CHAPTER XVII
IN THE VALLEY OF THE ARICKAREE
A blush as of roses Where rose never grew! Great drops on the bunch grass. But not of the dew! A taint in the sweet air For wild bees to shun! A stain that shall never Bleach out in the sun!
--WHITTIER.
Stillwell was right. Sharp Grover knew, as well as the boy knew, that wewere trapped, that before us now were the awful chances of unequalPlains warfare. A mere handful of us had been hurrying after a host,whose numbers the broad beaten road told us was legion. There was nomirth in that little camp that night in mid-September, and I thought ofother things besides my strange vision at the gorge. The camp was theonly mark of human habitation in all that wide and utterly desolateland. For days we had noted even the absence of all game--strongevidence that a host had driven it away before us. Everywhere, saveabout that winking camp fire was silence. The sunset was gorgeous, inthe barbaric sublimity of its seas of gold and crimson atmosphere. Andthen came the rich coloring of that purple twilight. It is no wonderthey call it regal. Out on the Plains that night it swathed thelandscape with a rarer hue than I have ever seen anywhere else, althoughI have watched the sun go down into the Atlantic off the Rockport coast,and have seen it lost over the edge of the West Prairie beyond the bigcottonwood above the farther draw. As I watched the evening shadowsdeepen, I remembered what Morton had told me in the little cabin back inthe Saline country, "Who ever fights the Indians must make his willbefore the battle begins." Now that I was face to face with the realissue, life became very sweet to me. How grand over war and hate werethe thoughts of peace and love! And yet every foot of this beautifulland must be bought with a price. No matter where the great blame lies,nor who sinned first in getting formal possession, the real occupationis won only by sacrifice. And I was confronted with my part of theoffering. Strange thoughts come in such an hour. Sitting there in thetwilight, I asked myself why I should want to live; and I realized howstrong, after all, was the tie that bound me to Springvale; how underall my pretence of beginning a new life I had not really faced thefuture separated from the girl I loved. And then I remembered that itwould mean nothing serious to her how this campaign ended. Oh! I was inthe crucible now. I must prove myself the thing I always meant to be.God knew the heroic spirit I needed that lonely September night. As Isat looking out toward the west the years of my boyhood came back to me,and then I remembered O'mie's words when he told me of his struggle:
"It was to save a woman, Phil. He could only kill me. He wouldn't havebeen that good to her. You'd have done the same to save any woman, avena stranger to you. Wait an' see."
I thought of the two women in the Solomon Valley, whom Black Kettle'sband had dragged from their homes, tortured inhumanly, and at laststaked out hand and foot on the prairie to die in agony under pitilessskies.
"When the day av choosin' comes," O'mie said, "we can't do no more 'n totake our places. We all do it. When you git face to face with a thinglike that, somehow the everlastin' arms Dr. Hemingway preaches about isstrong underneath you."
Oh, blessed O'mie! Had he told me that to give me courage in my hour ofshrinking? Wherever he was to-night I knew his heart was with me, who solittle deserved the love he gave me. At last I rolled myself snugly inmy blanket, for the September evenings are cold in Colorado. The simpleprayers of childhood came back to me, and I repeated the "Now I lay me"I used to say every night at Aunt Candace's knee. It had a wonderfulmeaning to me to-night. And once more I thought of O'mie and how histhin hand gripped mine when he said: "Most av all, don't niver forgitit, Phil, when the thing comes to you, aven in your strength. Most avall, above all sufferin', and natural longin' to live, there comes thereality av them words Aunt Candace taught us: 'Though I walk through thevalley av the shadow av death, I will fear no evil.'"
"It may be that's the Arickaree Valley for me," I said to myself. "If itis, I will fear no evil." And I stretched out on the brown grasses andfell asleep.
About midnight I wakened suddenly. A light was gleaming near. Some onestood beside me, and presently I saw Colonel Forsyth looking down intomy face with kindly eyes. I raised myself on my elbow and watched himpassing among the slumbering soldiers. Even now I can see JackStillwell's fair girl-face with the dim light on it as he slept besideme. What a picture that face would make if my pen were an artist'sbrush! At three in the morning I wakened again. It was very dark, but Iknew some one was near me, and I judged instinctively it was Forsyth. Itwas sixty hours before I slept again.
For five days every movement of ours had been watched by Indian scouts.Night and day they had hung on our borders, just out of sight, waitingtheir time to strike. Had we made a full march on that sixteenth day ofSeptember, instead of halting to rest and graze our horses, we shouldhave gone, as Stillwell predicted, straight into Hell's jaws. As it was,Hell rose up and crept stealthily toward us. For while our little bandslept, and while our commander passed restlessly among us on that night,the redskins moved upon our borders.
