Life Amongst the Modocs: Unwritten History/Chapter 28

by Cincinnatus Heine Miller

CHAPTER XXVIII.

BATTLES ON THE BORDER.

NTIRELY with my left hand had I made the fight, for my right one was still stiff and useless from the shot of the would-be assassin of the Pit River expedition. My friends and others were now running up the hill to the fallen officer, and Hirst was only now and then sending up in my direction a random shot as I turned my back on the scene, and pushed up the mountain into the forest. My Panama hat flapped and fluttered down on one side of my face like the wing of a wounded bird. A pistol ball had torn it to ribbons.

A bullet makes only a small hole in cloth, in buck skin a still smaller one ; but it tears linen savagely, as well as straw. The hard, tough fibre of which Panama hats are made, particularly when rendered hard and brittle in a California sun, flies into shreds before it.

Most people imagine you can hear any bullet whistle that passes you. This is a mistake; you hear only

the bullet that has first struck some object and then glanced on, catching the air, and whizzing like a bee at your ear, but almost quite as harmless. These you can hear distinctly a hundred yards away, and they sound very ugly ; but a round, unmarred pistol ball can pass within six inches of your head and hardly be heard. You not only do not hear a ball strike your body, but you scarcely feel it at first, though you can hear it strike a man at your side ; and the sound is dead, dull, suggestive and almost sickening.

I began to think I had escaped without a scratch ; but after climbing up the hill till quite out of reach, and turning to look below, I raised my disabled right arm, and found my hand and fingers streaming with blood.

I was still strong and resolute; and, observing some men coming slowly up the hill with a show of pursuit, I hurried to the top of the hill, sat down there and examined my wound. A ball had torn across the back of the wrist and cut a vein or artery there, but done no further damage whatever.

I was wearing a linen shirt, for I always dressed as nearly like the white men as I could when amongst them, and from this I tore a strip and bound up the damaged wrist. But it still bled dreadfully, and I sat down often, as I retreated still further into the forest, and up and over the hills, and bound the wound as best I could, and tightened the bandages. The weather was intensely hot, and my blood was boiling from excitement and exertion. T his made

the blood stream the more profusely, and I suffered dreadfully from thirst.

I sat down at length on a log by the side of a thicket of chaparral to decide, if possible, what course to pursue, and was still tying up my wound and trying to stop the blood, with a pistol lying at my side, when I saw two men approaching on horse back.

My first impulse was to dash into the brush; but then I resolved to fight if must be, and run no farther. I took my pistol in my hand, cocked it, laid it across my lap, and sat still.

The men were strangers. They held up their hands in sign of friendship ; but I was excited, weak, alone, almost helpless, and hence suspicious.

" Don t be afraid, little one," one of them called out; u we are friends, and only want to assist you."

I still said nothing, held my pistol ready, and did not move.

They talked together a moment, then one of them dismounted and came toward me, holding his pistol by the muzzle in his left hand.

u Here, take this pistol," were his first words, and he reached it out and sat down by my side. u You see we don t know much about you; you may be good or you may be bad, but we don t like to see too many on one, and we are come to help you get away."

These men proved to be miners ; prominent, peace ful, and influent ial men.

They gave me another pistol, the best one of the two horses, and a trifle of money, and insisted that I should return to civilization.

I told them that that was impossible ; that I could not abandon my Indians ; besides, pursuit would run in that direction, and more blood would follow. I told them frankly that I should return to the Indians in the black forests of Mount Shasta ; and they let me have my own way.

I mounted my horse, shook hands with them soon, and almost in silence. I could not speak. I was choking with a new emotion. Injury and insult, oppression, persecution, mental agony, and wrongs almost intolerable, had not roused me; but now I drew my ba ttered hat down over my eyes and hid my face. The strong men turned their backs, as if embarrassed, looked down over the smoky camp, and I rode away in silence.

These two noble, manly-hearted men, heroes who never fought a battle, never had a quarrel, at last lie buried on the hills of Idaho. May the wild spring blossoms gather about them there ; may the partridge whistle in the tall brown grass of autumn, plaintive and tenderly, and the snows of winter fall, soft and beautiful, above their peaceful breasts.

