The Dying Grass, page 98
and although the Medicine women are singing over her, blowing her sickness far from us, Mourning Dove cannot live anymore, so we bury her in her ragged blanket, and Tuk-le-kas rings the small bell.
AND THEN I CAN WRITE A PLEASING ARTICLE
AUGUST 29–SEPTEMBER 1
1
General, Captain Fisher has news—
Bring him here. Well, captain, what is it?
Sir, our Bannocks have located Joseph right of Soda Butte; he’s heading toward Clark’s Fork—
Good. Sturgis will head him off. How’s the mood of your Indians?
O, excellent, sir; they’re looking forward to being in on the death.
We all are. I guess Joseph’s back will be broken within another three or four days, once Sturgis gets in position.
Yessir.
What’s the meaning of that look, Captain Fisher?
I was fixing to sneeze, general.
Return to your duties.
Do they all laugh at me? Perhaps I should resign, but then what would I do? I should like to be a grandfather. How delightful it was when I used to sit Gracie behind me in the saddle and she sat smiling like such a good child!
Anyhow, I need to help Guy get established. And when I whip Joseph, Sherman will smile on me again, GOD willing. Perhaps Miles and I can capture Sitting Bull. And then I can write a pleasing article about the Nez Perce campaign. Wood can polish it up. The New York Herald might take it. I should certainly like to pay off the balance of my legal expenses, then try once more to do something for the negroes.
2
Left,
left,
left they march,
shaded they ride and march,
recruiting their weary souls in this reposeful place, lusting to skylark
although poor Captain Fisher, six feet tall and proud in his broadbrimmed hat and decorated deerskin jacket
(a wonder his legging-buttons haven’t snagged off)
must now ride thirty miles ahead to see what he can see of Joseph
(Redington setting off more eastward, jawboning in Chinook with one of our more likely Crows),
singing the jingle from Thompson’s Two-Bit House in Portland:
Go to Thompson’s Two-Bit House, no deception there!
Hi, you muck-a-muck, and here’s your bill of fare!
That’s hilarious, Doc.
Well, now—
I said, that’s fuckin’ hilarious, GODd——nit!
and even Perry’s spirits lifting, strange to say,
because the way this campaign is turning out—marching and marching to the end of everywhere, as if we’ve been rocking on our horses for a quarter of a million years—puts me in mind of the days when I was younger, riding and Indian-hunting way out in the wild country
(Perry half-smiling to remember how in California when our rifles echoed over the lake and the Modocs screamed war-cries back at us, flocks of lake swallows used to fly up just far enough to dip their wings like oars into the blue-grey water, rowing themselves away from us in flittery panics, and then we’d all yell Hurrah! just to hear another echo)
—the days before I was married, O yes!
—and my days with General Crook, the freest genius I’ve ever known, his squarish yet ethereal face, his flowing moustaches and bright sailor-eyes, his humor ready to harden against any challenge, and until then serene:
d——n, but the man was no more stylish than a nosebag dangling from my saddle ring! . . .
—well, I loved him for being so at peace with himself,
as I can never hope to be—
but then why was Theller my best friend when he was so tormented? What don’t I understand?
O, if I could shake away all my sorry experiences, like Diamond rolling and rolling in the dust after the saddle comes off him . . .
while Umatilla Jim, having heard it sung that there is or can be a tiny light which we cannot see even as it shines, the light of SOMETHING
(all we can do is ready ourselves),
sits down by the riverbank, watching the Lice-Eaters dishonor the dead
and he smokes kinnikinnick, waiting for the light of SOMETHING to come,
Spurgin’s engineers chopping ahead with their hand axes, so why shouldn’t the rest of us recruit ourselves?
(Whipple says this is worse than the road over the Blue-ridge—
Well, of course it is. This ain’t no road.)
—Blackie no longer caring whether we catch Mr. Joe, and accordingly up for travelling infinitely (which is by no means forever) through this yellow-grassed summer, accruing Government wages, learning new country, ensuring dreams for Fidelia,
Redington likewise loving the campaign life more every minute, riding in and out of camp with a yip-yip-yip password of his own invention
(how heartily old General Prayer Book laughs at that!),
and it’s still a treat to jawbone with Fisher, Jule and the other scouts.
(The general’s soft on Injuns, Fisher says. Well, they’re nothing but animals, every last stinking one of them.)
As for Captain Pollock, who has served as a member of the San Francisco Vigilantes, he still yearns to ride ahead, even in advance of Redington’s Indians, and take care of Joseph—
Halt,
planting the guidon:
About face.
Dismissed!
—Wood,
dreaming of a certain dark plump Bannock squaw in a tightly beaded buckskin dress and a belt shining with nailheads
and then remembering that he needs to clean his pistol,
smiling meaninglessly while the general and Wilkinson sit on logs with Guy, Ad Chapman and a few of the fellows, singing “The Battle Hymn of the Republic,”
some enlisted men broiling deer meat on the cleaning rods of their rifles,
a wide-eyed German with a handlebar moustache slowly moving his lips over an American New Testament,
messmates sitting in the grass, playing cards on a stinking horse blanket:
Now, when you’re setting out to paunch a buffalo, here’s what you want to do—
By my count, Mr. Joe’s bumped off at least six citizens here in Wonderland alone.
