Devil's Backbone: The Modoc War, 1872-3

by Terry C. Johnston

  Yet, as things turned out, the two sides argued more on the form of future sessions than on matters of substance.

  “Why are you moving your soldiers so close to my women and children?” Captain Jack asked angrily of General Canby through the interpreters.

  Meacham watched the old soldier squirm some under the hard scrutiny igniting the Modoc eyes.

  Canby cleared his throat, trying out an uncomfortable smile. “I—I moved my soldiers … my own headquarters—so I could be closer to talk with you, Jack. You have men in the trees behind you—there.” Canby pointed.

  “They are here to be sure I am not killed by your soldiers,” Jack replied.

  “My soldiers camp close by so that I am not harmed by your warriors, Jack.”

  The Modoc chief shook his head. “You do not have women and children in your camps. I am not a threat to any of your women and children. Take your soldiers away from here before we can talk about peace.”

  “Your warriors could most certainly be a threat to women and children.”

  Jack’s face flared. “When the soldiers attacked our camp and the white settlers were killed—not a woman, not one child was harmed by my warriors!”

  Canby shifted uneasily. “We want the murderers brought to justice.”

  “White man’s justice?” Jack asked. “Did the white man hang the murderers of my people when Ben Wright came among us and slaughtered the Modocs who trusted in the word of a white man?”

  “That has nothing to do with our situation today.”

  Jack stood abruptly, surprising everyone. “There will be no more talk between us until you guarantee me that Hooker Jim’s warriors will be treated the same as the rest of my people if we surrender.”

  Canby shook his head, concern growing across his face. “I cannot negotiate their amnesty, Jack. They are guilty of murdering innocent civilians.”

  “Then we really do not have much to talk about.”

  At that moment a brutal spring storm that had been taking shape over Tule Lake, full of froth and foam, burst over the council area. A cold rain began falling, urged by maddening gusts of brutal wind hurled off the white-capped water. Canby rose, sheltering his face beneath his wide-brimmed hat.

  “We will talk another time, Jack. When it is not raining.”

  Some on both sides apparently agreed with Canby that the changeable weather dictated that their council be suspended. A few Modocs were withdrawing for the Stronghold while Dyar and Thomas were turning away toward their horses.

  “Where are you going?” Jack demanded, a smile creasing his dark face, black hair stringy and sopping in his eyes. “You white men are wearing better clothes than I am—and I won’t melt like snow!”

  Plainly Canby grew impatient as Toby Riddle translated. “We’ll talk more another day, Jack. When I return to my camp, I will have some soldiers come to this place—to this meadow—where they can erect a tent for our future meetings. We can be safe from the weather in the days to come, Jack.”

  Canby waved the other delegates away from the area, leaving the Modoc men behind with their mocking laughter ringing across the open basin.

  That same day, 2 April, Artillery Battery E arrived at Gillem’s new camp. And on the fourth, while the soldiers erected the high-walled canvas tent in a flat meadow all but entirely free of the large lava boulders normally dotting the area, the Modocs most assuredly witnessed the arrival of Artillery Battery K.

  “If that growing show of military might is not enough to awe Captain Jack and his people,” sighed Alfred B. Meacham that gloomy twilight, “they’ll think twice about doing anything the slightest bit underhanded now that our chosen meeting place actually lies closer to this soldier camp than it does to their distant Stronghold.”

  “Praise God! Perhaps now they’ll not be so quick to dig in their heels,” agreed the kindly Reverend Eleazar Thomas, the portly minister, at their evening mess-fire, “and Jack’s cutthroats will begin to negotiate in good faith at last. I get the feeling you made some headway in your talk with the Modocs at the tent today, did you?”

  Meacham considered his answer. “Jack wanted to see only me and Fairchild. Along with the Riddles. He does not trust Canby.”

  “Why doesn’t he like the general?”

  Meacham sighed. “Perhaps it is his uniform—the fact that he is a soldier. Jack says Canby talks too much of his friendship for the Indians.”

