Cries from the Earth (35 page)

“So my objective, General?”

“Put an immediate halt to the depredations, Colonel Perry. If you can do that and that alone until reinforcements arrive and I can lead them to rendezvous with you … the rest of this campaign will be nothing more than mopping things up.”

Perry's chest swelled with the pride he felt at leading this spearhead against the enemy. “I concur completely, General: we must crush this rebellion quickly, with all force necessary. Even if my two companies encounter all two hundred warriors you and the agent fear might be arrayed against us, each of my men is the equal of at least ten of those Nez Perce. Besides, I can't imagine those warriors standing and giving us their best, sir. I don't see it in their nature.”

“It is true the Nez Perce have never raised arms against the white men or our government.” Howard measured the officer before him a moment, then asked, “You're very optimistic that you'll have this war over and done with before I get the reinforcements in here, aren't you, Colonel?”

Perry nodded and smiled. “I believe we'll have the Non-Treaty bands on the run the moment they sight my cavalry, and from there on it will be no more than a chase where we have to follow their fleeing backsides, General.”

*   *   *

After his conference with General Howard, Perry watched the sun fall and the stars wink into view across the deepening indigo sky, growing more anxious as the hours passed. Then at dusk the post bugler stepped out to the center of the parade and blew “retreat.” Pacing the long porch that extended across the front of the duplex he and his wife shared with surgeon FitzGerald's family, the captain grew all the more convinced that he could wait no longer for Lieutenant Bomus to bring that string of pack mules over from Lewiston.

David Perry had come to a decision.

“General,” he said breathlessly as he stepped inside the parlor of his residence, where Howard was engrossed in his reports at a small table by lamplight.

“Colonel Perry—”

“Sir, I request permission to depart tonight.”

Howard straightened. “Tonight?”

“As soon as I can put my companies into light marching order, sir.”

Howard stared at the floor, scratching his beard thoughtfully. “Tonight.”

“Time is critical in a situation such as this,” Perry argued. “The murderers have already had two full days to plunder and rape and kill, General. Putting some cavalry in the field as quickly as possible—tonight, in fact—no matter that it would be only these two companies, is better than making no show of force at all.”

Howard looked up and seemed to study the captain's face a long, anxious moment. “You won't wait for the mules to get here?”

“I'll take the five mules we have here, sir. We'll pack what rations and ammunition we'll need until you rush the mule train to catch up to our rear.”

Howard finally nodded. “Very well, Colonel. Get your column under way.”

He had turned on his heel and was back out the open door before he realized he was on the long front porch, searching the parade in the last dim light of dusk. There—he spotted the man.

“Major Trimble!” Perry suddenly called out to the commander of H Company, First Cavalry, using the officer's brevet rank as the captain was crossing the corner of the parade, making for the cavalry barracks.

Of late H Company had been reassigned from Fort Walla Walla. Their march here to Lapwai, in addition to some six weeks of field duty in recent months, made Trimble's men more fit for the campaign trail than was Perry's own F Company.

Joel Graham Trimble came to a stop at the bottom of the steps, placed one foot up, and greeted the post commander by his brevet rank. “Colonel?”

“How soon can you have H Troop ready to ride?”

Instantly yanking his foot off the step, the forty-four-year-old straightened, the slight off-cast in the one eye that had suffered a serious wound at Gettysburg twitching noticeably. “Within the hour. Do you plan to embark without our supply train?”

Perry's voice was confident as he gazed into that one eye Trimble had pinned on him, “Each company will take along two pack mules that will have to do until the train catch up. I'll leave word for them to come on with all possible speed once the train arrives here. I trust that it won't take them long to join us if they follow along with dispatch. Meanwhile, we can leave this evening in light marching order with those two pack mules for each company.”

“Very good, Colonel. You'll be leading F Company?”

“Yes. Be sure the men carry three days' cooked rations. An additional five days' rations uncooked with each company's supplies. Report to the quartermaster's depot and draw forty rounds for each carbine, twenty-four loads for their side arms. An additional hundred rounds per man on the pack animals. Light marching order. Ready within the hour, Major Trimble?”

