The Dying Grass, page 79
(until suddenly, when the piano soloist briskens up, all those bows commence to move together),
our Bannocks painted more luridly than our Nez Perces,
Wilkinson remarking to Fletch that Joseph’s escapes thus far, to be sure, are remarkable, but unlikely to be repeated much longer
(We shall meet beyond the river by and by—
and then, Mr. Joe, and then . . .),
Guy riding as excellently as his father
(although of course his Army-issue gelding cannot compare to Arrow),
and the young man now squints, gripping the reins in his left hand, flicking dust from his eyelashes and briefly, secretly fingering his Grant medal: SERENE AMIDST ALARMS, INFLEXIBLE IN FAITH, INVINCIBLE IN ARMS
(his Uncle Charley wears the same talisman—a gift from Father),
and wondering what Red O’Donnell keeps in the bench box of his wagon
as we gather in another half-dozen horses left behind by Joseph in his flight
(procedure: turn a few fresh ones over to Lieutenant Bomus and shoot the rest),
the general considering another forced march for to-morrow
because if we follow up our victory thoroughly, Joseph will have to come in or be destroyed (I anticipate wrapping this up within a week),
the horizon ahead as straight as a beef cow’s back, and on the horizon behind, Big Hole contracting into the merest greenish-grey dip,
Captain Whipple,
who arrived on the battlefield too late for any close action, and is disappointed that Looking-Glass and Mr. Joe gave us the slip again
(we should have nailed them way back at Cottonwood, while they were setting Mr. McFinn’s house afire),
daydreaming about Mrs. FitzGerald (a mighty elegant lady) and the laundresses at Lapwai—jolly gals some of whom may have dimmed within his mental gallery of detached pictures after that long winter among Joseph’s Indians, but he can still visualize their little houses there between the barracks and Lapwai Creek; and he loves to remember how they sing, flirt and brightly quarrel in the evenings
as our Bannocks dig up another Nez Perce squaw, scalp her, stab her, hack off her earrings and rob her of her buffalo robe
(when the Lice-Eaters unearth Fair Land, whom he recognizes, having eaten at her lodge-fire, Umatilla Jim begins to smile; he is making himself remember the way that his mother used to sing on the first morning of digging roots; as long as his mother keeps singing, his heart cannot be hurt)
but what the fuck does Doc mean by the Buffalo Country? Ain’t no buffalo in sight hereabouts; Injuns must’ve run ’em off unless our hide men have already gotten to it.
Will this d——d general never stop?
Well, once the Union Pacific puts in the railroad from Cheyenne to Deadwood . . .
That Doc gets on my nerves. O, what the hell.
So why the DEVIL does this slanting ridge of golden grass make me want to puke? Those black rocks peeking up over the top like niggerheads and the sun in my eyes, nothing special here at all,
Theller leaping up, his hat flying off and his Colt tumbling from his hand.
Were his six all dead by then? I’d wager not, for he was always the bravest; he would have exposed himself:
thin black lines of Joseph’s rifle-barrels zeroing in on him from the ridgeline, white smoke and then the savages creeping closer:
Pim,
pim,
pim—
GODd——n, how I loathe that Chapman for messing me up at White Bird Cañon. What’s the general see in him anyway? Well, he’s good with horses.
Then where’s them buffalo at, Doc?
Right here? All killed.
GODd——n them forever; if I can, I’ll kill them all:
a bullet in Joseph’s wicked face, then I’ll knock his squaws and papooses over the head
to be scalped by our Bannocks
(fun to watch Ollokot hang—a limber type like him’ll give a better show than Captain Jack)
and Looking-Glass, White Bird and Toohhoolhoolzote brought safely down, all their squaw trash shrivelling in the fire—
Theller, you were the best friend I ever had.
Then it’s not your country no more, I reckon.
You’d better watch out or some night I’ll just cut your throat.
Doc, ain’t there still buffalo?