  “Jack doesn’t believe Canby.”

  He nodded. “That’s at the basis of it. A soldier who brings his army closer and closer to the Lava Beds cannot be trusted by Captain Jack.”

  “So tell me why our renegade chief did not want me there with you.”

  Meacham felt ill at ease saying it. “To the Modocs, you are what is called a ‘Sunday Doctor.’ They know you don’t like them because your Christian religious views are so different from theirs.”

  Thomas snorted. “You’re a Methodist yourself, Alfred. Aren’t your beliefs different from that curly-headed witch doctor’s?”

  Meacham shook his head. “That’s not the point, Reverend. Because you are a minister, they feel you can’t give them the slightest consideration because you consider them outright savages.”

  “In the name of heaven! That’s just what they are—ignorant and not in a state of grace, for they know not of the Lord Jesus Christ, our Savior.”

  Meacham waved his hand for quiet. “Because of those views you hold, they’ll continue to distrust your intentions, Reverend.”

  Thomas drew his lips up into a line of determination. “They do that with no more fervency than I in continuing to trust to my God in guiding my footsteps as I trod this dangerous path to bring the Modocs to peace.”

  Meacham opened the cover on his pocket watch. “I must be going soon.”

  Thomas clucked in that righteous way of his. “So how many delegates do you think that renegade will bring to the talk?”

  “It matters very little—”

  “What really matters is that the renegade chief will continue to try every little ploy to drag this affair out, Meacham—if you allow him.”

  He shook his head, weary of the constant sniping he suffered from the other commissioners. “Canby’s already sent word to Jack that he’ll be moving his camp even closer to their Stronghold since the Modocs aren’t attempting to negotiate with us.”

  “Who’s carrying word between our camps now?”

  “Three of Jack’s warriors: Boston Charley, Hooker Jim and another called Bogus Charley,” Meacham replied, watching the sun settle far beyond the high peaks of the Cascade range. “They want to spend the night with us in camp.”

  “Damn those godless Philistines, I say.”

  He wanted to smile at the preacher, as one might pat the head of an errant child, yet did not allow himself that pleasure. “For myself, Reverend—I believe it better that we have those two Philistines in our camp, if only for the night. Right where we can keep our eyes on them. They’re trouble—I’ll admit that.”

  “And the Lord knows they’re stirring all they can of the cauldron of discontent among us, Meacham.”

  “The soldiers up in their signal post tonight must be cold,” the commissioner finally said after a few moments, watching the distant flare of light illuminating a soldier’s face as he would light his pipe.

  From the elevation of the rock outcropping more than seventy-five feet above the camp, the soldiers could signal Hospital Rock on the far side of the Lava Beds, besides having a commanding view of the meeting tent itself. “When the sun goes down tonight—those boys up there going to be so cold they’ll shiver keeping themselves awake.”

  Thomas appeared to have the least care for the enlisted soldiers on night watch as he cleared his throat. “When are we next meeting with the Modocs?”

  “I’ll determine that when I talk with Jack at the tent tomorrow,” he answered anxiously. “I must be going for now.”

  “I’ll pray for your guidance in the morning, Meacham. P
ray that God Himself finds the words for you.”

  “Better pray that God Himself were attending these councils, Reverend. Then we might all sleep a little more soundly.”

  * * *

  Meacham was wrong about the full commission meeting with the Modocs.

  It was the very next day, the fifth of April as white man reckons his time, when Captain Jack sent Boston Charley back to the soldier camp, requesting a meeting with the old white man named Mee-Cham, along with his long-time friend John Fairchild and the Riddles.

  Only they.

  With the dying of each day, Jack had sensed a growing urgency pressing in upon him as the Doctor gloated that the chief’s faith in negotiating a favorable reservation from the white man was itself dying a little more with each sunset glowing behind Mount Shasta.

