Lay the Mountains Low

by Terry C. Johnston

  Another bullet rocked him, striking him low in the other shoulder. He was so near the soldier hollows that the impact shoved him backward a faltering step. At that moment another bullet hit him low in the belly, knocking him sideways—before he visibly shook it off and bent over again, limping toward the hollows. But this time Five Wounds moved much, much slower.

  Another bullet tore through his chest, leaving a second gaping hole in his back.

  Yellow Wolf and many of the others stood there, every man openly weeping now as they watched this last selfless act of bravery for a friend.

  “I am come this day to be with you, Rainbow!”

  Though his body faltered, weaving and tottering very slowly toward the soldier burrows, Five Wounds’s voice rang stronger than ever … even as another bullet rocked him, made him stumble and then collapse to his knees just short of the soldier lines.

  Try as he might, he could not rise again, struggling to get his feet under him when two more bullets smacked into his body with the telltale breaking of bone as he was whirled one way, then the other, his weakened arms windmilling with the force of each impact. Still his head was held high as his undaunted will struggled to control his failing body. Collapsing forward, he planted both hands in front of him. Five Wounds crawled on.

  Three more bullets hit him: one in the leg, another in the chest, and the third in the hip, breaking the big bone that could no longer support his weight.

  And as Five Wounds wobbled there on one knee, he looked up at the sky, opening his mouth to speak—

  “Rainbow, I am come to join—”

  A bullet slammed into his forehead, snapping it backward violently, driving him off that one knee and hand, pitching his body backward onto his side … just short of his goal.

  But Yellow Wolf knew better than to think Five Wounds hadn’t finished his quest. As he wiped a hand down his face and cleared his eyes, he knew Five Wounds had reached his goal. Even though he hadn’t made it into the heart of the soldier hollows, he had nonetheless gotten close enough to gaze into the eyes of the men who would kill him.

  By now, this brave man was already reunited with Rainbow.

  “DAMN—will you lookit that down there!”

  Turning painfully at that exclamation from a nearby soldier, Lieutenant Charles Woodruff slowly crawled over to have himself a look from the edge of the bluff.

  A warrior was coming out from the village, mounted on a showy pony. He guided the animal into the willow as he headed for the base of the soldiers’ hill.

  “Five dollars to the man who knocks him down afore me,” proposed Second Cavalry Sergeant Edward Page, lying off to Woodruff’s left.

  After only two shots from the warrior, who reappeared in the brush below to fire up the slope—Page’s head flopped backward, a neat, black hole below his chin, the top of his head blown off.

  “I’ll get that son of a bitch for you, Sarge,” vowed one of the cavalrymen near Page’s body. “An’ you won’t owe me a goddamned fiver!”

  When that horseman next appeared, he didn’t even have the time to raise his rifle before the trooper’s bullet knocked him off the back of his pony.

  “Watch ’im,” the marksman warned those around him. “If he moves while I’m reloading, hit him again to make sure he’s a good Injun—”

  Down below in the creek bottom, a horrendous cry interrupted him. The sort of sound that would make any man’s blood curdle.

  “ ’Spect they found ’nother of our wounded, Lieutenant,” a soldier said quietly.

  “Goddamn ’em to Hell!” a corporal cursed as they all listened to the pitiful screams of that white man—soldier or volunteer—whose life was slowly snuffed out in a most horrible fashion.

  One of the older men ground his hands together, his words slipping out between clenched teeth: “If I just could get my hands on one of them monsters right now!”

  Woodruff reclined back against a small mound of dirt thrown up by a long-fallen tree’s roots. Swallowing down the rising pain in his left heel and both thighs, he wondered if they all would have that chance to get their hands on the Nez Perce soon enough … when the red bastards made one final charge.

  CHAPTER SIXTY-FIVE

  WA-WA-MAI-KHAL, 1877

  WHILE THE SUN ROSE HIGHER AND HOTTER THROUGH that long morning, Yellow Wolf had watched how Red Moccasin Tops had done such effective work with his soldier carbine against the suapies. This warrior, who was called Sarpsis Ilppilp, crouched behind a small boulder close to the hollows, where he undeniably had accounted for several of the soldiers who had fallen, either killed or badly wounded.

