Chief Joseph & the Flight of the Nez Perce (18 page)

If Howard could not have Joseph, he could at least show success by capturing and incarcerating thirty Indians, even though over half were women and children and none had shown any signs of belligerence or involvement with the fleeing bands. At a distance, and with proper crafting of his reports and the able assistance of Sutherland's dispatches, none would know the difference, and few would even care.

The actual Nez Perce he had hoped to capture were now up in the Weippe Prairie, fifteen miles away, at the very spot where the three boys had first encountered Lewis and Clark seventy years before, and the place where one of the two major Indian trails across the difficult Bitterroot Mountains began.

The climb had been difficult and wearying. The Clearwater River, like all the rivers in the area, was a wide flow in the bottom of a deep canyon carved out of the landscape over hundreds of thousands of years. The trail up to the Plateau where the Weippe stood was steep and arduous, sometimes too acute to be walked directly, and able to be ascended only by narrow switchback trails of rock and mud. Where it was a direct climb, much of the path lay in a narrow gully filled with deadfall and boulders. By the time eight hundred people and all their horses had traversed this trail, it was little more than a slippery mush of mud and horse manure. The soldiers who had to follow were confronted with a climb of utmost unpleasantness and difficulty.

In the Weippe, far from the pursuing soldiers, the Nez Perce were gathering to make the most momentous decision they had faced. They could not go on divided in intent and lacking in common purpose. Looking Glass, who had assumed an attitude of authority, insisted that the wisest course was to travel across the Lolo Trail, which led off from the Weippe over the Bitterroot Mountains to the territory the white men called Montana. It was a journey of almost two hundred and fifty miles, but it was a journey he, as well as many of the other Nez Perce, knew well. Though the Nez Perce lands ended at the top of the Bitterroots, his band had spent much time across the mountains, and the Flathead people on the other side were almost like brothers to them. Many of his men had married Flathead women, and many Nez Perce women had married Flathead men.

The whites in that country were friendly too. Looking Glass knew many of them and had often purchased supplies at their stores and left his horses to winter with them while he continued east to buffalo country. There was even a friendly Black Robe priest who gave medicine to the sick Nez Perce as they traveled through. These white people would know that the Nez Perce were not hostile. In fact, they would welcome them. They would sell them supplies and allow them to pass through to buffalo country, where Looking Glass and his warriors were something close to heroes to the Crows because of assistance they had provided several summers before in a war against the dreaded Lakota.

Crow country meant fewer whites and the presence of good friends, plenty of buffalo, and a place where they could live at peace until issues in their home country settled down. And if it came to a fight, the Crows were willing warriors. They had sworn to help the Nez Perce in battle with the whites if they were ever needed.

The respected warriors Five Wounds and Rainbow supported Looking Glass. They too had spent much time in buffalo country and in fact had been returning from there when they had met up with the other bands after the fighting in White Bird Canyon. What Looking Glass said was true, they said. It would be a good place to go.

If for some reason the tribe still did not feel safe, they could go north across into the British territory in Canada to join with Sitting Bull and the Lakota, who were now living there under the protection of the government. Though the Nez Perce were not close friends with the Lakota, they had agreed to cease warring with each other. And even at their worst, the Lakota hated the whites more than they disliked the Nez Perce. Anyone opposing the white soldiers would be welcomed as a friend.

The other chiefs found these arguments compelling. White Bird and Toohoolhoolzote, who had no time for white promises and white justice, were easily convinced, though White Bird initially had favored going north to meet with Sitting Bull immediately after getting across the trail. Only Joseph was unsure. There was something too final and wrong about crossing the mountains. His people were not buffalo country people. Perhaps it would be better to live on the reservation or, if not, to die in their own country.

“What are we fighting for?” he asked. “Is it our lives?”

To him it was not. It was the land the Creator had granted them, the land where his father was buried, the land that had given him life and whose soil he wished to nourish with his bones. He preferred to send the women and children into the mountains and then to double back into their own country and die fighting for the land where the Nez Perce people had always lived. If it was honor the young warriors sought, this was the way to achieve it, not by running or by getting drunk and slaughtering innocent people. Once they gave up and crossed the mountains out of their own country, they were people without a home.

