Cries from the Earth (5 page)

Some thirty-two summers old now, he was a civil leader of these people sometimes called
Iceyeeye Niim Mama'yac,
or People of the Coyote. Simply put, he was a village chief who saw to matters involving the women and children. He did not have much military experience, if any at all.

Through the interpreter, this chief, whose name meant “Thunder Traveling to Loftier Heights Upon the Mountain,” had told Cut-Off Arm that fellow chief White Bird would not arrive with his people from their Salmon River country until the next day.

“You must not be in so much of a hurry,” he tried to explain to the soldier chief. Some of his people claimed he had the singular gift of oratory. “White Bird's people are already in the Craig Mountains and will be here before morning.”

“Mr. Monteith and I,” Cut-Off Arm replied, gesturing toward the agent, “have pressing business we must see to.”

“We will all be here tomorrow,” the chief repeated, smoothing one of the long braids that fell down his chest. Above his smooth, copper-skinned forehead, the black hair was combed in the tall, upswept curl of their traditional “Dreamer” religion. “Then we can talk about this matter of you telling us we must come in to this reservation or you will send the army to drive our women and children to this place.”

Cut-Off Arm scratched at his beard with his one hand, then spoke to the interpreter, an agency layabout named James Reuben, one of the chief's own nephews, who sat in a chair translating for the white Boston Men.

Reuben cleared his throat nervously and said, “We have received our orders from Washington City. The President sends us to your people. I want to repeat myself—to underscore the importance of complying at once so your people can get the pick of the land offered you for your new homes.”

With the soldier chief's words, this leader of the Wallowa people—who had been born in a cave and was later baptized by the missionary Henry Spalding with the Shadow name Joseph—wagged his head and said, “I am not the only leader of the
Nee-Me-Poo.
The other chiefs must be here to listen to your words, and decide upon them.”

The exasperated soldier chief nearly interrupted Reuben's translation when he grumbled, “Very well, Joseph. We can wait another day for White Bird if that is your wish. But my instructions to him will be the same as what I have instructed you.”

With Reuben's translation of the soldier's words the squat, muscular chief sitting to Joseph's left bolted to his feet. This leader of a small band of
Nee-Me-Poo
who made their home on Asotin Creek turned from the soldier and directed his ire at Perrin B. Whitman, a nephew of the famous missionary Marcus Whitman, who served as the government's representative to this important council at the army fort beside Lapwai Creek, in the Valley of the Butterflies.

Standing at least a half a foot shorter than Joseph, old Toohoolhoolzote growled at the young Whitman, “Because of the generations of my people yet to come, for the children's children of both you white people and the
Nee-Me-Poo,
you must interpret correctly.”

Whitman blinked, clearly surprised at the scolding, and glanced at the soldier chief's interpreter, James Reuben, before he swallowed and vowed to the old chief, “I promise you I will translate every word to you with complete satisfaction.”

“We want to talk a long, long time,” Toohoolhoolzote continued, “talk many days about the earth, about our land you want to take from us.”

“Please,” begged the agent John B. Monteith as he stood and took a step toward the homely, barrel-chested Toohoolhoolzote, “you must understand that the time for debate is over.”

As Reuben's translation was given, Joseph saw how the finality of those words struck the rest of the chiefs, especially Toohoolhoolzote, a
tewat,
or shaman, among the
Nee-Me-Poo.
Joseph and the older man shared a belief in the Dreamer religion, rather than have anything at all to do with the Christian agency schools or the nearby Catholic missions—which was the way of the Treaty bands who had agreed to live on the confines of the reservation.

“Your people were given until the first day of April to come here to the reservation, where they will take up your new homes,” the agent reminded them sternly.

