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

by Terry C. Johnston

  “An excuse?”

  “Jack could not bear to surrender himself—knowing you’re going to hang him.”

  “How does he know that? Did you tell him, Doctor?”

  Cabaniss shook his head. “No one had to tell him. Jack knows the white man needs to hang someone for all the civilian and soldier deaths. So, he still doesn’t think surrender is the end for him.”

  “No—a bullet will be, by God!”

  O’Roarke and Fairchild inched up on Cabaniss. Ian spoke first. “He couldn’t bear to watch the others surrender either, could he?”

  The surgeon nodded. “That’s right. He left his people so they would not have to go on fighting and running. Mostly running.”

  “There’s something to admire in the man even yet,” Seamus said quietly.

  “So, what about these others who want to surrender?” Green asked, tossing a twig into the fire at his feet. It sent sparks into the air as it plopped among the red, writhing coals.

  “They’ll be along shortly.”

  “You’re positive about this, Cabaniss?”

  “As sure as I am that you’ll hunt Jack down until he no longer has any strength left in his legs to run.”

  “By damned—you might be starting to understand me, Doctor.”

  They didn’t have to wait long that Saturday, the thirty-first day of May, for the first weary warrior to make his appearance on the hillside overlooking the Wilson ranch.

  “That’s Scar-Faced Charley,” O’Roarke told his nephew.

  “I’ve seen him before,” Seamus replied quietly, his mind digging at it the way a child would dig at a muddy creek bottom with his bare toes. He was sure he had seen the warrior someplace before.

  “Charley does all his fighting out in the open—like a man, Seamus,” said John Fairchild. “He’s not one of them murderers like the others.”

  It came clear for Donegan of a sudden, like a gust of wind blowing fog from the creek bottom. “He directed the attack on Captain Thomas’s patrol up at the Black Ledge. I saw him, standing up on the ridge. It was a bloody fight, but no way was it murder. And—Charley—he called it off before the rest of us were all killed.”

  Ian turned, amazement written on his face. “You never told me that, Seamus.”

  “I know. Seeing him now, I’ll never forget that long scar down the whole side of his face … making me remember some pieces of it now—how he hollered down at those of us who were still alive. Laying in that brush, afraid of dying. He could see us down in that hollow—every man bleeding and unable to defend himself if they truly wanted to wipe us out.”

  “But he called off the attack?” Fairchild asked.

  “That’s right,” Seamus said as the warrior drew closer, holding his rifle up in one hand, the other open, palm out and empty. “I suppose … this man might be a little grateful to that Injin for sparing my life.”

  Ten more warriors came in, each one walking the same path out of the hills that Scar-Faced Charley had taken. Each one came alone. One by one they laid their weapons down at the feet of Major Green, then went with an escort to the Wilson barn, where they were kept under guard.

  The twelfth warrior to give up came in knowing for certain what he was to face at the hands of the white man.

  “Schonchin John.” Fairchild said it like a curse. “The old Yainax chief’s younger brother.”

  “Meacham said he was one of the murderers at the peace tent,” Seamus reflected.

  “It will go hard on Schonchin,” O’Roarke replied. “In a way, you’ve got to admire him too. Coming in—giving up—knowing what faces him now.”

  Dr. Cabaniss walked up to their group a few minutes later. “Scar-Faced Charley said it was hard to leave his friend Jack.”

  “He knows where Jack is?”

  The surgeon nodded. “Up there, doing what’s hardest: watching his warriors surrender.”

  “Will he?” O’Roarke asked. “Or will he force the army to shoot him in the end?”

  “Charley told me Jack wants to see me,” Cabaniss said quietly. “Jack wants to surrender in the morning.”

  “You still believe him—after what he pulled on you?” Fairchild asked.

  The surgeon finally said, “Yes. I still believe Jack. None of us can imagine—we have no idea what agony it must be for him—knowing what faces him now. Not one of us can truly understand what it means to stand in his place at this moment: knowing that to give up means certain death.”