You can’t even count how old you are,
as, gripping Joseph’s rebellious pony between his knees, Perry quirts him a few times, but cannot break him, so gives him over to Bomus to be shot.
Doc, where’d you get that theodolite?
Traded for it.
You understand how to use it?
You sad old horse’s ass—
Where are you from, soldier?
From Hamburg, general.
What’s your name?
Klughard, general.
And are you enjoying this campaign?
General, sir, that one don’t speak good English. He’s got in his head you asked him something else. Right now he’s saying that his relatives have all booked passage on the “Hammonia” for this August; a slew of Klughards coming over from Germany, he says—
Thank you, sergeant. Carry on. Now, Guy, I’m afraid that Captain Jocelyn needs a nudge about his Morning Report.
I’ll see to it, sir.
Well, boys, thirteen years ago to-day, the Secceshes were evacuating Atlanta.
Now I know for a fact that President Grant smoked half a hundred cigars a day. And when we were on the march—
No, Trimble, I’m with you. To get him quick, we should think Indian and play Indian. But all this GODd——d command ever does is follow staff orders and march, march, march.
Pollock, my boy, you sure said it! But the trouble started before General Prayer Book, because when they deployed us at the Lava Beds, Canby even forbade us to—
But near about “Tattoo,” while the rest of our command sits brightening up, recruiting itself back from out of fatigue and sorrow, Wilkinson, Mason and the general continue studying the map by the trembling light of the grease lamp.
3
Perry, how’s your company?
Well, sir, they’re holding up real fine.
I’ve had a talk with Trimble.
Yessir.
Reminded him that we were all in the Lava Beds together.
Major Mason, sir, I truly appreciate that.
Now how are you getting on with the general?
Not bad, sir, although between you and me I detest that little Indian lover he has buzzing about his tent—
You mean Lieutenant Wood?
Yessir. The boys are saying he puked at Big Hole.
Is that so?
I didn’t see it, sir. But something’s wrong with him. He’s squeamish or something. Won’t admit how things are
—for instance, the way the Modocs used to prey on Shastas and Pi-Utes, selling their children to the Horse Indians at The Dalles, a boy for a pony, while a girl ripe for whoredom and concubinage might go for as much as five horses;
and then once our settlers came in, the Modocs started raiding them instead,
overreaching when they murdered Mr. Reed, carried off his two young girls, and before they had even become women began to rent them out, the elder one’s performance earning her the accolade of a slit throat and a heave over the cliff-bank of Cottonwood Creek when two of her owners agreed to disagree about her earnings, the younger presently receiving a comparable reward from jealous squaws, although she was never found.
Perry, he’s not the only one. I’ll do what I can for you.
Thank you, major.
4
No word from Sturgis?
I’m afraid not, general.
Joseph could be giving us the slip again right now.
Yessir.
Fletch, what’s your opinion of the situation?
Well, sir, I wonder if Captain Fisher’s Bannocks are telling all they know. Maybe they find one of our couriers dead, and they scalp him; you know their fondness for scalps—
I’ve warned them that that’s prohibited.
Yessir. And then they might hesitate to tell us, for fear of being punished, and so—
You purpose to legitimate the murder and scalping of prisoners, for expediency’s sake.
Of course not, general, but maybe Captain Fisher could tactfully interrogate his Indians . . .
I take your point. Kindly speak with him on this subject, and report straight to me. Sturgis’s silence is becoming inconvenient.
Rest assured, general, I’ll ride out straightaway.
Fletch, I’m aware that Fisher dislikes me.
Well, sir, I—
If he realizes how crucial it is to communicate with Sturgis, he might withhold information, simply to spite me. So don’t let him realize it.
I understand, sir.
And, Fletch, I’ve just decided that you must give Fisher written orders to turn over all prisoners to the main column, alive. The murder of that poor old squaw continues to distress me. It’s a blot upon the Army. So draft something and take it to him; I . . .
Yessir. General, is your arm paining you just now?
No, it’s not that. Well, GOD bless you. That’s all.
WHAT NEXT?
SEPTEMBER 2
1
Wilkinson, do you have a moment?
Sure thing, general.
I consider you extremely well informed on a number of subjects.
Thank you, sir.
Do you understand Communism?
Well, sir, in what sense?
Who are these rebels? What do they want?
O, an eight-hour working day, higher wages, you name it.
Bless us! What next?
General, if you don’t mind my asking, has there been bad news from the States?
On the contrary. The railroad strikes have all been put down. There was an anti-Chinese riot in San Francisco, and the coal miners may walk out, but I think the Government has asserted itself.
In my opinion, general, we haven’t seen the last of them. They’re GODless, you know.
Well, well! I didn’t realize . . . And they’re in the Army?