Joseph's position, though respected, was not well received. Only the strongest believers in the old ways—men like Wottolen and Two Moons— were open to his impassioned plea to stay true to their land. He was outvoted and reminded, in no uncertain terms, that the people had agreed to stay together. If he chose to leave, not only would he lose respect, he would lose trust as well.

In a final vote, Looking Glass was chosen to take command of the bands and lead the people over the mountains. They would travel away from their homeland to find peace in buffalo country.

On the morning of July 16, 1877, this uncertain assemblage of eight hundred people, almost three thousand horses, and hundreds of dogs set out into the Bitterroot Mountains along the rocky, deadfall-laden Lolo Trail. Joseph's band was the last to leave. Their hearts were in the Wallowa, and this flight gave them neither joy nor hope. The man who the whites thought was in charge of Nez Perce strategy was at the end of the group. His voice, if ever it had been heard in matters of war, was now barely listened to at all.

T
HE LAND INTO WHICH
the Nez Perce were entering was some of the most impenetrable in the American West. It had almost killed Lewis and Clark, causing one of their men to note in his journal that these were “the most terrible mountains I ever beheld,” while Clark himself observed that there were “high rugged mountains in every direction as far as I could see.”

Few whites ever traversed this country, preferring to use more manageable passes far to the south and the north. This land was truly
terra incognita
—a jumble of jagged sawtooth peaks, diagonal tree-covered slopes, and deep impassable ravines with impenetrable brush thickets growing to the very edge of fierce, rushing rivers. Far more than the Rockies, these Bitterroots served as a barrier to physical passage between the East and the West. The only way through them was on one of three trails that the Nez Perce had forged over generations by following paths made by animals and connecting them through their own efforts into trails by which people on the Columbia Plateau could make their way to and from buffalo country.

The Lolo was the most northerly of these trails. Though the Nez Perce had traveled it frequently and knew it well, it was in no way an easy journey. Wind and rain constantly blew trees across it; boulders blocked the path in many places; and there were precipitous ledges that had to be navigated with care. Generations of horses had worn stretches of it into a deep furrow, and these frequently became filled with deadfall and scree. In addition, it tended to follow the ridgetops, so there were constant sharp descents and ascents, which became slippery and treacherous when snowmelt or rains turned them from dirt to mud.

Nonetheless, with enough time and proper preparations, it could be a tolerable, even enjoyable, passage. But this was not such an occasion. With so many people and so many animals, this crossing would quickly become an arduous, muddy, dangerous trek. Care could be taken, but only to the extent that it did not slow the group's journey to the next broad meadow and camping place. This meant forcing animals over fallen trees and between tight rocks that had been dislodged onto the trail. But the need to find forage for so many horses and camping areas with water enough for so many people forced them to travel without regard for hardship.

Looking Glass did not expect the soldiers to follow them into the mountains. Howard had been left tarrying at the Kamiah crossing and had shown no sign of pursuit. The Nez Perce presumed he had lost interest after the people had headed toward Montana country. To them, tribes were tribes, no matter whether white or Indian. Howard's tribe was the Idaho and Washington tribe. The Nez Perce had no quarrel with the Montana white tribes and no reason to think that Howard would continue to care about them after they had left his lands. But, still, it paid to be careful. Many feeder trails led into the Lolo, and the Christian Nez Perce knew them all. If the people were not vigilant, it was possible for their Christian brothers who were scouting for Howard to lead his soldiers in on one of these routes.

So Looking Glass ordered a group of five warriors to form a rear guard. They were to linger behind for three days to watch for soldiers, and if any were sighted, two of the men were to ride ahead to warn the full group while the other three were to fight as much as necessary to slow the soldiers' pursuit. Among these five volunteers was Sarpsis Ilppilp, one of the three boys who had started the fighting and now was reveling in his newfound warrior status.

Looking Glass's caution proved to be merited. Soon several scouts for General Howard were discovered in a heavily wooded area just up from the Weippe. These men included James Reuben, the Presbyterian Nez Perce leader from Kamiah who had tried to convince Joseph to come on the reservation; Captain John, who had become something of a real estate dealer by selling Nez Perce lands to settlers and whose daughter was traveling with the nontreaty bands; and Horse Blanket, known by the name of Sam Morris, who had the same father as Yellow Wolf, the young warrior who had rescued Joseph's wife during the retreat from the Clearwater.

