The Dying Grass, page 46
They wasn’t superior forces, General Howard. They was just Indians.
If they were just Indians, then just Indians did a pretty good job killing your captain and his men. If they were just Indians, why can’t you clean them up without the assistance of the United States? Now get out.
We should have known, boys. General’s always gonna—
Sure is a shame.
General, I—
Never mind, Perry. Now go stir up your company. In forty-five minutes we’ll be on the march.
When all them soldiers run us down and tell us what to do—
And Captain Randall’s dead, thanks to Yellow Perry,
after which he cannot help but resemble the man who stays mounted all night to keep a lookout for Indians:
the yellow man
(while Randall, His Royal Dead Excellency, will be buried with full Masonic honors);
and on the march that day, finding and losing the Red Napoleon’s trail, Perry, trying not to think about a certain soldier’s widow whom he’s sweet on (her name begins with D), calls up in his skull’s magic lantern show a lively Pi-Ute squaw well painted with yellow dots over her cheekbones and three black lines on her forehead,
then overhears Miller’s sneering gibe flashing up the column: He could have made money anywhere.
MISERY HILL
JULY 8–10
1
Now the volunteers realize that they will have to clean up the reds themselves, since the Army is run by characters such as Uh-Oh Howard and Yellow Perry, so they set out to find Mr. Joe
even as the general’s troops are dismantling Luke Billy’s cabin to make a raft:
O, Uncle Sam will pay you. Just send him a letter,
and the rope breaks, the raft is lost and Luke Billy never gets paid
(after all, he’s just an Indian),
so our troops must detour again
(on Colton’s map it is not much more than a finger’s breadth from White Bird Creek to the Clearwater, with Mount Idaho in between them, but even Cut Arm can now begin to appreciate the logistical difficulties of deploying troops in that country:
what this country offers most of all is space; how could anyone subjugate it?
We’ll do our best, sir);
as our brave volunteers, undiscouraged by their previous adventures, saddle up some of those mighty fine stallions we confiscated from Looking-Glass
and start following the Indian trail across the prairie:
Mr. Joe’s about reached his zenith, I’d say.
O, he can get even more famous if he does to other women what he—
riding down the rolling sweep of hill, across camas prairie russet, yellow, grey and green
and watching for ambush in the forested side-hollows,
Shearer still sizzling over his last exchange with Colonel Perry:
Shearer, were you at Missionary Ridge?
So what if I was?
Remember when you Johnny Rebs got panicked and routed? An ugly sight even for some of us who chased you. That’s how it was with all your volunteers at White Bird Cañon, and you weren’t even there. You’re the yellow one, my boy! Call me yellow one more time and I’ll shoot you in your corn dodger’s face—
as he leads his troop on, envious of Ad Chapman, who’s gotten in good with the general
and determined to put a spider in Perry’s dumpling forever;
so they keep hunting for reds, hoping to get Mr. Joe and his horses,
riding through the sky on a cloud made of prairie grass:
He could be holed up in Cottonwood Cañon, because last summer when I skimmed off a few of his yearlings . . .
Therefore they ride down thataway, still pretty sure that what happened to Rains, the Brave Seventeen and that bunch at White Bird Cañon should never have happened and therefore cannot happen to them,
chasing greeds and dreads through the sharp narrow bends of the cañon
(evergreens on one side only),
down into the cañon’s haze, the trees in irregular formation, the grass paler on the ridges, browner and greyer on the steeps whose shadows hang down from them at midday:
our Red Napoleon must be lurking somewhere within this horizon of smoke-blue mountains
(probably torturing little children again in his typically savage fashion
or renting out Mrs. Manuel for two brass buttons a go);
then the grass grows more camel-colored and hay-colored, beset with steep green side-cañons
(someday there will be apple trees down here),
and they come up into alders and aspens
(grass as grey as wilted spiderwebs dangling from basalt boulders)
and poison oak and tall pines,
until they find the trouble they were looking for.
2
That great buffalo rifle roars monstrously, exploding a boulder so that the horses scream,
then roars again:
the shooter being a grim tall muscular savage who flaunts a red blanket at them
(if Captain Randall were still alive, he’d know who it is).
O for a breeze down there in the cottonwood shade, and water to drink!
I’d say we’re as good as gone.
How many shots you have left?
Eleven for the revolver and eight for the carbine. You?
Still got my full twelve and twenty-five.
Gonna call this place Misery Hill—
Camp Misery. We’ll be here day and night unless the Army comes,
his tongue like a stone in his desperately dry mouth;
their lives will go in much the way that urine sinks almost instantly between the rocks, leaving foam for an instant or two.
Besieged up here in shallow rifle-pits upon the low green rise of Misery Hill
(a few trees, fields’ stony sides, a cool breeze,
hill-grooves fringed with dying shrubs
the top hardpacked with blackstone),
looking down on the prairie’s ubiquitous undulations:
Where the hell is Uh-Oh Howard?
