Lay the Mountains Low (49 page)

The Indian turned his eyes this way and that as the general gestured Major Edwin C. Mason forward with him and Reuben, signaling the rest of his aides to remain behind at a distance that would not intimidate this nervous courier.

“Be watchful of any false moves on his part, sir,” Mason warned as the trio walked on foot to the crossing. “There may be sharpshooters on the far bank waiting for a signal from that Indian soon as he finds out it's you.”

“The path to peace is never an easy one, Colonel.”

Even before the general, Mason, and their Christian translator came to a halt several yards away, the horseman began talking.

“Says he knows who you are,” James Reuben explained, pointing to the general's empty sleeve. “They all know you're the one they call the Cut-Off Arm chief. So he wants to tell you the camps have two white men, captives. Caught them going to Lewiston on business with horses.”
**

“Forget them for the moment!” Howard snapped, impatient now that the moment was at hand. “This messenger knows why I'm here. When will Joseph come in to talk to me himself?”

“Young Joseph wants to surrender, all right,” Reuben said after some brief conversation with Kulkulsuitim.

With a quick glance at the heights across the river, the general said, “I suppose the bands are camped somewhere nearby in the hills, but not close enough to make it down here before it grows dark. So, tell this messenger that Joseph can come in with his people tomorrow morning to surrender.”

After a moment of translation, Reuben said, “Joseph will try hard to break away from White Bird and Looking Glass. His people have little ammunition and food now. They left much upriver when they made a two-day fight on your soldiers. Says Joseph wanted to surrender to you on last two days, but he was always forced to move with the others.”

“Tell him to remind Joseph that I never lied to him. I always spoke the truth.”

Then Reuben translated, “How hard will you be?”

“Do you mean what terms I am giving Joseph and his men?” Howard corrected. “Tell him there are no conditions. Explain that to him—unconditional surrender. They give up their weapons and their ponies to me.”

“Then what? What of the chiefs?” the translator posed. “What of the fighting men who made war against your soldiers?”

“The war chiefs are the ones I will arrest,” Howard said. “Explain that to him. The bad leaders I want—not the warriors who took their bad advice. Once they have surrendered, I will appoint a court of officers who will try them according to military law—”

From across the Clearwater rang the report of a rifle, its sound magnified as it reverberated from the hills hemming in this gentle crossing. The bullet itself whined past and struck a nearby boulder with a splatter of lead and fractured rock chips.
*

“What the devil!” Howard growled, his heart racing.

As he lunged forward, Mason ordered, “Hold that Injun!”

Although the messenger hadn't attempted to flee, Reuben seized the warrior's reins and held the frightened horse. The courier's eyes darted anxiously over those soldiers scurrying about, up and down the bank, responding to that single gunshot. He was jabbering at the translator in a high-pitched voice.

“Says Joseph want to surrender now!” Reuben cried in an excited tone as he tried to keep the horse and rider between himself and that other side of the river, where at least one sniper was hidden. “His people are getting so hungry. Had to leave so much at the Clearwater. The only thing for them to do is to take the women to
Weippe
—”

“They're already on their way to
Weippe
?” Howard shrieked in dismay.

“Yes,” Reuben confirmed, “where they wanted to dig some camas to feed the hungry people before they surrender. But even though they are going to
Weippe
, White Bird,
Toohoolhoolzote
, and Looking Glass will not allow him to surrender. They want to make for the buffalo country and do not like Joseph talking peace with you.”

“Tell him to remind Joseph that I will be here tomorrow morning to receive him,” Howard repeated nervously, “right here in the morning—waiting for him to come down out of the hills. He has my word that he will not be harmed. Have him tell Joseph he will have a fair trial, an army trial. A white man's trial.”

As soon as Reuben finished his translation, the messenger turned without another word, tearing his rein from Reuben's grip, and splashed into the river. Howard watched the water flow over the man's thighs, on over the pony's back, and up to the courier's waist as the animal struggled against the current that carried it downstream a quarter of a mile before they clambered onto the north bank, where the man pulled aside his breechclout and slapped a buttock before kicking his animal in its flanks. They quickly disappeared into the timbered hillside.

Choosing not to incite himself with that parting vulgarity on the part of the young messenger, Howard turned on his heel, his insides a jumble of excitement and apprehension mixed, troubled by a hint of skepticism. From the bank he hollered up to those officers arrayed on the side of the knoll.

“Colonel Miller! We need to send a courier downriver to Captain Jackson,” Howard bellowed. He was clearly fearful of losing the momentum he had just won at the Clearwater with a resounding defeat at
Weippe
Prairie. “The hostiles are marching into the hills for
Weippe
, which will put them in position to wipe out our cavalry battalion. We must recall Jackson before he makes contact.”

“I'll start a courier immediately!” Miller shouted as he started to turn away, but was stopped with Howard's next announcement.

Ever the optimist, Howard said, “Colonel, once that rider is on his way to Jackson's battalion I want you to prepare your men to receive the surrender of Joseph and his Nez Perce when they reach us at dawn!”

T
HAT
morning the Non-Treaty bands had awakened in their last camp before reaching the camas grounds of
Weippe
Prairie, a beautiful, extensive meadow where the blue camas flowers extended for as far as the eye could see with a color so vivid it made Yellow Wolf believe he was seeing the sky itself reflected in huge ponds of trapped rainwater. On nearly all sides they were surrounded by timber-blanketed hills, those hills themselves surmounted on the east by snow-mantled mountain peaks.

In the first misty light of dawn Yellow Wolf had watched the older woman lead a pony out of the camp circle. There the mother of
Wayakat
climbed on the animal's back before the woman noticed that he was watching from his mother's blanket shelter:

“Yellow Wolf,” she whispered as he approached, his moccasins growing soaked with the heavy dew.