Joseph felt sorry for Monteith. The two of them first met six winters ago upon the death of Joseph's father, Old Joseph. The following year the agent had exhausted himself attempting to convince his government that the part of the Wallowa Valley Joseph's people wanted most was not really suitable to settlement and cultivation. Better to let the white farmers keep that portion of the valley where they had already been putting down roots following the 1863 treaty that had been signed by a majority of the
Nee-Me-Poo
bands, an agreement that even gave away the land of those who had refused to sign, those who steadfastly refused to recognize the authority of the white man's government.

Then something terrible had gone wrong when the government finally relented and agreed that Joseph's Wallowas could stay in their valley. Just last year Monteith had tried to explain that a grave mistake had been made: The newly drawn boundaries dictated that the
Nee-Me-Poo
had to move to the ground where the white settlers had been grazing their cattle, and the whites were told to move to that part of the Wallowa where Joseph's people had lived for more generations than any man now alive could count.

Although a terrible error had been committed by his government, Monteith declared that there was nothing anyone could do.

A long descent had brought them to this impasse: season after season they had suffered the crimes of the white men, or repeatedly been threatened with soldiers coming to change things forever …

“You must come to the reservation now,” Monteith said firmly. “There is no getting around it any longer. You chiefs here, and White Bird too, must return for your cattle and horses, bring your people here.”

“I will stay here until your bands are settled on the reservation,” vowed Cut-Off Arm sternly.

Ollokot, Joseph's younger brother, stood at his right elbow. While Joseph was a civil chief, Ollokot was a war leader. He was every bit as striking, tall, and imposing as his older brother.

“Know that we will think for ourselves, soldier chief,” he warned the army officer. His name meant “Frog,” affectionately given him back when this handsome, athletic man had been an exuberant child. “For many summers now we have shown respect to your people, but the white man treats me like a dog. There must be one law for all of us. If I commit a murder, then I should be hung from a tree by a rope. But if I do right, I should not be punished and have what is mine taken from me—my cattle, my horses … and not the land of my grandfathers.”

“This has been decided by those above us,” Cut-Off Arm repeated with growing exasperation.

The muscular Ollokot sternly replied, “Our friends among the White Bird people will be here by tomorrow. At that time I will tell them what I think of giving you what you cannot have.”

“We are under the same government,” Cut-Off Arm declared, turning to gaze at Joseph, his one hand imploring for understanding. “What our government commands us to do, we must do. Your people must first come to the reservation; then your agent will give you the privileges of hunting and fishing in the Imnaha country. But if your people hesitate in coming, then our government has directed me to use my soldiers to bring you here. Now, Joseph … both you and your brother know that I am a friend to your people. And you know that if you comply, there will be no trouble.”

Toohoolhoolzote grumbled something to the other old men gathered close by, words that alarmed the even-tempered Joseph.

“What did he say?” the soldier chief demanded of James Reuben, his voice grown shrill with alarm.

The interpreter's eyes darted nervously as he stammered, “Some-something about there not being enough soldiers to … to—”

“To
what?
” Cut-Off Arm railed, his cheeks grown red, his neck crimson above the stiff collar of his soldier tunic.

“Enough s-soldiers to make him do what his heart tells him is wrong.”

The soldier chief slowly turned toward the Non-Treaty leaders arrayed before him. He took a step closer to the delegation, then briefly let his eyes touch them all before fixing his gaze on Joseph and Ollokot.

“You must give good advice to your people, and White Bird's people, too, when they arrive. If you do not convince them that they must comply and come to the reservation, I shall be forced to come for you. I will arrest you and put you in the guardhouse.”

Then Cut-Off Arm turned slightly and stepped right up before the old Dreamer, Toohoolhoolzote. In an even tone he said, “If you continue in making these insults to me, I will arrest you, and send you to Indian Territory. It would be wise for you to remember what happened to Skamiah at the Vancouver post.”

Just as the
tewat
was about to snap in reply about that uncooperative Indian chief who had been arrested and sent far away, Joseph laid his hand on the old man's elbow and squeezed. He nodded to the soldier chief as he answered, “When White Bird has arrived, we will meet again tomorrow.”

