Lay the Mountains Low (40 page)

“Come on, all you men who would rather die than give up your country!”
Ollokot
cried, streaming out in front. “Do this for the graves of your ancestors! Do this for the weak and the small ones! Do this so your children will live free!”

In a screeching red wave they broke from the shadows, swarming across the tall grass as the soldiers immediately began to fall back. Of a sudden there was a soldier chief among the
suapies
, then a second, both of them yelling their orders, mingled perhaps with their own encouragement. The fleeing soldiers stopped, turned, and started back toward the gun. On either side of it they were thick as summer wasps now.

Closer and closer both sides advanced, the bullets like clouds of noisome flies, the gunsmoke gagging the fighters. Three arm lengths, no more,
Ollokof's
warriors got away from the gun and those soldiers protecting it with their bodies. Three arm lengths: close enough to stare into the sweating faces of those frightened soldiers. Three arm lengths and both lines were preparing to fight by hand …

Then the first of the warriors fell and two of his companions started pulling him back.

A soldier collapsed, close enough that
Ollokot
recognized some of the Shadow words the man shouted in pain. Others dragged him back from the fighting.

Too many of the warriors were backing up instead of following their leader into the breach.

The soldier guns were too intense that final charge. Three arm lengths … close enough for this war chief, brother of the
Wallamwatkin
leader Joseph, to see that the soldiers would not prevail. Yes, they would fight to protect their little square of ground—but they would not succeed in attacking the village of women and children.

The warriors had stopped Cut-Off Arm in his tracks.

E
VEN
before the Non-Treaty bands migrated upriver to this camp at the mouth of the Cottonwood, every day saw a great number of Treaty people coming in from Lapwai, especially from Kamiah, to join the disaffected ones. With that string of successes in those early weeks of their war against the Shadows and
suapies,
many of the once-steadfast Christians and old Chief Lawyer's Treaty supporters had begun to waver in their loyalties.

Indeed, over the last few days the desertions had become so apparent that the government agent named Monteith had threatened banishment and exile to
Eeikish Pah,
the Hot Place,
^*
for all those he caught supporting the hostiles. Why was it still so hard for the white men to see that things were not black or white, that you stood squarely on one side of this agony or the other?

And why did the Shadows fail to realize that many of the Treaty people had family among those bands now taking a stand against the government?

In this distinction, Joe Albert was not alone.

This young warrior named
Elaskolatat
was only one of many who had answered Chief James Reuben's call for volunteers to scout for and guide the soldiers in their chase after
the Non-Treaty bands…. Although Joe Albert had family among those fleeing camps.

To his way of thinking, this reality was nothing of great note, because there had always been, and always would be, a great measure of tribal pride, if not outright solidarity—no matter if a man were Christian or Dreamer, no matter if his heart came down on the side of the struggling soldiers or those victorious warriors. It was the white man—his ways, his words, and those land-stealing treaties—who had caused the fractures in ages-old loyalties. The Shadows and their soldiers were to blame for chipping away at the cohe-siveness of Albert's people.

And now that these Non-Treaty bands were steadily giving back to the Shadows a small dose of the pain that had been inflicted upon all of the
Nee-Me-Poo
over many years, even those who made their home near Lapwai or over at Kamiah could take some degree of satisfaction. Perhaps Albert, like others, hoped the old ways of their people would not be crushed by the white man. Hoped that now, in this season of
Khoy-Tsahl,
these Non-Treaty bands would somehow hold the strong white culture at bay … if only for a few more winters, a few more joyous summers.

As the summer had warmed, Joe Albert gradually found himself losing what hope he still clung to that his people could be healed. The fractures went deep—especially in his own family—for his own parents were with these Non-Treaty bands camped below on the Clearwater. His father,
Weesculatat,
was a veteran warrior, who had steadfastly refused to give himself over to the white man. Father and son had argued many times, but in the end Joe had walked his own road and converted to the Christian faith, while
Weesculatat
had stayed with the Dreamers.

