Lay the Mountains Low (21 page)

They laughed as they parted company, some of them streaming right after the Shadow scampering into the timber and brush on foot, while the others galloped after the fleeing rider.
Wahlitits,
Strong Eagle, Five Wounds, and
Rainbow were closing the gap on the big horse that had grown weary of the long run. Shadow horses may look pretty, but they simply did not have the mighty lungs the
Nee-Me-Poo
bred into their ponies. And that dramatic difference was showing as they dashed up this long, gradual slope, tearing through the green grass growing tall here in midsummer radiance. The Shadow disappeared momentarily over the top of the grassy knoll.

“Now we will catch him!” Shore Crossing shouted as he brought the long rawhide strands of his quirt down against his pony's rear flanks. “It will be a race between him and me to the Cottonwood!”

The last word was barely off his tongue when the four of them reached the top of that bare hill and started down the long slope after the Shadow—gazing far beyond the single rider to that gulch where stood all the buildings of the white family … suddenly finding more
suapies
encamped there than Shore Crossing could count. Tiny, dark figures only—but, there must be at least ten-times-ten of them!

Where had they come from?

“Ho! Ho!” Rainbow called, throwing up his hand as he yanked back on the horsehair rein wrapped around his horse's lower jaw.

Why were these soldiers camped here on the upper reaches of the Cottonwood? Did they intend to attack the Non-Treaty camp? Perhaps they were planning to march all the way down the creek so they could prevent the warrior bands from forming a junction with Looking Glass's people on the Clearwater?

“Let him go,
Wahlitits!
” Five Wounds ordered gruffly.

Shore Crossing was the last to stop his horse, finally halting farther down the slope than the others. His pony was lathered and excited, having just caught its second wind, raring to finish the race its rider had started it on. The animal pranced round and round, tossing its head in protest.

“I know; I know,” he told it, bringing the horse under control, patting its damp neck. “Angry disappointment
sours in my stomach, too. I could almost feel that Shadow's hot blood on my hands!”

“R
IDER
coming!”

Second Lieutenant Sevier M. Rains turned at that strident cry from one of the outlying pickets. In fact, there wasn't a man in Whipple's battalion who didn't immediately stop what he was doing and turn to watch that lone civilian streaking down the long slope toward the wide gulch where their bivouac stood among the abandoned buildings of Cottonwood Station.

Just as he was shading his eyes with a hand, Rains watched at least four horsemen break the skyline right behind the lone rider. From the looks of things, they had been gaining on the civilian and—had not the soldiers' bivouac been where it was—those Nez Perce warriors would have clearly turned the scout into a victim.

“Where's the other'n, sir?” asked Private Franklin Moody.

Private David Carroll replied before the rest, “I s'pose he ain't coming back at all.”

“We don't know that!” Whipple snapped as he lumbered out of his tent, yanking on his blue blouse with its two rows of small brass buttons sewn down the front. He stopped at Rains's elbow.

“Captain, he can't be bringing us good news,” the young lieutenant said quietly, hoping that most of the enlisted would not hear.

For a long moment, Whipple gazed at his second lieutenant. Then he said, “Mr. Rains, you're my most trusted second. As adjutant of this command, I want you to select five men from our L Company, and call out five more from Captain Winters's E.”

“Rescue detail, sir?”

“Exactly,” Whipple answered, roughly shoving the last button through its hole, every man around him watching one warrior slowly turn his horse around and rejoin the others
at the brow of the hill, where they eventually disappeared from view. “You'll go in the advance and I will come on your rear with a larger force in your support. A word of caution: don't extend yourself too far, keep on the high ground, and report back to my command at the first sign of the Indians.”

“Fifty rounds for our carbines?” Rains asked.

“Yes—and your service revolvers will require another twenty-four.”

Rains wheeled on Moody, excitement hot in his veins. “Private, now you and Carroll have the chance to ride with me.

“Sir, respectin' your authority an' all,” Moody replied, “but them red bastards is just gonna run when they see us riding out after 'em.”

Rains's eyes crinkled with a smile as he replied, “Then we'll all just get a chance to see a little more of the country as we chase the buggers off. Now you and Carroll go draw three hundred rounds of carbine ammo and one hundred and fifty cartridges for our Colts. I'm going to call out the rest of the detail.”

Captain Henry E. Winters was returning from the trench latrine dug in a dry wash downwind of camp, his shirttails flying as Rains met him in the middle of the company street. The lieutenant quickly explained Whipple's orders, at which Winters began calling out the first five men of E Company he spotted nearby. From nothing more than their names, the young lieutenant immediately figured they all had to be Irishmen. Seven Irishmen in all now, along with his three Germans.

It was Foster who galloped into camp gripping that halfcrazed, snorting horse on the verge of lathering. The civilian was swinging out of the saddle and lunging to the ground even before the animal had completed its bouncing, four-legged skid to a halt.

“Captain Whipple!” he gasped as more than half a hundred soldiers pressed close to listen.

“You are?”

“William F-Foster.” He breathed it hard. Not so much from any exertion as from the hot flush of adrenaline that must be shooting through his veins.

“Where's the other one? I sent two of you out. What happened to—”

“His horse bucked him off,” Foster interrupted. “Too far back for me to get him, too close to the Injuns for me to pull 'im up to ride double with me—”

“You left the man?” Rains interrupted now accusingly, taking a step right up to the civilian's knee.

Foster glared at the lieutenant, jaw jutting. “I'll take you back, any of you man enough to go,” he rasped. “Get me a fresh horse and we'll go back for Blewett.”

