The Coming

by David Osborne

  “I’d have paid good money for the privilege, Colonel.”

  “The thing I couldn’t believe, he dared ’em to go to war.”

  Wright glanced at him sharply.

  “He said, ‘Go home. Follow your hearts. Those who wish to go to war, go!’?”

  Wright shook his head. He sipped his whiskey and held it on his tongue for a moment. “General Wool thinks he wants war. Wants to exterminate as many as he can, break the rest. So he can put his railroad through.”

  “Well, he got a taste of it, I’ll say that.”

  “Were you with him when they attacked?”

  “No. He had seventy volunteers and fifty of Lawyer’s men.”

  “Who attacked him?”

  “Quiltenenock, the Sinkiuse, was in the lead. But I think most of the tribes had warriors with him. Stevens had to circle his wagons and dig in.”

  “Lawyer’s men stayed with him?”

  “He says Quiltenenock told the Nez Perce to leave or he’d wipe out their camp, so they left.”

  “You didn’t know he was being attacked?”

  “It was a good five miles away, and the Indians had us distracted. They lit our grazing lands on fire, stampeded our horses. But Stevens sent a rider out after dark. I got word toward midnight. We were there by two in the morning, with a howitzer. Made short work of ’em the next mornin’.”

  “Damn shame, in a way.” Wright lifted his glass and threw back the last of the whiskey. “What do you make of it?”

  Steptoe pursed his lips. “The Injuns want war. I suspect we’re gonna have to give ’em what they want.”

  Wright stood and walked to the edge of the porch, stared out at the broad Columbia. He shook his head: “No, they want to be left alone. And that’s exactly what we’re gonna do, now that we’ve got the volunteers out of there. Somebody’s just got to go up there and tell ’em.”

  FORTY-TWO

  October 1856

  Widow Bird had all but stopped eating. She weighed less than she had since before she gave birth. Her son was concerned about her; he kept coming to her in dreams, trying to feed her. Finally, he led her to the lake and showed her a sweat lodge, built at the foot of towering mountains, under huge pines and spruce. She awoke knowing that if she wanted to live, she had to build that sweat lodge and use it to heal herself. She was not sure she wanted to live, but her son clearly wanted her to, so for him, she would try.

  She rode all day and arrived at the far end of the lake late in the afternoon, the sun already behind the mountains, the air cold. White clouds billowed over the mountains, and aspen and cottonwood leaves blew along the ground. She could smell winter on the wind.

  She knew she needed to build the exact sweat lodge her son had showed her. She gathered willow reeds, bent the thickest ones into semicircles, to make the frame. It took her most of the next day to finish it, weaving pine boughs through the frame, then covering them with bark and finally with a layer of dirt. The doorway faced east, as with all sweat lodges. She had no tule mats with her, so she covered the floor with her buffalo robe, used another robe to cover the opening. She dug a hole for the hot rocks in one corner, lined it with smooth, round stones she found in the stream that plunged down from the mountains and emptied into the lake, its bed half empty in this season.

  She waited one more day, the third day of her fast, before building her fire and entering the lodge. She felt weak, and the Old Man was small and close in the dark heat. It was all she could do to drag herself to the lake when she could stand the heat no longer, and she did not want to return. Something inside her was resistant, but she forced herself to retrieve new stones from the fire, carry them inside with her two-pronged green stick, one by one, and put them in the pit with the others. She threw water over them, and as the steam gushed she sang her wyakin song, prayed to the Old Man to heal her, to cleanse her grief and help her accept what she could not change.

  It was during her third time in the heat that her son came to her. She had lain down, too weak even to sit. She found herself weeping, wanting to slash her arms. She had never been able to accept her son’s death. It was her fault that he died: she had tried to heal him in the sweat lodge and the river, and the cold waters had killed him. She had killed her own son—how could she accept that?

