GRASS-TEXT I The President-elect advances into the Senate chamber and delivers his inaugural address (a saddlebag full of salt pork): The permanent pacification of the country upon such principles and by such measures as will secure the complete protection of all its citizens in the free enjoyment of all their constitutional rights is now the one subject in our public affairs, which all thoughtful and patriotic citizens regard as of supreme importance. LORDY LORD, what could have transpired in our Republic, to render her citizens so unprotected?--Indian troubles, Mexican perils, our vast ocean front, the Silver Panic?-- Well, I happened by Walt Whitman voting last November, and he'd thought it through; he wrote his ballot for free enjoyment, all right. They call him original, unusual, unsound, SATANic, a true American. That means he's fixing to die. He's still revising his poem "Old War-Dreams." If you've ever seen him scribbling away with his superannuated hands, you'll know our nineteenth century's nearly gone. The twentieth's going to be twice as good. That's why I wish Walt could wake up from his war-dreams, which are grey and disappointingly dark, like so much Wyoming jade: Long have they pass'd, faces and trenches and fields, but no more of that, where through the carnage I moved with a callous composure, or away from the fallen; no more, a solid dozen years after we've saved our Union, why not keep facing forward? Let us comb away the relics from Walt's fields, fill in his trenches with marble monuments, and enshroud those faces (skeleton-visages all) with the thick white juice of Indian hemp. Long have they pass'd; so let them. Walt's sadness may have grown as long as his white beard, but he fights it; he votes straight Optimism ticket; as for me, I'd wish all sadness away, because our Republic's now superior to a hundred years old! In the next generation we'll annex Canada, I'll bet. The retired colonel beside me would rather finish the job in Mexico first. Also, he's mortified about Little Big Horn. That's why he wants to enlarge the Army.--So sorry; it's going the other way.-- I can see myself in each of the metal buttons of his drab-hued vest. And before us all the President-elect shines white-linened at wrist, neck and breast! His long narrow white face, eminently suited for being printed on paper money, his tapering beard, sunken eyes, bushy brows, distinguished temples and cliff-like forehead make of him such a statesman of the drum-corps that I cannot begrudge him either of his inaugurations (the first took place secretly just last Sunday). Up behind him broods his majestic wife--Lemonade Lucy, they call her; her dream is to outlaw booze and cleavage at the White House. She's as shiny, solid, heavy and comforting as a Colt Model 1873. O, and who could miss Dan Sickles? He's the one-legged general with the scowl and the moustache whose telegrams to four Southern states gained our candidate the victory even after he'd conceded. May the best trickster win! Long have they pass'd, so why can't we finally count ourselves permanently pacified? They say he's going to pull our troops out of the South. I say a standing army's un-American. The colonel's old enough to believe anything; I won't pick on him--but let the fools out West take care of themselves. We took care of our own Indians. We did what we had to and went home.-- Howbeit, our President-elect, who's ever more grandly put together by the instant, I do confess, swore so sweetly upon his Bible just now that I fell in love with Government all over again! He's a walking compromise, by GOD; he won two days ago by a single electoral vote. It might have been the most American campaign ever. The dark horse from Ohio came in at an easy canter on the homestretch, beating the favorite of the field by a full length and a half. I read that in the Louisville Courier-Journal last June. And now that dark horse is President! Praise the LORD and Dan Sickles. I'll never forget how the dark horse (a dark brown hackney, let's say) glared warily above his long beard, while William Wheeler, his Vice President, looked ever so sad, sulky and handsome. As for the opponents, Tilden was a chubby-cheeked, glib smiler, and his Vice President, Hendricks, appeared to be a Puritan with a secret. Even though Tilden's machine harvested two hundred and fifty-one thousand more votes than ours, long have they pass'd, because after the dark horse cantered sadly back to his paddock where Lemonade Lucy waited with the currying-brush, Dan Sickles, expert in gelding thoroughbreds, sent a basketful of late-night telegrams, with horse-racing tips attached. Republicans in South Carolina kept out the Democrats by force and refused to tally the returns of two counties. Hurrah! Louisiana would have gone for Hayes anyhow, I hear. Florida would have gone for Tilden. Had Oregon recognized her one Democratic elector, Tilden would have nibbled up that vote. But then I guess we might have annexed more Indians and turned them Republican! If this is too complicated for you, just remember a dark horse from Ohio, then the Electoral Commission's decision to let sleeping dogs lie, followed by the Democratic filibuster, the recess, Stevens's midnight call upon Bradley, who then decided not to count the Democratic votes, although Stevens might never have visited Bradley, who likewise might not have sold his influence, since some events do occur purely as a result of prayer; and we all lived happily ever after, thanks to the equivocal "Wormley Agreements." Land of the Pilgrims' pride, land where wet greenbacks dried; from every mountain side let freedom ring. And don't say freedom comes free. The Texas & Pacific Railroad expects a handout now. Tennessee had better get the Postmaster Generalship. The South will endure another Republican administration, but no more Northern despotism, if you please! That's why they made the dark horse whinny out a promise to bring our soldiers home from Louisiana and South Carolina; you can wager your last dollar he won't stop there. And you know what, brother? It's all the same to me how they do things in Louisiana. We won the war and now let's go home.* Our President-elect surely is a treat. Last year he was as green as a soldier's coffee beans. Now I can almost remember his name: Rutherford B. Hayes.-- Another wounded war hero!-- He's going to be a one-termer, because compromisers can't please anybody. How could he ever approach Dan Sickles, who's so famous that he once granted himself the privilege of donating a bone from his amputated leg to a museum? All the same, I enjoy him. He makes sad allusion to the two distinct races whose peculiar relations to each other have brought upon us the deplorable complications and perplexities which exist in these States. The retired colonel shakes his weary head at that, and I throw him a wink, for we both know exactly what complications and which perplexities. Now he and I have something in common! For what do we care about that other race? Didn't we bleed enough for them? I lost my son at Chancellorsville. Yes, sir. I keep his tintype right here in my pocket. That's Elias when he was sixteen. His chin takes after mine, but his eyes favor his mother's. He's one of thousands who paid for General Howard's negligence. My wife's never been the same. Some folks blame Hooker, but I say Howard should have done more than send out a handful of GODd---- d pickets. And now the man's a brigadier general. I used to get apopletic on the subject of Howard, but, you know, long have they pass'd, so let 'em rot alone in their unmarked graves. Actually, I guess they mean to give them decent monuments now, or so I've heard. I rode out there in '67, just to try to understand that battle with my eyes, and a one-legged fellow said to me: Here's where the Secceshes came bursting through. We had no warning until dozens of deer rushed out from the trees. Our boys were stretched out along the Plank Road and the Orange Turnpike, down there . . .-- Well, then we got friendly. I showed him Elias's tintype and he showed me his stump. We agreed: Nobody could have held that line. Stonewall Jackson took his fatal wound just past that ruined chimney, they say. I wish I could have seen that villain go down! And Howard's tent was up there, and him with his nose in a hymnal most likely. He faced most of our guns south--as if the enemy couldn't go around! That wasn't enough; he also gave away a brigade to Dan Sickles. They should have court-martialed him. I understand he retreated to that cemetery on the hill. Nobody can say where Elias fell, of course. I couldn't find any of his comrades. He kept to himself, that boy; he didn't make friends easily, not that people had anything against him, either. He was two days short of his nineteenth birthday. I guarantee that he didn't have much use for our Christian General. In one letter he wrote us, he put down that in Howard's hearing you couldn't say a word against the niggers. The way I look at it, when the Government calls on you to shed your blood, you've earned the right to speak your mind. And when you're forbidden to call a man tyrant, doesn't that make him one? Elias saw an officer drummed right out of the Army just for disagreeing with the idea of Emancipation. Don't mistake me; I wouldn't oppose it myself; I just don't trouble my appetite about it. Let the President-elect take care of his two distinct races; niggers are citizens now in all thirty-eight states of this Union; well, that's hardly my lookout; I don't see many niggers in Connecticut. (Just the other day, that old Walt Whitman remarked to me: I can myself almost remember negro slaves in New York State, as my grandfather and great-grandfather own'd a number.) Well, that General Howard's just crazy for darkies, apparently. Now it's come out that he embezzled Government funds on their behalf. And there's the real reason I'm in favor of shrinking down the Army: I want Howard cashiered. That won't bring Elias back, but perhaps it'll give me satisfaction. And Rutherford B. Hayes stands (if he stands for anything) for convivial contraction. To hell with war-dreams new and old; out with Howard! Just as in the Buffalo Country, so I hear, Crows will pull Dakota corpses off their tree-platforms and explode their guns right up against them, so I aim to blow up all my old sadnesses if I can, and live forever free from corpses. Therefore, my fellow Americans, even though I was a Tilden man, and Tilden got robbed, I'll sit here grinning and clapping all the way to the evening adjournment, the Congressmen flashing away on their dark horses, the dome of the Capitol shining overhead like a half-moon. WILLIAM THE BLIND. Washington, D.C., 1877. GRASS-TEXT II And so the President-elect strides into the Senate chamber to say: The permanent pacification, as sharp and straight as a train's shadow, of the country, just as a brave man goes ahead to mark quicksand with sharpened poles so that Posterity can safely ford the river, upon such principles and by such measures as will secure the complete protection of all its citizens, even the ones at the Old Market in Saint Louis, in the free enjoyment of all their constitutional rights, O, don't remind me, is now the one subject in our public affairs, which all thoughtful and patriotic citizens regard as of supreme importance. What these principles are I don't remember (the colonel ought to, since he's a distinguished Indian fighter); as for the measures, let's call them simply continual and energetic. Hurrah for seven American dreams! So let us fall asleep (ain't our President sominiferous?) and dream to death the golden-grassed camas prairies out West, so that we can pacify them, permanently, and upon such principles, & c, & c. Can we get the job done before the railroads strike? Quickly, reader, flitter westward with me, crossing the Little Missouri and then riding up along Crazy Woman's Fork of the Powder River; speed west through the Indian Territory, where we're already tightening the noose; ride super-westerly to the Arizona Territory, where we plant our corn with crowbars and (until General Howard's proudest peacemaking triumph) hunker down against Apache raids; thence to California, where we've just now whipped the Modocs; and so to good old Oregon, where pacification continues its progress, one case being explained by General Howard himself in terms as smooth as the mouth of a worn-out mare: The "Report of Civil and Military Commission to Washington Territory and the Northwest" will be found published in the "Eighth Annual Report, Board of Indian Commisioners, 1876," commencing page 43. It will be seen by this report that the Commission failed to settle the difficulties with the non-treaty Nez Perces but made certain definite recommendations. WILLIAM THE BLIND. Portland, Oregon, Department of the Columbia, 1878. The Indian service now devolving upon our army is necessarily arduous and unpopular. It involves a work that our peace-loving people think might be avoided. But fair-minded Americans cannot ignore, or fail to commend, the ability, industry, and perpetual sacrifices of their soldiers. BRIGADIER GENERAL OLIVER OTIS HOWARD, U.S.A., 1881 AND THE WATER AND THE GRASS and the water and the grass and the white ripples on grey water, and white clouds among grey clouds and the wrinkled young silver skin of the water and life-bright lichens on black branches and on the still, bright river, a man and woman slowly poling their log canoe and the spiderweb (golden-green seed-wings already growing above the darker leaves of maples this early in August) and the smell of evergreens and the living grass, then the dying grass, brighter than an Indian basket NESPELEM 2009 and at the foot of Chief Joseph's grave, in the crotch of another tree, a wilting feather, rags, and a twisted white stick dangling PLENTY OF INDIANS ALL OVER THE COUNTRY 1876-2009 . . . and then a pencilled manuscript on crumbling sheets in a beige folder, Blurick 1876, from between two of whose pages a yellow photograph sidled out like a flat-bellied cockroach. That was how I met the gaze of a fine half-breed girl who is dirt and bones now, with maybe a hank of grey or black hair to keep her company, or even a shred of moldy buckskin like a crumbling sheet in a beige folder, never mind a shard of bone breastplate trampled and lost like our memory of Blurick, on earth as it is in Heaven; come to me, girl, I'll be d----d if you won't do as I say! Don't look at me like that, or I'll . . .-- I beg you, sir! No, please don't. I swear my heart is very good; there is not a bit of bad in it.-- But none of that was written anywhere. Yellow locusts danced between the rocks. Even though the grass is dying we will do our best to find you a good reservation. But first we will do very well to establish ourselves. Nobody can be expected to put savages ahead of people. Get away from here or I'll put a bullet in you, I say! Why won't she look at me now? By GOD, she puts me in mind of White Bird hiding his face behind an eagle's wing! And then there's Joseph, whose eyes absorb my vision without giving me anything . . . In the Grande Ronde Valley (aspen leaves shimmering like coins, and distant cloud-shadowed pines blue like water) and then farther down that snaking creek-cañon of reddish-brown rock cutting deep into the yellow grass, way down in Wallowa, there used to be friendly or at least equivocal Nez Perce families some of whom spoke a kind of primitive English, called Chinook, and even helped us, more or less, back in 1853 or thereabouts, in the days when we read Horn's Guide and shop foremen still wore silk coats; Blurick's first wife lived above the grass, and even our tramps and socialists hesitated to go on strike--good years, one might suppose, but the cholera and the malaria were playing hide-and-seek in our American river towns. Poor Mrs. Blurick! Had her constitution possessed a trifle more "sand," she'd be a hundred and eighty-one years old to-day, in which case her husband might never have left home. He'd already disinterested himself in Nez Perces once he learned that they weren't really Pierced-Noses; don't ask me how they got their name. They were fine riders; I'll give them that. Some made fair Army scouts against other Indians. They were confiding, interesting, bewildering, intractable, ungrateful. Roaming Indians, we called them. In the end they declined to avail themselves of the advantages offered for their improvement. I'll grant that they themselves requested the Good Book--or, as they named it, the Book of Light. Reverend Spalding's log house, and the fruit trees of Lapwai, and all those Nez Perce farms of vegetables and corn made for a pretty picture, which might as well have been painted on the stage curtain of an opera house; presently it would split down the middle and withdraw into the walls, revealing the real entertainment. When we found gold in their country, Chief Joseph's father, who I am sorry to say had turned apostate, throwing down the Book of Light, tearing up the treaty that dispossessed him, then erecting a Dead Line of poles around Wallowa; and Old White Bird, who always waited before he spoke, both tried to keep us out (Old Looking-Glass was more politic), but we proved that it would profit them to oblige us. Old Joseph demanded: What is your law? We replied that he'd figure it out! We'd already dragged a previous treaty out of them, after the Cayuse War and before the final Rogue River War. Generally speaking, the first treaty with any nation of Indians goes down pretty easy, before we bind them to their promises and get out of ours. They still held a good piece of Northwest, as explained by the Indian Superintendent: The Nez Perces Reservation is an immense tract of six thousand square miles, a territory far larger than the States of California and Rhode Island united. But just then, as I was saying, we saw color in the quartz--bright yellow like a buffalo calf!--after which how could a just (and justly undermanned) Government exclude the miners? As for the rest of us, the railroad promised: Your prairie farm will be a savings bank. The Nez Perces accommodated themselves, or not. The descendants of those who signed the treaty and obediently Christianized themselves still dwell around Lapwai, even in this twenty-first century of ours. As for the others, such as Old Joseph, Old White Bird and the other malcontents, we could rely on their presence there in and out of the remnants of their allotment, right up until the summer of 1877; they made good neighbors throughout those seventy-two American years from when Captains Lewis and Clark first discovered their existence; right on through and beyond George Catlin's map of 1833, which is as elegant after its fashion as the crosses, diamonds and angular hourglasses of Sioux horse-beadwork; for across its wide white latitudes, horses and buffalo still run nearly wild across the golden grass through which the Columbia winds west by southwest to the Pacific, meeting Chinook Indians at its end, and before them, the Chilts; and in the upriver direction, after a blankness extending considerably east by northeast our voyage, the Flatheads, whom we'll soon pull in, because (as General Howard once explained to me) the partner of the player winning the first trick gathers the tricks for that deal. Futurity grins like the grass-skinned gape of a Nez Perce sweathouse, whose ears are interlaced poles--but from here to there will be awhile yet; as long as we camp here, the trail to there remains as long as the mummy-wrapped braids of that Brule Sioux chief Spotted Tail, as far as General Howard's pursuit of Joseph, as high as the Americans' GOD and as dark as an Indian's eyes. Hence why not leave the future to itself? Catlin closes his eyes to it; the Nez Perces can scarcely see it, being dazzled, no doubt, by the ever-rising luminosity of our cause: twenty-two years remain before the railroad treaty at Walla-Walla (here comes another long snake of Nez Perce riders with feathers in their streaming hair, waving an American flag, ready to trade horses with us), eight more until the transaction they'll call the thief treaty and we'll name Necessity, then the last fourteen up to the war. Chief Joseph is unborn and General Howard three years old; don't imagine we're not on guard. In the vast triangle between the Columbia, the Multinomah and the Rocky Mountains, our mapmaker interrupts his whiteness with a discreet indication of the Snake Indians, to whom, they being enemies of our soon-to-be enemies the Blackfeet, we'll do the kindness of dealing with later, our oxen grazing for the night, and then our line of pale-tented wagons creeping forward. Southeast of that interesting tribe, not quite on the Multinomah, Catlin engraves our Nez Perces, rich in horse herds. So you see, getting at them is as convenient as palming the cards at euchre. Rush on to the seven-section map of Charles Preuss, published in the happy year 1846--thirty-one years of neighborliness left to go--and suggestively entitled TOPOGRAPHICAL MAP OF THE ROAD FROM MISSOURI TO OREGON. Congress prints ten thousand copies, so just maybe someone desires us to take that road (on which I will soon spy the torn beige canvas top of Blurick's wagon and its squeaking left front wheel): through the Buffalo Country and into the desert, until we come out into the bright river-breath at Farewell Bend, fording and ferrying west into Oregon, ascending the military road into orange grass swales and grey-green sagebrush (on the ridges the same dark green-grey cloud-shadows as at Little Big Horn), riding north-northwest past white outcroppings in the orange hills, crossing over a yellow-splashed ridge of orange grass and grey-lavender hills, approaching the bright yellow-green marsh-grass and yellow hill-horizons of the Grande Ronde country where Chief Joseph winters his horses along that high river resembling a late blue afternoon sky.-- Old Joseph is dead by now; he has left tall poles to mark the boundaries of his country; Young Joseph has sworn never to sell his grave. But in Montana our steamboats now ascend through the Crow, Blackfoot and Flathead zones all the way to Fort Benton. In season we'll ring them all in. Sherman to Grant, 1868: The chief use of the Peace Commission is to kill time which will do more to settle the Indians than anything we can do. Why do these tribes hide from us whatever they have, like a squaw covering up her camas baking-pit? Just as here in America we play whist for a triple stake--this much a trick, that much a game, and this much a rubber--so in our Indian wars we venture such and such upon a battle, then whatever upon the inevitable outcome, and finally GOD knows what upon our secrets in Washington. It will be seen by this report that the Commission failed to settle the difficulties with the non-treaty Nez Perces but made certain definite recommendations. -- Anyhow, why fight the Nez Perces? Haven't they been good Indians?-- Yes, but they're now in the way of our stock animals. Besides, it's not merely Wallowa they claim. To hear them tell it, they're lords of a million acres! (Certainly no right to the soil can be obtained before confirmation by the Senate.) Section VII, the best Preuss ever drew, stretches leftward, westward, from the Snake River or Lewis Fork of the Columbia (Blurick's party was now but two days eastward of here, having obtained the latest Indian news at Fort Hall, where our California-bound gold-seekers passed the hat to tip Captain Travis and the scouts, said farewell to the caravan, and took the lefthand road, some few of the ladies waving their handkerchiefs good-bye), flowing away from the kindness of Latter-day Saints, above a blankness entitled SNAKE INDIANS, then leftward along a curving flap of landscape which resembles meat bisected by veins and arteries and ending in dangling flaps of furry skin, westward and westward to the Powder River and GRAND FORD, across the narrow whiteness of BLUE MOUNTAINS--from whose vantages our aspiring ranchers may find it pleasant to dream northeast, watching how those silver-blue Wallowa peaks draw the storm-clouds in--then down the narrowing meat-flap around the Wallah-Wallah River to Fort Wallah-Wallah, above which, north of Longitude 118° and west of Latitude 46°, lies a kidney-shaped blankness entitled NEZ PERCÉ INDIANS, where the journey ends, so it must by definition be the goal. And these Nez Perces swore that their hearts were good; they swore it three times. Hence we were still their loving neighbors, treating them as befits allies of Americans. Underground germinated order #016026, a beige-orange cross-reference card in a wooden drawer in the Oregon Historical Society: Nez Perces, date unknown, location Idaho. A Nez Perce woman and a boy in pretty white man's clothes crouch by a rock wall, in stereo view, their faces foggily peering off into an alternate past, the woman long-braided, and . . . Don't glare at me with those Indian eyes! I don't know you or your child. Where have your horses grazed now? Where's the frontier? And where could they have gone, our medals from Oregon's several Indian Wars? There was plenty of Indians all over the Country, says Blurick, so mustn't there have been plenty of wars? Now in hot attics and institutional vaults of decidely sub-archival womblike moistness our campaign ribbons have turned the colors of cattails and yellow grass. Our gratefully recognized services to Oregon have broken into brittle bits in acidic folders. And our forced marches in the State of Montana, our vigilance, courage and intelligence; the battles we lost in Idaho and the natural advantages we improved in Washington, all of which places used to be Territories, and before that Indian forests and golden grass, no, please don't. The treaty of 1855 and the Nez Perce War of 1877, the hazy grey ridge to the south and black birds on the lake, well, the way I look at it, we will have done very well to save any scraps of those whatsoever. Blurick 1876, there's a shard of Oregon peacetime! And then that's as old fashioned as a plug hat. And at that time, runs Blurick's manuscript, we had 105 men able to handle a rifle. So with 105 of the old rimfire rifles and 32 wagons with families and men on horseback we left Kansas city with a man by the name of Travis or Captain Travis with 6 Scouts on Horseback that Sure Could Shoot. And on the front porch of his two-storey house, date 2002, location Portland, Oregon, former headquarters of the Department of the Columbia (Brigadier General O. O. Howard commanding), where streetcars, steel bridges and raspberries fight against the golden grass, tall, lean Mr. Thomas Robinson lights another fluent cigarette. The street is hot and the grass is brown. Tom squints. He enjoys his tobacco slowly. Then it's darkroom time again. The safelight is already active, its housing closed down to bloodshot near-blindness; and the tray siphon runs as quiet as the voice of the Crow squaw Kills-Good. Tom closes the door behind him. Beside the paper safe, instants of Indian war, fixed on slices of silvered glass, await replication. That's how they survive a trifle longer--and reveal their tones to us. Once Tom printed a plate that appeared to be solid black; he left it under his cold light for a day and a half, until the silver halides on the paper found out what hid there: Kwakiutls in canoes, paddling across some coastal bay. Back then, so I've heard, there were plenty of Indians all over the country, Comanches launching their final raids out of Mexico, Crows fighting Sioux and hunting buffalo, Cheyennes riding the high and low plains, Apaches defying us in the desert mountains (pour him another drink, and Doc will describe to you from head to toe the corpse of a white woman he once found violated in the dirt and bristling with their arrows, back when he served in Crook's army); Modocs pleading to be left alone on their lava beds (now they'll rise up), Flatheads even yet asserting that our shadows are our souls, Umatillas and Cayuses running loose, Nez Perces not entirely reduced to reason. Well, Tom can print several tribes at once; for don't think he's a mere one-enlarger man! A trifle sallow, like a first-stage fixing solution tinted with stop bath, he can expose near about as well as Doc could shoot. He guards the whites of Blurick's eyes, to keep them white. That's the mark of a fine art print. (Never mind if they're actually bloodshot.) He sights his grain focus magnifier on the many shining buttons on Colonel Miles's bearskin coat. He hunts shadows around Joseph's out-of-focus daughter--her name was Sound Of Running Feet--preserving tonal variation no matter what else has gone. He burns and dodges with both hands, all the while footpedaling his enlarger on and off like a one-man band; I have never seen as acrobatic a darkroom artist as Tom. When the wand whirls in his left hand and the hole-cut card shimmies in his right, Chief Joseph's face shines wanly greenish-grey on the easel at f/5.6, all tones reversed--and the timer beeps, Tom steps on the pedal, and Joseph goes dark. Now Tom repositions his tools, having nothing to go on but his miraculous positional memory, then toe-taps the pedal, so that the sad chief comes pallidly back, while the dodging wand now holds back the light from the gorget at his throat. Meanwhile Tom darkens the fringed edge of the Pendleton blanket in the dead photographer's studio. For years he has bought up the relics of deceased lensmen: their half-blind dusty old bellows cameras, their trays, tongs, enlargers, contact printers, and above all their negatives, some of which are glass plates whose scratched silver-black memories have begun to frill at the edges. Talk about dust and time! He blasts away dust with an isothetical air compressor. He keeps his fading color slides in freezers. Sheet film and roll film lurk in their private archival cabinets. Here's a daguerreotype of General Howard when he was young, clenching his brows, which are near about as low as General Sherman's, and in the background, Lincoln faces General McClellan in the stifling shade of a Sibley tent, both their foreheads branded with stripes of sun-glare.-- Tom, my friend, you'd better hoard that image beneath a marble slab.-- The timer chirps like a prairie dog, and another picture of Kills-Good practically prints itself; she's kneeling in the grass by her kettle, boiling buffalo bones for soup, while the Crow Agent poses behind her with his left fist on his hip. Howard's bunch never met her when they were chasing Joseph through Yellow Stone, but Looking-Glass must have been a friend of hers. Now for a glass plate portrait of Colonel Perry, whom our Nez Perces whipped at the Battle of White Bird Cañon. In his latest rubberbanded bundle of scratched tintypes, for which he paid bottom dollar at a Pendleton estate sale, Tom possesses, maybe, a likeness of Lieutenant Wilkinson, Howard's wily aide-de-camp, although I'm actually more curious to lay eyes on the late Lieutenant Theller. The sulphurous fumes of fixer, less sweet in the nostrils but sweeter on the tongue than the powder-cloud from a Sharps carbine, prevent the landscapes of this old war-dream from darkening away; long have they pass'd, hurrah, hurah, hurrah! When Tom dies, his treasures will be inherited by that ungrateful university whose darkroom became first a larder of janitorial supplies, banker's boxes and adding machine tapes, and then, once the plumbing leaked, a room used by nobody--for Tom's out of style now, like a buffalo hunter. He owns more silver halide glimpses, glances and stares than any one soul could ever take in, but he has catalogued them by the tens of thousands and he has printed thousands and there are some he knows very well. Had he time enough to live, he would print up the Nez Perce War as lovingly as Peopeo Tholekt drew his horses on the pages of old Boston ledgers, making the animals blue, yellow, grey or vermilion, carefully shading them every which way, and sometimes braiding their tails--but photochemicals are getting expensive, and Tom's collection is as mortal as all of us. When old negatives begin to perish, they sometimes give off a vinegar smell. Tom has to print those fast. In a year or two, the contrast will go; they may turn pink; then they fade away, like the ambrotype of the second Mrs. Blurick, who like her predecessor died young. A certain war haunts me like a certain creek, scarlet with alkali, which bleeds into the Powder River; and what if its glass plates deteriorate to nothing before Tom prints them? General Howard is its hero, Chief Joseph its villain; and Blurick figures in it only by way of Doc, who may be our greatest American ever. Just as we refrain from shooting buffalo when we are creeping up on Indians, so I won't nail Doc just yet in this book about the Nez Perces. Tom has already shown me a dozen portraits of Joseph, and I am hoping that he possesses at least one plate depicting Shooting Thunder, who was accomplished at whistling for elk through an elderberry stalk and who while spying out good horses to steal helped his war-friends murder a music teacher named Richard Dietrich in Mammoth, Wyoming, as the day dimmed and the summer of 1877 approached the end of its pale yellow straining. To the Nez Perce remained nearly a month of flight until Colonel Miles trapped them at Bear's Paw. (This Miles is likewise a great American. That's why he died a general.)