Cries from the Earth (9 page)

“Now, I want you to ask these leaders if they are going to listen to that old troublemaker I took to the guardhouse myself … or are they going to accompany me to look for their new homes on the reservation?”

Chapter 5

Season of
Hillal
1877

 

 

BY TELEGRAPH

CHEYENNE.

Indian and Deadwood News.

CHEYENNE, May 19.—General Crook with Major Randall and Lieutenant Schuyler leave here in the morning for the agencies, where the final grand council will be held, which must be simply a formality, as the disarmament of the Indians renders their consent to any proposition easily obtained. A small band of Cheyennes arrived at Red Cloud Wednesday, bringing in some two hundred horses. The Indians are convinced that the government is acting in good faith, and are evincing a like fidelity to the terms of the surrender.

Joseph stretched out his arm and tapped his younger brother on the shoulder. The moment Ollokot turned to look, Joseph laid a finger against his lips, then pointed that same finger at the brush more than an arrow-flight away at the edge of the ravine.

Ollokot nodded and started away cautiously, creeping wide across the side of the grassy hill. Joseph remained still, watching his brother, then moving only his eyes to watch the brush below them, and listened. He smiled, feeling confident that they would bring even more meat into camp before the sun set beyond the valley.

One by one, the days had been growing longer, allowing the brothers to leave their wives and lodges earlier every morning, to return from the high slopes later every evening. Today's would be their last hunt together in these hills blanketed with huckle and gooseberries the women usually harvested in the heat of the
Wa-wa-mai-khal,
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hills the two had roamed as boys.

That melancholy thought stabbed him again in a place well-protected by his breastbone. Joseph swallowed at the sharp pain of loss and watched his brother continue across the breast of the hill above him as they both slowly worked their way in on the deer that had taken cover in that copse of timber. Just the way it had been when they were boys, back when they carried toy bows and tiny knife-sharpened stick arrows, hoping to kill a ground squirrel or a vole with their mighty weapons. Because their father, an important chief, did not often have time to train his youngest son, it was Joseph who had taken his brother under his wing and helped the younger one along. So many hunts, so many trips through these hills, had they shared over countless seasons.

They were truly more than brothers of blood. Joseph and Ollokot were friends. And that made them brothers of the heart.

But now, things would never be the same again. These hills near the lake at the edge of the Camas Prairie,
2
just like the hills in the Wallowa where they both were born, would never again be theirs to hunt. Monteith and Cut-Off Arm had convinced the chiefs that any further resistance, any more stubborn attempts at delay, were nothing less than futile.

The day after Toohoolhoolzote had been locked behind the iron bars inside the white man's log house, Cut-Off Arm had taken the
Nee-Me-Poo
leaders on a day-long ride across Monteith's reservation so each of them could select the sites where their bands would make their new homes, there to live out the rest of their existence the way the Christian bands were living out theirs attempting to be white men.

“This is the land of your father,” Old Joseph had instructed his eldest son in those moments before the old man died six winters ago.

Tuekakas
was his
Nee-Me-Poo
name, meaning “Old Grizzly.” When so many thousands of white people began to flood in upon a few hundred of his people, contrary to the guarantees of the white peace-talkers, Old Joseph tore up his copy of an early treaty he had signed and even burned the Bible he had kept in his lodge for more than thirty years, ever since his Christian baptism.

Nearing his final breath, he clutched the hands of both sons weakly and made them promise, “You must never sell, you must never give away, the land of your father.”

Later, as their long-held customs dictated, Young Joseph had laid the skin of his father's favorite horse over the covered grave where they put Old Joseph to rest for all time. Thin, peeled lodgepoles painted red were planted all around the grave. A pair of bells hung from the very top of each pole so that the stirring of the slightest breeze might make a gentle music above this place.

Ever since, Joseph tried time and again to convince himself that he and Ollokot had not given away the land of their father.

Why, the
Nee-Me-Poo
did not even have a word for “enemy” in their language. However, the concept of a “coming force” had been well understood ever since the first hairy-faces had arrived.