  Chapter 36

  June 1, 1873

  With the coming of the sun that morning, burning the last wisps of fog from the low places, Colonel Jefferson C. Davis learned that his regulars were being rejoined in the chase by three companies of Oregon volunteer militia.

  “Sounds to me like General Ross, who’s leading all those volunteers, wants to get into the field to make a show of protecting his Oregon settlers,” said Captain David Perry as the sun rose, spraying his men with warmth as they saddled their mounts at Applegate’s ranch, preparing to move out for the final chase.

  “I don’t think so,” Seamus replied as he stroked the neck of his own mount. He and John Fairchild were again riding along with Perry’s F Troop, First Cavalry.

  “I figure the Irishman’s right. Seems more like Ross and his volunteers are coming in now as the war ends for their grand show,” added Fairchild on the far side of the captain’s mount.

  Perry considered it, finally dropping the stirrup over the cinch, watching McKay’s Tenino scouts mounting up. “Could be, Irishman. His kind figures that the war’s all but done—so he comes in to grab some of the glory.”

  “That,” Seamus replied, “and so his volunteers can come pick Jack’s bones clean.”

  Captains Jackson and Hasbrouck had flushed the last of the Modoc holdouts from the Willow Creek country. Both had reveled in capturing half of those who had stayed with Jack when the band splintered at Big Sand Butte. Now Colonel Davis was ordering Perry’s cavalry to finish the job.

  From Applegate’s place Perry ordered his guides to take them back across Lost River toward the trail the other Modocs had taken two days before. From there the captain planned to backtrack in their march to the south toward Willow Creek. Everything seemed to point to Jack remaining in the high-walled valley that tumbled down to Clear Lake.

  The sun hadn’t climbed all that high in the sky by the time Perry’s advance squad found the Tenino scouts stopped and waiting for the soldiers to come up.

  “Jack’s men splitting up,” McKay said as Perry walked up on foot. He showed the captain some moccasin and boot tracks leading off in more than a half-dozen directions at the edge of the clearing still several miles north of Willow Creek.

  Perry chewed on it like it was a piece of gristle while Donegan stepped up, leading his mount. The Irishman looked over the tracks, then peered into the far distance. “Cap’n, these tracks are breaking up, for sure. But I’ve gotta tell you, I’ve seen a lot of this same thing out on the high plains.”

  “Not the same kind of country,” McKay said, seeming to sneer a little at the Irishman’s news. “Not the same kind of Indians neither.”

  Seamus let it slide from his back like water off greased rawhide. “Believe what you will, Cap’n. But I’ll put this in for what it’s worth: this bunch is splitting up—but I’ll lay good wages on these trails joining back up today.”

  “You’re sure of that, Donegan?”

  He nodded, scratching at his chin whiskers. “You look close, then imagine this trail going out there into the distance—see how every one of these paths is heading in the same general direction.”

  “All due south, aren’t they?” Perry asked himself. “Right for Willow Creek?”

  “Any of them. Or all.”

  Perry turned to McKay. “Divide your men, McKay. Lead a squad of them yourself and take one of these trails. We’ll divide the rest of your scouts between my squad, Captain Trimble and Sergeant McCarthy. That way we’ll have four of these trails covered.�
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  After progressing five more miles, Perry found the other three squads awaiting him near the north bank of Willow Creek. The various trails had converged at the ford.

  “Some of them crossed over,” McKay explained.

  “You’ve been over there?”

  “Yes. And the rest—most of the tracks—move upstream on this north bank.”

  Perry drank slowly from his canteen, then replaced it in a saddlebag. “All right. Captain Trimble,” he called to his junior captain. “Take your squad and cross the creek. Move upstream the way Hasbrouck did two days back.”

  “You’ll be on this bank, Captain?” asked William Trimble.

  “Yes. One of us is bound to find something before dark.”

  “Won’t be long now,” McKay said before Trimble moved off. “Jack not far ahead of you now.”

  Nudging his mount up beside Fairchild’s, Seamus said, “John, I’ll cross over with Trimble if you’re staying close to Perry.”

  “All right.” The rancher held his hand out and they shook. “Your uncle told me to watch out for you—but I figure from what happened at Black Ledge, you don’t need me watching out for you, what with the Lord doing it for you.”

