The Coming

by David Osborne

  The judge banged a wooden club to quiet the crowd. “Do you have a verdict?” he asked.

  One of the jurors rose to his feet. “Yes, Your Honor.” He opened a small paper and read: “We find all five of the accused guilty of murder.”

  There was silence for one second, then pandemonium. The Cayuse who sat behind the accused murderers stood in protest, while the Soyappos shouted in triumph. Several Cayuse turned around and glared at Lawyer and Timothy.

  The judge pounded his club again. “Silence!” His gaze traveled around the room. “The sentence for murder is hanging. It will be carried out on June 3, at two p.m.”

  Again there was an uproar, as if some beast had been unleashed among the Soyappos. They whistled and stomped and shouted. The judge pounded his club over and over. Lawyer just sat, shocked and perplexed. How could they hang Left Hand when there was no evidence against him? And why would these Soyappos show such glee over others’ deaths? Surely, they could not be Christian.

  Timothy leaned over, spoke in Lawyer’s ear: “I thought Governor Lane told you they might not have to die, since Soyappo soldiers killed so many Cayuse?”

  “He did.” Lawyer shrugged, turned to Spalding: “They presented no evidence against Left Hand. They do not even follow their own laws.”

  Spalding frowned. “Many of these settlers are filled with hatred. They have not accepted Jesus as their Savior.” He paused. “I am sorry.”

  Finally William Craig, who had interpreted for the court, shouted out the verdict in Nimíipuutímt, and the mayhem intensified as the Cayuse screamed out their anger. Crawfish Walking Backwards stood up and bellowed: “Kill us like men! Shoot us! Do not kill us with rope, like dogs!”

  The other defendants were on their feet as well, except for Left Hand, who sat silent, dazed. The judge looked at William Craig, but Craig did not translate. It was a good thing, because Crawfish, his ugly face twisted in rage, was now comparing him to a donkey with its balls cut off.

  The Soyappos built a platform on the east bank of the Willamette, across a wooden bridge from the island where the five Cayuse were held. The sun traveled in a deep blue sky, mottled by soft white clouds. By the time it had passed its zenith, hundreds of white men, women, and children had gathered around the platform. Lawyer could smell whiskey on more than a few, and some bore arms. He and Timothy stood nervously in the crowd, the only Indians present. The Cayuse had departed for home soon after the trial, shocked that their tribesmen would be hanged and afraid the Soyappo crowds would turn on them as well. And Reverend Spalding had departed for his farm, angry that the murderers had refused his offer of spiritual comfort and chosen Roman Catholics instead.

  Soon the crowd was calling out for the condemned, chanting their names. Lawyer glanced at Timothy, wondering if they were safe. They had received many ugly looks from those around them, though Lawyer found that when he spoke to people in their own tongue, their anger abated. When he told them Timothy had helped pursue the murderers, they reached out and shook his hand.

  In time Joe Meek stepped out of the large wooden building on the island, the five Cayuse in his wake. Their hands and feet were chained, their heads bowed. They crossed the bridge slowly, shuffling with difficulty. Two Black Robes walked with them.

  When they reached the steps of the platform, Meek turned and unlocked their chains. One by one they climbed the stairs, the Black Robes with them. The older of the Black Robes, with silver hair, read a prayer from his holy book. Then two men tied the Cayuses’ hands behind their backs. Crawfish Walking Backward struggled hard against this, shouting: “Shoot me! Let me die like a man!” But when a Black Robe spoke to him and showed him something from his book, he stopped struggling and allowed his hands to be bound together behind his back.

  Joe Meek now took the ropes that dangled from the platform, with loops at the end, and placed them over the Cayuses’ heads. He tightened them at the neck, then stepped back, pulled a watch from his vest pocket, and looked at it. He placed it back in his vest and drew a tomahawk from his belt.

  “Onward, onward to heaven, children,” a Black Robe cried. “Into thy hands, Lord Jesus, I commend their spirits.”

