Lay the Mountains Low (36 page)

Racing their ponies through the shifting masses of white men, sprinting across the bluff, Joe and the others stopped at the pine-covered edge of the ridge and gazed down into the narrow valley of the Clearwater. There, off to their left a long ways, lay the camp of the Non-Treaty bands.

“The soldiers almost missed them!” Captain John said.

“Nearly passed them by!”

Then Joe observed, “They are still a long way back—too far to attack from here “

“I think the
suapies
will have to find a way down to the valley to make their fight,” James Reuben said.

“If they don't, then the Non-Treaties will get away before the soldiers can capture the village,” Albert declared.

“They're not going to wait to find a way down!” Captain John said. “Look!”

When they turned, looking through the trees, the scouts watched some of the
suapies
hustling one of the two wagon guns through the patchy evergreens and right up to the edge of the bluff, where they were hollering at one another. Farther away at the edge of the ridge, Cut-Off Arm and his soldier chiefs stopped their horses at the edge and peered down as the wagon gun belched its first charge. It made a lot of noise, but no damage, as the shot landed in the river far short of its mark—for the village stood a long, long way upstream.

The
suapies
around the wagon gun shouted at one another again and went about their crazy business with the weapon, swabbing and reloading it for a second charge. Which landed a little closer this time. A little better with the third shot … but it was soon clear to Joe Albeit that the wagon gun would never come close to those Non-Treaty lodges.

But as he peered down into the valley, through the drifting shreds of dirty cannon smoke, Albert could see that—even while the huge black balls had failed to reach the camp—the noise of the gun and the explosion of those charges was not lost on the warrior bands. The camp was a
swirl of motion: men and women racing about on horses and on foot, bathers leaping out of the river, children darting among the lodges, arms flailing in terror.

Riders bristling with weapons appeared at the edges of camp, near the Cottonwood and on the bank of the Clearwater. It appeared they were prepared to fight … if they could only find their invisible enemy.

Of a sudden, in the midst of all that blur and dust and panic gripping the village down below, Joe was struck with an instant horror—wondering just where his father was.

 

*
Cries from the Earth
, vol. 14, the
Plainsmen
series.

*
Tuesday, July 10, 1877.

K
HOY
-T
SAHL
, 1877

Y
ELLOW WOLF HAD NOT BEEN THIS HAPPY IN A LONG
, long time. Two days ago Looking Glass's Alpowai band had rejoined the Non-Treaties, and for the first time since this war began, Yellow Wolf was reunited with his mother,
Yiyik Wasumwah
.

Her cheeks were wet as she held her son's face between her hands, chattering like a happy, happy jay. Then she would lay her cheek against his bare chest and hug him, sighing all the while. After a moment, she would again hold his face in her hands and stare up at her son, telling him how tall he looked, young warrior that he was now.

“He killed four
suapies
at
Lahmottar
Five Wounds had announced as he came riding by in that happy rejoining of the people.

“Yes,” agreed Rainbow. “Yellow Wolf is a true guardian of the
Nee-Me-Poo!
”

Staring into his mother's eyes, he asked, “Where is
Tommimol”

Yellow Wolf's stepfather was three-quarters French and had been raised a member of Joseph's
Wallowa
, but for the past few winters they had lived with Yellow Wolf's mother's people, the Alpowai who farmed on the Clearwater.

She looked at the ground a minute, her face gone tense. He knew his mother was fighting some angry tears.

So he had dared to ask, “He … he wasn't killed by the soldiers?”

“No,” she replied. “He was not here.
Tommimo
had gone to the Shadow town by the Snake River,
^*
to trade some horses. Others have brought news that my husband has
been arrested and won't be coming back until this war is over.”

Then she had turned away and scurried back to that bundle of what few belongings she had managed to carry away from the village when the soldiers and Shadows struck Looking Glass. She pulled out a long scrap of blanket and laid it across her arms as if presenting it to him. Yellow Wolf's fingers had gripped the blanket wrap, the hot blood pounding in his ears blotting out the noisy celebration swirling around them.

It was his repeater!

“You have not needed to shoot it, Mother?”

She shook her head. “No, but I protected it for you, knowing one day you would come back and—if I saved anything from the soldiers—I wanted to protect this rifle for you, Son.”

Quickly Yellow Wolf wrapped her close in one arm. His mother knew how to use the gun if she needed to against any soldiers or band of Shadows—a good shooter, she was. And his mother was a strong woman, too, capable of riding any wild pony. In the
Illahe
, the buffalo country near the
E-sue-gha
far to the east, he had watched her bring down buffalo with a big rifle. This woman would not tremble even at the sudden appearance of a grizzly bear.

Yellow Wolf knew he was his mother's son!

And now he had a sixteen-shot carbine for the war—no more would he have to use the one-shot soldier gun, condemned to searching out soldier bullets for it.

That night they had camped near the Middle Fork, farther north and close to Kamiah where many of the Non-Treaties went on Sunday morning for their special services. It was the next morning when riders came galloping back to report that they were being watched by some Shadows.

“Suapies?”

“No, not soldiers. But a lot of Shadows.”

By the time the young men under
Ollokot
, Five Wounds, and Rainbow had returned with their weapons and their red blankets, the whites had scurried to the top of a large hill
Yellow Wolf's people called
Possossona
. At this place known as Water Passing, the Shadows were throwing up rock barricades they could hide behind. But the white men were unable to hold onto their horses that night after it grew very dark.

