The Dying Grass, page 42
McCarthy’s a different case. A pity to take it out of his pay after his ordeal, even in this postwar Army.
Yessir.
What is it?
Well, general, you know how I look up to you, and expect others to do so. You’d look mighty dashing on that Arabian. Chapman can sure spare him; he’s got three hundred more. And if any newspapermen get out here, sir, a spot of glamour couldn’t hurt this campaign, especially since that bunch of scribblers can’t understand strategy—
Bless you, Wilkinson, but you may be right. Let’s see this famous horse . . .
TAKING THE SHORTEST LINE (A TRIUMPH OF EMPIRICAL GEOMETRY)
JULY 2–4
1
Fletch, I need Captain Babitt at once.
Yessir.
Well, captain, how’s the life of an ordnance man?
Sir, Lieutenant Otis and I were just saying—
Captain, I need you to ride to Mount Idaho and find Captain Whipple. I’ve instructed him to proceed to Norton’s, doublequick, then link up with Colonel Perry, who will escort the pack train.
Yessir. So Mr. Joe has—
Yes, he’s leading us in circles! If you can believe it, James Reuben’s Indians have sighted his tipis right back on that very camas prairie by Rocky Cañon where he plotted his war! General Sherman will be disappointed in us, I fear.
Yessir.
It’s urgent that we discover whether Joseph means to double across the Salmon yet again. Whipple has got to scout the country.
General, I can ride out in ten minutes.
Thank you, captain. Energetic officers like you will see us through this campaign. GOD bless you! Now, Wilkinson, we’d better draft another despatch to Colonel Perry. Has he embarked the resupply?
Yessir; Captain Miller’s column is halfway back to Norton’s. Shall I carry the message?
I can’t spare you, unfortunately. You’re too valuable.
Thank you, general.
Entre nous, in your opinion whose was the failure in the Looking-Glass affair? Whipple blames the volunteers.
So did Colonel Perry, sir.
Wilkinson, what are you insinuating?
General, I never insinuate.
Forgive me . . .
I merely meant to indicate that the citizens are more to blame than the Army for any lack of progress in this campaign. And Captain Randall was sullen and rude to you at Lapwai; I won’t forget that.
Why do you suppose he’s always spoiling for a fight?
Well, general, he did help himself to fifty acres of the reservation.
And settled on it?
Yessir.
Who told you that?
O, general, I just asked around.
All right. To-day we need to move the entire command up to Craig’s Ferry.
Yessir.
A fatiguing march.
Yessir, but once Joseph’s between us and Perry—
So I pray, Wilkinson. We need the shortest possible line, since Joseph’s so much better mounted than any of us in this postwar Army.
Yessir. Excepting you and that Ad Chapman!
Entre nous, I’m extremely gratified with my black charger. You steered me right.
Thank you, sir. If you wish, I could ride ahead and—
Besides, you’re still unwell. Take good care of yourself, my boy.
Yessir.
Is your pad ready? Colonel: Joseph has swung north, in order to make a junction with Hushush Cute and Looking-Glass. They may commit further depredations on Slate Creek. Guard the pack train with the utmost vigilance. I expect you and Captain Whipple to protect the settlers around Norton’s until our return. Try to fix the enemy’s attention until we have returned to Grangeville. Please assure your men of my gratitude for their exertions. GOD willing, Joseph will be destroyed as soon as we can force him to give battle. That’s all. And have you sent my message to Colonel Sully?
Yessir.
Wilkinson.
Yessir.
Are Sully and Monteith intriguing against me?
About the colonel I can’t say, general, although he seems to be of an honorable stripe.
Thank you. And I note what you declined to say.
Yessir.
What about James Reuben? Mr. Chapman keeps tilting against him.
General, before we rode out of Lapwai I persuaded Agent Monteith to show me Mr. Reuben’s ration check, and I verified that all the dependents listed on it were good Indians.
Very energetic of you! All right. What’s the name of his wife?
E-la-wee-naomey, general.
Not a very Christian name, I’m afraid. And she’s Joseph’s sister.
Yessir.
Have we heard from Major Mason to-day?
Not yet, sir.
Come here. Just as I supposed. Your forehead is hot.
Not at all, general.
Lie down here. Just for a quarter-hour. That fever is persistent, isn’t it? No, close your eyes and rest. I’ll call when I need you.— O, hello, Fletch. Have you curried that stallion of mine?
Yessir. That’s one fine hot-blooded riding breed!
I’m going to call him Arrow.
Why not, sir?
What we need is a good running fight with them reds, and I mean to tell the general—
. . . to strike them at Craig’s Ferry, if they don’t cross back again . . .
What about Wood?
O, he’s got “sand” enough! Rains saw him break his collarbone riding bareback on an untamed horse.
If it had been me I wouldn’t have been thrown.
