Cries from the Earth (17 page)

Now it was Big Morning who was leading the two warriors through the joyous throng.

“Come, Swan Necklace!” Sun Necklace shouted above the tumult and put his arm around the youngster's shoulders. They fell behind his brother on that big roan horse. “Swan Necklace—walk with me and my son, the brave warrior known as Red Moccasin Tops!”

“I am truly a warrior now, Father!” the young man hollered down at them as he brought his stolen horse up beside Sun Necklace.

His eyes were filled with glistening tears of joy as he gazed up at his son in deep admiration and pride. “Yes,” he said, his voice cracking. “Today … you are a warrior. And you, my son … you have reminded all of us of something we have forgotten.”

“What, Father?” the young man cried over the rising excitement and noise from hundreds of throats. “What have I reminded you of?”

“You make us all remember what it means to be a warrior for our people!”

*   *   *

Lepeet Hessemdooks
was his name. Two Moons.

An older warrior of more than forty winters, he had lived about as long as Big Morning and Sun Necklace. His father had been a noted Salish warrior who had come to live with the Wallowa after he married a Nez Perce woman. Two Moons was their firstborn. And now he had grandchildren, a man who had enough winters behind him that he had watched the slow, painful dissolution of the old existence once lived by the
Nee-Me-Poo.
Enough winters behind him to know this war would bring about their final ruin.

Joining several of the headmen and chiefs in White Bird's lodge late that morning, Two Moons and the rest debated their misgivings about surrendering to a life on the reservation. Although they had guaranteed Cut-Off Arm they would bring their bands to Lapwai, many of these leaders still harbored grave doubts that they were doing the right thing.

So again this morning they had talked and talked—some arguing that they should stay on their old lands and fight the soldiers if they came. Others declared that what they should do was wait until later in the summer when their best warriors would return from the buffalo country, and then all the bands would be at full strength and could decide to go to war.

But a few claimed there was no way to defeat the white man, who was as numerous as the stars. Back and forth the deliberations rumbled until they suddenly heard the growing tumult outside the council lodge.

An old man came to the lodge door and yelled at the chiefs, “Now you will have to go to war!”

Closer and closer the shouting men and keening women came, along with a call heard constantly above the din: “Prepare for war! Prepare for war!”

“What can this mean?” White Bird asked, his voice shattering the stunned silence in that council lodge.

Suddenly the door flap was hurled aside and one of White Bird's young nephews poked his head inside, announcing, “You old men are talking of peace and war for nothing! Three boys have already started the war. They have killed some white men on the Salmon and brought their horses and guns to this camp. War has already come!”

The headmen stared at one another in disbelief. There was little left to debate now. Nothing else to do … but prepare for war.

In moments Two Moons stood on the outskirts of the noisy throng being pushed this way and shoved in that direction as the crowd followed Big Morning on through the heart of the village. People from Toohoolhoolzote's small band were the next to come running to learn of all the excitement. White Bird's and Looking Glass's people clamored to hear the stories, too. Suddenly all the manifold emotions pent up within these people for season after season came flooding forth, their long-held fears of the soldiers suddenly overridden by this surprisingly sweet taste of victory over a few Shadows.

Two Moon realized these people were like a pack of hungry mountain lions now, the scent of blood become strong in their nostrils.

To all of those clamoring noisily around the horsemen, those most hungry for talk of war, for the joy of any victory, Big Morning repeated over and over, “This is the horse and this is the gun the young men have brought back!”

As he shook the rifle in the air, the throng erupted anew. Then he shouted, “You must all remember that we have to fight now!”

There at the center of the swelling crowd stood the fomenters, those who thought only of their selfish pride, men like Toohoolhoolzote and the other
tewats,
the shamans of the Non-Treaty bands' Dreamer faith. These medicine men were awash in glory now.

