The Coming

by David Osborne

  “With his medicines. But could he save those Nimíipuu children who lived in his lodge from dying? Could Dr. Whitman save his daughter from drowning? Can they injure those who oppose them?”

  Smoke shook his head. He looked at Sparkling Horn. “What say you?”

  “Lawyer is right,” his cousin responded. “They do not understand a tewat’s powers, because they do not have such powers.”

  Smoke saw Mr. Rogers, who spoke Nimíipuutímt better than any of the other Sent Ones and had always treated Smoke and his family well. When Smoke approached, Rogers gave him a warm greeting. They exchanged news for a few minutes before Smoke asked his question: “My wife believes that Reverend Spalding is not right in his mind. I have heard others say such things, even white men. Can you tell me your opinion?”

  Rogers green eyes looked troubled. He looked around, then answered quietly, in Nimíipuutímt: “I would share your wife’s view.”

  “Is that why you left?”

  He nodded.

  “So you have known this for some time?”

  “Yes.”

  “And everyone else as well?”

  “It is a common opinion.”

  So the Soyappos had lied to him, Smoke thought—and to all the other Nimíipuu. They knew Spalding was not right in his mind, but they attended his services, listened to his sermons, pretended to follow him. Smoke felt like a fool. Why was he still here? Twice he had dreamed that Four Bears proposed to Darting Swallow again, and it seemed to him a powerful warning.

  He thanked Rogers, then approached Dr. White, who stood with Reverend and Mrs. Spalding. Dr. White was an agent to the western Indians, just as his father was. Perhaps they knew one another.

  He introduced himself, in English. White looked him up and down as he shook his hand: “I am honored. Your father was a great man. I can see the resemblance.”

  “I am honored also,” Smoke said. “You know my father?”

  “I met him, yes.” White’s eyes sobered. “I’m afraid he has passed away.”

  “Passed?”

  “Your father is dead. Five years. I am deeply sorry to be the one to inform you.”

  Smoke stared at him, incredulous. It was as if the earth had shifted beneath him, his world altered forever. His eyes searched the crowd, found his mother, who stood quietly waiting with Red Grizzly Bear for food. A strange feeling settled on him, a kind of emptiness.

  He was a fool, living here with Soyappos he could no longer trust, far from his wife and children. He had been used, and he had been too blind to see it. Enough with their lies and their idiotic search for Jesus. He would find Darting Swallow and his children and bring them home. And he would forget he ever knew Reverend Spalding.

  TWENTY-EIGHT

  January 1843

  Smoke found his family in their winter camp on the Umatilla River. Takes Plenty was the first to see him. The boy stood up, tall and slim, all muscle and sinew now, then turned to call his sister. She was brushing a horse, and when she turned, Smoke could see that she was now a fully grown woman. He dismounted and walked toward them, and she met him halfway and embraced him.

  He turned to Takes Plenty, held out his hand to shake. “You are almost as tall as me now,” Smoke said. “Have you found a wyakin?”

  Takes Plenty nodded. “And you?” Smoke said, turning back to Little Fire. He could see that she was afraid to answer. “Don’t be fooled by my Soyappo clothing. I am finished with their ideas. I want you to have a spirit guide.”

  She looked relieved, and a small smile came onto her face. “Yes, my vision quest was successful.”

  “I am pleased.” He looked around the village, which consisted of two longhouses and two smaller lodges for the young men and women. “Where is your mother?”

  “Digging roots,” Little Fire said.

  He nodded. “Has she remarried?”

  Little Fire shook her head, but her eyes told him it was not that simple. Still, the news came as a relief.

  Takes Plenty helped him untie his parfleches and carry them into the longhouse, and Little Fire offered to brush his horses and take them to the herd. Smoke was ducking out of the longhouse when Four Bears rode up, a deer slung across his packhorse. The two men stared at each other for a long moment.

  “You have returned for another visit,” Four Bears said.

  “I have returned for my wife and children,” Smoke replied. “I have left my Soyappo teachers.”

  “Did you not learn what you wanted?” Four Bears asked.