  Donegan smiled briefly as Fairchild reined away. Sensing once again that there was no other reason for him and the others to be alive now but for Scar-Faced Charley calling off the attack. It would be something more he would carry with him for the rest of his days—this wondering what it was that had made the Modoc leader recall his warriors when they could have slaughtered all the white men.

  Why had he been left to live, when so many other good soldiers who had stayed behind to fight—had died?

  Was it, as Ian’s friend John Fairchild had just claimed: the Lord Himself was watching over him?

  It brought the hairs up on the back of his neck as the horse nimbly stepped across the high-running stream behind Captain Trimble now, looking back as he did at each of those times since the Civil War when he had been hurled so close to the stinking maw of death itself.

  Beneath a broiling day-long July sun at the Crazy Woman Crossing of the Bozeman Road …

  … had he not been a prisoner in Fort Phil Kearny’s guardhouse, he likely would have marched out that cold morning of 21 December 1866, with fellow civilians and friends, Wheatley and Fisher, who chose to join Captain William Judd Fetterman and eighty men in crossing Lodge Trail Ridge …

  … had he quit the hayfield corral that morning of 1 August 1867, instead of waiting for the paymaster to come down and muster him out, chances were good he would have been cut off, alone and helpless, by the hundreds of Cheyenne and Sioux warriors gathering in the surrounding hills, coming to attack Fort C. F. Smith …

  … had things been different, the shots fired by renegade Confederate Bob North would have hit him as he made that frantic crossing to the sandy island in the middle of the Arickaree Fork …

  … or perhaps the Cheyenne bullet fired by one of those fighting for Roman Nose would have hit him in the head instead of Uncle Liam …

  … and had it not been for the thirst of a good friend wanting to have one last drink with a fellow plainsman, Bill Cody would not have ventured out one October sunset to that stinking latrine behind trader McDonald’s to find the hulking, wild-eyed mulatto about to slit an Irishman’s throat like a hog at slaughter.

  Was it that a man lives so much by luck? he wondered as the two Tenino scouts led them into the trees on the south bank of Willow Creek. Are most affairs really left in the hands of man? And when man himself botches those affairs badly, does an angel step forward to right the wrongs of man?

  He dared not tempt the fates by thinking on them, trying now to squeeze the fears and uncertainties from his mind as the foot-trail took them higher into the rugged, precipitous rocks and timber overlooking the creek gurgling farther and farther below.

  All that training at his mother’s knee had taught him not to question, but to accept the will of God. It was enough for her to do what she was told was God’s will by the priests. That was all that was expected of a man, she in turn taught him.

  “Do ye God’s will—and the saints will always protect thee,” she had oft repeated to her son as he grew to young manhood.

  In less than a mile of narrow, twisting trail, Willow Creek bent sharply to the left. From time to time through the thick stands of timber, Seamus could see Perry’s men moving along the high rocks across the creek. The valley seemed so tranquil, he doubted Jack and his last holdouts could be anywhere close. Not a sound but the occasional muted squeak and rattle of horse-trappings, the snort of an animal blowing on the steady climb, forever climbing up the high valley wall, perhaps a muffled cough of one of those fourteen troopers following their corporal and Sergeant McCarthy and Captain Trimble and two Teninos ever higher. From time to time the Indian scouts dismounted, getting down on their knees to look over the foot-trail.

  They would stand after each inspection, smiling at the soldier chief, and say something.

  “Squaw trail. Squaws’ moccasins.” And point up the slope.

  The next inspection, farther up the canyon, would cause the guides to smile even wider, placing their hands in the dim footprints, then rise, saying, “Hot trail, soldiers. This is hot trail.”

  Donegan was struck with how much had changed in this fighting the Modocs. No more was it anything that the pundits could describe as a war. In the past few days it had become nothing more than a ragged pursuit of wild beasts through the wilderness.

  Something close to an hour had passed since Trimble led them across the creek now far below. Up ahead the scouts were signaling to the captain to take a shortcut to avoid a rocky promontory off to their left where some clumps of juniper obscured the sharp drop into the creek bottom far below.