Whipple put his hand on Rains's shoulder. “The lieutenant here is preparing to do just that, Mr. Foster. Sergeant! Get this civilian a fresh horse, immediately!”

In less than ten minutes the lieutenant's detail was armed and mounted, moving out as a trumpeter played “Boots and Saddles” in that bivouac they put at their backs. Rains and his men followed William Foster, who had climbed atop a fresh army horse. The civilian rocked forward, then backward, trying to get comfortable in the McClellan saddle already cinched around the belly of the animal given him to ride.

“Wish I'd swapped for my own saddle, Lieutenant.”

“Don't you fret, Mr. Foster.” Rains kept his eyes on the brow of that hill where the half-naked horsemen had disappeared as soon as they spotted the soldier camp. “I don't believe we'll be in the saddle all that long. Just enough time to collect your friend, perhaps learn what we can as to the location of that war party jumped you, then return to our camp.”

“Location?” Foster repeated. “You mean you're going to follow them warriors to find out where the sonsabitches are camped?”

“No,” Rains replied, tugging at that leather glove he
wore on his left hand, the one he had pulled over his West Point class ring. “But if we happen to see the direction they ride off in … that will he a good indication of where their village lies. All the better for us to protect that pack train due down from Fort Lapwai any time now.”

 

*
Shore Crossing and Red Moccasin Tops killed only four of five men they shot in their first spasm of revenge; Samuel Benedict was only wounded and feigned death until the war starters rode away.

**
This is the historical figure who, after the Nez Perce War, changed his name to Yellow Bull
(Chuslum Moxmox)
—as recorded by most of the war's historians.

K
HOY
-T
SAHL
, 1877
.

Cottonwood, 4
P.M
. (Tuesday)

One of our scouts just in reports seeing twelve or more Indians from here toward Salmon River. On returning he was fired upon by a single Indian and he and the other scout returned the shots. In some way one scout was dismounted and took to the brush and the other was obliged to leave him. These Indians were coming from the direction of the Salmon river on the trail leading toward Kamai and crossing the road passing the place about eight miles from here. The whole command starts in a few moments and may bag the outfit unless the whole of Joseph's force is present.

Babbitt, commanding.

“L
OOK BEHIND YOU,
WAHLITITS!
”

He twisted half-way around on the bare back of his pony when Red Moccasin Tops shouted and pointed. A long way back, they were coming. A short, wriggling worm of
suapies
riding out from that soldier camp down in the Cottonwood gulch. Already,
Seeyakoon Ilppilp,
the young warrior called Red Spy, had killed the lone Shadow who had taken refuge in the brush, and came riding back to show off the dead man's guns.

“Five Wounds! We must find a place where we can greet these Shadows!”
Wahlitits
cried in anticipation. Shore Crossing could feel the excitement flushing away the disappointment that had surged through him when he had to give up the chase minutes ago.

“Yes!” Five Wounds cried with similar enthusiasm. “Up there in those trees. We'll wait for the others. Red Moccasin Tops—go get them. Tell Two Moons we have some good quarry coming and we want them to help us close the trap.”

Shore Crossing asked, “We'll put the Shadows between us?”

This time Rainbow smiled. “Yes. We'll wait to ride out of the timber until they are past us.”

“Then they will be caught between you and Two Moons's men!” Red Moccasin Tops whooped, taking off like a shot, shrieking in glee.

It was a long time to wait, those heartbeats while they kept an eye pinned on the approaching Shadows. At times none of the warriors could see the soldiers for the broken hillsides, then the short line of
suapies
would reappear from behind a slope, still coming on and on. As they got closer and closer, finally passing just below the copse of dark timber where the warriors waited in the shadows, Shore Crossing could see how the white men kept turning their heads this way and that. Not only did they appear to be keeping their eyes open for an ambush, but they seemed to be looking down for something in the tall grass—

Then
Wahlitits
remembered. “The other rider!” he whispered to Five Wounds beside him. “They're searching the grass, looking for the other dead man!”

Close enough, they could hear the persistent cough of one of the soldiers who slowly passed by them just down the slope. He was not a well man—his cough sounding full of noisy water. Then the
suapies
had moved on by. And Shore Crossing found himself all but squirming on the back of his pony, anxious to get about the killing.

Rainbow inched his pony forward one length, then turned it so he could face the others. “When we ride out of the trees, we must race down the slope
behind
the soldiers. That way we will keep them up the hill from us.”

“And that way the Shadows can't get out of our trap by racing downhill,” Shore Crossing said, anticipation squirting through his veins. “We must go now! Hurry before the others kill them all!”

“These are not unarmed Shadows asleep in their beds,
Wahlitits,”
Rainbow scolded. “These are soldiers.”

“I fought soldiers at
Lahmotta!
“ Shore Crossing snapped
angrily, wounded by the criticism. “I wore my red coat for the enemy to see me! And I rode right past their lines, time after time!”

“Which is why we don't want any of these soldiers to escape us today the way some soldiers escaped from
Lahmotta,”
Five Wounds emphasized. “Let them get a little farther on the hillside before we ride down on them. There—you see that low brush on the slope ahead of them?”

“Yes,” Rainbow answered. “Near those low rocks?”

“Yes—we will have Strong Eagle stay in sight by that dead pine tree while we turn back to the timber uphill.
Tipyahlahnah Kapskaps
will be the decoy to bring those soldiers on and on,” Five Wounds explained his plan. “When they have gone past those rocks, the rest of us will ride out and show ourselves, then chase them into the ground.”