-- First to spy the victim was White Thunder, better known by his nickname Yellow Wolf on account of a certain WYAKIN vision which he won as an adolescent in the Wallowa Mountains; his white necklace and long black locks had not yet been tonally reversed by any silver halide process; long have they pass'd. His mother Swan Woman was Joseph's first cousin; she dwelled on Looking-Glass's allotment until one dawn when the Bluecoats attacked it; as for his father Horse Blanket, he had aided the previous generation of Bluecoats in battle against Chief Kamiakun at Walla-Walla, and, when they looked to be overwhelmed, led them onto safe paths by night. Call them as grateful as leeches. Although his fury at Cut Arm* had by now refined itself such that whenever the Bostons saw his expression they were pretty sure that he must be a bad Indian, perhaps White Thunder would have let Richard Dietrich live, at least until all the Bostons' horses were stampeded off; but Shooting Thunder and Naked-Footed Bull, having shot some other Bostons so that the rest were hiding in the bushes, now converged in the hollow where the shadows were as dark as a smoked hide, and noticed this man standing in the doorway of the hotel as if he owned the right to exist exactly here, in considerable advance of the prairie schooners with their heavy freight, so that Naked-Footed Bull (whose hair was handsomely fixed with bone) therefore reminded White Thunder: My youngest brothers and my next-younger brother were not warriors. They and my sister were killed at Ground Squirrel Place (now Big Hole, formerly Ross's Hole--not marked on Colton's map), where dawn fog rises thicker and thicker from rocks as half-indistinct as buffalo dozing on their knees in mist: Bancroft Library, University of California, Berkeley. p E83.877.G1 1988 RESTRICTED. Gibbon, John (1827-1896). From where the sun now stands: a ms. of the Nez Percé war: Concealed by the thick timber of the mountains we succeeded in getting to the vicinity of Joseph's camp without being discovered, playing my high cards, while back on the Idaho side of Lo Lo, General Howard is still considering ladies' seal sets, muff and boa, reduced from eight to four dollars; once this campaign gets wound up he may order some for Lizzie, Bessie and Grace. Hold your fire when you see Joseph, because he may be keeping Mrs. Manuel-- Gonna whap that steel on down, o, LORD. Gonna whap that steel on down for the sake of our unborn children and for all our ladies in their dark bell skirts: See that tipi down there? Get it well ablaze. Montana Historical Society Archives. PAM 3339. A Vision of the "Big Hole," by John Gibbon, Colonel, 7th Infantry: By noon we top the main divide of all, The trail being fresh and plainly marked before, And march along through glades which gently fall Toward that spot we soon will dye with gore. Well, sir, I should say they'll show some fight. Although Richard Dietrich had taken no part in the Nez Perce War, he certainly proved convenient, neither wondering nor being wondered about, as if he, like our Indians themselves, had been created solely for the purpose of target practice; never mind that Heinmot Tooyalakekt (he who was called Joseph ) would have said, this is not how to show bravery; to Naked-Foot Bull he represented the object once seen which taints the memory forever, like Lieutenant Bradley's glimpse of that Sioux pony running free with a white man's blond scalp knotted to the bridle, or Mrs. Cowan's eternal Yellow Stone instant which comprises the cruelly grinning face of Strong Eagle, last of the Three Red Blankets, whose gunbarrel now spins with the magic levity of a compass needle toward her husband's forehead while another Indian yanks her back by her hair (she is screaming Kill me, kill me first! )--or Perry's first sight of the fallen Theller; or whatever it is that Major Shearer, Confederate States of America, might have discovered in the eyes of Mr. Squire's runaway nigger who now, in a Union tunic somewhat too large for him, comes charging straight this way with his bayonet out front, and even though he explodes that coon's head off his shoulders, Shearer will never now forget that even the lowest vilest darky can turn on you, just as if any worm could grow copperhead-fangs, which is why he hopes to club down lower races for the rest of his days, no matter how he disguises his hatred once the Lost Cause has terminated (but hallelujah! Rutherford B. Hayes has reeled in his nigger-loving Federal troops!); or Sturgis after Joseph made a fool of him in the mountains of Yellow Stone, or Howard after Chancellorsville, Randall after Red Spy's bunch began galloping toward him at Cottonwood (this savage who will kill me now seeing into my skeleton with a Dreamer's SATANic stare, as I wait for Colonel Perry to save me), White Thunder after the young men ran away from Cut Arm in Red Owl's country, so that White Thunder's war-dream was lost (afterward there will be apple trees around this battlefield, but the fruit will be poor, remaining hard almost up to the moment it rots), Trimble after Camas Meadows, Good Woman after Bear's Paw, Mason after the Modoc delegation assassinated General Canby, Wood after Red Heart's so-called trial --o, my heart and the way it sinks, almost softly, not unlike the fashion in the Big Hole Valley, where sagebrush prairies descend into bushy rivers and yellow-green grass-- or Lizzie at home in Portland with her mouth open and her hands over her eyes as she reads the first headline about White Bird Cañon, composing herself before Gracie leads the children in, dear GOD, O dear GOD, don't let them murder Otis!-- or Naked-Footed Bull taking aim from behind (better than hunting for an eagle's nest and bluish-white constellations of juniper berries on the splintered old tree, whose abyss-outstretched bough is thick with yellow moss): too late to save my sister (White Thunder running to fight with but one shell in his rifle, Rainbow already dead); my little brothers unable to die in battle like men-- these four I will never see again: Goose Maiden, Charcoal, Claw Necklace, Lone Crane, all wrapped in buffalo robes by my mother, buried by my mother and my uncle while we drove the Bluecoats up the hill, Goose Maiden, Charcoal, Claw Necklace, Lone Crane, left alone when we fled to the camp called Willows (we could not give them the song of Toohhoolhoolsote's hand bell, but we returned them to OUR MOTHER): Goose Maiden, Charcoal, Claw Necklace, Lone Crane, dug up, robbed, and dishonored by Cut Arm's scouts, the Lice-Eaters,* the Enemies who scalped them and sold their buffalo robes and my brothers' beautiful necklaces, all their brass bracelets and my sister's beaded pouch (they have scalped my sister): We shall paint ourselves with blood; that is how it happens, and one cannot by any means avoid it: Liyayaya! and Two Moons thinking to ride away with his woman to White Bird Cañon and stay out of trouble, Chief Joseph meaning all the time to go on the reservation, Ad Chapman (whom the People call Tsépmin ) interpreting everything to suit the general: Hurrah! Hurrah! which was why Naked-Footed Bull, who ever since the raids along the Chinook Salmon Water wore feathers and red flannel in his long hair, and who ever since the thief treaty (a child he was then) garnered hatreds as various as the colors of bead-pulls on his hempen pouch's strings, now said: It is exactly as if this man killed my brothers and sister. He is no Bluecoat, only a Boston. He is a white man, and will be a Bluecoat later to kill us. White Thunder, I am telling you three times! Shooting Thunder, what do you say? He wears good clothes-- I am a man; I am going to shoot him, at which they all happily angered themselves, made drunk by the POWER of their WYAKINS and their longings for the dead, flying up, their hearts spattering sparks: Brother, there are two of them in there. When you hear me shoot the other one, shoot this one. Watching their victim, then slowly turning his head in order to see farther into this war-friend's heart, Shooting Thunder remained still, neither listening nor looking for anything else and therefore evidently declining rather than merely waiting to raise his 1866 Winchester repeater, with which he was extremely accurate at killing animals; then Naked-Footed Bull, seeking not to make noise even with his breath, crawled forward alone through the dying grass, while the tall Boston whom he meant to kill, never imagining that he could be in the wrong by having embarked on this touristic jaunt to Yellow Stone, and thinking perhaps to-morrow to wander away from the hot springs into the winding cañon, then down through the silver-saged golden grass to the Gardiner River, which is striped with shallow whitewater (anytime forever he could explore these high shallow arroyos packed with scree), squinted straight at him, not seeing him, wiping the sweat out of his eyes with a fine blue bandana (I am repaying them all--avenging my brothers and comforting my sister, my sister Goose Maiden in her white dress of antelope skin), and when Naked-Footed Bull had taken good aim, his WYAKIN standing behind him, wearing the pale fangs and dark talons of an angry bear, he fired, winging Richard Dietrich in the arm, the red wound opening its mouth and the yellow-white bone smiling; before he could scream twice, Shooting Thunder blasted him in the belly, spilling his life all over, áhaha! --his intestines generous as if with ripening berries, his lips parting as if to vomit (we shall tell Red Spy how he sobbed like a baby: shlak, shlak! ) --although it actually might have been White Thunder who killed him; for the story's tellers alter the deeds of its principals. In that final oval portrait, Dietrich stares palely and sadly away, as if he already foresees his murder; his collar is white and high, and his arms have been folded across his chest, with a bedroll tucked up under them.-- He fell on his face, shláyayaya! Shooting Thunder sent a bullet longitudinally through his body. Then they murdered his friend Charles Kenck. Two other Bostons got away, running off the trail toward the beaver ponds, panting up the creek's cañon, gasping in the smell of tall grass while crows argued far above their little perils and their prayers which now flittered over the smoking white mineral deposits; giving up on the Army, these two Bostons finally froze in the shadows of the forest, in the place where the waterfall waves like the manes of many white horses, while White Thunder, Shooting Thunder and Naked-Footed Bull ran laughing into that house and carried away many wonderful clothes. When Lieutenant Doane's detachment found Dietrich's corpse, it was still warm. PLENTY OF INDIANS ALL OVER THE COUNTRY (CONTINUED) 1876-2009 Now that we have won the Nez Perce War (history has come to Oregon through Hellgate Toll), I can put by my dread throughout these hot summer Oregon river-days, and my woman rides with me between summerhouses along the river, showing me greenish-brown water, cattails, crows passing over the water; I show her ringnecked ducks; our days resemble white water from the necks of swans. There was plenty of Indians all over the Country, says Blurick, as indeed I would have expected, as 76 was the Year of the Custer Massacre--ten years now since the Comanches lassooed our soldiers and dragged them off to be hacked to death; four years since we drove out the Modocs (General Canby having explained: Listen to me, you Indians have got to come under the white man's laws ); one year remaining for our Nez Perces.-- Indian peacetime, Indian summer! My heart is very good. Nez Perces, date unknown, location Oregon. Indian territory has narrowed into a long needle of broken paper like a hair of yellow grass; the railroad's reached past Cheyenne. But Tom will keep the negatives safe. Richard Dietrich preserves himself in a freezer, even as the Nez Perce War fades forever: Oregon State Archives. Records of military departments, accession number 89A-12 (1847-1968), each Indian zone contracting, more or less as the wilting leaves of buffaloberries draw down against the stalk, fewer Dreamer women in their basket hats and another dark-and-tan cavalcade creaks up toward the Rockies, dreaming wearily, bravely, avidly or desperately about Oregon: The bold dragoon he has no care As he rides along with his uncombed hair. A flattish deep blue disk all rich with white clouds; that's Oregon, the Garden of the West. Colorado may be the newest but Oregon remains the most glamorous of our thirty-eight states: farthest from hideous old war-dreams. Blurick, well recollecting how the Union Pacific Railroad tried to sell him on the thriving fruit orchards of eastern Nebraska, has steeled himself against the persuasions of subsequent well-wishers; to his fellow citizens he remains a nullity, which is to say that he's dreamed his own Seven Dreams, thank you very much, and so he'll pick out his own d----d eighty acres. Oregon's clouds are so white, and they move so fast! Some clouds resemble the snowy mountains whose edges cut through them. Two thousand miles runs our Oregon Trail, with plenty of Indians all over the country. Thanks to the Silver Panic, Congress can't underwrite but half an Army nowadays, so every traveller must now perform his own Indian service. Doc says once we get to Farewell Bend we ought to be all right. Texas Pete nags the whole bunch to stay on the qui vive, but our celebrated Captain Travis, long may he ride, declines to lose time on another Indian scare. It's plain that the reds are withering; another generation and Progress will be safe. Over Blurick steals that gentle tipsiness of hope which animates even the canniest of our emigrants. One finds it, for instance, in those Northern schoolmarms who roll up their sleeves and head South in dark bell skirts, meaning to uplift new-freed negro children. Emigrants will do most anything to save their dreams. If you have ever observed the way that desperately thirsty horses will slide down a bluff on their haunches in order to reach water, you may achieve some comprehension of our American need for success, which certainly beats settling for the broken-down ordinariness between wars. Of all the Americans in this book, Blurick remains the most opaque. Few remember him; none think him horrible. Good-natured almost to General Howard's extent, dull (if never to himself), inoffensively avoiding intimacy with other travellers, for fear they might seek to talk him out of his course; no borrower, but an occasional watchful lender, he inhales the incense of splendor, which to more hardened souls manifests itself as the Big Dust. His war-dreams rarely return, and when they do, he consoles himself with Oregon. Custer's fall--the occupational hazard of detached columns--did buy us a troop increase, even if not right here, not to-day; and the buffalo industry is still booming almost as phosphorescently as the Presidential campaign of Rutherford B. Hayes. You can get a dollar fifteen for a fine-tanned bullskin, guaranteed Texas price. Blurick, who prior to now, in spite of dissatisfactions both invented and bequeathed and either way spreading as inevitably as cholera, never felt able to pass West or scarcely even to step out through his front door although he was getting older and older (his secret friend Mrs. Mack called him a born storekeeper), did study that industry and once halfway thought to become a hide man--but gave it up, on account of the murderous Indians. (One thing he learned in the war is giving things up.-- Is there another?) As for prospecting, McLaughlin and his bunch have now struck it rich on the Empire State, while Kean and Hall keep their hydraulic claim in full blast over on Gold Hill; but how many shining-eyed miners clear five cents a day and less in honor of their delusions--and what about claim-jumpers? The future of even a half-spent fellow such as Blurick appears (at least to Blurick) as wide open as the faro table at the Bella Union down in Cheyenne--although Blurick has never enjoyed gambling. One might ask just why in that case he bound himself to Captain Travis's bunch. The answer: He's not enjoying it. Anyhow, inability to feel pleasure is no excuse for not taking chances. California, for instance, remains a placer miner's favorite risk. But that miner won't have fun, except maybe by burning down a Chinese laundry. Blurick, even when he gets to feeling near as hopeful as all those emigrants bound for the Black Hills now that Sitting Bull has been driven off, won't have fun either. If family still defined him, he'd be one of those unemployed factory men with hungry children; they don't care about gold; they'll settle for a good ranch. The railroads have cut wages by another ten cents, and likewise the collieries, so let's ride West! Preferring modest returns to the likelihood of getting infringed on, several sad speculators more or less of Blurick's stripe have begun trolling the soda lakes round about Laramie, for what they will not say, trying to buy on credit, railing against Tildenopathy; these men pray for the Presidency of Rutherford B. Hayes. Young men with broad shoulders contemplate the silver mines of Nevada, no matter that they'll be toiling for others. As for Blurick, he buys a roll of flannel at the outfitting shop. What's he about? The short answer: Nothing but getting away from the fevers of Missouri. Every last lounger condescends to advise him where to go and whom to vote for. Since widowerhood and Secession, all he wishes--setting aside his desire to farm easy, or else succeed at business--is to smoke cigars and play cards (never for money) with his one-legged comrades. But presently he (who by DIVINE peculiarity preserved all his limbs) determines not to drag useless through life, unlike his younger brother Jesse, who actually appears a good five years older, having never been himself since Chancellorsville, and who, the last person on whom GOD should have called to deliver them, rode up on his bay mare one Tuesday morning in '74, with the tidings that their speculator Daddy's heart had failed deep in a boarded-up ribcage in a locked and darkened stateroom of the steamer for New Orleans, thereby producing an intestate condition, as so frequently occurs--for how many children even in this wicked generation grow up so monstrous as to nag faltering parents to sign their wills? That was miserable enough. Within the year, Jesse, whose most tenderly hoarded memento was the following lavender ticket: had become haunted by a monomania about the latest Presidential comedy, which you and I know better than to get exercised about (Charles Nordhoff to Rutherford B. Hayes: The darkies you'll have any how; the white Whigs are what you want to capture ), but Jesse, a Tilden man, could not relinquish the stolen election; he barely realized that he had lost his "dash" although the looking-glass should have informed him that he now resembled exactly what he was: a panting, used-up old officer with his sackcloth jacket cinched too tight; in '75 he'd thought to enrich himself by becoming an Indian Agent, but he never even learned not to write the Office of Indian Affairs upon a sheet of foolscap, and certainly not to use pale ink; so the primary issue over which his affectionate elder sibling had to worry was how to guard him safe before he broke to pieces, which was why he received the whole farm, two years and thirty-one days short of the happy morning when both brothers could have burned the mortgage papers--a morning put off, I am afraid, by Jesse's failure to take note of falling sorghum prices, as a result of which the stronger heir, Wittfield, who was nearly as charitable as he imagined but who closed his eyes to the other reason why he yearned to divest himself--the very impulse against which General Sherman had warned them all when the Army disbanded--soldiered on, so to speak, in the house built so long ago on his late mother-in-law's property, but now commenced to dream that Progress called him out West into the dreamy garden-lands of Oregon; he had to make sure of himself or else; and so it came to pass, although he appeared to have been careful all his years, especially in his marriage, that like LORD knows how many thousand others, finding himself obliged to walk away from a SHERIFF'S SALE. By virtue and authority of a special execution, issued from the office of the Clerk and of the Circuit Court of Saint Louis county, and to me directed, in favor of John R. Cunningham, and against Wittfield Blurick, I have levied upon and seized the following described real estate, to wit: Lots (3) and (4) of Indian Hill, and I will on WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 5th, 1876, between the hours of nine o'clock in the forenoon and five o'clock in the afternoon, at the East front of the Court-house, sell at public auction, for cash, to the highest bidder, he wandered, bitter and grieved, to be sure--in part because neither Jesse nor Jesse's children had troubled to appear--but also excited, past D. Crawford & Co. as if perhaps to purchase for Mrs. Mack, who would now either cut him off or demand an elopement, the best of their ladies' Siberian squirrel sets, reduced from eight dollars to four dollars fifty; and if in truth he might have been progressing toward the barroom, it was less to get drunk than to admire the chromos of Chinamen, Indians, Mexicans, negroes and other natives who posed so picturesquely all the way along the wall; when out from the doorway of the new "American Imperial" hotel strolled one of those bright new business men, probably en route to the barber shop to get shaved, who said to Blurick: Out of my way, d----d tramp! Blurick had never been called a tramp before. Thanks to this greeting (although he had received worse at the courthouse), he recommenced to consider CHEAP LANDS, first in the Great Southwest, which is to say, Little Rock, Arkansas, guaranteed no grasshoppers--but what if there were grasshoppers all the same? Jesse, as usual, purposed that he wait, this time on the grounds that within a couple of years one might be able to ride all the way West by railroad. Jesse's sons and daughters meanwhile moved away. Some bankrupts go North where sleety winds drive down prices, and fools go East into the spent lands where nothing happens, while adventurers with "sand" in them dare to become business men; as for Blurick, he for his part calculated that because it costs five hundred dollars to build a workingman's cottage in Chicago, or three dollars to make a dugout in Nebraska (half of that going for the window), the frugal man proceeds to Oregon, saving the price of the window (which might easily shatter on the trail). So he voted for Oregon: And though they may be poor, not a man shall be a slave, Shouting the battle-cry of freedom, and with slow deliberation (in time Doc would chaff him that he couldn't even pack near as good as a squaw) assembled his outfit--boxes of bran-packed bacon, coffee beans of course, the molasses jug filled right to the cork, flour in hundred-pound double-sacks, Gail Borden's evaporated milk, a single India rubber sack of sugar, just in case he ever received company--skimping on mules and buying four oxen instead, figuring that he could always eat one if need be. Captain Travis explained that at Grande Ronde the Nez Perces would trade fresh horses for our jaded animals--at no loss to themselves, you may be sure. Blurick preferred to stick to his oxen. I admit that he did carry (well pampered by straw in a wooden crate) a glass jug of acqua-regia, just in case he found occasion to try gold nuggets, but somehow he knew that he'd never be rich. Therein as I believe lay his strength; he never dreamed too far ahead. For armament he strapped on a bright new Colt pistol, of course, and Jesse, wishing to have done more, presented him with Daddy's Sharps 1859, the one with the all-brass furniture. After that he never saw Jesse again. There remained the handful of gold dollars in his secret sack, never mind how much they came to; had he not engaged himself in that Western dream, in order to find out what he truly expected of himself, he might have gone on believing, as do so many broken down citizens, that the history of America is the tallying of what we all once had in cash. He proceeded to Kansas City, then to the river and the grass, where Captain Travis, slow moving, high-collared, slender, bald and bearded, with shiny sad little eyes, teaches us how to caulk our wagon boxes with pitch and axle grease until they're as good as boats for the Platte crossing--which goes so easy that even Mrs. Graves's flour keeps dry, and we come up the other side into Indian country, and roll on, our ragged triple column of Bain wagons (all thirty-two of them) waxing five-wide, then waning to single file just like the tides with the Big Dust behind us, O my LORD, Americans on the move, seizing a peace which resembles war, and the calves bawling, half-dragged behind the wagons, our children quarrelling, playing Indian, reciting their lessons for Mother, following Doc whenever he allows them, gathering twigs or buffalo chips for to-night's fire; mountains unseen ahead, eleven more miles until camp, GOD willing; Brown and Baker, who sure didn't serve in the cavalry, for they can't ride with any "dash," reliving yesterday's round of whist; as our cavalcade swings rightward across the golden grass at Captain Travis's signal, the Ridge family falling out to save a wheel from working off their wagon, Doc to the right of me, galloping for fun, singing so proud--sunny sidewhiskered man! Ten more miles-- We ought to have a commissary wagon, just like the Army. Yeah? Who'd pay for it? And if you look at my map to-night you'll see it, due west of the West Fork of the Wallowa River . . . Why should gold be right there? Ain't no gold there. Well, Doc says . . . Even some of the oldest wells have been assayed at five to twelve hundred dollars a ton. Don't jawbone me, Travis. I'm not kidding you; we can get out of this. Forever? --Mrs. Johnson near about the size of a church, in her eighth month I should reckon, and her other young ones wearing her down: Jennie, Adaline, Oroville, George and Inka (I had that influenza near about three weeks ago and I just can't get rid of the headache right here, even after a teaspoon of calomel. But I feel fine. It's just that blessed headache, and when my little angels keep screeching--) and our fan-shaped advance guard of scouts lost somewhere ahead in their own dust, Brown and Baker recalling the amusements attendant to making officers give duplicate receipts during the Secession War, and the way we used to march by night with General Crook and take Pi-Utes by surprise, killing whomever we liked, the two Texes meanwhile discounting, although not utterly, the riches supposed to sleep in dull yellow crystals beneath the Black Hills, Doc cantering back to tease the cornhaired widow again, Blurick pulling his hat lower down his sunburned forehead, thinking on maybe to-morrow greasing his front wheels with pine tar and grateful that Captain Travis has not confined our ox-wagons to the rear (for it gets tedious to eat the neighbors' dust), and the ladies already praying hard over Mrs. Graves. Now this Blurick, so I discovered in the archives, keeps a barrel of whiskey in his wagon, and he's wise enough to keep it a more exclusive secret than the true mercy of GOD the Fountainhead. That's why Texas Red and Texas Pete (who may best be distinguished by the fact that Red is or was, depending on whether the Silver Panic will ever end, a master mechanic, while Pete, like Doc, is everything) both act like bellboys circling round a rich gent's valise. Could that barrel likewise pertain to the fact that our cornhaired widow, yes, the young, young widow from Missouri, will not meet his eye? Although temperance was not exactly unyielding in the late Mrs. Blurick, her bereaved spouse stands willing to wed a lady who leaves a man's booze alone. But must she leave him alone? This evening as she kneels in the golden grass, nourishing the fire beneath her bullet-shaped kettle hanging from its tripod, he walks over, just to stretch his legs and pass the time (better than playing "Pedro" for eggs with Pete), but the back of her neck flushes, and she gazes down into the fire, and now her mother-in-law returns from the creek with a fresh-rinsed piss bucket, so it's time to make tracks. Never mind those temperance hags anyhow; better to be friends with men who sure can shoot! Of these, Doc looks out for him most of all. Doc's a wise one, with the sunken eyes, matted hair and flowing beard of a Secession War graduate. He's already near to being a prominent citizen. Oregon's his meat; any day he's going to remove there and farm until he dies. Blurick, who believes in freedom without having seen it, considers investing a pinch of faith in Doc, who sure can shoot, knows the country, sings sweeter than a cricket and could tell any white man a thing or two about horses.-- Now, a fine Appaloosa that's broke in, Mr. Blurick, like one of them Nez Perce ponies, that's a treat to ride. And you know what? I'm a-tellin' you this because I've took a shine to you. What you got to know about an Appaloosa is . . . --Blurick, a pretty fair horseman himself, at least formerly, not that he ever galloped much, patiently attends, because it can't hurt to listen to any d----d thing no matter how much it cloys him. And to enter another traveller's protection, however rhetorical, is another kind of treat. Doc's got him a real Sharps buffalo rifle with double set triggers, whereas poor Blurick, what's he got but that old box-lock of his Daddy's? Long have they pass'd. Blurick needs education. Fortunately, Doc will teach him the easy way to skin a buffalo, if they ever find one. Even now it's not too late to become a hide man! The great herds linger out here in Indian country; even nowadays one may still gather buffalo bones for souvenirs just beyond the railroad platforms of Nebraska; there must be live critters in Montana at least. Furthermore, Doc now promises to show him the greatest d----d homestead in the State of Oregon. In fact Blurick has already been dreaming of a piece of Hood River, inaugurating orchards of pear, apple and peach, cheering himself with sunflowers, tall corn and maybe even a vineyard, not that he can afford all that, but beyond the pines and aspens he can nearly see Mount Hood's blue-grey pyramid shining with irregular polygons of snow to refresh him--O, if he had only done with this stinking desert! The drinking water's gone foul in every cask, and the river tastes of silt and sulphur. Mrs. Graves is septic, most likely dying and won't stop groaning. And at night out here, O GOD! But Captain Travis invites him for Prussian whist with the two Texes at a penny a point. Here's Brown and no Baker. The whole bunch sit by the fire, with other fellows looking on (each man's dream as heavy as the cartridge of a buffalo rifle), and there's Baker after all, balling up his fist against his hip, like a boy playing at Army heroes. Blurick loses and loses. Brown's for Tildenopathy, while Baker canvasses their hearts for Rutherford B. Hayes. Brown's against letting more foreigners in; how terrible it's getting with those German-language signs in Omaha! As for Baker, who's more middle of the road, he likes Germans all right, but not Irishmen, who steal away our jobs just like niggers. He used to work in a sugar refinery at Saint Louis; the wages descended until Americans couldn't afford to stay on; then they brought in the Germans. Hearing that, Blurick withdraws from politics, smiling shyly at the ground. Preserving himself from reciprocity's awful rule, he declines a tipple of Blackfoot rum under the young stars. Doc's shot an antelope, which sure relishes pretty good over the fire, not that it goes far for so many hungry souls. Baker offers to cut Blurick in on a section of the Umatilla country, at which Blurick gazes patiently at Brown. Captain Travis (no relation to the Travis at the Alamo) lets fly that the Trail's a cakewalk now--nothing like twentythirty years ago when you passed folks burying their friends near about every day. Blurick agrees it's not bad. In his wagon, Doc presently counter-explains that Travis was never anything more than a runaway squaw man from Hogeye, Texas, and the worst of it is the d----d sonofabitch left his three little half-breeds behind!--O my word, says Blurick.-- Then comes morning, and another tedious stretch of the Trail, Mrs. Graves fixing to pass on anytime now, poor lady; when will she kindly shut up and die? Captain Travis calls a halt. Now the sun turns as red as a Sioux blanket. Declining the pleasures of accordion-singing around the campfire, The men will cheer and the boys will shout, The ladies they will all turn out, like Mrs. Graves twitching her wrinkled cheeks as she cradles her traveller's Bible, and if they don't, boys, why, you can always diddle some squaw until she-- Cut it out. There's ladies present! I ain't seen none of those this entire trip. And that's why I say the Black Hills are bogus. Fool's gold! But east of the Willamette meridian, right here on this map-- What makes you so sure? Heard it from a man in Lewiston. A real true man, name of-- Blurick ties the canvas shut in order to drink in peace and withdraw from within his barrel of dried pinto beans that marriage guide on the mysteries of the sexual system, as incarnated in the blue-eyed cornhaired widow in her linsey dress with the grimy calico apron always over it and a whole universe inside it; but right then, just as if the whiskey had shouted out, here comes Doc. Thank the LORD that gives me time to re-secrete my marriage guide (O for that orphan girl at Hood River!), not that Doc would serve me with any morality warrant. His guest has come on purpose to talk him out of the selfsame Hood River, because he can see that Blurick's a man in a million.