Lay the Mountains Low

by Terry C. Johnston

  “I will not lay down my gun! We will not quit fighting! Blood of my people has been shed and I will kill many of the white men before I die! My hands will be stained with the enemy’s blood—only then will I die!”

  Looking Glass defended himself, “I never meant to let the little chief think we would lay down our guns—”

  At the edge of the council Rainbow sat upon his war pony, his rifle braced against his thigh as he declared, “Do not tell me to lay down my gun, Looking Glass! We did not want this war. Cut-Off Arm started it when he showed us the gun at the Lapwai peace talks. We answered his rifle and that answer still stands for me. Some of my people have been killed and I will kill some more of our enemies—then I shall die in battle!”

  “Never again will there be any talk of giving up a thing to the white man,” Looking Glass had vowed.

  Early this morning, Looking Glass and White Bird had ordered their warriors into position along the front of their march, placing their ponies and their bodies between the soldier guns and their own women and children. It took only moments for Joseph to have that camp of women and children, the old, and the wounded ready to turn aside for the sharp ridge where scouts had located a narrow path only mountain goats must have used to cling to the back side of a tall peak.*

  Once the fighting men had guided the column back to the Lolo Trail itself, they discovered how the soldier chief had ordered some of his men and the Shadows to press in upon the rear of the Nee-Me-Poo march. A few of the older warriors who had been to the buffalo country before recognized some familiar faces among the valley settlers and called out greetings to those they knew, even cracking some jokes back and forth with those Shadows trailing them at a distance while the entire procession slowly paraded toward the mouth of the Lolo. Why, Looking Glass even turned about and rode back to the settlers, doffing his tall beaver-felt top hat with its plume, smiling hugely as he shook a few white hands—reminding the Shadows that his people did not mean to cause trouble as they passed through the valley.

  Only one time that morning were the white men foolish enough to get too close upon the column’s rear, forcing Ollokot to order his young men to wheel about and level their rifles at their pursuers—ready to knock down the first ranks. The warriors all had a good laugh watching those Shadows rein up with surprise, stumbling over one another, barely clinging to their frightened horses, as they turned about in total terror.

  Frightened white settlers such at these posed little threat. Twice already in this war, the Nee-Me-Poo had witnessed the Shadows’ fighting resolve—once at White Bird Canyon, the second time at Water Passing.* Shadows could make a lot of noise and bluster, but there was little danger when it came down to making a fight of it.

  “Perhaps the Shadows needed a little reminding that we do not want to fight them,” Yellow Wolf stated to the warrior beside him as they laughed together, watching the white men scurry in retreat, “but that we will fight if pushed to it!”

  “The little soldier chief realized we would fight. That’s why he made his treaty with Looking Glass,” Wottolen reminded grimly. “He knew it was far better to let us ride past with our promise not to make trouble than to have a lot of angry warriors turned loose on the Bitterroot valley.”

  The Non-Treaty bands had successfully scooted around the soldier barricade in a maneuver that had made the suapie chief look as much like a fool for failing to hold the Nee-Me-Poo back as he was a fool to erect a barricade in the Lolo Canyon to hold them back in the first place.** With Cut-Off Arm, the Book of Heaven chief, still far, far back in Idaho country and the little soldier chief turning aside now so that he no longer followed the camp, from this point on the journey couldn’t look brighter!

  Now that they had reached the Bitterroot valley, the sun finally came out behind the dissipating clouds, bright and hot, drying the muddy, mucky road so that the traveling was easier on the ponies and those who plodded on foot. In every direction Yellow Wolf chose to look, the sky was big and blue, barely a cloud marring the aching immensity of it. Here they were that much closer to the E-sue-gha, longtime friends and allies who would join them not only in the buffalo hunt but also against the army—should those suapies ever want to start another war on the Nee-Me-Poo.

  Once they had climbed the road out of this long, narrow valley and made their way across the heights to the Place of the Ground Squirrels,* they would be within hailing distance of the buffalo country!

  Eeh-yeh! Already Yellow Wolf could feel the joy of that realization spreading through him like the warmth of the sun, replacing the cold, bone-chilling despair and despondency he had suffered for having to put his Aihits Palojami, his fair Fair Land at his back.

