Lay the Mountains Low (61 page)

K
HOY
-T
SAHL
, 1877

W
ITH BRAZEN BRAVADO, THE SOLDIER CHIEF HAD YELLED
angrily at
Ollokot
's warriors as the horsemen drifted down into the valley of Lolo Creek, ordering the
Nee-Me-Poo
fighting men to dismount, to give up their horses and weapons.

“Is the man crazy with whiskey?” Yellow Wolf asked some of his fellow riders.

Many of them laughed at such Shadow arrogance now that the village had made it all the way around the north side of the
suapies
' log-and-burrow fortress.

Ollokot
asserted, “Does this little chief honestly think the
Nee-Me-Poo
would go on to the buffalo country without our horses and rifles?”

“How foolish he is to be a chief for the
suapies
at all!” snarled Shore Crossing. “That one is not even smart enough to be a horse holder for a
Nee-Me-Poo
war party!”

“Even if he had returned our weapons to us after we left the Bitterroot valley as he promised he would do,” Yellow Wolf said, fixing his eye on those white men keeping their distance back in the trees, “how can any man actually think we would let him keep our cartridges?”

“Because that's what Looking Glass told the little chief we would do,”
Ollokot
argued sourly.

“But Looking Glass said that only to buy us a little time while the women made ready for our trip down to the valley,” Red Moccasin Tops spoke up.

Yellow Wolf thought that was a good idea to fool the soldier chief. Any soldier chief.

Like Looking Glass had just done with the little soldier, so, too,
Zya Timenna
had made a prank on Cut-Off Arm back at the Clearwater many suns ago. It was good to laugh after all … but—he stopped to think for the first time. Now
the
Nee-Me-Poo
had hurt Cut-Off Arm's pride. When you hurt a man's pride, you make him angry.

To fight a stupid soldier was one thing. But to fight a stupid soldier you have made angry was a pony of an entirely different color. Stupidity made a soldier merely a nuisance. But anger could now make Cut-Off Arm a real danger. Yellow Wolf found himself hoping that Howard and his soldiers would indeed remain in Idaho country.

“Perhaps you are right,” he said to Red Moccasin Tops. “None of our leaders want us to fight the soldiers in this country, to fight these settlers in the Bitterroot.”

“So we let them fire a few shots at us?” Shore Crossing snapped. “To let the Shadows feel some pride in fighting our warriors? I think our chiefs shame us when they even talk of giving up our cartridges to the
suapies!
When they keep us from shooting back at the white men!”

There had been a little gunfire from the fighting men after the
suapies
and Shadows let go with a few arrogant shots. Yellow Wolf knew the white men had aimed their bullets high, none of them made to land anywhere near the column of women and children. Those silly whites fired only to make themselves feel better since they were being made to look the fools!

“Yes—why should we start a little war here in Montana?” Yellow Wolf declared, watching a change come over
Ollokot
's face of a sudden. “Now that we are safe and getting that much closer to the buffalo country.”

This part of his argument made the most sense to Yellow Wolf. After all, why had most of the Shadows chosen to slip away in the dark last night if it wasn't because of the Lolo treaty Looking Glass had struck with the soldier chief? All those white men abandoning their barricades and heading back to their homes just went to prove that the
Nee-Me-Poo
had indeed left the war behind in Idaho country. It was clear the Montana whites did not want to see the army make war on their
Nee-Me-Poo
friends.

Turning his gaze to his war chief, Yellow Wolf continued, “The trek over, the Lolo Trail was the hardest part of
our journey—but it is behind us now! Why should we start a war, even if it means a little lying to that soldier chief?”

His eyes narrowing with distrust,
Ollokot
declared, “I think Looking Glass will say or do anything—even if it is not the truth—to get this village through to the buffalo country without trouble. His reputation, his very honor, is at stake now.”