-- In the northeast section, boy, you won't believe it. I seen you unrolling Horn's map on your knee. Now listen. You can't trust Horn's map. That eastern section I'm talking about won't take second place to nothing, not for a d----d long time. They got great dirt. Throw a seed in, jump back and watch out! You can bank on that, Mr. Blurick. And some of the best summer growing climate I ever did see. The winter's not near as bad as they say. Any man who's got two balls can get by. They call it Wallowa up there, on account of there's a lot of buffalo wallows. When I was there, well, in point of fact I ain't never been quite there, but I know one who has, a fellow you can trust. You'll be close to the sky. Why, thank you, Mr. Blurick. Sure I'll drink that and an inch more. Say, do you carry any calomel? My hip is tormenting me. Never mind; just gimme more whiskey. Thank you; thank you. I always did love the open country. When I was a boy, Laramie was a hundred tents and you wouldn't believe how many horses. Up on the blockhouse wall they used to have a galloping horse, painted in Indian red. We'd see it every time we come through that gate. You have no GODd----d idea, Mr. Blurick, none at all. I get tears in my eyes when I recollect my little Pawnee pony. His name was Star. Those was fine times we had in those days. I had me some sweet years when I was a boy in Laramie. Now it's so wide a city you practically can't spit without them calling the law on you. There's nothing for me there. When I get rich, I'm going to plant me an orchard by a creek in Oregon. (Not at Hood River, though. I hope you heard me. That section's practically closed.) Ripe pears, O my LORD, and every morning the sound of water! No Big Dust, never again, Amen. And as many horses as any man can keep. Some hay acres, watered green and fenced off good. Pretty fine grazing there in Wallowa. Easy trails to winter pasture. Cows'll fatten fast. There's a big lake, too, as blue as a jewel. And up in them mountains back of the lake they got quartz with color in it. Silver and gold, gold and silver! What about you, Mr. Blurick? You want me to tell you more about the country out thataway? Because before all them Jews and jackasses hear about it, we got to seal it up good for ourselves. That rich green valley with all them mountains around it, I want it. Now listen: Even Travis don't know much about the place. He'll talk you to death about gold mines, but he ain't never been far off the trail from Grande Ronde. Just ask him straight out if he's ever laid eyes on Florence, where they even got Chinamen now. And Lewiston's got the river, sure, but all that country gets hotter than hell. That's why I prefer that high green old Wallowa Valley! Travis is speculatin' on lots around Lewiston when so far as I know that land ain't even been rightly platted. Them Nez Perces is still squatting on it. Who knows what our next President will do? Tilden's a Copperhead; Hayes sweeps up votes from niggers. And Travis, he calls hisself captain but he ain't got no better right than me. I don't intend to go on scouting for him much longer. What call does that squaw man got telling me what to do? An hour past dawn they are rolling toward Oregon. Five weeks yet, says Travis, who in the morning sunlight appears older than usual as he closes one eye in the saddle, nodding his head and mouthing the words of a hymn. Blurick worries about his axletree. Then the cornhaired widow casts her smile, which Blurick catches, thinking to himself: I sure ought to be thankful. Brown implies to Baker that the daily deeds of Captain Travis's six scouts, Doc's especially, compare in some sense to the Indian service of our dedicated cavalry and infantry. Mrs. Graves is screaming in Mrs. Johnson's wagon. Why didn't she take the railroad? Doc explains to Blackie about the bullet trick with horses. Blurick scratches himself through his woolen Army shirt: My LORD, what's biting me? I need more patience. Mrs. Barton must have more money than Mrs. Wilcox, since she is carrying cooking spices ordered all the way from the A&P in New York. Blurick offers to tune up her harness gear to-night. As for her pustulent dray, well, Blurick used to know more about matters equestrian, but after the Great Horse Plague of '71, when a quarter of those animals died throughout our United States, he decided to know less, and in this has succeeded pretty well, so Doc's the one to call on. Doc paints the sores with good white lead and says: No, ma'am, you don't owe me nothin.'-- In the hottest time of the afternoon they halt to relieve the horses, and the two Texes stretch out in the dirt with ankles crossed, pillowing their heads on their saddles not unlike real cavalrymen; while Blurick (his eyes stinging with alkali) ducks behind his flap to admire the illustrations in the marriage guide, O my LORD. In Hood River he'll snake out some logs to build himself a cabin; he'll leave room to squeeze a woman and children inside. My neck's getting sore. Where's our bivouac to-night? He prays for Jesse and all the other folks back home in the States. He eats a spoonful of molasses. Then Travis sounds the move out, our scouts fanning ahead. Up on a butte a mounted Indian sits watching. Is that supposed to be a wonder of nature? At dusk when the wagons pull in and our two Texes ride out with four lucky men on flank watch (the sage-hills as grey as a Government blanket), Doc invites himself inside Blurick's wagon: Just a tipple, shaded by double canvas. Disinclined to play cards for money with any three sharpers in the grass, Blurick has accordingly sunk in the esteem of others (GOD-fearers excepted), for which reason he watches his own affairs ever more craftily; is or is not Doc my friend? What a wonder Mrs. Graves won't die! She reminds me of Mama; I don't know why. Just now he is spooning to-morrow's provisions from opened sacks into the various compartments of his mess chest, as Doc should have remembered--poor manners to inspect a man's food without his leave--actually, I'll wager he remembers pretty well; for Doc knows character just as he knows booze, which is why he advocates for the Presidency of Rutherford B. Hayes, who for all his manifest failings does at least promise to stand out of the way, so that our American business men (for instance, Brown and Baker) can accomplish what GOD set them down on earth for, and therefore knowing that gold can unite even with lead, although it then tends toward brittleness, Doc, watching Blurick drive his wagon, or when he needs to trudge powerfully yet uncomplainingly along, balding and broadshouldered, enormous in his mediocrity and therefore alluring in the utility he seems to promise, thinks to alloy his dream of Wallowa, into which no other soul has entered (although Blackie prays for admittance), with the careful strength of Blurick, in order to lighten the strain which has been galling him since last summer among the ponderous cottonwoods of Farewell Bend when the dream swooped down upon him, more shining than all the gold of Oro Fino (which I admit is nearly played out) and Florence, where J. M. Miller washed out a hundred dollars' worth of color in one afternoon: no, that rich green valley with mountains all around it, that's what I want: Wallowa, and the water and the grass (gold for sure in the Wallowa River, and if not, there's bound to be something worth getting) and the lake (I never cared about nothing before) and the sparkle on the lake, the end of the dark turquoise of it, with its evergreens sloping up away from it into the sky (that Dead Line of ten-foot lodgepoles all peeled by squaws and anchored in heaps of stone, to mark the boundary of Joseph's country); for gold in and of itself Doc cares nothing; it's pretty but useless, like a gangue mineral--good only for what it commands. But Blurick's the type for whom gold is an end as much as a means.-- Well, Blurick? gold will say, and Blurick must surely answer. The ghastly humidity of Farewell Bend, its midges, mosquitoes and fevers affect Doc no more than a mix of colors. Blurick's the sort (thinks Doc) who likewise won't be bothered by little impediments. Back in Laramie when there came floods, snows and scalpings, people used to say admiringly: Doc don't care! which while inaccurate was pragmatically true; and this, as Doc knew right away, is prime barefoot whiskey, which means undiluted. A man who keeps a barrel of that is a man in a million, a man who will take a chance on Wallowa. Yeah. Mighty refreshing in here, Mr. Blurick, Shouting the battle-cry of freedom, some ladies cooking frybread, Mr. Johnson jawboning with Captain Travis about Shoshonis (we'll soon be coming into their country): No, sir! They're near about as treacherous and cruel as them Confederate Bushwackers who shot my brother in the back-- Mrs. Johnson near her time, Blurick not yet quite as ragged as a frontiersman, the widow quizzing her daughter out of a bluebacked speller, Well, you just lay down four logs and post your claim in the center. That's good enough for Sioux country. And for Wallowa! --Travis holding the high hand at a penny a point (no, sir, that's not why Travis's business is down. Fact is, some families have took the train to Ogden, for fear of them wicked Indians), two long benches running down the sides, one to sleep on when Blurick feels like it and the other his dining-table and workbench, the floor in between heaped with sacks of varying emptinesses, horse-bells hanging from the hoops overhead, in case someone tries to make off with the whole outfit some dark night, as has happened before to others (but you're wrong, Pete; what the Modocs had was Spencer carbines), because the reason that J. C. Hearan suicided by taking chloroform and morphine in his boardinghouse on Christy Avenue was that some grifter ghosted away with his sack of dollars, preventing him from setting out for the Garden of the West; this story echoed and wobbled through every crooked distillery in Saint Louis, but since Blurick (already a widower) was as I will kindly say personally acquainted with the landlady Mrs. Mack, he knew what was true and even dreamed it just like Doc dreamed Wallowa; therefore he will guard his possessions forever --but why Wallowa? One might as well ask why the last note of "Assembly" is blown four times!-- and after ridin' around all day keepin' watch for you all, I'm feelin' poorly.-- Blurick, who had been fixing to dream about the cornhaired widow from Missouri, refuses to argue it out.-- If everybody hit me up for a drink, then where would I be?-- Don't you worry about that, Mr. Blurick; I'll keep them others off. I know how to protect what's mine--at which point Doc rests his booted ankle on that special sack of sugar, in a manner dislikable to Blurick, whose dislikes matter less than he might imagine.-- And I'll tell you what! I'll make sure you get special treatment if them stinkin' reds attack. Who knows what them Blackfeet are up to? Or maybe Sitting Bull's broken out. Never mind; I'm gonna be right here, looking out for you! Mr. Blurick, do you get what I'm telling you? There's plenty of Indians all over this country, more than you can know. Never stop watching out. You remember that draw we passed by kind of quick this afternoon, that low holler with all the thick yellow grass growin' high as sin? That's one nasty place! I seen it a-crawlin' with 'em. They're real good at hidin' and sneakin'. They keep quiet; they play dead. Even when you shoot one, he don't hardly moan. He just lays there, fixin' on you and hopin' to get you. Last year we was campin' over there where that burned patch is almost growed over. I told Travis he was a fool, but he said the ladies was tired. Well, when the moon got low, sure enough, d----d reds come sneakin' out and tried for our horses-- Plenty of Indians, and now Blurick, looking up between his wagon-ribs, spies shadows dancing behind the cloth! Just crows, he reckons. Or big old fat wicked vultures, or eagles. Ain't there plenty of eagles out here? Oregon blows cool and sweet in Blurick's mind: I sure got the Western Fever! He hates Doc, but needs him: Praise GOD the greedy bastard's off hunting! Could I whip him? If put in that position, I'd have to try. But I know his kind: He fights ugly, probably carries a spikeneedle like some treacherous Injun, and I'll bet he bites like a dog. If I have to whip him I'd better kill him. Can't manage that but by shooting him in the back, which I'll never do. So, dear LORD, help us stay friends at least until the Columbia.-- Unlocking the bench again to get at his whiskey, wondering whether the ladies have kept enough shortening to bake more pies on our next lay-by day, mulling over the cornhaired widow's allurements, positively disinterested in the conditions of the Wallowa section; longing to arrive at Farewell Bend, where his dream-Territory commences, he now unsheaths the future, hoping his money will hold out better than J. C. Hearan's, so that he can buy his sweet years in Oregon, maybe marry some grateful hardworking orphan girl (since the cornhaired Missouri widow's deportment is commencing to remind him of the way his kerchiefed mother used to hold his youngest brother, the dead one whom she always favored, on the taut lap of her long brownish-black skirt, supporting the child's heavy head with both hands while he gazed up into her eyes, clutching her hair or playing with her earrings until she swung his hand away) and a livid haze of green between the straight and slender tree trunks and a vast shard of golden light amidst the evergreens of Oregon fixin' on you and hopin' to get you and the clean still mirror of the wide river (but behind Oregon's wall of trees, plenty of Indians in the country, O, you bet) and an orphan girl in neatly patched petticoats, an uncomplaining, hardworking sort who'd do anything to-- a sun-bleached quilt, a clean chamberpot under the bed and her yellow braids tied with calico ribbons --and although Doc means to get me excited to think about the way a squaw folds in her blanketed arms across her breast when a white man gazes at her, them reds will never do it for me-- and her eyes closed but her lashes trembling when he and her hope chest but even an orphan girl might be expensive. Now what you do, Blackie, when you get to the diggings and you make your strike, you make your amalgam of gold and quicksilver, and you hollow out a potato and bake it in your campfire all night. That draws the mercury out. In the morning you got yourself a bunch of pretty gold beads. All rightie, Doc. I can do that. 'Course you can. And Mr. Blurick's coming, too? For sure he is. I like him. Why? I don't know. And I can bring Fidelia? Why not? And we three, we'll be the first three white men? Nope. Have you ever been there in Wallowa? You must have been. Nope. Then who's there? Well, the Tulley brothers, they come into Wallowa soon as the Grande Ronde country dried up. Stockmen, Blackie, that's who they are. Don't know a thing about gold. Then Ward and McCormack, I don't know if they come in that same year or later on, maybe in '72. And Old Joseph said, boys, if a few hundred acres is all you want-- Doc? What is it now? Doc, am I gonna get rich? Depends on you, boy. Don't have nothin' to do with me. But it may well depend on where a fellow goes (not to mention when his war-dreams leave him alone). No matter what the Texes put forth, men are still striking color in the Black Hills. Wallowa's far more problematical; otherwise we would have taken it away from the reds before. Lewiston continues to be whorehouse and depot--as vice-ridden as Cheyenne--but so are San Francisco and any other number of cities unredeemed by Lemonade Lucy. The miners have rolled out; the grocers and bankers have moved in. On the bright side (says Blurick to himself), expenses are down. Not long since, a hundred pounds of flour cost ten dollars at Big Sandy and twenty-five at Fall River. Now an enterprising man can always jew the storekeepers down. The Trail's cheaper now, more civilized as Captain Travis likes to say and say again. But then why does Travis keep that Colt Navy pistol swinging between hip and thigh? Besides, shouldn't I save wherever I can? The Silver Panic may be GOD's punishment. Doc believes in gold. I never did. I can spend it but I can't dig it up. Nobody's going to do squat for a poor man. I could lose it all to-night, just like poor J. C. Hearan, accordingly unlocking the bench to get at his whiskey before it too runs away (besides, there's a mealy taste in my mouth) --and wishing Texas Pete and that pompous Mr. Donovan would shut up: . . . collapse of the Northern Pacific . . . Well, he tried to make a go of it selling Zell's Encyclopedia door to door. Where? Where the Wallowa meets the Grande Ronde. Likely that child died of diphtheria. And that d----d Blurick just sitting in there with both flaps down, drinking barefoot whiskey and doing nothing-- Yeah, that fool should be taught his manners-- After we ford the Snake-- If we can exchange some horses-- And Jay Cooke oughter be shot like an old horse. My sister-in-law's stock certificates-- while Captain Travis, whose quarter horse is not near as spirited as Doc's but considerably handsomer, now raises his round tanned face, grips the crupper, frowns out across the hills, then rides over to the other Tex. They watch something through their field-glasses. Well, then, when I saw them three purty squaws crossing that long coulee, I rode forward-- So then he stole a swingletree right off the d----d wagon and tried to sell it right back to Uncle Sam! Who wouldn't? And that's why he had to run away from the Army. No, Donovan, that was when Fiske & Hatch defaulted in New York . . .-- I mislike the way that darkness seems to be moving over there. If I don't get myself to sleep I'll be no good to-morrow, but right now I fairly dread to sleep! Why do Tex and Travis keep shifting round and round? There do seem to be plenty of Indians in this country. We'd all better keep our brightest lookout. Doc says he will but I will.-- And darkness swelters down. The wagons circle in. All around shine Indian fires on the grass-hills. Travis says the reds could attack to-night, or maybe to-morrow when we're strung out along the trail. When you hear them singing, you'd d----d well better get ready. So we do. And in the Blurick manuscript I, William the Blind, read: . . . we went through this battle without a scratch only the wagon shafts wore Hundreds of Arrows sticking in them . . . Captain Travis runs a real bright outfit. PRINTS FROM COMPARTMENT FOUR 1876-2009 There were still buffalo-hunting Indians in those days, and sometimes, although rarely, the Nez Perces traded with the Sioux, whom they would rather fight (Doc in Blurick's prairie schooner detailing the way that some Sioux warriors wear bone gorgets as elaborate as accordions--not that Blurick cares because anyhow there's plenty of Indians all over the country); and there were more buffalo than even Doc could count and Indians all over the country, if not quite so many as last year and yellow grass, and thousands of wagons rolling through (Doc calling the square dance while Baker played the violin); soon the tall narrow pyramid of black girders would ascend into being, with the metal shed halfway up it, and the wheel shaft rotating on the stamping mill; never mind the Ice-Burg Drive-In and Tony's Dutch Lunch; to get to that stage, we couldn't wait on President Hayes! Yessir, no, ma'am; we cleaned out that country. A scout named Doc on a fine Kentucky thoroughbred promised to kill the first Indian he saw and shot a squaw sitting on a log, but what happened next to Blurick's party I cannot say, nor do I even know where most of them settled, I hope in prime Oregon bottom land, so that the new Mrs. Blurick (so what if she ain't yellowhaired?) could go out on a morning and fill two flour sacks full of blackberries--but Blurick might for commercial reasons have chosen or been chosen by some other Western venue far from Hood River, way away from Wallowa, never mind Portland or Pendleton: I mean someplace where the hot dirt streets of narrow-peaked white houses dead-ended in cliff-walls hot and grey with scree, and nothing but evergreens served for handholds, Blurick, date unknown, location unknown; for I had to leave his manuscript, it being now nearly closing hour at the Historical Society, where Tom stood ready to inspect and explain some Indian photographs I had served myself out of varnish-perfumed archive drawers straight from the Country of Dying Grass. Once upon a time there were so many buffalo along the Oregon Trail that you might see them stampede by for two hours. And Indians, too, I have read that there were quite a number of those. Umatilla chief, Tom said. Not very good. Soft focus. Likely a dupe. From the next yellow print, Indian eyes looked into me.-- That starlike stamp on the reverse--W.A., you see--is Wesley Andrews. Wesley Andrews probably wasn't even alive when this picture was taken. You can tell by the flattened tonal scale that values are not really where they need to be. Oregon State Archives. Umatilla Indian War Claims Register, 1877-78. Locator 2/11/01/07, one volume, General Sheridan gently smoking his cigar, Captain Pollock, all spruced up, staring ahead with Sara and the children, pretending they have all been digging gold, although that should have been filed under Oregon State Archives. Nez Perce Indian War, 1877. No locator. Wood and Nanny, Wood and Theller's squaw, Wood and Sitka Khwan, Wood and Mrs. Ehrgott, silhouetted soldiers drawing up for inspection before General Howard's Sibley tent, dawn-gazing straight ahead, as wilderness breathes on them an inch beyond the picket-rope; Wilkinson in his Salvation Army uniform, Colonel and Mrs. Perry seated on their porch at Fort Lapwai, he in his parade attire, she in a long dark skirt, trying to smile through that little black dotted veil she was always wearing and then another print. Tom said: I recognize this. Bannock Indians. Azo paper is of course long discontinued now. You can still get it in grades one and four, but only if you order an enormous quantity. The fact that there are already three signatures stacked up means that it was old at the time it was printed. And here we have more exposures. This was already a thirty- or forty-year-old neg at the time. Again! he said sadly. Another copy. Blacks piled up, whites blocked out. Now, this has been here a long time. Compartment Four refers to a filing that was used from the 1890s to the 1930s. Overland journeys, Todd, that's fine. And this, I would be very skeptical. I would be doubtful that it's a Bannock Indian village as labeled. And of course! Look at W. Andrews, Washington! He stole the picture from someone somehow, and he just captioned it Bannock because he thought it would sell. When the Nez Perce War broke out, the Bannocks stayed loyally on our side, sitting with their children in the golden grass, before the dark cones of their grass-skinned tipis, their heads hanging down, out of sun- or camera-shyness, copyright Wesley Andrews, and then helping us hunt down Chief Joseph: in the next orange print, copyright registered in the name of that cunning time traveller Major Moorhouse, we see young braves in a line, safely mustered into the United States Army. One of General Howard's white scouts, dawn-addicted young Redington, canters up to the recently abandoned Nez Perce camp at Squaw Lake and finds a poor helpless old squaw lying on ratty robes. She shuts her eyes as if expecting a bullet but not wanting to see it come. She seemed rather disappointed when instead of shooting her I refilled her water-bottle . . . from a couple of shots I heard ten minutes later as I followed the trail down the creek, one of our wild Bannock scouts acceded to her wishes . . . Oregon State Archives. Bannock Indian War, 1878. No locator. Indian chief, yes, I recognize this picture, said Tom. I have seen a receipt dated 1936, five cents on wholesale, Benjamin Markham, who was one of Andrews's printers. The muddy shadows are not going to lend themselves to pictorial excellence. Wagon train scout, called "Doc." I can't exactly place him, but he looks familiar. Now, if you put the loupe right down on his breast pocket, you can make out that medallion he's wearing: DEMOCRATIC PARTY DIED OF TILDENOPATHY, 1876, IN THE 60TH YEAR OF ITS AGE. SHAMMY TILDEN, LET IT R.I.P. That dates this negative at right around the Centennial, so it should really be in Compartment Six. This Doc of yours, who looks like a mean bastard, was obviously a Hayes loyalist. Hayes or Tilden, what a choice! Here came a postcard of an Indian at a county fair. The way the Indian looked at me, I felt the same sad thrill as that summer night when the locomotive whistled in Lewiston, Idaho. And the summer clouds of Oregon rushed along in the window like the ghosts of wagon trains. Wallowa Lake, 1873. Copyright Major Moorhouse. Nez Perces, 1877, location Wyoming. Nez Perces, circa 1877, location Montana. They covered much ground that summer. More dupes, said Tom. The flattened tonal scale is the dead giveaway here. There are no whites. A platinotype presented us with a long slope of feather, then a bronze, faux-Roman Indian profile. That warrior knew the way to ford waterfalls. Tom said, still looking at the previous photograph: In the middle 1850s, an Army soldier had a camera and made salt prints. Let's see, Grand conseil, Composé de dix Chefs nez-percé . . . And this so-called "platinotype" uses corn starch emulsion to make the matte look. But Moorhouse shouldn't be in here. That's vault material. Oregon State Archives. Nez Perce Indian War, 1877. No locator. From what must have been an albumen print--for its tones were red and its highlights had yellowed to the hue of late afternoon summer strawfields in Umatilla, so brightly pale a gold as to be almost green (and it was foxed and speckled as if with tiny towns in the dips of the grassy land)--Chief Joseph stared out, his mouth clenched, his forehead steeply sloping back into the feather and the wave of frozen hair, his eyes squinting narrowly as he held his calumet high and steady for the lens of Major Moorhouse in 1901. Can you believe that he still hoped to go home to the paleness of the summer morning sky over Wallowa? His throat was encircled in bead-strings, and more beads made necklace-waves upon his chest. A plaid blanket hung from his waist. Dupe, said Tom. And this is Moorhouse's famous picture of the Cayuse Twins. As you see, things keep getting worse and worse. Nez Perce warriors. Wesley Andrews photo number . . . That's right. Now, pictures from The Dalles with the typewriter label stapled to the raw board, that's the May Collection. Almost all the good pictures were stolen. The negs don't exist. Corpse of Nez Perce squaw, 1877, location Big Hole, Montana Territory, signed by Major Moorhouse. Nez Perce prisoners, 1877, Tongue River Cantonment, Montana Territory. Nez Perce prisoners, 1878, Indian Territory. Nez Perces, 1877, location Idaho Territory. And right there in Idaho, tucked in among the high plains of orange grass, the grain silos like fat rockets of dull metal, the train tracks and farms, not far from that crazy old red barn with a cylindrical hay bale sticking out the window, stands William Foster's grave: which is to say, slain by Nez Perces. From time to time Cayuse portraits get misfiled under Nez Perce, said Tom. Oregon State Archives. Cayuse Indian War, 1847-50. Boxes 47-50. Locator 2/21/01/07, twenty-five cubic feet, and proper reverence and regard for our patriotic memories in the dry grass and sagebrush that chatters underfoot as my thoughts run toward Henry's Lake, faster than Sherman's telegraphed commands, and for crowds of mounted hunters, with their lances, bows and rifles projecting upward like masts at various tilts, and the triangular and quadrilateral zones of green, red, yellow and white on Crow Indian parfleche bags and glory, lustre and everything for Wallowa. As for this image of Walla Walla warriors, said Tom, I'm skeptical. The caption's been erased. In fact, I do recognize this image. This is a Nez Perce portrait, photographer unknown, stolen by Moorhouse: Oregon State Archives. Rogue River Indian War, 1855-56, when Ben Wright made Chetcoe Jennie strip naked while he horsewhipped her through the mud-streets of Port Orford: Take it off, d ---- n you! now your drawers, you stinking redskinned bitch-whore fucking filthy pig, I'll show you who you are, you savage, fucking stinking, fucking fucking G OD d ---- d animal whore . . .--for which she arranged his murder, cut out his heart and ate a piece, and then the Rogue River War started, No locator, while O. O. Howard, not yet a general, takes part in Seminole removal down in Florida. Oregon State Archives. Modoc Indian War campaign journal, 1873. Locator 2/21/07/04, one cubic foot, including the records of Perry, Theller, Trimble, Pollock and Mason, who will all fight Chief Joseph. Blurick was right; there were plenty of Indians all over the country. You might even say they were as plentiful as tobacco in Missouri.-- Now the Nez Perces, Captain Travis explained to Blurick, who just now, observing the stern fashion in which the widow's ten-year-old daughter parts her hair, finds good breeding and prudence in her squinting appraisal of him in the moment when, striding soberly back from the creek with the cooking pail clean and full, she catches her smooth-armed cornhaired mother (who's a considerably better looker than his foxy former landlady Mrs. Mack, not to mention the half-breed woman he used to meet behind the slaughter-house) slowing to cock a smile at him, yes, him, Mr. Wittfield Blurick, one time about thirty years back they come to us on the Powder River to warn about unfriendly Indians, but what the shit do I care about Indians thirty years gone when the widow's smiling at me? And the daughter, O my LORD! Anyhow, there's still quartz of all colors all over the country, but the color of her hair, O GOD: sweet black loam at the mouth of Oro Fino creek! So them tents at Lewiston-- And thousand-dollar claims on Rhodes Creek-- Sure, dreamer, back when Honest Abe was President. Well, Doc says-- Then why's he still riding for Travis like some hired greaser? How long before you found it out? About Doc? Who else? and that quartz lode six miles below the Clearwater Forks--picked over going on sixteen years now, but still not entirely played out-- and Florence (O, we always have a good time there!) and LORD knows where else, up in the Bitter Root country, where we've cleaned up nearly all the Flatheads. Doc's just talking out his ass. Ain't no gold in Wallowa. Nobody can stop us, either. Joseph'll do as he's bid-- And Blurick-- Now Preacher's paying her his addresses, GODd----n him for a tinhearted sonofabitch. And Brown's not interested but Baker might be. But I'll get her solid to myself. Bring her to my bosom. At least I hope I will. LORD, but this journey's wearing on me now! I'll sure never forget all this. My uncle was there, and just as you say, he never forgot it. You sure you don't want no tipple? I heard you call it Blackfoot rum. Well, it ain't that; it's the good stuff, the cornhaired widow hastening into the tall grass with something wrapped up in her basket; well, there she goes, and I'd better act like one of the boys if I don't want Travis against me because now he's frowning with his hand on his hip, expressing his best General Grant, as if that could impress me: Listen up, Blurick, you sly temperance dog: I smell yours on your breath! And you don't share, except with Doc. I'll stand you a taste and you stand me one, all right? All right. Now, the bad Indians up there, they call 'em Walla Wallas. And when Doctor Whitman had to hold the Walla Walla chief at gunpoint to keep the rest of those devils from murdering everybody, well, that night went on longer than ten GODd----d years, but finally our Nez Perces come riding in and turned the tables! I have to say they was all right, especially for Indians. Looking-Glass's Daddy was there, and so were Joseph's and White Bird's. All big chiefs. Now their sons got the same names. Crazy about blue beads even to-day, so that's what we give 'em. And gold in their country, maybe even as much as in the Black Hills. Time for them to stop roaming and settle down. Not many at all around the Hood River where you're fixin' to go, but when we roll into Grande Ronde you're bound to see some, mixing in with them Dreamers and river renegades. Nez Perces means pierced noses, but most of 'em, I would say, they leave their noses alone. When you see Nez Perces riding toward you, you can more or less trust 'em, so you don't want to shoot. I already told Doc, he shoots a Nez Perce and I'll knock his teeth out. But what I myself would do in Hood River, Mr. Blurick . . . I showed Tom a reddish-brown scene from a Pendleton Roundup, a horseback rider horned like a Viking chieftain, a line of Indians with beaver-fur mantles and feathers in their hands. This picture, I recognize the backdrop, said Tom. This is off the original neg. You can see the emulsion flaking off, all the troubles of being a first-class neg. Here's where you want to be, near Pendleton, the lovely low golden-grassed hills and gold mines somewhere (but they've shut Florence and Oro Fino down almost before Blurick got convinced) the sky as cloudless as new bluing on a Remington's rolling block (real fine weather in this section) and then, far away, a pale stripe of low grass bearing zones of blue-grey trees where even last year we could do pretty well cutting down poles from Indian scaffold burials for our campfires; then down into the valley of golden grass (my heart is good) where three yellow locomotives and many red container cars creep over the Umatilla River and into Pendleton, an amputated string of grainers by the white cylindrical towers of the Pendleton Flour Mill, creosote fumes rising up from the hot black railroad ballast, the single track running black and true along the base of a wide round hill of yellowish-white grass whose mostly deciduous trees, olive-green and dark reddish-green, shade the steep-roofed antique houses, tall and narrow, which look down across the gulley toward the grassy dirt-hills of the north, then inside the Pendleton Woolen Mills the following testimonial, illustrated with a portrait ostensibly taken by the camera of Major Moorhouse: Now there's a valley I heard tell of, said Doc; they call it Wallowa. And I ain't never been there, Mr. Blurick, but it's Heaven, is what they do say. They opened it up to settlement just lately. See, looky down here