  He could not remember a finer day than this! Looking Glass had made his Lolo treaty with the little chief and those valley settlers, an agreement that guaranteed the Nee-Me-Poo passage up the Bitterroot without either side having to fear attack. And now the suapies had marched out of sight to the north, away from the noisy, joyous village that began to celebrate even before they started to make camp.** The women were trilling, jabbering, laughing—their high voices like happy birds on the wing. The children immediately picked up on the mood: running and shouting and laughing with such great abandon. Which meant the men, like Yellow Wolf, could congratulate themselves on how well they had fought the soldiers in Idaho country, how hard they had worked to get their families over the Lolo, how steadfast they had remained in their pledge not to fight the Shadows in Montana Territory.

  Imene kaisi yeu yeu! With the Creator’s blessing, there would be no fighting now!

  Give great praise to Hunyewat! The war was over!

  “SHIT! Them’s the goddamn Nez Perceys!” exclaimed Henry Buck as he and more than two dozen civilians suddenly found themselves stumbling into the Indian camp after dark that Saturday night after the Indians had slipped around the Lolo barricade.

  These twenty-six valley settlers and shopkeepers, who had answered the alarm to bolster Captain Rawn’s small detachment of regulars from Missoula City, had remained with Rawn to the last. While most of their compatriots had turned back for their homes in the steady drizzle that fell the night before, most of Buck’s friends had stuck it out, even as the Non-Treaty bands scooted right around them slick as a gob of wagon-hub grease.

  For most of the day the civilians knew they were some distance behind the slow-moving village, but little had they realized that, when they turned south to ride up the valley of the Bitterroot for their homes near Stevensville, they would end up running right into the Nez Perce camp! Of a sudden these startled white men found themselves among the lodges and willow shelters before they had time to rein up and retreat.

  “Shadows!” a Nez Perce voice called out from the hubbub and clamor as the civilians milled about and clattered together, not really knowing which way to turn now that they had stuck their foot right in it.

  Voices were calling out to one another, many warriors running up on foot, some racing up on horseback, until what seemed like more than a hundred of them had streamed out of the darkness—converging on the frightened whites from every direction.

  “Stop, white men!”

  More shouting arose as a handful of faces approached out of what starry light illuminated the valley floor. Closer and closer those new arrivals came, followed by a crowd of warriors, until their red noose came to a halt no more than six feet from the civilians’ nervous horses.

  “Hello, Boston Men!”

  The speaker stepped forward, a figure sporting his famous tall top hat decorated by a showy bird plume attached to the very front, sticking straight up.

  It was Looking Glass. Henry didn’t know if he should be relieved or even more scared.

  “W-we’re lost.” Buck could think of nothing more to say than the truth. The eyes of all those warriors gleamed in the starshine, measuring him and the rest of the citizens caught in this tightening snare.

  The top hat walked closer to Buck’s horse, held up his hand as
if to shake. Grinned, too. “Me Looking Glass. You?”

  “B-buck. Henry Buck,” and he held down his hand, thinking it quite odd that this Nez Perce chief would practice such a custom—to shake hands with a white man when the chief should realize that earlier this day these very white men had attempted to bar the Indians’ entry into the valley.

  “Looking Glass?” Myron Lockwood echoed, sitting on the horse next to Henry’s. “Why, I didn’t know this was Looking Glass. This here’s the chief hisself—the one who come back and shook hands with a few of us this mornin’!”

  “I guess he puts great stock in this hand-shaking thing,” John Buckhouse said, nervousness cracking in his voice.

  “This ol’ buck even had his eyes checked up to Missoula City on his way back from the buffalo plains just this past spring,” explained Wilson B. Harlan. “Doctor fit him for a pair of glasses, too, Henry.”

  “We’re going home,” Buck explained to the chief, speaking his words slowly. He pointed on south up the valley. “Home, there, tonight.”

  For a long moment Looking Glass turned to peer up the valley, too. “Yes, home.” Eventually, he brought his eyes back to Buck and smiled when he said, “You home, no hurt you home now. No war with white valley man here. No war come to Montana buffalo land. No war. You go home all now, too. All white man go home. No war now.”