“Yes, sir.”

Perry watched this older officer turn and start away for the barracks before he hollered into the twilight, “Mr. Theller!”

“Yes, Colonel?” This junior officer, a first lieutenant with the Twenty-first Infantry assigned to Fort Lapwai, was already approaching the porch, having grown aware of the hubbub of sudden activity at Perry's residence.

Of the men he was taking with him, Theller had the least experience in battle. “You heard, Lieutenant?”

“Yessir.”

“I need a junior officer to ride in command of F Company.” He looked steadily at the infantry officer.

“Cavalry, sir?”

“Exactly. Are you the man to command my men, Lieutenant?”

“By all means, Colonel!”

Perry nodded with gratification at the junior officer. “See that Sergeant Baird alerts our troop and they are prepared to march inside of an hour. You understood my ration and ammunition orders to Captain Trimble?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Very good, Mr. Theller,” Perry replied. “Draw your rations and distribute the ammunition. We're going to stamp out this brushfire and stamp it out quick.”

Like many of the officers in the frontier army, David Perry had learned to soldier during the War of Rebellion against the secessionist states of the South. Early in '62 he had earned a commission as a second lieutenant in the First Cavalry, and by that July he had earned his promotion to first lieutenant for action in battle. By November of '64 Perry had advanced to his captaincy, the rank he now held as commanding officer at Fort Lapwai. As the Civil War was gasping its last in the spring of 1865, Perry won his first brevet for gallant service in the Battle of Five Forks on 1 April. The next day Jefferson Davis evacuated Richmond and the fighting was all but over.

Later, when the First Cavalry was transferred to the Northwest following the Civil War, the captain struck a decisive blow against a large party of Snake and Bannock warriors on the Owyhee River in Idaho the day after Christmas in 1866. For his leadership in that victory Perry received his second brevet to the rank of lieutenant colonel. Then, during the campaign in the Lava Beds against Captain Jack's Modocs a few years later, his F Company saw more action. Perry himself suffered a wound during fighting at Tule Lake in 1873.
1

So this was not a man untried in battle, nor a leader hesitant in a fight. No less an Indian fighter than General George Crook himself had publicly expressed his admiration for Perry's own abilities as an Indian fighter.

Of the men at Fort Lapwai that night of 15 June, eighteen and seventy-seven, Captain David Perry was
the
man to lead those two companies of cavalry against the Nez Perce uprising. He knew firsthand what Indian fighting was all about. And the captain recognized when bold action must be taken.

Now was not the time to delay.

Howard's former aide-de-camp, Captain William H. Boyle of G Company, Twenty-first Infantry, would remain in command of Fort Lapwai until the reinforcements arrived and he would depart with Howard and the pack train.

With Lieutenant Parnell's and Captain Trimble's wives visiting over at Fort Walla Walla and his own off on holiday at The Dalles, only one officer's wife was still in residence at the fort: Mrs. Delia Theller. She moved up to stand beside General Howard after kissing her husband farewell, and the lieutenant turned aside to join his men as the sergeants began to bawl their stirring command of,
“Mount!”

Perry nudged his horse to the edge of the porch directly in front of Howard. He could tell by the look on the department commander's face that Howard fully agreed to his not waiting until morning to go in search of the Nez Perce. “Good-bye, General.”

“Good-bye, Colonel. You must not get whipped.”

“There is no danger of that, sir.”

Howard saluted. “Colonel—I know you will make short work of this.”

The captain saluted and without another word reined left. To his three officers he gave the order. “Right—by fours—MARCH!”

Ninety-nine enlisted men set off on their march—no more than sixty-five miles to reach Mount Idaho. Joe Rabusco and a dozen unarmed Treaty Nez Perce who would serve as scouts streamed along either side of the formation, quickly loping to the front of the column.

It was just past eight o'clock when the captain led his detail into the dark, moving south down the Mount Idaho Road.