on this map. Due east of the southeast corner of Township Number One, then right here where the Wallowa flows into the Grande Ronde. It's only Nez Perces up that way. Tame Indians. The cavalry'll round 'em up next summer, probably. Multiple years of erasures, said Tom. What a mess this is, what a mess. I always ask for my prints to be full fine crop, he remarked then. Sometimes you recognize little details that might be on the edge of the plate. That's just what you need. So I looked through the loupe, focusing on July 1876, and followed Blurick up to the Snake River, and were I to more precisely delineate his insignificant trajectory in relation to those of the actual moving principals in our American story, I'd note that Colonel Miles, already called general, and advocate of flares, carrier pigeons and other modern methods of communication, is just now leading his column out of Fort Leavenworth in high hopes of liquidating Sitting Bull, subsequent to a stop at Fort Lincoln to re-condole with Mrs. Custer, who has not yet departed the ravening infancy of her widowhood; while General Terry (the hero of everything) and Colonel Gibbon (the hero of Big Hole) respectively take the Fifth Cavalry and the Twenty-second Infantry; so that General Sheridan, having demanded good news, sits smoking his cigar as tenderly as Rutherford B. Hayes handles Lemonade Lucy, and Miles's enemy, especially loathed for having made, unlike Miles, brigadier general, even attainted as he is (captured by the Secceshes) --I mean of course General Crook (who unfortunately has the President's ear)-- advances with the Fifth and the Fourth (and Crook merely despises Miles for a blustering bumpkin, whereas he outright hates Terry) and Chief Joseph, who is called Heinmot Tooyalakekt, flitters in and out of Wallowa, which is his home, but not his only home (each summer, we find him more in the way) while General O. O. Howard, this Dream's hero, with whom Crook shares the habit of abstinence from spirituous drink and whom Crook scorns for what he, a cynical humorist, prefers to interpret as pious humbuggery (for instance, standing before his opened Sibley tent, with a stick-cross high behind him, reading aloud from his Bible, with the soldiers keeping their slouch hats on until the prayer: his face seemed longer and almost delicate when he was younger), having commanded the Department of the Columbia for two years now, since the Modocs murdered Canby, stays in with Lizzie and the children at present, organizing Indian removal on paper: The twenty-fifth will mark Harry's seventh birthday already; he's behaving very well; Lizzie wishes him to receive a new pair of shoes. He's very fond of those lemon crackers which folks bring on the Oregon Trail; I wonder where I could find him some? Grace will doubtless bake some sweet or other to mark the occasion. Such an acomplished young woman she's become; it brings a lump to my throat! But why can't she keep her beaux? (Bessie will be delighted; she'll probably believe the party's for her.) And on his leave days Guy is always keen to keep up with Miles's movements on my map. I must admit to entertaining the highest hopes of that son. Chauncey and John are the ones I hardly know, LORD help me-- and then through the loupe I followed the Columbia all the way to the emulsion's flaking edge, up to Nespelem, where the hills are as soft as a moleskin shirt: WHERE YOU WANT TO BE 2009 and coming out of the wet forest of Elk Heights: CHERRIES EXIT 93 PERFECT PEACHES EXIT 93 then down into the golden grass and sagebrush a long green field between a dark ridge and the Valley Christian School THORP FRUIT AND ANTIQUES Nectarines $7.50 a box (and singing hymns on the prairie), haybales stacked in semicircular tents at RYEGRASS ELEV. 2555 then down the long yellow slope of desert, across the Columbia whose water-speech resembles the breath of one who speaks as she weeps and back up into the green and yellow fields which decorate themselves with high sprinklers CHERRIES FOR SALE CORN WATERMELONS MELONS nearly the same as what Looking-Glass's People used to grow, a mid-green potato field, the paler yellow-green of corn, as Doc says: See them deer running thataway? Must be water someways up that cañon, past stone walls to a high plain of yellow grass with rocks bursting through: ENTERING EUPHRATA (formerly called Indian Graves and before that known as Haupt Pah, which means Cottonwood Place ) Oasis Park Golf Fishing Derby We Buy Aluminum Cans Super Sweet Corn Supermatic Superwash WELCOME TO SOAP LAKE Shopping Art Museum To-day's Your Lucky Day! ROCKS FOR 2 MI (yes, two miles' worth of boulders ascending into the clouds) PUBLIC FISHING ROCKS FOR 5 1/2 MI MOTEL Pioneer Cemetery high plains, low clouds, islands in the long river (grass as long as Custer's blond hair), water and reeds running up to the edge of the scree long and sky-blue like Banks Lake, then on the edge of a desert lake a rich huddle of trees on the blocky cliff-steps, some with caves behind them: ENTERING ELECTRIC CITY ROCKS FOR SALE Coulee Playland on Banks Lake City Hall Grand Coulee Wild Life Parking and the steep clean sweep of the Grand Coulee Dam, which after seventy-five years continues as fresh as the latest industrial site then down to lost houses and trees in the midst of the desert: COLVILLE INDIAN RESERVATION 1.3 MILLION ACRES and coming down into the rain by the grey river with its brown rocks to pale golden grass with silver sagebrush bursting out of it: ENTERING ELMER CITY NESPELEM 12 and looking way down through the loupe into the silver and blue of the river and across the golden grass into the bushes, rickety black fences in the golden grass, then steep rock (what a mess this is, what a mess), and inscribed on a big rock: Shaw Fruit & Produce --I'm skeptical. The caption's been erased: sunflowers around a pickup truck, tiny houses painted different faded colors, then up into the rainclouds a black-topped jumble of grassy butte, a rock-tumulus shabby with scrub (whose lush seclusion reminds me of the cave in which Joseph might have been born) then entering Colville Indian Agency: Here's where you want to be-- lots of metal sheds, a trading post, a soccer field because THE CHURCHES OF NESPELEM WELCOME YOU and all of them assuredly stand ready to save us all from FIRE DANGER TODAY and from brush and bushy trees along the river's edge and possibly even from the Nespelem Tribal Longhouse where the end of the golden grass comes visible; and if one were to continue north into those thicker and lusher meadows beyond the glass plate's edge, one would start to see pines again; but then the cemetery would be diminishing in the auto's rearview mirror, so I reverse my gaze in order to search for Chief Joseph and find --my heart is good; my heart is grass; graves in the gravel and golden grass, multiple years of erasures and a worn and weathered pipe in the shape of a corseted female torso (Burial 52), a doll's head (Burial 93), a bifacial ovate knife from Burial 20 and a cowboy hat and glasses on a wooden cross from which a belt hangs, then the headstones of ever so many dead Indian Army and Navy men: There was plenty of Indians all over the Country, and on a hill of gravel, two stones in a metal cup, four pictures of James Dean, baskets, toy cars, dolls, plastic flowers, flags and pinwheels and a locust-serenaded solitary white cement monument, large and crumbling, unmarked (That's right. Almost all the good pictures were stolen. The negs don't exist.) and looking up through the sagebrush and into the clouds and looking down into the town spread sparsely out a long narrow valley of grass and turning away from the graves with their many tiny American flags and returning south into the arid grasslands (red shack in the grass, tan house in the pines HERITAGE MARKER AHEAD BELIEVE ON THE LORD (the Ketch Pen Tavern, gang signs), then down into the cool river shrubs, up into log cabin style homes in the sagebrush, a fence and a lawn, I meet a man with long flowing black hair, who kindly explains: Left, and right, and left, and left again to the other cemetery: Here's where you want to be, where at the head of a long and narrow bed of white gravel framed by greyly weathered wood, surrounded by kindred silver-brown wooden crosses and kept company by stones, I see it: a white marble column with his profile (made after a photo by Major Moorhouse, they say), a beaded gorget or bracelet hanging from an antler and the words --he had that Cayuse blood, remember? The blood of those who murdered the missionaries, dark-suited Spalding standing beneath a tree, calling down his GOD upon them as they sit quietly upon the grass; they must work, submit to Christian punishment, and pennies ringed round on the plinth for him whom his People called beyond which the ground curves down to the A-frame houses in the grass and the river, then the mountains and clouds looking back toward Wallowa, Wallowa: My heart is good-- Wallowa: There is no badness in it; here's where you want to be. WALLOWA 1906-1876 1 First there was a monument to , which the sculptor unchiseled into rough blankness; then he returned the borrowed photograph to Major Moorhouse, who (if it was he) passed the glass plate from right to left in half a dozen ruby-lit chemical baths, slid it into the film holder, loaded it in his camera, opened and closed the shutter, unfocused the lens, and turned away from Chief Joseph, whose gravelled hummock had slowly risen far away in Colville, Washington, in the place called Nespelem. And in Lewiston, Idaho, near the southwest corner of the Carnegie Library in Pioneer Park, the green grass was dimpled; only one part of the rim still stood. Once upon a time this had been a rifle pit. During the Nez Perce War, the terrified settlers tried to make themselves ready for anything. In later life their Indian nightmares would return as simple mortality; their younger children never understood even when Daddy told them three times. The general did not return, the volunteers kept quiet and the latest Americans made themselves ready for the World War. Now beneath a silver dollar moon the freight train bridge on the river below unmade itself, while the pit deepened because this other concavity in the gravel (too dry there even for yellow grass) began to rise. Beneath it, anti-time's gravity drew dust into mucky and bony coherence, returned what worms had stolen, rushed rotting flesh back onto the bone-frame (an owl crying out, the moon as pale as a new soldier marching into his first battle), then freshened dirt back into an old man's cold corpse, rebuilding the coffin around him until all was as good as new, and the gravediggers unspaded earth, raised Joseph on ropes while white men in cowboy hats sat all around, unhammered the Christmas box, laid him back in bed and stood round him, because the Americans were his friends! His eyes opened; his heart grew good. And how can I not wish the same for everyone in Colville? From glass plate negatives I have seen the way the Colville Indians used to trap salmon, naked, clubbing the shining fish, facing Kettle Falls. May they too breathe again. Joseph breathed, got well, his pigtails still as grey as the cones of a lodgepole pine but beginning to enrich themselves with black, renewed the smooth concealments of his angry grief even as blind old Wottolen won back his sight and forgot every badness bit by bit. Joseph hunted out his first winter with Lieutenant Wood's son Erskine, rejoined the Lapwai exiles (Welweyas the half-woman throwing off her man's clothes in joyous relief), inhaled again the lovely scent of Springtime's braids, returned to Good Woman's arms, reëntrained for the Indian Territory, gathering up reborn children there, reëmbarked for Leavenworth so that Springtime could disinter their baby, rode back to Bismarck, Tongue River and Bear's Paw where he unuttered the speech of surrender (which Lieutenant Wood and Ad Chapman accordingly unembellished), rejoined White Bird, welcomed Looking-Glass, Toohhoolhoolsote and Ollokot to life, helped them fight the Bluecoats who now unringed themselves; and with his wives, daughters and other ever-augmenting People rode backwards to Shallow Place, Camas Meadows, then Ground Squirrel Place, where Welweyas's mother came alive because Gibbon no longer surprised them (another happy negative), since Burning Coals agreed to lend his swift horses to our best men, and so back to Weippe, Cliff Place and then the Enemy River where Welweyas the half-woman flirted with Rainbow, back in total eleven or fifteen hundred miles, depending on how we count, to the Wallowa Valley, from which Joseph's enemies disappeared, unstitching the black goods employed at Lieutenant Theller's funeral, unloading Chapman's gun, rapidly filling in their gold mines, giving back fish to streams and treasures to graves, unbuilding towns, pulling up surveyors' stakes, while Looking-Glass returned to his country with all his trust in Bostons proved right, and Toohhoolhoolsote's People went roaming, even as Springtime, Fair Land, Cloudburst, Good Woman and Sound Of Running Feet planted camas bulbs for the People's impending past convenience, and shell-earrings shone in their long black hair. (The People had a word for the sound of sizzling hair, and another for the sound of broken bones falling down.) Told in this order, Joseph's story becomes happy. From bone-gravel and worm-grass I sought to assemble it, in the cool rich night, Labor Day night, now seventy-five degrees according to the neon clock-thermometer over First Bank; before dark the temperature had been nearly a hundred. On the moon, which a moment ago had offered a dark continent upon its yellow disk, a furry yellow ring disguised its own origins, like a story growing out of the ground. And I, William the Blind, who must myself soon go underground, have begun several stories in this way, ashes to ashes and dust to life; here I am still doing it with the same stubbornness exemplified by the flagpole in the rock before the courthouse (Anno Domini ), the four-faced clock above the bench on the courthouse lawn, the concrete arch in commemoration of , and inside this arch, in case one might not understand, an arch of words reads: , who drove the Nez Perce off this property. GENERAL O. O. HOWARD TO COMMANDING OFFICER, FORT WALLA WALLA, FEBRUARY 5, 1877: The Department Commander purposes, as early in the coming spring as practicable, to send a suitable force into the valley for a summer encampment, to remain until Joseph and his band leave in the autumn. Yes, sir. HEADQUARTERS, DEPARTMENT OF THE COLUMBIA. PORTLAND, OREGON, MARCH 1, 1877. Please correct impression in Walla Walla newspapers that campaign against Joseph has been ordered. Indians so informed may begin to strike scattered families. General O. O. Howard. Yes, sir. I walked the empty sidewalk past a FOR SALE sign. On West North Street, the dingy collars and pipes of Wade Rain Sprinkler Irrigation were not made any more appealing by the yellow-lit window that exposed them. Crossed American flags and an orange declaration of VACANCY at the Wilderness Inn Motel persuaded me of the settled ownership of this place.-- Multiple years of erasures, said Tom. On South River Street, I peered in through the white blinds of Valley Barber, and saw the two barber chairs, two brooms in the corner, the long counter, the whisks and brushes, and the mirror. Summary Report Blank 1962-1964 Community Improvement Program Club name(s): . . . Wallowa County Junior Women's Club. Long years of neglect had left the Indian National Cemetery an unkempt area of tall grass and weeds. A landscaping of the area was undertaken by our club. Inspired by these junior women, I too wish to landscape the Indian cemetery called Wallowa. So permit me, please, to reanimate General Howard, who is bearded, one-armed, sweaty-haired, sunken-eyed, a reliable Civil War man like Doc, almost pre-Raphaelite in appearance, a dreamer like me. Once time goes rightly he will become ever snowier of beard, face, hair and hand, with the right sleeve empty in his dark suit. In 1877 he is forty-nine. GOD bless you, general: George J. Mitchell Department of Special Collections and Archives, Bowdoin College Library. O. O. Howard papers: and your neat and almost childishly rounded script (General Sherman's resembles loops of wire) and the graceful twirls of your capital letter P, which resembles a smallish capital "J" whose top intersects the innermost loop of a spiral figure: Ever so many cubic feet and then Oregon State Archives. General Orders, 1847-1959, yellow now like autumn thistles. Locator 2/21/09/04, five cubic feet. Joseph's already envaulted here, I see, and likewise Toohhoolhoolsote. The land has always belonged to us, said Toohhoolhoolsote, who was renowned among the Dreamers like the smell of water at dusk in Wallowa and the golden grass and the shadows of the grass and his shadow lengthening on the rocks. I will not be afraid of Toohhoolhoolsote's shadow. He is dead and I am alive. He is dead. He is dead. 2 Come on and be a man, Mr. Blurick, says Doc. Take a chance on Wallowa. But Blurick still dreams of the Hood River, and someday a vineyard; licking his forefinger clean, then wiping it on his shirt, while Texas Pete winds a strip of rawhide around a mule's cracked hoof and the red sun oversees all our dark-skirted women kneeling down in the rushes to get water (no, that was back before Terry's nomination for major-general was confirmed. You forget that we'd already captured Fort Fisher. --Quit fighting the war, Travis!) and digging their cooking-trench two feet long, as Blurick remembers how three weeks ago, when the level was higher in his whiskey barrel and he felt less weary of Doc, who come to think of it resembles General Grant still more than Travis, doing up the hard, bearded look to perfection, although less sorrowfully than his model, who never got arrested for trading on a reservation without a license (neither did Doc, who rode out of Quapaw before the Modoc Agent served him any trouble), he used to drink and drink with that man until they both loved each other, because Doc for all his faults is one to learn from and a fine defender of any true friend; hence: Doc, where are you actually from? Laramie, I done told you. Can't you listen? A man don't like to be asked that question twice. So I'm telling you again, Laramie, and I expect you to hear me. O my good LORD, the horse I used to have there, Blurick! His name was Star. Tears in my eyes. Yep, I was right there in Laramie when Red Cloud walked right out of the council, after all we'd done for him, and I said to that Commissioner Taylor, who was never nothin' but a fawner, I said to him, mark my words, I said, you ain't heard the last of them Sioux, I said--and before the year was out, that red-dyed villain staged the Fetterman Massacre, and what I said to Commissioner Taylor, I said it again to General William Tecumseh fucking Sherman in '68, I said it straight to his face, because I'm telling you, Blurick, when Sherman and Terry rode into Laramie in '68-- I guess you've had enough. No. You gimme another drink right now. If I don't, what'll you do about it? You stay around me long enough and maybe you'll find out-- and while the cornhaired widow darns up a rent in Travis's spare shirt, that so-called Reverend Farris, whom for tolerance we call Preacher, prays in a shout, as he does each dawn and dusk, for the death of Sitting Bull, and the deliverance of our present and prospective United States from all SATANic reds, Blurick passes Brown's wagon, whose flap is open, and glimpsing the man bowed over something, hiding it and himself equally well beneath his slouch hat (what secret does he treasure there?), then forgetting Brown, leading his oxen round to the feed box in the back of the wagon, then picketing them to get what joy they can of dust and weeds, smiling vaguely round to remember his late wife Eliza Bell, whom he used to call Pet, and hopping onto his own spring seat, sipping his barefoot whiskey, his tongue as numbly metallic as if he has tasted an Oregon grape, wishes to reach some fort or tent city so that he can post off a two-center letter to his brother Jesse, who might be in trouble or dying; for Wittfield Blurick sure means to be good, and just like a mule turning a well-windlass, he pulls full wearily within the apparatus of hope, drawing up his burden bit by bit, bracing his legs, knowing that once this bucket comes up, somebody will empty it and cast it back down the hole for him to draw up again, again; such is life, Mama used to say, and she was right, but every mule on the wild side of half-broken years thirsts to pull free from that sort of life, running, fornicating, chewing low-hanging fruit, you name it; such is our fallen nature, O my LORD. Why on earth this inoffensive grifter (who never even got to Wallowa) should now become a lifelong mania of Doc's is a question comparable to the one I'd like to ask Colonel Perry, who hates his wife for no reason I ever saw, or Wood, who unaccountably tilts against the Army, Larry Ott, who just can't abide leaving Nez Perces aboveground, or Theller's vengeful widow--for he's neither hating nor hateful, this oldish half-ruined man sometimes dreaming of women and always calculating money and costs as he retraces his dreams upon Horn's map all the way past Fort Walla Walla down the Columbia to The Dalles, where the Indians must now be smoking salmon, and then OREGON CITY , Portland and the coast (as if he were going home to Mrs. Mack); his aunt's people will meet him in Oregon City, where the bosomy cornhaired young widow from Missouri evidently means to settle, not that it matters since she d----n never looks his way anymore! In Portland, Blurick might pick up something lucrative, in the buying and selling line; after all, Government dollars must be flowing there; it's the headquarters of the District of Columbia! Then he'll hotfoot it for Hood River. If Portland doesn't work out, it's Hood River for Blurick just the same, but maybe a smaller home without picture windows. Interrupting these projects, Doc, who knows the secret reason why Lincoln was killed (Wilkes Booth was a puppet of the niggers), now informs him gratis of the fashion in which certain loving Indian couples comb each other's hair and come early evening in Hood River, while I'm smoking a pipe on our front porch, she sets herself down so gentle in my lap, and I start combing her long blonde locks with an ivory comb while she's running her sweet fingers through my hair, D----d if I ain't seen it, Blurick! The way they touch each other's an abomination! because Doc, loving him like a true comrade, means to hold him back here where the NEZ PERCES or SAPTINS occupy an indefinite white grandness above the Salmon River Mountains, east of WALLA WALLA and west of . Adventure through Range No. 46 east; now you're coming into Wallowa. What in blazes do I care? Doc's sure wearing on me. I'd rather get shut of that fellow and plant my vineyard where Mount Hood crowns its blue-green forest ridge over the meadows, and below me my neighbors' farms (I'm not afraid of Doc), wrapped in golden grass and cherry trees and fronting the Hood River fast and dark: The L ORD your G OD is bringing you into a good land, a land of brooks of water, of fountains and springs, flowing forth in valleys and hills, a land of wheat and barley, so that Blurick, who now sits high, watching the other wagons roll on ahead of him, with Mrs. Graves's various traps upheaped behind him like the jetsam of a wrecked ship, will walk up the trail eating pears, all the way to the sweet tall purple lupines humming with bees all summer, the crisp shadow of a spruce branch-tip with every needle in place projected on a bleached white stump, and a cabin in sight of Mount Hood and (to hell & blazes with that haughty widow!) an orphan girl now already pregnant, blue mountains and green mountains below, where Doc, how many more miles to Farewell Bend? Doc? Soon's you get to Pendleton, Jerry Despain will board your horse on good hay and grain for fifty cents cash. Remember that name. What are you, his brother-in-law? Doc, why won't you answer me? He's set on that Hood River. Even though I tole him and tole him that all the best sections have been claimed and growed up tight-- Let him alone, Doc. Doc? There's a nigger in every woodpile. What's your nigger's name? Cut it out, Doc. I ain't scared of you. Blurick, if I was you I'd show him the business end of your Sharps-- Tell me what you got against Wallowa, Mr. Blurick. Tell me why you won't take a chance. I got this here dip compass that can find copper and nickel, and I'll teach you how to use it. You keep it. I aim to raise an orchard. Ain't I told you about the gold up there? Wallowa gold, Blurick! That's no lie. Richer than Alder Gulch. Wallowa's got everything. I s'pose it might. And blood-red salmon in Wallowa Lake, so many you can kill 'em by the dozen with clubs. Kill 'em yourself. Might be more gold in Wallowa than they've took out of even the Black Hills. Just dig up your color and buy your farm-- On Horn's map-- I already warned you against Horn's map, but you won't listen. I'll think on it. No. Say your piece against Wallowa right now. Plenty of Indians up that way. The map says NEZ PERCES. That's what it says. So it ain't easy till they get driven out. And you know mining is way down in north Idaho. Whenever Chinamen come in, it's all over. And I ain't seen no pictures of that country, neither, but I have seen a steel engraving, plain as the dickens, of a Hood River farm, and that's what I aim to get. And I read in a reliable Christian newspaper published down in Bethany, Virginia, that this same Hood River country flows with milk and honey. That's exactly the words they used and no mistake. You hear that, Captain Travis? This man's yellow. He's no better than a coward. Lay off him. CHRIST, why pick on an American when there's more'n enough Indians to fight? What's Indians got to do with it? When we reach Farewell Bend we'll need to-- Any man want to bet there ain't good Indians? You turning preacher in your old age? Let's not get off the track. Doc and Blurick are squaring up to fight, and there ain't no other fun around here. When we get to our nooning place-- Hell, Blurick won't fight. Then there won't be no quarrel. We'll see. When Doc says something, he don't never go back on it. Your oxen are holding up pretty good, Blurick. I see you know how to pamper them animals. Yeah. Now, Blurick, be a man and stand up to Doc if you don't want him pestering you. Blurick, you watch out for him. One time I seen him brain a man with the edge of a tin plate. Getting back on the subject of Indians-- Cut it out. We ain't interested. Didn't your Mama never tell you you're simple? The first time I saw an Indian out here-- First time you heard a horse piss you thought it was Niagara Falls. But Tilden stands for keeping down canal tolls. Well, but Hayes says right here-- But Baker says to Brown-- Good syrup and sugar at Walla-Walla. Then he says to me, can't you picture Blurick in his granny's come-hither dress, riding sidesaddle like a girl? And Tilden has come out against building palaces for the insane. He'll keep Government out of our pockets. Quit it now. Doc's getting mean again. He's been mean ever since . . . ever since the Oro Fino route got opened as a wagon road-- But they got all the gold out. Not quite. Chief Joseph stands in the way. Because this d----d Jew Government-- And there's other rich strikes they tell about, between Florence and White Bird Creek. Now, when you find you an Indian to canoe you across the Columbia, you got to set him straight. Whatever he wants, you offer half. You told me. Now for Pete's sake shut up. Who's playing to-night? Not me. I seen you stock a bower and an ace. No, it's Doc that done that. I ain't no cardsharp, honest Injun, and if you say anything different I'll-- We're not supposed to sell weapons or powder to Indians no more, I don't care how kind they be-- What about knives? Sure. You can sell anybody a knife, I guess. Blurick, you'll stand up to him? I aim to mind my own business, turning his back upon these croakers and idlers who don't much care for his health. Last night when he was tallying his sacks of beans and cornmeal (some of which he might afford to sell in Hood River), Doc came in without asking. He's not scared of Doc, not quite. Blurick, if you don't put your foot down, Doc's gonna keep on teasin' you every day a little more nasty and violent. I'll take care of myself. What's the hangup back there? Mrs. Graves finally passed. Just now? Poor lady. Who's gonna bury her? She's no relation of mine. Travis, I seen how your eyes wigwagged when them kids said typhoid. Weren't no typhoid. Then let's see you bury her. In the first place-- Aw, hell. It's too hot right now. You could fry an egg on my wagon-rims. Is Preacher in there? Sure. He's been prayin' over her two days straight, so you think he'd miss this? This is his meat. He must be related to that Christian General. Which one? Howard. He played the dunce at Chancellorsville-- Don't you have a long memory! Wasn't so long ago, while Blurick, sober as a cart horse, ducks inside his double-covered wagon to dream about the Wonder Orchards of Oregon while relishing that private drink of reinvigoration, from which he ordinarily refrains until near about four-or five-o'-clock, when we herd our oxen, mules and horses inside the wagon circle; and the widow comes back from the river without looking his way, GODd----n her and hello to a new dream: WANTED: Girl of good references, and who is represented to be of good character. Must be inclined to matrimony, . . . under the influence of whiskey, Pete . . . and pretty, and Just then he smells Doc coming. Drawing his Colt, he lays it down between his legs and drops his slouch hat over it. Pete, wasn't you at Chancellorsville? Don't get me started. I heard tell Bode's division was way down east by southeast on the Plank Road, and then that d----d Uh-Oh Howard-- Now, Travis allows this is a real fine place to camp. Well, Blurick, I shit on this GODd----d place! I call this place Camp Cholery. You see that marsh down there? That's where the cholery comes from. I've seen a dozen folks buried thanks to those vapors. Come nightfall you'll see. I don't care about that. I got quinine, genuine pharmaceutical grade. Quinine don't mean nothing. You don't know nothing about cholery. Maybe I do. Like what? My wife died from it. Goes to show she didn't know nothing about it, either. Gimme a drink. Nope. Why not? On account of what you said about my wife. Just now? Yeah. Is that her picture in that locket? Might be. Sure it is. I recollect when you showed it to Travis. A fine looking gal, she was. Near about as tiny as a Snake squaw. Now what was her name? None of your business. Undoing two brass eagle buttons of his shortcoat, Doc draws out a buckskin neck-pouch: Now, Blurick, with the sightless stare of a badly wounded man who lies on the battlefield hoping for the doctor, this'll be the convincer. I want you to realize that I mean you good. Where do you s'pose this color hails from? From inside your stinkin' jacket. Listen up, Doc-- You ever hear of Oro Fino? Well, according to what I been reading-- That's why I said you don't know nothing. It's a ways between Wallowa and Kamiah. Been booming for more than fifteen years now, and they ain't hardly gotten started. Gonna make the Comstock Lode look like squaw trash. They already drug in Chinamen to work them mines up around there. In Florence they got Chinks d----n near everywhere. Yellow niggers diggin' up yellow color, snow-fine gold dust in a buckskin bag for me to dream of (he's fixing to make me dream!) but I'll be dreaming of a longhaired yellowhaired orphan girl beside me in Hood River, so you better think it over. Sure. You got acqua-regia in here, don't you? What if I do? I can smell it. I smelled that chlorine sting of it the first time I ever come in here. Your jug-bung's cracked, Blurick. Know what I'm saying? O, shut your d----d mouth. I'll prove it's genuine gold. Get out your acqua-regia and try it. Nope. Blurick, are you a hard money man? I'm talkin' to you. Way I look at it, a man's politics is his own business. I said yellow niggers, yellow color. Don't be a GODd----d yellow man. That fool Doc's still wishin' on Oro Fino. Heard him puttin' the bite on Blurick just now. O, come on, Pete! Even Doc can't actually believe-- Travis, them ladies asked me can we halt for-- Tell 'em no. It don't rightly signify till they hear it from you. All right. Hey, you, Brown! If you don't watch out, your horse might choke on that weed. You done made your point already, Doc. I said I'll think it over. Now, in here's my place. Why don't you let me be? You gimme that Horn's map. For what? To wipe my ass. Blurick, are you gonna fight him like a man? Is something moving down that cañon? Doc, you better come out now and-- Blurick, you can't get away from me. So long for now then, both of them glaring down at Blurick's slouch hat, and then Doc goes. That's just a doe an' her fawn. Ain't that a doe, Doc? I'm callin' in my wages soon's we reach The Dalles. But you signed your obligation to Captain Travis. I said I'm done soon's we roll into The Dalles. Guess you won't hardly need me then. We sure won't. What I like about you, Doc, you always do exactly as you aim to-- Hey, Travis! Doc means to leave this outfit-- So I heard. And he-- Far as I'm concerned, Doc, you can cash out at Farewell Bend. Take your d----d traps and ride for Wallowa-- No. You, Red, come ride ahead up here . . . You hear that? Travis must be getting yellow. Doc said he was quitting, and that Travis only-- He's more partial to that Texas Pete. They been together since Bloody Angle. What about him and Doc? Well, I myself have known Doc since before the Bank of California went under, and he's always been mean-- Heard Doc say that Blurick's on the run from his