  He reached down, took her hand, and led her out through the flap. They were on top of a mountain, at the Smoking Place. A circle of elders sat on the grass, passing a pipe. Her son led her to them, gestured for her to stand in the middle of the circle, and the elders spoke to her, one by one. They told her she must stay away from Soyappos, that her people must never make war on them. “If you fight them, you will lose. They have too many guns, too many warriors. Even if you are better fighters, you will be crushed. Many of your people will die; those who live will lose everything.”

  “But they killed my mother and father!” she protested. “We must punish them! Teach them never to attack us again!”

  One of the elders rose to his feet, and she saw with a shock that it was her husband. He looked older, grayer, more dignified, but he had the same long face and hook in his nose. He reached for her, took her hand, and led her out of the circle. “My dear wife,” he said, speaking quietly. “You must accept what we tell you. We know these things. I thought my power was greater than the Soyappos’, but I was wrong. You must listen. You must not make the same mistake I made.”

  “You were warned?”

  He nodded yes.

  She stared at him, unable to digest all he had said.

  “It is time for you to remarry, to have another son,” he continued. “Our son will return to you; he is waiting. This is why he comes to you so often.”

  Her head spun. “How can I remarry? I can barely stay alive.”

  He smiled at her, the kindest, most loving smile she had ever witnessed. “We will heal you now,” he said.

  Her body began to tingle. She turned and looked at the circle, saw that the other elders were singing. She felt a great weight in her chest—all the pain and sorrow and grief that choked her, all balled into one dense mass. It lifted and rose, ascended into the sky. She felt light, and free, and tears rolled down her cheeks. She embraced her husband, who held her in his arms.

  “The man who loves you is a good man,” he said. “He saved your life. He is suffering, because you will not marry him. But he wants only what is best for you.”

  A vision of Daytime Smoke came to her, and with a shock she realized that her husband was right: he had saved her life. In her grief, she had been oblivious; she had been too busy fending off his love. Then she saw them intertwined under the stars, and she remembered his tenderness, the touch of his hands. She shuddered. “You want me to marry Daytime Smoke?”

  “Now that you can see clearly, you will know what is right for you.”

  She looked up into his eyes, which smiled at hers. Then they slowly faded, receded, until he was no longer there. She looked at the circle of elders, and they too were gone. She could see only darkness, feel only the heat of the Old Man. She sat up and blinked.

  When she rode into Shooting Arrow’s village, Daytime Smoke and Calf Shirt had returned from the council. They told her what had happened: they had refused to go along with Governor Stevens, who wanted them to honor the treaties his people had already broken. He had dared them to go to war, so some of the warriors, including Calf Shirt, had attacked him. But bluecoats had driven them off with a wagon gun. Then another Soyappo, a bluecoat chief named Wright, had come to meet with them. To their surprise, he had promised to keep all Soyappos off their lands until the Great White Father signed the treaties. The bluecoats would build a fort on the Walla Walla River, but only to keep Soyappos off their lands. Smoke had spoken to him after the council, and he had seemed like an honest man.

  The next morning, when Widow Bird awoke, Daytime Smoke was gone—to hunt, Little Fire told her. When he returned, two days later, he dropped off elk meat at their lodge, then disappeared into his own. S
he kept waiting for him to emerge, so she could thank him and talk to him, but he never did. She grew frustrated; how could she know if he was the right man if she could never see him?

  Finally, the next afternoon, she went to his tipi and asked permission to enter. He gave it, then stood and faced her, his face noncommittal.

  “You are avoiding me,” she said. “Why?”

  He shrugged. “We needed meat.”

  “Yes, and we are grateful. But we would like to see your face as well.”

  He looked away, then finally—when she was silent—back at her. “You have lost weight.”

  “Yes.”

  “Are you ill?”

  “I was, but I am better now. I spent time with Old Man, and he healed me, as he always does.”

  He nodded. “I thought he would heal my wife and son, but my daughter thinks that is what killed them.”

  “I did the same, with my son and sister. Perhaps your daughter is correct. Perhaps Soyappo diseases are different.”