You can bank on it, boys! The Buffalo Country’s just smaller than it was, that’s all. But there’s buffalo and to spare! Ain’t this America? Well, ain’t it?
Whatever you say.
Yes indeedy. Don’t pay that grifter no mind. We’re coming into the good place. Even Wallowa don’t hold a candle to it. I was all through here with Captain Travis, one of the best d——d buffalo hunters who ever lived! He could shoot near about as good as an Injun. A real fine country. And so bright your eyes’ll be achin’ once you gaze east. You’ll find out.
No, sir. Only an abandoned camp with some Indian tobacco and a Chinaman’s shirt—
Actually she’s a perfect bitch at home, and that’s why I enlisted.
Where’d you dig her up in the first place?
Down that cañon thataway, sir.
Well, keep up your best effort.
For six months I kept up my best effort and then she . . .
Sure, captain.
For sure them Sioux do ride this far west. That’s why we’d better keep our brightest lookout . . .
Then you must have been at Bentonville.
Yessir.
When Hardee was Commandant of Cadets at West Point, I used to tutor his son, who joined the Texas Cavalry. He was killed pretty quickly at Bentonville. Always in the forefront, that boy. My classmate General S. D. Lee told me the news . . .
Yessir.
Fetch Mason here.
Rightaway, sir.
Well, Mason, what do you think?
All in order, general—
I mean Joseph.
Sir, he’s been routed repeatedly. In his condition he can’t make a fight. If we can only catch them—
There is that.
Tell you the truth, sir, I’ll be glad when we get into the open country.
You speak for us all, Mason.
Because the men are starting to—
Fine. Now where’s Captain Sladen?
Up thataway, general. Shall I call him here?
No, I’ll ride in his direction,
and I’d like to do something for Sladen after this. Wonder how much his leg pains him in the saddle to-day? I’ll never find out. He and Mason both deserve a good supper. Bomus, too, now that I’ve got to know him. Solid metal in that man! Lizzie, bless her, will surely wish to entertain the Perrys once they’re reunited (if Perry ever gets down to Portland, as he must for that Court of Inquiry), and we ought to invite all my aides-de-camp and maybe Doctor Alexander, who has served so cheerfully, but what about Trimble now that he and Perry have fallen out? Well, since he generally take his leave in Lewiston—
Now all of you listen up. The best place to kill you a buffalo, well, now, it’s a circle the size of a cowboy hat, just back of the shoulderblade. You just aim for that circle and you’ll be all right. Then pale frothy blood blubbers out his nostrils, and that’s it, boys; that’s it.
Sing us that song again, Doc!
All righty. I’ll learn you this verse:
Our meat it was of buffalo hump; like iron was our bread,
An’ all we got to sleep on was a buffalo for a bed—
Now there’s a fine old-timey song.
What do you mean, old-timey? That’s now.
Then where’s the d——d buffalo chips?
Doc, how many buffalo have you killed in your time?
Could be hundreds, my boy, not that I’m up there with Buffalo Bill. That fella makes a job out of it. But you see these two knives I got? Well . . .
Now they found sign over thataway after all
where a hundred and thirty years later I, William the Blind, will ride south on the desert prairie where it gets olive green with round bales; I will look east past the haybales and black cows to a smoky horizon like a washed out, poorly fixed nineteenth-century photograph as I try to imagine how it would have been: General Howard doing his best endeavor even though the mailbag keeps chasing him, demanding precisely what he cannot furnish just now; for a good portion of his communications, as so often in July and August, originates from the Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions—a worthy enough organization, but they ought to wait until I whip Joseph:
Halt.
Dismount.
Roll call.
Right face.
Dismissed,
Chapman drooling tobacco juice
(he would like to buy a sugarloaf sombrero hat next time he rides into some big cattle town, because then he would stand taller),
Bomus detailing two privates to shoot the latest bunch of Joseph’s scrawny Cayuse nags.
