Lay the Mountains Low (43 page)

And when the momentary terror had passed and the rush was over, it came to the sergeant that the Nez Perce had not dared press their case against the center of Howard's big
square. That's when it came to him: how the general had posted his artillery and infantry, with their long-range rifles, at the center of this broad square, positioning the cavalry with their shorter carbines on the two flanks. The goddamned warriors had less respect for the horse soldiers' guns.
^*

That afternoon as the sun reigned supreme in its sky, McCarthy had stripped out of his dark navy blue fatigue blouse trimmed with tarnished brass buttons, he was sweating so. But now, in the coldest part of the day, he was shivering, his teeth threatening to rattle like ivory dice in a bone cup. He struggled to keep them under control, lest any man mistake the cold for fear.

When darkness fell, orders came round for them to hold their position on the line, the men spaced more than five yards apart, with instructions to improve their defenses by making their breastworks taller where they could find rocks or digging their rifle pits deeper on that part of the line where there were no stones to hunker behind. And McCarthy had his men bunkie-up so one man might try to catch a little shut-eye while the other kept watch.

Twice during the night, H Company had been resupplied with ammunition from the quartermaster's stores. But there was no food for those on the firing line. Didn't matter after awhile: It would've been damned near impossible to swallow the crumbly hardbread and salted beef without some water to wash it down anyway. Earlier in the afternoon as the temperature soared, McCarthy heard of an officer who had been driven so mad from thirst that he had lapped at the muddy water in a grassy mire where the mules and horses had been trampling the ground. By moonrise the man was taken sick, doubled over with terrible cramps at the field hospital back among the pack saddles and apishamores.

Hours of darkness, during which the sergeant and others listened to the sounds of the Nez Perce working on their barricades—rocks scraping together as one was piled on top of the other for the fight they knew was to come with the rising sun. That night General Howard approved a few sorties against the enemy, small squads of soldiers sent out to probe the edges of the timber, hoping to outflank the Nez Perce snipers. Wasn't long before each bunch came crawling back. What with the darkness and getting strung out far from their lines, the soldiers needed very little excuse to turn back after encountering the first stiff resistance.

A time or two even McCarthy had heard noises from the night that caused him to think the Indians were attempting to penetrate what they hoped would be a weak part of the army's lines through the night.

“Cap'n Trimble says these here Nez Perce are no despicable foe,” Lieutenant William Parnell repeated quietly as he eased down beside his sergeant in the cold.

“They've fit us good this second time,” McCarthy groaned. He was so thirsty, it even hurt his tongue to wag. “Leastways, we didn't have to run this time, Major.”

Parnell nodded. One of the few survivors of the British army's “Charge of the Six Hundred” at Balaklava during the Crimean War, this large man sighed, “The cap'n and me was talking about how these Nez Perce were such pacifists—couldn't be goaded into a fight—before a few of 'em started murdering … and now we've seen 'em put a courageous defense of their homeland. This shaped up to be a beautiful battle, didn't it, Sergeant: all of Joseph's reds against all of Howard's soldiers.”

“I ain't never heard of no Injuns digging in and holing up the way this bunch has,” the Irishman commented. “Always figured they'd be running off once their women and children was safe.”

“For a second time, it strikes me these warriors aren't the running kind.”

McCarthy studied the big lieutenant in the dark. “You givin' these redskins their due?”

Grudgingly Parnell said, “I told the cap'n there never was a tribe more worthy of my respect, Sergeant.”

A rustle of grass and an angry grumble from men disturbed in their sleep caused them both to look over their shoulders. Out of the darkness came the soft clatter of those wool-covered canteens slung around the neck of a young hospital steward.

“Hold up there, bucko.” Parnell put out his beefy hand. “Where you think you're off to in the dark?”

With a gulp, the young soldier said, “Surgeon Sternberg sent me, sir. Crawl over to get some water at the spring yonder. The wounded are begging for it something awful.”

“The spring's yonder,” McCarthy said, pointing with his outstretched arm into the gray light at that ground halfway between the lines.

“T-that far?”

“And them Injuns gonna see you comin' every step of the way,” McCarthy advised.

With a rapid, anxious shake of his head, the steward shrank to the ground and groaned, face in his hands. Finally slipping the canteen straps over his head, the soldier turned to his left, finding an open spot behind a low pile of rocks, then crabbed over to join some of McCarthy's men behind the breastworks.

After a few minutes of staring at the foolhardy steward, the sergeant finally asked, “Them wounded the surgeon's working on … you say they're really wanting some water in a bad way, are they, soldier?”

With a reluctant nod, the soft-cheeked steward said, “They was begging for water like it was life itself, sir.”

Glancing for a moment at the rear of their lines, where Surgeon Sternberg had erected his hospital, McCarthy eventually raised his voice to announce, “I'm asking you weeds for volunteers. Any man of you to crawl to the spring with these here canteens for the wounded?”

He waited a minute more, glancing left and right along the line. “Any one of you—”

“I'll go with you, Sarge.”

McCarthy turned back to the left, finding Private Fowler rocking up onto his knees, carbine in hand. For a long moment he measured the young fair-haired soldier, discovering no recklessness, no bravado, about him. The sergeant nodded in appreciation to the blue-eyed youth.

“Awright, you weed. Leave your carbine right there if you want, for you'll need to fill your hands with these goddamned canteens.”

“I-I'd just as soon take my rifle with me, Sarge,” Charles E. Fowler replied.

“Have it any way you want.” McCarthy sighed. “Let's do this.”

As they started over the barricade and away from the rifle pits, Parnell's voice boomed behind them.

“Give them brave boys some cover! Any of them bleeming bastards open up on them two, let 'em have it! Watch for the muzzle fire and let the redskins have it!”