That James Reuben is kind of haughty. You’d think he’d realize his position as a relative of Mr. Joe,
as Captain Trimble inspects his boys:
Doc just this side of passable
while Blackie, stiff, shy, young and proud, stares straight ahead, angling his rifle to perfection, with his hair banged neatly below his cap and his Dad’s old horse pistol stuck in his waistband,
and so-called Colonel McConville, whose stern bony face and high collar gives him a preacher look, re-explains to a remarkably unimpressed Major Mason just what his volunteers expect from the Army
while Wood, correcting Captain Pollock’s latest Morning Report—a task at which he excels—is telling himself, never supposing that no one cares: They imagine the reason I refused the residue of my leave was to fight with them! That fiction’s made me popular, for the moment. What if it’s even so? Who am I to know what the true reason was? It might have been
. . . To cut off Joseph from his hunting grounds. Have you got that, Fletch?
The man for that is Red O’Donnell, but if the general ever—
Sure have, sir. Then the usual salutation?
Yes,
when perhaps the truth is merely that Wood needs to do something dramatic and active, like most young people and therefore like most Americans:
Just think what Nanny would say if I got Joseph! It would be in the newspaper. I need to be a success here. I can get along with Wilkinson. I’ll make myself do it. Even he can’t be as strictly religious as my own mother!
Now go inform Lieutenant Otis that the artillery must make better progress to-day. If need be, they’re to march all night.
Right away, general.
Are you also getting ill?
No, sir.
Wilkinson, my boy, you’d better drink more coffee now.
Wilkinson? He’s as cold-blooded as a draught horse.
Sir, I’m all right now
(closing his eyes, he can see how the plains flatten out southeast of Cottonwood: no place there to bottle up Joseph! But if I remind the general about Rocky Cañon . . .)
Good. Where’s Sladen? There you are, old friend! Well, well, who would have thought we’d be crossing and recrossing the Salmon like this? And Joseph can do it so easily! Sometimes it must be exhilarating to be an Indian.
Yessir.
How would you rate McConville’s volunteers?
A liability, general.
I agree. Where’s Fletch?
Here, sir.
Get me McConville. Yes, good morning, sir. Your orders are to cross the Salmon at or near Horse Shoe Bend and proceed across Brown’s Mountain toward the Snake—
Yes, sir. With Randall’s bunch?
That’s right. All of you, beat the country for Joseph! We need to make him give battle. When you find him, despatch a rider to me immediately. Enough said.
General, we’ll move out now.
Yes, good-bye, sir. Now, Sladen, look over the map with me. Do you see Deer Creek Cañon?
Sure do, sir. Concerned about ambushes, I take it?
You’re a genius. Now if we send our flankers here . . .
Yessir. Too bad Colonel Perry’s not with us; he knows the country almost like an Indian.
I’ll give Jocelyn the opportunity. Thanks, Sladen. How’s the leg?
About the same as your arm, general.
Ha, ha! That’s all.
Here you are, Captain Pollock. If you sign at the end, I’ll take it to the general.
Wood, you’re a GODsend. LORD, but this paperwork gives me blue balls!
Good morning, Captain Jocelyn. How are your bunch?
Ready for some hunting, general!
Then bag me Joseph, if you please! You’ll lead the column. How will you deploy your flankers?
Like this, general, here and here, although the map—
Report to me just before we enter Deer Creek Cañon. Move out in fifteen minutes.
Yessir.
Bugler, sound “Boots and Saddles,” and keep it up.
Let’s go, boys!
—buckling on their carbine-belts and strapping tight their hats.
Can’t Brooks stop spitting in his bugle?
Ever since Jonesey punched him in the teeth—
Lay off Jonesey. He’s dead.
Now, just as soon as Pollock’s bunch pulls out, that’s when you duck into Red O’Donnell’s wagon. Don’t let them officers see you—
2
Sound the forward.
Forward!
our blue-overalled general grinning like a little boy as he gallops Arrow.
They’re marching briskly, gentlemen.
Well, sir, we all want blood!
. . . since Mr. Joe’s pulled our tails again!
