The Dying Grass, page 121
20
Silhouettes of boulder-nippled swales pretend to be buffalo
and buffalo become silhouettes
as the eastern sides of buttes darken in early evening;
we are camping early, eating Boston bacon and sugar but longing for buffalo,
and Looking-Glass says: Lean Elk was never any chief! He is killing our old ones!
so the old ones say: Looking-Glass speaks straight,
and our best men begin thinking.
21
In the sleety night, Good Woman screams beneath her blanket,
tortured by a nightmare of hearing the fat bubbling out of our women and children whom the Bluecoats shot and roasted at Ground Squirrel Place
(it is only the river saying mululululu).
22
Yellowish-red like a young buffalo calf creeps TRAVELLER THE SUN up over the trees, and the People flee on, hating Lean Elk, who warns: Listen to me, Looking-Glass and all you chiefs! I am telling you three times. Unless we hurry and hurry, we shall all be killed.
But our Boston food makes us heavy and happy, all of us
except for Toohhoolhoolsote’s wives, who never eat much:
they long to make a tea from the sagebrush which grows far away in our country, along the Chinook Salmon Water;
then their husband’s coughing would stop;
and except for our old ones and children
and Springtime, who cannot keep her baby warm.
23
We wind toward Wolf’s Paw,
our copper bracelets still gleaming,
wrapping our blankets tighter as we ride
(the ice-breeze says: tsss!
—soon the buffaloberries will be ready):
and down in that draw, exactly there, another Boston is riding alone on a fine horse.
All white men are spies, so let us kill him
—pim!—
and take his treasures:
Red Spy pulling off his boots
(no need for pounding: he is quite dead, poor fellow!),
Young Eagle Necklace shouldering his old Sharps,
Tomyahnin buckling on his cartridge belt,
Ollokot finding .44 rimfire ammunition for his dear sad chief and brother,
White Bird’s Kate happily wrapping greenbacks into her braid-ends:
while Black Eagle, Wottolen’s brave son, takes his brown and white pinto pony
(whose shoulder has been heart-branded)
and we share his sack of marrow-like among the children,
but when we wish to strip off his clothes, Heinmot Tooyalakekt forbids it.
Now that the Crows and Lice-Eaters have fallen away, and the Bluecoats remain far back by the river called O-pumohat Kyai-is-i-sak-ta, it begins to seem to the People
(excepting Wottolen,
whose nightmares of Cut Arm have again become as terrifying as the Painted Arrows who roam ahead in their tall war-bonnets,
and White Bird,
whose heart has come to hate Looking-Glass)
that Lean Elk has hurried too many of us to death;
our horses are tired, their hooves diseased
(Burning Coals worries about his herd; even Lucky One gets quickly winded now);
and as for Looking-Glass’s follies, just as we wash colored earths in a vessel of water so that the gravel settles out, then pour the cloudy water into another vessel which the fine pigments will settle in, so now if we but sift and refine his words we may gain the best of him,
for his follies are truly ours: he has never told us what we desired not to hear,
and in just the same way that earth pigments settle in swirls when we wash them
(and since Heinmot Tooyalakekt’s heart cannot tell him how he should speak in this matter, he murmurs aside with Ollokot, who replies: Elder brother, if you say yes, then I shall follow your words.
White Bird, are you determined to keep quiet?
What others hide in their hearts is not for me to spy out),
so our longing to rest awhile, just for awhile, sinks grain by grain within us, falling silent upon itself, building up into something sure and bright:
Looking-Glass, who even now remains a lucky man,
and who when he comes before Sitting Bull will be wearing his best hairpiece decorated with Crow beads as large as tears
(while Lean Elk dresses like a poor man),
shall again be chief
—to which Lean Elk repeats in council: I have done my best for everyone. Now indeed you may again be head-chief, but my heart tells me that we shall all be captured and killed.
ROSETTE PORTRAITS
OCTOBER 1–3
1
Mason, Sturgis, you’ll remain here in charge of the command. I’ll take Miller’s artillery on the “Benton.” Captain Miller, you’re to lead the infantry along that old Indian trail, doublequick. Head them toward the Milk River until I send other orders. Lieutenant Fletcher will be your aide-de-camp. Captain, I’m counting on you! Should Joseph succeed in making his junction with Sitting Bull, your reënforcements may tip the scales.
Yessir. We can head out in an hour.
GOD bless you. Chapman, how’s that magnificent horse of yours?
Real good, thanks, general. How’s yours?
You’ll ride out with us in half an hour. I don’t need to tell you, I hope, how great a moral responsibility you bear as interpreter. The Government depends on you to express our words to the Nez Perces, and theirs to us, with exemplary fidelity. Do you understand?
Upon my honor, general—
Whatever do you wish to say now?
Just that you can count on me, because I been out here in Indian country for twenty-two years, and I’m a brother in good standing of the Order of the Eastern Star—
Go now. Well, Perry, Mrs. Howard informs me in all her letters that your wife is bearing up exactly as expected.
