Cries from the Earth (53 page)

For the longest time, Perry hadn't seen any soldiers below him on the slopes, deciding that Parnell was either ahead of Trimble or lay dead somewhere in the creek bottom. With Captain Trimble and Lieutenant Theller on their way to Mount Idaho, no one was left to form a junction with him as he started his survivors northeast along the high, grassy ridgeline.

Suddenly, one of the men riding in the advance turned around and shouted, “Colonel! By damn—it's Lieutenant Parnell!”

That news, especially the sight of Parnell's small detachment arrayed among the low trees ahead, lifted Perry's spirits as nothing else had in a long time. Amid the spontaneous cheers from both groups of muddy, powder-grimed men, Perry and Parnell saluted formally, then shook hands as only survivors of a battle could. Taking stock, the officers found that their combined forces now numbered no more than two dozen men.

“Have you seen Theller?” the captain asked breathlessly.

Parnell shook his head. “Only saw Trimble hurrying off ahead of us. But I have no knowledge of Theller, Colonel.”

“Then he must be ahead of Captain Trimble as I suspected,” Perry surmised. “We're the last out, you and me.”

“I was just about to cross this ravine, Colonel,” Parnell declared, pointing ahead of them at the deep, brush-choked scar that sliced the top of White Bird Ridge. “I can't find any other way—”

Both of them jerked around at the same moment, watching in amazement at how many of the Nez Perce had just gained the top of the ridge themselves. Crying out their blood oaths anew, the enemy swarmed forward. For the first few minutes they chuffed along both flanks rather than hit the soldier line directly.

“Looks like we better get across while we can, Colonel!” Parnell roared.

“Agreed, Lieutenant. I'll take my men over, then set up on the other side to cover your retreat.”

“Very good, sir,” Parnell replied as he stepped away to form his men at the edge of the deep ravine.

It was a struggle for Perry's weary ten and George Shearer to slide down the steep banks, shove their way through the thick undergrowth at the bottom, then scramble up the far bank—but Perry drove them, prodded them, even though he knew that the sweetness of escape should damn well be goad enough.

No sooner were his men pulling themselves over the top of the ravine than Perry was among them, barking orders to deploy left and right so the ten could cover the retreat of Parnell's squad—

—but instead of holding the line, Perry's men bolted right behind Shearer, heedlessly scampering away.

“Stop, goddammit!” the captain bellowed in frustration. “I'll shoot deserters; by God in heaven I will!” Then he turned on his heel suddenly, finding the warriors making their charge on Parnell's outnumbered forces. “Lieutenant—it's now or never!”

Run or be swallowed.

Parnell immediately kicked his horse to one side, then the other, flushing his dozen men into the ravine before he himself jabbed his brass spurs against his obedient horse and sent it flying across the obstacle. Crashing onto the lip of the far side, the animal nearly collapsed under the extreme weight of its rider.

The moment the lieutenant landed among his men, Perry was already reining up behind them, ordering Parnell's detail to turn and cover their own retreat.

“Turn and fire, men! Turn and fire!”

Rather than scamper off like frightened field mice as the other squad had just done, these twelve men did turn their horses and face the enemy—some of the soldiers resolute, others just plain scared—firing two salvos at the Nez Perce when the horsemen neared the far side of the ravine Parnell's squad had just abandoned. In a noisy clatter of crying horses and screaming warriors the enemy reined up short and promptly retreated out of rifle range.

“Let's continue our retreat, Lieutenant,” Perry advised as he reined his horse beside Parnell's mount.

“You take the advance, Colonel,” Parnell offered, “and I'll have my men cover the rear.”

“Whatever you do … see that your men don't get strung out, Lieutenant,” the captain warned. “And don't dally behind. The way I reckon it, we've got a little better than four miles till we reach that ranch we passed on our way here. We can take cover there and hold them off … if we don't let them hack away at what few men we have left.”

“Aye, Colonel!” Parnell roared enthusiastically. “It's a four-mile race now, sir … ain't it?”