  More than anything right now, the young chief of the Modocs somehow had to get the white peace talkers to understand that matters would soon be wrenched out of his hands. The white men must make peace with his people, and now—or Jack could not guarantee the safety of those who came to that tent in the meadow to talk of peace, to talk of a reservation for his old people and the little ones who cried from empty bellies or the cold each night. The rest of his band were strong enough to suffer through this siege.

  Captain Jack watched the three white men and his niece approach the high-walled peace tent, knowing he had come here to talk peace not for those who could survive at all costs holed up like cornered animals among these brutal rocks. No—he had come here to talk peace for those too old or sick or small—those who did not hunger for Curly Headed Doctor’s war—those who hoped most of all for peace so they could return to their life of old among the Lost River camps.

  But the army was moving again. Almost every day Jack received reports from his wide-ranging scouts that the soldiers were tightening the noose around the Stronghold in the Lava Beds. Not only had the largest group of white men on the west moved closer to the Modocs, but now the soldiers on the east were moving their camp from Scorpion Point to Hospital Rock as well—as little as two miles from where he now stood.

  “I know your hearts—I can trust you four,” Jack replied when the old white man Mee-Cham asked again why he could not bring the rest of the peace commission with him to the council.

  “What is it your heart wants to tell me?” asked the old white man.

  “I came to this place of rocks when the soldiers drove us here,” Jack said. “We had no place to be safe. Now we want to return to our homes on Lost River. I was born there—like my father before me. Give us back our homeland, and we do not need anything from the white man—not like the Klamaths up north. We will not need your food or your clothing. Leave us be to hunt and fish as we have always done. And we will leave you white men alone.”

  “I cannot do that, Jack. Things are too far gone now.”

  “The soldiers took our horses and would not give them back. Just like the land the white man has taken from us. One day—a man must stand up and fight for what another man takes from him.”

  “The horses were captured in war—”

  “Your soldiers bring many guns to talk peace to so few Indians!” Jack did not allow Meacham to continue. He rose suddenly, pointing across an arm of Tule Lake. “See that place over there, Mee-Cham. I was just a boy then—when Ben Wright murdered my people … my father.” He whirled on the commissioner. “But I remember. I will always remember the men who say they come in peace—then bring guns to do their talking for them.”

  “We are not like Ben Wright,” Meacham started to protest, but Jack was there, his five fingers extended, wagging, forcing the white man back into his seat.

  “You know how many escaped that butchery of Ben Wright’s men? Five—one for each of my fingers.”

  “Yes! I agree! Ben Wright committed an unspeakable evil—but we are not here today to talk of him—”

  “No! We are here to talk of peace while your soldiers prepare for war, Mee-Cham. Listen to me carefully: I will not fall on the ground when the shooting starts. I will fall on the bodies of my enemies.”

  Meacham shook his head sadly. He swiped the back of a hand across his mouth, appearing to form the words in his mind. He gazed steadily at the Modoc chief. “If you do not come out of these rocks in peace, Jack—then many will die. Not just soldiers. Not just your warriors. But sadly, many of your women and children will die. Are they as ready as you to die, Jack?”

  The Modoc chief felt the same old desperation growing inside him, with the realization that the white man’s words were right, striking the heart of his worst fears. When he finally spoke, Jack’s words came out strong, yet were uttered so low that Frank Riddle leaned in closer to hear them.

  “Give us the chance other men have to provide for their families.”

  Meacham shook his head. “I cannot talk about Lost River. That is in Oregon where some of your warriors murdered innocent settlers. That means there will always be bad blood between you and the white man in that country.”

  There. That was it, Jack decided. Yes—what the old white man said was true. There would always be much bad blood now that Curly Headed Doctor and Hooker Jim had murdered the white men. He sighed, capping his knees with his small hands.

  “All right. Give my people this place. These black rocks for our new home.”

  “The Lava Beds?”

  “I can live here and raise my families. Take the soldiers far from here. I will make this my home, Mee-Cham.” He watched the white man’s face drain of what he thought had been hope.

