Lay the Mountains Low (91 page)

Woodruff reclined back against a small mound of dirt thrown up by a long-fallen tree's roots. Swallowing down the rising pain in his left heel and both thighs, he wondered if they all would have that chance to get their hands on the Nez Perce soon enough … when the red bastards made one final charge.

W
A
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A
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AI
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HAL
, 1877

W
HILE THE SUN ROSE HIGHER AND HOTTER THROUGH
that long morning, Yellow Wolf had watched how Red Moccasin Tops had done such effective work with his soldier carbine against the
suapies.
This warrior, who was called
Sarpsis Ilppilp,
crouched behind a small boulder close to the hollows, where he undeniably had accounted for several of the soldiers who had fallen, either killed or badly wounded.

When his bullets struck a victim, Red Moccasin Tops celebrated and roared loudly, chanting his own strong-heart song while he reloaded and adjusted the white wolfskin cape he had tied around the shoulders of the red flannel shirt he had on—one of the powerful talismans he wore to ward off the death spirit. No other fighting man had dared crawl as close to the white enemies as Red Moccasin Tops.

“Where is White Bird now?” he shouted to the other warriors every time he hit one of the white men.

“He is not here!” a voice answered.

Someone else said, “Maybe still in the village.”

Each time, the exchange was the same. Red Moccasin Tops told those who had the soldiers surrounded, “Don't you see that I am here and he is not! But this morning White Bird accused me of being a coward.
Wahlitits
and I were the only men brave enough to start this war. Who is this White Bird to call
us
cowards when Shore Crossing lies dead in the village—killed defending his home and family? He was a patriot killed defending his people and their freedom!”

Over time Yellow Wolf thought Red Moccasin Tops grew a little bolder as he popped out from the protection of his rock, quickly aimed, and fired a shot at the soldiers huddled like scared voles in their rifle pits.

“Who is White Bird to accuse me of being a coward because I started this war with my friend?” he shouted as he reloaded another cartridge into his soldier carbine. “See the soldiers cower from me in their hollows! Let no man question my courage now—”

At the instant he crept around the side of the boulder in a crouch, his rifle already at his shoulder, a bullet struck Red Moccasin Tops in the side of his throat, not only slashing open a massive blood vessel but also cutting the leather strand of his sacred dentalium-shell necklace, which he tied choker-style around his neck. For some weeks now
Sarpsis Ilppilp
had believed this necklace held
hattia tinukin,
the death spirit, at bay.

His body was hurtled to the side, landing in a heap, where he gurgled for a few moments, trying to speak, his legs pumping in anguish while blood spurted onto his sacred wolfskin cape.

For some time the others were stunned into complete silence.

“Who will bring Red Moccasin Tops out to safety?” someone finally cried from the late-morning shadows.

“Who among you is bravest?” immediately echoed a familiar voice. It belonged to the young warrior's father, Sun Necklace.

“Perhaps I am brave enough!” another voice called out.

His voice cracking with deep emotion, Sun Necklace hollered, “We do not want to leave Red Moccasin Tops there! We cannot leave him for the crazy white people to cut him up in pieces to make a fool of this brave warrior! Who will bring his body away, and carry him to me?”

“I am his good friend—I will bring
Sarpsis Ilppilp
away!” sang Strong Eagle. “Come along, all those who want to save the body of a hero.”

Yellow Wolf and six others hollered their agreement and hurried to follow Strong Eagle, the cousin of Red Moccasin Tops. Running and dodging in a crouch, they used the narrow trees the best they could to cover their intent. Inside their ring of rifle pits, the soldiers yelled their warnings at
one another, becoming very animated. Yellow Wolf decided that, with Five Wounds having made his suicide charge not long ago, the white men believed that the rest of the warriors were now coming in for a massive assault.

The
suapies
laid down a murderous fire, knocking over the man beside Yellow Wolf. A bullet struck
Weweetsa,
called Log, in the collarbone and came out the opposite shoulder. The warriors left the wounded man where he lay and continued to sneak toward the boulder.

The remaining seven didn't get much closer when
Quiloishkish
had his right elbow shattered by a soldier bullet. He twisted to the ground, writhing in pain, groaning through clenched teeth.

“We should go back,” Strong Eagle said regretfully.

Yellow Wolf reminded, “It is yours to decide: he is your cousin.”

“His body is too close to the soldiers!” Strong Eagle snapped. “We will go back.”

The six retreated, gathering up their two wounded on the way out.

It wasn't very long before Strong Eagle resentfully worked himself into a frenzy once more, desiring to retrieve the body of his cousin. “I will go again,” he announced. “Come with me if you want to save his body.”

For this attempt there were only five, since one of the warriors dropped out. And this time Strong Eagle led them in a different direction, staying at the bottom of a shallow draw that led down beneath the rifle pits to a spot not far from where Red Moccasin Tops lay.

“Wait here for me,” Strong Eagle instructed the others. “I will bring his body back to this ravine.”

Vaulting over the top of the shallow gully and surprising the
suapies,
the warrior scrambled on all fours to reach the boulder as bullets slammed against trees and plowed into the ground all around him. A moment after he reached the body, Strong Eagle shouted back to the others.

“My cousin is not dead! He still breathes!”

That was momentous news to Yellow Wolf as he
watched Strong Eagle start away from the boulder, slowly standing with Red Moccasin Tops draped across his shoulder. He managed to lunge toward the ravine only a matter of steps before a soldier bullet found its mark, hitting Strong Eagle in the side. He pitched forward into the dirt and pine needles, dropping his cousin with a grunt.