  He held up his hand to Buck and they shook again; then the chief moved among the civilians, eagerly shaking every white man’s hand. When Looking Glass had greeted all the stunned horsemen he stepped back against that tight ring of warriors.

  “No war now, white mans!” he cheered, doffing his tall hat, sweeping it to the south in a grand gesture. “Go home—you no fight. No war for you. No war for us.”

  “Y-yes. We go home,” Buck repeated the chief’s broken English, nodding as he urged his horse into motion. “No war. We’ll go home because there ain’t gonna be no war now.”

  More than a hundred warriors slowly parted, gradually forming a very long and narrow gauntlet as the white men started away, every one of the Nez Perce silent, glaring.

  It wasn’t until they were three miles farther south up the Bitterroot that Henry realized how tense his muscles had been, feeling just how tight his ass had been clenched from the moment he realized they had moseyed into that village by mistake. Even though he and his brothers had seen quite a few Nez Perce coming and going through the valley across the years and some had even visited their store in Stevensville on every journey through the Bitterroot, Henry Buck had never seen that many Nez Perce warriors in one place … nor that many so goddamned close—all of them glaring at him and the others. It was enough to make a man’s scalp itch.

  Henry Buck decided every fella was granted at least one second chance in life to make up for some stupid, lunkhead blunder. He figured he’d just used up his.

  *This angling, northward movement took them out of Lolo Canyon, over to Sleeman Creek, which they followed until joining Lolo Creek again about two and a half miles west of its junction with the Bitterroot River.

  *McConville’s volunteers at Misery Hill.

  **Because of this very public fiasco, in the local press Rawn’s abandoned log-and-rifle-pit fortress immediately became known as “Fort Fizzle,” its army and civilian defenders regarded as cowards afraid to fight, much less die, to halt the Nez Perce invasion of Montana Territory.

  *The Big Hole.

  **That first evening out of the Lolo Canyon, the Nez Perce erected their camp on the McClain ranch, about five miles south of the Lolo’s mouth, on Carlton Creek.

  CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR

  JULY 29, 1877

  Kamiah Indian Territory

  July 29, 1877

  My Precious Darling Wife,

  Got here today at 10 A.M. without adventure of any sort. It seems a month or longer since I left you. Yet … I have, after a fashion, enjoyed this nomad’s existence of two days and nights…

  The troops to go (and with whom my lot is cast) are all across the river, and stores are being crossed over. It looks like a war picture, indeed quite an army, and among them, I am glad to see about 25 Indian scouts who were brought through by Colonel Sanford. By the by, I go with Colonel Sanford … 1st Cavalry …

  I shall mess with Colonel Sanford—

  U.S. ARMY SURGEON JOHN FITZGERALD PAUSED, PENsively chewing on the wooden stem of his ink pen as he studiously gazed out upon the noisy clamor of that camp readying itself to follow General Oliver Otis Howard over the Lolo Trail into Montana Territory in pursuit of the escaping Nez Perce murderers and outlaws.

  This might well be the last chance FitzGerald had for a long, long time to write Emily from the campaign trail—and know with any certainty that she would get his letter. Why, she might well be reading it by tomorrow afternoon. Each of the many officers had tossed a little something into a pool to entice one of the Christian Indians to ride off to Lapwai with their final messages before embarking on what they knew had to be a short campaign.

  The Indian scouts will be in the advance. It is said and believed here that Joseph’s Indians are all over in Montana and peacefully disposed among the settlers in that region. Doctor Alexander says that I will be back at my post in 30 days. I hope so, Darling, for I feel that I have been away from you for an age already. I don’t see how I can stand it for 30 days. You may rest assured, Darling, that absence for that time, or maybe a week or so longer, is all you have to fear on my account.

  Oh, how to tell her all that he sensed was ready to gush out of him here and now … yet how to keep from telling her what he must not let slip in there, even between the lines. He thought at first of somehow preparing her for the eventuality that he might not make it back home, then thought better of that idea and decided not to write anything morose or melancholy—exactly the way a man felt in those hours before riding into battle or setting off on an uncertain campaign.

