Lay the Mountains Low

by Terry C. Johnston

“Day or so? You sure the quartermaster gonna make it right by me? Like I said, them other soldiers is three days ahead—”

  Sutherland gripped his holster menacingly. “Get that saddle on, or I’ll have to shoot you right after I kill the horse.”

  The frightened settler’s Adam’s apple bobbed nervously when he turned away from the old soldier, scurrying into the small barn.

  In minutes the civilian had that colt snubbed to another post, the blanket dragged out of the mud and draped across the pony’s back before he looped the cinch through its ring.

  Sutherland moved slowly, each step its own agony, reaching the horse as the settler pulled up on the strap. “Kick the son of a bitch in the belly.”

  “What?”

  “Said: Kick the goddamned horse in the belly,” he wheezed. “ ’Cause I can’t do it my own self. An’ when you do kick it, the bastard’s gonna take a deep breath—that’s when you pull like the devil to get that cinch tight as it’ll go.”

  He watched the doubtful man do exactly as he had ordered—and, sure enough, the pony was forced to exhale, allowing the civilian to yank the cinch even tighter.

  “Now, help me up … for I fear I might black out to do it my own self.”

  “You’re hurt,” the settler said, suddenly realizing what might be the extent of the soldier’s injuries. “Maybe you’d be better off to wait out a few hours to see—”

  “I ain’t got a few hours,” Sutherland cut him off. “ ’Sides, my muscles only gonna get tighter every minute we stand here jawing. Get me in the goddamned saddle.”

  They both grunted as together they raised Sutherland into the old saddle. The sergeant’s head swam with an inky blackness, and behind his eyelids swirled a cascade of shooting stars. But he managed to push through the faintness—tasting the bile over the extent of his tongue.

  “I got a message to take to General Gibbon,” Sutherland explained when his eyes opened at last. “Gotta get to him … afore he gets to the Nez Perce “

  Sergeant Oliver Sutherland … once known as Sean Dennis Georghegan, now studied that length of rope as the knot came untied and the settler stepped back against the fence.

  But—for some reason this time the pony did not fling itself about wildly. It fought the bit as he yanked its head to the left but it obediently lurched into motion when the sergeant gently tapped his brass spurs into its flanks.

  “I was chose for this mission,” Sutherland proudly declared to the civilian as he rode out of the yard for the Bitterroot Trail. “So … it’s up to me.”

  He grimaced in pain as every hammering step felt like a cold blast of agony from his tailbone all the way up to the crown of his skull. Yanking up a generous dose of double-riveted courage from some secret well, the sergeant pushed on up the valley, the Bitterroot and Sapphire mountain ranges looming higher and higher, closer, too.

  And him sittin’ on busted j’ints, blackened with a Welsh miner’s crop of bruises, perched on top of the most unlikely of trail horses he ’d ever dared to ride!

  From time to time, Sutherland clenched his eyes shut and reminded himself, muttering under his breath, “It … it’s up to me. G-gotta find Gibbon’s men afore they lay into that camp of murderin’ hostiles.”

  CHAPTER FORTY-NINE

  AUGUST 6–7, 1877

  Monday, August 6, 1877

  Dear Mamma,

  It always does seem as if everything goes wrong when the Doctor is away. Both children are just a little sick, just enough to make them fretful and worry me. I was awake with them many times last night. They seem better this morning and are playing, but my one wish is that the war was over and John home again.

  Afternoon

  Dr. Sternberg just came in to see the children. They are not well, either of them, and it is so hard to have them get this way when John is away …

  You should see some of the Indian garments that were taken from the camp the day of the battle when the Indians left in such a hurry. They are made of beautifully tanned skin, soft as chamois skin, and cut something like we used to cut our paper dollie dresses. The bottom is fringed, and the body part down to the waist is heavily beaded. You never saw such bead work, and the beads make them so heavy. These, of course, are the costumes for grand occasions. One of them I could not lift. Then they have leggings to match, and if it is a chief or big man, they have an outfit for his horse of the same style. Doctor Sternberg is an enthusiast on the subject of collecting curiosities, and he purchased from the men who had gotten them four or five of these garments. For one he gave ten dollars in coin, and for another with a horse fixing, 25 dollars. So you can see, they must be handsome …

  Your affectionate daughter,

  E. L. FitzGerald

  BY TELEGRAPH

  —

  THE INDIANS.

