Cries from the Earth (2 page)

Nez Perce

Abraham Brooks

Abraham Watsinma

Alpowa Jim

Jonah Hayes

Frank Husush

James Reuben

Joe Rabusco

Nat Webb

Putonahloo

THREE TREATY SCOUTS CAPTURED AT WHITE BIRD

Robinson Minthon

Yuwishakaikt

Joe Albert (Elaskolatat)

NEZ PERCE (CONT'D)

Palouse

Bald Head / Shorn Head (Huishuish Kute)

Red Echo (Hahtalekin)

Introduction

Before you begin, take a moment to consider …

The story you are about to read is entirely true.

I haven't fabricated a single one of the scenes to follow this introduction. Every incident happened when and where and how I have written it. Every one of the characters you will come to know actually lived, perhaps died, during the outbreak of the Nez Perce War.

After my previous thirteen Plainsmen novels, hundreds of thousands of you already have an abiding faith in me, a belief that what you're going to read is accurate and authentic. But for those of you picking up your first Terry C. Johnston book, let me make this one very important vow to you: If I show one of these fascinating characters in a particular scene, then you best believe that character was there, when it happened, where it happened. I promise you, this is how that history of the Nez Perce War was made.

What's more, I want you to know I could have written a book nearly twice as long as this if I had gone back to explore the background of the old treaties and how they were broken, to tell of the discovery of gold deep in Nez Perce country, if I had begun reciting, chapter and verse, all the intrusions by whites where they were not allowed by the treaties, the seductive lure of alcohol and firearms on the young warriors, the firestorm of rapes and murders committed against those Nez Perce bands helplessly watching their old way of life passing away right before their eyes, not to mention the government's feeble efforts to keep a lid on each troubling incident after the fact … Suffice it to say that the government's position was that the minority Non-Treaty bands (those who refused to sign) were bound by the vote of the more populous Treaty bands (even though no more a minority of the Treaty males signed the government's land-grab).

But for all that background I'm not going to give, the reader can learn everything he wants to know in the following books:

I Will Fight No More Forever,
by Merrill D. Beal

The Flight of the Nez Perce,
by Mark H. Brown

The Nez Perce Tribesmen of the Columbia Plateau,
by Francis Haines

The Nez Perce Indians and the Opening of the Northwest,
by Alvin M. Josephy, Jr.

As for my story, I'm going to dispense with all that historical background you can learn elsewhere because I prefer to drop you right down into the middle of the outbreak of this war.

As you are drawn back in time, you may well wonder: what of those brief news stories that appear here and there at the beginning of certain chapters or scenes? Keep in mind that those aren't the fruits of my creative imagination. Instead, they are torn right from the front pages of the newspapers of that day.

Oh, one more thing before you start what will surely be one of the most fascinating rides of your life—the letters that Emily FitzGerald, wife of surgeon John FitzGerald, writes home to her mother from Fort Lapwai are real, too. Transcribed verbatim for you, every last word of those letters makes them simple, heartfelt messages from a woman who finds herself squarely at ground zero, right in the middle of an Indian war. They, and those brief newspaper stories too, I hope will lend an immediacy to this gripping tale that little else could.

As you make your way through this story, page by page, many of you might start to worry when you find this tale missing our intrepid Irishman, Seamus Donegan. But take heart! He, Samantha, and their son, Colin, are at Fort Laramie this spring of 1877, preparing to make their way north to Fort Robinson, where they will be center stage for the last months of Crazy Horse's life … a distance that makes it impossible for Donegan to be in Idaho Territory for this start of the Nez Perce War at the very same time he is returning from the end of the Great Sioux War on the Northern Plains.

So please remember as you begin this ride with me: Every scene you are about to read actually happened. Every one of these characters was real—and they were there … to live or die in this outbreak of a damned dirty little war.

I don't think I could have made up this tragic story if I'd tried. I'm simply not that good a writer.

Prologue

Autumn, 1874

A jagged shred of lightning split the leaden sky suspended just over his head. On its heels rumbled a peal of autumn thunder so close he felt it clear to his marrow. Clouds hung low, wisps of their shredded underbellies suspended like tatters of the white man's muslin among the heavy branches of the firs towering over him like silent giants.