Yessir,
as watchful as a Crow scout.
Have you received news directly from her?
Not since Henry’s Lake, sir, but I’ll bet she’s managing.
Mrs. Howard gets a bit blue at times, as she puts it. She’s quite exercised at Joseph for leading us so far from home!
My wife probably feels much the same, sir,
the whore.
Someday before I get too old or get killed I’m going to resign this chickenshit Army and leave that harridan; then I’ll make us a loveseat out of tamarack wood and Delia will quilt the cushions for it and plait a back out of red cedar. And in the evenings we sit there,
except that I’d get blue doing nothing at home.
Now, what should I know about Old George and Captain John?
Knowing them as I do, sir, I would not trust them in any way.
Then whom should I trust? Not Chapman.
Take me, general! If I can be in on the death—
For Theller’s sake.
Yessir.
I’m sorry, colonel. Your company needs you here. They can’t keep up. How are they?
They sure appreciate the slowdown, sir.
Good. Your new horse has a lot of “dash.” Wilkinson thinks him somewhat rawboned, but I disagree. You chose well.
Thank you, sir.
All right, Perry; that will be all.
Yessir,
staring at him, his collar faded to the hue of the Big Dust, his forehead smudged with soot and shadow, his beard, still neat, going grey
as they both listen to someone’s water bottle cracking from internal ice-pressure.
2
Lieutenant Wood, Lieutenant Howard, you’ll come with me. Wilkinson, remind Chapman and the scouts that they’re to embark in thirty minutes.
Yessir.
Walk with me for a moment.— Don’t be downhearted, my boy! Most officers I’m leaving behind because they don’t have enough “sand” in them for the final push. (I won’t name names.) You’re staying here because I trust you more than anyone to keep an eye on everything.
Thanks, general—
Wood needs his chance, don’t you see? You’ve already distinguished yourself. I’ll never forget your courage at Clearwater!— Pull yourself together, Wilkinson, and the LORD be with you.
Yessir.
Good-bye now,
turning away from him but still seeing through closed eyes Wilkinson’s despair as bright as the calcium lights of New York City.
3
Old George and Captain John are ready first. Leave it to the d——d reds.
Throwing on their triple-buckled blankets, leaving behind the shining pyramids of our Sibley tents and the almost empty commissary wagon, each of them
(excepting Old George, Captain John and Ad Chapman)
meditates as follows: O, a cold chase this will surely be!
4
As the “Benton” draws away,
her smoke blowing behind us over the swales,
the boys slamming logs into both boilers
and our horses neighing belowdecks,
the sun goes as red as the nosebleed of a lung-shot buffalo, but in that strange evening light, the dying grass, frosted and matted down, seems as pallid white as new lace at the milliner’s:
forty miles yet to Cow Island
as the general and the captain keep jawboning with that grubby courier from Colonel Miles,
the low-compression engine loudly farting and pig-snorting,
so that the rest of us feel safe from being overheard as we backstab the men we’ve left behind
(gazing like lords across the paddlewheel while the crew does all the work):
Well, he was all instinct and impulse. The way he instantly took against Wood—
But don’t you remember how much he loved Lieutenant Theller?
—and as the general strolls to the pilot house, Wood looks back once more at our bunch
(just in case I’m killed)
to find Colonel Perry standing among them as tall as the flagpole on Lapwai’s parade ground
and Wilkinson, already shrinking and darkening, leads the abandoned ones in three cheers.
5
This has not been as short a campaign as I expected, but now comes the finish, one way or another, and I do hope to regain General Sherman’s confidence.
Miles’s command will surely be a match for Joseph in his present deteriorated state, unless Sitting Bull . . .
I cannot get over the effects of that despatch at Henry’s Lake. But I must believe that once we close this war, even if merely by running Joseph across the line, General Sherman and I will restore our friendship:
cinders rushing from our towering two funnels, painting the dusk with orange stars.
Poor Wilkinson! What can I do for him? He’d be perfect overseeing a boarding-school for Indian children. I’ll write the Department.
I must pray again to-night for Mrs. Manuel; could Joseph be saving her as his bargaining-chip? Custer once told me that when he stormed that Indian village on the Washita, some hideous old squaw was holding a white woman captive, and upon his entrance she stabbed her prisoner in the heart . . .
Now if we can but prevent Joseph from fording the Milk River,
which must now be mortally cold for his women and children—that should delay him!—
unless it has already frozen solid—
. . . well, that also is in GOD’s hands.
How dark this river is!
O, this certainly feels like the finish, the death of something,
and we have all been condemned to wait for death—first of all—our own; and then (far worse) to sit at the deathbeds of those we love:
Poor father was so afraid of suffocation at the end!
It may have been a mistake to tell Guy about it. No. He’s a soldier,
his purpose still as white as a cadet’s linen collar.
He needs to show “sand.” He’ll be no good unless he can face every horror.