I hardly wish to open this one. Another begging letter, for certain. Tacoma, Washington Territory. Drinking whiskey has never been a fault of mine, and GOD helping it never shall. I was married merely three weeks ago, to a lady who is a member of the Episcopal Church. Was that truly written in March? Where is it postmarked? He might be one of Wheaton’s bunch. Maybe Grace knows him from Sallie Eaton’s wedding; how can I say? My arm pains me. It saps and shames me; meanwhile Joseph is getting away. What does this newlywed want? Money, no doubt. Well, say he’s told the truth; I can send him five dollars with a sincere note from Wilkinson; may he have joy in his bride—
They’ll be dragging along more slowly now that their squaws and little ones are bleeding.
In fact we have a pool going. I’m betting that Mr. Joe will be captured to-morrow or thereabouts. What do you think, general?
Quit it. Don’t you know the general’s not a betting man?
We’ve definitely gotten these Indians on the alert.
That’s right. That’s right. So what we want to do is . . .
Not wishing to sleep out under the stars with the men just now, he ducks down into the dark rectangular doorway of that Sibley tent, as maybe they would prefer a general to behave in any case. I am pretty convinced that most of these troopers are becoming my fast friends.
2
Guy, I have something to tell you about Gibbon’s battlefield. However badly you feel about what we saw, you can be assured that it is the best that could have been done.
Don’t worry, father; I didn’t feel bad at all! It’s only what Joseph deserved.
3
Sending away Wood, Fletch and Wilkinson, he writes with his own left hand (for the sake of discretion): I cannot recommend this officer for promotion,
referring of course to Gibbon,
then seals the letter himself, bends over Colton’s bullet-weighted map, wondering how best to cut off Joseph from the free ranges of the Buffalo Country
(James Reuben asserts that the hostiles will double back toward Wallowa),
slouches in a chair outside his tent’s rectangular doorway, thinking: When Chief Lawyer signed a promise, and then Reuben swore to obey the laws of CHRIST, Joseph for his part . . .
and Looking-Glass
and then above all Toohhoolhoolzote
—if I complete this thought, will it truly be of service? LORD help me to remedy my defects and carry on in good spirits (we need more boots and horses) before Perry funks again, or Wood does something dishonorable in obedience to what he idiotically imagines to be his angelic impulses; is the entire Army going rotten? All I can do is track Joseph to the end
and try every day to elevate the character of this or that member of my command,
enlisted men throwing themselves down, cavalrymen scratching at their calves through the long boots
(Blackie, who keeps hearing about the railroad strikes, asks a man from Philadelphia what to think, and is informed that we need to burn out all the monopolies),
Red O’Donnell sitting in the back of his wagon, swinging his tired legs, offering Dandy Jim tobacco at a dollar an ounce when it goes for a dollar a pound back at Lapwai
as some civilian kid comes riding in with some fresh Bannocks, Redington, his name is, fresh and eager, with the milk hardly dry on his upper lip
(he must be a runaway like us):
How old are you, son?
Almost seventeen, General Howard.
No doubt. Here for adventure, is it?
Yessir. Captain Fisher sent me—
Lieutenant Howard, get this young man a meal and find out what he’s good for. Wilkinson, go find out why the ordnance wagons were to slow to-day. Wood, see how our pickets are disposed and then report. Fletch, can’t you find anything to do? Why hasn’t Brooks blown “Stable Call”?