So it was that their second council convened beneath the canvas tent erected with its long ridgepole and the sides tied out so that it made a large awning where the soldiers, other white men, and the
Nee-Me-Poo
sat, joined by
Peopeo,
the one called White Bird, along with the smaller band of Palouse under their chief
Huishuish Kute,
who was known as Shorn, or Bald, Head.

From the moment he greeted that sunny dawn, Joseph remained hopeful that the sun itself was not setting on the ways of his grandfathers. But almost from the moment the white man's prayer was made by the half-breed called Alpowa Jim, followed by Cut-Off Arm repeating the government's orders for all bands to move onto the reservation, Joseph realized matters were steadily deteriorating. There was no discussion and compromise, no room for disagreement. Decisions affecting the lives and futures of the
Nee-Me-Poo
had already been made without them.

Peopeo
was a short, heavy-set man of some fifty winters whose name was variously interpreted as White, White Goose, White Crane, even White Pelican—any variation of a large white bird. He stood when Joseph introduced him to the soldier chief, the agent, and the missionary. White Bird politely shook hands with them all, then settled once more upon the ground, again positioning his large eagle-feather fan across the bottom half of his face so that it hid everything below his eyes.

“I have talked with you, Cut-Off Arm, and you, Agent Monteith, many times in past summers,” Joseph declared. “But this is the first time White Bird has seen either of you. I have told him what you said to the rest of us.”

Cut-Off Arm glanced at the older chief, then brought his eyes back to Joseph, asking, “Does White Bird understand his people must come to live upon this reservation?”

But at the moment Joseph opened his mouth to answer, Toohoolhoolzote leaped to his feet and warned dourly, “What the soldier chief wants … I cannot do! Wherever
Tamalait,
my creator, has put me, that is there I am to stay. No earthly man—not any
Nee-Me-Poo,
and certainly not any Shadow—can command me to go anyplace but where
Tamalait
saw fit for me to live!”

“This is true, what Toohoolhoolzote says,” Joseph defended. “The Creator made no marks or lines of division on the bosom of the earth.”

“It is too late to argue over this now,” Cut-Off Arm grumbled impatiently as he glared at the old shaman.

“Don't you see that it is the white man who argues over the Creator?” Joseph instructed the soldier chief. “Your missionaries teach us to quarrel about God. See the fighting between your Catholics and Protestants on the reservation! We do not want to learn any fighting over God. We may sometimes quarrel with men about the things of this earth, but we never quarrel about God.”

Cut-Off Arm listened to the entire translation before he countered, “I'm afraid your people do not understand anything more than a primitive concept of the Almighty.”

At which point Toohoolhoolzote declared, “Perhaps I should tell the soldier chief how my people were started in long-ago days, and how the Shadows were started, so you will understand why you cannot come move us where the Creator did not intend for us to be.”

Joseph saw how the old man's intransigence quickly irritated the soldier chief, how those words about
Tamalait
made the agent, himself the son of a Christian preacher, squirm in his ladder-back chair.

“My people were like a tree the Creator planted in this land a long time ago,” Toohoolhoolzote pressed on, not dismayed by the anger apparent on the faces of the white men. “And the Creator planted your people like a tree in a place far, far away to the east. For a long time now these two trees have grown side by side, both becoming large, their branches spreading until their limbs met and eventually intermingled. That is how we have grown as two peoples, and as long as the limbs of our two trees cling together we will be at peace as one people.”

Coming from the hard-bitten old chief, these profound words surprised Joseph. It was almost as if, instead of telling the Shadows that fighting was inevitable, the old
tewat
was instructing the soldier chief and others that there remained some tangible hope of averting bloodshed if each side would listen to the other.

“That is all I have to say to you, Cut-Off Arm,” Toohoolhoolzote continued. “I say these things so that you will know what we believe. You must see that there are two parties to a disagreement. And the party that is in the right will always prevail in the end, no matter what wrongs are done against them by those who are not in the right.”