wife. What do you think about that? Secretive types like Blurick might pull anything. What the hell do you care? Are you one of our foremost citizens or something? Maybe she's a hell-and-brimstone bitch-- . . . played out like Oro Fino . . . . . . nothing but winter wheat in Wallowa . . . . . . a good talk over the situation . . . . . . the White Man's Party in Charleston . . . . . . Rutherfraud B. Hayes, the fraud of the century! He won't win. Doc, why do you want to jump ship? That's my business. Not at The Dalles! Why not? Cheaper goods in Portland. Fine Clatsop squaws-- I aim to make some history up Wallowa way, and none of you d----d yellowbellies will get drib nor drab of my glory. I'll be somebody you'll take off your hat to. You keep right on pumpin' your lizard lips like that, Doc, we'll take off your hat for you. Only glory you got goin' for you is your meanness-- Tell you what. Some night you're gonna get your throat slit open and your cold blue balls tucked right up there-- Blurick, don't give him no more whiskey. I won't. I don't want his yellow whiskey. Got me my own supply now. We can all see that. Listen, Doc, you're acting like a fool. Why don't you snooze it off? So you consider that I'm too drunk to shoot straight? Then I'll show you something to make you think twice. The very next Injun we see, buck or squaw, I don't give two shits if it's a GODd----d papoose, you just watch me-- EXTRACTS, OR, HOW THE NEZ PERCE GOT CIVILIZED AND IMPROVED 1805-77 1 Those people treated us well gave us to eat roots dried roots made in bread, roots boiled, one Sammon, berries of red haws some dried . . . WILLIAM CLARK, describing the first encounter of Lewis and Clark with the Nez Perce, 1805 I think we can justly affirm to the honor of these people that they are the most hospitable, honest, and sincere people that we have met with in our voyage. MERIWETHER LEWIS, summing up the Nez Perce, 1806 The Nez Perces . . . make many promises to work & listen to instruction . . . Say they do not have difficulty with the white men as the Cayouses do, & that we shall find it so. NARCISSA PRENTISS WHITMAN, 1836 The Nez Perces & Waiilatpu Indians have a great number of horses, many cattle & some sheep, which if our Government had possession of the country would be a pledge for their good conduct inasmuch as they would not like to jeopardize their property. MARCUS WHITMAN, 1844 In one day the Americans became as numerous as the grass. PEOPEO MOXMOX, Walla-Walla Indian, 1855 When the [Yakima] Indians hesitated, the Governor said to tell the chief, "if they don't sign this treaty, they will walk in blood knee-deep." WILLIAM CAMERON MCKAY, interpreter's son at Walla Walla, 1855 The Nez Percés received a reservation of approximately 7,694,270 acres in present-day Oregon and Idaho, which was later reduced to about 756,968 acres. ROBERT H. RUBY AND JOHN A. BROWN, events at Walla-Walla, 1855 I have just received your note of 25th inst., informing me that a party of miners are on the Nez Perce Reservation in violation of law. MAJOR ENOCH STEEN, to Indian Agent Andrew J. Cain, 1860 I am of the opinion that there is gold in the Bitter Root Mts, and that it is in the interest of the government, as well as these Indians . . . to throw the gold region out of the reservation . . . I have exercised all the authority I possess as the civil authority here, and to make any effort that would betray my utter helplessness, would only excite the minds of the Indians to a state of desperation, feeling they were entirely deserted. AGENT CAIN, to Edward R. Geary, Superintendent of Indian Affairs, 1860 Before the end of this century . . . the Africans among us in a subordinate position will amount to 11 million persons. What shall be done with them? We must expand or perish. We are constrained by an inexorable necessity to accept expansion or extermination. ROBERT TOOMBS, calling for Georgia to secede from the Union, 1860 A single empire embracing the entire world, and controlling, without extinguishing, local organizations and nationalities, has been not only the dream of conquerors but the ideal of speculative philanthropists. Our own dominion is of such extent and power that it may, so far as this continent is concerned, be looked upon as something like an approach to the realization of such an ideal. JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL, arguing against seccession, 1861 The Nez Perces are the most intelligent and exemplary Indians on the North Pacific Coast, and they boast of never having murdered a white man. DOCTOR G. A. NOBLE, ca. 1861 The truth is, the close of the war with our resources unimpaired gives an elevation, a scope to the ideas of leading capitalists far higher than anything ever undertaken in this country before. They talk of millions as confidently as formerly of thousands. GENERAL WILLIAM T. SHERMAN'S BROTHER JOHN, to General Sherman, 1865 Surely our Government would not allow law-abiding, loyal citizens to be driven from their homes. The white man only asks a quarter section on which to support his family. The Indian is welcome to the hills for pasturage. Letter in the Lewiston Radiator, 25 February 1865, from "K." I do not apprehend a Genl Indian War, but for years we will have a kind of unpleasant state of hostilities that can only be terminated with the destruction of hostile bands. GENERAL WILLIAM T. SHERMAN, to President Grant, 1866 This valley [Wallowa] should be surveyed as soon as practicable, for the wigwam of the savage will soon give way to the whites. Instead of the hunting and fishing grounds of the red men, the valley will teem with a thriving and busy population. ORIGINAL FIELD NOTES, WALLOWA COUNTY CLERK'S OFFICE, 1866 Congress have the exclusive right of pre-emption to all Indian lands lying within the territories of the United States . . . and the Indians have only a right of occupancy, and the United States possess the legal title, subject to that occupancy, but with an absolute and exclusive right to extinguish the Indian title of occupancy, either by conquest or purchase. KENT'S A MERICAN L AW, 1867 All who cling to their old hunting grounds are hostile and will remain so until killed off. GENERAL WILLIAM T. SHERMAN, to John Sherman, 1868 I told him [Joseph] that it was useless for them to talk about sending the whites away, that they were there by higher authority than I and I could not remove them . . . It is a great pity that the valley was ever opened for settlement. JOHN B. MONTEITH, U.S. Indian Agent, 1872 The American cannot keep his arms folded. He must embark on something, and once embarked he must go on and on forever; for if he stops, those who follow him would crush him under their feet. His life is one long campaign . . . JOSEPH ALEXANDER, GRAF VON HÜBNER, 1873 Custer, of course, was delighted to be once more upon the plains . . . The Southwest having been conquered, it now became necessary to turn attention to the Northwest. A CORPS OF COMPETENT WRITERS AND ARTISTS, events of 1873 The great barrier to the settlement of the Wallowa, one of the finest agricultural and stock raising countries on the Pacific slope, has at last been overcome, the bridge across the great Wallowa river was completed and thrown open to travel . . . thousands of men . . . are heading in that direction . . . A. C. SMITH, 1873 It is hereby ordered that the tract of land above described be withheld from entry and settlement as public lands, and that the same be set apart as a reservation for the roaming Nez Perce Indians . . . PRESIDENT U. S. GRANT, 1873 READ WHITE MEN . . . THE WALLOWA GONE . . . DIRTY, GREASY INDIANS TO HOLD THE VALLEY. Editorial in the Mountain Sentinel , 1873 Should Government decide against locating the Indian reservation there [in Wallowa], and order the Indians to leave or remain away, I respectfully suggest that timely and deliberate preparation should be made to enforce that order, and protect the white inhabitants from the rage which probably might inspire the Indians under disappointment of being deprived of what they highly value and apparently consider as justly theirs. CAPTAIN STEPHEN G. WHIPPLE, First Cavalry, Company "L," 1874 It is hereby ordered that the order, dated June 16, 1873, withdrawing from sale and settlement and setting apart the Wallowa Valley in Oregon . . . as an Indian reservation, is hereby revoked and annulled; and the aforesaid tract of country is hereby restored to the public domain. PRESIDENT U. S. GRANT, 1875 I think it a great mistake to take from Joseph and his band of Nez Perces that valley. GENERAL O. O. HOWARD, 1876 2 Special orders from Brigadier-General O. O. Howard, Brevet Major-General U.S. Army, commanding Department of the Columbia, to Captain Stephen G. Whipple, First Cavalry "L." March 14, 1877. Two companies to encamp on the west side of Wallowa river, near its junction with the Grande Ronde, for the mutual protection of the citizens and Indians in that vicinity. Your camp location will be about twenty-five miles from Summerville. Put up log shelters, captain. The pine woods will be convenient. I'm sure they will, sir. You'll set out as soon as the season permits you to cross the Blue-ridge with wheeled vehicles. Yessir. And remember, Whipple: No violent measures are authorized without more definite instructions. THEIR HEARTS HAVE CHANGED MARCH-MAY 1877 1 This Chief Joseph is quite the debater, so they say. He makes a remarkable impression at first. Unfortunately, he's not even as civilized as his late apostate father; and ascending the Columbia River Gorge, with Portland (latitude 45° 30', longitude 122° 27' 30'') now left in care of Lizzie, they make a brave array of men, ready to follow commands and dreams wherever those might lead: Oregon State Archives. General Orders, 1847-1959. Locator 2/21/09/04, five cubic feet. most of them citizens who have exchanged the falling wages back East for Indian troubles --and here and there an Army man on his Indian service. I mean, Blackie, we were walkin' up green, green trails. We went around the bend and the first thing we saw was a big trout jumpin'. That's when I says, I got to get my piece of Wallowa. I'm gonna take my piece right on the edge of the lake, where I saw that fish and a fish jumps in the river while a horseman eyes them from the Oregon side. The day will come, sir, when this property will be very valuable. Right you are, Fletch. Unfortunately, we'll still be toiling away at our Indian service! But, general, if we're likely to remain in this Department we might as well begin thinking about property. He has had the reputation of being a notorious Dreamer for as long as we've heard of him. The same goes for his brother. What about the other Indians? GOD disposes, Fletch. We'll see. Looking-Glass and White Bird may be more flexible. See here, boy, you can't establish your suit until you can take every trick in it. I know that, carrion-birds darkening the scaffold atop that tall cliff-island of that ancient Indian graveyard. Lizzie will be ordering Vick's flower seeds from Rochester, New York. Out here it's not too late to plant-- You don't know nothing. See how I just swept up this whole hand? That's not fair! Of course it ain't. Cards ain't supposed to be fair. You're out of luck. Nobody takes shinplasters at The Dalles. It's near about impossible even to cash a greenback. How about Lewiston? O, if you can hold out until then! Always some good Samaritan up there who'll take your d----d money. You may not know this, general, but I recently met your son in the Sportsmen's Emporium. He was buying gunmetal-polish on your behalf. On Front Street? Yessir. A likely young officer. Thank you. That would be Guy, my eldest. No, Fletch, everything has already been gone over. Enjoy yourself . . . Wallowa? Is that where we're goin,' Doc? Don't you even remember? I'm just trusting you. You said we could be volunteers. Only if we need to. I want to. Then go sign up with that d----d general over there by the paddlewheel. I don't care shit about glory. How come Blurick ran away? He'll get his. Don't he have an aunt or something in Hood River? He's dead to me. No, he was near the bottom of his class at West Point. No danger in this section. Fine spot for a saw-mill. We've got no warrant to settle on wild lands beyond the latest boundaries until they have been ceded in an orderly way. What are you, some kind of Jew lawyer? Well, the truth is, Lizzie is mad about that rock soap washing powder you can send away for in San Francisco. So when she thought to do Mrs. Perry a kindness and give her a pound of it, I couldn't refuse. Of course not, sir. As soon as we arrive at Lapwai I'll hand it off. A relief to get rid of it. Thank you, Fletch, for troubling yourself-- So I'm workin' with you, Doc. I swear I'll do just what you say. You'll do fine. Doc, you said you'd seen them Nez Perces. That's right. Been to Wallowa scores of times. What're they like? Just Injuns. And you can speak Injun, right? Ain't nothin' to it. Why won't you say more about Wallowa? Them green lands in Wallowa, why should Injuns get the benefit? And that lake, we'll call it Lake Heaven. Wait till you see it. Honest Injun, you can see the fins of speckled trout forty foot down! And salmon red as blood. That's how it is-- You swear? Sure. And right there I seen gold inside of a hill, with that genuine yellow color. Travis already struck it rich, and he's nothin' but a squaw man wolfer. And them, they ain't hardly better than animals. You know what I spied them doin' one time? Well, they-- Good morning to you, General Howard. Good morning, lieutenant. Good morning, Captain Wolf. What's for breakfast to-day? Salmon, coffee, steak and potatoes. This scenery is unsurpassed. These wild cascades! Well, general, one gets used to it. And how are Mrs. Howard and the children? Now the sun goes as wide as Blurick's wagon-wheels, and they see dark green and light green late summer forest walling the river in and the morning's white gloss on alder leaves and two more woodhawks felling trees to vend to boilermen as white breath speeds from our tall dark smokestack, Old Glory seething upon its forward-canted flagpole, passengers gripping the railings and the shadow of Rooster Rock reflected in a stagnant marsh. He's a nigger lover. Who is? Him: tall, whitebearded now, immaculately medalled, tricked out in double button-rows and epaulettes, the empty sleeve stiff and straight. Shut your mouth. He's looking at us. No he ain't. He turned tail at Chancellorsville. That's not so. He exercised the functions of a commanding officer against overwhelming-- He's a-- Now the cliffs descend (the ship's white flank briefly exploding into sunny dazzlement) and the golden grass becomes a sort of sky inhabited by blue-grey clouds of trees and striated basalt cliffs where a dark pine droops down its needles like a weeping willow, dark rock snickering irregularly through the orange grass, the world brown and gold, silver and blue, and the pale yellow of the hill grass at noon, the wettish, blondish-green fleece on steep and windy slopes along the Columbia at The Dalles: Fast and shipshape, captain! Throw down the plank. Aye, aye. Well, General Howard, welcome to The Dalles, city of tents, formerly bazaar of Indians (even the Modocs used to trade here), where at present the serviceberries remain far from ripe, and three young ladies stand giggling and waving by the floating dock. Cordwood and plumped out oat-sacks, trodden dirt; thus The Dalles--not yet as wide and busy as the railroad terminal at Council Bluffs, Nebraska, but Progress is coming. The pilot lets fall the mail sack; citizens swarm around it. A pair of honeymooners make their pic-nic on a blanket beneath an aspen, beaming at each other. An off-duty cavalryman waters his horse. Starting, he salutes the general, who smilingly nods in return. Indians sit in the dirt streets, quietly drinking whiskey because it's too early for them to cure salmon. One of them shows each passerby a letter signed by some unknown person and reading: This is a good Indian. Soon we will get them onto some reservation. General Howard lays down his head at Umatilla House, among the many who seek sleep with their boots on. Fletch is already snoring heartily. How young he is! Reminds me of Guy, who I'm sure is doing well. In which establishment will that young couple I saw under the aspen find peace to-night? Not here, I hope. Lizzie and I were about that age when we were married. I'll not forget how tenderly she used to smile at me. She seems wonderfully discouraged nowadays. LORD, may I soon discover how to cheer her! Now I lay me--but already he can feel between himself and sleep his mind's weary hand sorting through that faded saddlebag of hemp and cornstalks in which our dreams are kept, and finding, inevitably, Edisto, of which he would rather never dream. No, I shall not. Accordingly, the nightmares arrive, like thin dark streams of Illinois regiments wisping down the raw Allatoona hillside to reënforce our Union fort. First the flower-scented porches of Beaufort rise up about him, and he begins once more to see the elderly negresses standing in the dirt outside the Fuller House (now in moderate disrepair since the dismissal of General Saxton), with that pencil-shaped sentry-box tall and white beside them, and shade trees behind the fence. Against all desire he perceives himself approaching John Seabrook's white plantation mansion on Edisto Island, with a single cloud centered over the roof and confiscated cotton drying on the lawn--but no, the lawn has returned to its immaculate state, and the Seabrooks control their cotton as before. A negro crowd gazes upon him in a silence not yet hopeless even now; somehow he will save them. General: You will acknowledge the receipt and obedience of these instructions --which he must now read to them who wait upon him here at Edisto. No, I decline. He sits up. The lantern being merely half-shuttered--sufficient light to work--on the table he unrolls Colton's map, weighting the corners with four bullets: The Dalles right here, then east to Celilo (must ask about that Spanish Hole up inland): Our general never quits, GOD bless him! and Wallula on the Columbia where it narrows, right north of Old Fort Walla-Walla, then east-southeast to Walla Walla: A credit to the service. Are you fixing to rejoin? and Lewiston, which the reds once called Riverfork, and the pre-American blankness, already gridded, of the Nez Perce Indian Reservation into whose northwestern part Lewiston and consequently Fort Lapwai have insinuated themselves: Not enough excitement anymore, Lapwai now metonymized in his mind by Colonel Perry's smooth bearded spadeshaped face, which in former years appeared gentle and Mrs. Perry's, poor lady, and going down the south-southeasterly snaggle of the Salmon River, we come first to White Bird Creek, then John Day's Creek, then the two easterly branches of Slate Creek, along which restless Americans have already begun to settle; and in the blank map-country eastward of those tributaries we find Nevada, Florence (whose gold mines are petering out) and Millersburg, then, of greatest present significance, the northern half of Joseph's valley, which on Colton's map is still called WALLOWA IND. RESERVN.--mistakenly now that it has been withdrawn again from the Indians. Whipple's bunch are keeping that country buttoned down, I trust. And the Roseburg citizens aim to put in an oil mill. Well, once we build up Wallowa-- The air grows as thick as Pittsburgh factory-smoke. Sitting on the corner bed, two miners play cards all night. One of them keeps saying: Hardly better than animals.-- Men are marching loudly out to piss. A fat grocer fans himself, then vomits in a chamberpot. An old rancher and his son are murmuring sadly over the news from Cleveland: the Standard Oil coopers have gone on strike. Why should it trouble them? Perhaps their relations live out there. A loathsome fly drones round and round his ear; he cannot catch it. Perhaps if I still had my right hand . . . A Spaniard of some sort lies on his back, masticating pilot biscuit. A stockman entertains three comrades with loud declamations from Fox's Ethiopian Comicalities. None of this is how it ought to be, but who am I to insist on special treatment? The Army holds no sway here. I'm not so old yet, nor so proud. So he lights a candle and reads Cicero, on whom they began last month at the Officers' Club in Portland. To be sure, I enjoyed Dumas's adventure-entertainments with less reserve. Does that mean I'm worn out? I must keep my Latin up--it cost me so much labor to con it in the first place! O, me! The thing is to remain unaffected by those evil-mouthed citizens over there. LORD preserve me from hating them! May they be less corrupt than they seem. Refugees from justice, familiars of some livery stable, Indian haters, claim hunters, what are they? Deliver me from evil; their indiscretions are not my business. O, but like this fly they are hateful beyond description. Hardly better than animals. And the water, and the grass, and Edisto, and Lizzie's thin trembling mouth, and this journey, and those profane men over there, although it's not for me to call them bad, when will they all swim away? I must confess, Latin is more difficult than the parlez-vous we used to play at back at Bowdoin College. And Lizzie's eyes, is it merely the change of life or do I fail her worse and worse? I pray that Joseph will come in as easily as Cochise and his Apaches did. No doubt he will, if I reason with him. The Apache case testifies to the power of goodness. O, how unpleasant General Crook became once I prevented him from putting them out of the way! (That manner he has of turning his face infinitesimally to one side when he stares at one with his blue-grey eyes--quite inhuman, for a fact.) And as I get older I worry more, of course; last week Lizzie said: Dearest, you never used to see such difficulties in anything.-- Well, the anniversary of Father's death is coming round: thirty-seven years. That never fails to unman me. And I've told her, but she doesn't realize: Crook's influence truly waxes against me in Washington. Is that why Sherman has grown cold? He's been less available since Edisto. It didn't help that I lost two years of military service. But surely he won't replace me, so long as this business goes smoothly at Lapwai. Monteith is awfully strong against Joseph, I believe (must learn what Sladen thinks). Nearly every settler dislikes Indians and would wipe them out. How can I help the Nez Perces to know their own interest? Sherman hates them all worse than negroes. If I resigned the service, Lizzie wouldn't know what to do with me. But if I were to be ordained . . . The stink of their boots! When will this night end? Sherman used to advise me to write a book. I should, actually. I'll pay off the lawyers this year, and if Congress would give me relief . . . But my salary's in depreciated greenbacks. Grace's tuition is paid up through Christmas; praise GOD. That pledge of ten thousand dollars to the university, was I crazy? Lizzie never complains. After seven children, the skin of her face remains fair, delicate and taut . . . It must please her, to look so much younger than her age. If I have disappointed her, I pray that she will forgive me. I have tried many things with her now, and . . . But those men in the corner don't care how foul they are. Their low type has brought about most of our Indian problems. They're worse than squaw men, whose licentiousness may at least improve into marital love. Their crimes cry out to Heaven. And so, for the Indians' own sake . . . Lizzie never asks me anything anymore. She has forgotten everything but unhappiness. When Harry and Bessie are older I'll bring her here to see the country. Perhaps Grace will find time to accompany us, but I suppose she'll have married one of her beaux. Someday, when the Indians are finally ripe for education, I hope to endow them their own college. Have those men no consideration for the sensibilities of others? They goad me like flies on a mule's open sores! But nobody else is troubled, so I must bear it. No, they are uttering obscenities now. That's too much. Rising, he says: Gentlemen, you're offending this house. Go out or be quiet. You can't discipline us, general. We're not in the Army. This place is under Army jurisdiction. Now keep the peace at once, or I'll have you arrested. Ain't you the general who-- Sir, his empty sleeve swishing angrily like a whip, as Fletch now leaps up, longing to defend him, I don't know who you are, but since you're asking who I am, I am a soldier who has never turned a corner to avoid a bullet. Now will you do as I say? I won't warn you again. They glare at him, one man actually gnashing his teeth, but so far govern themselves as to converse in ugly whispers.-- So he wishes Fletch a second good night, rolls up Colton's map and returns to Cicero. He cannot approve that writer's vanity, nor, worse yet, his inability to make up his mind, nor, worst of all, his cowardice. A slaveholder, moreover, and a rented rhetorician! At least Cicero can be called happy in his friend Atticus. Who would not desire such a companion, who never fails to advise, console and flatter upon request? To-night General Howard has almost reached the end of the year 50 B.C. Caesar determines to cross the Rubicon. Once he does, the Civil War will commence; and the statues of the Roman gods will sweat blood. Long have they pass'd. Pompey, who disdained when he should have flattered, now too late begins to fear his rival. As for Cicero, he has obligated himself to both dictators. Pompey represents the legitimate authority of the Republic, so Cicero feels bound to serve him, but the man's many errors repel him--yet he dreads his own fate should Caesar be victorious. He writes another desperate letter to Atticus. "Depugna," inquis, "potius quom servias." Which is to say: "Fight," you tell me, "rather than be slaves." The result will be proscription if one is vanquished and slavery even if one wins. "What shall I do then?" What the cattle do, who when scattered follow flocks of their own kind. As an ox follows the herd, so shall I follow the "right party," or whoever are said to be the "right party," even if they rush to destruction. First the general considers this question; then it seems to him that he continues to consider it, until the clerk knocks shockingly at each door, announcing: Four-o'-clock! so that no one will miss the train to Celilo, which unseeingly passes Toohhoolhoolzote and seven other Dreamers watching from the rocks there where the river is bifurcated by the reflection of Cape Horn as the shining tracks run on along the base of that basalt cliff and curve round into the yellow morning sky, running on to Celilo: the birds fall silent; then comes the train, roaring, smoking and hooting, making itself gone (it is warped, says Toohhoolhoolzote), gone to Celilo where the steamer waits to convey Fletch and the general upriver, because I pledge allegiance to the flag and to this green-gold and brown-cliffed land, all things soft and low, and my Lizzie mirror-river, rock columns in frozen explosions, bursting out of grass-slopes, bursting out of clouds of the United States of America such dappling, such slopes of green and gold (America), the hills like soft prisms because they show so many cañons, so many facets of America. The land has always belonged to us. More coffee, general? Yes, please. I must say, it'll be extremely pleasant to be sitting ourselves down again on Colonel Perry's porch! And that gracious wife of his! Yessir. Tell me, Fletch, entre nous, which of our ladies at Lapwai is the favorite of the younger officers? Well, general, I should have to say Mrs. Theller-- Of course. A regular belle! Are you tired? Not at all, sir. Take a snooze if you wish; I won't need you at all this morning . . . I voted for Tilden because he's a hard money man. Hayes has been bewitched by easy money. We all voted for Tilden. Therefore, he won. Well, look who moved into the White House-- Excuse me, general, but I'd like your autograph to give to my mother. Hayes made no mistake on the national debt. All right. Here you are, sir. Thanks, general; it'll be a real feather in her cap. She's a collector. All you Government men have been real kind to her. Tilden's the only one who ever turned her down. This here state would have gone for Tilden. Well, they nullified the Democratic vote of America. In America, where the slanting gorge-walls go grey, a Umatilla woman is smoke-tanning a buckskin. And what about the Boxer cartridge, general? It's not the best, but since it is so widely used by the English Government, that fact alone recommends it. My Daddy sure swore by it. Well, captain, it was pretty good for his day. My father kept a case or two on the farm. As you know, it's not reloadable. Moreover, it's made of iron, which is a serious defect, and the blue of the John Day River meets the grey of the Columbia and the blue-treed yellow horizon, soft as a Pendleton blanket, high on the rolling ridges of this world of yellow grass and then a sodden meadow of purple camas flowers (near about as good as the land along our Dead River back home) where beside a blind and ancient Umatilla who leans on his stick, with his dark face low and his grey-riddled black hair loose around his neck, a wide-faced Indian girl whose black braids run all the way down to her waist and who wears huge pale disk-earrings of bone stands on a rock overlooking the steamer, her breasts and shoulders yoked in many stripes of dark trade beads and yellowish-white bearteeth; she gazes upon the ship with placid sadness, her dark hands barely touching each other on the lap of her dead white buckskin dress, and the gaze of that Indian girl-- They ain't hardly better than animals. Some armed Injuns hereabout kicking up a dust! You swore you'd learn me that Chinook jargon-- I reckon she wouldn't even scream. Doc, you suppose them beads on her is worth anything? Not as much as gold. We'll get a Chinaman to wash our gold. Them kind work for next to nothing. Sometimes they got coppers on 'em, or even silver dollars, I swear. They don't understand the value of money, or her breasts and white buckskin dress. One time I got one of them squaws alone. She didn't even-- So what, hero? They're easier to catch than mosquitoes. Mosquitoes is what they are. But they'll give a man venereal. They all talk Chinook. Most can even-- Some are real loyal. I knowed a trapper who, every time he come home to his squaw, he brung her ribbons and beads, and she-- I hate all them stinking squaw men, and her hands. Are you a squaw man ? I said are you? Don't let the general hear. You know what they say about him ? That's him, all right. Our motherlovin' Christian Soldier. That's Nigger Lover Howard over there. And so when we tried to settle our section, they says to us-- Well, we come out here by ox team like the rest of them, and when we filed on our acres, they-- Look at all them Injuns setting on the rocks. Plenty of Indians all over this country. Not for long. Another fine squaw. Cayuse. No she ain't. I'd trade her for her horse. They used to sell one good horse for a squaw-axe or a few blue beads. Don't know what they want for their horses now. That's not truly General Howard, is it? O yes it is. Don't you con that empty sleeve? I saw him give a dollar to Whiskey Jack one time. He-- That nigger college got named after him. They say he-- Be d----d to whatever they say! What a bright, intelligent face that woman has! Umatilla, wouldn't you guess? Each man to his own taste, general. You certainly know your Indians. That's my job, captain. Do you suppose Joseph will make any trouble? and now the rolling cañons of sagebrush, and the river so blue, the sky pallid with summer's dust, and the olive-green secrecy of Three Mile cañon shining dark and humid in the hot grass of Boardman, Oregon, which has always belonged to cattails, marshes, wet grey shrubs and meadows of America where there will someday be the great town of Irrigon and the Umatilla Army Depot and the dirty lavender of the smoke far away over the yellow grass of Oregon, Washington, Idaho, Montana and her dress, the lap of her dress, her dress, her white buckskin dress and her eyes (I want to meet her in Irrigon) and-- Did she have a pass? I reckon so. How quiet is the river nowadays? Well, if you leave the Dreamers out of it-- How many Dreamers do you notice as a rule? I can't rightly say. They lurk back in the cañons. Who are those loud, profane men over there? Never saw them before. I'm sure you meet a lot of them in the Army, general. Yes. Pretty grand country here, all right, tawny and blue, soft hills made of hard triangles and the faded triangles painted on her Umatilla cornhusk purse, everything shaded the sky strictly sunny, strictly clouded (and a century and a quarter later I rode toward La Grande late on a sunny November afternoon, with gold and brown rectangles inscribed on the rising and falling grassscape) when they arrive in Wallula, the head of navigation, at 5:00 p.m. General Howard, an Indian wants to see you. All right. Send him in. You are General Howard? That's right. I come from Smohalla, from across the river. You know his name? One of the Dreamers. Wilkinson, please seal this letter. Yessir. Smohalla will speak with you. I have no communication for him from Washington. He must obey his Indian Agent, and go on some reservation. Maybe he does not like to hear you speak in such a way, General Howard. What's your name? Smohalla sends me. Well, tell your Smohallie that his deleterious influence has produced much suffering among you Indians. You will not meet with him? If he likes, I'll visit him on my return. Wilkinson, please bring me two sheets of paper. Where do you go now, General Howard? That's my business. Good day to you. The railroad conveys him to Fort Walla-Walla. Good evening, general. Good evening to you, colonel. Very kind of you to meet me here-- A pleasure, sir. Would you care for a hot cup of tea? Upon my soul, but this is GOD-given hospitality! Thank you. Any news? Chief Joseph's brother Ollicut will come at six. Chief Joseph will come at ten to-morrow morning. Very good. Have you prepared a meeting place? The band-room will do, sir. There are benches which the Indians can use, and chairs for us. All right. And now, if you don't mind, I've been itching to try your new Gatlings. Fine sport! If you like, sir, we'll try them at two, three, five and eight hundred yards. You're not too tired? By no means. So this is the mechanism. And how quickly do they load? My word! And you sight them like this? At those white blankets? Let loose! Would you like to do the honors, sir? Well . . . why not? Three--two--one-- fire! Good shooting, sir. So that's that. Now I believe Mr. Gatling: two discharges per second! Those poor blankets look like they've caught the measles . . . Well, sir, what's your opinion? I think that warfare is coming to its best and quickest results. He meets with Joseph and Ollicut--very clever young Indians he thinks them, and prepared to listen to reason. They agree upon a more formal conference at Fort Lapwai so that more Nez Perce bucks can be there. Now, Ollicut, do you know a Dreamer named Skimiah? General, he admits that he does. Look, then--there he is in the guardhouse! That will be the future of any other Dreamer who declines to comply with Government instructions. Do you understand? Sir, he replies: General Howard, I understand very well. Good. Please inform all your braves. General, Smohallie sends for you again. Tell him he must come to me. I care not whether or not I see him. He comes. Then please get me that interpreter again. I suppose those are his Indians across the river where the tents and tipis nearly recall the Union outer lines in '63 or '64 when our uniforms were grime-stained and our sentries' rifles, leaning against tripods of rickety sticks, aimed straight up at Heaven; our pale tents wandered on and on toward a Confederate horizon of trodden mud-- long have they pass'd, thank GOD!