  The five Cayuse stared straight ahead in silence, their faces like stone. Lawyer knew they would not give their enemies the satisfaction of seeing them whimper in fear. When Meek brought his tomahawk down on a rope, five trapdoors opened and five bodies dropped and jerked to a stop, swaying. Crawfish Walking Backward and Left Hand never moved again; their bodies hung motionless over the Willamette. But the other three jerked at the ends of their ropes. Murmurs ran through the crowd as they watched the death struggles. Lawyer felt sick to his stomach. Within a few minutes Wet Wolf was still, but the other two continued to struggle for some time, the crowd deathly silent. Finally they too were still.

  Lawyer knew some of them deserved to die, but he could not believe they had hanged Left Hand. He put his hand on Timothy’s arm and whispered: “We must never let our people kill Soyappos. Otherwise, it will be the end of us.”

  THIRTY-SEVEN

  June 1855

  The air had cooled and ribbons of cloud flamed red in the west as Daytime Smoke walked through camp, inhaling the smells of many campfires. He had arrived today, with Flint Necklace. Eight suns ago, in a Flathead village in the Bitterroot Valley, word had come of a treaty council in which the Soyappos would ask for land from the Nimíipuu and a dozen other nations that lived between the mountains. Flint Necklace and 20 warriors had departed almost immediately.

  Eight sleeps later, Flint Necklace had led them right into the council, on horseback. Glaring down from his white horse, he shouted, “My people, what have you done? While I was gone, have you sold my country? I have come home, and there is no place left on which to pitch my lodge!” His fierce eyes swept the crowd as he pulled on his reins: “Go home to your lodges! I will speak to you.” Then he whirled his horse and trotted away, and 5,000 people followed him.

  Smoke had not been in a camp so large in many snows; from every direction he could hear laughter, drumming, the rhythmic singing that accompanied the bone game. The sounds and smells filled him with longing for simpler days, when he would travel with his family to the great trade fairs here and at Celilo Falls.

  When he arrived at the council lodge he found Lawyer standing outside, by the entrance, leaning on his cane. He was shorter than ever, and his dark, oval face was beginning to show signs of age. He wore a black silk top hat, adorned with a white satin ribbon that held three eagle feathers. His narrow eyes lit up: “My friend, how my heart sings to see you! You have been away for many moons.”

  “I have been in Buffalo Country,” Smoke replied, shaking his hand. “My heart is pleased to see you as well.”

  “Tell me, how is your daughter?”

  “She married a Cayuse.”

  “Wonderful! I have two grandchildren. You will enjoy it.”

  “She chose to live with her husband’s people,” Smoke said. “Soyappos still come every year through their lands. I fear their diseases.” He shrugged. “But she fell in love.”

  “It makes one do strange things.”

  They both laughed.

  “Are you well?” Smoke asked. “I have heard our Cayuse and Palouse brothers are not happy with you.”

  “Kamiakin and his friends are angry.”

  “They want war?”

  “Last summer, when all these nations met, Kamiakin and his Yakama friends told everyone how Soyappos forced other nations, beyond their western mountains, to give up their lands. He said they would demand ours next. He and others wanted war then, but Stickus, Garry, and I refused.”

  “And now?”

  “I think all nations were ready to sign a treaty before Flint Necklace arrived.”

  “Will they give up lands?”

  “Wallawallas and Cayuse will move to a reserve along Umatilla River. Palouse and Klikatat and Wishham and other nations will move to Yakama lands.”

  “Kamiakin
will agree to this?”

  “He still prefers war. But he knows they cannot win without us by their sides.”

  “And Cayuse?”

  “They are angry with us. Yesterday Five Crows announced that although his people had always been as one with the Nimíipuu, from this day forward our nations would stand divided.”

  Smoke stared at him in surprise. If this was more than wind, it marked the end of an alliance that had been in place from the time of their grandfathers’ grandfathers, and before.

  “They say you are chief above chiefs among our people now,” Smoke said.

  Lawyer smiled proudly, put his arm around Smoke’s shoulders, ushered him toward the lodge. “It is time to begin, my friend. They are waiting for us.”