  … I forgot to tell you our Indians all wear soldier’s uniforms with a kind of blue sash of stripes and stars. It looks, in fact, like a piece of old garrison flag. They belong to the Bannock tribe of Indians farther to the south, and they can be depended on …

  I hardly know, Darling, what else to tell you. I suppose we will reach Missoula in a week at farthest. I was going to say you might write me there, but that would not do, as I suppose it would take two weeks for a letter to reach that place via San Francisco. There will be one or more opportunities for you to write me by courier from Lapwai. Take care of yourself and the babies, and wait for me as patiently as you can …

  John FitzGerald quickly looked up to see if anyone might be approaching.

  Furtively he dabbed his thumb at that errant teardrop soaking into the writing paper, then dragged the back of his hand beneath the end of his nose. This surgeon, husband, and father did not want another man to misread his reluctance to leave his family behind. After all was said and done, this was his calling. He was a soldier. A doctor yes, but a soldier above all.

  Jenkins FitzGerald had been an army doctor since the outbreak of rebellion among the Southern states. And this was what a soldier did: go off to war against his nation’s enemies.

  I keep thinking of the long absence from you, my dear wife, but it must be. I suppose there are 30 to 40 more gentlemen in this command who have left their wives and babies, and who, in case of more fighting, will be in far greater danger than your man can possibly be in, but, honestly, I don’t think we shall see an Indian hostile. I said to Colonel Miller, “Colonel, what are we all going to do over there?” He replied, “Oh, we will have a big mountain picnic with no Indians to trouble us.”

  … We will have some hard marching only, with no fighting of any kind—

  “Dr. John!”

  He looked up of a sudden, finding the Indian leading his horse, walking easily toward the cluster of hospital tents and baggage where FitzGerald sat. The dark-skinned Kamiah courier wore a large leather pouch over his left hip, the wide strap looped over his right shoulder. Alre
ady there were two other, younger, officers hurrying their envelopes up to the rider. Chances were neither one of them had a wife or children at home, FitzGerald thought as his eyes connected with the Nez Perce courier.

  “Dr. John,” the Treaty Indian said as he stopped a respectful distance away. “I go soon. Take mail to Lapwai. I go with your letter, yes? Take to Mrs. Doctor.”

  “Yes,” he sighed sadly, then went back to chewing on the wooden stem of his pen, looking over those young men bringing their mail to the courier.

  Such young, eager officers would have written home to mothers, perhaps even a sweetheart to whom they had pledged their hearts, planning a distant betrothal when affairs with the Nez Perce were settled.

  So … until he got back from the far side of the Lolo … perhaps the far, far side of the world itself, this last letter to her might well have to be it for a long, long time—

  Be patient, darling, sensible wife, as you always have been, and ’ere long I will be with you again. My ink is getting low, so goodbye, my honey, and believe me.

  Ever your faithful,

  John

  “And I am especially glad to see you again, Wa-wook-ke-ya Was Sauw!” Looking Glass exclaimed as he moved among the small party of men, women, and children, touching hands, pounding backs.

  The newcomers had just approached the large Nee-Me-Poo camp with their leader, Eagle-from-the-Light, being hailed by many of the Non-Treaty headmen who had come out to greet the new arrivals—six lodges of them, accounting for ten warriors. Wa-wook-ke-ya Was Sauw, this man called Lean Elk, was one of those fighting men who for the last few winters had paid his allegiance to the Eagle.

  Weeks ago when the first flames were fanned in Idaho country, the men of their band had gone together to petition Flathead agent Peter Ronan at the Jocko agency for permission to camp on the reservation north of Missoula City, where they would be far from the danger of being swept up in a war should the Non-Treaty bands cross over the Lolo Trail, as everyone knew they would. For generations the Flathead people had been good friends of the Nee-Me-Poo, crossing over the Lolo each year to harvest those salmon doggedly fighting their way from the distant ocean to the high streams that fed the Clearwater River. When Ronan had refused their request, Eagle-from-the-Light kept his small band near Chariot’s Flathead, who themselves had steadfastly refused government orders to move north from the Bitterroot valley onto their own reservation.