Cries from the Earth (57 page)

Much the same thing had happened to both Albert and Minthon during the frantic retreat of the terrified soldiers.

When the three were bound with rope and brought to the center of camp, Albert's father stepped forward. When the tensions with the soldiers had increased, the old man had chosen to remain among the Non-Treaty bands, the victors in this day's fight. Although the young man had come with the soldiers to attack the village, he spoke up for his son. And
Yuwishakaikt
had an uncle among the old warriors in the camp who spoke on behalf of his relation too.

Although Sun Necklace and the “Red Coats” wanted to kill these Treaty men and be done with it, most of the others felt that the decision should be left to the chiefs.

“This is not so easy a matter to decide,” Yellow Wolf told his companions early that afternoon. “For
Nee-Me-Poo
to decide to kill
Nee-Me-Poo
is a bad thing. The Shadows kill their own kind all the time. But do we want to stoop so far that we become just as evil as they: That we could kill our own kind? To murder our own people simply because they have been led astray by the white man and his religion?”

Yellow Wolf decided it was important that he stand among those who would guard this trio of Treaty prisoners until morning … when the chiefs would decide their fate.

Chapter 45

June 17, 1877

David Perry didn't quite know what to say to Captain Joel Graham Trimble when they finally reunited, face-to-face at last, in the tiny settlement of Grangeville after their disastrous fight on White Bird Creek. It was nearing ten o'clock in the morning when Perry and Parnell dismounted in front of Grange Hall with their two dozen men.

“Colonel Perry!”

The captain turned at the cheery call, stunned to find Trimble striding up as if nothing untoward had occurred during their retreat. Perry struggled to subdue his immediate impulse to seize Trimble by the throat and throttle the man within an inch of his life for abandoning the battlefield and the rest of the command.

“C-captain Trimble,” he steadied his voice, one eye quivering. “You've been here for some time, I take it?”

“Yes, Colonel.”

“I quite imagined you had.” Perry fought to keep an even tone to the words he so carefully chose. “I spotted you and your men ahead of us, at the top of the ridge. I waved, attempting to call you back to assist us. I saw you and your men signal back to me … then turn and continue on your way—”

“N-no, I—I didn't see you at all, Colonel,” Trimble asserted.

Perry could see the lie of it in Trimble's eyes. “A little later, you couldn't help but see Lieutenant Parnell and me at the ravine on the divide—”

“Sir, I said I didn't see you,” Trimble defended himself bravely, although his voice had taken on the air of a plea. “I would have come to your aid if I had. You must believe that, Colonel.”

By then Perry had become aware of the number of men—officers, noncoms, and line soldiers—who had inched closer to listen in on their disagreement.

Clearing his throat, eyes narrowing, Perry grappled to keep a rein on his anger. “How many men did you bring with you in your retreat, Captain?”

Trimble wiped the back of his hand across his mouth. “I don't have a firm count, sir. I reached this settlement with some men from both companies.”

Peering over Trimble's shoulder at those standing nearby, Perry asked, “Where is Theller? Perhaps he will know how many men we have—”

“Why … Lieutenant Theller hasn't shown up, Colonel,” Trimble admitted, his brow furrowed with worry. “I thought he c-came out with you.”

Perry turned immediately, gazing at their backtrail—somehow hoping against all logic that he would see Theller and more of the battalion coming up the rutted wagon road that would bring them into Grangeville. The welcome around him had been raucous, swollen with rejoicing, but now the air fell silent—only the pawing of weary horses, the scraping of cavalry boots on the ground. Perry ground his teeth together as he turned back to Trimble.

Don't ask him for an explanation here,
the captain brooded as he gazed steadily at Trimble.
There's time enough for that later, when you don't have a war to fight and citizens to protect. Time enough to bring him up on charges of desertion in the face of enemy fire.

“Who's in charge of these civilians?” Perry asked.

“A man named Crooks,” Trimble answered. “Owns the biggest place, close by.”

“Crooks?”

“That's me.” An older man stepped up, presenting his hand.