  —

  Late News from Joseph and His Brethren:

  They Will Fight.

  SAN FRANCISCO, August 4.—A press dispatch from Lewiston, August 1st says: Yesterday Indians Joseph and his family, who have been with the people at Slate Creek all through the Indian troubles, and proved true and faithful to the whites, returned from Kamiah, where they had been sent to ascertain the movements of the hostiles. His squaw says the hostiles at Kamiah told her they were going across the mountains by the Lolo trail, with their stock and families and when they got there in a secure place they would return and fight the soldiers. She also states that before leaving Kamiah they went to a friendly Indian camp and drove off all the young squaws, beat them with clubs and forced them along, and many cattle also. They came back and robbed them of everything they could find, including all their horses of any value. She further states that the hostiles are to be reinforced by other Indians from the other side of the mountains when they return. Her statements are considered reliable by those who have known her. This morning Lieut. Wilmot with thirty men started to go across Salmon river to ascertain if any hostiles remain there. It has been reported for several days that a few had been seen in that direction, and the object is to hunt them out and destroy all their supplies. It is now believed by old acquaintances of Joseph, that he will put away in safety his stores and extra horses, and return to Comas prairie, returning by Elk City over the Pietee trails, which are much more easily traveled. The march will be made in about seven days. He has asserted his determination to burn the grain on the Comas prairie, and then arrange his plans to go to Willowa, and the opinion is prevalent that he will attack, before they break camp. Couriers say the hostiles have Mrs. Manuel with them as the property of a petty chief called Cucasenilo. Her sad story is familiar.

  Camp on the East Lolo

  20 miles from Missoula

  August 7, 1877

  Darling,

  The last two days we have been in rather a handsome country, i.e., since we struck the eastern Lolo River, which is a tributary of the Bitter Root River. Last night we had the most picturesque camp I have ever seen—a very remarkable spot where there are 4 hot springs. The steam from them this morning rose up as if from a number of steam mills. I bathed my feet in one of them last night and found it as hot as I could bear comfortably. There was good trout fishing in the Lolo nearby, and Colonel Sanford and I got quite a fine string and had them for breakfast Today we had a long hard march over the hill and got down on the Lolo again this evening for camp—and in a pretty place. Colonel Sanford and I again had some trout fishing.

  We are 20 miles from Missoula, but we learn tonight that the Indians are about 60 miles off, and that General Gibbon is after them with about 200 infantry in wagons, and is within 30 miles of them. We are to push on tomorrow with the cavalry, with a view to overtake him.

  The Indians were allowed to pass through this valley by the scalawag population that bought their stolen horses. And it is said some of them traded ammunition, powder, etc., to the redskins for their stolen property, gold dust, etc. We hear that several watches have been traded for by citizens of Missoula, and it is possible that Mr. Theller’s wat
ch may be recovered. Mr. Fletcher went into Missoula this morning, and Mr. Ebstein is to go in tomorrow, but our command, the cavalry, is to turn off in another direction about 10 miles this side of Missoula tomorrow. The artillery and infantry are nearly two days behind us, but General Howard and staff are now with the cavalry commands. It seems to me that things look as if we should have an end of it all in a few days or weeks, as the Indians will either be whipped or driven across the line into British possessions. The rumor is that Joseph has left White Bird and Looking Glass and is somewhere in the mountains by himself with his band.

  Our poor animals are tired and considerably run down. Old Bill is but a shadow of what he was when I left Lapwai.

  Well, Darling wife, how are my precious ones? What a happy hub you will have when his “footsteps homeward he hath turned.” I hope you are well. I am and have been, and a large part of the time have rather enjoyed this nomadic life. Do you know, or rather, can you realize, that for nearly every morning of this month we have found ice in our wash basins and buckets? It is rather rough on us to be roused out of our warm beds at 3, 4, or 5 A.M. It almost “takes the hair off,” as they say.