  Smoke shrugged. “I learned how to melt iron and make knives and plows. How to build mills, to grind roots and grain. How to grow grain and other crops.”

  Four Bears grunted. “I have heard Soyappo tewats have great powers.”

  “They know things we do not know.”

  “I am told they can kill someone from a distance, by sending disease.”

  Smoke’s eyes narrowed as he realized what Four Bears was asking. He wanted to know if Smoke had learned such powers—if there was reason to fear him. It would be convenient if he believed this, Smoke thought, so he nodded: “It is true.”

  Four Bears gazed at him for a long moment. Finally he turned in his saddle and untied the rope to his packhorse, handed it to Smoke. “Tell Darting Swallow the meat is from me.”

  “I am grateful,” Smoke said.

  “Grateful? To have another man feed your children? To have another man feed your wife? Is that a lesson you learned from your Soyappos?”

  Just before dusk, as Smoke and Takes Plenty helped Little Fire skin the deer and cut up the meat, Swallow returned. She looked tired, in her old dress, and her hands and face were dirty. She did not smile when she saw him, and his heart sank. He helped her dismount, was relieved when she embraced him.

  He gestured toward Little Fire. “Four Bears brought you a deer.”

  Swallow nodded, her face impassive.

  “He still wants to marry you?”

  She looked at him, nodded again, but said nothing more. Little Fire and Takes Plenty stared at them, and the silence was almost unbearable.

  “Father has left Lapwai,” Little Fire said. “He has returned to live with us.”

  Swallow gazed at him for a moment, then said, “Let us prepare a feast to celebrate.”

  Smoke could not tell if she was happy or sad or indifferent. The communal dinner was subdued, as if everyone understood the tension in the air. Smoke talked with his children, told them news of the Spaldings, learned what they had done since his last visit. Little Fire was now the busiest horse trainer in the village. And Takes Plenty’s grandfather had taught him to make a bow from the horns of a white buffalo.

  He and Darting Swallow did not speak of the future until late that night, when everyone else was asleep. Darting Swallow led him out of the longhouse and stirred up a fire that still simmered, adding fresh wood. They sat on a log, wrapped in buffalo robes, letting the fire take the chill off the night.

  “Do you want me to leave?” Smoke asked.

  “That depends on what you want.”

  “I want you. I want to be with you and our children.”

  “They are growing up.”

  He grimaced: “I see that every time I look at them.”

  “We have begun a new life here. It has been almost three snows.”

  “With Four Bears?”

  She looked over at him, then shook her head. “I could not do that to our children. They love you too much. Little Fire was sure you would return.”

  “And what about you? Did you want to be with Four Bears?”

  She stared at the fire for a long moment. “It would be easier. He is our headman. He provides well. He is kind to Little Fire and Takes Plenty.”

  Daytime Smoke stopped breathing.

  “But I don’t love him.” She met his eyes. “I love you.”

  TWENTY-NINE

  November 1845

  Henry Spalding lay in bed and listened to the rhythmic singing of the Indians as they gambl
ed, his anger rising until he thought it would burst inside him. They had built a fire 50 yards from his house, and their hellish cries rang out through the valley. It was William Craig’s fault: he encouraged them to gamble, and since he had moved down to the flats, they had been at it late into the night. Such was the influence of a selfish, lawless, self-ruined egotist who, having rejected the offer of mercy from the Lord, hated above all things for anyone else to benefit from his grace.

  The baby cried, and Eliza rose and went to her. Spalding swung his feet out of bed, felt the cold floorboards. He stooped to avoid the slanted ceiling and crossed to the small window in the gable of their second-story bedroom. It was even colder by the window; there would be frost in the morning. He glared out at the fire, saw dark shapes seated nearby.

  The infidels had been threatening to drive him off his land for months. Charging Hawk had vowed to tie him up and throw him in the river if he did not leave. When he ignored their demands, they broke meetinghouse windows, spat in his house, insulted Mrs. Spalding and the children. Even Ellice, the head chief, had defied him, ordered his people to paint themselves and perform their devilish dances.