So his machine progresses
left—left—LEFT,
Captain Trimble in his patched sack coat,
Sladen on his chocolate-brown horse,
James Reuben, submissive and boyish, with surprisingly delicate hands,
then our second-best Indians: Old George, Captain John and Umatilla Jim, whom the general considers near about as broadfaced as an Apache,
Fletch and Wilkinson,
the former in his Navy blue flannel blouse
and the latter,
who secretly admires the Swiss “dash” of the 1872 plaited Army blouse, which every officer of his acquaintance despises for its pompous unmanliness,
indefinably more elegant than anyone,
the general in his blue overalls, riding easy, jawboning with one of the citizen volunteers,
Doc marching wide-eyed and singing in his baggy trousers, his boots sagged and cracked, his fat knife hanging down off his cartridge belt, the rifle downpointed from its shoulder sling, his tin cup swaying at his hip, his hat warped down into some greasy part of his skin
and Blackie right behind him,
then Larry Ott, who shot Shore Crossing’s father, smoking a pipe as he rides, with his tangle of red hair swinging back and forth against his neck, touching his shoulders,
and Red O’Donnell, the most obliging muleteer a man could meet, likewise smoking his pipe, unwearyingly flicking his long whip as he sits there in the spring seat, with his hidden cargo of reddish-crusted chains, drills, pincers and hammers rattling on the wagon’s shelves, and horseshoes upside down on their rack
as we leave the Salmon River, creeping up Deer Creek Cañon,
which is so thick with shrubs that we cannot see the water beneath us, although our horses bend down to drink whenever we permit them,
all of us unknowingly beginning to surrender to the darkening pines, with the lost meadows behind us still brilliantly yellow in our memories
—but just as the golden infinite below us dulls down by stages into blue waves, so what is past likewise loses life and light, except for the yellow grass itself,
yellow swellings of earth, which now—they too!—go green and blue in their hollows, while the deeper grass-walled gorges alter into red and purple,
the sky clouding over above us
(when we were children, we imagined that this world was a brighter place, whose wicked Indians couldn’t ever get out of fairytales, painted land and old soldiers’ self-aggrandizements),
and each raincloud bearing the dark polish of a well-used Indian pipe
as we follow our general in what may well prove to be another circle,
riding forward, dreading Chief Joseph where the pine forest runnels greenness down into the golden grass:
Mr. Chapman, have you been up Brown’s Mountain?
Yes indeedy.
And Craig’s Mountain?
You bet I have, general. Mr. Joe’s bunch call it Faraway Mountain. When their papooses get big enough to be Dreamers, they go up there one by one to give themselves to SATAN.
SATAN! You’re sure of this?
As sure as death, general.
Well, well! Now what are the chances that Joseph would hide out up there?
If he did, we’d find his trail. He’s not about to leave us all them fifteen hundred pretty horses—
All right. Where is he?
General, he and his stinking reds could have crossed the Salmon another six times by now.
And you purpose?
Well, now, if we keep on toward Craig’s Ferry, and Colonel Perry keeps an eye out thataway—
That’s all,
except for the moist dusk of Deer Creek, not far from the future’s apple trees and fences
and now Biblical rain,
rain and mud and rain as we flounder up the steep trail
(our general gripping the pommel since Arrow keeps slipping, leaving him without a hand to wipe the rain off his face:
why won’t he wear a slouch hat like the rest of us?)
What a hogback!
Table-lands—
Call this Dead Mule Trail—
Another mule gone.
How many now?
Four.
I’ll remind you officers of what Captain Sladen always says: What a mule has done is known. What he is doing may be seen, but what he will do the next minute the mind of a philosopher cannot fathom.
That’s a good one, general. I’ll tell it to Red O’Donnell; he’s got the best funnybone of all our muleteers.
Yeah, sure is hilarious when a mule suicides along with all our coffee—
General’s no complainer; I’ll say that for him.
You look jolly, Chapman.
I always did enjoy a good rain. Once this country is settled, that’s what we’re all a-gonna be doing every Sunday. Just praying for rain.
Retracing every GODd——n step, and in worse country—
And no sign of Mr. Joe—
He’s probably laughing half a mile behind us!
as that night we lie down in mud and water in the place we call Camp Misery.
Doc?
Shut up.
Doc, how do you stay dry?
You don’t.
Right now the folks will be haying back home.
Blackie, leave me be.
By “Tattoo,” Red O’Donnell has sold out of stock,
for on nights like these there’s only one way to keep warm.
3
Marching up the cañon to Brown’s Mountain on another showery day, shivering that night up on Camp Howard Ridge
(as many disappointments in sight as the half-dead cigars which always lie around General Sherman)
—good forage for the horses, at least—
some of us discover that our boots have already begun to rot,
as the general, having been apprised by James Reuben that Joseph is moving toward a probable junction with Looking-Glass, says to Wilkinson that night inside the Sibley tent: Our shortest line may be to turn back via White Bird Cañon.
FOURTH OF JULY
1
He’s allowed Mr. Joe to make fools of us on at least three occasions now, and I for one—
Captain Jocelyn, you’re slandering him, and I won’t allow it.
You aiming to report me, Sladen?
Not this time. But you’d better cut it out.
Whatever you say. But tell me—
Tell you what?
You served with him in Apache country. Isn’t that so?
That’s right.
General Crook said—
Now you listen, captain. Crook’s got no use for reservations. He wants all the Indians underground, and you know it. Maybe you think the same way, in which case you don’t deserve the name of Christian. Now, from the way you’re glaring at me, I’ll bet you imagine that Christianity’s a disease, and the general’s got a bad case of it. You think that because he’s patient with your insulting, insubordinate slurs, and because he’s missing one arm, he’s not man enough to raise the other one against you. Well, by GOD, you should have seen him shaking it in James Bullard’s face the time he threatened to murder our Apache guide,
our general reddening with rage as he slowly said: I accosted you, sir, as a gentleman, and you reply by trying to insult me. I am a soldier, sir, and not to be intimidated by threats—
Bullard cringing back, too yellow to go for his gun,