*   *   *

“Joseph and Mary,” he grumbled to himself as he dragged his aching legs down the shallow scar of erosion as it descended the grassy ridge toward a tiny creek in the middistance.
1
First Sergeant Michael McCarthy knew his exhausted legs wouldn't hold him, even if he tried to stand, much less run from the warriors who had to be everywhere around him.

Slow, slow,
he reminded himself, wiggling like a snake so as not to disturb the brush as the narrow scar deepened into a ravine the lower he went. Reaching the sharp creek bank, the sergeant gently pushed himself over the edge and into the water. Because he now found himself exposed and in the open at the mouth of the coulee, McCarthy crawled downstream more than a hundred yards before reaching the cover of some overhanging willows. Breathing a sigh of relief, he slipped beneath the leafy branches and lay still in the icy water for the better part of a half hour as he listened, planning just how he was going to drag his hash out of the fire.

From time to time he heard a distant shot or two, along with a periodic shriek, always accompanied by war cries from the Nez Perce. He figured the warriors were finishing off the last of the wounded, yelping in fiendish joy when they discovered another hapless soul they could dispatch with glee and fury. Gazing through the leafy branches, the sergeant himself despaired of becoming another victim they would soon fall upon. For the most part the hills on either side of him were covered by nothing more than grass. He would make himself an easy target if he attempted to crawl back up the canyon to escape.

After he hadn't seen any sign of the enemy for a long time, McCarthy determined that he would belly-crawl back to where he had tumbled off the trail. If he could find enough brush on the way, he'd dare to struggle to the top of the canyon. If he couldn't, then McCarthy vowed he would lie in hiding right there until nightfall. He might well have to wait until dark anyway, he told himself: likely his legs wouldn't recover for hours, maybe not until the stars were out.

But first, he decided to take off his black slouch hat and set it aside. It might well give him away. And then he removed his dark blue tunic. It too might lead to his discovery. His dark gray undershirt more closely matched some of the rocks on the nearby slopes. He could only pray that he just might blend into the hillside. But he would drag the wool tunic along anyway—knowing he would need it once the sun had fallen.

More than an hour later McCarthy pulled himself into a clump of wild rosebushes and lay kneading a knotted muscle in his leg when he heard hoofbeats on the trail above him.

Holding his breath, he peered through the dense vegetation and spotted two ponies working their way down the slope. The warriors passed so close McCarthy swore he could have reached right out and touched the blanket draped over the back of one horse. In those terrifying seconds as they brushed past his hiding place, he steeled himself to fight to his last breath.

He simply couldn't believe that they didn't see him in the wild roses. When the pair had passed him by, one of the warriors spoke in Chinook pidgin.

“Now we go shoot your horses.”

As the riders continued by, unhurried, McCarthy was convinced the warrior spoke those words directly to him. If they were talking to one another, they would have spoken in Nez Perce. But the warrior used Chinook pidgin English: the common tongue of that region. It made McCarthy even more terrified that they were sure to turn around any moment and flush him from cover. But the pair continued on down the trail—when his attention was suddenly drawn by hoofbeats approaching at a fast clip.

Not all that far uphill rode a squaw on her pony. Behind her came a younger woman on horseback. They stopped on the slope directly above his bushes and shouted at the departing warriors. In Chinook the older woman cried out that she had spotted a soldier in the brush and wanted the men to return so they could kill the white man. He watched her point downhill at the very bushes concealing him, squawking her news to the warriors. The woman even described McCarthy's uniform, saying he must be a soldier and not a settler—then went on to describe the chevrons on the sleeves of McCarthy's blue tunic he was clutching in his hand.

Inch by inch, the sergeant pulled his legs sideways into the stream channel, submerging himself even deeper. Keeping only his head above the water, and it concealed in the thickest part of the rosebush, along with his right hand gripping a .45-caliber service revolver, McCarthy vowed to take one or two of them with him before … He would use a last bullet on himself rather than suffer the torture he was sure had marked the end of the wounded these warriors discovered in the valley.