and then “Mess Call” and then an early moonrise,
Umatilla Jim dreaming of a certain lovely loosehaired young Bannock squaw in a stroud dress decorated with concentric V’s of cowrie shells
(the Agent would fine me twenty dollars hard cash money if I brought her to the reservation, and my wife would hate her for being a Lice-Eater:
better just to pay her or get her drunk),
while Wood and Fletch now stretch out their blankets on the grass by the general’s feet. Fletch,
who actually comprehends Shelley’s verse about the vale of Cashmire,
has traded a cartridge for a decorated pouch of kinnikinnick from some Bannock scout. He fills Wood’s pipe, then his own. They clink pipes together in pretense of toasting wineglasses, and the general smiles fondly. Patching the heel of his sock, Wood now considers comparative masculinities, beginning with the reeking rutting maleness of Ad Chapman,
whose dark hair is receding although his moustache is still thick; he keeps his chin nearly bare of bristle, perhaps thinking to please the general, although that’s not likely given that his sensitivities are as nearly arrowproof as the corral at Fort Laramie; his fingers are strangely delicate, and he likes to sit with his hands open in his lap: thus Chapman,
who so far as I can tell would like nothing better than a good rape, unless it’s to shoot Indians in the back and make money. Out in these Western parts he represents our dominant type: seething, squalid Americanism. I used to think I knew what an American was. I supposed I was one, or my father, never mind his drunkenness and cruelty. The general, now, he’s a true American man, no genius, maybe, but still one of the best. And Fletch, cheerful, brave, suave, a trifle mercurial although he conceals it, I guess he’s one of my type, which is why we like each other and believe that Americans ought to be like us. We believe in fighting for the right, extending our empire, protecting women and children, and we’re willing to take chances to do so, not necessarily because we’re good, although we deserve due credit for that, but because to stay home rotting on a little farm, with no prospect of remaking ourselves, is worse than getting killed in battle, and I feel the same even after White Bird Cañon and the Clearwater. What happened at Big Hole, well, it wasn’t me and I’m not going to think about it. At least I’ll try not to, because what’s the use? I shall think of Nanny whenever I please,
and if she were here I would gather for her these sweet pink flowers of the wild rose, because
old Trimble here positively insists that when the reds were singing their hum, hum, hum that night at Clearwater, he doped out every nuance, if you can believe it! Isn’t that so, Trimble?
Well, I should say that our bunch could pretty readily discern the different phases of their emotional expressions—
and someday I’ll take her to the Ladies’ Parlor of Stewart’s “Cast-Iron” Palace in New York. I wonder if Mrs. Howard has ever purchased hosiery there? I’ll bet she hasn’t. I hereby forget Big Hole (although Joseph for his part forfeited all humanity when he raped and murdered those people on the Salmon). I want to be the best man I can, which means to emulate Fletch, and learn what poise and endurance I can from the general, and certainly to distinguish myself from Wilkinson, whom I admit to be courageous but who considers himself manly not only because he can lead a charge without revealing the slightest uneasiness but also because it entertains him to describe to city ladies how our squaws collect enough lice to make a mouthful—and yet he flatters the general more subtly than any woman, laying on sympathy and not much more; poor old Prayer-book never sees how he is being taken in! Does Wilkinson not perceive himself? Maybe I don’t understand him, but to me he does seem the creeping climbing hypocrite—which may signify that he is suited for Indian service. The fact that he is against me, and Perry with him, ought to concern me more than it does. Perry of course can do nothing, unless he “snaps” and murders me. His fist is heavier than mine, for a fact; in any fight he could beat me down. I give myself credit for fearing him. But Wilkinson constitutes a greater peril. Must I cultivate that man, in order to preserve my standing with the general? Or am I supposed to start singing hymns? I won’t, at least not for now. Maybe I’ll do it to please the general, if I can be sure that pleasing him will please myself. No. Nor will I consider
So then, what we’ll do when we catch ’em is—
Hell’s bells. We don’t have time for that. I’m just gonna shoot every Nez Perce who—
Did you never read Josh Billings? I’m wild for his brand of humor. Now, what we all know about Nez Perces is exactly what he used to say about mules: Tha never hav no dissease that a good club wont heal.
Right on, Uncle Josh! He’s a caution—
All the same, it’s plumb disgusting when our Bannocks scalp them dead squaws.
Well, I know for a fact Mr. Joe scalped Lieutenant Theller.