On all sides long-suppressed anger and resentment were boiling to the surface. Feelings of unbridled excitement at the prospect of war animated some in that growing crowd, while alarm and dismay cloaked the dark emotions of others. Only those who were overjoyed at the certainty of war could exult at this sudden turn of events in their lives. The rest knew not what to do. Where to turn. Who to follow.

Two Moons moved along the fringe of the gathering as it continued to swell. It had taken very little time for the entire village to stream into the open—women returning from their root digging, men coming in from their work among the horses—everyone converging on the vanguard of the procession where Big Morning harangued the warriors, where many hot-blooded young men began to clamor for someone to lead them on a second revenge raid.

Suddenly, Big Morning halted his horse in the jostling crowd and twisted around, pointing now at his younger brother. “He is the one to lead us! Sun Necklace will take us to kill those who have wronged us! Sun Necklace!”

Immediately the warriors in the throng set up the chant: “Sun Necklace! Sun Necklace!”

It was plain to Two Moons that it did not take much to convince Sun Necklace that he should lead the second raid. He looked over those who clamored around Sun Necklace to go along—many of them untried, untested youngsters. It was one thing to do what the three had done when the whites were not expecting trouble. It would be something altogether different now that the Shadows had raised the alarm and would be prepared for warriors to sweep down on them.

So besides his son and Shore Crossing, Sun Necklace asked Toohoolhoolzote to ride along, then carefully selected seventeen of those whom he could count on to protect his own life in battle. Counting his brother, Big Morning, that would make for twenty-one who sprinted back to their lodges to snatch up paint and weapons, shields and bullets.

If any man should lead this second raid, Two Moons ruminated sadly, then Sun Necklace was that man. No one had ever questioned either his courage or his judgment in battle. In fact, his reputation had been made some summers before when, along with Looking Glass and his warriors, Sun Necklace had sculpted his standing by counting many coups during a battle far away in buffalo country that pitted their friends, the Crow, against their inveterate enemies, the Lakota.

Two Moons saw the young man headed his way at a sprint now, eager anticipation written on his smooth, unlined face. He put out his hand to stop the youngster.

“Stick-in-the-Mud, you have been asked to go on Sun Necklace's raid?”

The man nodded, his eyes wide, bright with exhilaration. “We will strike back now, after all these winters. We will give back blow for blow!”

He let Stick-in-the-Mud go.

As he turned and watched with misgiving, Two Moons noticed that none of the young men of the Wallowa band were clamoring to join Sun Necklace's war party.

It is good,
Two Moons brooded.
They must realize how terrible it would be to make themselves a part of this blood-letting after their chief has worked so tirelessly to hold war at bay.

“Where is Joseph?”

Two Moons turned to find the old woman,
Tissaikpee,
the midwife to Joseph's woman, stopping at his elbow when she asked her question.

He said, “He is across the Salmon.”

Tissaikpee
wagged her head. “He is not part of making this war, is he?”

“No.” Two Moons explained, “He and Ollokot went back to butcher some cattle so they would have plenty of meat for their families before we go on the reservation in two days—”

Then he stopped talking suddenly, realizing what he had just said. And he recognized the dismay clouding the old woman's face.

“But now…,” and his voice trailed off for a moment, “now we won't be going to the reservation.”

She said nothing more to him but turned slowly away, raising her arms to the sky and beginning to wail as she started back to the birthing shelter.

For many, many seasons now, these bands had been suffering outrages at the hands of the whites. Two Moons realized that this call for war was not a sudden and unexpected event come with the return of the three brash young instigators. No, because of all the wrongs that had been done them, these
Nee-Me-Poo
people had been made ready for a long, long time. And now that they were enjoying their last few days of freedom, talking of the old life, celebrating as they would never celebrate again—these
Nee-Me-Poo
had grown angrier and angrier.

They were a people who were hardened for war by years of abuse and deceit. But Two Moons knew they were also a people in no way prepared for what this war would do to them.

“Joseph,” he whispered sadly under his breath as he turned from that tumultuous gathering of the warriors who were beginning to return from their lodges, young men eagerly streaming toward Sun Necklace with their ponies and their weapons. “Joseph, where are you now that your people need your steady hand?”

