The Dying Grass, page 129
General, I worry that you may have made a mistake.
About what?
About not assuming command.
Wood, have you forgotten that Miles was my aide-de-camp in the Secession War? I got him his first command. I trust him as I would trust you.
Sir, you know best.
3
Evening recruits the sky into a lovely warm pink
(ice under the smoothest snow,
the sleet strengthening),
as Miles once more trains his field-glass down into the snowy coulee,
waiting, as men will do while their wives are behind the door giving birth, listening to the silence, the midwife’s murmuring and the anguished screams, waiting for the infant’s cry;
so it is that our Parrott guns, operated by these kindly medical men, ease open the secret womb of this place, so that America can come out,
Wood’s face numb because he must stand toward the leaping sleet,
the breeze meanwhile insufficient to stir the willows down in Joseph’s valley
(No, Guy. You see, up until now, the Indians had no ranks to open up with our guns),
and the burn of the cold, cold copper bracelet on Wood’s left wrist makes it no use to think of Nanny:
Get up here, Chapman.
Don’t talk that way to me, you sissy punk—
Shut up and hurry. General wants you,
so Chapman, his hair now shoulder-length, hands easy at his sides, strides forward with that same sway of hips and shoulders as if he were riding that grey racer of his. From Miles’s Cheyennes he has already obtained a plug of liquorice tobacco, and his left cheek bulges out as he walks. His trousers are as fabulously cracked as anyone else’s, but he has managed to patch them.
Old George and Captain John come riding slowly back:
Load with cartridges; load!
Joseph wants to parley.
4
And his Bible says: Take heed to thyself, lest thou make a covenant with the inhabitants of the land whither thou goest, lest it be a snare for thee: But ye shall destroy their altars, break their images, and cut down their groves,
as Chief Joseph, wearing buckskin moccasins, a blue wool shirt, a grey blanket with a black stripe, and a bullet-measled grey shawl
(his braids frozen against his face),
rides slowly up the snow-hill, with his .44 Winchester carbine over his shoulder,
attended and perhaps consoled by three or four walking braves,
fixes the rifle in the crook of his arm, rides forward away from these best men,
leaps off his shivering spavined horse, letting the bridle fall,
the well-trained horse remaining still;
now is walking up past the Hotchkiss and our blanket-wrapped dead;
hesitantly he extends his hand.
And now he wants a surrender.
I can get him with a good shot.
General says no.
Which general?
Both of ’em.
How do you know?
Easing his hand into his shortcoat pocket, where a cocked pistol waits to fix Joseph should that savage seek treachery against the man whom he, Guy Howard, loves most, the young lieutenant stands a few steps behind Colonel Miles and his father,
who now, as Joseph pulls his blanket tight and slowly, sadly offering his Winchester, gestures to Miles to receive it:
General Miles, sir, he may be dangerous. Remember how Lame Deer tried to kill you even when he was waving the white rag—
Poor Shrenger, he sure took that bullet! Don’t worry. We won’t let Mr. Joe try any such tricks!
—then Joseph hesitates, holding his rifle a little longer, with the barrel pointing downward and toward himself
(Guy now crouched and ready)
and begins murmuring alien syllables:
No, Doc, he don’t speak English.
Sure he does. He was even baptized once. Ephraim, they called him. He’s just faking,
Wood writing Chapman’s words with numb fingers on his little pad, a courtesy which no one has asked him to perform:
Tell Cut Arm I know his heart . . .
Joseph staring straight ahead, his eyes and mouth three slits, his throat guarded by a collar of bearteeth,
his face far thinner than at Lapwai, the creases at the corners of his eyes longer, his braids beginning to turn white
(for some reason I remember the way that Ollicut used to set his mouth)
and his gaze shining away somewhere:
I must say he comes off worse in any comparison, even of dignity itself, to Cochise, who listened to me, kept his word, and saved his tribe,
remembering the Apache chief’s long, high-cheekboned face, with vermilion paint on his cheeks, his hair likewise beginning to grey,
and the Indians offering me their gratitude for having placed them safely on the reservation:
O, so much better than this!
What he told me before I have in my heart.
That’s truly Mr. Joe?
Well, disease and starvation makes wild Indians grow rapidly old in appearance.
What’s he jabbering, boys?
I am tired of fighting; our chiefs are all killed; Looking-Glass is dead; the old men are all killed . . .
Can you hear what he’s saying?
For a red, he’s almost a gentleman. You remember the way Robert E. Lee slammed his hands together after he surrendered?
Hey you, Chapman, what’s he saying?
From where the sun now stands . . .
O, go home to your squaw wife, you greasy fool.
I’m pickin’ me a fresh one just now and ain’t nothin’ you can do about it. Now shut up; I’m interpreting Mr. Joe.
You would.
Cut it out, boys; I want to hear this.
I will fight no more forever.
I like that.
Well, I say that villain’s layin’ it on too thick.
Anyhow, we were in on the finish!
Amen.
Wood, prepare a tent for Chief Joseph.
Yessir.
