Cries from the Earth (43 page)

“O-o-oh! O-o-o-o-o-oh! Sua-pies!”

All around the lame one, other Wallowa emerged from their lodges and willow-and-blanket bowers to hear the astonishing news. Then Toohoolhoolzote appeared, shouting encouragement. And White Bird too. Summoning their warriors.

Over his shoulder Yellow Wolf heard the familiar voices. Turning, he found Ollokot assembling the Wallowa men for action and leading them toward the center of the main camp. With No Feet's first alarm, the young war chief had rushed to the lodge of the aged Black Foot, who owned a great number of both cattle and horses. Many summers ago the old one had traded for the white man's far-seeing glasses when he discovered how they helped him locate his wandering strays in the pockets and ravines, on the rumpled hillsides that had been the rugged homeland of Joseph's people.

As the fighting men from all the bands gathered, Joseph himself came up to stand beside his young brother, distress creasing his face with deep lines of worry. Quickly the chiefs and subchiefs huddled together at the center of the lodges while all around them groggy, fog-headed men stumbled out of camp to catch up their buffalo horses. Nearing the herds, the warriors found the stallions fighting, the mares squealing. Here in the heart of the breeding season many of the animals were hard to manage as they were dragged back to the noisy camp where the women were shrieking and children beginning to whimper with the first twinges of uncertainty and fear.

“Perhaps we can get across the Salmon before they reach us!” one of the little chiefs suggested.

“Yes,” another little chief agreed. “In the maze of hills and ravines on the far side, the soldiers will never find us, never threaten our camp. But here at
Lahmotta
 … we might lose our women and children—”

“You are old women!” Toohoolhoolzote snarled an angry interruption. “This is war.”

“Perhaps it does not have to be,” Joseph pleaded.

The other chiefs stared at him incredulously. Yellow Wolf could not understand why his chief could be so wrong: could there be any doubt that with the soldiers coming to attack it meant war?

White Bird spoke next. “Joseph could be right,” he asserted in that stunned silence. “Perhaps these soldiers have only come for the murderers.”

“We will never turn a single man over to them!” Toohoolhoolzote roared. “Kill all the soldiers!”

“No,” White Bird counseled. “If they have come only for those who have murdered or stolen from the whites, then we will know soon enough.”

“We must fight no matter what!” Toohoolhoolzote bellowed frantically, recognizing how the other chiefs were being swayed to White Bird's persuasion.

“There doesn't have to be a fight,” Joseph said. “We should choose some men to go out to talk with these soldiers who are coming. Go meet them some distance from our camp so our women and children are safe. Let's see what these soldiers want from us. Perhaps we can make a peace with them after all the troubles with the settlers.”

White Bird turned to Toohoolhoolzote. “But while our chiefs talk to the soldiers we must prepare to defend our village if the white men came to make war on us.”

It was agreed and five peace emissaries were chosen to set forth with
Wettiwetti Houlis,
the one known as Vicious Weasel. While they mounted up and set off, a white cloth fluttering on a long staff before them, the chiefs ordered the rest of the men to bring their war ponies into camp—indeed, to drive in all the horses so they would be at hand when the women needed them, should they have to flee the soldiers on their way into the valley.

But all around him Yellow Wolf could see how few people there were to hear the chiefs' commands. Too many still slept the too-deep slumber that comes quickly after drinking so much of the white man's whiskey. How they had danced and sang and filled their cups from the keg again and again last night! So now fewer than half the camp were stirring to the alarm!

Those prepared to take up arms were fewer than half of the warriors in the village—much, much less than they would need to defend their families if the Shadows came not to talk, but to attack.

Turning quickly, Yellow Wolf counted on his fingers. Including those emissaries who were departing to talk with the soldiers, there were no more than seven-times-ten ready to ride against the certainty that the white man had sent far more soldiers than that to attack this camp!

Once again the
Nee-Me-Poo
were outnumbered.

