Lay the Mountains Low (15 page)

“All right,” Bird Alighting replied with a little relief, turning the chief's horse around for the swollen creek.

He looked over his shoulder as the angry Shadow started to harangue all the others left behind on the bank. More loud voices joined his, primarily those of the other wagon and settlement men. None of the soldiers joined in the red-faced yelling. The next time Bird Alighting glanced over his shoulder, the angry one was shaking his rifle at the soldier chief and Shadows in the creek—but especially he shook it menacingly at Bird Alighting.

It took only minutes for them to cross, and their horses were scrambling onto the bank, dripping as they carried their riders into the village. Warriors and women and many, many curious, frightened children appeared among the few lodges. Ruff-necked, several dogs slinked close to growl at these strange-smelling horses and men—

A single gunshot rang out.

Bird Alighting whirled about on the bare back of that war-horse. In that instant he could not find the warrior who had fired the shot. Nor could he see a one of the soldiers or that Shadow-talker as they fell from their horses.

Then he turned the Looking Glass pony some more and peered across the little river in horror, shocked to find the rest of the Shadows and soldiers speeding their horses down to the water. A gray tendril of gunsmoke was still curling away from the barrel of that bad-talker's rifle!

 

*
A Nez Perce term that cannot be translated.

**
Approximately six miles above present-day Kooskia, Idaho.

*
A Nez Perce term for White Bird Canyon.

*
The Crow, or Absaroka, tribe of Montana.

J
ULY
1, 1877

C
APTAIN STEPHEN G. WHIPPLE JERKED AROUND IN HIS SAD
dle at the loud boom of the gun, watching as that red-faced, loudmouthed civilian named Washington “Dutch” Holmes entered the stream and slowly lowered the needle-gun from his shoulder, gray smoke snaking from its muzzle.

How in Jupiter had things gotten so out of hand?

For starters, Whipple's detail hadn't been where he had hoped they could be at first light. Because of both the rugged terrain and the miscalculations of Randall's volunteers, the Looking Glass village turned out to be more than ten miles farther than they had assumed when they first embarked from Mount Idaho. After riding through the dark, in broken country, they had ended up on the hillside opposite the village close to 7:00
A.M.
, well after daybreak.

By then it had become clear some of Randall's men had kept themselves warm, or worked up some bravado, by sipping at a little of the whiskey they passed around in some pewter flasks. Just before Whipple had started into the stream, prepared to parley with Looking Glass, Dutch Holmes's companion Dave Ousterholt had hollered out with a slur, “Tell that red son of a bitch we'll move 'im to Mount Idaho by bullets or bayonets—don't make us no mind!”

The whiskey in their bellies was doing all the talking now, and … Katy bar the door!

Just as suddenly as he had jerked around in the saddle to peer at the cursing civilians—Ousterholt and Holmes—the captain now whipped back around to look at the village where most of the Nez Perce stood frozen in place, stunned. Except for that one hapless warrior who had been standing closest on the creek bank. He was clutching both hands
around one of his thighs, a dark ooze seeping between his fingers.

Right on the heels of that breathless moment when everything around him seemed to be suspended in time … the Indians let out a concerted yell: men with their angry war cries, women with their anguished wails of disbelief, and the children with their fearful, bewildered sobbing. Of a sudden everything was in motion once more, but in a blur now. Women scooped up their children as they dashed behind lodges, seeking safety. Old men stood haranguing the men of fighting age. Warriors sprinted here and there in the bedlam, dashing into their lodges for weapons, reemerging with bows or a few old rifles in hand. Even some young boys leaped bareback atop those horses kept in the village—shrieking as they raced for the herd on the outskirts of camp.

There could be no delay now!

“Retreat!” the captain called to his three fellow soldiers and that single civilian interpreter whom he had brought with him across the creek. “Pull back! Pull back!”

As one the four of them wheeled their horses about, kicking the animals savagely as they leaped off the grassy bank, landing with a spray in the creek running at its full strength with mountain snowmelt. All five riders leaned low across their horses' withers as they raced for the opposite bank where the rest of Whipple's detachment were milling about as they came out of the creek. The first arrows were reaching the far side by the time he and the four were scrambling up the bank to join those two companies of soldiers scattering without orders, seeking cover of any sort.

And in the midst of it all sat those two damned civilians!

“Just what in the name of Jupiter did you think you were doing?” Whipple shouted at the man as he reined up between Dutch Holmes and the rifleman.

“They wasn't gonna do what you wanted 'em to do anyway, Captain,” snorted the red-faced, whiskeyed-up Dave Ousterholt. “Lot of useless talk while that Looking Glass and his red bastards have time to get ready to fight.”

In fury, Whipple snapped, “We didn't come here to fight!”

The volunteer sneered as he said, “Blood. That's all the red-bellies understand, Captain. Time we give back what they give our friends on the Salmon. For what they done out on the Camas Prairie, too!”

“Damn you! There was no call—”

“You're already in the soup now, Captain,” interrupted Dutch Holmes.

“That's right!” Ousterholt said with an evil grin. “Let's take this goddamned village: grab ol' Looking Glass and his boys afore they can put up a fight. You're wasting time jawing with me when there's killing to be done!”

Whipple's horse suddenly sidestepped, fighting the bit, the instant an arrow quivered in its rear flank.

“Fire!” the captain bellowed in frustration—at these two hotheaded civilians and those Indians across the way. “Lay down a covering fire!”

It was only a matter of heartbeats before the men of his battalion began doing just that. Kneeling behind some brush, standing behind trees, crouching behind some low rocks, or sprawled on their bellies—the cavalrymen poured a devastating fire into those warriors streaming toward the creek bank to defend their village. With the fury of their fire, it took no more than the space of four minutes for the Nez Perce to be driven back from the water—back, back toward their lodges.