  There was a long, awkward silence. She could not break through his distance. Finally she decided to just say it: “When you asked me to marry you, I did not say no. I said I was not ready.”

  His eyes retreated even further: “I heard you.”

  “But how can I know if I want to marry you, if you will not even talk with me?”

  “We are not talking?”

  She glared at him; he was making this far too difficult. “Last time I saw you, you wanted to marry me. You no longer feel that way?”

  He looked away, as if pleading for help. “I know you are not ready,” he said. “What happened before, between us, was not a thing we planned, or intended. I do not want to pressure you.” He glanced at her, as if hopeful that this was enough.

  “We are no longer young,” she said. “These things are not so simple the second time. Can we just be honest with one another, see where that leads us?”

  He stared at his feet.

  “Please?”

  At last he met her eyes: “I thought you would prefer to be left alone.”

  “No.”

  He nodded. “Then I will try.”

  FORTY-THREE

  June 1858

  General Newman S. Clarke was an odd-looking man, with his shiny, bald head and thick, gray muttonchop sideburns. As Colonel Wright listened to Steptoe describe his disastrous trip north, he could see Clarke’s mood darken.

  General Wool’s replacement, Clarke had refused to change Wool’s policy, despite a constant drumbeat from the newspapers. Peace had held for 18 months, although conflicts between gold miners and natives in the north resulted in a series of killings.

  In April, Steptoe had received a petition from 40 miners in the Colville, requesting military protection. A few days later Palouse Indians raided his horse and cattle herds, and he’d decided to lead an expedition north to stop the thieving and help the miners. He’d left Fort Walla Walla on May 6, with 158 mounted soldiers, two howitzers, cattle, and a pack train of 85 mules to carry his supplies. Timothy and his men ferried them across the Snake and accompanied them, telling Steptoe how angry the tribes up north were—both about the miners and about surveyors who had told them the government planned to build a road across their land.

  The tenth day out, as Steptoe told it, he found himself surrounded by more than a thousand Palouses, Spokans, Coeurs d’Alenes, and Yakamas. Twice delegations of headmen asked him to turn back, and twice he refused, telling the chiefs he was only traveling through their land and would do them no harm. Finally, that night, he decided to turn around. Father Joset, from the Sacred Heart Mission among the Coeurs d’Alenes, brokered a peaceful withdrawal the next morning. But somehow an angry Coeur d’Alene started shooting and a fight broke out. Steptoe led his men to the top of a hill, where they dug in. They lost 25 men, and they were running out of ammunition when Timothy negotiated with a chief he knew to let them escape in the middle of the night, in exchange for leaving their supplies and equipment behind as plunder.

  When Steptoe finished his story, General Clarke rose to his feet and began to pace. “We’ll be lynched if we do nothing,” he muttered. “The newspapers already want my head.” He glared at Wright, as if it were his fault, and stopped walking. “It’s time to end this Indian problem for good.”

  “Colonel Wright, you put together a force of seven hundred men at Fort Walla Walla,” Clarke ordered. “Major Garnett, you attack the Yakama and the rest of the tribes up the Columbia. We’ll bring troops in from San Francisco, Fort Jones, Fort Umpqua. Get as many of the new Sharps’ rifles as you can.”

  Wright was out of his chair: “General, I beg you! The natives have done nothing other than defend their rightful lands!”

  “They’ve killed twenty-five of our soldiers.”

  “If we let miners kill Indians but won’t tolerate it when the Indians retaliate, there can be no peace!”

  “Then so be it. People want blood! I refuse to be driven out the way General Wool was!” Clarke glared at Wright, as if daring him to speak.

  “General, the Indians know Lieutenant Mullan is surveying for a road through their territory. The treaties have not been ratified, and the Coeur d’Alenes have never agreed to a treaty. How do you expect them to react when we plan a road through their lands?”

  “I do not expect them to attack our troops!”

  “But General, we promised the troops were there to keep other whites out. Whites like Mullan and his surveyors. And the Indians always warned us not to bring soldiers north of the Snake.”