Perry shook as Crooks introduced his two grown sons, both standing at their father's shoulders. “How many riflemen can you muster, Mr. Crooks?”

The rancher spat out a stream of tobacco, then answered, “Twenty-five at the most. Lot more folks made it in to Mount Idaho.”

“How many you figure are there?” Perry asked.

With a shrug, Crooks replied, “Don't rightly know, son. But I wouldn't doubt that Brown's got him more'n twice as many as what come in here.”

“That's where I'm going,” Perry announced, his decision made.

“Sir?” Parnell said as he stepped up. “You want me to form up the men to march on to Mount Idaho?”

For a moment the captain peered over the weary two dozen who had fallen out and were either already sleeping for the first time in more than two long days and nights or kindling some fires to heat coffee and rations. Their exhausted horses were cropping a nearby patch of grass.

“No, Lieutenant Parnell. You and Captain Trimble will stay here while I go on to Mount Idaho. Post some pickets on a perimeter to warn you of the approach of the hostiles. And keep your eyes peeled for any sign of Theller and his men.”

“He's dead, sir,” Parnell announced gravely.

That stung Perry, made him speechless for a moment. Then, clinging to a spider's thread of hope, he said, “Perhaps. But we don't know for sure.”

“Anyone not outta there by now,” Crooks growled, “they ain't coming out. 'Cept maybe hung over the back of a horse.”

The captain's belly went cold with that image. Lord, didn't he know enough men had been killed that morning, bodies left behind on the battlefield for the Nez Perce to mutilate and scalp in their victorious glee.

“Mr. Parnell,” he said, turning to the lieutenant, “before I leave, I want you to get me a count. Tally how many of both companies we do have here. How many made it out. I want to know before I see what fortifications they've undertaken at Mount Idaho.”

Crooks stepped up closer and asked, “Are you figgering to drop back to Mount Idaho with your men?”

“If their defenses are stronger than what you've constructed here … then yes. I'll recommend all of you come with us when we leave.”

“Me and my boys ain't leaving, son,” Crooks declared evenly. “This here's our home and there ain't no Injuns gonna drive us off. We didn't ever steal nothing from 'em, so they better not come around here fixing to take anything away from us. Me and my boys ain't never hurt a one of 'em, but them sassy warriors come high-feathering it onto my place … I'm gonna kill ever' last one of 'em I can to protect what's mine.”

There would be no sense in discussing withdrawal any further with Crooks, the captain decided. “Very well, sir. You've made up your mind.”

“Made it up a long time ago, son,” Crooks explained paternally. “This here's my home. We put down roots, my boys and me. We ain't going nowhere. I cain't speak for my sons, but as for me … I'll die before I let them Injuns run me off my land. Even for a day.”

Perry saw Parnell returning.

“Colonel, I have your report,” the lieutenant said as he walked up.

“Go ahead,” Perry instructed.

“There are thirty-eight, sir.… I count a total of thirty-eight missing.”

“Th-thirty-eight?” he repeated, just the echo of it punching him hard in the gut.

“Only two of the men present and accounted for are wounded,” Parnell continued.

“Only two? Why s-so few?”

Parnell shook his head. “I don't know, Colonel. Only thing I can figure is that none of the other wounded made it out of that valley.”

Turning on Trimble, Perry sensed his anger flaring. As evenly as he could, he told his fellow officer, “Captain, you are in charge while I am gone to Mount Idaho. Prepare camp here until I return with more news so I can write my report and get it off to Howard by messenger.”

“As you order, Colonel.”

Then Perry sighed as he turned away and stuffed his left boot into the stirrup. “And by all means, Captain … if the enemy shows up and you're forced to retreat … don't abandon any more of these men. And be mindful of your wounded.”

*   *   *

“Y-you're certain you got the translation right?” Oliver O. Howard demanded of the agency interpreter. John Monteith had hurried over to Fort Lapwai that midafternoon.