The rear-guard scouts were incensed. They captured the men and berated them. “We are your relations,” they scolded. “Your skins, your hair, your bodies, everything is the same as ours. The Americans, your great friends, have marked our land with the blood of your relatives. The white man has been spilling Nez Perce blood for years, and our chiefs have put their nerves between their teeth to keep peace with these whites.”

They told the men they were sick of giving the treaty Nez Perce chances to prove their loyalty to their own people. They would let the men go this one last time if they promised to return to their homes and never again raise a hand against their brothers and sisters who were fleeing with Looking Glass. “The next Nez Perce scouts we capture acting under General Howard,” they said, “we will kill at once.”

The captured men retreated gratefully and promised never to aid the soldiers again. But in no time at all movement was heard again in the underbrush. The scouts recognized the voice of Captain John.

“Here are some fresh tracks,” he said. “Let us turn back.”

But before they were able to do so, the rear-guard scouts opened fire. Because of the thick brush, all the men escaped except Sheared Wolf, who had taken the Christian name of John Levi. Levi was not killed but was badly enough wounded to be unable to flee. As the scouts approached him, he pleaded for his life.

“I have news to tell you,” he said.

“You may tell it in the spirit world,” one of the scouts responded, and shot him through the head.

It was now apparent that the soldiers had not completely given up the chase. But the sad discovery that James Reuben, Joseph's nephew and one of the foremost nontreaty leaders, had been the lead scout for the soldiers was especially disheartening. Individuals might change sides or decide that the flight was too difficult or even choose to stay with the Christian way. But joining the soldiers against your brothers and sisters was a betrayal that cut to the heart. The Nez Perce were now truly a divided people. They would never again be able to look at each other without seeing the blood on the ground between them.

Other sadnesses too had begun to darken the journey. One woman, traveling with her baby, had been unable to keep the infant from crying. All through the evening the infant had sent up a piercing squall, filling the quiet night with its cries. The warriors pleaded with her to find a way to calm the child.

“You must quiet the baby,” they said, “or the soldiers will find us.”

But the baby would not cease crying.

Soon the warriors came again. “You have to quiet that baby or we'll all be killed,” they pleaded.

The woman did what she could, but the baby could not be comforted. In desperation she took the infant and killed it by striking it against a tree. All mourned this horrible loss, knowing the unspeakable sacrifice this mother had made to protect the safety of the people. This turned their hearts even darker against the soldiers and treaty bands who had forced them into this cruel journey far away from their homes and the lands they loved.

General Howard, as the warriors had presumed, was not inclined to pursue, but not because the Nez Perce were leaving his territory. It was the terrain that concerned him, and reports of the condition of the trail had given him pause. Its almost endless tangle of deadfall, along with trees on either side of the trail growing so tightly together that a man could barely pass between them, meant that his artillery and supply wagons could not make a meaningful chase.

This same trail that had almost killed Lewis and Clark would surely not admit of the quick passage necessary to capture the fleeing bands. Besides, he had a whole territory of frightened settlers to protect on his side of the mountains. There was no guarantee that the other tribes of the Plateau were not readying to fight; no guarantee that Joseph and his followers would not double back; no guarantee that he would be able to catch them even if he decided to follow. When reports started arriving of flare-ups between Indians and settlers in his own jurisdiction on the Idaho side of the mountains, he decided that pursuit was out of the question.

But his superior, General Sherman, did not see it in that way. The celebrated Civil War general, now elevated to the head of the army, did not take kindly to the idea of renegade Indians wandering unmolested over the mountains into the settled areas of Montana. General Howard might be in charge of only the Department of the Columbia, and the border between his command and the Army of the Missouri might lie along the ridge of the Bitterroot Mountains that the Nez Perce were now crossing, but the Indians making that journey were from his area of command and thus still his responsibility.

So Sherman ordered Howard to follow. Sherman had not achieved his military successes by being weak-kneed; his march through Georgia had been ruthless and decisive in breaking the will of the Confederacy. He expected the same or greater ruthlessness and decisiveness from his western forces in breaking the will of the belligerent Indian tribes.