Some of them, yessir.
Keep your eyes out. But don’t accuse anyone without absolute proof.
I understand, sir.
GOD bless you, my boy! That’s all.
2
General, the teamsters’ extra horses have disappeared.
Fetch me Redington or Captain Fisher at once.
Yessir.
Well, hello there, general. Guess you heard—
Are any of your Bannocks missing?
About half of them, sir.
Arrest Buffalo Horn. He’s to stay in custody until every animal has been returned. That’s all.
General, sir, they’ve brought back the horses.
All right. Let Buffalo Horn go. It’s in his nature; he can’t help it . . .
3
So we follow Chief Joseph up the Yellow Stone to the Lamar, where the rugged road goes widely down to the jade-green, bouldery stream
(could even Nanny be as lovely as these greenish-grey outcroppings along the Yellow Stone?),
Fletch riding ahead up Pelican Creek in search of Captain Fisher, remembering Wood’s warning: Don’t let your Bannock get behind you!
(he finds Fisher,
who rides very well, as even Wilkinson will admit, but his ornamented Indian leggings are a bit unmanly,
and they crawl over the ridge to spy on Joseph’s rearguard;
then they chase after their general by night, their horses breaking through a sulphur-crust on the way,
rejoining the command just in time to hear Wilkinson drive Ad Chapman out of the Headquarters tent)
—pine-and-sulphur wind on the trail high over the river:
Black bear tracks again. And I think I smell honey.
You don’t say! Find us some honey, Doc,
so that to-night Wood will dream that Nanny is crowning him with a circlet of dark bearclaws—
then east through the stormcloud meadows toward Icebox Cañon
(far away, past a yellow stripe of sunlit meadow, another herd of buffalo),
past Pebble Creek up into the cañon whose cliffs seem in this rain more purple than grey,
Icebox Cañon’s soft evergreens tottering out from river-cliffs
and the slender reddish trunks of pines slowly flashing by . . .
If you don’t believe me, boys, look at the map. We’re already in General Crook’s Department.
Well, if Sherman would simply telegraph him to take over—
If Mr. Joe sneaks off by way of Wind River—
James Reuben predicts he’ll avoid Soda Butte Cañon.
But Uh-Oh Howard will never—
Wearily, he remembers how the masses once stood up for him at the Christian Commission rally in Philadelphia, awed by his empty sleeve.
BARGAIN WITH FLETCH
4–8 SEPTEMBER
1
Well, Bomus, it used to be that sack coats were looked down upon by most of us in the service. That changed during the Secession War . . .
So I remember, sir.
Now, Guy here has come to own a contrary opinion . . .
—riding up the cañon, which the general has named after Captain Jocelyn, the black tail of Wood’s horse swirling tightly in the wind as our flankers, drawn in perforce, warily, wearily eyeball these many reddish cliffs above belts of evergreen and wet meadow—
Well, I for one agree with Mr. Vanderbilt. He said: Building railroads from nowhere to nowhere is not a legitimate undertaking.
But a railroad turns nowhere into somewhere. Don’t you want to see this country settled?
Right here’s good for nothing but Indians and range cattle
(the milky greenish river flowing over its many-toothed stones, the other bank, very steep, thick with lodgepole pines which exude their fragrant morning gloom),
so—
So let’s lose the Indians,
and stumps of old burned trees here in the neighborhood of Clark’s Fork
(where the hostiles are, GOD alone knows, if not Fisher, Redington and Buffalo Horn:
still ten miles away, more or less),
the sea-green river foaming slowly between gravel bars, O that lovely wide river in the wide valley, and now the pale green going chocolate red, bluer in the reflection-shadows of evergreens (and what’s Mr. Joe planning for us up in these mountains with their long narrow rock-grins?),
and Perry, who has lately developed wrinkles around the corners of his mouth, cantering Diamond along Company “F”’s regulation-spaced column,
not looking over his shoulder even though he’s weighed down by an eerie feeling about those reds, as if they could be creeping up on our rear—
for who could forget the time (ten years since) when Parnell
(whom Perry used to tease with Dick’s Irish Dialect Recitations, back before Perry stopped enjoying anything)
got permission from General Crook to double back on some mules the Pi-Utes had killed, and caught the Indians fair and square, shooting five out of six? What if Mr. Joe’s bunch are playing that game? Ollicut’s probably the craftiest red of them all. From what James Reuben says, it’s either Ollicut or that Yellow Wolf who did for Theller. (I wonder if Umatilla Jim would tell me straight? He must know. They all do.) Now, under Crook we would have crept up on them by night and gunned them all down. It’s a GODd——d marvel that Uh-Oh Howard won’t let Buffalo Horn off the leash, or even Pollock, or me; hell; there’s more than one of us who could have ended this business by now.
But the advantage of sack coats, you see, is for sleeping in, because—
well, well, it’s turning out to be quite some chase.
2
Colonel Perry, did you get bad news from home?
No, sir.
You look discouraged. Is your wound troubling you?