“Where are you going so early?” he asked, looking up at her red, bloodshot, and puffy eyes.

“Now that the
suapies
have left the battlefield on the plateau, I am going to claim the body of my son.”

“He was a brave fighter,” Yellow Wolf said with admiration. “Your son fell too close to the soldier lines for any of us to get his body for you.”

“I do not hold bad feelings for any of you fighting men because my son was left behind when we fled our camp,” Going Across explained as she reached down and touched the back of his hand. “But, I need to go bury him now.”

“When will you return?”

“By nightfall if I can,” she said. “If not, and the camp moves on up the trail to
Weippe
—I will find you.”

“Yes,” Yellow Wolf said quietly as he took a step back and held his arm up in parting. “I am sure you can find your way.”

Late that afternoon just after the Non-Treaties reached the extensive camas digging grounds, a small band of people emerged from the trees at the end of the trail over those mountains. Even from a distance it was easy for Yellow Wolf to recognize that they were
Nee-Me-Poo
—their horse trappings, dressed as they were. Five-times-ten of them, women and children traveling with seventeen warriors under their leader,
Temme Ilppilp
, called Red Heart.

“You have just come from the buffalo country?” asked Looking Glass as the hundreds crowded around the new arrivals, tongues trilling in welcome.

Red Heart's eyes and smile grew big with this unexpected reception here in the meadows of
Weippe
. He gestured toward their numerous travois pulled by trail-weary packhorses. “We have many buffalo robes, yes.”

“See?” Looking Glass roared at the crowd pressing in on the newcomers. “What did I tell you? All things are good in the buffalo country!”

Red Heart took the older man's elbow in his hand and said, “Over there in the valley of the Bitterroot River, we have heard talk of your struggles against the army. But—looking at you now—I don't see a people who are at war!”

Looking Glass let his head fall back as he laughed loudly
before saying, “We are at war. The
suapies
just can't keep up with our village of women and children!”

But the laughter quickly died as those close around the chiefs realized that Red Heart was not laughing. Yellow Wolf shouldered his way closer to hear all the words.

“The army is chasing you now?” Red Heart asked, his tone heavy with concern.

“Yes!” Looking Glass answered enthusiastically. “But they will never catch us now.”

“Then it is as the Shadows in the Bitterroot were saying,” Red Heart explained. “They were afraid of us when we marched past their homes and stores this time. Never before were they afraid of
Nee-Me-Poo
, but now these people did not want us to stay long in their country.”

“Those settlers in the Bitterroot have nothing to worry about,” White Bird vowed.

Red Heart asked the older chief, “If the army is chasing you, where will you go?”

“I told them we should go to the buffalo country, where the animals are fat and we will camp next to our friends, the
E-sue-ghar!
” Looking Glass cheered. “Come back with us on the trail over the mountains. It is no longer safe here in the Idaho country for our people.”

As he stared at the ground a long moment, it appeared Red Heart already had his mind made up. When he looked at White Bird and the other leaders, he said, “We have already decided: If what we were told was true, we will not join in your fighting. We want to be left alone.”

“The soldiers will not leave you alone!” Looking Glass roared angrily.

“Then we will surrender to them and give them our guns,” Red Heart countered. “That way they will know we are not part of this war.”

“G-give them your guns?” White Bird blustered.

Red Heart wheeled on the old war bird. “Better that than to give them the lives of all these women and children!”

“You are not a man!” Looking Glass bawled with fury. “A man would fight and die for his women and children—”

“I will go surrender with you, Red Heart,” a voice suddenly interrupted Looking Glass's tirade.

Yellow Wolf and the rest of the crowd watched a minor leader in the Non-Treaty bands step forward.

“You will abandon this fight?” Looking Glass demanded.

“Yes,” Three Feathers answered.

“Don't you remember what Wright did to the Yakima and Cayuse leaders when they surrendered after making a war with the army?”
*
Looking Glass scoffed.

“Yes,” Three Feathers sighed. “Those chiefs were hanged.”

“Do you want the same to happen to you?” White Bird chided.

It took a moment before Three Feathers answered, “It is one thing to go east and hunt the buffalo in the land of the
E-sue-gha
. It is another thing entirely to leave our fair land behind for all time.”

Toohoolhoolzote
asked, “You are not afraid of the white man's ropes?”

“Yes, I am afraid of hanging,” Three Feathers replied, “but I will go with Red Heart and surrender my guns so that my families don't have to run anymore. And if I have to die … then I prefer to die in my own country. Not in a faraway land of strangers.”

 

*
Where the Lewis and Clark Corps of Discovery first came across the people they called the Choppunish.

*
Near present-day Greer, Idaho.

**
Today's Idaho State Highway 62.

*
Even the identity of this messenger is in dispute among the records of that day. Some scholars claim it was a man named Tamirn Tsiya, while still more say it was definitely a young warrior named No Heart, called Zya Timenna.

**
William Silverthorne and half-breed Peter Matte, who would claim they were captured on their way to Lewiston to buy horses. Within a week, they would escape and carry some vital news to the soldiers who will be waiting at the eastern end of the Lolo Trail.

*
There is even some broad disagreement on which side of the river this shot was fired and who might have fired it—the Nez Perce on the north side of the Clearwater or one of McConville's citizens on the south side (just as they had started the fight at Looking Glass's camp).

*
Thirty Nez Perce scouts had served with Wright's campaign in 1858 and witnessed the hangings of those Indian leaders. Later, in 1873, Captain Jack and other Modoc leaders had suffered the same fate at the hand of a vengeful government.