The People

by Bernard Malamud

  “I’m not a stranger to anybody in this tribe,” Jozip said. Again he called on all the Indians to fight the whites. They heard his voice and fought well. At the end of the day, some of the soldiers charged up the hill to relieve others who had been trapped for hours without water. Then several Indians drifted back to see what remained of their camp. The soldiers heard a wail of mingled grief and rage that rose up as the People recognized the bodies of their warriors, women, and children. And they saw that the whites had let Indian scouts from other tribes scalp and mutilate the dead. Now the Indian sharpshooters kept the soldiers pinned while the People buried their dead. A bugle sounded retreat and the soldiers, carrying their own dead, moved toward the twilit woods, stopping now and then to fire back at Indian snipers.

  Soon scattered bands under Jozip’s guidance, after collecting the arms of the dead soldiers, slipped out of the camp, moving slowly to lessen the pain of the wounded. At twilight the warriors, leaving three sharpshooters behind, stole away one by one, and in the dark joined others of the tribe on their long trek to Canada.

  General Stong cursed the war. “Who could’ve thought those blasted Indians would recover after our surprise assault?”

  Chief Jozip cursed himself for the failure of his pacifism.

  FIFTEEN

  The White Flag

  AFTER BARELY MANAGING to escape the murderous massacre, the People put themselves together as best they could. They had lost fourteen warriors as compared to fifty or sixty dead soldiers scattered over the battleground. And the Indians had lost four hundred remounts, yet Jozip decided they must flee faster. At times he had random thoughts of deserting the tribe, but they flew out of his head as quickly as they had flown in. He feared leaving the Indians in the midst of their flight to Canada. If the old chief had known his present mood, he would have cursed him with his ragged tongue. But Jozip, no matter his momentary doubts, had no serious plan to desert the People, who had become his brothers. “Coward!” he shouted at himself when his face wasn’t looking.

  Now he must be practical. The People were not immediately short of food: they carried hundreds of pounds of pemmican and jerked buffalo meat, but would have to replenish their stores at least once more before leaving the country. Jozip saw to it that the old people, the wounded warriors, and the children got what they needed. A warrior would shed his wounds more quickly if he was attended to at once and afterward heard his brothers give him praise for his feats in battle.

  Although the People expected continuing pursuit, Chief Jozip dallied behind a bluff east of the soldiers’ camp and invisible to them. Before another two days had gone by he learned from Nokomis, their best spy, that the soldiers were barely beginning to move out of the neighborhood of their failed massacre. Soon he was told that the white officers had ordered by telegraph many wagonloads of military supplies, including two cannons and scores of new repeating Winchester rifles. At the same time the enemy was resting their men until the supplies were delivered by covered wagon. “Denk God that they stop to rest now before we must fight them again. Tonight, when they can’t see us leave, we will be gone. We will go after them and we will go before them. Let them figure out where we have gone.”

  “They will catch up with us quickly,” said Indian Head.

  “So what should we do, then?” Jozip asked in a moment of hesitation.

  “Fortunately I am not chief of this tribe,” Indian Head said, proud of himself.

  “So if you are not,” snapped Chief Jozip, “does this mean you have stopped thinking?”

  “Oh, I have my thoughts,” Indian Head said.

  Chief Jozip walked away from him. He called a meeting of the tribe council. Five of its members were dead. Small Water was dead. Mad Storm was dead and his dearest friend, Long Light.

  Jozip appointed five new members of the council to take the place of those who had not returned.