  Instead of immediately following his guides, Trimble trusted his intuition and raised his arm, signaling a halt. He signaled one of his older soldiers to come up from the column.

  “Shay, stick your nose up there on those rocks and see what you can. If nothing else, take a look across the creek and see if you can spot Captain Perry’s men on the far side.”

  The old private slid from his mount, handing his reins to Sergeant McCarthy. He moved quietly into the shadows.

  In less than five minutes he was back, constantly craning his neck behind him.

  “By jiminy, Cap’n—we’ve caught us one for sure!” he said in an excited whisper.

  “You found a warrior?”

  “One, sir,” he said, turning to point. “On the edge of them rocks—cutting on a root, something. He’s got a dog, and they’re sitting there—staring off at Perry’s men moving along the far side of the creek.”

  “The warrior doesn’t know we’re here?”

  Shay shook his head. “No, Cap’n. Not yet.”

  Trimble turned to the two Teninos. “See that the Modoc is alone—then take him prisoner. There must be no shooting. Do you understand? No guns. I don’t want to scare the rest away.”

  They all watched the Teninos move into the shadows, following Private Shay.

  “You figure there’s more warriors close by?” asked McCarthy.

  “Where you’ll find one, we’ll find the rest, Sergeant,” answered Donegan.

  In minutes the Teninos reappeared with their prisoner, a hunch-backed warrior.

  “Humpy Joe,” said one of the Warm Springs scouts. “Half brother to Captain Jack.”

  The fourteen troopers all dismounted noisily, excited, bunching forward to make the last charge of the Modoc War.

  “Quiet!” Trimble ordered as the Teninos grew alarmed at the sudden noise.

  “Keep soldiers quiet,” ordered one of the scouts, his mind clawing for the English words. “We wait for Jack. He won’t run when we wait.”

  Trimble turned on his squad. “Sit, men. We’ll play this hand out like the scouts say.”

  “I talk to Fairchild now,” Humpy Joe said as he strode up to Trimble, sure now who was the lea
der of the soldiers.

  “He’s on the far side of the creek,” Seamus explained. “You know Fairchild?”

  Humpy Joe nodded, his eyes moving down, then back up the Irishman’s frame. The Modoc stood less than five and a half feet tall, bent over as he was with the severely deformed spine, making him appear all the more small beside the tall civilian.

  “I know Fairchild. Friend … Fairchild.”

  “Yes, Fairchild will be glad to see Humpy Joe again,” Seamus said quietly, putting his hand out.

  Humpy Joe stared at it a moment, then put out his dirty hand covered in dried blood. They shook as the Modoc smiled.

  “Where is Captain Jack?” asked Seamus.

  With a bigger smile, the Modoc shrugged and turned to point down into the canyon. “Jack not far. There.”

  “You saw soldiers across the creek?”

  Humpy Joe nodded.

  “We have Jack surrounded now,” Seamus explained. “Go now—tell Jack to come give himself up to us. We want no more of your people to be hurt.”

  “You come with Humpy Joe?” asked the Modoc.

  Donegan turned to Trimble.

  The captain nodded. “We’ll both go with him.”

  “Take us to see Jack,” Seamus said.

  Humpy Joe turned, shuffling into the junipers. The long trail led through less than fifty yards of shadow and sunlight until they reached another jutting promontory of rock. The warrior stepped to the edge and called out in Modoc.

  “Kientpoos!” echoed from side to side in the narrow canyon.

  There was no answer from below as the sound died away, and with it some of Donegan’s hope.

  Humpy Joe turned back to the two white men and shrugged.

  “Call him again,” Trimble directed. “Tell him we won’t shoot if he comes out now.”

  Before Humpy Joe could turn back and utter a word, Captain Jack himself appeared on a rocky shelf above them, a Springfield rifle hung carelessly at the end of his arm. It struck Donegan by surprise that things should end so quietly—so bloody and so long a war should wind down like a clock’s mainspring running out of tension and just slowing, slowing, slowing until it stopped.