Chief Joseph & the Flight of the Nez Perce (32 page)

But the normality of the routine could not compensate for the debilitating effects of the weather. People's clothes were torn and ragged, and everyone was constantly dirty and wet. On the night after Looking Glass took over there had been a heavy storm, and the camp had awakened the next morning to a raw, cutting wind that blew their camp goods around and stung their faces as they packed to move.

The following day had been better, but the day after had again brought heavy winds and a driving rain. Even the short journeys of just a few miles were becoming difficult, and the camps were being made with soaking goods and little shelter other than pieces of canvas or buffalo hides hung over small prairie bushes. When there was not enough room under the shelters, the men would sleep in the open rolled up in buffalo blankets. Such moccasins and gloves as the people had were not able to dry, so in the morning they rode off with frozen hands and soaking feet and little to comfort them other than the hope that this bitter journey would soon be over.

But if the Nez Perce were having a difficult time, Miles's men were not faring much better. What had begun as a festive march up from the ferry crossing at the Missouri had deteriorated day by day into a cold, dreary push toward an unknown enemy. While the weather had remained warm, the men had delighted in flocks of ducks and the great buffalo and antelope herds that moved like clouds across the plains in front of them. But as the nights had gotten cold and the troops had outdistanced their supply wagons, their thoughts had turned to the more pressing realities of survival. Their situation was made even worse by Miles's announcement that there could be no hunting because he did not wish to risk having a gunshot stampede the buffalo—a sure sign to any Indian scout that soldiers were near.

The troops rode and marched for hours in wet boots on mushy and frozen ground, seeing only the empty, rolling landscape in front of them. They spent their nights rolled up in their coats under icy skies because their tents were far behind in supply wagons that were still laboring along the narrow trails through the Missouri Breaks. Hot food was scarce because there was no wood, and the men were not skilled at starting fires from wet buffalo dung. Such fires as they could make had to be fully extinguished before dawn so no telltale smoke would rise into the daytime skies to alert the fleeing Indians. Water too was hard to find and often had to be dipped from pools so filled with mud that it had to be strained before it could even be boiled for cooking and drinking.

Despite these hardships, Miles drove the troops relentlessly, not stopping to camp until shortly before midnight, then waking the men at three in the morning so they could be back on the trail by five or six. He intended to catch these Joseph Indians, and a bit of privation for his soldiers was a small price to pay for the honor that would come with the capture.

Part of his strategy was to keep up a constant scouting sweep, with men ranging for miles in all directions and taking sightings from any high point they encountered. He was confident that in this way any movement by the large group of Nez Perce through this broad, open country would be observed and reported.

He knew he had good scouts. Several were mountain men who were well experienced in Indian tracking, and others were Sioux and Cheyenne who had signed on to work for the military. The warriors regarded the soldiers as slow and weak, slaves to the need to eat and drink at regular intervals. Nonetheless, they were willing to sign on for short-term scouting assignments because working for the military meant good food, good guns, and an opportunity to live once again in the old warrior way, riding free over open country rather than sitting around forts with nothing to do but wait for rations. It also meant white man's pay and the chance to gain Nez Perce horses if the hostiles were captured. They also harbored no great love for the Nez Perce, so it was no hard thing to take arms against them. Still, working for the soldiers was not a life they fancied, but it was the best available to them since their leaders had surrendered to the soldiers the autumn before.

The warriors, however, did rankle at Miles's demand that they operate under a white commander. They told him that the warrior way was for each man to ride freely and make his own decisions. They had no desire to be like white soldiers, who moved slowly and relied on the commands of leaders. But Miles insisted, and reluctantly they agreed.

They were happiest when sent ahead to scout. They could read trails better than any white man and thrilled at the sensation of ranging free over open country in search of an enemy. While they were out on scouting missions they felt alive, like in the old days. But when they were forced to return to the camps and ride with the soldiers, they plodded along, sleepy-eyed and indifferent, staying near but keeping to themselves. Still, they always carried their war dress with them and kept their fast war ponies tethered beside them, anticipating the moment when the chance might come to break free to engage in a chase or a fight.

By now, Miles had gathered enough information to determine the approximate route the Nez Perce were taking. He knew where and when they had crossed the Missouri and the approximate speed at which they were moving. If his calculations were right, his men were on a diagonal to intercept them.

He knew that the Nez Perce were as likely to be scouting his movements as he was to be scouting theirs, so he decided to march his troops behind a small mountain range that poked up from the plains and separated him from the route of the hostiles. This range, known as the Little Rockies, was not much more than a series of tall hills that ran north and south for about fifty miles, then faded back into the rolling high plains just short of the northern border. With good fortune, he could travel his men unnoticed on the opposite side of these small mountains from the Nez Perce, come around the top just south of the Canadian border, and either block their passage or hit them in the flank.

Everything depended upon speed, surprise, and stealth. He knew that Indians did not fight well in pitched battles and that once dismounted they were reduced to the status of uncoordinated, individual snipers. In his dealings with the Sioux and Cheyenne, he had learned that the best attack was a hard charge, executed at dawn, that scattered the warriors and sent them fighting in retreat. This same tactic had been successful in the Civil War against the South, but it was even more successful with Indian tribes, which were burdened with women and children. It was cruel and devastating and resulted in the loss of innocent lives. But it broke the spirit of the enemy, and war was about winning, not about kindness. If he could outdistance the Nez Perce and catch them unawares, it was his intention to charge hard, disperse the warriors, surround the camp, and do what was necessary to force a quick surrender. But first he had to find the Indians, and he had to do so before they found him.