  When his bullets struck a victim, Red Moccasin Tops celebrated and roared loudly, chanting his own strong-heart song while he reloaded and adjusted the white wolfskin cape he had tied around the shoulders of the red flannel shirt he had on—one of the powerful talismans he wore to ward off the death spirit. No other fighting man had dared crawl as close to the white enemies as Red Moccasin Tops.

  “Where is White Bird now?” he shouted to the other warriors every time he hit one of the white men.

  “He is not here!” a voice answered.

  Someone else said, “Maybe still in the village.”

  Each time, the exchange was the same. Red Moccasin Tops told those who had the soldiers surrounded, “Don’t you see that I am here and he is not! But this morning White Bird accused me of being a coward. Wahlitits and I were the only men brave enough to start this war. Who is this White Bird to call us cowards when Shore Crossing lies dead in the village—killed defending his home and family? He was a patriot killed defending his people and their freedom!”

  Over time Yellow Wolf thought Red Moccasin Tops grew a little bolder as he popped out from the protection of his rock, quickly aimed, and fired a shot at the soldiers huddled like scared voles in their rifle pits.

  “Who is White Bird to accuse me of being a coward because I started this war with my friend?” he shouted as he reloaded another cartridge into his soldier carbine. “See the soldiers cower from me in their hollows! Let no man question my courage now—”

  At the instant he crept around the side of the boulder in a crouch, his rifle already at his shoulder, a bullet struck Red Moccasin Tops in the side of his throat, not only slashing open a massive blood vessel but also cutting the leather strand of his sacred dentalium-shell necklace, which he tied choker-style around his neck. For some weeks now Sarpsis Ilppilp had believed this necklace held hattia tinukin, the death spirit, at bay.

  His body was hurtled to the side, landing in a heap, where he gurgled for a few moments, trying to speak, his legs pumping in anguish while blood spurted onto his sacred wolfskin cape.

  For some time the others were stunned into complete silence.

  “Who will bring Red Moccasin Tops out to safety?” someone finally cried from the late-morning shadows.

  “Who among you is bravest?” immediately echoed a familiar voice. It belonged to the young warrior’s father, Sun Necklace.

  “Perhaps I am brave enough!” another voice called out.

  His voice cracking with deep emotion, Sun Necklace hollered, “We do not want to leave Red Moccasin Tops there! We cannot leave him for the crazy white people to cut him up in pieces to make a fool of this brave warrior! Who will bring his body away, and carry him to me?”

  “I am his good friend—I will bring Sarpsis Ilppilp away!” sang Strong Eagle. “Come along, all those who want to save the body of a hero.”

  Yellow Wolf and six others hollered their agreement and hurried to follow Strong Eagle, the cousin of Red Moccasin Tops. Running and dodging in a crouch, they used the narrow trees the best they could to cover their intent. Inside their ring of rifle pits, the soldiers yelled their warnings at one another, becoming very animated. Yellow Wolf decided that, with Five Wounds having made his suicide charge not long ago, the white men believed that the rest of the warriors were now coming in for a massive assault.

  The suapies laid down a mur
derous fire, knocking over the man beside Yellow Wolf. A bullet struck Weweetsa, called Log, in the collarbone and came out the opposite shoulder. The warriors left the wounded man where he lay and continued to sneak toward the boulder.

  The remaining seven didn’t get much closer when Quiloishkish had his right elbow shattered by a soldier bullet. He twisted to the ground, writhing in pain, groaning through clenched teeth.

  “We should go back,” Strong Eagle said regretfully.

  Yellow Wolf reminded, “It is yours to decide: he is your cousin.”

  “His body is too close to the soldiers!” Strong Eagle snapped. “We will go back.”

  The six retreated, gathering up their two wounded on the way out.

  It wasn’t very long before Strong Eagle resentfully worked himself into a frenzy once more, desiring to retrieve the body of his cousin. “I will go again,” he announced. “Come with me if you want to save his body.”

