Lay the Mountains Low (58 page)

Hell, that was the same damn thing the army itself was asking the captain to do with his two forlorn, outgunned companies! Hold these savages who had butchered or eluded the best Howard's department could throw at them—and Rawn was expected to nail their moccasins to the ground until help arrived? Even though a hundred more Bitterroot volunteers had drifted in throughout the previous afternoon and that very morning, the captain fretted that he wouldn't have enough men to actually block the Nez Perce if it came to a showdown.

Shit, this was just the sort of assignment that could make a man a hero … or a goddamned martyr.

Yesterday afternoon he had written a dispatch to Fort Shaw on the Sun River, addressing it to Colonel Gibbon's aide, Lieutenant Levi F. Burnett.

The captain was so certain of this development simply because a half-breed named Delaware Jim had brought him word only minutes before he sat down to write out his dispatch.

Having just gotten back from the Nez Perce camp, this mixed-blood Salish, given the right proper and Christian name Jim Simonds, lived with a Nez Perce woman as part of Eagle-from-the-Light's band, who themselves had moved in with Chariot's Flathead people and adopted the Bitterroot south of Missoula City as their own.
*

When Chief Chariot had led more than twenty of his fighting men up to the barricades earlier that morning of the twenty-sixth, volunteering to help the soldiers against the Nez Perce, Delaware Jim promptly offered to ride on to the hostiles' camp because he could speak a passable Nez Perce. He had had himself an audience with the venerable old White Bird.

And now Rawn was standing before the chief himself.

“Don't forget what I told you,” Potts whispered out of the side of his mouth as the Nez Perce held out their hands and there was a lot of shaking all around. “You must stand fast. Don't budge a single inch on your demands—the safety of our communities depends upon it.”

“That's right, Cap'n,” Kenney reminded at Rawn's other elbow. “You can't let these here Injuns buffalo you and walk right over the U. S. Army.”

“Not like they've done in Idaho,” Potts hissed assuredly.

Once the introductory preliminaries were out of the way, Rawn began explaining his demands to the two chiefs, attempting to make his voice strong enough, loud enough, that it would reach the clutter of warriors embraced by the trees in the mid-distance. Chances were the ringleader himself, Joseph, was among them. If not him, then at the very least every other renegade Nez Perce warrior who wore the blood of innocent white people on his hands.

“By order of the Indian Bureau of the United States of America,” Rawn began, pausing for the first time to allow for Delaware Jim's halting translation, “you and your people are hereby ordered to halt, and cease your approach into Montana Territory.

“With the authority of the U. S. Army,” he continued, “I order you to surrender your weapons and ammunition immediately. Then your warriors will have to dismount and turn over your horses to me.

“When that is done, then your people can turn around and return to Idaho, where you have been ordered upon your reservation.”

“Chiefs says the reservation is not theirs,” Delaware Jim interpreted. “That it belongs to Lawyer's people.”

“If they have a grievance about their reservation, they should take it up with their agent and the Indian Bureau,” Rawn said firmly. “I am a soldier, so I'm here to stop them entering Montana Territory.”

The translator did his best to listen to the talk going back and forth between the two chiefs until he finally could tell Rawn, “White Bird says they'll give you their cartridges, but they won't let go none of their guns.”

Rawn wagged his head emphatically, uneasiness swelling in him like a hot, festering boil. The tension in the other white men around him had suddenly grown palpable as well. He knew both sides were watching for any sign of treachery. “Tell the chiefs that's not good enough.”

“They say what you ask is not something they can decide for themselves,” Simonds interpreted. “To give up their
guns and horses—that is something every man must decide for himself.”

“That means this will take more time?” Rawn asked, a dim flicker of hope warming his breast. “Perhaps a day or two so they can deliberate?”

“Maybe so,” Delaware Jim admitted, then listened to more of White Bird's talk.