  “We cannot allow you to stay in these rocks unless you give up the murderers, Jack. They will have their say in our court of law.”

  Jack wanted to laugh, the pain was so big inside him. “Have their say? You white men have no right to judge a Modoc.”

  “It is our system of justice.”

  Riddle had a hard time finding words to explain that, while Jack hung on every word.

  Then the chief spoke again after some thought. “So give us the civilians and soldiers who killed the women and children on Lost River many moons ago.”

  Meacham wagged his head. “I cannot do that. Your law is dead. White law is the only law that can live in this land now. There cannot be two laws living side by side in peace. Only one, Jack.”

  Perhaps another way would win a concession from this peace man, Jack thought “Then you try those white men for murdering my people—under your white man’s law, Mee-Cham.”

  “I cannot do that.”

  Jack was wringing the thick wool of his army britches in his hands. “Then the white man’s law is a fool’s law. If it is only for the white man—and cannot bring justice for the Modocs. If so, it is for fools to believe in.”

  “You are being unfair—”

  Jack stood. “My people did not start this war. The soldiers and the other white men came and started it. The white man shot first. No, I shout! I will not give my young warriors over to your white man’s law. Take the soldiers away and we will have peace.”

  Meacham rose too. Fairchild and the Riddles with him, all sensing the conference coming to a dark conclusion. “I cannot tell the soldiers to leave. They have their orders to stay until your people have left the Lava Beds.”

  As Meacham turned slightly to go, Jack lunged and grabbed the commissioner’s arm, his voice cracking as he implored the old man.

  “Tell me what to do, Mee-Cham! What path am I to walk now? I do not want this fight.”

  Meacham put his hand over the Modoc’s hand locked on his arm so tightly. “The only way we will not have a fight is for your people to come out of the rocks.”

  Jack yanked his hand away, straightening. “I cannot come out and turn myself over to you. I am afraid—” But then he realized he did not want to say that. “No! I am not afraid—my people are afraid of what your soldiers will do to them … and I speak the heart of my people. I am their tongue—the voice of my people. Go tell that soldier chief I am not afraid to die. Tell thi
s soldier chief in his fancy blue coat that I will show him how a brave Modoc dies.”

  “Come, Jack—back to the soldier camp with me so you can tell General Canby your words for yourself. We can talk more there.”

  “We are done talking now,” Jack said quietly, sensing with his failure that the power of the shaman was growing all the more stronger than his own. “I must talk to my head men. We will decide if we will come here to this tent to speak to you anymore.”

  He watched the white men and his niece Winema Riddle mount. Then he strode to Meacham’s stirrup.

  “Tell the soldier chief that if he does not take his soldiers far from my women and children—I will show him how bravely a Modoc chief dies.”

  Chapter 17

  Shining Leaf Moon

  What the white peace talkers did not realize—what the soldier chief failed to understand—was that by pressing his soldiers in on both sides of the Modoc Stronghold, the white men were making things tougher on Captain Jack.

  If they only knew how dangerous things were growing between Jack and Curly Headed Doctor. As the soldiers moved closer and closer, flashing their mirror signals and waving their flags over the Stronghold every day—the shaman and his hotblooded warriors grew more angry, their tempers flaring and their actions unpredictable.

  And now Boston Charley had just returned from the white man’s camp with news that the soldiers were expecting some mercenaries in a matter of days—Tenino Indians being brought down from the Warm Springs Reservation in Oregon to fight the Modocs on their own terms.

  No longer did things look bright, beckoning up that road toward peace. Now Jack prayed he would not be forced to walk the other path.

  Earlier that day at the tent as he had watched the four riders disappear toward the soldier camp on the west, Jack had fully realized he was drained of much of his hope. His words spoken to the old white man in parting had said as much. His people had no chance of surviving this standoff with the white man. Sooner or later they would run out of food, or water, or ammunition for their captured weapons.