I turned a spur of the mountain, through the wood, till I came to an open space that looked down over my Indian camp, and dismounting, made a signal, such as is used by the Indians in war.

This is done by making a bunch of dry grass or

leaves into a little ball, lighting it and holding it up as it smokes and burns on the point of a stick ; if you mean danger to your friends, and wish them to fly, you hold it up till it dies out, which takes some minutes. If danger to yourself, and you need assistance, you hold up the signal and let the smoke ascend, at short intervals. If you wish some one to approach you move it backwards. If you wish only to signal your own approach you move it forward, and so on through a long list of signs.

There is a great difference in the density and colour of the smoke made by different combustibles. You know, or at least all who read ought to know as much as an Indian about a thing so simple as this, that the smoke of dry straw or grass, particularly of the wild grass of California, is so much lighter than the atmosphere of even the rarest season, that it goes straight up a long, thin, white thread, surging and veering toward heaven against the blue sky like the tail of a Chinese kite.

Another noble fellow found me here and gave me the hand of friendship; Frank Maddox, now a wealthy and influential citizen of Ummatilla, Oregon, where he has been for a succession of terms sheriff of the county.

It takes a brave man to step out from the world arrayed against you and stand by your side at such a time. Such deeds, rare as they are, make you believe in men; they make you better.

The Indian warrior at length came, stealing through

the brush and up the mountain. I told him what had happened, bade him return to his camp, and tell the women to pack up and push out through the moun tains, with what arms and ammunition they had, for the McCloud. The faithful fellow went back, and before dusk returned to me with water, Indian bread and venison, and then back again to make his way with the women and children through the moun tains to our home on the other side of Shasta. I never saw him again. In crossing the trail leading from the head of Shasta valley to Scott s valley they fell into the hands of some brutal rancheros who hung the Indian warrior, plundered the women and took some of the children to keep as herders, cooks, and for such other service as they might see fit to impose.

I stole down the mountain to the stage road, some miles to the east ; and what a glorious ride ! I was glad again, free, wild as the wind. All through that ride of fifty miles I lived a splendid song. I climbed the mountains at dawn, my horse, strong and nervous still, foaming and plunging like a flood.

That night I reached the Indian camp. Here was business, blood. The women and children were mostly high up in the mountain, almost against the snow; but the warriors, with a few women that re fused to leave them, were on the east of the McCloud, on the outskirts of their possessions. They had been assisting the Pit River Indians, and had invariably lost, until their force, weak, even at the openi ng of the

spring, from starvation and disease and disaster, had become thinned and dispirited.

A council was held that night, and the few warriors, scared, wounded, and worn-out, talked themselves and their friends again into heart, and preparations were made to go still further, and assist the Pit Rivers against the white soldiers to their uttermost.

Little Klamat, now a man, and a man of authority, was already in the front. That fierce boy, burning with a memory that possessed him utterly, and made him silent, sullen, and desperate, cared not where he fought or for whom he fought, only so that he fought the common enemy. Paquita was also with the Pit Eiver Indians. What was she doing? Moulding bullets? Grinding bread? Shaping arrow-heads and stringing bows? Maybe she was a sort of Puritan mother fighting the British for home and hearthstone in the Revolution. Maybe she was a Florence Nightingale nursing the British soldiers in the Crimea. No! the world will not believe it. No good deed can be done by an Indian. Why attempt to re count it?

We went down to the camp, where Klamat, Paquita, and about one hundred warriors, with a few women who were nursing their wounded, were preparing for another brush with the soldiery. Here we waited till the Modocs came down, and the three tribes joined their thinned forces, and made common cause.

In a few days we advanced, and fell in with a company of cavalry scouring the country for prisoners

to take to the dreaded Reservation. Women gathering roots for their half- starved children, children whose parents had been slain, lost in the woods, and wan dering they knew not whither, were about all they thus far could capture.

Shots were exchanged. The cavalry dismounted and fought on foot. The Indians shot wildly, for they were poorly armed ; but the soldiers shot still more so, so that but little damage was done to either side. Now and then a soldier would be ^carried to the rear, and now and then they would charge up the hills or across the ravines, but that was all that marked the events of the day till almost nightfall. I was impa tient of all this. We could not reach the rear of the soldiers, resting against the river, nor offend the flanks.