All through the village older men scampered about, lashing the young men with their quirts, pummeling them with short, sinew-backed bows, trying to awaken the many still suffering the powerful whiskey sleep. Shouting, slapping, striking—the old men moved among the bodies curled here and there where the younger ones had fallen in their revels. Not one more awoke to join those who would protect the camp behind Ollokot and Two Moons.

This gray, cold dawn as these few fighting men stripped to their breechclouts and quickly painted themselves with the favored red and ocher earth colors, it was not only the certainty that they would be outnumbered that gave them pause. It was also knowing that of these few who would be riding out to confront the
sua-pies,
little more than half carried firearms. Of those weapons, many were ancient muzzleloaders from the old pelt-trading days. The rest carried only bows made of wild sheep horn or their
kopluts
to crack against the white man's bones, to crush his skull.

“Yellow Wolf, come!”

He turned to find the handsome Ollokot hurrying his way, leading his cream-colored war pony by hand, wearing his commander's sash over his shoulder, those white man's farseeing glasses he had borrowed from Black Foot now suspended around his neck by a thick cord.

“Ollokot!”

“Fetch up your horse, Yellow Wolf! I am taking some warriors out to see how our peace-talkers do with the soldiers.”

Stuffing his bow into his wolf-hide quiver, the young warrior draped the wide, furry strap over his shoulder and followed Ollokot and more than six-times-ten out of the village toward the mouth of the canyon where the soldiers would emerge onto the rolling bottomground.

Nearing the first bluffs, Two Moons peeled off to the right, taking a three-hand count of the warriors with him. That left Ollokot with close to five-times-ten when his horsemen took up a position on the west side of the canyon behind a low butte. At their backs lay their village of women and children. Between it and Ollokot's men lay a last low ridge that blocked the camp from the soldiers' view. Near at hand stood a pair of small hills where the
Nee-Me-Poo
had come to bury some of their dead for generations beyond count.

Not only did they have a village to defend, Yellow Wolf brooded as they waited in the growing light of this new day, but they had the bones of their forefathers to protect as well.

Pressing those far-seeing glasses to his eyes, Ollokot silently studied the distance. Then he removed them from his face and turned to address the warriors. “It is good,” he explained. “I see Jonah and Reuben leading the soldiers down the trail—”

“How many soldiers?” demanded Shore Crossing.

“No more than the fingers on both my hands,” Ollokot explained. “To see Jonah and Reuben coming, with no more soldiers than that—this is a good sign.”

“How is it a good sign?” growled
Tipyahlahnah Kaps Kaps,
known as Strong Eagle, whose pony stood beside Shore Crossing's.

“They are two Treaty men with good hearts,” Ollokot declared. “With Jonah and Reuben riding in front, our peace-talkers can go out to see for sure that the soldiers themselves are coming with good hearts.”

“And if those soldiers are hiding behind Jonah and Reuben to fool us as they're riding down on our village?” Shore Crossing snarled. “What then?”

“From here we can race into position and block the trail between the two hills,” Ollokot told his warriors. “If our peace talkers fail to turn the soldiers around … then it is here that we can block their charge into our village.”

Yellow Wolf felt the surge of heat course through his body as his
wyakin
prepared him for the coming fight. With Two Moons on one side of the canyon and Ollokot's men on the other, they could flank the soldiers, surround them, and cut them off before the white men knew what had happened.

“If these Treaty men and their soldiers did not come to make a peace with us,” Ollokot told the hushed warriors, “this is where the war will begin.”

So it would be here too that Yellow Wolf knew they would crush the foolish soldiers and this war would end before it ever really began.

Chapter 34

June 17, 1877

Ad Chapman saw to it his trackers hung to the left as they pushed on down the trail toward the valley, the trail taking them down and up, down and up the gently rolling knolls.

The next time he turned around in the saddle, Chapman saw the small army patrol just disappearing from view where they had dipped behind one of the intervening hills. Then his eyes climbed higher still against the far slopes, finding the rest of the colonel's soldiers emerging like a blue-clad snake slithering out of Poe Saddle on their descent. The three groups were constantly in and out of sight of one another as the country grew more broken once they neared the valley floor.