Praise GOD. Praise GOD. But why on earth was this campaign necessary? I must have been too trusting, I suppose. Lizzie’s so much more canny about people than I. She would have seen through him at Lapwai,
this man who condemns the LORD of Glory:
O yes, I meant to pass my finger across my nose and see if he knows the Nez Perce sign.
That was a pretty good little speech, wouldn’t you say, general?
Yes. No, Chapman; he’s to give his rifle not to me but to Colonel Miles.
I wonder how many Americans that Winchester has laid low! Well, it’s my souvenir now. I’ll have Mary hang it over the stove. Come to think of it, Chief Joseph may be one of the ablest Indians on the continent! General, are you tired?
Not at all, Miles.
Chapman, is Mr. Joe done surrendering?
Sure is, colonel.
Tell him his horses will be returned to him next spring at Lapwai.
Colonel, he asks about his women and children.
Tell him I’ll do everything I can for them.
Yessir.
Mr. Chapman.
How can I help you, general?
Have any of White Bird’s bunch come in yet?
No, sir.
Ask Joseph where they are.
He says White Bird is a chief and speaks for himself—
Remind him that the surrender is to be complete and unconditional.
Sure, general; I’ll make him understand—
After they’ve all come in, I want to examine Joseph and all the sub-chiefs about Mrs. Manuel.
If he threw himself entirely on my kindness, would I be more inclined to aid him? No, because he tricked and humiliated me, and because I can see how pride glints even now in his hateful Indian eyes. The will to do us evil persists within him! I’ll warn Sherman that
little Maggie Manuel was shivering on that hot afternoon in Brown’s Hotel at Mount Idaho when she told me how Joseph shot her mother and her brother right in front of her; could any child lie about so grave a matter? She said the Indians made her stand there barefoot while her mother’s blood ran between her toes. I can read sincerity in a child’s eyes! Hence
he’s a fine candidate for the Indian Territory.
Well, Guy, you get along with Colonel Perry, I gather.
O yes, father. He’s a friend to me. A shame he couldn’t be here with us—
He ought to be satisfied that Theller’s murder can now be avenged.
Yessir.
And how do you feel?
Exultant, father!
Good. Would you like to see them settled in the same place as Perry’s Modocs?
Hanging’s the ticket for them, father! At least for Joseph and his—
No doubt. And the women and children removed to Quapaw, perhaps, or Baxter Springs . . .
O, father, I suppose that’s fine enough for Indians. But when the colonel told Joseph he could return to Lapwai, as if he deserved anything like that—
That’s if they all come in. And the murderers must be indicted, of course. Wood, take charge of Chief Joseph as a prisoner of war. See that he is made comfortable and in no way molested.
Yessir. Mr. Chapman, could you please tell Joseph that I will conduct him to a tent and wait on him there in case he needs me?
Sure thing, lieutenant. I’ll make him understand. Yeah, he says he’s at your orders.
5
White Bird has not come in.
No, sir. Chief Joseph says—
Miles, whatever Joseph may presently deny, the fact is that he surrendered unconditionally.
And Mrs. Manuel—
I’ll bet you a silver dollar the squaws did for her. They’re monsters of jealousy. A white woman in their vicinity would—
Whenever Pi-Ute squaws lied to us, we’d just lead ’em to the nearest tree and noose their necks until they talked sense. Now in this case . . .
I’ll take care of that. Lieutenant Baird, round up our Cheyennes and put the word out. White Bird’s renegades are loose!
Can we ride with ’em, sir? We’re itching for more excitement.
I need you here until Joseph’s bunch are all secured. The Cheyennes know what to do. They’ll hunt them down in detail.
6
Rather a forlorn procession of Indians.
Not Mr. Joe! He’s as handsome as a cigar store Indian!
What do you say, Doc?
He ain’t nothin’ compared to one of them old-time Injuns who ride in with scalps a-streamin’ at the sides of their painted beaded war-shirts, and their hair a-blowin’ in the breeze—
I sure would enjoy to have one of his necklaces. Or maybe his mockersins.
Look at them lame skinny ponies we caught! How could they make it so far?
They weren’t lame and skinny before; that’s how.
Those reds sure showed a lot of “sand.”
They were as good sports as any white man.
Well, I’d say they was agreeable.
And Doc reckons maybe a hundred skedaddled.
O, don’t you worry about that. Our Cheyennes’ll get them.
Well, Miles, your wife will be relieved, no doubt.
That’s right, general. She’s been beside herself.
Here comes a longhaired, hollow-cheeked man with a beadwork belt cinched high above his hips and a striped blanket folded across his hand; he totters, and the general inexplicably remembers the way that General Sherman laughed at the Seccesh prisoners who trod the road so gingerly when he set them to digging up their own torpedo-mines. Why should this come into my mind? LORD JESUS, please forgive me, and help me to feel compassion for
this stately squaw in calico, folding her arms across her high waist, with her children kneeling in the frozen grass beside her,
(the babies sobbing, shlak, shlak!)
Chapman eyeing them like some nasty-looking lounger.
