!” he shouted as the men gathered around and the women poked their heads from their black burrows. “We can no longer count on the power of Curly Headed Doctor.”
The shaman leaped forward, his face pinched in rage. “Do not listen to Kientpoos—he would give some of us over to the white man’s hanging rope just to save his own neck!”
Jack pointed a long finger at the shaman. “This crazed man will get you all killed. Look for yourselves!” he said as William Faithful dragged the beheaded warrior into the center of the council ring. “Didn’t the Doctor promise you no warrior would be killed?”
The shaman stood over the remains of the dismembered warrior. “He did not do as my medicine told him,” he snarled.
“No—you speak without any truth to your words,” Jack replied. “Your power is gone. The soldiers have even crossed your magic red rope!”
“Yes—the white men are coming!” Scar-Faced Charley added, jumping to the center.
“We can still kill them all,” Hooker Jim said, coming to stand by his father-in-law. “Let them come so we can finish the blood work our medicine demands of us.”
“You stay and die on these rocks, Hooker,” Boston Charley said. “I am willing now to listen to what Jack tells us to do.”
“He will lead us to the gallows!” Hooker cried.
Jack wagged his head, grabbing the front of Jim’s shirt in a fist, waving his pistol with the other hand. “Tell me how I can give you over to the soldiers now? Not without giving myself over to their hanging rope! I murdered the soldier tyee for you, Hooker. We are all going to flee so we can
again fight together—or we are going to hang together. What will it be?”
“Escape!” came the cry from the weary women and children.
“Escape!” echoed the resounding voices of the warriors.
“When the moon reaches mid-sky, all warriors must fire their guns into the soldier positions,” Jack instructed. “Make them think we are preparing to attack them. While we are doing that, our women and children and the old ones can escape. You must keep the little ones very quiet. And only after they are on their way through the soldier lines to the south will I let the warriors go … one by one by one.”
“What will we do once we have fled our Stronghold?” asked Ellen’s Man George.
Jack turned to him. “You are still eager to fight these white men?”
“Yes, always—to my last breath.”
“Good. Then you will take Hooker and the rest who want to fight. Once you are out of the Stronghold, move west toward the big soldier camp. If you attack the soldiers there—they will have to bring some white men back to help them. And that will keep them from pursuing our families for some time.”
“Where are we going, Jack?” asked a woman from the crowd.
“Far from here,” he answered. “All I know is that we must go far, far from here.”
Chapter 26
April 16–20, 1873
“So what’s kicking ’round in your craw, Eugene?” Ian O’Roarke asked early that third morning of fighting at the Stronghold as he walked up to the young man who had recently celebrated his nineteenth birthday.
Eugene Hovey ground the back of a dirty hand under his nose. “I asked that officer over there to back off on me.”
“He working you too hard?” Ian asked, knowing full well that Hovey was among several of the braver civilians who had volunteered to take their mule teams into the Lava Beds for the purpose of transporting supplies into and hauling the dead and wounded soldiers away from the battle lines.
“Not that, Mr. O’Roarke,” the young man answered. “I just got me a hunch this morning—a feeling something’s bound to happen to me in that infernal place if I keep pushing it the way I’ve been.”
“You ask the quartermaster if you can back down for ’while?”
Hovey nodded. “He said he knew how I felt, going in there with them Modoc sharpshooters and all—but he had his job to do, and that was getting the wounded and dead soldiers out.”
“Suppose you just sit things out here awhile and let them come find you.”
This time the youngster shook his head violently. “Oh, no, Mr. O’Roarke! I can’t do that—that’d be like being a coward. Not doing what I was called on to do for the soldiers.”
O’Roarke’s heart felt tugged for this young son of a Yreka friend of his. One day Ian’s own sons would be this age. “Ain’t no law says you gotta go back in there, Eugene.”
“I’ll go. My daddy wouldn’t want to know I backed down from doing what I could for the soldiers.”
“Your daddy’s a fair man. He wouldn’t hold it against you if you got a bad feeling about it. Besides, you’ve done a hell of a lot already. No man can call you coward.”
Eugene sighed and shrugged, reaching down deep into his worn britches. He pulled out his old pocket watch. “My pa give me that a few years back—sixteenth birthday. I figure it ought’n go back to him now.”
Ian felt strange, standing there with that watch plopped in his palm, unable to find words for the sudden, cold feeling that spilled down his spine at that very minute.
Hovey stuffed a handful of crumpled scrip into O’Roarke’s hand on top of the watch. “This here money’s for my ma and pa. Got good wages working for the army while I could.”
“I—I can’t—”
“You gotta take it, Mr. O’Roarke. ’Cepting John Fairchild and Press Dorris—I don’t know nobody else here. And I’m gonna find some paper now—write my ma a letter telling her what’s in my heart before I go on out there again. You wait—”
Ian gripped the young man’s shoulder. “Get hold of yourself, Eugene. You aren’t acting like you’re in your right mind.”
The boy tried a thin smile out, so thin that it quickly drained from his freckled face. “I’ve never been more sure of anything in my life, Mr. O’Roarke. So, I’m asking you again if you’ll wait while I write my ma a letter.”