Without him here, Two Moons knew, the war fever would run amok. Without Joseph here to talk for those who could not defend themselves, the brash, strutting, bellicose war-talkers had no one to cool their ardor.

Two Moons felt his eyes sting as he watched Sun Necklace and the strident Toohoolhoolzote lead the war party out of camp, headed south from
Tepahlewam
for White Bird Creek and the Salmon River settlements.

He felt his heart grow heavy as he trudged away from the throngs, watching a woman here, and a woman there, hoist herself up on the back of an old, steady travois pony to yank the lacing pins from the front of her lodge. One by one, the women yanked those long, peeled shafts from their holes, slowly unfurling the heavy buffalo hides … preparing to flee this place at first light.

A short while after the bold war chief and the brazen
tewat
led the raiders out of camp, White Bird and Looking Glass called for another council. Some who were already infected with the war fever protested that the question had been settled. There was nothing left for the chiefs to debate. War was at hand. All that was left to do was prepare for the soldiers.

Yet steady hands like Old Rainbow cautioned reason and restraint. By the time a gibbous moon had risen and the council dispersed, most of the leaders had decided it best to wait and see what the white men would do now. There might yet be a chance for peace.

And if all hope for peace was ruined, the least they could do was pray that their best warriors would return from the buffalo country soon.

But, no matter what, they had to abandon
Tepahlewam
now. Evil had visited this place. Some expressed that they would return to their homes in the valleys far from this once-sacred ground, and others said they would climb higher into the mountains now, making it harder for the soldiers to find them. Come morning, they would finish striking their lodges and go.

No telling how Sun Necklace's war party would tear through the white settlements now, making all the more trouble for the
Nee-Me-Poo.

Two Moons needed to find Joseph, to bring the chief back before the clans scattered to the winds. Dispersed in those small bands, the soldiers would easily slaughter them, Two Moons realized. With so many of the chiefs pulling in so many different directions, thinking only of war and fighting—they needed Joseph here now to think about the good of the women and children.

But by the time the council broke up it was too dark for him to start for the Salmon. In the gray before morning came, the old man decided, he would ride for the river. This might well be the only chance the
Nee-Me-Poo
had to make some kind of peace with the Shadows.

Joseph was a patient talker, an accomplished diplomat. If any man could fashion something out of this tragedy, Joseph would.

Chapter 12

Season of
Hillal
1877

Joseph found it hard to sleep that last night of their trip to the Salmon. He tossed beneath his blankets, mostly lay staring up at the starry sky dusted with clouds—thinking of
Ta-ma-al-we-non-my
back at
Tepahlewam.

Any day now she was due to deliver their child.

Her name meant Driven Before a Cold Storm, and he grew so anxious to get back to her that he finally decided that it was futile to try sleeping any longer. Arousing the others in the cold darkness, Joseph spurred the two women into packing up their blankets and the small hunting lodge, while he helped his brother and the four other men load the butchered beef onto a trio of travois and the backs of several packhorses.

Joseph's party had been here beside the river for the better part of six days, having returned to the east bank of the Salmon from the rendezvous meadow by the lake to slaughter some of the cattle the Wallowa band had left behind to graze in the tall grass after they crossed the river in their journey to
Tepahlewam,
and eventually to the reservation. When they abandoned this wandering life Joseph and Ollokot wanted to have plenty of meat for their families. There was no way of telling what they would face when they crossed the Lapwai boundary tomorrow.… There it was again.

That word—
tomorrow.

Up from the Salmon he led the party, climbing the steep slopes that carried them ever higher toward the Camas Prairie, where the
Nee-Me-Poo
women were harvesting this season's crop of
kouse
and camas roots they came to dig from the ground early every summer near the Split Rocks. Reaching the entrance to the Rocky Canyon, Joseph turned and gazed back at the others strung out along the wide trail the Wallowa had used for countless generations. But this was to be their last journey here.