Lay the Mountains Low (44 page)

And that would likely mean the end of Howard's military career, the end of everything he had ever cherished as a fighting man.

Just after dawn Howard made his play for the spring—a force of his men under Captains Miller and Perry finally managing to rout the Nez Perce snipers from the spring and secure the area for his command. Which meant the firing at that end of the battlefield quieted down somewhat and the men could begin taking the first of the horses and mules to the spring in rotation. In the general's most private thoughts, this was the first tangible sign that the tide of this battle might well be turning in his favor. The end might be in sight. He thanked God for that glimmer of hope on the horizon, then ordered that coffee and freshly baked bread be taken out to all the men on the front line.

“They haven't had a meal since their breakfast yesterday,” he told aide-de-camp Wilkinson. “Let's feed the men before we see what deviltry this day brings.”

But despite all those hopes given birth with that dawn, the firing from both lines steadily increased in tempo and intensity as the air grew hotter. Determined that this would not be his Waterloo, Howard put every available man on the line, ordered to dig in and hold out. Late that second morning,
a few Nez Perce horsemen even drove several hundred ponies through the soldier lines in an attempt to cause confusion and disrupt the effectiveness of their fire, perhaps even hoping to stampede the pack animals.

Although the warriors' valiant effort failed and they had already been forced back from the spring where they had caused so many soldier casualties the day before, for some reason the Nez Perce steadfastly persisted on the fringes of the battlefield. Here, then there, they made a rude, noisy appearance on his front. Small groups of them would ride up behind some low elevation in the rolling prairie, leap off their ponies, then quickly fire a few rounds at a weak spot in the soldier line before flinging themselves back atop their horses and racing out of sight. More of them crept forward on their bellies, snaking through the tall grass until within rifle range, whereupon they put their weapons to deadly use—proving just what marksmen they were with those Springfields taken from the White Bird and Rains massacre dead. Some of the more resourceful ones even tied clumps of grass to their heads to better conceal themselves as they made their approach.

And so that morning and early afternoon passed while each side sought desperately to make the jump on the other, wheedling at every little advantage, but with neither the enemy nor Howard's men making any real progress beyond where the lines had remained for the last eight hours.

That was the end of Howard's patience.

Just before two o'clock, the general called Captain Marcus Miller back to headquarters, where he detailed orders for a daring charge. “Colonel, I'm withdrawing your artillerymen from the line and filling that gap with some thinly spread cavalry and infantry,” Howard explained.

From his lips the captain tore the short-stemmed pipe he always had clamped between his teeth. “Where are you sending us, sir?”

“You will move your line directly toward the bluff. Your objective will be that shallow ravine I believe is holding
most of the warriors. One of the howitzers will be in support.”

“Support, General?”

“Lieutenant Otis will be in charge of laying down a harassing fire with the twelve-pounder, to loosen things up in there before your advance; then your men will sweep around the left end of the Nez Perce to take them in the rear.”

“Very good, sir,” Miller replied, enthused. “With your permission, I'll go begin my withdrawal from the line so we can prepare for our attack.”

Howard was squinting into the bright sunlight, watching the right of his line where Rodney's and Trimble's men were deployed, when Lieutenant Wilkinson came huffing up on foot.

“General!” the young officer gasped. “Look there—in the distance, sir!”

Otis quickly put the field glasses to his eyes and adjusted the focus. Beneath that low dust cloud clinging to the ridge-line far to their south he could begin to make out the approach of a blue column.

“Who are they, General?” asked Lieutenant C. E. S. Wood as he came to Howard's elbow.

“That can only be Jackson's cavalrymen,” he answered, dread filling him, “bringing in the pack train from Lapwai—”

At the very moment he was about to drop the field glasses from his eyes, something off to the right hooked his attention. His heart sank with the sight.

The enemy had spotted Jackson's company. Howard knew B Troop, First U. S. Cavalry, likely had a complement of no more than forty men along to guard that 120-mule pack train that had been expected to reach his column days ago. The Nez Perce would scatter Jackson's mules and create havoc among the troopers at best. At worst, the warriors would tear through the pack train as they butchered Jackson's undermanned escort.