Rawn drew himself up, feeling a bit more confident that he was not about to be bullied and shoved aside by these Indians. “Tell them they must make their decision no later than midnight.”

“The middle of the night?” Potts echoed with disbelief.

Rawn turned slightly and flashed the governor a knowing wink. “And, interpreter—be sure to tell these two chiefs that I'm making them responsible for the actions of their warriors. I don't want any of their young men roaming about or attempting to sneak around our fortified barricades.”

The white men waited while those two prickly topics of contention were relayed to the Nez Perce, then for Delaware Jim to absorb what he was told in response to Rawn's stern ultimatums.

“Chiefs vow not to fight the valley settlers, if the white men with you don't shoot at them. The Nez Perce are friends with those white men, and do not wish to have trouble with the settlers in the Bitterroot valley since they have been friends for many years.”

Rawn glanced over the faces of those volunteer leaders, studying the effect the chiefs' word had on men like Potts, Kenney, and newspaperman Barbour, too. Then he asked, “What about my soldiers?”

The Salish interpreter said, “White Bird says if your soldiers force them to fight, they will ride over you to get to the buffalo country.”

Just then a figure on horseback appeared through the center of those warriors waiting back among the trees. But he did not stop there. The closer he came, the more Rawn found the man remarkably handsome. His approach toward
the parley was causing quite a stir among the warriors and headmen.

“Captain Rawn?” whispered William Logan, captain of A Company. “Do you recall how Captain Jack's Modocs ambushed General Canby at the Lava Beds?”
*

Rawn tore his attention from that solitary horseman to study the rest of those eighty-some warriors plainly growing more restless, if not belligerent. “I remember, Captain. Send one of the men back to pass word to the noncoms that the units should be ready to advance at once should anything untoward happen up here with us.”

Logan turned and whispered to Lieutenant Coolidge, directing the young officer to turn about for the rear.

That's when Rawn peered again at that handsome horseman and asked, “So who is this coming to our conference?”

“He's the one you been waiting to meet,” Kenney said before Delaware Jim could get the words out. “That's Joseph hisself.”

When the chief came up to dismount among the others, Looking Glass and White Bird began relating to him what they had discussed with Rawn. In a matter of moments, Joseph made only a simple gesture with his hand to show his token assent to the plans of those other chiefs, but he did not utter a word.

That gave the captain a sudden overwhelming sense of relief: to think that he might be able to stall the hostiles and thereby delay the inevitable clash until either General Howard made it over the Lolo Trail or Colonel Gibbon got down from Fort Shaw with reinforcements. Even with the growing number of civilian riflemen and Chariot's Flat-heads augmenting his paltry twenty-five foot soldiers, the captain was not at all eager to plunge headlong into a scrap with some two hundred resolute warriors fresh from Idaho and their stunning battlefield victories scored against numbers far stronger than his.

“So,” Rawn sighed, trying to appear as if he were disgruntled with the news, “these leaders are telling me they can't make a decision on their own right now?”

“Yes,” Delaware Jim replied with some visible measure of his own relief as the three chiefs began to turn away for the trees.

“So they'll let me know by midnight?”

“No,” the interpreter admitted as they watched the backs of those three leaders returning to their lines. “But Looking Glass claims they will come back to talk with you again sometime tomorrow morning.”

BY TELEGRAPH

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The Strike Subsiding—Bummers Still Rioting.

—

More Indian Massacres in the Black Hills.

—

BLACK HILLS.

—

Indians Murdering Near Deadwood—A General War.