Behind those few warriors, women and old ones were herding the children over a low hill to the east, scattering out of range from those bullets landing among the buffalohide lodges like a spring hailstorm. Every now and again a pony would cry out in pain as a wayward bullet found one of the huge targets.

“Shoot that one getting away!”

Whipple turned, finding Dutch Holmes pointing upstream at a figure wrapped in the hide of a wolf slipping out of the bushes. Several of the civilians instantly trained their
weapons on the Indian and fired, forcing the figure to whirl about and retreat into the brush.

As Whipple lunged up on foot, Dave Ousterholt growled at his companions, “Was that a buck or a squaw?”

“Don't fire on the women! That's an order of the U. S. Army!” the captain snarled his answer to the question.

“Them bitches can kill you just as quick as a buck, Captain!” D. B. Randall bellowed in defense of his volunteers. “As for my outfit, we'll shoot anything that moves over there.”

“Captain Whipple!”

He turned to find Henry E. Winters racing up, still in the saddle. “We need to get into the village
now!”

“Agreed, Captain! Deploy your E Troop on a skirmishers' front, right flank. My men will take the left flank—”

Randall interrupted, “What about my volunteers?”

For an instant he considered telling Randall exactly what he could do with his liquored-up, unruly bar brawlers … but he reluctantly said, “Spread out behind us and act as reserves.” Then Whipple turned quickly so that he wouldn't have to take any more guff from these damnable trouble-making civilians.

Scanning over his L Company, Whipple located First Lieutenant Edwin H. Shelton shaping up the line for their charge. “Mr. Shelton! I want you to pick ten of our men. Get Lieutenant Forse from E Troop to divide off ten of his. Your squad will go after the horse herd. Above everything else, you must surround that herd, prevent it from running off, and capture it.”

Shelton snapped a salute. “Capital idea, sir!”

“There must be no failure in your task,” Whipple emphasized. “You must get your hands on that herd!”

Wheeling about, Shelton hollered for Lieutenant Albert G. Forse.

It took a few minutes to get the men up and out from behind what cover they had taken, a distressing development to Whipple's way of thinking, since his men weren't suffering any real resistance from the opposite bank at all. Nearly
every one of the warriors had taken shelter among the lodges now, making only potshots at best. No concerted defense, nothing of any real danger posed to Whipple's battalion.

The captain was just starting his men off the west bank of the stream—

“I hit the bitch! Whooo-damn! I know I hit her!”

Right by Whipple's elbow, Dave Ousterholt was shouting with unbridled glee, dancing about and pointing as Holmes and Randall pounded him on the back with their congratulations. Just downstream a woman had pitched off her pony, loosing her grip on her infant as she tumbled into the swift water. At the same moment, the frightened horse wheeled around on the uneven, stony stream bottom, the woman and child imprisoned between its flailing legs and slashing hooves. As the pony stumbled, then regained its balance, the woman's head popped to the surface of the swift-flowing stream.

She screamed, slapping the water with her arms, attempting to fight the current, struggling to reach the spot where her child had disappeared beneath the surface. As the pony lurched and lunged across the creek bottom, the woman was tossed about, hurtled downstream away from Whipple's attackers, her faint screams interrupted each time she was bowled over and submerged by the roiling current.

Dutch Holmes cheered his friend, “That's one scalp you can't get your hands on, Dave!”

“Shit!” Ousterholt replied with a wolfish grin. “I brung down two for one bullet! Not bad hunting, I'll wager!”

Whipple finally tore his eyes off the struggling woman as her body was swept around a gentle bend in the creek, carried out of view. He swallowed hard as he whirled around on his heel and roared, “You volunteers—get in and secure the village!”

A
LMOST
as soon as the mean-talker's bullet struck one of the older little chiefs, a man named Shot Leg—who had just
returned from the buffalo country only two days before—the soldiers were retreating and Bird Alighting was sucking in another breath. Now all those uniformed
suapies
were diving for cover, where they started to lay down a deadly fire among the eleven poor lodges and those few willow shelters for the young, unmarried warriors.

With a grunt, Shot Leg crumpled to the ground nearby, both hands clamped around his bloody wound. He stared up at Bird Alighting in disbelief. “Can you understand this?” he asked, dazed. “My name is
Tahkoopen,
from a wounding many summers ago—and now I am shot in the same leg again!”

Bird Alighting was just about to cut off a strip of his breechclout when his ears brought him the hammer of hoof-beats. Wheeling about, he saw the two warriors riding up in a blur. Leaping out of the way just in time, he watched as the pair leaned off their mounts and seized hold of the wounded Shot Leg, dragging the warrior away in a blur of color. With him hoisted between them, the horsemen dragged the man toward the eastern hills, where he would be out of danger.

Spinning around, Bird Alighting found himself alone and looking for a pony, any horse that might get him out of the village. Across the creek, the Shadow voices grew louder and more strident. He glanced their way again. They were moving out of cover, advancing on the bank—preparing to cross. Around him the bullets slapped the thick buffalo hides now, chipped splinters off the lodgepoles. Whined like angry wasps as the air grew deadly around him and the frightened, wandering cattle bawled helplessly, stirring dust as if in a buffalo surround. The odor of fresh manure and urine from the ponies and beeves stung his nostrils—

There—he saw a pony!

It was struggling against its long halter rope, lashed to a stake at the side of a lodge. Forgotten and forsaken by its owner already run into the hills.

Imene kaizi yeu yeu, Hunyewat!
he mouthed his thankful
praise to the Creator as he burst into a sprint, racing for the pony bucking and rearing near the middle of the small camp.