A pair of the reservation scouts who had departed with Captain David Perry on Friday evening, the fifteenth, had just come racing in atop exhausted ponies here on Sunday afternoon. Even though he hadn't been able to understand their garbled, incoherent Nez Perce tongue while they awaited a translator, General Howard had no trouble comprehending the fear and despair in the tone of their voices, in the furtive look of their dark eyes, in their anxious wringing of hands.

“Yes, General,” replied Perrin Whitman. “They say your soldiers have been defeated by their Non-Treaty brothers.”

“Did—did these two stay till the end?”

Whitman turned back to Howard with the translation. “No. They admit they were some of the first out of the valley of White Bird Creek when the fighting started. But before they reached the top of the canyon, they could look back down upon the soldiers and see that your men were surrounded by warriors on horseback and under fierce pressure. I suppose any man might hope for the best … but the story these two tell doesn't give me much reason to believe that any of Colonel Perry's men made it—”

Sudden shouts and cries from the far side of the parade interrupted them all. Into view came two mounted soldiers, their horses so lathered and done in the animals were barely plodding along. Howard joined the others who rushed to the scene where the pair of cavalrymen halted and slid out of the saddle.

“General, sir,” said Corporal Charles W. Fuller. “Company F. Both of us.”

“We was wiped out, General,” confessed the second man, Private John White.

“When was this?” Howard asked, his gall rising.

“Th-this morning,” Fuller gulped. “At dawn, sir.”

“All of Perry's men?” asked Captain William Boyle.

Fuller's eyes darted to those who pressed in upon him, eager for any shred of news. “N-no. Not all of them. Just F Company.”

“You're the only two who got out alive?” Howard demanded.

“Only reason we got out was we run like hell soon as the trap was closing on us,” White admitted.

Howard echoed, “A t-trap?”

The hair instantly stood on the back of the general's neck as he suddenly remembered the night of 16 June, when those two Nez Perce women showed up to noisily announce that Perry's command had been lured into a trap and all had been wiped out. How could she have known of disaster
before
the battle? How could that woman have foretold of a trap that would consume all of F Company?

“Are there others alive?” asked Lieutenant Peter Bomus.

Fuller shrugged. “Don't know, sir. We got out by the skin of our teeth and kept on a'coming.”

“We figgered there was nothing gonna stop them savages,” White asserted. “I decided the two of us owed it to everyone at the post to carry the news here so you could prepare your defenses, General.”

“Prepare for attack!” arose the deafening cry as panic seized the bystanders.

Every man and what few women remained at the post huddled close around Howard and those two soldiers—murmuring, cursing, wailing in fear of the attack they were sure was to come.

“All right, let's get ourselves under control here! You listen to me and we'll be ready if we're attacked,” Howard silenced their anxious voices. “Lieutenant Bomus, form a detail to stack cordwood around the Perry and FitzGerald house.”

“Yes, General,” the quartermaster replied, turning away.

Then Howard continued, “Now, quickly spread the word to all the rest here at the post: we'll use my headquarters in the Perry house as the rallying point when the Nez Perce decide to throw themselves against us.”

*   *   *

Just past midday, Yellow Wolf was returning to the camp after watering his two ponies when he heard joyous voices crying out from the far end of the village. He trotted toward the clamor—a sliver of him fearing that while he had been away the chiefs had already decided the fate of their three captives.

So how his heart soared when he recognized some of those mounted warriors slowly winding their way into the middle of camp, where they halted their long string of packhorses laden with buffalo hides.

“Rainbow!” he shouted above the tumult of the crowd.

“Yellow Wolf! Is that really you?” the one named
Wahchumyus,
Rainbow, asked as Yellow Wolf squeezed through the throng.

“Do you see how he has grown while we've been gone?” cried
Pahkatos Owyeen,
the one known as Five Wounds.

Reaching out his arm, Yellow Wolf grasped Rainbow's wrist. Behind him Five Wounds slid to the ground as the cheering continued. There was much happy pounding on one another's backs!

“What of this fighting?” Rainbow asked those around him.

“So much killing since you left for the buffalo country,” Wounded Head explained.

“Three young men started by shedding white blood here on the Salmon,” Two Moons related gravely as the crowd grew quiet.