  They found their seats, and Shooting Arrow opened his pipe bag and withdrew the tribal peace pipe, its bowl made of green stone, eagle feathers dangling from its stem. Shooting Arrow handed it to his pipe boy, took the sweetgrass the boy handed him, and lit it from coals the boy had brought. When the flames had subsided he carefully waved the grass under and around the pipe to purify it with smoke. Then he took the pipe back from the boy and filled it with tobacco, tamped it down with a damper carved from wood, and used sweetgrass to light it. He took three puffs, prayed for their help in this talk today, and passed it to Lawyer, who sat next to him in the circle.

  Lawyer smoked, then handed the pipe to Flint Necklace, whose face was weathered and wrinkled, his long hair gray after 70 snows. But Flint Necklace refused it.

  In his 48 snows, Smoke had never seen this happen; he could see fear on many faces.

  “This village crier has been chosen by Soyappos to be headman above all others?” Flint Necklace asked, refusing to look at Lawyer. “Why do you accept this? Why do you let him speak for you? When Richard was chosen, I was named war chief, second only to Richard! Richard has failed, and now I shall be head chief. Not this half Flathead who speaks Soyappo, accepts Soyappo gifts, and gives Soyappos whatever they want! I will be headman! Our warriors will no longer cower like women!”

  “With Flint Necklace I agree,” Three Feathers said. “Soyappos cannot bully or buy him. A head chief who is feared by Soyappos—this is what we need.”

  Anger creased High Bear’s broad brow. “Now Flint Necklace will come in and tell us what to do? What has happened at this council he does not even know!” He glared at the war chief. “We have given up little land! Our lands will not be home to any but Nimíipuu!”

  “I will speak,” Shooting Arrow announced. It was his lodge, and though he had once been close to the Sent Ones, he had the respect of every headman. His voice was full of pain: “To give land along Umatilla River to Cayuse and Wallawallas, Soyappos said, they would need my people’s land and Plenty Bear’s. All lands beyond Meeting of Waters, toward setting sun and cold lands, they would take. Where will Red Wolf’s people live? And those of Watch Both Sides with Same Breath? Flint Necklace is right—lands on which our fathers are buried we must not surrender.”

  “We are warriors!” Flint Necklace thundered. “Blackfeet, Cutthroats, Big Bellies—all fear us! Soyappos are as nothing before us! Are you such women that you fear these few bluecoats who come with them? Who are they, to come to us and demand our land? Why have you not united with Kamiakin and other nations to exterminate them?”

  Lawyer stood up, and the lodge fell silent. “We have not smoked together,” he said. “For one another we show no respect. Nimíipuu chiefs do not make decisions this way. Another day we will talk.”

  Without another glance he walked to the entrance and ducked through the flap. Timothy stood and followed him. High Bear glared at Flint Necklace, then ducked out of the tipi as well. Jacob, Luke, and Red Wolf followed.

  Lawyer was returning from the latrine, in the dark, when he found himself surrounded. In the moonlight he could make out Kamiakin, the huge Yakama chief, with his outsized nose and long, unkempt hair. Beside him stood Owhi and Teias, the other Yakama headmen.

  Lawyer nodded, said hello, and tried to pass. But Kamiakin stepped in front of him. “You will stay here,” he scowled, “and listen.”

  “Let us talk at my lodge,” Lawyer said. “We will smoke.”

  Kamiakin shook his head, and Lawyer realized he was trapped. “We have not come to do you harm,” Kamiakin said. “As long as you let Flint Necklace take your place as head chief.”

  “Why would I do that?” Lawyer asked.

  “To save your skin.”

  “If Flint Necklace becomes head chief, war will follow,” Lawyer said. “And we cannot win a war with Soyappos.”

  “We will win!” Owhi said.

  “Have you seen Soyappo wagon guns?” Lawyer asked. “Do you know how many bluecoats would come? Do you have enough powder and balls to fight until the snows return, and then again when they leave?”

  All knew the answer was no, but no one replied. Lawyer pushed past Kamiakin, but hands reached out and held his arms.

  “You are choosing a dangerous course,” Kamiakin growled.

  “You have chosen a dangerous course for your people,” Lawyer replied.