Gasping in pain, Strong Eagle caught his breath, glancing down at the two wounds along his lower ribs. Then he crawled over to his cousin's body, grabbed hold of the belt, and started to pull Red Moccasin Tops onto his shoulder once more. Wobbly, Strong Eagle struggled to rise and eventually managed another half-dozen steps toward the ravine, when he collapsed under the weight, too weak from his loss of blood.

“My cousin, now he breathes no more,” Strong Eagle announced some time later after he had rested on the ground.

“Come out by yourself!” Yellow Wolf shouted.

With a weak voice, Strong Eagle whimpered, “My heart feels small and cold that I cannot bring out the hero!”

His very soul aching for all the loss he had witnessed this day, Yellow Wolf said, “If your cousin is dead, he is beyond your help now.”

“L
IEUTENANT
? I wan'cha lookit this bullet hole in me.”

Charles Woodruff turned slightly as the enlisted man twisted about in his shallow rifle pit when the lieutenant was dragging himself past, sent by Gibbon to have someone check on the men and count the number of cartridges each of them still had available in the event of a rush by more than one warrior—the likes of which they had experienced a little while before.

“It can't be too bad now, can it?” he asked as the private inched toward him, pushing himself along with one hand, sliding on his hip. “If you can move that well—”

Charles Alberts
^*
pulled his other bloody hand away from the damp, dark patch on his chest as the lieutenant
bent forward to look. That's when Woodruff's words caught in his throat.

Moist blood not only continued to seep from the bullet hole the soldier had been pressing his hand over, but there were frothy bubbles escaping from the wound as well. From what little the lieutenant remembered of his basic human anatomy, the Nez Perce bullet had gone through the man's lungs. Woodruff took a deep breath, unsure what he would say to the soldier, since those bubbles did not bode well for the man surviving a lengthy siege.

“I near got myself killed by some women in a tepee this morning,” Alberts confessed quietly. “Was ordered to search the tepees—them squaws tried to kill me, but I didn't hit till just a little while ago.”

Woodruff could only stare at that dark, bubbling hole.

“I'm asking you, Lieutenant,” the private said, a slight quiver in the voice he consciously attempted to keep from wavering, “ 'cause we don't have no surgeon along.”

“You sure picked a poor substitute,” Woodruff eventually replied, remembering to keep the gravity from showing in his eyes and his voice. “Here, let me take a look at your back. See the exit wound.”

But when he looked at the soldier's shirt, then pulled up the blouse and peered at the back of the man's gray fatigue pullover, there was no hole. That meant no exit wound.

“Seems the bullet didn't come out, Private.”

Alberts asked, “Wha-what's that mean, Lieutenant?”

“Means it's a serious wound, soldier.”

Alberts swallowed hard, then coughed a little as he pressed his sticky fingers against the hole all the more firmly. “What you think of my chances, sir?”

Woodruff sighed, ruminating on what to say. It didn't make sense to tell the private just how bad things were, but … his conscience wouldn't let him lie to a man in that condition, either.

“Alberts, you have a serious wound—but there is no need of your dying … if you've got the nerve.”

“The n-nerve, Lieutenant?”

“The nerve to hang on until relief comes and a surgeon gets here. You've already shown you had the nerve to see it through our difficult march and this hellish battle. If you've got the nerve to make it through this siege, you'll come out just fine on the other side.”

It took a moment, but Private Charles Alberts finally grinned wanly. He said, “Thank you, Lieutenant. I promise I'll keep my nerve up.”

Woodruff watched the soldier slide sideways around in his shallow rifle pit, lean back against the dirt breastwork, then close his eyes as another round came whining through their position—

“The red sonsabitches gonna burn us out!” came the pained yelp just as Woodruff's nose registered that peculiar stench of burning grass.

“Where's that coming from?” an officer called.

“Up the hill!”

“There—to the west!”

The first smudge of pale, whitish smoke wafted through the stand of lodgepole, assaulting their noses. The wounded began crying out all the more piteously with a new danger that only intensified their suffering from the heat and want of water. Now the very air around them was becoming a suffocating blanket too heavy to breathe.

“This can only mean the warriors are going to charge us!” Gibbon shouted from his place near the southern edge of the scene. “They're gonna rush in under cover of the smoke!”

Alberts reached out to snag Woodruff's arm. He pleaded, “Promise you'll kill me with your revolver afore they get their hands on me, Lieutenant.”

“I don't want one more of our wounded to fall into their bloody hands,” Woodruff vowed, instantly recalling the cries of those they had left in the creek bottom when they retreated to this little plateau. “This pistol is our last resort, soldier.”

“Lieutenant Woodruff!”

“Yes, sir, General Gibbon?”

“Do you remember last year about this time, up at Fort Shaw, when Looking Glass himself and some of his warriors were on their way back home from the buffalo plains?”

Woodruff swallowed, the war cries and chants behind the smoke becoming louder still. The recollection was clear as rain-rinsed crystal.

“Yes, sir. Looking Glass held a sham battle for you on the broad plain near the stables—divided his warriors in two for the show.”

“One band lit a grass fire,” Gibbon recalled. “Made a charge in beneath all the smoke, driving the other side from the field.”

“You heard the general, men!” Woodruff roared now with the certainty they had only moments to live. “This is a tactic the Nez Perce love to use in battle. Be prepared for a final charge. Make every one of your last cartridges count!”

As their throats became raw with coughing and their eyes stung with tears, attempting to peer through the billowing waves of grass smoke, Woodruff listened to the increasing amplitude of the war cries. They swelled in a seeming crescendo over several minutes as the breathless soldiers waited for the charge to come—a charge that meant the very real possibility of defeat and death … perhaps even worse.