  Spalding watched as two of the Indians rose and walked to a nearby cedar fence that protected the crops. Each picked up a rail, carried it back to the fire, and flung it in, laughing. This he would not countenance! He could not stop them from gambling, but the devil would freeze in Hell before he would let them destroy his property! He slipped on his trousers, threw off his nightshirt and pulled on a woolen shirt. He found his dirty socks and boots at the bottom of the bed, pulled them on and laced up the boots, then descended the stairs. At the pegs by the front door he picked up the hooded winter coat Eliza had made from a buffalo robe, the fur on the outside, and pulled it on as he pushed through the door.

  A dozen of the rogues sat in two rows, facing one another, playing their bone game. The fire leapt from the dry wood, casting light bright enough to create shadows. He could see their dark eyes and protruding cheekbones, could smell the sharp, sweet scent of burning cedar. Those who faced his direction saw him coming, and one of them rose to his feet. It was Charging Hawk; the repulsive scar down his right cheek gave him away even in the dark.

  “You will not destroy my fence!” Spalding said, in Nez Perce.

  Charging Hawk walked toward him as several others rose in surprise. The heathen seized him and threw him to the ground. “Go, near-woman, before we throw you in the river!”

  Spalding flushed red as he rose: “You will burn in Hell for this, you miserable savage!”

  Another buckskin-clad figure walked to the fence, pulled off a rail, and tossed it onto the fire, to a chorus of laughter. An owl hooted.

  Spalding made a move toward the fire but Charging Hawk again seized him and threw him to the dusty ground. “Near-woman, three times I tell you, leave us!”

  Spalding’s fury erupted: “Off my property, you infidels!” He pointed up the creek, toward Craig’s land.

  Charging Hawk seized him again, then two others had his other arm, dragging him toward the fire. “You who talk so much of Hot Place, burn!” Charging Hawk bellowed, and they launched him onto the fire.

  He landed on his back. Fire seared his hands, but his boots and the buffalo coat and hood protected the rest of him as he scrambled free. He ignored the pain, seized the cool end of one of the fence rails and pulled it out of the fire, waved the smoking cedar toward the Indians, who drew back. He threw it toward the fence and seized another, then the third. He heard his name and saw Eliza, her dark woolen coat over her white nightdress.

  “Husband, are you injured?”

  “These loathsome savages tried to kill me!”

  Charging Hawk gave him the rude gesture, thumb between the first and second fingers of his hand: “If you want to live, old man, leave this place!”

  “Come, husband, into the house,” Eliza called. “I will send Mr. Gilbert to fetch Timothy and Lawyer.”

  In the house, Eliza spread butter on his burned hands and wrapped them in strips of white cotton. When Mr. Gilbert arrived with the two chiefs she let them in, thanked them for coming, and ushered them to the settee by the gray stone fireplace, where her husband now sat staring at the fire.

  She had lit the oil lamps, and a soft glow filled the dark room. “Can we contact Ellice and bring him to enforce the laws?” she asked, speaking Nez Perce.

  Lawyer shook his head. “People no longer follow him. He has grown to think himself a great chief, better than us. Other chiefs resent him.”

  “But the laws?” she said in English. “Can you not enforce the laws?”

  “I have tried. But no one is willing. Our leaders no longer allow whipping.”

  “And Ellice? He will not try?” She looked from Lawyer to Timothy, her eyes pleading.

  A war cry echoed outside, and they hurried to the window. Eliza could see a fire out in front of the house, dark shapes around it.

  Timothy opened the door. “What are you doing there?”

  “Why do you protect that dog killer?” someone shouted. “We will throw him in the river!”

  “Go away from here!” Timothy commanded.

  “We stay until they leave!”

  Someone unleashed another war cry and pointed a rifle at him, and he quickly closed the door.

  Eliza woke as her husband left the bed, heard him pull on his trousers and shirt, then lace up his boots. He was beginning to smell; they had been held in the house for four days, and they needed baths. All the night jars were full; their fetid scent lay heavy in the air. She rolled over and watched as he walked to the window and peered out, holding his body to the side so those outside would not notice him.