It was a good thing, too, this taking of the horses, because they had found that most of them belonged to Looking Glass's people.

“These were taken by those Shadows when they came with the soldiers to drive us from our camp!”

“Good,”
Ollokot
had said to the Alpowai. “Now we've taken them back and the Shadows can walk on their sore feet if they want to return to their hollows or towns.”

They kept four-times-ten of the ponies they had run off from Shadows, then led the rest—those they did not want—onto the Camas Prairie and scattered them far from the Shadow strongholds.

For another day they kept up a little sporadic fire at the whites, just enough to force the Shadows down behind their rock and tree barricades. Even though there had been a lot of shooting, only one warrior was injured: his right trigger finger shot off while he was leading away a pair of Looking Glass's horses the Shadows stole. In all the excitement,
Paktilek
had not realized he was hit until he noticed that the mane of the horse he was riding was wet and sticky with blood. A big ring on another finger was badly dented. It had saved the rest of his hand!

That next morning the chiefs decided it would be better to march upstream a ways.

Toohoolhoolzote
said, “If the Shadows have found us here, then the soldiers will be the next to come.”

“Yes,” agreed White Bird. “We should take our families and lodges away from this place and deeper into the canyon of the Clearwater.”

Looking Glass suggested, “We will be safe at
Pitayiwahwih
; there is room enough for us all to camp there.”

Away they marched from those Shadows hunkered down in their hollows, just the way the soldiers had been kept in
their holes at the far side of the Camas Prairie for many days. Why wouldn't the Shadows and
suapies
learn that whenever they attempted to attack the Non-Treaty bands they were always struck back with an even stronger blow?

Now this morning in that new camp the sun had been long in creeping over the lip of the tall, rocky bluffs just east of the river. Many of the young men slept in after singing, dancing, and courting late into the night. And when they did arise, there was nothing much to do. Already they had lost interest in keeping a close guard on those hillbound Shadows downstream, and the
suapies
were still far away at the settlements…. So this would be a day to relax, here in this most beautiful of settings.

Through this narrow canyon the South Fork of the Clearwater flowed strong and clean, braced on the east by sheer cliffs rising more than a thousand feet in height, while to the west rose irregular bluffs. Both walls were inscribed with deep ravines climbing up to grassy rolling plateau. For much of the morning the canyon remained in shadow. Here summer days reigned.

For Yellow Wolf, it seemed as if the war was holding its breath. Camp would not be moved this day, the sun would be hot, so now had come the time to celebrate—even though there was no more whiskey in the camps. They would hold horse races and games of chance. There would be time for bathing in the cold river, or trying to talk to that young woman in White Bird's band, the pretty one Yellow Wolf had had his eye on for weeks now. At dusk, some of the older men would put out the call when it came time for the
timei
—a special race held but once every summer—when each contestant announced to the whole village the name of the young woman whose hand he would be racing for.

Perhaps she would see in him something worthy, although he was hawk-nosed and snake-eyed, his skin the color of an old saddle many times sweated on. No, Yellow Wolf had not the beautiful burnished copper skin of most
Wallowa
. He was not a handsome man like Shore Crossing or
Ollokot
, but in the last few weeks he had won a reputation
as a fighter and man of integrity—one who would provide for and protect a woman and the children to come of their union.

Yellow Wolf had been sitting on his pony, watching some of the horse races on the long flat above the village, when his friend
Wemastahtus
came up and said with much excitement, “Yesterday a soldier was killed below here. I found him this morning.”

“I want to see him.”

Wemastahtus
led Yellow Wolf several miles to the spot on down the Clearwater toward Kamiah. The body was lying in some brush by the side of the river trail, almost as if the man were asleep, except that a cloud of flies tormented his eyes, nostrils, and his slack mouth, too, with their black, buzzing fury. The man had a lot of bushy hair on his upper lip that ran down to the bottom of his chin.

“Maybe he ran away from the army,”
Wemastahtus
suggested.

“No,” Yellow Wolf said, “I think he ran away from the Shadows pinned down at
Possossonar

His curiosity sated, Yellow Wolf now wanted to find the young woman with the big eyes. He loped back, reaching the lower end of the village, knowing the chances were good she would take her younger sisters and a brother down to the river to watch the children while they bathed and splashed in the water, now that the sun was high overhead. The best place to tell her his soft words would be in the cool shade of those big cottonwoods here in the quiet of this midday heat, with nothing but the gurgle of the Clearwater—

That loud boom echoed off the canyon wall, then died as the shattering noise was swallowed by the low hills west of the river.

At first, every motion stopped, every voice stilled—the air itself suspended in stunned and stupefied silence. Then, as the loud roar faded, Yellow Wolf heard again the buzz of the flies and other wingeds here along the shady bank. A heartbeat later, the first woman's scream split the dry, hot air.

Her cry was quickly taken up by a hundred more—women and children all, scrambling out of the water as a second dull
whoosh
whistled down the canyon and ended with a terrifying blast that shook the birds out of the nearby trees. Such a
whoosh-boom
could be nothing but a twoshoots wagon gun: roaring once when it was fired, roaring a second time when its round charge exploded on the far bank, well short of camp.

Men were shouting now, war leaders exhorting others to grab up their weapons. A young man was riding down the opposite side of the river, waving a blanket back and forth, back and forth over his head in warning.