So Joseph had long struggled to reconcile the death-watch vow he had given his father with the inevitability of the white man closing in around what had once belonged only to the Wallowa people. By choosing to go to the reservation, by doing as Monteith and the soldiers ordered, chiefs like him had ultimately decided that the lives of their people were more important than the pride of their warriors.

“Rather than kill a white man in a war,” Joseph had explained to Cut-Off Arm, “I will bring my people to Lapwai.”

All the leaders felt as if they had been shamed by the soldier chief, given no chance to salve their wounded pride. When Cut-Off Arm not only talked about using force in the council but actually used force in dragging old Toohoolhoolzote to the iron-barred house, it was the same as if the soldier chief was showing them the rifle. In peace councils, a man simply did not speak of force, much less use it!

Nonetheless, Joseph bravely asked the soldier chief for more time to reach the reservation than Cut-Off Arm had given the Wallowa band initially. Joseph attempted to explain how his people had to cross both the Salmon and the Snake on their way to Lapwai and at this time of year the snowmelt had swollen those rivers so the mighty waters roared and raged between their steep banks.

Couldn't the Wallowa put off coming in to the reservation until the rivers had quieted?

“No,” repeated Cut-Off Arm in a stern reproach that only served as one more serious wound to the
Nee-Me-Poo
pride.

“I think the soldier chief and agent believe that the more time they give us,” Joseph explained later to his headmen and warriors, “the less likely we are to comply with their demands. Before we left the agency, Cut-Off Arm told us that any delay on our part might risk a dangerous confrontation with the soldiers already in the Wallowa.”

And to further impress his audience of Non-Treaty leaders before they left Fort Lapwai to gather their peoples, the soldier chief had read aloud a petition he recently received from a large number of settlers along the Salmon River: Shadows who accused the Nez Perce of stealing horses, rustling cattle, and destroying the property of industrious white people. That petition, which demanded the immediate removal of the Indians from the river valley, had been signed by fifty-seven settlers who threatened to take matters into their own hands if the army didn't resolve the tensions.

“So it's dangerous for you to stay in the Wallowa any longer, Joseph,” Cut-Off Arm had declared. “Surely you don't think you should stay where you're not wanted, do you?”

Even when the chiefs had gone with Cut-Off Arm to select the sites for their new homes, the soldier chief led Joseph and the others to some land that was already occupied by some Treaty Indians and a few white settlers.

Nonetheless, Cut-Off Arm pointed about him and announced, “If you will come on the reservation, I will give you these lands and move these people off.”

Even though his own home was being taken from him, Joseph had shaken his head, explaining, “No, that is not right to do. It is wrong to disturb these people. I have no right to take their home. I have never taken what did not belong to me. And I will not start now.”

Later that day, Looking Glass rode on one side of Cut-Off Arm and White Bird rode on the other as they traveled from site to site. Agency interpreter Joe Rabusco translated for them.

“Toohoolhoolzote meant no offense to you with his strong words,” White Bird did his best to apologize. “We were told to come to Lapwai to speak our minds. That is what the old man was doing.”

Looking Glass had nodded in agreement, saying to Cut-Off Arm, “If you free the old man, he will be fine in the days to come.”

The soldier chief had meditated on it a few moments without speaking, then shook his head.

So White Bird pleaded more strongly, “He was only speaking his mind, as the men of my people have always done when in council. I know he will not do anything bad—but you can shoot me if he does.”

“I agree,” Looking Glass emphasized. “If the old man causes you trouble, you can bring me in and shoot me, too.”

That's when Cut-Off Arm smiled and told the two chiefs, “I am glad to hear your support for the old man. But I am not going to shoot anyone. Toohoolhoolzote gave some bad advice to the council today. I want him to understand he must not give bad advice ever again. So Colonel Perry is going to keep the old man for a few days until you chiefs have selected your lands and started back to collect your people. Then I will release him, on your promise that I can punish you if he does not act right.”

“This is a good thing to do!” Looking Glass cheered. “Now I feel like laughing again!”

But the soldier chief still appeared doubtful that all had been made right. “There are three kinds of laughter: one from fun, another from deceit, and the third from real joy.”