When Cut-Off Arm first ordered his soldiers to bombard the Non-Treaty village down below in the valley of the South Fork, Albert felt his heart rise to his throat in fear. Not for himself, but for his relations. His parents surely had to be among those scurrying among the lodges at this moment, herding ponies out of the camp, streaming off toward
the western plateau. But it wasn't long before he found himself able to think of little else but this dirty fight, what with the Non-Treaty snipers firing from the timber, shouting encouragement to one another as the few pinned down the many—

Of a sudden the hot air caught in his chest, burnt gunpowder stinging his nostrils as he listened intently. It was a
Nee-Me-Poo
voice he thought he recognized as it cheered the others each time a
suapie
was hit or encouraged the Non-Treaties to inch a little closer to the soldier corral.

“
Pahkatos Owyeen!
” Albert cried out from behind the low shelter he had constructed of thin rock slabs like the soldiers around him.

Of a sudden, most of the Non-Treaty voices fell silent, and their guns ceased roaring, too.

“Five Wounds! Answer me! It is your friend!”

“Who calls me?” came the loud demand from the timber. “Who dares call me a friend when he lies among the soldiers come to kill my people?”

“
Elaskolatat
is my name!” Joe shouted.

From the timber a new voice asked, “The son of
Weesculatat
?”

Albert recognized that throat, too. It was Rainbow, the best friend of Five Wounds. “Is that
Wahchumyus?
”

“Yes—you are really
Elaskolatat
?”

Just then a bearded soldier crawled up and tugged roughly on Joe Albert's elbow. “Tell them redskins now's their chance to give up peaceable, or we'll chew 'em up with lead the way we're gonna do to their village and their relations. You tell 'em that now!” Albert's eyes narrowed at the harsh look crusted on the soldier's face. He had no intention of saying anything of the kind. Instead, he turned back to face the timber and shouted in his native tongue, “I am
Elaskolatat!
Son of
Weesculatat!
”

“Why have you have brought these soldiers to attack our camp?” Five Wounds asked.

“They would have come anyway, even if I did not bring them here,” Joe Albert explained what he knew to be the
truth, listening to the rustle of talk and unconnected words drifting in from the timber where the snipers lay.

“
Elaskolatat,
your father—”

“My father?” Albert interrupted. “Is he with you? Father? Father, talk to me yourself!”

Rainbow spoke now. “
Weesculatat
is not here.”

“Then it's as I feared,” Joe said. “He is down in the village, protecting my mother?”

“Your father is no longer with us.”

His heart leaped to his throat. Joe struggled to holler, “N-no longer with you? He has given up your fight and taken my mother into Lapwai … or even Kamiah?”

“No,” Five Wounds said with much sadness from the shadowy timber.

His next words were even more disembodied than before. Almost as if each one were a ghost by itself, drifting out of the shadowed place into the bright sunlight where it refused to take form, dissipating slowly as Joe Albert attempted to wrap his mind around it. “
Weesculatat
was killed by the white men a few days ago. Near Cottonwood Creek.”

“D-dead?”

Now a new voice shouted from the trees.
Ollokot
said, “
Uataska,
it is true. He is the first warrior killed in this war against the Shadows. A brave man. Be proud of your father,
Elaskolatat!
In all our fights, he is the only man to die, and he died a courageous warrior—”

“My father was killed by soldiers?”

“No!” Five Wounds cried. “By a band of white men—”

“He's dead?” Joe croaked, disbelieving. “Really dead?”

“Your mother is grieving in the old way, the
timnenekt
,” Rainbow explained. “Days ago, over the place where they buried him at
Piswah Ilppilp Pah,
the
tewats
said their prayers over him—”

Leaping to his feet, unmindful that he wore a soldier coat, Albert roared with an unspeakable pain shooting through his heart, pounding his breast in anguish. “Ahhhh-hgh!”

“Get down! Get down, you stupid Injun!”