Well, Doc, here’s one of your own sort! Quite a hardy Indian, I must say—
Where’s White Bird?
He must have got his.
Nope. He skedaddled last night.
You don’t say! What’s the general’s reaction?
Which one?
Miles, of course.
O, he let fly a few words; our Christian Soldier weren’t none too happy then—
Ha, ha, ha! D——d old fool—
Watch out; here they—
and Wood, seeing among the shivering, broken-down squaws a young woman, no matter her rags and dirt, of such fierce and angry beauty that when her eyes lock contemptuously onto his, he nearly staggers, electrified by what seems at that moment to be neither more nor less than the most irresistible lust of his life: for her unseen female parts, for her powerful thighs clamped painfully tight around his hips, her lower lip clenched between his teeth—but now she has passed on; and her impression lingers upon him as if he had been literally incensed by her unwashed body; and he wishes to seek her among the prisoners and marry her.
Now she is making desperate gestures; she must need to relieve herself. Two laughing soldiers lead her toward the sinks, and they go out of sight:
She’d be an amusing little companion.
O, they’re just miserable, deformed creatures.
Hey, you, kloochman!*
No, she don’t understand.
That’s why if we can’t honor our treaties at the beginning, it’s best to exterminate the reds straight off.
I for one feel sorry for ’em.
Well, missy, let’s see what’s under that buckskin dress. You came here to shit anyhow. You want to eat? Here’s a hunk of stewpot meat. Pull up the dress. Pull up the dress. Don’t you get it, you redskinned bitch?
You’re picking up some education now, Georgie boy.
O, she’s quite the hellcat,
as Wood remembers her eyelashes like fern shadows,
and Nanny, of course,
but why should it harm Nanny if I allowed myself to be inspired by this or that Muse along the way, that Nez Perce girl for instance, or even Theller’s squaw?
Were I on better terms with Perry I should request her name.
Dear LORD, I thank You for permitting me to live to this day, holding Your hand over my head to shade me from harm. And thank You for sparing our general, who means so well by the Indians;
General Crook would have gunned them all down, so I hear.
Well, we can’t. What Congress has done to the Army, it’s not a square system.
Here comes a weary old lady in a blanket-coat pinned across the breast, and her wrinkled head shrouded in a bleached rag; her gaze seems nearly blind, and her thin lips smile flatly with heartbreak or apathy
(Lizzie would be nauseated by the shrivelled faces of these old Indian squaws)
and then Looking-Glass’s daughters,
their ragged filthy trappings all the sadder in the bright snow,
and a blind man,
followed by a bleeding old man who upraises a copper medal depicting Lincoln and Johnson in the protective shadow of an eagle in whose beak a scroll reads FREEDOM TO ALL MEN.
Where on earth did he get that?— From some horse-trader, I suppose.
And here comes old Hushush Cute.
What a sly look he wears!
That’s why the general wouldn’t sign his pass back at Lapwai—
the Bluecoats standing with their white-gloved hands crossed upon their breasts, steam and smoke from campfires, smell of food, Ad Chapman happily counting captured horses:
one thousand five hundred and thirty-one:
three hundred to our Injun scouts,
the rest back to Tongue River, and then we’ll see!
while Lieutenants Wood and Baird jointly inventory our new chattels:
eighty-seven bucks,
(several of them fixing to die),
a hundred eighty-four squaws
and a hundred and forty-seven papooses,
this one nearly as weak-looking as Captain Winters’s little daughter Kate.
Father, you must be feeling satisfied.
O yes, Guy; I suppose I am:
They almost remind him of his own silently patient wounded soldiers during our Secession War—never complaining, wasted, dull-eyed. But there comes to him a better comparison: in the way they accept bread from the hands of their captors they are, at last, as simple and grateful as negroes.
7
Walking the field with Miles and several other officers, he smiles admiringly at Joseph’s fortifications, which show evidence of skill, however merely instinctive. The first souvenir hunters are already excavating here and there. Lieutenant Baird begs to show them the dead Looking-Glass, brushing snow off the exploded face for the convenience of his general, who like any decent Christian would prefer to sorrow over his violent end, but, remembering the way that Looking-Glass laid down his gentleness last spring at Lapwai, and commenced answering him insolently, he cannot but believe that this renegade’s killing serves the interest of peace. Likewise, what American could grieve over that murderer Ollicut, the wicked counselor Toohhoolhoolzote, and all Joseph’s other various bloodthirsty subalterns who fell here, and at Big Hole and Clearwater and other skirmishing-grounds along the way?— Besides, it has already grown apparent that Joseph, as usual, did not keep his word: a good one-third or more of the Indians have decamped, no doubt to make common cause with Sitting Bull. We’ll have to stop them.
Guy follows eagerly at his heels. Wood strides at his left side. On the right strides Miles with tolerant good humor, his customary blue ribbons streaming from the crown of his hat.
Litter carriers into all these d——d trenches down there.
Yessir, General Miles.
I dug up this here squaw necklace—
Then I beat you out! See, this pouch is full of gold dust! Must have carried it all the way from Oro Fino—