Toward nightfall the Indians, now almost entirely out of ammunition, withdrew, leaving the soldiers, as usual, masters of the ground.

I had taken no active part in the skirmish. I was there as an eager and curious witness. I wished to see how the Indians would bear themselves in battle. I felt that on their conduct that day depended the fate of my plans. From first to last it was not encouraging. They were brave enough, and some were even reckless ; but I saw that dissen sion, impatience, envy, and ambition to be at the head, marked the conduct of many of the leading men. There was too much of the white man s nature here to make one confident of success in a long a nd bitter

war. I had hoped their desperate situation had made them a unit with but one single object. I was disap pointed.

For some time I had been the nominal war-chief of the Modocs, for since the Ben Wright massacre, where their great chief was killed, they had had no fit leader in battle, but policy dictated that in order to keep down jealousies, I should not at once push the Modocs too much to the front. The three tribes had never fought together before for many genera tions, though they had often fought against each other, and everything depended on unity and good will. The results of the day were discouraging enough.

They retreated far up a cahon, plunging toward the river, and there in a great cave by a dim camp fire refreshed themselves on a few dried roots and venison ; then after a long smoke in silence, the chief slowly rose and opened a council of war. Many speeches were made, but they mostly consisted in boasts of personal achievements. They talked them selves into sudden and high confidence, which I knew any little reverse would dispel. They were assured of success by signs, they said, and dreams, as well as by the events of the day. The spirits of their fathers had fought with them and for them.

I spoke last of all, and spoke in no encouraging spirit. I tried to tell them first how things stood, and how desperate and determined they must be before the great object a recognition of o ur rights

was reached. I told them that they had not won the fight at all ; that the soldiers stood their ground, and now had possession of the field of battle.

An old Indian sitting back in a crevice of the rock called out, u Ah! what matters a few steps of ground when there is so much?"

I saw my little Republic going to pieces even before it had been fairly launched, and slept but little that night.

At midnight women were dispatched to the various camps, to give glowing accounts of the action, and also to bring provisions and whatever ammunition and arms could be had.

That night I proposed that I should cross the river with a few Indians, proceed to a temporary military camp near Hat Creek, state distinctly what the Indians desired, and try and get some recogni tion of their rights before they should be driven to the wall.

They would not at first consent to imperil any of their number in this way. They wanted me to go again and attempt once more to get a supply of arms and ammunition. They said that from the first I had promised this, and that now it was the only thing that would save them.

At last it was agreed that I should select four Indians, go at first to the military camp myself with the Indians a little in the background, so as to have some chance for their lives in case of treachery, and see what I could do; failing in my negotiations, I was to

proceed to Shasta city at once, and endeavour to get arms and ammunition at all risks.

I chose two Modoc Indians and two Shastas al] young men, brave, resolute, and full of fire and prepared to set out at once on my dangerous mission of peace.

The Indians had captured two stage-coaches carry ing treasure and the United States mails, besides a small train with general supplies and a sum of gold and silver for the payment of soldiers, and had an abundance of money. They cared nothing for it, however. I have seen children laying little mosaic plots in the sand with silver and gold coins, which they valued only for their brightness and colour. But this now to me was of use. I took rny men, with a good supply of money, crossed the river, pushed on through the woods to the stage- road, and there, after some delay, bought the best horses to be had, of several Mexican vaqueros making their way from Yreka to Red Bluffs. I also secured their sympathy and their friendship by liberal and generous dealing, and assurance of safety through the country.

These Mexicans, packers and vaqueros, ever since the war with Mexico and the conquest of California by the United States, have with reason held only ill-will toward the Americans. Speaking another tongue, adhering to another form of religion, the mass of white men have never yet come to forget the battle-fields of a quarter of a century ago.

I always found that I could approach these Mexi can rovers, and obtain almost any favour I asked, most especially if it pointed to assistance of the Indians, and disadvantage to the whites.

We rode down to the military camp, and found the small force with the officers on parade. The Indians rode a few yards in the rear as I approached the officer of the day, dismounted and held my hat in one hand and lariat in the other. The officers ex changed glances, and I grew nervous.