The soldiers around him tried to pull Joe Albert down as a few of the Non-Treaty guns instantly opened fire again … but
Ollokot,
Rainbow, and Five Wounds shouted to all the rest, screaming that they must not fire at this old friend of theirs who had lost his father to the Shadows.

Joe was standing exposed in the bright afternoon light, the
suapies
sprawled in the grass behind their skimpy breastworks, three of them dragging at him with their hands, shouting at him to get down, get down. “Get down or you'll be killed!”

“In the name of
Hunyewat,
our Creator!”

With half a breath caught in the back of his throat,
Elaskolatat
leaped over one of those clawing for him and took off at a dead run … leaving Joe Albert behind—racing headlong to reclaim himself. To reclaim
Elaskolatat.

Son of
Weesculatat
—the first hero of the Non-Treaty war against the Shadows.

Of a sudden his chest was filled by the hot afternoon air buzzing with shouts and bullets. He was screaming in horror, shrieking in pain, shouting in fury, his heart pounding as he sprinted for the timber.

“Don't shoot him!” Rainbow cried, lunging to the very edge of the trees. “He is one of ours!”

With one hand still clutching his soldier rifle,
Elaskolatat
flapped the sleeve of his soldier blouse from his free arm, then slapped the rifle into the other hand and struggled to shed himself of the white man's dark blue coat from that last arm. A few soldiers were getting to their feet back at their lines now, more of them kneeling behind their rocks, too—all of them growling and shrieking, shooting not at the snipers in the trees, but shooting at the runaway tracker.

He could hear the bullets whistle past him as he raced ahead for the trees. And there at the edge of the tree line some of the warrior faces suddenly took shape as the bravest of the brave stepped into the light, showing themselves to the enemy, and began to lay down a murderous cover fire for this returning son of
Weesculatat.

Midway between the two lines of shouting, shooting enemies,
Elaskolatat
finally flung the soldier blouse from his wrist and sent it pin wheeling into the air.

He left it settling behind him in the tall grass and dust. Left those soldiers and his Treaty friends behind.

“
Imene Icaizi yen yeu, Hunyewat!
” he roared as he neared the Non-Treaty warriors. “Thank thee, O my Creator!”

The moment he reached the timber,
Elaskolatat
sprinted into the welcoming arms of the war leaders. So many hands pounding him on the back, tongues wagging, until he stopped in front of
Ollokot.

“Your tears tell me you never really left your father's people,” the
Wallowa
war chief said.

Elaskolatat
raised a finger and touched his cheek, finding it wet with his tears. “My eyes bleed for my father's spirit,” he told the warriors in that copse of timber. “And my heart tells me I must now lead you against those
suapies
who killed him!”

Without waiting for any of them to join him, the young warrior whirled on his heel and let out a shriek.

“
Kiuala piyakasiusa!
” he raised his voice to the hot summer sky, his
simiakia,
his personal warrior spirit, on fire. “It is time to fight!”

Shaking his rifle,
Elaskolatat
burst into a sprint, heading back for the soldier lines across the hot, grassy no-man's-land.

But this time, he was firing at the
suapies,
leading more than ten of the others in a sudden, surprising charge against the enemies who had murdered his father at Cottonwood.

Elaskolatat
had come home to his father's people.

I
N
the last, lingering light of that long, hot day, Lieutenant C. E. S. Wood took out the narrow ledger and dug the pencil from his pocket. Lying on his stomach in the grass there at the edge of headquarters, the young officer scratched at the page, making nothing more than notes really, impressions perhaps—on that day's fierce fighting:

July 11 Advance on Indians Engage them at about 11:30
A.M.,
we occupy a rolling broken plateau they the rocks and wooded ravines. Howitzers open fire. Skirmishing, sharpshooting, Famous Hat knocked off three times. The sergt & Mcanuly shot. Charge by line in front of me. Firing until after dark. Indians in ravines after horses. Caring for the wounded. No food no drink no clothing. All day without water. Night in the trenches preparing for an attack at dawn. Anxious times. Sound of Indian dancing and wailing. Williams and Bancroft wounded. I, lost on the picket line.