  “You have chosen a dangerous course for your family,” Owhi said.

  Lawyer’s mouth opened in surprise. So they would stoop so low as to threaten his family. He shook off Kamiakin’s grip. “Never will I take my people to war against Soyappos,” he said, “no matter how much you threaten.” Then he walked away.

  When he reached his tipi his wife and youngest son were inside. His son’s wife and two children already slept. “We are moving our lodge,” Lawyer announced. “Pack up your things.”

  “Moving?” his son asked. “Why?”

  “We have been threatened.”

  His son looked bewildered, his wife frightened. “Where will we go?” his son asked.

  “With Soyappo lodges,” Lawyer replied. “No one will molest us with bluecoats around.”

  When Lawyer hobbled outside the next morning, Washington Governor Isaac Stevens and Oregon Superintendent of Indian Affairs Joel Palmer—the two Soyappos he had been negotiating with for 11 days—were waiting for him. He asked his wife to serve them camas bread and tea, bade them sit by the fire. The pain in his hip was sharp this morning, but he tried not to show it.

  Stevens was a formidable foe. Tall even for a Soyappo, he was handsome, with a thick head of brown hair, dark brown eyes, and a thin beard and goatee. He had been governor of the new Washington Territory for only two snows, but already he had taken most of the land west of the Cascade Mountains from its inhabitants. Palmer was more genial, content to let his ambitious colleague lead.

  After a few pleasantries, Stevens explained that the Cayuse and Wallawalla chiefs had agreed last night to the new reserve he had offered them. Now he just needed to convince Kamiakin, who would sign for the Yakama and other nations along the upper Columbia.

  “There is a problem,” Lawyer said. He had figured out how to turn Flint Necklace’s appearance to his advantage. “Now that Flint Necklace is here, pushing others not to sign, we must use the original treaty lines you proposed for my people. My chiefs will not agree to smaller lines.”

  Stevens squinted at him, taking his measure. “How were your discussions last night?”

  “Stormy. Flint Necklace believes he should be head chief. He prefers war.”

  “And your other chiefs?”

  “A majority will support me; they don’t want to fight. But we must be careful. Flint Necklace has followers as well. You have proposed taking lands from three chiefs who support me. If I lose them, he will win.”

  Stevens gazed at him for a long moment. He had no choice but to agree, and they both knew it. “Very well,” he finally said. “We will revert to the original Nez Perce lines.”

  Daytime Smoke rode toward the morning sun. He needed to get out of the camp, which smelled of too many people. He too smelled, and he wanted to bathe. Most of all, he did not want to hear his people singing their Sunday hymns as Timothy led them
in a worship service.

  The council yesterday had been long and fruitless. Flint Necklace had refused to agree to the lines the Soyappos proposed. The chiefs would meet this afternoon to discuss the matter further.

  He rode in and out of sunlight, in the shadows along the creek. It was the time of year when cottonwoods released their seeds, and white fluff drifted down almost like snow. The kik-kik call of the woodpecker mixed with the song of yellow warblers. From farther away came the drumming of a male ruffed grouse, seeking a mate. Then a woodpecker began its staccato beat.

  When he could no longer see or hear the camp, he dismounted and tied his buffalo runner to a branch. He parted the red willow bushes that crowded the shore, then drew back and crouched. Someone was in the creek. He reached up, carefully moved a branch, and peered through the willow. It was a woman, bathing. She stood with her naked back to him, waist deep, rubbing herself with the white flower of a qawas plant. When she was finished she turned toward him and walked out of the water. He stepped back, ashamed but aroused.

  He had lain with only two women in Buffalo Country—a Crow and a Flathead whose band they had traveled with for a time. When he was with another woman, he thought only of Darting Swallow. Sometimes he wondered if her spirit followed him, calling him back when he coupled with another.

  He walked away from the river, waited until the woman emerged through the willow bushes in her fringed deerskin dress and wet, combed hair. He tried not to let his eyes reveal what he had seen, and the woman gave no hint of alarm. She smiled at him. “You’ve come for a bath?”