Yellow Wolf watched
Ollokot
rein away, kicking his pony into a lope, sweeping toward the front of the long column as it neared the mouth of Lolo Creek, where its waters tumbled into the Bitterroot River flowing north through the last miles of that long, narrow valley. Shoulders squared,
Ollokot
was a fighting man by any definition, Yellow Wolf thought. Yet, this
Wallowa
war chief had been forced into a new role of late. Because his older brother had been shamed and shoved aside, time after time in the council meetings of the chiefs,
Ollokot
had been compelled to step forward and take up more and more of the duties for the
Wallamwatkin
as the silenced Joseph slipped further and further into the background. Ever since Looking Glass had consolidated his control over the warrior bands, even Joseph's stature among his own people had been compromised.

Especially when Joseph had lobbied to have the Non-Treaties turn around for the Salmon, where they would make a stand in their own country rather than risking everything they had ever known on a life none of them knew anything about … the rest of the fighting men voted to leave the traditional
Nee-Me-Poo
homelands under Looking Glass's leadership, to abandon the bones of their ancestors, to leave behind the good memories their children and grandchildren would never share.

But last night a few of the fighting chiefs had begun to mutter among themselves that Looking Glass was wrong to even talk to the little chief about giving up their ponies and guns. When the headmen met to discuss those talks held with the soldiers, Red Moccasin Tops shouted at them.

“I will not lay down my gun! We will not quit fighting! Blood of my people has been shed and I will kill many of
the white men before I die! My hands will be stained with the enemy's blood—only then will I die!”

Looking Glass defended himself, “I never meant to let the little chief think we would lay down our guns—”

At the edge of the council Rainbow sat upon his war pony, his rifle braced against his thigh as he declared, “Do not tell me to lay down my gun, Looking Glass! We did not want this war. Cut-Off Arm started it when he showed us the gun at the Lapwai peace talks. We answered his rifle and that answer still stands for me. Some of my people have been killed and I will kill some more of our enemies—then I shall die in battle!”

“Never again will there be any talk of giving up a thing to the white man,” Looking Glass had vowed.

Early this morning, Looking Glass and White Bird had ordered their warriors into position along the front of their march, placing their ponies and their bodies between the soldier guns and their own women and children. It took only moments for Joseph to have that camp of women and children, the old, and the wounded ready to turn aside for the sharp ridge where scouts had located a narrow path only mountain goats must have used to cling to the back side of a tall peak.
^*

Once the fighting men had guided the column back to the Lolo Trail itself, they discovered how the soldier chief had ordered some of his men and the Shadows to press in upon the rear of the
Nee-Me-Poo
march. A few of the older warriors who had been to the buffalo country before recognized some familiar faces among the valley settlers and called out greetings to those they knew, even cracking some jokes back and forth with those Shadows trailing them at a distance while the entire procession slowly paraded toward the mouth of the Lolo. Why, Looking Glass even turned about and rode back to the settlers, doffing his tall beaver-felt
top hat with its plume, smiling hugely as he shook a few white hands—reminding the Shadows that his people did not mean to cause trouble as they passed through the valley.

Only one time that morning were the white men foolish enough to get too close upon the column's rear, forcing
Ollokot
to order his young men to wheel about and level their rifles at their pursuers—ready to knock down the first ranks. The warriors all had a good laugh watching those Shadows rein up with surprise, stumbling over one another, barely clinging to their frightened horses, as they turned about in total terror.

Frightened white settlers such at these posed little threat. Twice already in this war, the
Nee-Me-Poo
had witnessed the Shadows' fighting resolve—once at White Bird Canyon, the second time at Water Passing.
^*
Shadows could make a lot of noise and bluster, but there was little danger when it came down to making a fight of it.

“Perhaps the Shadows needed a little reminding that we do not want to fight them,” Yellow Wolf stated to the warrior beside him as they laughed together, watching the white men scurry in retreat, “but that we will fight if pushed to it!”