Howard was well aware of his superior's approach. Sherman's order eleven years ago regarding the Sioux could not have been clearer: “We must act with vindictive earnestness,” Sherman had declared, “even to their extermination, men, women, and children.” And though there was no proof he had said it in so many words, his current attitude was well expressed in the statement often attributed to him that “the only good Indian is a dead Indian.” Howard knew that Sherman saw his job as creating “good Indians” and that his immediate objective was Joseph. There would be no more massacres under Sherman's watch, no more Little Bighorns. Any movements of tribes that spoke of possible consolidation and uprising would be opposed with the utmost vigor and malice.

This order to pursue went against all of Howard's instincts. He did not like wanton loss of life. His memories of the deaths of young men during the Civil War still haunted him. He did not wish to subject his men to undue hardship and possible death when equally effective alternatives were available. It was his intention to wait until reinforcement troops made their way into the area from other parts of the country, then to block the Lolo at the back end with one group, use another group to shadow the Nez Perce by traveling parallel to them on the Mullan Road, a more northerly route on which wagons and artillery could travel, and leave a third group to quell any disturbances and keep peace in this western country while the actual pursuit took place.

But reports trickling in from the Weippe and Kamiah areas soon caused him to abandon this strategy. Lootings and burnings were still taking place among the settlements back in Idaho. Howard could not be sure if these were the acts of a few hostile bands that had doubled back into their home territory or if, perhaps, the Indians had not actually left. The only way to be sure that the hostiles were truly crossing the mountains was to pursue them himself.

He ordered his men into readiness and prepared to leave as soon as the necessary reinforcement troops arrived from other posts. When these new soldiers were in place to protect the settlers on the Idaho side of the mountains, he personally would lead his men up the Lolo Trail and drive the Nez Perce into Montana Territory, where they would be out of the jurisdiction of the Department of the Columbia and become the problem of other commanders.

The retreating bands, however, had no intention of returning. The burnings and lootings still taking place in the Weippe and down toward Kamiah had been the work of a rear-guard group trying to gain more horses and supplies. Most of the people were already well on their way across the Bitterroots.

The trail wound high along the ridgetops and saddlebacks. In many places it was barely wide enough to walk; in others it was a braided tracery of small paths over uneven and difficult terrain. There were precipitous drops, rendered even more perilous by ground made slippery by heavy rains. The winds blew sharp, and the people were traveling without lodge poles for teepees. On some nights they could make only brush shelters by hanging skins and canvas against rocks or over branches. Many of the buffalo skins used for lodges had been left behind at the Clearwater, so shelter was minimal, making cold, rainy nights difficult, especially for the infants and the elderly.

Though they were now traveling in smaller groups to take advantage of the more numerous smaller meadow camping spots, the sheer number of travelers had a cumulative effect on the trail. Those in the rear often had to walk through slop, and when the weather was warm and the earth dry, animals in front kicked up a cloud of choking dust for those who rode behind.

Nonetheless, they traveled the trail in eleven days, coming out of the high mountains into the broader, gentler valleys in Montana just as Howard was finally preparing to begin the journey into those same mountains on the Idaho side. Howard had delayed his departure until the reinforcements had arrived in order to mollify the settlers in his Idaho jurisdiction, who by now were awash in rumors of Indian massacres and uprisings and had no wish to see the military depart their area to pursue renegade Indians off into Montana Territory. In delaying, he had opened himself to severe and mocking criticism in both the local and national press. Despite Sutherland's glowing accounts of his pluck and heroism, other newspapers were posting stories accusing the general of tarrying and bungling and having no stomach for Indian pursuit.

The smaller newspapers in more isolated towns were especially critical. They had the most to fear from renegade Indians and felt the most need for military protection. They were also the most susceptible to rumor. The
Fort Benton Record
in Fort Benton, Montana, wondered aloud if “the white people of Montana” were “forever to remain in danger of plunder and murder…?” while one paper's claim of Indian atrocities made it all the way to the East Coast and
Harper's Monthly,
where it was diligently reported that “on the 10th of July Joseph's band… massacred thirty Chinamen on the Clearwater River.”