Dig in and shut up,
pale blue ridge on the left
the slope of yellow grass
and Indians shooting up from the bewildering rolls of grass-flesh,
the heat working at every man
(all them Injuns need to do is keep us from water);
here indeed comes a night without water, as the warriors attack twice.
Then what?
In the end our volunteers are saved by Mr. Joe’s unfathomable withdrawal:
late morning:
clouds part way over the curving ridge-horizon to the west,
and the reds stole all our decent horses.
3
So they bring the People down safe into Red Owl’s country,
whose jewel is that lovely brown river scaled with light:
the Big Water,*
deep brown river floored and edged with white stones,
where they find Looking-Glass’s People
(from far away they recognize them)
comforting them for Cut Arm’s treachery by returning to them full forty of their horses;
and Looking-Glass smiles, believing that he has become once more the lucky man,
as White Thunder leads to him his favorite black stallion, whose name will now be Home From Capture.
WHEN HE HEARS THE WHISPER
JULY 11
1
Sound Of Running Feet is bewitched, but only a little; Toohhoolhoolsote pulls out a bloody worm from her belly, and before dawn she has become well; so her father gives the old tiwét three horses, and Good Woman smiles, then lies down to sleep, just for awhile
until TRAVELLER THE SUN says: I shall rise,
as Ollokot comes out of his lodge yawning, wrapping his striped blanket around him,
Cloudburst still giggling within
(hoping she is now pregnant),
while Fair Land, having suckled the baby boy, places him in the cradleboard, carries him outside, sets him down beside her, then begins to unpack half-dried camas from her fine cornhusk bags with the geometric patterns
(some bulbs have mildewed, for lately the People lack time to preserve their food);
and Peopeo Tholekt is telling White Thunder how after the Bluecoats shot him in the leg at Kamnaka there was no pain but then the world began to turn yellow
(hoping to trade something for a new skinning knife, Welweyas the half-woman is smiling toward Toohhoolhoolsote’s young men, who unfortunately dislike her);
Wounded Head’s dear wife Helping Another is cleaning their little boy’s shirt with white clay;
now Cloudburst has dressed and comes to help her sister-wife, doing as she is told,
while Springtime scrapes a dry hide (the baby still asleep)
and Looking-Glass’s wives are tying his hair,
and our oldest women, some of whom still wear white beads and brass as did their grandmothers, crawl slowly over the ground, searching for roots and herbs,
the girls dipping up fish with their nets,
Hahtalekin’s women drying meat
while Kate is boiling White Bird’s leggings to clean them of lice and dirt,
No Swan, Stripe Turned In, Five Snows and Loon already playing the Stick Game,
and Toohhoolhoolsote, joying in his new horses, trims their manes to his liking, then enters his lodge to rest
(to-morrow he will paint them red and yellow, then decorate them with ribbons and feathers)
as White Thunder begins carefully trading away his new Sharps for a horse from Looking-Glass
(although it has now killed white men at Cottonwood Place, he prefers his old 1866 Winchester repeater),
Red Spy untying the buckskin pouch of assorted screws for his Springfield and
the other chiefs and best men now smoking the pipe together
here in Cañon’s Mouth Place where the river is making riffles:
White Bird, that expert in discretion, speaking last,
while Ollokot and Heinmot Tooyalakekt, being inexperienced, also say less than might be,
and Hahtalekin prefers to wait and listen, since his band is small;
—but Rainbow in his deerskin shirt of many-hued embroideries, and Swan Necklace and the Three Red Blankets, their hearts beat ready for more war!—
and although this is Red Owl’s country
—indeed, precisely here is his reservation which the Bostons have left to him—
he knows not what to do, since the Bostons attacked Looking-Glass’s People at Kamnaka
(nor should he chatter first like a squirrel, for Looking-Glass, his chief, is the true war-chief);
thus it happens that Looking-Glass, the acclaimed one,
now recommencing to be rich in horses,
who first opens his heart, saying
as he has already said three times:
Since Cut Arm attacked me, I have lost all confidence in the Bluecoats,
but what should next be done remains dark.
Toohhoolhoolsote has returned to the fire. He smokes awhile, then says: The Bostons will never leave us alone. Why not fight them here? Soon they will come. We shall fight them and die; then all will be straight.
Red Owl now says: It is not for me to contradict this chief. However, my heart feels sad for our women and children who cannot fight well when they are being killed. Here begins the South Trail to the Buffalo Country. Shall we not ride there? That place has everything! Looking-Glass, do I not speak straight? Whose heart could hate that beautiful land? Even if we lose our own countries, and the People grow sad or tired on the way, still we can stay awhile with the Crows.
Heinmot Tooyalakekt says: Later perhaps we shall return to our country,
at which White Bird covers his face with his fan.