The rain would not be long behind, Eagle Robe thought as the cabin made of unpeeled logs came into sight. He sucked in a sudden breath, startled to find the crude structure standing there at the edge of the clearing. Even more surprised to see the second, larger, building slowly take shape out of the mist behind the cabin. It was not made out of unchinked logs, but from planks milled from the huge pines that steepled this paradise of the
Nee-Me-Poo,
1
the people a band of long-ago white explorers first called the
Chopunnish.
2

At that time of first contact, the
Nee-Me-Poo
numbered more than six thousand souls who referred to the light-skinned traders coming among them as “Boston Men.” But in the last few generations, as a full half of the
Nee-Me-Poo
died off with the rampant diseases brought them by the newcomers, Eagle Robe's people started referring to the white men as Shadows. Dark, soulless creatures, most of whom were cordial, while some took real pleasure in conniving to get their hands on everything they coveted, especially what already belonged to others.

Beyond both structures Eagle Robe saw the first of the cattle grazing in a far pasture. As he got closer, he could hear them lowing. On the far side of the larger building stood a sizable pole corral where a few horses milled.

Another crack of thunder reverberated off the hillside, all the closer now. So close Eagle Robe felt the vibration drag a rusty finger to the base of his spine. The storm would not be long in coming now.

Perhaps this white settler named Larry Ott would give him shelter if the rain came hard, if a strong wind blew. As he got older, Eagle Robe had discovered the cold grew more and more painful, stabbing him all the way to the bone with the approach of winter. He had no reason to suspect that this Shadow would not offer him a place out of the wind and the cold. Larry Ott had been a most pleasant sort early last spring when that white man began to graze his cattle and horses on the fringes of the tribe's land, right beside some of Eagle Robe's garden plots. Then last spring, this Shadow appealed to chief White Bird's band of
Lamtama
to allow him a little more land where he could graze even more cattle.

While everyone else turned away and would not even give the Shadow the courtesy of an answer, Eagle Robe had instead stayed behind while the others walked off just as the sun broke through the high, blue-tinged clouds pregnant with the promise of a heavy spring thunderstorm.

“You know me. I claim a little land right next to the pasture you already are using,” Eagle Robe had told the white man and his interpreter, even though the translator did not speak very good Nez Perce at all. “In a few days I am leaving this place for several moons.”

“Leaving?” the interpreter had repeated. “Where are you going?”

“I will be among the first of our people who are traveling across the mountains to the buffalo country this season.”

The interpreter nodded and grumbled something to the settler next to him. They spoke a moment before Eagle Robe continued.

“Tell this man who comes asking for a little more land to use for his cattle that since my land already lies right against what he has been using, I can let him use my ground for the rest of the spring and summer while the grass grows its tallest.”

Both of the Shadows bobbed their heads with eager smiles on their faces.

“My friend says that is a good offer,” the interpreter explained, using his hands now and then to make sign for a word. “Are you coming back from the buffalo country at the end of the summer?”

“If the hunting is not so good, we will be back before the last of the hot days,” Eagle Robe had told them. “But if the hunting is good, why should I hurry back?”

All three of them chuckled, and both Shadows were grinning constantly now. Eagle Robe found himself very gratified that he had made them happy.
This is the way it must be,
he recalled thinking at that moment.
Our peoples are thrown together and we should find a way to help one another.
It had been that way since the first white men had come among the
Nee-Me-Poo
while on their journey to the great western ocean back in the long-ago time of Eagle Robe's great-grandfather.

“If the buffalo want me to keep shooting them,” he had gone on to explain to the Shadows, “I may not return until the first frosts brown the grasses of both trails leading over the mountains.”

“Autumn.” The interpreter had wanted confirmation.

“Yes,” Eagle Robe said. “This man, my new friend, can graze his cattle and horses on my little piece of ground until I return. But do not worry; when I come back, he will not have to rush out of here. I will give him a few days to gather up his belongings, pack them onto his wagons, and herd his cattle to another place before I bring back my horses to that pasture.”