He signaled to the Treaty Nez Perce, motioning the trackers over close enough to give them the order. Abraham Brooks and Frank Husush kicked their ponies ahead of the rest so they could probe the trail around the ridge that came in from the east—hiding everything that lay beyond it.

It was clear from the travois scars and pony tracks crisscrossing this damp ground that they had to be getting close to the village.

The pair was back in no time, loping to a halt to report to him in their tongue.

“Camp is ahead. Smell smoke. See lots of sign.”

Chapman nodded, twisting about in the saddle to spot the advance detail of soldiers disappearing behind another intervening hill.

“Go tell that small band of soldiers,” he explained in Nez Perce. “I'll go to see the village for myself until you get back.”

He watched Husush and Brooks gallop away, then turned to the last two of his trackers. “Stay here. Wait for the others to come with the soldiers.”

Then he spurred his horse into motion and started around the grassy knob. The Salmon wasn't far now. Maybe the bastards had camped at its mouth, he thought.

Unable to see the two Nez Perce where he had left them behind, Chapman rode down the gentle slope where the ground would eventually rise abruptly again to form a long ridge. He was watching it for any sign of lookouts or camp guards when he spotted some movement off to his right.

A handful of them, wrapped in their fancy blankets and with feathers spinning in the morning wind as they appeared around the far end of that long ridge. They were making for him, and one of them started shouting.

The Nez Perce words floated across the intervening distance: “What do you people want?”

As Chapman was dragging the carbine out of the boot beneath his right leg, his skittish horse backed a few steps until Chapman squeezed hard enough with his knees to halt the animal in its tracks. He realized his heart was thundering in his chest. Blood roared in his ears. Knowing that bunch was come gunning for him—knowing that he stood alone to start this fight.

“Who are you people?” the distant voice demanded, more shrill this time. “What do you want here?”

Quickly levering a cartridge into the chamber as he heard their voices reach him, Chapman gave the half-dozen of them no more than a cursory look as he turned quickly in the saddle to spot the small detail of soldiers and Shearer's militia angling down the slope behind him. At this distance, he was certain not one of the soldiers or those civilians could understand the words. Likely those soldiers would figure the loud words to be war cries and battle songs—boasting that they were about to lift the white men's scalps.

Nestling the rifle into the crook of his shoulder, Ad Chapman gazed down the short barrel of the saddle carbine and the front blade found the prettiest of them dressed in his bright red blanket. Closer and closer they were coming, eighty yards now.

“What do you people want?”

Most of them were still yelling at him, raising their arms in the air as they pushed their ponies into a lope—coming on faster. Less'n sixty yards.
Them arms in the air: most likely cursing me, vowing what they are going to do when they catch up to me.

“Whadda we want?” he murmured against the buttstock, letting his breath halfway out of his lungs. “This here's what the hell we want.”

He squeezed off the shot, watching the six horsemen jerk back on their reins as soon as the carbine barked.

Levering another cartridge into the chamber, he held on another warrior: high, allowing for a good amount of drop to the bullet's flight—

But the enemy horsemen were already wheeling around and racing away by the time the shot reached them. They were scattering, just like the cowards he knew them to be. If he was going to get another shot at any of them from here on out, Chapman figured, he'd have to shoot 'em in the ass, seeing how they were skeedaddling so fast.

“C'mon back here, you yellow-livered buggers!”

So be it then. They wanted a chase. He jammed a third cartridge into the action and picked up the reins, jabbing his horse into motion.

Ad Chapman would give these red-bellies a chase.

*   *   *

“Trumpeter!” bawled Edward Russell Theller.

John M. Jones jumped his horse around the others and came alongside the lieutenant.

From the moment Perry had dispatched him and his detail into the advance, Theller had pushed them on down the steep grade of the misty wagon road until they got their first glimpse of the widening valley, dotted with gently rolling swells and a jagged ridge in their front. As he led the men up the gentle incline toward that ridge, the lieutenant heard the crack of a carbine.