2
The baby has a speckled rash on her thighs, so Springtime strips her, dips sumac leaves in the river,
which runs wider and faster than our river back home which descends through Imnaha to the Enemy River,
the pale red reflection of white shore-gravel blending into dark brown,
and places them on her skin. She looks surprised, but does not cry. Her mother ties her back into the cradleboard, raises her up and returns to help Good Woman and Sound Of Running Feet dry camas
as the horses say: Hinimí,
the locusts singing tekh-tekh-tekh!,
two young girls working with porcupine quills
and Shore Crossing’s pregnant wife cleaning the fishing lines with river sage;
and Elder Deer invites White Thunder to go and see a certain Bluecoat whom the People have killed
(we caught him alone, so he must have been running away from Cut Arm)
while White Bird,
knowing that Looking-Glass blames him for what could not be prevented
—that Shore Crossing and those others rode out to kill those Bostons on Salmon Creek—
comes to make everything straight by helping that chief to break a palomino,
Toohhoolhoolsote’s wives boiling venison broth,
Burning Coals, most horse-wealthy of us all, mending a rope, half-smiling to watch Long Ears, his favorite stallion, turn round to nuzzle Lucky One’s flank
(Strong Eagle wishes to make a trade, one for one, but the stingy old man replies: You are making me tired by talking!)
—as Red Spy, as smooth and delicate as a snake, laughingly explains to the old men
(our women and children admiring from behind)
how he crawled forward boulder by boulder at Cottonwood Place, until he could shoot that sniveling little Boston in the head: taq!
—and Peopeo Tholekt repeats to White Thunder: We were sitting quiet at Kamnaka, I am telling you three times! When the Bluecoats called for Looking-Glass, I rode up to see what they wanted, and some ugly Boston hit me with his rifle. I shall tell you this: They have caused this fight!
as Heinmot Tooyalakekt sits murmuring with Ollokot.
3
Now it has become afternoon. Some elegant young men, mostly not tattooed, with their hair loose and shining on their shoulders, are gambling at the Stick Game,
while other men and boys race horses at the water’s edge
and at the end of camp the young boys are still playing the Bone Game, gambling for dead Bluecoats’ treasures,
rushing the bone from hand to hand
as Fair Land pounds dried meat and Ollokot withdraws into his lodge again with Cloudburst,
who presently comes out to bathe in the river,
learning her reflection, which wavers over the whorled rocks: indeed her heart worries for nothing: she can still be beautiful for him;
while Looking-Glass says aside to Wottolen: Heinmot Tooyalakekt is nothing compared to his father,
and White Thunder’s mother boils yarrow for Peopeo Tholekt,
who after poulticing his leg goes riding with Many Coyotes and some other warriors, just for awhile, just to look around:
across Big Water and up to where Cliff Place rears, steep, hard and gnarled, from beneath a threadbare arch of yellow grass which drops down horribly
and up one of the side-cañons there, hoping to surprise deer among the sweet-smelling firs, ponderosa pines, ripening elderberries on the bush,
while down here at Cañon’s Mouth, Looking-Glass’s other People go on sleeping, cooking or happily decorating their horses, which the warriors have restored to them,
and Toohhoolhoolsote begins to trim a horse’s tail.
4
Looking-Glass, the excellent one,
who so much resembles his late father both in his face and his speaking,
will never sorrow like a woman merely because he has lost his country and his wealth has been devoured:
I have always said, Bluecoat, you are my elder brother; Boston, you are my elder brother. I would never kill your children! And I stood against White Bird’s and Toohhoolhoolsote’s bad young men when they began to kill. All the same, Cut Arm has stolen my country! My heart is sick. But I am still a lucky man, and
he can still shoot and ride a horse;
his hopes of the Buffalo Country have already begun comforting him like sweetgrass perfume: not strong but enduring, faintly sour-sweet like a root vegetable’s;
in that place it is as Red Owl said: there will be everything;
and the Three Red Blankets smoke with Red Owl, Shore Crossing calling out: Now that you have come here with us, Looking-Glass, I am very glad. Together we shall kill Bostons, as many of them as we can get!
—at which Peopeo Tholekt remarks to White Thunder: Had the Bluecoats found Looking-Glass, he would have been killed. But had he been a man, he would have gone and met them,
so that White Thunder understands that this war-friend of his is ashamed for his chief;
therefore, the Three Red Blankets acted straight to start this war, and the ones who spoke against it, even his own Uncle Heinmot Tooyalakekt, were not telling us true things.
And yet his uncle is brave and good.
Wishing to speak with him about this war, White Thunder approaches Heinmot Tooyalakekt’s lodge, but perceives that he is troubled about some matter, so he leaves him alone to listen to his heart,
wondering what it would be like to try a Boston woman
(Yellow Bull has told him that the bitches whom he tasted after killing their husbands were made exactly like ours, but their butterflies were hairy),
longing to steal horses from the Mount Idaho people,
unceasingly wishing to shoot Tsépmin and Cut Arm
—above all, Cut Arm, who threatened us at Butterfly Place—
visiting his mother Swan Woman (Red Owl’s sisters have given her food),