  “Colonel, you will march north, just as Lieutenant Colonel Steptoe did.” He gave Steptoe a disgusted glance. “Bring enough ammunition this time. If the Indians resist, crush them. If they do not, disarm them and negotiate treaties, restoring our property and giving us the right to move troops and build roads through their lands. Make them turn over those who attacked Steptoe. Bring the rest to heel. End their ability to resist.”

  Wright stared at him.

  “That’s an order, Colonel.”

  “Sir, this is madness. These are Indian lands! The miners have no right to be there.”

  “Stevens is in Washington, D.C., working to get the treaties signed. It is only a matter of time.”

  “But—”

  Clarke’s eyes flashed: “If you cannot carry out my orders, Colonel, you know the alternative.”

  Silence hung in the air.

  Finally Steptoe cleared his throat, spoke in a small voice: “Sir, if it’s war, we need to ensure the Nez Perce don’t enter.”

  The general scowled: “Whatever it takes.”

  “I’d recommend a council, sir, perhaps another treaty.”

  Clarke gazed at him for a long moment, then turned to Wright: “I trust you can handle that, Colonel? You’re such a good friend of theirs.”

  George Wright stood on his porch and stared out at the rapids, where Indians clad only in breechcloths stood on the rocks and scaffolding and speared fish. God, he loved this house, a grand, three-story commander’s residence Captain Jordan had built at the Dalles, perched on a bluff overlooking the white water of the Columbia. In the summer, he and Margaret would sit out here before dinner, sharing drinks, watching the sun set over Mount Saint Helens, flaming ribbons in the western sky. They had been happy here, after so many years apart. And now they were able to share this grand house with Eliza and her new husband, Lieutenant Philip Owen, Wright’s adjutant.

  Margaret stepped onto the veranda with a drink in each hand: whiskey for him, lemonade for her. “Welcome home, my dear,” she said, handing him a glass and kissing him on the cheek.

  “Thank you, darling. This is just the tonic I need.”

  She reached up, smoothed the lines in his face. “Pray, what is troubling you, George? Is it the news from Tom?”

  Their eldest son had been caught up with a notorious scoundrel named William Walker, who was bent on creating slave states south of the border and bringing them into the union. Three years ago General
Wool’s predecessor had seized Walker’s vessel in San Francisco after stumbling upon his plot to invade Mexico and set up a revolutionary government in Sonora. Then Walker tried to create an English-speaking colony under his rule in Nicaragua. That his own son had joined in Walker’s filibustering pained Wright deeply. And now Walker had been captured and executed in Honduras, Tom wounded but released. Wright shook his head.

  Her brow wrinkled. “Then what is it?”

  She could read him like a book. He took a swallow of the whiskey, felt the warm burning sensation as it went down. Then he told her about Clarke’s orders.

  Shock registered on her face. “He wants you to crush the poor Indians?”

  “Either I do, or I resign. And we lose all of this.” He gestured at the house. “All that I’ve worked for.”

  “But you can’t?.…”

  He waited, but she let the sentence fall unfinished.

  “What else would I do?” he asked her. “What else am I equipped to do?”

  “Oh, my dear husband, you are equipped to do anything. People love you and respect you.”

  “Not out here. Not the civilians. They hate me as much as they hated Wool. We’d have to go home—wherever that is.”

  “We could buy a farm in Ohio, near Father.”

  “Can you imagine me farming?”

  A sad smile as she thought about this: “I suppose you’re right.”

  Eighteen years ago, when he served in Florida, Wright’s commanding officer had been ordered to carry out a campaign of extermination against the Seminoles. Wright had vowed he would never stoop to such evil. “If they would just let the War Department handle the Indians,” he said. “Give them the land east of the Cascades—for God’s sake, the whites don’t need it. And keep all whites off. Separate the races entirely, and give the Indians enough land to hunt, to fish, to keep themselves alive from season to season. They’ll never survive on these small reservations. We should treat them as we have the Nez Perce, leave them the hell alone.”