The Nez Perce were now five days out from the place where they had looted the wagons. The weather had alternated between mild warmth and wet, bone-chilling cold. In the far northern distance they could catch glimpses of the low line of hills that they knew as the Wolf's Paw and the other tribes called the Bear's Paw. Just north of it you could see the silhouette of the mountains that looked like an old man lying on his back. This marked the line between the United States and the Old Woman Country the whites called Canada. The people only had to pass to the right of the Bear's Paw and beyond the Old Man, and they would have safety. American soldiers could not follow them there, and Sitting Bull's many warriors were living just over that line.

With the Bear's Paw within reach, Looking Glass called a stop to set up camp in a hollow known to all buffalo hunters as the Place of the Manure Fires. It was a broad, wide depression in the plains surrounded on three sides by low bluffs and cutbanks, with a small creek winding like a snake through its center. Hunters of all tribes had long used this as a stopping place during journeys in search of buffalo because it offered protection from the relentless high plains winds and provided them with good water for drinking and plenty of buffalo chips for fuel.

The advance scouts had killed several buffalo at this spot and left them for skinning. Since no soldiers had been seen either in front or behind, Looking Glass knew this would be a good place to make a final, relaxed camp before pushing on to the border two days' journey ahead.

The day before had been filled with low clouds and rain, and this day gave the promise of worse. The snow line had already dropped low on the mountains, and a wet fog was obscuring everything with a fine, gray mist.

The halt was called, and Joseph began the process of organizing the campsite and making sure that the people's needs were met. The hillocks surrounding the site were not high—maybe fifty feet—but they formed a perfect three-sided bowl in which to camp. The people would be out of the remorseless winds, and there would be plenty of fresh water and fuel.

On the fourth side, a long, slow rise sloped off to the west. It offered an ideal spot for the horses to graze. Though it lay across the creek, the creek itself was only several yards wide and could be crossed easily without getting too wet and cold. He could send the boys over to tend the grazing horses, and the whole herd could be kept in easy sight of the camp.

The creek, with its many tight bends and curves, created an ideal camping site. The land along its banks was flat and low so families could be close to water, and the low-lying clumps of willow that bordered its edges could be used for kindling and to support the crude blanket and canvas shelters the people were now using against the cold and rain. It would have been good to have poles for teepees, but those days were far behind. Not since the Big Hole had the people actually had lodges that protected them. The rest of the journey had been made either sleeping in the open or in such makeshift shelters as these, created by draping blankets over stumps and bushes or whatever deadfall was in the area. At least at this site they would be protected from the wind. And if they needed greater shelter, the bottomland itself was furrowed with deep gullies. They could burrow dugout shelters into the earth if the weather got too bad.

Looking Glass announced that this would be their stopping place until the following morning—long enough to skin the buffalo, cook warm meals, and get much-needed rest. In the morning, the groups could leave as they wished, but all should be on the trail before midday.

By the time the people had set up camp, the weather had worsened. By midafternoon, the winds had picked up and the rain that pelted the camp was rapidly turning to snow. It fell in large, heavy, wet globs that weighed down the shelters and leaked onto the children and elderly huddled underneath. The buffalo manure too was getting soaked, making the fires hard to start and harder to keep burning. On the hills to the south the snow line was continuing to move lower. With each day's journey they had moved farther north, and with each mile traveled, the winds and rains had gotten colder. Now they seemed to be in the very grip of winter, with skies the gray of gun barrels and snow piling to several inches on the ground.

They could see the steam rising from the horses in the distance, and the creek was skimming over with ice. But this was the price they had to pay for rest. The freshly killed buffalo gave them food, and the hollows gave them shelter from the worst of the rain and snow and wind. And if this was hard for them, it would be even harder for General Howard, wherever he might be.

Most of the people had almost ceased worrying about the one-armed soldier chief. They were sure he had given up the pursuit. The scouts, though, remained concerned. The day before, while riding to the east, they had seen a group of figures in the far distance. They had been too far away to be identified as any more than dots moving across the rolling plains. But they had moved like people, not like animals.

Some of the warriors had wanted to back-scout to make sure this was just another tribe and not a group of soldiers. They had told Looking Glass about their discovery and proposed that he keep the people moving north while they rode back to determine what these strange figures were. But Looking Glass would have none of it. Everyone knew that Howard was at least two days behind, if he was following at all, and that he would be traveling on the same trail the people were using. Those dots the warriors had seen were far off and to the east. They were probably hunting parties from the Gros Ventres or Sioux or maybe even Assiniboine or River Crow. This buffalo land was shared by many tribes; it would not be unusual for a group to come in large numbers to hunt for meat and skins for the winter. The people were still not strong; the horses' hooves were still sore. A hard march could undo the healing that the slow easy days had begun to allow. The chiefs had chosen him to lead. Now they needed to let him do so.

The disagreement became heated, and tensions that were rife within the group quickly rose to the surface. Poker Joe still had his supporters, and many in the camp still doubted Looking Glass's wisdom and judgment. In the end, Looking Glass, supported by Joseph, prevailed. It was the suffering of the sick and the elderly and the children's weariness that carried the day. This place would be their camping spot. In the morning they would begin their move toward the border crossing into the Old Woman Land. But nothing could assuage the strange uneasiness some among them felt in their hearts. There was something unsettling about the distant movements of the animals, something not right about the movements of the birds. They felt a strong nervousness, like animals before a storm or birds in the days before the long winter flight.

The warriors too were uneasy. They were uncomfortable about the camping spot Looking Glass had chosen. It was a good place for protection against the winds but not good for protection against attack. It put the people in a bowl where they could easily be surrounded on three sides. They had no long line of vision except toward the broad slope to the west across the creek where the animals grazed. And all skilled fighters knew that you did not willingly abandon the high ground. Without good scouting, they could be surprised like they had been at Big Hole. None had expected soldiers there either.