“Colonel Miller!” he roared, using the officer's brevet rank.

The officer jerked to a halt and turned on his heel as Howard realized just how unusual it was that any of his officers ever heard him raise his voice, much less bellow like that.

Leading his horse, Miller returned. “Sir?”

“Your orders have changed, Colonel,” Howard said, shoving the field glasses toward the officer. “Have yourself a look.”

As Miller studied that distant detachment advancing beneath the dust cloud, able to see how the warriors were growing agitated with the escort's approach, Howard said, “Your battalion has my orders to do all that's necessary to keep the enemy off that pack train. See that Captain Jackson's men reach the safety of our lines.”

“Yes, sir!”

Within minutes Miller was extending his forces to the left of the line, by company-front formation, moving A, D, E, and G Batteries of his Fourth Artillery toward the ridge a mile from Howard's compound—then two miles—continually keeping themselves between the warriors and the heading that oncoming pack train was taking. The Nez Perce horsemen made a few showy, but ineffectual, charges along Miller's flanks but never got close enough to actually engage the foot soldiers pressing ever on to rendezvous with Jackson's escort.

Howard promptly ordered Rodney's cavalrymen toward the left side of their line, to be in position to act as reserves, should Miller require assistance.

It was nearing 3:00
P.M.
by the time the pack train neared Howard's lines, with Miller's battalion arrayed entirely on Jackson's left flank. When he had his batteries opposite the end of the jagged ravine along the southern side of the battlefield, the captain gave his order.

“Men!” he roared above the cries of the oncoming warriors and their horses. “Get up and go for them! If we don't do something now, they'll likely kill us all!”

With startling speed, Miller wheeled his artillerymen by the left flank and, as a whole, they bolted into a ragged sprint, racing impetuously for the surprised warriors in the ravine.

As the pack mules and their escort rattled inside Howard's lines, the general immediately threw Captain Rodney's reserves into motion, ordered against the left flank of what would momentarily be a noisy collision.

Just as Howard had gambled, Nez Perce horsemen burst from the ravine, streaming along Miller's front, racing for the soldiers' left, where it was plain they intended to flank those four batteries of artillerymen. But the instant they swept around the back of Miller's artillerymen, the warriors ran right into Rodney's horse soldiers! As the general watched, all but breathless for those few desperate minutes, it seemed the Nez Perce flung every one of their men against that end of his line, attempting to roll it up just as they had done to Perry's battalion at the White Bird.

A fierce, swirling skirmish raised a boiling dust cloud that swallowed both soldier and Indian in the stinging heat of that midafternoon. Moment by moment, the Nez Perce made a most valiant resistance to check Miller's charge, attempting to angle back on Miller's rear when they were caught by surprise between the two forces. Rodney's men had outflanked the flankers and were just beginning to roll up the end of the Nez Perce line when … when—the enemy broke!

Only a few horsemen at first. Soon more. Eventually the rest as their entire line gave way, with both Miller's and Rodney's outfits advancing into the onslaught, right on the warriors' tails. Those few who held to the bitter end waited until the soldiers were no farther than twenty yards before they wheeled about and fled.

“To the river!” began the cry from those soldiers experiencing their first success. “To the river!”

Otis knew he must not let Joseph and his warriors escape.

“Captain Winters!” Howard bawled, knowing he had but
moments to capitalize on this fracture just opening in the enemy's defenses. “Take two companies of infantry and your dismounted cavalrymen and reinforce Miller! On the double, man! On the double now!”

With Winters on his way toward the retreating tribesmen, Howard next ordered up Jackson's dismounted B Company—weary from its escort duty—to join Trimble's H and advance in double time to support one of the Gatling guns and both howitzers to the edge of the bluff, where the gun crews were to open up a hot fire on the fleeing warriors.

By Jupiter! If this didn't feel a great deal better than had that news of Perry's defeat on the White Bird, than the mucking around back and forth across the Salmon, not to mention those Cottonwood fiascos!

With Joseph on the run now—maybe … just maybe, he could end this war in the next two days, three at the most!

A
RGHGHGH!