Then the sergeant realized that he might never have enough resolve to press the muzzle to his temple and pull the trigger. Life was far too sweet for suicide.

Truth was, McCarthy told himself, he had already escaped death three times that morning.

Just as he was beginning to believe that the squaws had passed on by because they were unable to convince the young warriors to return, the sergeant heard hooves approaching with a clatter. From his bushes, McCarthy watched the two squaws descending the slope—but now they were joined by an old man on a horse. The three of them passed on by his bushes slowly, but when the trio had gone some fifty yards downstream they turned around and retraced their steps, inching by his hiding place again, carefully studying the brush.

As they leaned off their ponies and peered through the branches, McCarthy held his breath, amazed that none of the three could spot him. He saw their faces clearly as they searched the rosebush. And when the old man poked the muzzle of his smoothbore muzzleloader into the willow, that old weapon got so close to his nose that McCarthy figured he could reach right up and pull the Indian into the bushes with him. Slowly, silently inching his pistol into position, the sergeant prepared to shoot the curious old man, all the while trying to silence the loud drumming of his heart as each agonizing second ticked past.

At long last the three moved off down the trail, but just as he was about to breathe easier, McCarthy watched the older squaw doggedly turn back along the trail and stop above him again, giving the brush one last, intense scrutiny before she rejoined the other two and the trio finally disappeared around a hill to descend to the battlefield.

He waited some minutes to be sure the Indians were gone before he thought to pull out his pocket watch and see if all that time in the water had stopped it. The second hand still shuddered its way around the tiny face, and there was a reassuring
click-click
when he pressed it to his ear. Then McCarthy stared at the hands, dumbfounded.

Surely now it couldn't already be half past six o'clock in the evening! He simply could not recollect the sun passing overhead, climbing in the heavens during the fighting, falling from midsky during the fleeing. Looking up to locate the sun sulled over the eastern terminus of the canyon wall, the sergeant realized it had to be six-thirty in the morning.

Joseph and Mary!

Of a sudden, McCarthy recalled that he hadn't once pulled out his watch after Colonel Perry started them off the ridge and down the canyon for their attack on the village. In the fading starlight of the predawn gray he remembered seeing that it was just then four o'clock as the column moved out.

An excruciating drop into the canyon, followed by an eternity of fighting and dying, the whole ordeal crowned by this endless hell endured as he crawled for his life … all that in less than three bloody hours!

Chapter 42

June 17, 1877

By the time Second Lieutenant William Russell Parnell reached the Henry C. Johnson ranch, some four miles from the top of the canyon, Captain Perry already had that squad of his men who had deserted him at the ravine positioned on a high, rocky escarpment just to the right of the abandoned house and barn. At the foot of the ridge a narrow stream cut its way between the rocks and the ranch buildings, spilling off the back side of the White Bird Divide and onto the Camas Prairie.

“Position your men on the firing line, Mr. Parnell,” Perry ordered as the lieutenant rode in. “But I'll hold your detail in reserve should we face a frontal attack here.”

The lieutenant sighed. “Look at these men, Colonel. They're all about at the end of their ropes. It's been a bloody time of it—what with the fighting in the valley, not to mention having to fight for every foot of this … this retreat.”

With a nod of agreement Perry pulled his watch from a tunic pocket, glanced at the hands and face but a moment, then stuffed it away again. “Seven o'clock, Mr. Parnell. We don't have long to go now before sunset. I firmly believe we can defend our position until dark.”

For an awkward, breathless moment Parnell studied the captain's face—suddenly unsure if Perry was merely having a joke at his expense … or if his superior might be losing control of himself. “C-colonel, it's seven o'clock in the
morning,
sir. Not the evening.”

Turning to peer into Parnell's face, the captain blinked several times, then turned away to watch the timber beyond the house. Quietly he said, “Of course it is, Mr. Parnell. Seven o'clock in the
morning.
”

Perry's mental state was just one more thing for Parnell to worry over now. This pitifully undermanned band of survivors might be able to hold back the enemy, he figured, but only as long as their ammunition held out.