  Your old husband,

  John

  AT TWO O’CLOCK ON THE AFTERNOON OF 4 AUGUST, Colonel John Gibbon had finally started his column away from the Missoula City post, his infantry rumbling south in those commandeered wagons, hurrying up the valley of the Bitterroot River in pursuit of the Nez Perce village. After pushing hard for more than twenty-five miles, at nine o’clock that night they went into bivouac opposite the community of Stevensville, camping on the southern outskirts of town located on the east side of the river. It was here that he and most of his officers were disgusted to learn for the first time how the civilians of the valley had bartered and traded with the hostiles as the overconfident Nez Perce moseyed south.

  No matter, Gibbon thought. His men would put things right.

  Including Sergeant Edward Page and those seven Fort Ellis troopers from the Second Cavalry who had joined G Company in its march over from the Gallatin Valley, Gibbon was now at the lead of fifteen officers and 146 enlisted men, in addition to a twelve-pound mountain howitzer mounted on a prairie carriage he managed to run across and commandeer at Fort Owen.

  At dark that first evening of the pursuit, Gibbon rode over to the Flathead camp to have an audience with Chariot. The chief did not even give the officer the courtesy of inviting him into his lodge, much less offering to take part in the normal amenities of the pipe. And when the colonel asked for some Flathead to help H. S. Bostwick scout for his column, Chariot flatly refused.

  “The Nez Perce have kept their promise,” the chief’s interpreter translated Chariot’s words. “They did not start trouble in the valley. So I will honor my pledge to stay neutral.”

  Before departing their bivouac the morning of the fifth, Gibbon received word from Missoula City that as many as 150 civilians were already en route from Bannack City, Montana’s first territorial capital, intending to head off the Nez Perce from the east. In addition, he took this opportunity to speak with Father Anthony Ravalli, a Catholic priest who had spent the last forty years ministering to those Flat-head in the Bitterroot valley at St. Mary’s Mission, erected just outside Stevensville.

  “The Nez Perce are a very dangerous lot, Colonel,” Ravalli declared dourly.

  “That’s why I intend to catch them just as soon as we can,” Gibbon replied.

  “How many soldiers are there with you?” the missionary asked.

  Instantly suspicious that the priest might leak word concerning just how few soldiers he did have with him at present, Gibbon considered a small lie the most expedient route to take: “I have just over two hundred, Father.”

  Ravalli considered that, his brow creasing with worry. “Not enough,” he remarked, grim lines crowfooting the corners of his eyes. “The Nez Perce boast of at least two hundred and sixty warriors, Colonel. They enjoy a reputation as splendid shots, besides being well armed and possessing plenty of ammunition.”

  So much for the priest’s blessing.

  That Sunday the colonel sent Howard his plea for 200 horsemen with civilian Joe Pardee and one of Chariot’s Flathead, clearly not intending to await the reinforcements of that big column then somewhere in the Bitterroot Mountains. After turning those two couriers back for the Lolo, instead of delaying any longer Gibbon pushed his men up the valley, eventually encountering more than seventy-five volunteers from the Bitterroot settlements: a company of thirty-four who had ridden down from Stevensville under the leadership of “Captain” John B. Catlin and another forty-some who had come north from Corvallis under John L. Humble.

  Upon catching up to Gibbon’s column, Humble spared no effort to explain how he was personally opposed to chasing down the fleeing Nez Perce after reaching a peaceful accord with the Non-Treaty bands at Rawn’s barricade. Catlin explained that although he was in favor of giving the Non-Treaty bands a fight, many of his men had their doubts about making war on those Indians who had kept their end of the Lolo agreement, passing peacefully through the Bitterroot.