-- And surely the merest interval of Indian service in Walla Walla, where fields, tree-walls and even a few white houses and churches have begun to sprout out of the blank plats-- although they remain vulnerable should these Dreamers rise up--don't the Indian Agents see it?-- will get me on to Lapwai, and after wrapping up that business with Joseph it will be back to Lizzie, who That's right, general. The Columbia River renegades. Who's that character standing in my light? That's just Doc. He's-- Fletch, would you mind having the colonel look over this estimate before we telegraph it to Portland? Yes, sir. General, Mr. Pambrum speaks the Walla-Walla language. How did he learn it? He's a half-breed and a squaw man. All right. Send for him. Smohallie can wait in the band-room. He may not like that, general. All the better. Well, Fletch, they're certainly making all the ceremonial show they can. Quite a lot of blankets and feathers! I should say so, sir. Do you think we'll have trouble with them? To me, sir, they have an ugly look. I suppose they've learned of Skimiah's arrest. I should think so, sir. General, this is Mr. Pambrum. Good evening, Mr. Pambrum. Ask Smohallie what I can do for him. I'll do my best. General, he wishes to say that he wants peace, but he reserves the right to roam wherever he pleases, because the land has always belonged to the Indians. So he denies the jurisdiction of the United States? Just a moment. He answers that he does. How many other Dreamers does he associate with, and where are they concentrated? He refuses to say. Tell him that the land has been opened up. I earnestly advise him to run to the shelter of the reservation. Smohalla repeats he wants peace. As do I. So let us part on good terms, in spite of that cross-grained scowl of his. Shall we shake hands? Very good. What's next? General Howard, the Indian Agent at Yakima has sent us an insubordinate Indian. Confine him at Fort Vancouver. Anything else? No, sir. All right. When do we leave for Lewiston? And so for two days more they ascend first the Columbia and then the Snake, crossing the Idaho line and thus arriving at the aforesaid tent city, where he despatches Fletch to buy kerosene at the livery stable (and, although Wilkinson would have been more adept at this, to discreetly smell out prohibited liquor sales to the Army), then proceeding on posthaste to Fort Lapwai, established: 1862 (one year before the Idaho Territory itself) extent: twelve hundred and twenty-six acres situation: within Nez Perce Indian reservation, twelve miles from Lewiston just before six-o'-clock in the evening, both companies forming up before longbearded Major Mason (who used to be much thinner in his Modoc days) on the main parade, the band playing "Yankee Doodle" (known to be the general's favorite tune), and that Army smell, so similar everywhere, and the line of cavalry troops, most of them on white geldings, the general reviewing them at the side, elegantly horsed, saluting with his left arm, the infantry drawn up in dark squares of blueness variegated with greasy greys of elder issue as our good Indians look shyly on-- O my LORD, the broad, deep-cracked faces of those interesting old squaws!-- and there's Trimble in that famous sack coat of his, and poor Miller's still a captain, I see! What hope can he own in this peacetime Army? General Howard? I'm Lieutenant Theller, if you remember-- Of course. Our bold Appaloosa rider! And (remembering her smile as clean as Lizzie's white lace collar) how is your elegant wife? Very well, thank you, sir, and Colonel Perry sends his compliments; he's on duty just now. The FitzGeralds have readied their house for you. Welcome to Lapwai. Pleased to know you again, lieutenant. Good evening, general. And you as well, Agent Monteith. Let me read you my instructions from General Sherman of the War Department. There's also this document from the commanding general of the Military Division of the Pacific. We all know that the military will play a necessary part in placing the Indians on their reservations. Yes, sir. The land has always belonged to us. Well, general, how do you find Fort Lapwai nowadays? A very pleasant place, and in fine order. Whose farm is that? James Reuben's, sir. One of our best Indians. Shall I fetch him? I hear that Reverend Spalding grew thirty-pound melons in this soil. Yessir. What news from Chief Joseph? We expect him to arrive with about fifty other Indians. You've informed him what the Government has ruled? I sent Mr. Reuben out to Wallowa to tell them to come on the reservation, so they understand there is no getting out of it. If you'd like, I can call him to-- Well, good evening, Colonel Perry! This post does credit to its commander. You're too kind, general. How is Mrs. Howard? She's well, thank you. And Mrs. Perry? No complaints, sir. I hear that she and Mrs. FitzGerald have established a Sunday school. Yessir, with Mrs. Theller's help. We have about ten white children here. Good. Now, if I remember, that's the route to Mount Idaho yonder. Yessir. I'd like to establish a more visible presence on that road for the benefit of Joseph's Indians. Send mail riders out to Cottonwood every day. We're all itching to ride, sir. I'll despatch a trooper instantly. Thank you, colonel. Now, Mr. Monteith, I've read your reports. I appreciate it, general. And General Sherman has suggested-- As you've just been told, I'm in touch with General Sherman myself. Right. Now, general, I am as fond of these Nez Perces as I would be of my own children. I hope you'll be free to hear them sing hymns this Sunday-- That will be my sincere pleasure. And what about Joseph? His band hasn't yet seen the light. But that's what you're here for, I believe. You well know that we cannot take the offensive at all until further instructions from Washington. Well, general-- I'm glad indeed that you did not fix any time for the ultimatum of Joseph's coming. General Howard, might we discuss this in private? All right. Now, colonel, we'll want to pitch a long hospital tent for our visitors. Leave one side open for the sentry's inspection. Keep the garrison on alert in the barracks. Yes, sir. I propose we host them in the parade ground, where we can-- Exactly. Just a moment. Now, Mr. Monteith, who towers tall and thin, his pallid face projecting a very false impression of timidity as he lowers his forehead confidentially, his gaze shining like his watch-chain--how many such intriguers haven't I met? (LORD, but this fellow needs to organize his beard!) what can I do for you? General, all of us here at Fort Lapwai feel concern about the Columbia River renegades. More so than about Joseph? Well, but if we can keep him and Smohallie apart . . . I understand you laid down the law to Smohallie. Yes, he met me, with great parade and tragic manner . . . I trust my reports didn't alarm you, general. Soldiers never fear, Mr. Monteith, but they do prepare. My word, but that was well spoken-- You have an interpreter, I'm sure. Whitman always serves me well. And is there a minister in the vicinity? Not since my father's death, although Father Cataldo at the Catholic mission has learned Nez Perce, not that my Indians are as grateful as they might be. He took the choicest land for his Indians yonder, on Mission Creek-- How many Indians go to church hereabouts? About two hundred, general. I'm informed that Reverend Spalding enrolled more than four hundred at Kamiah before his death. Well, after all, he became a full time missionary in his last years, while I have my duties as Indian Agent, unfortunately. Without me, these people might starve to death, so I can't simply-- Come now, Mr. Monteith. I intended no offense. Well, the position here is no sinecure, I assure you. Moreover, as you probably know, Chief Lawyer hails from Kamiah, where people are more thrifty and wide-awake than here. In spite of all I can do, my Indians maintain connections with Joseph and his renegades. Family ties, you know. That subchief Jacob is the worst. I'm working on getting him removed. You'll soon learn how the land lies, general, and you can count on me to bring you the most up to date information. O, I can see that. Who gives it to you? What do you mean, sir? Which Indians can you rely on to inform you? Well, James Reuben, for one. A real good Indian. Captain John and Old George do what they're told, but Reuben reports to me every day-- Anything else I should know about Father Cataldo? Confidentially, general, he opposes the importation of non-treaty Nez Perces into his domain. You know how Catholics can be, general. Spalding used to blame them for his failure here, when in fact the Cayuses-- I'll speak with the father. Anything else? I guess not-- Then let him open the meeting with a prayer. With luck, they'll take it to heart. As you say, general. I think they're coming now. Colonel, is everything in order? Yes, sir. Why, they're as thick as June bugs! No, they can't be Cayuses, because these here are Nez Perces. Well, I say they're Cayuses. Their papooses sure are cute. I've diddled younger squaws than that. They're all side meat. Look there! D'you see that little boy trying so bravely to ride that wild horse? I surely love to see that. Bet you anything he'll get throwed before you count five. No, he's tough. He's a little Philadelphia prize fighter. One--two-- Stand straight. Captain's looking. Three-- And that's Joseph over there? He don't look like much. That's Ollicut. How the fuck do you know? I'd like to give him one between the eyes. Fine horse he's got. And skates only seventy-five cents a pair at Barney & Berry's Club, but my husband swore she'd outgrow them before winter, so we refrained. He was right, you know. I must say, Joseph's Indians turn my stomach. Especially the squaws. And what do you think, Mrs. Theller? O, they're striking enough in their way. My husband says-- Did you ever light on anything as ugly as that old squaw over there? Less personality than a tree stump-- I'd say the same about you. Anyways, what in blazes do you mean to study squaws for? You one of them perverted squaw men ? Straighten up. General's coming. No he ain't. That's just the major and-- O, that sport. Now there's Goody-Goody Howard on the march-- L ORD J ESUSNIM hishaiyahokinisha -- And Theller with his twice-waxed moustache and his-- I tried to talk business to that pretty little squaw in the red blanket and got stone nowhere. Sure is hard to make 'em understand. Kaih kaih ka kush makea Kaih kaih ka kush makea Hissapakaisha ka kush kaih kaih kaih makea. Why, I know that tune! That's "Whiter Than Snow." Sure is. Always liked that hymn. They sing it real nice. Strangest dialect I ever did hear. Is it a speech impediment? I don't reckon so. Well, then it must be a brogue. I hear tell they're Welsh Indians. But that Sergeant Parnell, he's a genuine Paddy and he can't make out a word when they-- Gimme a smoke. Help yourself. Pretty yaller dress she's got on. I meant the one in the red. O, that one's always hanging around, and with those sweet Injun eyes of hers I'll bet she'd prove full gentle like a ringdove in a cage, but I couldn't never say a word to the boys or they'd tilt against me. They talk Chinook when they fancy to. Less talk and more shooting is my prescription. Perry's glaring at us! We'd better-- Well, Joseph, I have come to hear whatever you have to say. No, Fletch, I'll need you over there. Stenographer, please begin now. White Bird and his band are on their way, replies his interlocutor, gazing sidelong at him from beneath an immense feather headdress, with an expression almost of slyness. They will arrive to-morrow. Mr. Whitman, tell Joseph that we have our instructions from Washington, and that if he decides at once to comply with the wishes of the Government, he can take his pick of vacant land. White Bird will have his own turn. General, Smohalla wishes to speak first. Yes, I recognize his friendly face. He may go ahead. He warns me to interpret correctly, for their children's and grandchildren's sake. I've assured him that I would. Now this other Dreamer is saying: We want to talk a long time, many days, about the earth, about our land. And who's he? He won't introduce himself. Have you seen him before? I don't remember him, general. He reminds me of a woman I used to know back at Watervliet who couldn't bear to be beaten at euchre. Mrs. Symington, her name was. Well, what saucy old fellows they both are! And see how the rest follow their words. Tell them that we wish to hear whatever they have to say, however long it takes them to say it, even many days, I suppose, but in the end the Indians must obey the order of the Government of the United States. Ollicut replies to you: We have respect for the whites, but for their part they treat me as a dog, and I sometimes think my friends are different from what I supposed. Tell him that Joseph, Agent Monteith and I are all under the same Government. Tell them that whatever it commands us to do, we must do. The Dreamers are objecting again, general. Shall I translate? Is it more of the same? It seems so. Tell them that they must give good advice, or I shall be obliged to arrest and punish them. What do they say now? Now they change their tone. All right. Don't translate for a moment, please, Mr. Whitman. Mr. Monteith, Joseph seems to me to wear a very sour, noncommittal appearance. I agree. And James Reuben, that good Indian I told you about, he's informed me-- We'd best let them consider their situation. Mr. Whitman, kindly begin again. We invite them to continue this conference to-morrow. They say they're willing. Well, then, colonel, would you care to show me the river scenery? It's a lovely evening for a walk. 2 Ask Joseph how he is. He says he is very happy this morning, general. I like to hear that. Now what? This chief is introducing himself, general. His name is White Bird, and his Indians roam down by the Salmon River. He's telling you about his father and grandfather and so forth. Shall I summarize? Does it relate to our business? Not directly. He's been loyal so far, I understand. I believe so.-- I'm sorry; I didn't catch what Joseph said to him just now. And White Bird says he has ridden far to meet with us. Now Joseph is presenting him to us. A demure-looking Indian! What does he have to hide with that eagle's wing in front of his eyes and nose? Don't translate that, Mr. Whitman. And this is Toohhoolhoolzote. A Caucasian-hater, I see. Tell them both that I also have travelled a long way, and I hope that we can get down to business. Toohhoolhoolzote says: There are always two parties to a dispute. The right one will come out ahead. An optimist. Toohhoolhoolzote says that he belongs to the earth, and that she is his mother. He can say whatever he likes, but he must obey the Government and move to the reservation. He declines to grant the Government in Washington the right to think for the Indians. Mr. Whitman, don't translate for a moment. Colonel, how long will it take to bring troops here from Grande Ronde? We can do it by Monday, sir. Mr. Whitman, tell the Indians that the conference is adjourned until Monday. General, Chief Joseph informs us that he is very satisfied, and wishes to shake your hand. And I would like to shake his. And Ollicut's, and White Bird's, and even this Toohulhusote 's if he wishes it. I think he doesn't. All right. Well, I admire the physiques of these Nez Perces. Do you see how naturally they ride? Superior skirmishers, no doubt! What do you think of 'em, Mr. Monteith? General, a hardy race! In my opinion they bear cold as well as even the Mandans-- We'd better drill this skeleton garrison of ours, and let off the howitzer this afternoon, to keep our guests good-mannered. Do we have provisions enough to feed them all through Tuesday or Wednesday? Yes, sir. There's nothing like letting an Indian eat his fill to keep him satisfied. Negroes are the same. After all, in their state of life how often can they count on a good dinner? Yes, sir. Although it strikes me that Indians as a class tend to be less grateful than negroes. Yes, sir. Can we get any Gatlings by Monday? I think not, sir. And we'll celebrate the Sabbath together, of course. That may prove beneficial. And when they attend divine services they'll certainly be picturesque in their costumes. Excellent idea, general. Shall we get Father Cataldo again? Well, at least he believes in GOD. Sir, if you prefer, Archie Lawyer will preach in Nez Perce. What do you think of him? An extremely spiritual fellow. But I see that our young Joseph holds himself aloof. I suspect the Dreamers have gotten to him, sir. 3 Evening (not yet "Tattoo"): Colonel Perry's shady front porch, and Mrs. Perry serving coffee all around, Mrs. Theller laying out her famous buttermilk cake, cicadas singing on the main parade. Welcome back, Captain Whipple. Thanks, general. Fine to see you again-- Well, and how was it out there at Grande Ronde? Quiet as usual, sir. Ideal panoramas, I'd suppose. Well, general, it's up high, you know, real close to the sky . . . No trouble from our Indians? They pretty much kept their distance, sir. Turns out they roam widely, as you know-- Looking for food? Yessir. In spring they eat the inner bark of pine trees-- Poor creatures! They'll be better off on the reservation. No doubt, sir. How soon do they intend on moving their tipis to Wallowa? Imminently, now the grass grows high. And did the warriors behave themselves? The bad ones stayed clear, sir. Some came to play cards with the boys. Without whiskey, I trust. Well, sir, some bad white men sell it to 'em at Lewiston, right behind the livery stable. One of my privates won a pony off a sorry old buck who would have gambled away his wife, but I put a stop to it. That red got passing disappointed, and then I-- No threats offered, no violence toward your men? None, sir. Who are the most influential Indians? Joseph and Ollicut, of course, then White Bird, Looking-Glass, Hushush Cute-- What about that Medicine man Toohhoolhoolzote? Well, sir, they sure listen to him, but he commands just a handful of warriors. He never did stay long when he rode in. Seems to prefer it up in his mountains. How would you compare these people with the Modoc prisoners you escorted to the Indian Territory* last year? There's no comparison at all, sir. The Nez Perces are the most compliant Indians I've ever seen. They keep trying to get along-- I'm glad to hear it. And what did you do for fun? Well, one fellow brought along a volume of Black Wit and Darky Conversations. So at least we had us some laughs-- You know, Whipple, I rather admire Joseph and his Indians. Yessir. I suspect that if we use them kindly they could become quite attached to us. Yessir. How do you imagine they're taking this? Well, sir, I'm no Indian, but if it were me, I don't suppose I'd like to be turned out from my home. Good grazing land along the Grande Ronde even in winter, and, well, Wallowa's an awfully beautiful valley, sir. How is the situation in Wallowa? Filling up with white men-- Did you fellows find any more gold? Not really, sir. None at all? To tell you the truth, sir, we were all searching for it like the dickens! One sample showed color, but the private who found it has a reputation for card sharping. He could have salted it with gold dust. Well, well. So nobody's guessing the place will be anywhere near as rich as Florence. But I may say, sir, that a man could carve out a fine homestead up there by Wallowa Lake, if the winter's not too cold-- So I hear. After this is over, perhaps I'll bring Mrs. Howard there for a holiday. I'm sure she'll like it, sir. At any rate, there's no sense in feeling sorry for the Indians. Heavens, no, sir. We Army officers can't expect to be our own masters. Captain Whipple inspects the brass eagle button of his sleeve. He inquires: Then who can, general? The general's eyes shine.-- The citizens. 4 Come Monday morning, more Indians than ever appear to be riding round and round Fort Lapwai. Most (excepting of course our good Indians, who in any event keep their distance) have painted their faces red; and Toohhoolhoolzote has risen up among the Dreamers like a black bear on his hind legs. Ollokot shakes hands with Perry's bugler. Looking-Glass has not yet arrived; White Bird studies the soldiers from behind his fan. Two baffled little Cayuse girl-children, dressed in their blanket-coats, beaded necklaces and shell earrings, stare out at the general between the corral's fence-slats, and he smiles at them, wondering whether they might be related to Joseph on his mother's side--best to ask James Reuben, since Mr. Whitman cannot clear up this question. But Mr. Whitman now reports that one of them just said: We are riding in a circle to count their rifles. To tell the truth, many of these Nez Perces, especially the ragged old bucks, compare unfavorably to the idlers who infest certain stagecoach stations. The squaws sit watchful in their striped blanket-coats. What would Lizzie think of them? Most are as brightly kerchiefed as colored women. Mrs. FitzGerald and Mrs. Perry cannot approve of their ideas of fashion: yellow skirts with blue dresses, red dresses under green aprons. He smiles at them, but their eyes flash unpleasantly; again he remembers the disappointed negroes of Edisto. And this lovely young one with the lush black hair and the beadwork in blue and white animal patterns across the breast and shoulders of her buckskin dress, he remembers her from church yesterday. His young friend Lieutenant Wood (currently on detached service in Alaska) might have made a poem out of her. What a remarkable beauty she is! (Lizzie of course would be disgusted.) He greets her with his heartiest how; she hangs her head. Wilkinson, who is always keen to unearth relationships, conjectures that she might be one of Joseph's nieces, although that appears unlikely. It borders on shameful how little we've discovered concerning the entourage of this ambiguous Indian. Whipple ought to know; when he comes the matter will be cleared up. Now, where's Trimble? He should be at the head of his company just now. Is he getting slack? Perry's got something against him. Mrs. Theller has turned out for the show, and likewise Mrs. Perry in her buff-colored Sunday bonnet, then behind them the doctor's wife, the company laundresses with all their children, the Monteith women and a couple of strong-jawed lady missionary types from Kamiah. Still more warriors arrive, their hair well greased with bear oil, and although they have laid down or concealed their rifles, he declines to trust them. And the Dreamers' salutations to him are obviously twined with their false embroideries. As for Chief Joseph, he makes a fine picture on his Cayuse stallion. Needless to say, yesterday he failed to put in an appearance at church. The sunlight shines bright and flat on his face. For an instant the general cannot look away from the black peak of hair above his pale forehead. What's your opinion, Mason? Could turn nasty, sir. Sladen? General, we'd better be ready for anything. Perry? Sir, I propose to put this post on alert. I see. Sir, the Modocs behaved in a similar way at the peace conference. Circling like this? Not exactly, general. Just acted shifty. But I'm told that the Walla-Wallas and Cayuses rode circles round the treaty ground, just before they rose up. You're referring back to '55, I believe. Yessir. Out of curiosity, were the Modocs ever as friendly as Joseph's Indians? No, sir. And Mrs. Sanford in Pendleton carries ladies' Centennial combs, from what I hear. I should like to get one for Black Jennie; her hair is always such an ugly tangle. Ned has promised me-- But, o, her prices! Mrs. Perry, just now your husband appears rather-- Thank you, Perry. Yessir. To make a point, he permits Perry to form up the garrison. At this a grim horseman cries loudly: Kaa náko haamankhnáawyanikh kaakíne hilkilíinenikh? Mr. Whitman, what did that Indian say just now? Begging your pardon, general, he said, why are they acting brave and milling around here? I was just wondering the same about them. Look how they grin at his speech! The Dreamers have done their work well. Where's Smohallie? Over there, sir. O, so he is. Keep an eye on him. Where's the other one? Perhaps we gave him a fright the other day. Even so, were I a betting man I'd risk a silver dollar that Toohhoolhoolzote's remained faithful to his principles. And how does Joseph appear to you, colonel? Guarded, sir. Doesn't he always? Yes, sir. He rides gracefully. Doesn't he, though? Best lookin' Injun I ever come across. You know, Whipple, before the war, when I was stationed in Maine, I used to train horses. I had a pure white Arabian named Mallach. Rather tall, but slender-legged. I used to gallop all over the country on his back. Yes, sir. Did I tell you this before? Well, yes, sir. But Joseph's horse looks ideal. I should say so, sir. He's watching us. Yes, sir. Perhaps that skinny red's coming too near . . . And the other chiefs? You know them better than I, Mr. Monteith. General, just now they grate unpleasantly on my mind. These Dreamers are notorious. And that old fellow with the angry eyes, who's he? Never saw him before, sir. What's he saying? Thief treaty. No, Wilkinson. This note goes to Walla-Walla and that one to Portland. Now, Perry, who's that one with the mirror around his neck? They call him Looking-Glass, which was his father's name for the same reason. A good Indian. He's always signed everything. I thought his father declined to sign the treaty. So he did, sir, but the son is never saucy. Why didn't he introduce himself before? Perhaps he's a shy Indian, sir. Thank you for that speculation, colonel. And what was the name of Joseph's father? Also Joseph. Very dynastic, these Nez Perces. Mr. Whitman, I assume that with them property also descends through the male line? I once asked them about it, and they answered: All our father's uncles are our grandfathers and our mother's aunts are our grandmothers. That's more than enough detail, I should say. Is it true that Old Joseph was present when the missionaries got murdered at Spalding? I don't think so, sir. But his wife was a Cayuse-- All right, let's come to order. Stenographer, are you ready? Mr. Whitman, would you like some water? Tell them that we are ready to hear their decision. What does Joseph say? He declines to speak just yet. Toohhoolhoolzote wishes to have his say. By all means. No doubt he'll take a leaf from Smohallie's book. He says, the land has always belonged to us. We came from the earth; she is our mother; our bodies must go back to her. The land must not be sold. Mr. Monteith, tally their faces. How many would you say agree with him? I would say all of them, general. Then firmness will be needed. Mr. Whitman, ask Toohhoolhoolzote whether he has anything new to say. He's repeating himself, general. He's going back to the beginning with the business about the earth. Toohhoolhoolzote, you Nez Perces made an agreement with the United States Government. Your group might have been in opposition to the Indians who signed the treaty, but you are in the minority and so you will have to follow the majority. We have never made any trade. Part of the Indians gave up their land. I never did. The earth is part of my body and I never gave up the earth. I do not want to hear you say anything more like that. You have thirty days to move to the reservation. I am telling you. You ask me to talk, then tell me to say no more. I am a chief! I ask no man to come and tell me what I must do. Yes, you are a chief. All the same, I am telling you! You have thirty days. Go back to your own country, General Howard. Tell them you are chief there. I am chief here, the Indian's eyes shining like the cinders which flitter from a steamboat's stacks. What person pretends to divide the land and put me on it? I am the man. I had hoped that you Indians were sensible enough to make me your friend and not your enemy. General, now even White Bird says that he would be ruled by white men if he had been taught to be ruled by white men, but as it is, he is ruled by the earth. And when these other Indians say Aa, aaa, that signifies agreement with his words? Correct. Colonel Perry, recollecting that time at Fort Sill when Stumbling Bear and Lone Wolf tried to murder General Sherman while he was arresting the Kiowas, how do you read Looking-Glass's face? Well, sir, I suspect he feels as White Bird does. And Joseph? Closed in upon himself, sir. I see how it is. Tell Toohhoolhoolzote the following: White Bird and Joseph appear to have good hearts, but yours is bad. You must go to the Indian Territory. I will send you there if it takes years and years. Chief Joseph and White Bird may come with me to choose reservation lands which suit them. But you will have to stay with Colonel Perry. Now, colonel, lead this dangerous Indian out of the council and put him in confinement. Mr. Whitman, what do these other Indians say now? Now their hearts have changed, general, and they stand ready to obey the Government. 5 What should they have done, after all? What the cattle do. Or, in Cicero's Latin, idem quod pecudes. He feels for them, of course. He disapproves not only of our national Indian policy, but also of Wallowa's heedless seizure. But Washington has given instructions, and there must be an end. Once when he was a boy, two men murdered another. One of the killers was hanged and the other went to prison. Troubled by the discrepancy, he said: Father, it seems unfair. The law's not about fairness, Otis. Then what's it about? His father smiled kindly. Finality, he said. He has never forgotten this. Fairness would have been best, to be sure. But at least we can achieve finality. Once the Indians are safely settled, and the remaining lands opened for settlement, then-- Sir, Joseph and Looking-Glass wish to see you. Send them in. Where's Mr. Whitman? Here, sir. The door opens, illustrating the way that on Joseph's red-ochered cheekbones lamplight can give way to shadow along an almost horizontal slanting boundary as distinct as a hand's edge and his narrow-lidded eyes, whose dark caution is peculiarly reminiscent of Lizzie's and I smell Lieutenant Theller's pomade. Shall I invite them to sit down, sir? Tell them that General Howard is listening. They beseech you to release Toohhoolhoolzote. They will stand surety for his behavior with their own lives. All right. Let him go. Anything else, Mr. Whitman? They thank you with all their hearts, general. They say that they can see now that you are a kind man, the old Dreamer shambling out, grimacing, staring quickly and crookedly down at the ground, clasping his blanket tight around his waist (with GOD's help, he won't be so saucy in future!), Looking-Glass wooden-faced beneath that peculiar hat of his, and then Joseph, whose dark neck shines white from that gorget of bearteeth he so often wears, and Joseph (Looking-Glass is a better known quantity, awed and loyal, like White Bird who hides behind his eagle feather, unable to meet my gaze)-- Tell them that I am a sincere friend of all Indians who obey the Government. I told them, sir. And what did they say? They're ready to ride with you and select their reservations, general. Tell them that I have been praying for this result with all my heart, and that this is one of the happiest days of my life. Tell them that I mean only their good-- They say they know, sir. Gentlemen, what do you think of this? Congratulations, general! It's going to be smooth sailing now! I concur with that, sir. Wilkinson, I'll need my horse at once. Yes, sir. Mr. Monteith, Mr. Whitman, will you join us? Of course, general. Tell them that we'll ride together in a quarter-hour to look at the land. They're joyful to ride with you, sir. They want to know if you'll race with them. By GOD, I will! Will you look at that interesting horse-hobble! Just a rock with a hole in it-- Our native basalt, general. I wonder what those other Nez Perces are up to over there by the river? I'd say they're holding some kind of powwow. They're Looking-Glass's Indians? Joseph's, sir, and I think that buck there is one of Toohhoolhoolzote's. I've never looked upon a livelier scene. Gentlemen, this should be an adventure. May I see Joseph's saddle? He offers to present it to you. Well, that's kind! Too kind. No, I can't accept. Colonel, are our horses ready? Yes, sir. What's their word for horse? Ah, general, that's not so simple. There is one word for a palomino, and another for a roan. There is a word for a horse with a black streak running down the middle of its face-- Never mind. Let's all gallop together across this inviting plain of golden grass . . . 