Almost from the time they left Fort Lapwai, Perry's command entered a mountainous country sparsely dotted with heavy timber and scarred with deep ravines, which slowed their march through the black of that cloudy, moonless night, not to mention the rain that began minutes after they were on their way, a rain that made the trail muddy and extremely slippery—dangerous footing for the horses by day, a treacherous situation by night.

So dark was it that Perry grew increasingly suspicious of an ambush by scouting parties that might be keeping an eye on the post for sign of a soldier column. By one o'clock he ordered Second Lieutenant William Russell Parnell, junior officer of Trimble's H Company, to take the advance with a platoon of skirmishers.

David Perry understood that there was not a better officer to have along on this campaign than Parnell, a forty-year-old Dublin-born Irishman who had served with distinction in the British Hussars, a unit of foot. After transferring to the Lancers, Parnell had participated in the capture of Sebastopol during the Crimean War and was, in fact, one of a handful of survivors from that fabled “Charge of the Light Brigade” at Balaclava who had ridden on, on into the mouth of death with the six hundred.

After immigrating to America in 1860, this large-boned man who taxed the strength of his mounts volunteered for the Union Army in the Civil War. Following his capture by Confederate troops at Upperville in 1863, Parnell managed to escape and return to his lines, seeing service in the Shenandoah Campaign despite the fact that he still carried a minié ball in the bone of his left hip. In addition, the lieutenant bore the scars of several deep saber wounds, one of which had severed his nose.

As a prisoner of war he had received no medical attention for that deep, suppurating wound that caused the bone to corrode and fall away, leaving a gaping hole in the roof of his mouth, an affliction that made it difficult for him to speak clearly. After the war, Parnell had a metal plate constructed to cover the hole, which permitted him to articulate so others could understand him.

By the end of the war he had reached the rank of lieutenant colonel and had been awarded two brevets for gallantry in action. With things quieted back east, Parnell moved west with the army. During a fierce skirmish against hostiles on Pit River under the field command of General George Crook, Parnell garnered another brevet, earning himself the honor of being called lieutenant colonel in the regular army. Like many of the officers in the Northwest, he too had participated in the Modoc War.

Moving into the vanguard this dark, rainy night, Lieutenant Parnell deployed his skirmishers 200 yards in front of the column and posted outriders 150 yards from both flanks to prevent any surprise ambushes. The march was taking longer than Perry had hoped, what with those small-footed mules so notoriously balky where the footing was uncertain. So during that night Perry was compelled to order brief halts not only to allow the five heavy-laden pack mules to catch up with the rear of the march but also to give Parnell's skirmishers time to maneuver through the thick brush on either side of the wagon road and to cross the deep ravines ahead of the column. A soaking night seeped into the coming of a drizzly dawn.

At midmorning, 16 June, Captain Perry ordered a halt in the yard at Cottonwood House after a march of forty-plus miles. It was plain as sun the battalion's horses were not in the least conditioned to the demands of the campaign trail. Directing the column to dismount in a field behind the house where the men removed their saddles and turned their horses out for a roll and to graze within a fenced pasture, Perry next deployed Parnell's pickets to warn of any approaching horsemen.

“The men can fall out and cook their breakfast,” he declared to his officers, gazing down at the face of his pocket watch. “Two hours. We march away at noon.”

In the distance, Perry spotted three huge columns of smoke. Perhaps burning haystacks. Maybe the homes of settlers. The captain turned to this experienced Irish soldier, Lieutenant Parnell. “Search the buildings,” he ordered as he turned slowly, looking over the tranquil scene here at Cottonwood House. Hard to believe a raiding party had been here at all.

Upon close examination, Perry's men found some wagons beneath a shed near the house that had had their contents disturbed as the warriors rifled through the supplies. And inside the Norton house itself, it was plain the raiders had intended to burn the place to the ground. They had thrown a burning firebrand into a trunk that contained clothing and papers, but the lid had fallen and snuffed out the flames before much damage was caused.