  He then sat with the council for a powwow. The Indians sat cross-legged or crouched on their haunches, smoking their heady clay pipes. Jozip pretended not to notice. He spoke thus: “Nokomis and our Blackfoot scout, who is pledged to our cause, tell us that the whites have begun to receive military goods for a new battle against us. Our supplies are meager. All we can do is scrape the ground for their abandoned rifles. We have rusty guns and our faithful bows and arrows. There are good weapons but they will not win us a war or carry us into Canada. Another of their dangerous machines, which we have never learned to use, is the telegraph. When they need arms to be delivered, they telegraph Fort Missoula, and in a small time of days, tons of material are shipped to them from their supply depots. When we cut down or burn their telegraph poles, even if they send flights of eagles to shit on us while we are destroying the poles, we have to fight shit with birdshot. Our people are sick of fighting against unequal odds. I have thought long thoughts on this unequal situation and I have plans to suggest to you. Come, set aside those pipes that make me dizzy and let us talk sensibly to each other.”

  “Why should we set aside our pipes if they help us think?” asked Last Days.

  Jozip told him to have it his way.

  Then he asked, “What are these new plans I suggest to you? In the first place, we must go at once to the buffalo range and sacrifice a day to hunt and cut meat. The whites are getting ready to pursue us, but we must have food to fight with or soon the palefaces will be fighting our skeleton bones. Another choice is not to surrender but to continue to fly from our enemies as fast as we can go. This may be our best option but it may not come to pass. As we stretch the miles, the miles stretch us and continue to wear us out. Here is another of my thoughts. Maybe it is wise not to think of surrender but simply call for an end to the war and ask for peace without punishment because we are peaceable. We will say to the whites that we are willing to stop our flight into Canada. We will say as red brother to white that we want peace and will stop running from them if they stop pursuing us. We will turn in a westerly direction if they let us go freely where we want to go. This country is full of rich land and many good places to live comfortably. Why can’t our tribe make its place here in this part of the United States, perhaps toward the far north before the land of Canada begins? That state is called Washington and is much like our former valley with its winding river and lakes. When this new land is ours we will make no further claims on the valley of the winding river that we have lost and now flee from. But the whites will have to sign a serious paper saying that part of the northern lands just under Canada will be ours forever, and that none of the whites will make any claim on them forever. Do you agree with these plans, my brothers?”

  “Chief Jozip,” said Indian Head, whose wounded shoulder seemed to give him more anger than pain, “you are speaking cleanly washed words and enjoying peaceful imaginings. But your words are not healthy. In fact I will call them crazy words. The whites will wipe us out overnight if we give in to them as you urge.”

  “No,” cried Chief Jozip. “My words are sane and speak the truth. We ought once more to see what we can still do with the whites before we engage them in another bloody battle. Yesterday is not today. We should at once—now—make contact with their war officers and tell them that if the government will grant us several thousand acres in far-off Washington, we will accept this offer and then the long chase we are engaged in will be over for all time, and we will shift our journey north into Washington.” Then Chief Jozip went on: “Now that the whites have fought us in battle, perhaps it will be easier to persuade them to exchange what was ours for what may be as good as ours.”

  There were members of the council who murmured words of encouragement to their chief.

  Jozip said, “We must meet with the whites. We will go forth with a white flag. With us we will take the young lieutenant we captured in our battle of the Buffalo Mountains. Some of you wanted to kill and scolp him, but I persuaded you not to for just such an occasion as this. We will take this officer along to protect ourselves when we make contact with the whites. Three
of our braves will lead him to the woods below. He will be properly tied up but not tortured. We will leave him below, miles from their lines, and we will keep him hidden and a captive until we need him. Then we will approach them with a white flag.”

  “It ought to be a black one,” Last Days said.

  Indian Head let out a guffaw, but no one acknowledged his noise.

  “Small Brain will carry the white flag and he will wave it on his white horse. He will hold it high as we go forward on our ponies. We will cry out in loud words that we are the People and have come to speak in the cause of peace.

  “After they hear us out they will talk among themselves,” Chief Jozip went on. “After such talk I will tell them that we have, as a prisoner, a young lieutenant who says he is from Baltimore, wherever that is. We will ask the officers to speak to the Great White Father on their talking machine and ask from him that piece of land in northern Washington where we can live and hunt and fish as we once did in our long valley. If he agrees, that will end the war and our peoples will never be enemies again. The next week we will go to the other Washington in the East to sign the papers with the Great White Father.