I’ll never forget that time I came into that dim and pestilential sick-chamber and Mother and Rowland were sitting him up so that he could breathe; he kept gasping and staring at us as if we could help him . . .
. . . wheezing and coughing, choking on his own blood, with no relief, that same panic I have seen so many times in my dying young men . . .
O dear GOD, and the way his throat kept rattling at the finish! It sounded like some fiendish Dreamer shaking a gourd!
(I must not hate Toohhoolhoolzote; it is not for me to hate.)
I did my best to hide how fearful I found it, but since I was his own flesh he must have known.
He needed to die! How could we have ever wished to let him go? But we did; only death could relieve his agonies
and ours
to which then must succeed the first import of loss, then the second, and third, when pain eats deeper into our heart-roots—
But this finish here and now will not be sorrowful, not even if the Indians wipe us out,
although for Lizzie of course . . .
It will be the true finish, just as when at a prayer meeting our burning eyes and choking sadnesses surrender to ethereal joy.
6
Wood keeps dreaming
—as if any dream could be as proud as the white horse on the roof of Sherlock & Bacon’s livery stable in Portland, or as hopeful as Theller’s Blackfoot squaw when some greasy miner promises her two bits for opening her legs!—
of some kind of glory,
not least because the instant he saw the Missouri Breaks his breast ached for joy, and it seemed to him that his heart would never stop laughing:
Why shouldn’t I make my stand here? Live out my life and . . .
Because isn’t that what every American feels, the yearning for a beautiful home? If I could be here every morning forever, and shoot birds for Nanny to roast
(two gunshots far away,
white frost on our black-tarred backpacks),
while she
—but might I prove incapable of happiness? I really ought to make myself pray
—since if nothing else it looks as if I’ll be in on the finish:
What if it’s me who captures Joseph?
If it’s a duel between him and me, could I shoot him, feeling as I do?
Well, wouldn’t it be best for the Indians if I do whatever it takes to end their sufferings?
Or how would it be if I led them safe into the British Possessions, and married Joseph’s daughter? Then I’d be the White Chief. They’d teach me how to live like an Indian, and I’d . . .
Ad Chapman says she’s twelve years old, and they marry around thirteen. Nanny would
shoot herself, but we got the pistol out of her clutches. Seems she’d gone hysterical after some Blackfeet murdered her husband, so we
never should have left Nigger Lover Howard in charge of this campaign.
Quit it or he’ll—
No, Guy, it should be all right. Miles has a Hotchkiss and a Parrott gun.
WILKINSON WAITS
OCTOBER 3–4
1
Wilkinson, abandoning himself to prayers for his general’s better success
(if he could get any wish whatsoever in the world, it would be for his dear general’s triumph and gratification)
and fearing now even more than does the general that our reds will manage to slip across the Medicine Line, thereby discrediting this campaign
—worse yet, embarrassing Mrs. Howard, an outstanding woman whom he frankly would choose for his own mother any day,
not to mention Grace, who for all her stupidity is at least not arrogant
(and he will freely admit her to be far more beautiful than his own Sallie, despite the latter’s brown eyes),
kneels down behind the general’s forsaken Sibley tent and asks the LORD OF HOSTS to help us defeat Chief Joseph, for the sake not only of every man here but our entire United States, and then Christian decency,
since even before Joseph put himself in the wrong by murdering and raping those white people on the Salmon River there was the fact of his Dreamer idolatry, for which Wilkinson is sufficiently bighearted to blame not Joseph but Joseph’s dead apostate father, yet which all the same remains a canker which must be gotten rid of.
Soon as we whip Joseph and I get leave, it’s me for Lewiston! I want a Dutch apple pie from Skookum’s bakery. Until this moment I never noticed how hungry I am. After that Dutch apple pie I might eat a huckleberry one without help.
Wilkinson,
not to split hairs,
asserts to GOD that although Joseph may well differ from, say, Toohhoolhoolzote in both intentions and character, he has certainly long since declared himself for the evil side; as for any so-called military genius, Wilkinson after scientifically considering the facts believes this Red Napoleon to be at best (if one may borrow from Edgar Poe) a Red Imp of the Perverse, for which reason his continual survival in the field frustrates and, he stints not to confess it, outright angers Wilkinson, who would like to see Joseph pay: drop the trap, hiss out rope, stretch his neck!—followed by Toohhoolhoolzote, the latter being irremediably SATANic. To be sure, even Joseph may someday come to the LORD, in which case a course of lifelong humble penitence in the Indian Territory (and a mandate to keep his bucks quiet) might suffice for punishment, Wilkinson being of a forgiving and forbearing disposition;
but the first thing is to defeat this woman-burner, and in this regard Wilkinson cannot help but worry about the general’s associates:
Chapman’s intentions have never gone beyond the simple lusts and greeds which one must expect of any man in his fallen state;
Guy is no use, and our tame Nez Perces unreliable;
moreover, without ever meeting him, Wilkinson has always hated and distrusted Colonel Miles, of whom the general speaks with such guileless generosity.