“The little soldier chief realized we would fight. That's why he made his treaty with Looking Glass,”
Wottolen
reminded grimly. “He knew it was far better to let us ride past with our promise not to make trouble than to have a lot of angry warriors turned loose on the Bitterroot valley.”

The Non-Treaty bands had successfully scooted around the soldier barricade in a maneuver that had made the
suapie
chief look as much like a fool for failing to hold the
Nee-Me-Poo
back as he was a fool to erect a barricade in the Lolo Canyon to hold them back in the first place.
^**
With Cut-Off Arm, the Book of Heaven chief, still far, far back in Idaho country and the little soldier chief turning aside now so that he no longer followed the camp, from this point on the journey couldn't look brighter!

Now that they had reached the Bitterroot valley, the sun finally came out behind the dissipating clouds, bright and hot, drying the muddy, mucky road so that the traveling was easier on the ponies and those who plodded on foot. In every direction Yellow Wolf chose to look, the sky was big and blue, barely a cloud marring the aching immensity of it. Here they were that much closer to the
E-sue-gha,
longtime friends and allies who would join them not only in the buffalo hunt but also against the army—should those
suapies
ever want to start another war on the
Nee-Me-Poo.

Once they had climbed the road out of this long, narrow valley and made their way across the heights to the Place of the Ground Squirrels,
^*
they would be within hailing distance of the buffalo country!

Eeh-yeh!
Already Yellow Wolf could feel the joy of that realization spreading through him like the warmth of the sun, replacing the cold, bone-chilling despair and despondency he had suffered for having to put his
Aihits Palojami,
his fair Fair Land at his back.

He could not remember a finer day than this! Looking Glass had made his Lolo treaty with the little chief and those valley settlers, an agreement that guaranteed the
Nee-Me-Poo
passage up the Bitterroot without either side having to fear attack. And now the
suapies
had marched out of sight to the north, away from the noisy, joyous village that began to celebrate even before they started to make camp.
^**
The women were trilling, jabbering, laughing—their high voices like happy birds on the wing. The children
immediately picked up on the mood: running and shouting and laughing with such great abandon. Which meant the men, like Yellow Wolf, could congratulate themselves on how well they had fought the soldiers in Idaho country, how hard they had worked to get their families over the Lolo, how steadfast they had remained in their pledge not to fight the Shadows in Montana Territory.

Imene kaisi yeu yeu!
With the Creator's blessing, there would be no fighting now!

Give great praise to
Hunyewat!
The war was over!

“S
HIT
! Them's the goddamn Nez Perceys!” exclaimed Henry Buck as he and more than two dozen civilians suddenly found themselves stumbling into the Indian camp after dark that Saturday night after the Indians had slipped around the Lolo barricade.

These twenty-six valley settlers and shopkeepers, who had answered the alarm to bolster Captain Rawn's small detachment of regulars from Missoula City, had remained with Rawn to the last. While most of their compatriots had turned back for their homes in the steady drizzle that fell the night before, most of Buck's friends had stuck it out, even as the Non-Treaty bands scooted right around them slick as a gob of wagon-hub grease.

For most of the day the civilians knew they were some distance behind the slow-moving village, but little had they realized that, when they turned south to ride up the valley of the Bitterroot for their homes near Stevensville, they would end up running right into the Nez Perce camp! Of a sudden these startled white men found themselves among the lodges and willow shelters before they had time to rein up and retreat.

“Shadows!” a Nez Perce voice called out from the hubbub and clamor as the civilians milled about and clattered together, not really knowing which way to turn now that they had stuck their foot right in it.

Voices were calling out to one another, many warriors
running up on foot, some racing up on horseback, until what seemed like more than a hundred of them had streamed out of the darkness—converging on the frightened whites from every direction.

“Stop, white men!”

More shouting arose as a handful of faces approached out of what starry light illuminated the valley floor. Closer and closer those new arrivals came, followed by a crowd of warriors, until their red noose came to a halt no more than six feet from the civilians' nervous horses.