  “Now,” said Chief Jozip, “we will put the white officer on a pony but keep him out of sight of the whites as we are powwowing with them. Those who may come with us are Indian Head, Small Brain, and Lightning Flies, because each of you knows the English tongue as well as I do. I speak the tongue of the People better than I do the tongue of the whites. One Blossom taught me our Indian tongue, and I am grateful to her for giving me a gift of speech when I needed it. Will those I have named come with me to powwow with the whites?”

  “I think you are proposing a stupid plan and they will have no use for it,” said Indian Head angrily. “They will give us nothing and waste our time. We can use our time more wisely in hunting for a day and then go on with our trek north, moving as quickly as we can.”

  “No, that is not a good plan,” Small Brain said. “I like Chief Jozip’s better. Let us go with him and see if we can reach an agreement to lay down all arms now as we consider where and how we can end this evil war and take care of our people.”

  “Your plan won’t work,” said Indian Head in exasperation. “Your thoughts, like Chief Jozip’s, are twisted. We know that the white officers we meet will do nothing for us, as they did nothing for us in the past. We will suffer for our stupidity. We ought to push ahead at once to Canada and not waste time.”

  “Let us agree to the powwow,” said Last Days. He said to Chief Jozip, “Who do you want to go with you? The rest of us will wait for you to hear your words on your return.”

  “I will ask Indian Head to come with us. I will also ask Small Brain. I will ask him to carry the white flag as we approach the palefaces.”

  Indian Head, who had been listening to Jozip, said he had thought it over and had no wish to go with anyone to the American soldiers. Only disaster could come from such a meeting.

  “But another possibility is success,” said Jozip.

  “You will have no success.”

  “We will see.”

  Indian Head turned from him in disgust.

  I will have to watch him, Jozip thought.

  Last Days read his thoughts. He could do that on certain days. He would know what a person was thinking who had not yet expressed himself.

  “Do you foresee disaster if we go to the whites in the cause of peace, Last Days?” Jozip asked.

  “I foresee disaster if a white crow plucks a feather from the body of a black crow.”

  The Indians were startled.

  “Then stay here,” Jozip ordered. “Small Brain, you may come with me. You are our flag bearer. We will go to the whites and tell them we will make an agreement to end the war if they will meet our terms. If the Great White Father agrees on the telegraph instrument to let our representatives go to the capital Washington in the East and sign papers for a new reservation, we will turn at once to Montana to trek to the new land.”

  “I agree to go with you,” said Small Brain.

  Jozip then singled out three youthful braves. Lank Feet wore a yellow maple leaf in his black hair. Good Weather wore no decorations or head covering. Hard Head wore a white man’s tattoo that he had got as a child before he came to the reservation. These young braves, without protest, accompanied Jozip to a cave where a white officer, with his arms bound, was sitting on the ground looking at the sky.

  “If you are lucky, we will bring you to your friends,” said Jozip.

  The imprisoned officer was a heavily built second lieutenant who seemed to be relaxed despite his bound arms. He wore a Civil War hat that one young Indian coveted, but no one had tried to take it off his head.

  “We are carrying the white flag to the Americans,” Jozip said. “If we speak well with them we will return you to them. If we don’t we will hold you as a prisoner until we get into Canada, and you will be freed then.”

  “I’m obliged to you,” said the soldier, “and I’m praying you will send for me soon.”

  “The Indians will not return you to your friends until all of us return safely.”

  “I’ll be praying for you,” said the American soldier.

  “Have you changed any of your thoughts about Indians since we took you as a prisoner?” Jozip asked. “I asked the Indians not to kill you—in the name of our former Chief Joseph, who was the father of One Blossom. She is not here now, but she protected you too.”