6 And in a cut between the goldenhaired hills, a flock of starlings like living shadows passes over the riders, their darkness frosting the grass into deeper pallor to the very horizon of this wide, wide land. AND THE WORLD KEEPS GETTING WIDER AND WIDER MAY 31-JUNE 9 1 In the dying dark, Springtime rolls away, she who once slept so sweetly in his arms. The dogs are barking: Good Woman and Sound Of Running Feet have gone down to the creek. Once he awoke before others, but since the council at Butterfly Place* some rain has darkened his way, even to that kind of sleep which is clotted red like birds' eyes. Like Springtime, he feels heavy, but for the only other cause: He sees death coming. Flying out of dreams that resemble skulls in a circle in an old tale, he lays his hand on her buttock; while she, the widening one who remains as delicious as a sego lily's root, wearily begins to sit up. She is pulling her bleached buckskin dress down over her belly, she who used to be lonely for him even when she was menstruating; he can hear the hissing of the deerhide across her skin, and the faintest rattle of the beads. Very slowly she breathes. He is still lying on his back. Clasping his hands, he watches the last stars through the smokehole, thankful that she has suppressed her weeping in order to make herself brave: It is on the verge of ending, now when cous season is nearly over: two moons too early to net salmon at Wallowa Lake, and Springtime is decorating herself for the day. Now she is painting her face red. Remembering how she used to sing when she bathed in the Enemy River, and what she sometimes whispers in his arms, he smiles at her, but she does not see. He sits up. She turns toward him. He pulls on his deerskin shirt, Black Mane-Stripe, Brown One and Spotted Head whickering outside (Good Woman must now be riding Ocher One) and the bad dreams go. Someone is cooking outside. He smells smoke and soup. Now he is listening to Springtime's belly, while she caresses his head. The baby makes a noise inside: shlal, shlal. He hears Ollokot's wives going to the river with the little boy, and just down the meadow from their lodge, Welweyas the half-woman is untying the flap of the tipi she shares with her mother, old Agate Woman, whose husband was killed by Lice-Eaters two winters since. White Thunder must have already gone hunting. Someone coughs. The last stars have set. 2 Springtime begins to braid his hair, although Good Woman will certainly be jealous. She rolls up their buffalo robe. Now she is blowing on the fire. Soon the women will be pounding roots, and the reckless young men will recommence to beat their untanned elkskin, singing songs of killing. He cannot decide how to straighten their hearts. He longs to keep listening to the baby. Springtime's hair is showering him as if she were shaking apart a cluster of berries. Her lap smells like smoke, sweat and bunchgrass. 3 She should be sleeping in the women's house. White Thunder and Good Woman are making themselves angry; exactly now she ought not to be too much near men. But she has told him in terror: My dear husband, I have Dreamed that some good Helper of mine is turning away! --by which she meant that her WYAKIN will abandon her!-- an evil Dream indeed; and since all things are ending in any case, he will not drive away his youngest wife whose heart sometimes gets scared like a child's. 4 Must we certainly go? Síikstiwaa, * I am speaking to you from the root of my heart. Shall our People be killed? No, husband, but you told me we have never sold our country . . . So I have said, and I spoke straight. But, síikstiwaa, now we are becoming tame. We must keep ourselves quiet forever. And never come back here? Cut Arm has said that we may ask for a paper whenever we wish to come out from our painted land.* But we must not bring too many horses, in case the Bostons dislike it. He will never let us out! No. We leave here forever, as dawn comes suddenly, spraying golden rays as if a SKY PALOMINO had swished his tail, the long bright hairs of it fanning out: lightning more slender than cracks in a rock and mosquitoes on the lake, and their reflections; curtain of orange in the sky, then two rainbows, the river high, puddles in the grass (thunder again), the world cool and wet, rapidly brightening and frog songs at dawn there north of the lake when she says: The land has always belonged to us. --Be silent now. I shall not unsay my words to Cut Arm, although in everyone's hearing I promised my father never to sell our country. 5 Springtime, whom some falsely say he loves the most, was once a woman who liked to speak at night. Since the council at Butterfly Place (where we once had a village) she has become quiet. But now, knowing that he will never beat her, she begins showing her heart too much, crying out (her cheeks shimmering with tears): The Bostons unsay everything! --or unsing what we once knew (Cut Arm glaring, the Bostons cheering as at a Scalp Dance, our doom as faithful as the gleam of Looking-Glass's mirror), for just as in old tales a man who urinates in the same spot where a woman did can make her pregnant, so this thief treaty to which we never put our mark has magically conveyed away the remnants of our country: Wallowa, and Eel Place, where Looking-Glass's People used to live, Sunflower Place, which we lost long ago, Sparse-Snowed* Place: White Bird's country, Chinook Salmon Mountains: Toohhoolhoolsote's place, Shale-Rock Mountain, Split Rock: the camas meadow where we now ride to meet our relations for the last time, Imnaha and all our pretty rivers of beaver and salmon, wintering places, horse prairies, pitch-gathering groves; the places where we used to cut lodgepoles, and the hills, forests, caves, ridges and bunchgrass of our home: Thief treaty! Now she has finished decorating his hair, so, thanking her, he rises, putting on his brass bracelets, affixing his collar of otterskin, and wrapping himself in the King George blanket which Looking-Glass gave him last fall at Eel Place. The morning brightens further. Outside the tipi, Good Woman has begun to spread blankets on the dewy grass, laying out cous-roots to dry a little more before she pounds them. Springtime goes to the sweathouse. Then she will bathe in the cold river, to make her baby strong. 6 Again she murmurs: Thief treaty! Smiling carefully, hoping to spare her from understanding why he has obeyed Cut Arm, old Cut Arm, mangier than a buffalo in spring, who humiliated us by showing the rifle, shrilling like the mother in the stories who becomes so angry that she gains the Power to fly away, Cut Arm, who handled Toohhoolhoolsote like an animal, he remarks: Each time, they become less human than before. Now we shall see how it ends. Then he paints his face red and yellow. 7 Ollokot and White Thunder are speaking outside. He hears Ollokot say: Then tell the young men . . . 8 He goes out. Some young men speak of punishing the Bostons. He replies: Let this talk be finished. 9 Good Woman goes in. He follows her. Presently she says: Could this have been different? No, síikstiwaa. You know that my father told me to stop my ears whenever the Bostons sought to buy our country. They did not buy it; they stole it. 10 Springtime is lying down again; but her pains must not have begun, or she would have departed for the women's lodge. Now Good Woman is boiling tea; he wonders what she foresees, and the fire says taqaqaq. A branch of balsam fir hangs over where she sleeps, to frighten away her bad dreams. Even this calm elder wife of his has now been visited by nightmares of a thunder-noisy CREATURE with nine pairs of wings. A gun speaks and a bugle sings from the Bluecoats' camp. Ollokot has studied these noises at Butterfly Place; he explains that through them the Bluecoats are commanded like slaves. Good Woman pours tea for him and for Springtime; perhaps at Split Rock there will be coffee. Black-eyed like an antelope, Springtime sets their last chokecherry cakes before him, and he strokes her face, but she repeats: You never sold our country. Good Woman resumes plaiting a berry basket. (Springtime must not do such work; any knotting or interlacing would hinder the baby from coming out.) He says: You remember that I told Cut Arm: These Bostons who came here were the cause of all our trouble. To please them both he eats a little. Good Woman strokes Springtime's belly. Rising, he slings his .44 Winchester carbine over his shoulder; once his father carried this weapon. Again he goes out. He trims the mane of Black Mane-Stripe, his favorite horse. When he returns, the morning is hot and dry. Fair Land, Cloudburst, Good Woman, Sound Of Running Feet and Springtime sit pounding cous-root: kíw! kíw! kíw! 11 Sound Of Running Feet asks him: Father, where did you go to meet your WYAKIN? Faraway Mountain. Is that on our painted land? No. Then where shall I go? Next summer I'll be old enough-- I cannot tell you. Perhaps that is all finished now. 12 Already the People have begun decorating their favorite horses to please their friends and relations at Split Rock, decorating themselves with bells and buttons. The women are painting their faces in joy, and the young men try to keep quiet, remembering what he has told them, but now Geese Three Times Alighting On Water insults Cut Arm again, our young men riding round and round, laughing to remember Cut Arm's angry face when Toohhoolhoolsote asked him in the council just who or what this Washington was (at least they have not yet begun to beat the untanned elkskin). Going to them, he sadly says: You cannot have what you wish. Whether you fight the Bostons or not, they are too many; in the end you must obey them. My heart tells me that it is better to go on painted land and keep quiet, even though they will make us poor. At least we shall still be alive with our families. They listen. Then he goes away. White Thunder returns with four ducks tied to his saddle; his eyes are shining at the songs of the young men. Good Woman says that Springtime's baby will not be born before we ride to Split Rock. She begins pounding cous with Cloudburst and Fair Land and the Bostons' chimney-smoke flies up as the horses say: Hinimí. 13 He has ridden to his father's grave, and slaughtered a last horse there in that place more dear to him than any other. Down by the lake he has visited his baby son. Perhaps the Bostons will dig them up. They might do anything. 14 As Toohhoolhoolsote truly said, we came from the EARTH; this EARTH here with Her jettings and leapings of white water from the high creeks that become waterfalls above our lake (the lake a deeper blue from above yet still lucent), the valley hidden as if to test our memory of Her; She is OUR MOTHER; our bodies must go back to Her. This land, tongue of lake, great gorge of scree and evergreen down which water roars must not be sold. But indeed it has been, our lake and golden grass, camas just coming into blue flower, and our fathers' graves, so now nears time to gather in the herds and go. 15 His People come with angry faces. As before, certain Bostons who took land in our country have entered our hills and branded our calves with their brands. The young men call on him, saying: Let us take the Bostons' cattle, one for one. He says: No. We must not trouble them. Some may be innocent. 16 Ollokot says: My dear brother, some young men refuse to leave our home. Do not tell me their names. Go to them and say that if they do this reckless thing, for the People's sake I must hunt after them with my rifle. 17 Síikstiwaa, I am telling you three times: He will kill us if we make his heart angry. Is he married? He has a wife and children. They must be a family of killers. 18 Ollokot rides to the lake, returning with a string of seven ducks as the women and the old ones dig up caches of beads and bullets, bulging camas bags, silver plates from Lewis and Clark . . . The red salmon have not yet come. How may we depart without them? Springtime goes to the sweathouse; she is feeling unwell. Good Woman follows after her. Springtime has no mother anymore, so Good Woman must help to bring her baby out. Ollokot paints his face with the fine red earth that Fair Land always gathers for him from a hill high above the lake. He smokes the pipe with his brother. Then he too kills a horse upon their father's grave. 19 Good Woman's mother died in Looking-Glass's country. Good Woman will never again visit her grave. She says: Now I am hating Cut Arm. Síikstiwaa, he is nothing. It is after the Bluecoats go away that we shall have more trouble, from other Bostons who keep coming. Let us go far away from all of them: from our lake, our valley of many horses, our father's grave --just before he passed into the Country of Brightness he asked of me never to sell OUR MOTHER-- from all our graves and caches, but where shall we go? They devour us everywhere: Thief treaty! 20 Springtime asks: If we dislike our painted land, can we go away? No. Never? Only if we ride all the way to the Buffalo Country, síikstiwaa. The Crows are our friends. You found it a good place . . . But so many enemies there, I am telling you three times! The Crows are brave, but they can never rest in their own land. Cutthroats,* Walking Cutthroats* and Arapaho devour them. Does that country please your heart? It's good for hunting, horses and war: this Crow Country with its dragonflies and buffaloberries, the many milkweed pods like green testicles on proud stalks, and the pyramid-faced river bluffs, prairies dotted with buffalo in place of trees, buffalo skulls encircled by flowers, fatty meat sizzling over feast-fires, enemies to kill without pity, and the Big Horn River greyish-brownish-green. 21 You say that we must stay forever on painted land. Síikstiwaa, that is so. Never to go out? Perhaps our Agent will be gentle. Tell us about our new country. What is it like? You know that I rode all day with Cut Arm and there was no good land left. 22 Síikstiwaa, you're not eating. It presses on my belly. Any day . . . It moves again now-- A strong child, like its mother, he whispers, stroking her hair. Good Woman turns back to the fire, and he says: After the council we'll give a feast. Thank you, husband. Roasted shoulder meat-- He is grateful for Ollokot's wives; they will show her how to make herself brave. The young boys are making bridles out of grass. The last women have returned from separate winter camps where they cached more packloads of cous, hoping the Bostons will not find them once we ride to Split Rock where all the headmen will be gathered together; Split Rock, where we shall learn each other's hearts to no purpose: we are pleasing Cut Arm by riding away from our country forever. 23 Toohhoolhoolsote has departed to his country and will meet us with his People, who ride more quickly than ours. (He came here to excite our young men; we invited him to be gone.) Looking-Glass will meet us on his black horse, with all his People ready. Perhaps Red Owl will come. White Bird, Húsishúsis Kute and Hahtalekin will be at Split Rock, where everything must be decided. And so their white tipis which have risen and tapered high over the golden grass, each point crowned by the outspread fingers of its lodgepoles, these come down to fold themselves. Lassoos hiss like rain. The women are tying cowhide bags to the breastbands of their horses. No one speaks of Cut Arm, that bad one who offended our feelings. Of Heinmot Tooyalakekt they say: This matter is troubling his heart. Overwatched by yawning Bluecoats who should not have entered this country within the one moon Cut Arm allowed (this too hurts their hearts), they mount and ride, their rivers of horses following and preceding them, Thief treaty! yes, their horses laden with lodgepoles, mats, blankets and young children lashed high and safe, gripping the reins in imitation of their parents, happy up high; shining brown horses with lowered heads, Appaloosa horses, Pawnee ponies, spotted Kilickitat horses and even some Kentucky thoroughbreds bought from the Bostons or their enemies, horse-treasures to shine through the golden grass as they ride in a wide line out of Wallowa with the mountains behind them (my heart is good; I am telling you three times); and looking down on the river which widens far below, shining darkly in the white cañon, with similarly trees around and along it, the cañon widening into golden mounds, angled brown darknesses and occasional bands of basalt, with steep bands of blackberry bushes and trees running down the cliffsides (it is plainer and plainer), the world swelling before them like the vulva of one who gives birth, they leave their home, only for awhile: White Thunder cantering ahead, where he likes to be, longing to ride drunk and singing, shooting a rifle into some mean Boston's window; then Heinmot Tooyalakekt and Ollokot, their best horses' bridles glowing with disks of German silver like frozen mist from Wallowa Lake, dogs barking all around the huge-eyed horses, men wearing deerskins, blankets, rifles and brass bracelets, babies in the cradleboards strapped to the backs of women who ride with their pigtails tied up in handkerchiefs or else sometimes sport beargrass caps, lovely women in red dresses: Cloudburst and Fair Land, Springtime, so round in her dress of snowy buckskin, which she has decorated with many beaded stripes along the shoulders; now she is riding Brown One (saving White Belly-Spot, her handsomest horse, for when she rides in to the other People at Split Rock), Good Woman on White Stripe, Sound Of Running Feet riding Little One (a present from her Uncle Ollokot) and leading Spotted Head, who is but half broken (this girl is beautiful and nearly marriage-ready, although she has not yet been to the women's house nor found her WYAKIN; her elkskin dress is tricked out with porcupine quills and elk teeth; her black braids are greased so that they shine like obsidian; her feet are in beaded elkhide moccasins, and she wears an otterskin neckpiece decorated with hordes of little shells); and women in long yellow skirts to the ankle and blue scarves, grandmothers in beaded buffalo robes, anxious wives (already thinking about drying salmon), with the long cous breads swaying from their saddles; old men, young men, then their great hoards of horses; and the world keeps getting wider and wider, shining like the white feather in HUMMINGBIRD's heart, the chokecherry blossoms also white, the buttes on the far side almost a hazy horizon, the far down trees as grey-green as Toohhoolhoolsote's pipe-bowl, a single squat yet fluffy cloud like a buffalo cow, hollow clatterings of many horses' hooves, whips falling lightly, warriors to right and left, some from Wallowa, others from our other lands: Grey Eagle, Shooting Thunder, Geese Three Times Alighting On Water, riding out into the world of dark deer droppings in the poison oak, our grey river sluggishly winding through the green grass in irregular wide gut-loops at the bottom of the cañon: briskly rides his síikstiwaa Good Woman, beside his síikstiwaa Springtime, who does not yet have a cradleboard; and Springtime looks back: here we have lived; here we lived; but Sound Of Running Feet, his beautiful daughter, looks only ahead into the world, the river hissing over smooth pale grey pebbles, lush water and tall cool stands of trees with golden grass in their shade and a rock overhanging with a tree on it, and the peeled lodgepoles my father once set in stone to mark off the borders of our country from the Bostons, who treat us like dogs. So they drive their horses and cattle down the river, wondering how it will be once they have entered their painted land, perhaps never to go out: Thief treaty! Our country is growing virulent. 24 Now the sage hens have already finished dancing in the Buffalo Country where my father rode with me, where my brother's wife Cloudburst was born; soon the berries there will be turning red. I long to ride away there with the People. But I promised my father not to sell his bones. We must all decide together. Two Moons calls us women-- He has no sense. 25 Their hair is rich with feathers, bones and beads. At the ford they will make rafts of buffalo robes to carry the women and children across and down from the shoulder of golden-yellow grass into green-brown and blue-brown hollows of space descending banded and twisted into the hazy cañon whose far wall is the end of the world which has come already for the Walking Cutthroats, and the Modocs whose boys once shot frogs with bows and arrows which their fathers had made them; now the boys and their fathers are gone, in the Indian Territory or underground; and the Cayuse, our cousins, who dared to kill the Whitmans, and, moreover, once lived on good lands; the Klatsop, and now arrives for the Cutthroats themselves: even Crazy Horse rode onto a reservation, they say (but perhaps it is not so), and Sitting Bull has fled (but surely he will return to kill more Bluecoats) and so it comes for us, our life in Wallowa to be buried in the ground like an afterbirth because Cut Arm showed the rifle (like leeches the Bostons are clinging to our country with their mouths) as we ride away toward distant dark green forked trees, we People, COYOTE's children, our cañon immense and misty, yellow-and-dark rolls of the earth's grassy belly-fat going down and down into Gorge Place, Imnaha, down to the first smell of sagebrush Thief treaty! then the first tree, glad glint of evening water, our dogs rushing to drink the Enemy River in the evening: chocolate and silver and the brown flat rocks beneath brown water, high water, the far side still within our country (Springtime, feeling nauseous, fears the deep part of the river, which we call green water ); now we build boats of buffalo skin, entering the bluish-silver eddy, the river shouting and bubbling mululululu. Many calves drown in the high spring water. This too the People will remember in their anger. 26 Making boats of buffalo hides, we ferry across our People, horses and warriors swimming diligently, bearing our treasures, dogs swimming free, and then, before we have swum all the herd, some Bostons come galloping with guns to stampede some hundred horses away --another robbery about which Cut Arm is indifferent, but if we kill these Bostons, Cut Arm will choke us in rope. So again they have robbed us. AND BLACK BIRDS ON THE LAKE JUNE 10-13 1 Sitting amidst pocked reddish-grey rocks, weary of playing the Bone Game, trapped as if they have swallowed magic stones, those three, of whom two must be called doomed, gaze out across the pale blue lake, which dwells in haze at the margin of golden grass in this place called Split Rock, where Red Bear's People so often pass the time; then Swan Necklace says: It is plainer and plainer, as a fish splashes: mokh! Still Shore Crossing will not speak, although he has ears to hear them, and him that pair would convince, because he is their friend and has Power, if by no means comparable to Toohhoolhoolsote's (but Cut Arm's soldiers now line up so long and straight that even Toohhoolhoolsote's WYAKIN magic cannot bend them into a circle) nor yet like White Bird's (that quiet chief is gracious to these young men even as he would smile upon a child's fishing spear): indeed he now begins to have Power of his own Shore Crossing, he who can run down nearly any man or horse (he will soon be foremost of the Three Red Blankets), dead chief's son but not yet chief, he who has breasted the Chinook Salmon Water each day for five winters (and swimming the Enemy River when his wife nets eels at Eel Place, he has seen old-painted GRASSHOPPER PEOPLE swarming up the boulder-cliffs like poison oak, yes, rushing over wide sandbars and poison oak, with the Enemy River fast and wide, WYAKINS watching him much as he does his woman whenever that pain departs his heart, and hot hazy hills of rock and yellow grass; and on the dark rocks painted LIZARD PEOPLE, some of them dancing upon dots, and herds of painted ELK with backcurved horns from the time before our People were here); he can tame wild horses --but not even he can drive our cattle through this high water, and now his pain settles back upon him, beginning to speak straight within his bones. 2 Bear-hearted Toohhoolhoolsote from Salmon Place, who can remember when old men still hung wampum-shells from their pierced noses and the Bostons kept out of his country, sits well turned out in goatskin leggings and a long-fringed deerskin shirt. He has decorated himself with loop necklaces of the best bone beads; he has painted his face red and yellow. His ancient wives bake camas under smoking hillocks of dirt. To-night before the council they will help him roach his hair. White Bird, head-chief of Sparse-Snowed Place, who from behind his feather-fan has watched the Bostons at Butterfly Place, learning why their bugle blows and how they pitch their tents to resemble profiles of white horses grazing, has arrived, bitter and careful, dressed in a robe of white buckskin decorated with white seashells. He comes ahead of Kate his wife, who carries his little son, the one who will be White Bird after him; beside her ride cousins, nieces and old women; with him his nephew Young White Bird has ridden, and Shore Crossing alongside Red Moccasin Tops--first cousins, promising young killers, Red Blankets-- and Strong Eagle in his elkhide shirt with porcupine quills at the shoulders (he will live to be last of the Three Red Blankets), well-braided Loon, who is loud for war, since he has not yet won a name for himself, Swan Necklace and Red Spy, agile and ready men --all warriors of White Bird: more than others his People hate the Bostons, who have grown up in their country like poisonous mushrooms. Five Wounds and Rainbow, both fated to greatness against the Bluecoats, have not yet ridden home from the Buffalo Country; while Wounded Head (whose name in these days is still Last Time On Earth) sits between the opened flaps of his lodge, rocking his febrile little boy. His wife, too anxious to go dig camas, whisks away flies from the man and child, longing for her child not yet to die as Toohhoolhoolsote smokes the pipe with White Bird right here at Split Rock, where the bunchgrass goes so high that our horses scarcely need to lower their heads when they graze and we sit awaiting Looking-Glass, settling in a circle, discussing our troubles round and round while only the pain speaks straight, Good Woman and Cloudburst boiling soup (their sister-wives and husbands have not yet arrived), the first locusts singing tekh-tekh-tekh! our young men speaking quickly: We have never killed the Bostons, even when they kill us! We kill only meat with our bullets. And sometimes Lice-Eaters and Cutthroats-- our old men talking and talking, pokát, pokát, like MAGPIE pecking out the fat from COYOTE's eyes, speaking in pain, while Swan Necklace invites Shore Crossing to tear down some Boston's fence, to frighten white women (or else to shoot Cut Arm while he is opening and shutting his mouth; that will cool us all!) and Red Moccasin Tops urges Shore Crossing to put on the shirt which a man wears; while we gamble again at the Stick Game, spending sunset, moon and dawn, wondering if our best men will ride home in time from the Buffalo Country, camas fading out of flower, blue blossoms and white both falling away. 3 Looking-Glass rides in on his favorite black horse, singing, and behind him, first among women, his proud elder wife Blackberry Person (once a girl most difficult to meet, and yet he obtained her; she has long since become his; they grow old) and his younger wife Asking Maiden, who wears a new brass medal around her neck, her lovely round face shining in the sun (we hear that Blackberry Person has begun to make herself jealous); then their two daughters ride in, both husband-ready; their faces are painted yellow, white and red, and they are smiling from side to side as they drive in their many horses. After Looking-Glass comes Chief Red Heart, moderate, even-hearted, with his wife, his daughter (who in captivity will enchant Lieutenant Wood) and his four sons: Over The Point, most battle-famed, then Allutakanin, whose heart means to follow him to war and the two younger brothers who must still obey their father then, on his favorite yellow horse, Peopeo Tholekt, well trusted by his chief (steady-eyed, double-tressed, brave and careful): he wants no war; his wife will soon give birth at Butterfly Place; and White Thunder's old mother, Swan Woman, whom Peopeo looks after, his war-friend Wottolen, he who remembers; now he is arriving here with his half-grown boy Black Eagle --all these our hearts joyfully remember, but first among them is certainly Chief Looking-Glass, whom the Crows call Arrowhead: brave and lucky, tall, staring unsmiling from beneath his beaded hat, with the long dark-tipped white chain of eagle-feathers riding down his shoulder and all the way to his horse's belly, his feathered lance high, his eyes in shadow, and now come Hahtalekin, Húsishúsis Kute and all the other Palouse from Eel Place: Looking-Glass's kin-friends, and miserly old Burning Coals whipping in his great herd --all the People who have not sold OUR MOTHER now gathering here, the cañon darkened by our wealth of horses. 4 Looking-Glass unrolls his cloud-white buckskin, which a certain Crow woman tanned for him. The mirror shines upon his throat, and his wives and daughters wear many bracelets of German silver which he stripped from a Lakota woman after his great battle in the Buffalo Country, back in the days when ravens were still white, and he half-smiles to hear the old men say pokát, pokát, telling our chiefs what the chiefs already know, and Húsishúsis Kute trades pipes with White Bird, Fair Land gathering bedding-grass for her husband's lodge, Looking-Glass now explaining how the young Crow boys play the arrow-throwing game, our best men listening with all their hearts to hear what he has spoken (even Bostons follow his words), and Strong Eagle races horses with Burning Coals while, sitting in the rocks, Red Moccasin Tops and Swan Necklace invite Shore Crossing to do what men must do. 5 In rides Ollokot, of all braves most handsome, with his hair roached back just so and red ribbons streaming from his many-beaded collar of otterskin, he who leads the young men of Wallowa, and leaps off his cream-colored horse (he has just given his elder wife Fair Land a necklace of two dozen bear claws), while his brother, Heinmot Tooyalakekt, the tender one, who can distinguish the hair-partings of his two wives even in darkness, by smell or by touch, he whom the Bostons call Joseph, brings in the old, the sick, the widows and orphans, caring for everyone: helping Springtime from her horse, he says: Toohhoolhoolsote, Looking-Glass, Hahtalekin, White Bird, all my chiefs; People, my heart is glad to look upon you again! 6 Looking-Glass's wives and daughters raise up his tipi, which they have painted blue and green, even as Fair Land and Cloudburst establish Ollokot's lodge, then help Good Woman with hers (since Springtime is now of no use); and they all now make a women's house for the menstruants and especially for Springtime, a quiet dark place for her to rest --when Swan Necklace says: Shore Crossing, it was a shame on you to let your father die unavenged. What befell you in the Cayuse country, that you forgot your father's blood? 7 In the grass, bending down with their digging sticks, our buckskin-clothed women harvest camas bulbs, breaking off the unripe ones and replanting them for next summer, murmuring Dreamer songs, making pits, straightening, rubbing their backs with their fists as they gaze upon the sober-eyed horses and beautiful-eyed warriors who ride round and round. Some young children are swimming, hunting for frogs and fish. Now comes midday, and the women rest. Then all of them, Cloudburst and Niktseewhy, Heyoom Telebinmi and Tuk'not, Welweyas the half-woman, her mother Agate Woman (she Dreams not how soon she will be dead), Wounded Head's sister Wetwhowees (who has just now married Red Sun) and his wife Helping Another, along with old Towhee, her mother, all filling one pit with what they have gathered --while Swan Necklace's sister Where Ducks Are Around, she who should soon be married, Toohhoolhoolsote's wrinkled wives, who work quickly and by themselves, White Thunder's mother Swan Woman, Grey Eagle's daughter White Feather, whose WYAKIN declines to warn her that before summer's end she will be called Broken Tooth, and Good Woman, first wife of Heinmot Tooyalakekt they are now covering up camas in other pits of hot stones and steaming wet ryegrass. Springtime helps as she can, then wearily sits down inside the women's lodge. Now she is weaving cattail mats for the roof of a tipi. Fair Land hopes to bring her smoked salmon from the Downstream People; that will make her strong. Good Woman begins digging baneberry roots, so that Springtime will have tea to help her milk come in, as Feathers Around The Neck, whose Power is so famous for curing, circles the lake by himself, searching for secret herbs, while as soon as his sister leaves the lodge to help roast camas, Sun Tied begins to massage his wife's seven-month belly; she has made herself sore from riding. Burning Coals (he who is old) trims the manes of his herd; while the young men race horses; they lust for wives whose nipples will be as hard as early August rosehips. Just as grebes perform the Weed Dance to allure their females, so White Bird's warriors ride round and round, proclaiming deeds of fame. The Wallowa men try to keep quiet, remembering the words of their two brother-chiefs. But why not gamble and ride? So they hurl themselves from their stallions' backs, hiding on one side or the other, then spring up again. It is almost as it always was, but the future glares in on them like bear eyes shining in the dark: no more fishing for dog salmon with Smohalla's People at Little Stacked Hills, and never again to the Buffalo Country. The Bostons are stealing and ruining our land! Our young men are restless. They play the Bone Game. John Dog shoots his carbine into the air. Red Cloud and Red Earth, Ela-a-ta-hat and Im-nie-wah-yon, Speaking Water and White Hawk, Kills Himself and Subject to Death, Loon and No Swan, White Bull and Black Elk, No Tail Grizzly, Bad Young Grizzly Bear and Rattle Blanket, now they have all arrived. Fire Body challenges Red Spy to an arrow-shooting match. Some say that even yet matters might turn out well, as when COYOTE cunningly entreated the MONSTER: You have already swallowed all the People, so swallow Me likewise, so that I won't get lonely. -- They pass hands across each other's horses to feel which seems strongest. Then they wager pelts against blankets, flinging them down. Some bet the rings from their wives' ears. They quarrel with one another, because Cut Arm's commands have a disgusting taste. They detest to go forever into one small place. 