CHEYENNE, July 26.—A dispatch from Deadwood, dated yesterday, says: James Ryan, a resident of Spearfish City, just in, states Lieutenant Lemly, with his company of soldiers augmented by a dozen civilians, left this point Sunday morning with two days' rations, and have not been heard from since … Two large bodies of Indians were seen yesterday morning on Red Water, about five miles from Spearfish … Intense excitement prevails throughout Deadwood. At short intervals since yesterday morning, horsemen have been arriving from the different towns and hay fields in this vicinity, bringing details of fresh murders and outrages by the savages, who seem to have broken loose from the agencies in large numbers and are infesting the country in all directions …

Chauncey Barbour wondered if he should slip Captain Rawn's courier a little hard money to have the man stop by the newspaper office this Saturday morning, where the soldier could pick up some writing tablets to bring back to the barricades the next time one of those privates was sent down the trail to Missoula City with some bit of news or a dispatch for those army commands known to be both west and east of the Bitterroot valley.

For now the newspaperman thought he had enough paper to last him until tomorrow. But if he kept on writing as much as he had put down on paper already, Barbour would run out before morning. There had been more to tell about than there had been Indians to shoot at during these last couple of inconclusive days of this stalemate. With all those hours of nervous waiting, Chauncey had more than enough time to reflect, to interview other volunteers, time enough for all of them—civilian and enlisted man—to argue over just what course they should take.

It was downright intriguing for the newspaperman to watch human nature at work. Despite their extensive fortifications, many of the valley volunteers continued to believe that if the warriors showed up for a fight, it would turn out to be another Custer massacre. John L. Humble, “captain” of volunteers from Corvallis, was clearly the leader of that school of thought.

“Captain Rawn,” he said, presenting himself and a delegation before the officer, “it's clear to me there's too many of them for us. Clear, too, it's useless to try fighting them.”

“Useless?” Rawn echoed. “But I'm an officer of the U. S. Army. My job is to fight the enemies of my government—”

“You do not have to get yourself killed needlessly,” Humble interrupted.

Rawn wagged his head, rain sluicing off the brim of his soggy hat. “I've been sent here with a job to do.”

Then Humble said, “I have soldiered, too, Captain. Served in many dirty battles in the Civil War. Union, I was. So I want to remind you—most times it's too damned easy
to get into trouble … but damned hard to get yourself out once you're in.”

“Just what in the blazes are you trying to tell me?” Rawn snapped.

Humble flinched. “I want to tell you that if you are going to fight those Indians, I will take my men and go home.”

“If I'm going to f-fight them?” Rawn repeated as if not believing what he had heard. “If you're going to turn tail for home at the sign of a fight … then why in hell did you and your men ever come here in the first place?”

Humble wagged his head and turned away. “We're going back to our families.”

“The best I can tell you men,” Rawn announced, pausing while the Corvallis civilians stopped and turned around, “is that I won't fight them if I can help it.”

However, there were many more of the civilians and some soldiers, too, who figured that the simple fact that the Nez Perce hadn't charged down the trail signified that Rawn was striking some sort of deal with the chiefs that would allow them to pass on by without a fight.

Yesterday morning, Territorial Governor Potts had once again come out from Missoula City to visit Rawn's rifle pits after he had issued a general alarm to all the papers in the area, putting out a call to all area citizens to reinforce his local militia.

When the Nez Perce chiefs had refused to put in an appearance by midafternoon yesterday—after telling Delaware Jim they would show up in the morning—Rawn decided to press the issue and called for a hundred mounted men to march out with him again. Some of the Flathead warriors rode along under Chariot. With skirmishers posted on both flanks, the column pushed up the canyon until reaching a knoll less than a half-mile below the Indian camp. Here Rawn halted his irregulars and, this time, sent forward one of the Flathead, a man named Pierre.

“Looking Glass come alone,” Pierre had explained in his halting English before the hushed crowd of white men after
he had returned a half hour later. “Say you, too, come alone. No guns. No guns on him. No guns for soldier.”

That was the longest five-minute round-trip Barbour could remember watching in his life. Maybe not even a full five minutes at that—every second of it spent staring at the backs of Rawn and Pierre, seeing Chief Looking Glass emerge from a group of his warriors at the edge of their village. The three men did not sit atop their horses for long and talk things over. The captain and his interpreter turned around and were back among the irregulars within the span of those same five minutes.