“Mine comes from real joy!” Looking Glass exclaimed, laying a hand flat against his breast. “I shall never forget this ride we are taking together, Cut-Off Arm. I shall never forget these moments with you when we talked of our new homes.”

Having gone out with the soldier chief to choose their new lands, the chiefs turned homeward for the last time, returning to their ancient haunts to bring in their bands. All told, these Non-Treaty peoples numbered no more than seven hundred.

Satisfied that he had struck a lasting peace, Looking Glass marched southeast for the Clearwater with his forty warriors to rejoin their
Alpowai
band.

Angrily licking his wounded pride, Toohoolhoolzote eventually reached his
Pikunan
band of thirty warriors in that wild country of the Grande Ronde and Asotin Creek, so rugged the Shadows never came to look for the precious yellow rocks or to farm.

Wounded in battle
3
many summers before by a cannonball that had grazed his head, leaving a large hairless patch,
Huishuish Kute,
the
tewat
called Bald, or Shorn, Head, returned home to that rocky country south of the mining town of Lewiston to bring in his small band of some sixteen Palouse warriors.

White Bird and his fifty sullen warriors made their way back to the country of their
Lamtama
band near the junction of White Bird Creek and the Salmon.

A saddened Joseph and a brooding Ollokot rode south by west, crossing the swollen Snake to the Grande Ronde, then over the next high ridge into the Imnaha. From there they climbed high into the land of the Winding Water, returning home for the final time. Before leaving the Wallowa behind forever, the brothers visited the resting place of Old Joseph. There they raised two freshly painted red-striped poles and laid a fresh horsehide over their father's grave.

Once he and Ollokot had argued down the shrill voices that shouted for war, once those sixty Wallowa warriors had reluctantly crisscrossed their homeland gathering up the last of their horses and cattle, Joseph's
In-an-toin-mu
people began their slow, dispirited march north with what animals they could find and bring in before their time ran short. Down the valley of the Imnaha they began their two-hundred-mile ordeal, pushing their herd of some six thousand ponies and about two thousand horned cows toward the first dangerous crossing at a point called Dug Bar—where the mighty Snake plunged north through a narrow canyon. At this long-used ford the Joseph people stood on the west bank,
4
staring in dismay at the frothy river swollen with the snows melting in the faraway Yellowstone thermal region. The Idaho side of the Snake lay more than ten long arrow-flights away.
5

After selecting a quartet of the strongest young men to ride four of their strongest ponies, Ollokot sent the group into the roaring current with a raft made of lodgepoles upon which sat buffalo-robe bundles of their belongings. All four were soon swept off the backs of their ponies as the river foamed about them, shoving each bobbing youth and animal downstream some distance as each struggled just to stay above the strong current. Eventually the young men managed to reach the other side, clambering out of the swirling waters more than three long arrow-flights downstream.

But they had done it! Now the rest could follow.

On more rafts and in bullboats, the men pulled their women and children into the current, one craft making that dangerous crossing at a time. When each boat or raft reached the far shore, those left behind raised a cheer for those who had survived the turbulent journey at the mercy of the furious water spirits.

By the end of that long, exhausting day, no more than half of Joseph's people had reached the far side. But by the time the sun began to set the following afternoon, all of the Wallowa band stood on the north bank, save for those young men who watched over the cattle and pony herds. All that remained was to take their prized horses into the boiling river.

At sunrise the next morning they discovered that during the night some white settlers had sneaked in among their herds sheltered there beside the mouth of the Imnaha and stolen what horses they could lead away. Angry at this treachery, but undeterred in his mission, Ollokot called out to his young pony herders. They formed the vanguard of this attack on the swollen waters, clinging atop their ponies as long as they could, until the strength of the current hurtled them off, when they had to grip a tail or mane, each warrior crying out his encouragement to those coming behind, yelping at the ponies battling those waves lapping around them. To hear those hundreds and hundreds of horses scream in terror, snorting with their exertion, eyes wide in fear and nostrils flaring as they struggled to keep their heads above the surface—the Wallowa people watched in horror and held their breath.