  “I’m grateful to the lady. I’ve learned that the world is a lot stranger than I thought,” said the young officer. “And so far I’ve been a pretty lucky guy.”

  Jozip said that he and Small Brain would take the trail leading to the campgrounds of the white soldiers. They were encamped ten miles below the place of the massacre in the woods.

  I’m doing what I must do, Jozip thought. If no one tries to make peace it will never be made.

  Jozip was riding Bessie, and Small Brain rode a black pinto downhill along a rough trail through the woods.

  “When we get to the soldiers’ campgrounds we will wave the white flag and say we are peaceful people who come in the cause of peace.”

  They came out of the woods and once more were on level ground about a mile from the soldiers’ camp.

  “Raise your white flag,” Jozip said to Small Brain.

  The Indian raised the white flag, waving it back and forth.

  Then to Jozip’s horror a shot rang out.

  “Don’t shoot!” he cried out. “We come to be peaceful!”

  He shouted as Small Brain, with a choked grunt, fell off his horse and toppled to the ground. The white flag fell with him. His horse, whinnying, bolted away from the sound of rifle shot, but Bessie, shivering, remained firmly present.

  “No, no,” Jozip cried, waving both arms. “We come in peace.”

  He was at once surrounded by a group of soldiers with raised rifles, one of whom was Colonel Gunther.

  “You fools,” cried Jozip. “We came here in peace to tulk good words. Why do you shoot us if we carry a white flag? Don’t you know what it means to carry a white flag? This is an international sign. Everybody must respect it if we say we live like civilized human beings.”

  “That is more than enough outta you,” snapped Colonel Gunther. “Somebody go get the bamboo cage for this wise-ass.”

  “You go against the law,” Jozip said. “We came to you to be peaceful and also we carry a white flag.”

  “You know what you can do with your flag.”

  General Stong appeared. “What the hell is coming off here?” Seeing Jozip, he laughed aloud. “My, our foreign friend is with us again.” He then announced loudly, “You are a deserter of the United States of America. In the name of the U.S. government I arrest you.”

  “I have already made that arrest,” said Colonel Gunther.

  “I’m making it official,” said the general. “Get the bamboo cage,” he ordered two soldiers.

  “Don’t try to put me in a
cage,” cried Jozip. “This cage is against the law to put an Indian in such a thing!”

  The colonel slapped his face.

  “You can kill me first,” Jozip said.

  “It would be simpler to break your ass,” said the colonel. “Now get down here and slide your body into that cage.”

  “Shoot me first,” Jozip said.

  The colonel struck Jozip’s face with his fist. The chief’s nose bled.

  Another general appeared on his horse. He was a red-bearded man whom Jozip had never seen before. He looked the Indian over carefully.

  “Why are you hitting this Indian?” he asked the colonel.

  “That’s no Indian,” said the colonel. “He calls hisself Chief Joseph, but that is a big lie.”

  “Why did you slap him?” said the general. He was a burly man with a large mustache.

  “He wasn’t following my orders, sir.”

  “Why should he if you were slapping him around?”

  “An order is an order, sir.”

  “Orders are like everything else. There are good ones and bad ones.”

  “I had General Stong’s permission, sir.”

  “Did he?” asked the general.

  “He might of wanted to but he didn’t ask me directly,” said General Stong.

  “The Indian chief is free to go,” said the general on the horse. “You are free to go,” he said to Jozip, making a wide movement of freedom with both arms. The officers looked at him as if he had gone mad, but the general fastened his gaze on them and stared them down.

  “You are free to go,” he repeated to Jozip.

  “Denks,” Jozip said. He mounted Bessie and took off at a gallop, urging the mare on, even threatening her with a whipping if she slowed down, until he thought she might come to dead stop to protest his threats. But a whistling bullet he feared might break his back made no sound in his ears.

  Later in the morning Jozip sent back the young officer who had been held in the woods. The lieutenant thanked him sincerely. Jozip grunted and gave him an Indian pony to take him back to the army camp.