Yellow Wolf hadn't felt anything like the pain piercing his left wrist!

The instant that soldier bullet had smacked him earlier that morning, he had flopped onto the ground, slowly swallowing down the waves of pain, gripping the bloody wound tightly in his right hand. For a long time he lay there, unmoving. When he finally did attempt to raise himself so he could lean back against part of the stone barricades, another soldier bullet slapped the boulder near his cheek. A rock chip gouged the flesh just below his left eye.

Temporarily blinded, he collapsed back into the grass, listening to the increased fury of the
suapie
volleys sent hurling into the timber at the ravine. His cheek felt damp, warm. Yellow Wolf touched it. Blood, streaming down his face from the flesh wound. Closing his right eye momentarily, he realized he couldn't see from the left. He closed them both and worried how this fight would end now.

At dawn, there hadn't been enough warriors to blunt the soldiers' daring charge on the spring. No more than five-times-ten stayed with
Ollokot
now. The rest had long ago
retreated back to the village for the night or still slept safely in the smokers' lodge where they held long discussions on what path this struggle should take. Some of the chiefs and older warriors had wanted this to be the last fight against the
suapies
—either defeating the white men in a decisive and pitched battle or being destroyed by Cut-Off Arm. But others still argued for retreat and flight. Looking Glass talked ever stronger about a new life for their people across the mountains.

It turned Yellow Wolf's sour stomach into knots when he thought of so many of fighting age electing not to put their bodies in the struggle … while a young man like
Eelahweeman,
called About Asleep—just in his fourteenth summer—bravely carried water up to the hot, thirsty warriors fighting on the ridge top all that first afternoon and again into this second.

Red Thunder was the only brave fighter killed yesterday, shot from his horse during that fierce charge against the mule train as the battle was opened. But it was in that brushy ravine around the spring early this morning that the
Nee-Me-Poo
suffered their heaviest losses. Two veteran warriors gave their lives.
Wayakat,
called Going Across, was killed instantly, and
Yoomstis Kunnin,
known as Grizzly Bear Blanket, received a mortal wound. In addition,
Howwallits,
the one called Mean Man, suffered a slight wound before the warriors were driven back from the water hole.

With things turning out badly as that second day of fighting progressed, the chiefs were already arguing among themselves.
Ollokot
and
Toohoolhoolzote,
Rainbow and Five Wounds, Two Moons and Sun Necklace—too many of their fighting men had refused to add their bodies to this fight. Some had hung back in the village to guard the women and children, but more had simply not advanced to the front to join the fighters. They had tarried at the smoking lodge, safe from the sting of soldier bullets. By the time some of those men on the far right of their defenses spotted the approaching dust cloud, they had been fighting for
much of two days.
Ollokot
called for volunteers to follow him as he cut off the arriving Shadows and their long pack train, then rode off to make his noisy charge.

That's when everything went into a blur for Yellow Wolf. Both sides were shooting more furiously as they collided far to the right along the edge of the ridge. In minutes the dust cloud over that part of the fight started rolling in Yellow Wolf's direction. It didn't take him long before he realized why the soldiers were coming on so quickly. There were few warriors to oppose them!

Looking this way and that, he found himself all but alone on this far side of the ravine, where the fighting men were suddenly scrambling to their ponies, pitching them on down the draw for the river below—the
suapies
right on their heels. Glancing a moment into the valley, Yellow Wolf worried about his mother, wondering if she were among those now streaming up the Cottonwood, leaving behind most of their lodgepoles and camp equipment.

Enimkinikai!

Curses to the war chiefs for denying Joseph the opportunity to dismantle the village yesterday! A thousand curses for not allowing the
Wallowa
leader time to have the women prepare to move the village in an orderly retreat rather than this sudden, shocking, and uncoordinated flight—like that of a half-thousand mud sparrows before the night owls' warning screech. Instead of taking all that they owned and slipping away while the warriors had done battle with Cut-Off Arm's soldiers … now the families were forced to scramble for their lives, able to take only part of what they owned as they drove their huge pony herds up the steep hillsides west of the South Fork and onto the Camas Prairie once more.