  Not only did many of the volunteers’ Southern drawls* make Yankee Gibbon a bit uncomfortable, but the colonel was taken aback, thinking it odd, even a bit amusing, that these men should vacillate in their loyalties the way they had over the past few days: Enthusiastically answering Rawn’s call for volunteers when his soldiers headed up the Lolo to erect their barricade at the onset of troubles, those same citizens soon drifting off for their homes—Gibbon now bluntly told these seventy-five-some volunteers they had committed nothing less than outright desertion at the Lolo barricades—when it appeared the Nez Perce had given them a way to avoid a fight; later a few of the more enterprising civilians even pursuing the Nez Perce camp in wagons weighed down with trade goods so they could continue the profitable barter all the way up the Bitterroot valley.

  Upon reaching Gibbon’s troops, both companies of civilians had begun to grumble and argue with their elected “captains,” Catlin, a steady-handed Civil War veteran who himself wanted to throw in with Gibbon’s column while his volunteers were something less than enthusiastic, and John Humble, the leader who had openly argued with Captain Rawn’s actions just before he and others abandoned the Lolo barricades.

  It gave the colonel reason to question the volunteers’ steadfastness. He was exasperated to see how these citizens ran hot and cold. Here, a matter of days after the barricade desertions and the scandal of trading with the enemy, these brave civilians were again offering their services to the army?

  The colonel was dubious of the Missourians’ intentions at best, if not outright scornful of their offer. So when Catlin and Humble formally presented themselves and their men, offering to join Gibbon’s column, the colonel wagged his head.

  “I prefer not to be encumbered with your company of volunteers,” the colonel explained bluntly.

  That chilly reception made no difference for the moment. Catlin, Humble, and their companies clung to the fringe of the column, refusing to be dissuaded and forced to turn around.

  That afternoon of the fifth, the column rumbled past the small community of Corvallis, another fifteen miles up the valley, which boasted about one hundred inhabitants in 1877. When news of the Nez Perce escape from Idaho reached the Bitterroot, valley settlers had hastily built a fortress surrounded by twelve-foot-high sod walls, one hundred feet square, with interior rooms constructed of tents and canvas wagon covers, partially partitioned with rough-milled lumber. They named it Fort Skidaddle, since many of its occupants were settlers who had “skidaddled” from their native Missouri after suffering repeated attacks at the hands of Southern partisans before the bombardment of Fort Sumter, as well as harassment from Confederate soldiers during the Civil War.

  Not much farther south, Gibbon’s forces passed the much tinier settlement of Skalkaho,* where the eighty-some locals had constructed a small, crude stockade of rough timbers and sloping sod walls no more than fiv
e feet high. They christened the shabby affair Fort Run, because that’s where their women and children would run in time of an Indian scare. But its sloping sod walls were so short that when the Nez Perce village marched past, more than two dozen warriors reined their ponies up to the top and peered down at the frightened families.

  That night of the sixth they camped on Sleeping Child Creek, within hailing distance of the fort’s walls.

  Near noon of the following day, 6 August, after successively passing the ransacked houses belonging to a settler named Landrum, that of Alex Stewart, and even the cabin belonging to valley pioneer Joe Blodgett—who had enlisted at Corvallis as a volunteer and offered Gibbon his trail-scouting skills—the column discovered that volunteer Myron Lockwood’s ranch house near the mouth of Rye Creek* had been vandalized worst of all. The structure itself had been gutted, every piece of furniture and china thrown into the yard, where it was broken, every tick, curtain, and pillow slashed with a knife. Lockwood wasn’t the only civilian along who furiously gnashed his teeth at the wanton destruction, cussing the Nez Perce raiders in no uncertain terms now—especially when Lockwood discovered the warriors had left seven poor Indian ponies in his pasture to replace seven of his finest horses.

  “That bunch of spavined cayuses are all sick and sore-mouthed, just plain used-up comin’ over the Lolo!” the civilian yelped to Gibbon.

  “I recommend that you file a complaint with Captain Rawn once the two of you return to the valley after we have subdued these predators, Mr. Lockwood.” Gibbon brushed aside the vandalism he saw as a minor irritant when compared to the larger goal of stopping murderers, rapists, and thieves. “State the dollar amount of your loss, and I’m sure the Indian Bureau will consider your motion for recompense.”

  It was here that the volunteers held a heated argument among themselves on whether to go on or not, because they were low on provisions and many thought it better to return to their homes.