  “Husband?” she said, her voice low.

  He turned and looked at her, his long beard pressed up from sleep. “They’re still there.”

  She rolled on her back and sighed, stared up at the plaster ceiling. She wondered if this was how they would die, starving to death in their own home. It seemed a silly way to go, after all the violent threats.

  Normally she would have been up an hour ago to milk the cows. Someone was milking them—perhaps from Timothy or Joseph’s family—because she had not heard them complaining since the first morning. But no one had brought milk to the house, and she had none left for little Eliza or Henry. The baby, Martha Jane, had made do with breast milk and bread, but the bread had run out last night.

  Henry had tried to get out yesterday, but it had caused a great commotion among the Indians. He had returned to the house shaken and pale. He and Mr. Gilbert kept their loaded rifles by the door.

  Still, the children needed milk. She dressed and made the bed, then descended to the kitchen, found the wooden milking pails and stool in the cupboard. She carried them to the door, where she set them down to don her woolen coat.

  Her husband had followed her down the stairs. “Wife, what are you doing?”

  “The children need milk.”

  He came to her. “You cannot go out there!”

  She reached out, patted his arm. “I shall trust in the Lord. Their quarrel is with you, not with me.”

  “There’s no telling what these savages will do!”

  She smiled. “The hand of God has been conspicuous in preserving my life thus far, dear husband. ‘Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I shall fear no evil.’?”

  She picked up the pails, opened the door, and stepped out into the early morning air. Though it was light, the sun was not up yet over the eastern hills, and frost still lay upon the ground. Lawyer and Timothy slept in front of the door, in the dust, wrapped in buffalo robes. They woke and sat up as she closed it. “Good morning,” she said with a smile.

  They gaped at her as she stepped by them. Some of the young men who surrounded the house were awake, while others still slept around the remnants of their fire. They too regarded her with surprise as she approached.

  “Good morning,” she said to them in Nez Perce. “
With your permission, I shall milk the cows.”

  Their eyes darted around, unsure what to do, as she marched past unmolested. Timothy ran after her. “I will help you!”

  She smiled at him, and when he offered to take the pails she handed them over. She used the outhouse, then proceeded past the fields. She could see that many of the fences were down, the rails gone, and the millpond was dry, its rock dam pulled apart. Tears came to her eyes. Timothy and the other Christians had done so well with their farming and raising of cattle, but the heathens had begun to destroy their crops. It was not just men like James egging them on; the papists had set up their own missions, and they never ceased to tell the natives that Protestants would lead them straight to Hell.

  Since Dr. Whitman had guided the first large wagon train, two years ago, more settlers had arrived every year. Timothy had told her the Cayuse planned to turn back the settlers this year. When Dr. Whitman went to warn them, then led all 3,000 of them through Cayuse lands with their guns loaded, the Cayuse had seethed with anger. Their leaders were convinced the doctor was bringing settlers to take away their lands, and there was much talk of killing him. All this news had spread rapidly through Nez Perce lands. She and Henry had not yet talked of leaving, but she knew they were both contemplating it.

  Reaching the pasture where the cows grazed, she set the stool down next to the brindle heifer and sat upon it, smelled the rich scent of cow manure. The heifer took one step, shifted its weight away, but she stroked its side. She placed the first milk bucket under the heifer’s teats, leaned her forehead against the side of its massive belly, and began to work them.

  Hot milk streamed into the bucket. “Perhaps if you asked William Craig for help,” Timothy said, “he could convince these men to leave your home.”

  Eliza knew her husband would object—he despised Craig. The man had gone to Oregon City last summer to make a claim on their mission lands. “You think they would listen?”

  “I cannot be sure. But I believe they would.”

  Timothy was her most trusted friend; when he said the Indians would do something, he was usually right. Among all of them, he seemed best able to bridge the gap between their worlds. “Then we shall try it,” she said. “We do not have an abundance of options.”