  For this attempt there were only five, since one of the warriors dropped out. And this time Strong Eagle led them in a different direction, staying at the bottom of a shallow draw that led down beneath the rifle pits to a spot not far from where Red Moccasin Tops lay.

  “Wait here for me,” Strong Eagle instructed the others. “I will bring his body back to this ravine.”

  Vaulting over the top of the shallow gully and surprising the suapies, the warrior scrambled on all fours to reach the boulder as bullets slammed against trees and plowed into the ground all around him. A moment after he reached the body, Strong Eagle shouted back to the others.

  “My cousin is not dead! He still breathes!”

  That was momentous news to Yellow Wolf as he watched Strong Eagle start away from the boulder, slowly standing with Red Moccasin Tops draped across his shoulder. He managed to lunge toward the ravine only a matter of steps before a soldier bullet found its mark, hitting Strong Eagle in the side. He pitched forward into the dirt and pine needles, dropping his cousin with a grunt.

  Gasping in pain, Strong Eagle caught his breath, glancing down at the two wounds along his lower ribs. Then he crawled over to his cousin’s body, grabbed hold of the belt, and started to pull Red Moccasin Tops onto his shoulder once more. Wobbly, Strong Eagle struggled to rise and eventually managed another half-dozen steps toward the ravine, when he collapsed under the weight, too weak from his loss of blood.

  “My cousin, now he breathes no more,” Strong Eagle announced some time later after he had rested on the ground.

  “Come out by yourself!” Yellow Wolf shouted.

  With a weak voice, Strong Eagle whimpered, “My heart feels small and cold that I cannot bring out the hero!”

  His very soul aching for all the loss he had witnessed this day, Yellow Wolf said, “If your cousin is dead, he is beyond your help now.”

  “LIEUTENANT? I wan’cha lookit this bullet hole in me.”

  Charles Woodruff turned slightly as the enlisted man twisted about in his shallow rifle pit when the lieutenant was dragging himself past, sent by Gibbon to have someone check on the men and count the number of cartridges each of them still had available in the event of a rush by more than one warrior—the likes of which they had experienced a little while before.

  “It can’t be too bad now, can it?” he asked as the private inched toward him, pushing himself along with one hand, sliding on his hip. “If you can move that well—”

  Charles Alberts* pulled his other bloody hand away from the damp, dark patch on his chest as the lieutenant bent forward to look. That’s when Woodruff’s words caught in his throat.

  Moist blood not only continued to seep from the bullet hole the soldier had been pressing his hand over, but there were frothy bubbles escaping from the wound as well. From what little the lieutenant remembered of his basic human anatomy, the Nez Perce bullet had gone through the man’s lungs. Woodruff took a deep breath, unsure what he would say to the soldier, since those bubbles did not bode well for the man surviving a lengthy siege.

  “I near got myself killed by some women in a tepee this morning,” Alberts confessed quietly. “Was ordered to search the tepees—them squaws tried to kill me, but I didn’t hit till just a little while ago.”

  Woodruff could only stare at that dark, bubbling hole.

  “I’m asking you, Lieutenant,” the private said, a slight quiver in the voice he consciously attempted to keep from wavering, “ ’cause we don’t have no surgeon along.”

  “You sure picked a poor substitute,” Woodruff eventually replied, remembering to keep the gravity from showing in his eyes and his voice. “Here, let me take a look at your back. See the exit wound.”

  But when he looked at the soldier’s shirt, then pulled up the blouse and peered at the back of the man’s gray fatigue pullover, there was no hole. That meant no exit wound.

  “Seems the bullet didn’t come out, Private.”

  Alberts asked, “Wha-what’s that mean, Lieutenant?”

  “Means it’s a serious wound, soldier.”

  Alberts swallowed hard, then coughed a little as he pressed his sticky fingers against the hole all the more firmly. “What you think of my chances, sir?”

  Woodruff sighed, ruminating on what to say. It didn’t make sense to tell the private just how bad things were, but … his conscience wouldn’t let him lie to a man in that condition, either.

  “Alberts, you have a serious wound—but there is no need of your dying … if you’ve got the nerve.”

  “The n-nerve, Lieutenant?”