Ian felt a burn in his throat as he answered, “I’ll wait, Eugene. You go ahead and take your time writing that letter.”
Since the official word had it that the Modocs were surrounded and only a mopping-up action was required, the quartermaster in charge of removing army casualties from the battlefield could not assign Eugene Hovey an escort for his first trip into the Lava Beds that morning. Eugene was only able to talk another young teamster from Yreka into accompanying him as soon as the sun made its appearance for the day at the eastern edge of the Modoc’s Stronghold.
Alone, the two men were crossing the meadow below the bluff where the peace tent had stood less than a week before.
“You hear something?” Hovey asked, stopping.
His companion came up with his pair of mules. “Not a thing, Eugene.”
Hovey’s eyes strained into the surrounding rocks and brush. He glanced at the mules a moment, trying to pick out if they were acting at all strangely. “Sure you didn’t hear nothing?”
“Not a thing. C’mon. This is the place they murdered that general and the preacher. Gives me the willies. C’mon, Eugene.”
The crack of a rifle from the nearby rocks alerted the men that they were under attack. But as the young teamster turned to yell at Hovey, he found Eugene holding a blood-soaked hand over his eye and forehead, collapsing back against his frantic mules.
Another shot whined overhead, close enough that the youngster heard it hiss past with his name on it.
The teamster bolted off, abandoning the mules and his friend, Eugene Hovey.
Hooker Jim and four young warriors who were among those who had escaped the Stronghold under cover of darkness and were circling around to the southwest that early morning to create some diversionary ruckus at the soldier camp had spotted the two white men coming into the meadow leading their mules.
The five fired a few more shots at the fleeing teamster, then turned back to the body of the white man they had wounded.
They found Hovey barely alive, moaning and calling for someone to be sure to give a letter to his mother. To tell her good-bye for him.
With a savage laugh, Hooker Jim himself put his boot on the young man’s neck and began slashing off the white man’s scalp. Hovey cried out in pain and rage, not able to struggle much as he was already nearing death from the head wound. Venting all their own pent-up rage at the white men and soldiers, the other warriors stripped the young man naked and cut off his manhood parts, stuffing them into the teamster’s mouth. Then, while the others slashed at arms and legs, feet and hands, to dismember the white man, Hooker Jim found a rock he could hold in his hand.
And with it he smashed the young teamster’s head until it was no more than the thickness of two fingers.
The Modoc warriors then followed Hooker Jim, whose idea it was to go through with their original plan of attacking the soldier camp to cause confusion among the white men. They were joined by a dozen more men at the base of the bluff. The warriors hurled themselves against the outlying pickets.
“Sergeant!” hollered Grier, the lieutenant left behind by Gillem to guard his headquarters. “We’ve got Indians in camp!”
Fairchild, Dorris and O’Roarke came running with their weapons, joining other civilians and the soldiers hurrying to meet the attack. Grier quickly scribbled a note for the signal sergeant to send a message to Major Green somewhere near the shoreline of Tule Lake.
Modocs out of stronghold and attacking camp.
A brisk, hot fight held the white men down as the eighteen Modocs spread out, giving the impression of far more warriors firing into camp. O’Roarke and the others had no way of knowin
g how many Modocs they were facing.
Ian was one certain that Captain Jack would come out of the Stronghold fighting to avenge the damage done him by the soldiers—and what smarter way was there than to totally abandon their Stronghold and immediately attack the soldier camp with his entire force?
Minutes dragged by as bullets whistled overhead and the crack of enemy rifles drew nearer and nearer to Grier’s small band of defenders—until the Modocs crossed into the camp itself.
But just as everything appeared darkest for that small band of defenders, they watched as the Modocs turned, their fire being drawn behind them.
A cheer went up among the civilians and the few soldiers in camp.
Another cheer erupted from a band of reinforcements sent by Major Green from the Lava Beds to rescue Gillem’s headquarters.
“They won’t be back any time soon,” the young lieutenant said confidently.
Ian turned to him. “Wouldn’t be so sure. Captain Jack is out and on the loose now. And there’s no telling what a wounded animal will do.”
* * *
The best thing that could be said about the fighting on the sixteenth was that the soldiers had forced the Modocs out of the Stronghold.
Trouble was, they paid a terrible price for that black rubble and honeycomb of caves.
On through that long night of the sixteenth, the mortars and howitzers hammered away at the center of the Lava Beds. In the pauses between bombardments, Donegan listened to volleys of rifle shots coming from the soldier camp.
“The Modocs attacking camp again?” Seamus wondered out loud, digging into his haversack for something to eat. It was as empty as every other haversack in the Lava Beds.
He sighed, laying his head back against the sharp rocks, scratching at his many open lacerations from those rocks, angry at the mosquitoes that came in vapors each night to torment every man.
“No,” replied the old sergeant. “Sounds to me like they’re burying some boys.”
Donegan nodded, eyes squinting in the darkness, knowing no man would see those gray eyes moisten. Too many times Seamus had dug midnight graves for brothers-in-arms, fellow soldiers who would be left behind in unmarked holes. Nameless dead all too often unknown by their own officers.
Devil's Backbone: The Modoc War, 1872-3 Page 26