8 Overlooking our river of many-colored horses roaring amidst the creepers and trees of Split Rock, Toohhoolhoolsote says: These painted lands are too small. Our horses will starve. 9 Laying out a deerskin on the grass, Swan Necklace's wife says: Come eat with us.-- Shore Crossing thanks her, smiling at this lovely one whom his brother-friend has won. His own wife, pregnant and alone, is digging hill-roots across the Salmon, up at Horseshoe Bend, and since Cut Arm showed the rifle, even she, his own síikstiwaa, demands to know why he would imprison her and their child in a narrow place, never again to ride where they please, nor meet the People all together; only to sit in darkness and be the Bostons' slaves, while our horses starve to death; she has warned that should he himself prefer to go there, why, then perhaps she will go away from him, not thinking how the Bostons will punish us all, or even kill us as they did his father, but at least Swan Necklace's wife will now clothe the anger of his heart: I am not my father. 10 Now as he decorates his horse, Heinmot Tooyalakekt, who demanded this young man's father's murderer from the Bostons (they refused), approaches him in all discretion to say: Shore Crossing, you have done well to obey your father's dying words, and keep your hands unstained. The young man lowers his head, proud and shy from the Wallowa chief's praise. 11 The chiefs have incensed themselves with sweetgrass. Now they pass the pipe, watching the ducks swim away when our children try to catch them. A very young boy shoots. He wastes an arrow. The chiefs are sorry for him. They have considered this matter each in his own way: We have always lived here. We have become soiled. We must stir up war for Cut Arm. No, you are wrong. Who can make a fight against big guns? Thief treaty! They treat us like slaves-- And soon they will wipe their buttocks on our heads! We need a wide country, so that we can always find meat . . . Sitting Bull has ridden across the Medicine Line--forever, they say. The Bluecoats dare not follow. And there are many buffalo over there. Would you ride to him, our enemy? Cut Arm is worse. No, he has not killed us. Sitting Bull has slain our friends and relations forever--death to him! Cut Arm showed the rifle. And those Butterfly Place People who signed the thief treaty-- remembering Lawyer's face seemingly at peace with itself, although he sold our MOTHER's body: Thief treaty! Four chiefs went to Washington and three came back-- Tsams Lúpin * and his lying Book of Light*-- And then that Boston said to my mother's brother: This is my land. But your mother's brother kept quiet. Here is how I would have acted-- Death to all of them, while Hoof Necklace and Little Man Chief ride around implacably on fast horses, Red Moccasin Tops murmurs to his father Yellow Bull --a fearless old killer who has befriended both Wallowa chiefs-- who will not answer: Keep quiet until we ride onto our meagre painted land, and Good Woman brews a special tea to calm Springtime's belly while Toohhoolhoolsote turtles in his head: he who can speak in the ancient language which we barely understand now says nothing. 12 How can we kill them all? There are too many. If we go on painted land, what will we have to eat? Cut Arm has no heart, while Looking-Glass, who in his youth was glad to have old men talk, now grows old himself, and expects to be followed. When I gave my hand to Cut Arm, and told him to hold it forever, this was his answer. Thief treaty! I told Cut Arm, the line is drawn; then he showed us the rifle! How can he give what is already ours? He would pen us up forever, never to make our names and live for ourselves, chasing buffalo herds like stormclouds on the golden grass, proving ourselves at the Sun Dance, while Crow maidens encourage us, nor to capture a silver-bridled Lakota horse and kill his many-feathered rider, wresting away his German silver bangles to give to my woman. We must go in to the reservation. Do you wish to be hanged? Must we obey the Book of Light like those People at Butterfly Place? No! We have always helped the Bostons, from their weakest days. They promised to be our friends forever. I am telling you three times: They have decided, Cut Arm's words crackling like flames eating little sticks, while we sat silent there at Butterfly Place, our young men staring, frowning, lowering their eyelids, desiring that Heinmot Tooyalakekt would speak out or else that Rainbow and the other great men should come (disappointed in his uncle, White Thunder has begun to fix his dream on them) while the Bluecoats laid hands on Toohhoolhoolsote, as if he were a slave! 13 They mean to put us in a small place. Yes, to corral us like their horses! to make us nevermore Dream (Smohalla kneeling in the front row of the Dreamers, wearing a pale robe, with his left hand on his heart and his right hand on his thigh, and his many delicate snowy braids caressing his gaunt cheeks, parting his lips as if to gasp for breath: We are flying up, Dreamers with their dark braids and shell earrings shaking and their eyes shining, Dreaming where they please as Toohhoolhoolsote rings the bell and Smohalla's wide dark pupils enlarge never again for us to wait on WOWSHUXLUH to tell us everything: Now is the time to dance here; now is the time for huckleberries to grow, so that we ride across the golden grass to Dream). They showed the rifle! --withdrawing his own rifle from its beaded scabbard. No better than when a girl is forced to marry-- Toohhoolhoolsote's women still pounding cous which they must have hastily gathered just before departing their home and Loon shouting: Kill all the Bostons! --the mold-white Bostons, who sprout up everywhere, even on our best camas meadows. 14 Looking-Glass, so friend-rich everywhere, now takes the pipe to say: Hear my words! My grandfather took care of the Bostons* like a brother. He changed shirts and horses with them. Their hearts have grown crooked, but ours remain straight. White Bird, it has been three summers since you called me into council. I told you: Brothers, I do not care to fight the Bostons. My heart has not changed. Again White Bird hides his face behind his fan; he remains as reclusive as a black-crowned night heron. Finally he takes the pipe: Toohhoolhoolsote, Cut Arm has insulted you above us other chiefs. What do you say? White Bird, I shall answer. We cannot deny that Bostons mean to remove us from OUR MOTHER; they are settling on Her like buffalo gnats and wounding Her flesh. But what would you? If you desire to fight them and die, that is all right. If not, let us go quietly onto our painted land and become women. And this I would say to Heinmot Tooyalakekt: My brother, we are all waiting upon your words; we now open our ears. It is you whom these Bostons love above all others. After Cut Arm put me away, you spoke for all the People.-- Heinmot Tooyalakekt, you have sold our country! My brother, I would not wish to contradict you, but you have not spoken straight. My father warned never to take any presents from white men. Ollokot was there; you may ask him if it was not so. Hear me, my chiefs: I have sold nothing, I am telling you three times! But that made no difference, for the Bostons have told lies and robbed us of OUR MOTHER. Looking-Glass, I call on you to answer this council as you answered me. You are a war-chief! Looking-Glass, can we by any means turn these Bostons aside? Since I have been asked, so I shall now speak. When the gold miners came into my country, my father warned them away, but one Boston said: For every white man you kill, a thousand will take his place. Unless we ride away forever to the Buffalo Country, we can do nothing but keep quiet on painted land. Then Moss Beard* will be our chief! He means to steal our horses and punish us for Dreaming! Strong Eagle, says Heinmot Tooyalakekt, that may well be so. Now that Cut Arm has showed the rifle, we must all complete our hearts. I shall save my Wallowa People's blood if I can. Should your People wish to fight, it is not my place to say no. But as for me, I shall give up my country. For my women, children and old ones I go against my promise to him who was my father and chief. I shall now live and die on painted land, never to go out. Even my father's grave I have left forever. Then the old men talk pokát, pokát, while the young men begin to beat the untanned elkhide. When they call once more on Heinmot Tooyalakekt to show his heart (since he has nearly become Cut Arm's grandson, perhaps he can save us), he gives them these words: My father used to say: Talking slowly is good. 15 Even again they call upon him, in suspicion and fear, ready to make themselves angry (for was it not he who bowed to Cut Arm like some womanish slave?), so that he says: My People, you ask me to show my heart. I hope the young men will listen. Do not avenge your wrongs. Follow our promise to Cut Arm. We who spoke for you have warned him three times at Butterfly Place that we shall never sell the bones of our fathers, nor part with the flesh of OUR MOTHER. He has closed his ears. We must now ride onto painted land and become poor. Otherwise his Bluecoats will shoot us. My chiefs, and all you young men, I know very well you are strong and fearless, while the Bostons are weak like children. They can hardly shoot or ride horses. Even so, they number too many; we cannot keep them out of our country. Hear me: It is finished. 16 Now Springtime must return to the women's house; she is getting ready to give birth, and so her husband goes to kill beef for her feast, riding away over Buzzard Mountain with Ollokot and others, as the old men keep saying pokát, pokát: Wait until camas season comes to Weippe; then we shall ride there and decide this with Charlot's People*-- No! By then we shall be penned up on painted land. Cut Arm will never let us come out again. Why not fight? War will come to us. No matter how well we mind Cut Arm, the Bostons will break their promises, while White Thunder rides round and round with his dear war-brother Wottolen, longing to dream some great dream through which the People will not lose everything (to which Wottolen replies: Soon we shall be flying up --for he lacks fear: no bullet can kill him); and grasshoppers sing our lake into darkness, while Yellow Bull and his son come to Toohhoolhoolsote to smoke the pipe, staring at the fire, insulting Cut Arm and making their hearts angry as the bear-hearted chief's pair of ancient wives sit silent and seemly within the lodge, listening, and when Swan Necklace and Strong Eagle ask White Bird to judge the words of Looking-Glass and Heinmot Tooyalakekt, he says from behind his fan: Whatever they have decided must be right for them --after which Red Moccasin Tops, he whose Cayuse grandfather was hanged by the Bostons once more urges Shore Crossing to put on the shirt which a man wears. 17 Red Moccasin Tops says: Hear me now! That crooked-hearted Boston keeps living here in our country! My brother, has your heart forgotten how he asked your father for land, and your father was kind and gave it to him? Shore Crossing, I am telling you three times! You do not answer. I speak now as my father ordered. But this Boston fenced out your father from his own garden, I am telling you! When your father came to speak with him, this Boston killed him--your own father, Chief Eagle Robe! And now they pen us up forever . . . Shore Crossing, sick as if from a bad smell, his thoughts wavering and shapeless, keeps silence, for we should be instructed by old people, not by men of our own age, not this cousin of mine, nor even Swan Necklace, my war-friend and sister's son, my father's grandson, who has killed Kalispels and Lice-Eaters with my help, so that Shore Crossing's heart resembles an unhorsed hunter's face licked raw by a buffalo; because Swan Necklace, watching him, exemplifies a lizard still mostly in its cliff-cave, perfectly motionless to avoid the attentions of dangerous birds such as Looking-Glass, the Bostons' friend, but already rigidly elongated in the direction of the young leaf it pretends not to desire: You know as well as we where he lives. Brother, ride with us, just for awhile. Soon we shall ride no more. Always doing nothing in a narrow place-- Stirring ashes like old women-- Never at Split Rock again, nor to visit the Wallowa People-- No more camas unless the Agent is feeling kind-- Hungry, sick, doing nothing-- And never to the Buffalo Country-- Brother, let us hear your heart now! Shore Crossing, he who can shoot everything, even golden eagles, keeps silent --but to never once see dawn in the Buffalo Country, (Looking-Glass always says: Buffalo meat is the best. Only buffalo meat will do), nor steal war ponies from the Cutthroats and Walking Cutthroats (because Cut Arm would pen us up: Thief treaty! ) , never even to share salmon with the Downriver People, just to leave our country forever (I am almost ready, walking into something), it is warped --but I shall remain quiet. When the Painted Arrows count coup against any of us, we avenge it. And here is Swan Necklace, his pale round face raised proud, his dark eyes deep and steady, a feather in his hair and white nutshaped rings upon his pigtails, white necklaces concentric about his throat and chest, sitting still. When a breeze begins to blow from the lake, robe-fringe stirs at his ankles. His young hands shine. In a voice as sharp-edged as beargrass he says: The Bluecoats will send us to a small place, I am telling you three times! Even in the peace council, Cut Arm spoke the rifle! And he made Toohhoolhoolsote prisoner. They have trampled us into the ground. Thief treaty. Red Moccasin Tops now says: Brother, let us kill the white man who killed Eagle Robe. Or would you rather go to a small place to pass the time with hungry old women? He is not here. This I have heard from Red Heart: he has fled to the gold mines in Florence. We can never get at him there. Then let us kill another one. Why not him who likes to set his dogs on us? Shore Crossing will not speak; he is wrapping himself in his blanket, but Swan Necklace says: That one owns a fine horse and a rifle. Perhaps he has getting-drunk liquid. * He dwells alone. Why not him? Brothers, my eyes are rolling around, the SUN as red as the nostril of a galloping horse, and now the wind is blowing. 18 His hounds bark, and the old man sits up, reaching under the pillow for the revolver but Swan Necklace's plump young face rises in the window like a moon: Get him, Butch! Get him, Jupiter! but even as the face gloats at him he hears his squealing brutes clubbed down. Why, you no good Indian bastard! I'll pay you back for that! And after I get you, I'll pin down your squaws-- but that proud mouth almost seems to smile even though its corners turn down: by G OD I should have knowed better than to leave the shutter ajar no matter how hot it was! Holy JESUS, help me now! If I can just because although the revolver is charged, the instant it flashes into sight they'll sweet summer evening sky, yellowgold, and the river singing two seconds is all I need of sky and this house whose beams I hewed out with hope and sweat, for Thine is the Kingdom and if I try for my buffalo gun--not even a foot away, right there leaning up against the wall--that's two seconds, maybe three, but if I miss the sky it'll have to be the revolver: one into his face and then but I can buy them off, that's it, I know, I knew; I always knew the evil of them Indians. There must be one more of them outside at least because they're such GODd----n cowards-- and in the intruder's pale brown hands a Sharps now gleams dark, rising I got to do it, right now-- Hey, you Indians, I didn't do nothing-- so if I stare right into his cruel eyes and at his forehead which sweat-shines like his many, many necklaces as the rifle speaks. My GOD, you've shot me, you d----d Indian! Help! These Injuns are murdering me-- and then the rifle speaks again, into his face. 19 So he who killed Dakoopin is dead, just as we would have it (my heart flies up to the SUN), bloody and silverhaired on his bearskin pillow, a fly circling round his open mouth here in this place called Tipsusleimah which the Bostons have stolen for themselves along with so many others, gashing OUR MOTHER, uprooting Her hair, shooting Dakoopin, a crippled woman* without harm in her; thus we have punished him; we are laughing and making ourselves brave, we who are from Sparse-Snowed Place and Wallowa: so we give ourselves his guns, tear apart his Bible, rend the silver dollars from his pockets, scalp him, take his bullets, powder, sugar, coffee and getting-drunk liquid (discussing our troubles round and round) because Cut Arm showed the rifle, and these Bostons mean to suck the marrow from our bones! Hear me, these Bostons here on this land they have painted away from us, exactly these are the ones who signed the paper to the Grandfather* in Washington to get us removed. If I am to speak, I shall now speak from my heart. (Dakoopin's spirit may then be gladdened.) Let us ride to tell Toohhoolhoolsote, whom Cut Arm has shamed; no, brother, this has been no more glorious than washing the ashes off sweathouse rocks; that old man showed no fight! Let us continue straightforwardly in the way we used to live (Looking-Glass and White Bird acted thus before they got old): we shall be praised! Let us ride quickly to some other place, and kill more Bostons; completing our hearts we shall kill them; like grizzly bears we shall rush toward their blood, and staking their horses in another bad Boston's wheat field, in order to lure him out (because last year in this place a certain tall Boston for his own amusement took up his blacksnake whip and lashed two of our young men whom he had never seen before, and when Ollokot complained at Butterfly Place, the Bostons called a council to judge who was in the wrong, and this very man, who now plants wheat in our country, wounding the flesh of OUR MOTHER, sat on the council and decided: the tall Boston was in the right, and he, this one here, he was also the one who when his friend murdered Shore Crossing's father said: He should not be prosecuted for killing a dog ), they hide on the field's edge, in the growing yellow grass, over them the yellow and crimson emblem of a redwing blackbird; until two Bostons come running to curse them, the SUN falling as the one who judged against the People now sees a rifle rising up out of the grass, shouts, strikes his brother's arm, and back they run but Swan Necklace stands up smiling with his WYAKIN riding him to full dusk and Red Moccasin Tops leaps out singing while Shore Crossing takes aim (this is nothing: far less trouble than running down a wild mustang) so that they kill those two dogs: Áhaha! --the moon as yellow-white as an old horse's tongue and blood darker than Salish* cherries. THE TIME HAS PASSED JUNE 14 1 Swan Woman, older than anyone knows, slowly twining her pigtails while camas bakes underground; ancient Tzi-kal-tza who has tied stones to his braids; Fair Land, more than thirty springs old (the beads rattling and jingling across her breasts), who now suckles her little boy; Good Woman, who is gathering more grass and moss for Springtime's baby; and Toohhoolhoolsote, who this morning as every other has stiffened his hair with clay in order to Dream this EARTH of yellow locusts dancing between the rocks, cattails and yellow grass, they all raise their heads when Two Moons comes running to the chiefs, crying out: Here comes Swan Necklace on a white man's horse-- 2 And Toohhoolhoolsote, rising, turns away, wrapping himself in his buffalo robe, hunching in his head, drawing in his arms, until he has almost become stone. 3 Swan Necklace, Red Moccasin Tops and Shore Crossing encamp at Round Willow Stream, waiting for other warriors to come; and now Big Morning is riding Swan Necklace's new horse round and round: a pretty roan stallion (the two who were humiliated with the blacksnake whip know this horse very well) and Toohhoolhoolsote speaks into White Bird's ear as Shore Crossing's wife, who has not yet given birth, rides in from Round Willow Stream, joyously singing the war-song, with Red Moccasin Tops riding ahead, likewise singing, while before him, Shore Crossing rides in singing at last, red flannel in his feathered hair, bearing a great Sharps buffalo rifle: his trophy of the Bostons he has killed --but Red Owl, Húsishúsis Kute and Yellow Grizzly Bear (he who first insulted Shore Crossing) run to Looking-Glass, who has always known what must befall should our People kill any Bostons-- while three longhaired men with red-painted faces and ecstatic eyes sell Wounded Head an almost-new black Winchester in exchange for the horse he is riding, and when his wife points angrily to their sick baby, crying: Bad man, how can you go to war and leave your son?, he replies: The rifle will be mine but not for war, I promise you! Now we can ride away to the mountains for deer and sheep, escaping the war of these other people as Red Moccasin Tops cries out: We have killed four! Shore Crossing is a man after all-- so that his proud father Yellow Bull begins singing the war-song because now we shall never be penned up here anymore; we shall ride away, away, all the way to the Buffalo Country to be lucky men like Looking-Glass; Swan Necklace has promised me that Crow women make good sweethearts; I shall find one; I shall find two; I shall eat cottonwood jelly with them in the spring (my horse flies like thunder, faster than daybreak) while Two Moons cries: Warriors, let us ride out and kill more Bostons! at which Toohhoolhoolsote looks up, his eyes half-closed and his mouth curving down; no one knows what lives in his heart; sunlight glares like tears upon his leathery cheeks; he says: Now I am glad, then leaps onto one of his buffalo horses, a wise one named Brown Head, cantering away with his fiercest young men; for many, o so many, of our proud and tortured People must rise up in joy, knowing in their hearts that few things can be more beautiful than this smoothly moonfaced young warrior Shore Crossing with his two long waves of hair shining down past his armpits and his many white loops of necklace enriching him like all this summer's worth of bright days, while a cartridge belt sashes tight the plaid blanket-coat whose fringes fall past his ankles (he will now become foremost of our daring ones, the Three Red Blankets); his wife's heart has grown proud; at last he has acted like a man; but Looking-Glass's People cast against these young men voices both deep and shrill, Red Heart's wife crying out: The Bostons never did anything to hurt me! You have killed them, Shore Crossing! Swan Necklace and Red Moccasin Tops, you have killed them! You have bad hearts. Now they will be killing us, the women tearing down their lodges, even abandoning their camas bulbs so tediously gathered and now cooking underground (White Bird and Kate withdrawing silently into their lodge) as Looking-Glass says, staring the killers down: You have acted like children in murdering these Bostons. My hands are not stained with their blood; nor shall they be. If you desire war, then fight, but not with my help. I ride now into my country, which Cut Arm has painted out for me. Do not visit me there! The Bluecoats will swoop on you like bluejays on dead meat. My heart is sad for you. Now I am going away, for I wish to remain at peace, and even before his wives and daughters have finished taking down his lodge he has leapt onto his black buffalo pony, who advances with lowered head, his mane standing upright like his ears, at which Red Moccasin Tops, who will become the second of the Three Red Blankets, says: Shore Crossing, my brother, here is one chief who yearns to stir up ashes forever like an old woman! as White Thunder, whose place is with the Wallowa People, hastens to his dear mother Swan Woman (perhaps he will see her no more), and gives her his rifle, so that she will never fall hungry; he bids good-bye to Peopeo Tholekt, who leaps onto his longnecked yellow horse --but Wottolen and Black Eagle have completed their hearts: they will stay here, just for awhile, while Chief Red Heart is now persuading all his sons to come and lie quiet with him and Looking-Glass on painted land: the good place called Kamnaka, which Cut Arm has promised us, although Over The Point desires to fight, and likewise his brother Allutakanin; just now they choose to take care of their mother and sister, thereby comforting their father's heart, for who knows how Cut Arm will revenge himself? --and gathering in their horses, Looking-Glass's People begin riding quickly away (perhaps we are parting forever), riding hard toward Kamnaka, Looking-Glass and his brother presently turning aside from the others to warn the white man Tsépmin, with whom they once traded horses, to get out of there before White Bird's warriors think to visit his ranch, Tsépmin first disbelieving, then stubborn, then owl-eyed, and Looking-Glass rides away beside his brother, the bells and beads singing on their horses' martingales; now they are all cantering north through the sweet green swales until the horses tire, our children silent with terror (now they will kill our relatives), willows and cottonwoods along our streams-- thief treaty!-- avoiding Riverfork,* where we once had a cemetery (the Bostons dug it up), and the green becomes yellow, the cottonwoods dark-leaved in opposition to TRAVELLER the SUN as we ride down into the rabbitbrush, another bend, and then the drier rolls of land greet us with grasses green and yellow, lavender-grey country ahead as the smooth land opens out and coarsens into sagebrush, and dark rock-teeth begin to gnaw out of the golden grass, cottonwoods like silvergreen clouds in the sky of yellow grass, sweep of yellow meadows, lodgepole pine forests, all forest ahead (a family of deer, the fawns bounding like rabbits: we leave them, in order to ride more quickly to the place where Cut Arm promised we'll be safe), upcurving and downdrooping parallels of pine branches --and then Kamnaka, our reservation, this scrap of flesh which Cut Arm has left us, where we shall forgo camas, surely for this summer only, baking eels on sticks; --and likewise even Húsishúsis Kute, who spoke for the Palouses at Butterfly Place, spurning Cut Arm's safe-conduct pass, smilingly explaining to the Bostons because I might get it dirty (Cut Arm frowning horribly, speaking hard to his tallest Bluecoat and writing marks on a snow-white paper), yes, even Húsishúsis Kute now rides away with his chief, Hahtalekin, and all the Palouses (thus we who remain say they are as women to dread the punishments of Cut Arm while we ourselves hope that Cut Arm will learn to be sorry for what we are now beginning to accomplish); we shall abide here where we have always been; or perhaps ride east to the Buffalo Country for awhile, to meet our friends the Crows and kill Cutthroats and Shinbones* (and perhaps Lice-Eaters on the way); and we shall certainly kill buffalo, as many as we wish: Ride with me, brothers! Let us kill more Bostons; I say it three times. Shore Crossing has spoken. I shall follow him-- This will bring bad luck. No, warriors with their hair down, raising their feathered lances, riding red-blanketed on their lovely horses, Toohhoolhoolsote singing over them as another trout leaps out of the lake, riding, riding, away on their decorated horses, joyous for cruelty and Springtime keeps asking for her husband. Tell Fair Land-- Look! Red Owl's wife gave me her puppy-- Now we shall give Cut Arm his war. It was not we who stirred this up, but Cut Arm. I mean to capture many horses. And I also: Pim. Pim. Pim. We have made ourselves new. SOME KIND OF PEACE JUNE 14-16 1 Ready to hear the purport of their visitor's heart, he stands beside Ollokot, there on the far side of Buzzard Mountain where the wind blows cool, as Two Moons, that good warrior well known, canters up on his mouse-colored horse, the women squinting anxiously through the smoke of the roasting meat-- his dear daughter Sound Of Running Feet (a modest girl who makes few errors), Ollokot's younger wife Cloudburst and the half-woman Welweyas (Fair Land, who is Ollokot's other wife, having stayed with Good Woman at Split Rock to help Springtime give birth)-- all turning their darkening ribbons of beef on green sticks; and John Wilson and Half Moon, they who are fishing-skilled, have just run up from the creek when Two Moons leaps down, caressing the horse's neck, and says: Some young men have gone to war, at which Heinmot Tooyalakekt (he who is called Joseph ) smiles painfully, his heart screaming qoh! qoh! qoh! qoh! like a raven as Welweyas's hand goes to her throat and Two Moons, whose blanket has been folded over his left arm, now draws it in tightly around his waist, left hand separated from right by a single thickness of woolcloth, standing large-eyed, waiting to hear what the brother chiefs will say: Heinmot Tooyalakekt hides his heart while Ollokot seems nearly glad. 2 They leave most of the hides to rot, the men and Welweyas slinging their rifles over their shoulders, as the daughter and the brother's younger wife finish cinching bags of meat upon their twelve packhorses, with carrion-birds already blackly clouded on the cow-guts, and now the men are riding ahead (John Wilson, carrying smoked trout for his sister, murmuring a secret prayer to his WYAKIN: I am flying up ) , Two Moons cantering beside Ollokot, wondering how it is going to be, Half Moon watching the horizon for something bad, Heinmot Tooyalakekt already half-bewitched by Cut Arm's angry face, which floats before him in the air (as for Ollokot, he hates Cut Arm worse than Sitting Bull), but Welweyas canters singing and laughing, as if she does not understand; perhaps she is making herself brave. 3 So again they cross the roaring Chinook Salmon Water, raising their rifles high while their fine horses swim them from bank to bank; unspeaking they ride (their hearts as various as those of gamblers playing the Stick Game), back to Split Rock, from where so many People have already fled, panicked women whipping their horses' heads, leaving dog dung, dead circles of grass, opened pits, steaming hillocks within which camas sweats for nothing, but White Thunder, this excellent young man soon to become great, is waiting on his uncles (he has painted his face) and our buffalo hunters are beginning to ride in from the Lo Lo Trail, while White Bird sings one of the oldest Dreamer songs: All People, all animals! O UR M OTHER will die! The buffalo will perish, our liberty broken! the SUN glaring down the white-gorgeted chests of our warriors who dance by the lake's edge, each knot in their dark braids picked out with its own white jewel of light, light on their round shell-disk earrings, the stripes of their blankets and the rectangles and diamonds of their leggings glowing whiter than the whites of their well-shaded eyes; to them Heinmot Tooyalakekt says: I am weary of your conduct; soon you will be sorry for what you have done; there is no remedy now, while Toohhoolhoolsote's wives, obeying their master, keep on digging, steaming, pounding and smoking camas, and his nephews dry arrow-shafts, some young men ecstatically beating an untanned elkskin, singing war-songs, as Fair Land makes soup for everyone. 4 White Bird rides his horse round and round, saying: Now we shall not go on the reservation. 5 Where is Looking-Glass? He took his people away; they have been gone two days-- To their reservation? --at which Toohhoolhoolsote snarls: If they conclude to become slaves of Cut Arm and the Bostons forever, I cannot help it. 6 Good Woman crawls out from the tipi, wearing many beads. Is it well with Springtime? Very well, and you have another daughter. They are sleeping in the women's house-- Good, and my thanks to you and Fair Land. Soon we must be riding away. 7 White Thunder waits to come to him. They sit down together to smoke kinnikinnick, watching black birds on the lake, the locusts singing tekh-tekh-tekh!, until he says: Now tell me. Did you ride with those young men? No! Uncle, you know that I have always opened my ears to your words! I am glad. Who were they? Only one from our band. Shall I guess? Geese Three Times Alighting On Water. Excerpted from The Dying Grass by William T. Vollmann All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.