  “The nerve to hang on until relief comes and a surgeon gets here. You’ve already shown you had the nerve to see it through our difficult march and this hellish battle. If you’ve got the nerve to make it through this siege, you’ll come out just fine on the other side.”

  It took a moment, but Private Charles Alberts finally grinned wanly. He said, “Thank you, Lieutenant. I promise I’ll keep my nerve up.”

  Woodruff watched the soldier slide sideways around in his shallow rifle pit, lean back against the dirt breastwork, then close his eyes as another round came whining through their position—

  “The red sonsabitches gonna burn us out!” came the pained yelp just as Woodruff’s nose registered that peculiar stench of burning grass.

  “Where’s that coming from?” an officer called.

  “Up the hill!”

  “There—to the west!”

  The first smudge of pale, whitish smoke wafted through the stand of lodgepole, assaulting their noses. The wounded began crying out all the more piteously with a new danger that only intensified their suffering from the heat and want of water. Now the very air around them was becoming a suffocating blanket too heavy to breathe.

  “This can only mean the warriors are going to charge us!” Gibbon shouted from his place near the southern edge of the scene. “They’re gonna rush in under cover of the smoke!”

  Alberts reached out to snag Woodruff’s arm. He pleaded, “Promise you’ll kill me with your revolver afore they get their hands on me, Lieutenant.”

  “I don’t want one more of our wounded to fall into their bloody hands,” Woodruff vowed, instantly recalling the cries of those they had left in the creek bottom when they retreated to this little plateau. “This pistol is our last resort, soldier.”

  “Lieutenant Woodruff!”

  “Yes, sir, General Gibbon?”

  “Do you remember last year about this time, up at Fort Shaw, when Looking Glass himself and some of his warriors were on their way back home from the buffalo plains?”

  Woodruff swallowed, the war cries and chants behind the smoke becoming louder still. The recollection was clear as rain-rinsed crystal.

  “Yes, sir. Looking Glass held a sham battle for you on the broad plain near the stables—divided his warriors in two for the show.”

  “One band lit a grass fire,” Gibbon recalled. “Made a charge in beneath all the smoke, driving the other side from the field.”

  “You heard the general, men!” Wood
ruff roared now with the certainty they had only moments to live. “This is a tactic the Nez Perce love to use in battle. Be prepared for a final charge. Make every one of your last cartridges count!”

  As their throats became raw with coughing and their eyes stung with tears, attempting to peer through the billowing waves of grass smoke, Woodruff listened to the increasing amplitude of the war cries. They swelled in a seeming crescendo over several minutes as the breathless soldiers waited for the charge to come—a charge that meant the very real possibility of defeat and death … perhaps even worse.

  “The smoke! My God—it’s dyin’ off!”

  Sure as sun, the wind had suddenly shifted and blew the fire right back on the scorched hillside. Starved for fuel, the flames were swiftly snuffed out. No longer did the afternoon breeze carry the thick, stifling clouds of gray right into the soldier lines.

  With his eyes tearing now that he could actually begin to see some distance beyond their ragged rectangle of rifle pits, Woodruff whispered a silent prayer, the first he had said in many a year.

  He vowed to the Almighty that he would pray a little more often from here on out.

  *See chapter 55.

  CHAPTER SIXTY-SIX

  WA-WA-MAI-KHAL, 1877

  IN THEIR THIRD ATTEMPT TO RETRIEVE THE BODY OF RED Moccasin Tops, a group of warriors led by Old Yellow Wolf managed to lay down enough harassing fire that Bighorn Bow, called Tahwis Takaitat, crawled under a barrage of soldier bullets and pulled Sarpsis Ilppilp away from the soldier hollows.

  “You have done what I wanted!” roared Sun Necklace in relief.

  By the time they carried the body out of the timber to the mouth of the ravine, a small crowd of old women had gathered in the creek bottom, patiently waiting to assist the family with the burial. It was not the first such ceremony those women had helped with that day. Yellow Wolf and his mother’s brother stood by while the women cleaned the warrior’s body, then wrapped it in a new blanket. After laying the body on a travois, they began walking their pony into the timbered hills, planning to leave Red Moccasin Tops in a secret place.