Zigging and zagging across the grassy field, McCarthy and Fowler reached the brush-choked spring with a gasp of surprise that they hadn't been hit by those few random shots igniting the waning darkness from the Indian lines. Both collapsed to their bellies and immediately cupped their hands into the cool water, lapping at what little they managed to bring to their lips. One by one they filled the canteens, holding them under the surface of the shallow spring as the air gurgled past the necks.

“We had it easy getting here, you know,” the private said softly. “Gonna be weighed down with all this water now getting back out.”

McCarthy worried the top back onto the last of his canteens. “I figger we ain't got much a choice, soldier. We stay here—or we run best we can back to the lines.”

“I'm f-for running, sir.”

“Lead off, soldier. I'll cover your back door.”

They hadn't trudged under the weight of those canteens more than twenty yards when the first bullet whistled past,
cutting the strap on a canteen Fowler carried. It spun to the grass. The instant the private stopped and stooped to retrieve it, McCarthy lumbered to a halt over him. “G'won! G'won, goddammit! Leave the damn thing!”

As they rocked into a lumbering gait once more, McCarthy could see how Parnell was just getting to his feet above his riflemen, directing fire toward the trees where the Nez Perce marksmen lay hidden. At times in that sprint, the sergeant turned, bringing the carbine to his shoulder, more than relieved he hadn't left his weapon behind. Quickly snapping off a shot at a puff of smoke just then appearing in the distant brush, the sergeant raked open the trapdoor. As the copper cartridge came spinning from the breech, he shoved in a new round.

Whirling around again, he started running, the heavy canteens swinging rhythmically in great arcs from both shoulders. And noticed for the first time how Parnell was still standing, fully exposed as he directed the cover fire. The huge, fleshy lieutenant was waving the two of them on toward the barricades.

With each lunging step, the canteens swung front, then back in opposing arcs that threatened to pull McCarthy off-balance at every stride. An enemy bullet whimpered past just as he reached the breastworks and was dragged down by Parnell and another man. Two others already had Fowler on the ground, patting him over as they searched for wounds, yanking those blessed canteens from his shoulders.

McCarthy clambered to his hands and knees. “Back off, you goddamned weeds!” he roared, kicking at a man who had pulled at a stopper without even taking the canteen from Fowler's neck.

Every one of them froze. Then one of the soldiers said, “Sarge, we just covered your retreat, so I was thinking we all was due a li'l drink of this here water—”

“No, you ain't due no drink till them wounded get theirs,” he growled back. “Not till they've had their fill.” He
knelt beside Fowler. “You think you can get your canteens and mine over to the hospital from here?”

Fowler grinned hugely, his blue eyes sparkling. “Damn right I can, Sergeant.”

McCarthy watched the soldier start away, mindful of the uneasy silence that surrounded him. He suddenly called to Fowler, “Say, Private! I'll see to it Cap'n Trimble hears of this.”

Fowler stopped, looking back over his shoulder at his first sergeant.

“Fact is, I'll see the cap'n makes you a cawpril for this, soldier. Any private sticks his neck out to make that run you just done for the sake of our wounded … least he deserves is a goddamn cawpril's stripes!”

 

*
Located in the ravine currently called Anderson Creek.

*
At the end of the Nez Perce War, Captain George H. Burton reported: “It is explained by the Indians themselves, who acknowledge freely that they have but little fear of the short gun, in consequence of the short range of the carbine and the difficulty of aiming a piece so light and short with accuracy. …”

J
ULY
12, 1877

A
S THE DARKNESS HAD DEEPENED AROUND HIS LINES,
General Oliver Otis Howard had learned more and more of the many wild rumors circulating among the men at the front regarding the extent of their casualties. Some were reporting that as many as one in four men had been killed or dragged back to the surgeon's hospital.

That sort of thing was like a smoldering fire to a unit's fighting morale: If you didn't stomp it out right at the start, it could flare up when and where you least expected it. He had seen enough of that sort of reckless, groundless rumor during the recent War of Rebellion.

Howard brushed aside offers to carry word out to the front lines from his aides. Instead, he had announced he was himself going to reassure the troops their casualties were minor in number.

“Besides,” he told his staff, “this will give me a chance to reconnoiter our position in relation to the Nez Perce lines.”

For more than an hour he had walked the barricades and rifle pits, calmly buoying the men, contradicting the wildfire rumors, and assessing the strengths of his own fortifications while measuring the weaknesses of the enemy. By 4:30
A.M.
as the sky grayed, he was back at headquarters among those stacks of pack saddles and crates, blowing on a cup of scalding coffee.

“The men appear exhausted, General,” declared First Lieutenant Melville C. Wilkinson.

“Exhausted perhaps, but not discouraged,” Howard corrected. Then he glanced at the hospital a moment before continuing, “Our torn and bleeding comrades give us cheer by their brave words spoken, by their silent suffering.”

He drank his coffee in silence as this new day came aborning, privately brooding on the failures that had turned
what should have been nothing more than a brief flare-up by a few renegades into a full-scale war threatening to spill over the borders of his department.

Perry's singular defeat at the White Bird had convinced Howard that, man for man, these Non-Treaty bands were at the very least the equal of his best soldiers. Since that debacle, he had learned that what the Nez Perce lacked in precision drill and unit discipline they more than made up for in their fighting zeal and the accuracy of their aim. Especially on horseback—something he had never expected to see from mounted warriors. If he were to be successful against such a band of zealots, Otis realized he must be very, very cautious in not overplaying his hand. Another defeat like Perry's at White Bird would likely bring other disaffected tribes in the Northwest to Joseph's banner.