Morning was gray in the east and the little valley was full of shadows,when suddenly the sentinel's cry of "Indians! Indians!" aroused thesleeping force. The shouts of our guards, the clatter of ponies' hoofs,the rattling of dry skins, the swinging of blankets, the fierce yells ofthe invading foe made a scene of tragic confusion, as a horde ofredskins swept down upon us like a whirlwind. In this mad attempt tostampede our stock nothing but discipline saved us. A few of the mulesand horses not properly picketed, broke loose and galloped off beforethe attacking force, the remaining animals held as the Indians fled awaybefore the sharp fire of our soldiers.
"Well, we licked them, anyhow," I said to myself exultantly as we obeyedthe instant orders to get into the saddle.
The first crimson line of morning was streaking the east and I lifted myface triumphantly to the new day. Sharp Grover stood just before me; hishand was on Forsyth's shoulder.
Suddenly he uttered a low exclamation. "Oh, heavens! General, look atthe Indians."
This was no vision of brown rock and sun-blinded eyes. From everydirection, over the bluff, out from the tall grass, across the slope onthe south, came Indians, hundreds on hundreds. They seemed to springfrom the sod like Roderick Dhu's Highland Scots, and people every curveand hollow. Swift as the wind, savage as hate, cruel as hell, they boredown upon us from every way the wind blows. The thrill of that moment isin my blood as I write this. It was then I first understood the tiebetween the commanding officer and his men. It is easy to laud the fileof privates on dress parade, but the man who directs the file in thehour of battle is the real power. In that instant of peril I turned toForsyth with that trust that the little child gives to its father. Howcool he was, and yet how lightning-swift in thought and action.
In all the valley there was no refuge where we might hide, nor height onwhich we might defend ourselves. The Indians had counted on our making adash to the eastward, and had left that way open for us. They had notreckoned well on Colonel Forsyth. He knew intuitively that the gorge atthe lower end of the valley was even then filled with a hidden foe, andnot a man of us would ever have passed through it alive. To advancemeant death, and there was no retreat possible. Out in the middle of theArickaree, hardly three feet above the river-bed, lay a little island.In the years to be when the history of the West shall be fully told, itmay become one of the Nation's shrines. But now in this dim morninglight it showed only an insignificant elevation. Its sandy surface wasgrown over with tall sage grasses and weeds.
A few wild plums and alder bushes, a clump of low willow shrubs, and asmall cottonwood tree completed its vegetation.
"How about that island, Grover?" I heard Forsyth ask.
"It's all we can do," the scout answered; and the command: "Reach theisland! hitch the horses!" rang through the camp.
It takes long to tell it, this dash for the island. The execution of theorder was like the passing of a hurricane. Horses, mules, men, alldashed toward the place, but in the rush the hospital supplies andrations were los
t. The Indians had not counted on the island, and theyraged in fury at their oversight. There were a thousand savage warriorsattacking half a hundred soldiers, and they had gloated over the fiftyscalps to be taken in the little gorge to the east. The break in theirplans confused them but momentarily, however.
On the island we tied our horses in the bushes and quickly formed acircle. The soil was all soft sand. We cut the thin sod with our butcherknives and began throwing up a low defence, working like fiends with ourhands and elbows and toes, scooping out the sand with our tin plates,making the commencement of shallow pits. We were stationed in couples,and I was beside Morton when the onslaught came. Up from the undulatingsouth, and down over the north bluff swept the furious horde. On theycame with terrific speed, their blood-curdling yells of hate minglingwith the wild songs, and cries and taunts of hundreds of squaws andchildren that crowded the heights out of range of danger, watching thecharge and urging their braves to battle. Over the slopes to the verybanks of the creek, into the sandy bed of the stream, and up to theisland they hurled their forces, while bullets crashed murderously, andarrows whizzed with deadly swiftness into our little sand-built defence.
In the midst of the charge, twice above the din, I caught the clearnotes of an artillery bugle. It was dim daylight now. Rifle-smoke andclouds of dust and gray mist shot through with flashes of powder, andthe awful rage, as if all the demons of Hell were crying vengeance, areall in that picture burned into my memory with a white-hot brand. Andabove all these there come back to me the faces of that little band ofresolute men biding the moment when the command to charge should begiven. Such determination and such splendid heroism, not twice in alifetime is it vouchsafed to many to behold.
We held our fire until the enemy was almost upon us. At the rightinstant our rifles poured out a perfect billow of death. Painted bodiesreeled and fell; horses sank down, or rushed mad with pain, upon theirfallen riders; shrieks of agony mingled with the unearthly yells; whileabove all this, the steady roar of our guns--not a wasted bullet in allthe line--carried death waves out from the island thicket. To me thatfirst defence of ours was more tragic than anything in the days andnights that followed it. The first hour's struggle seasoned me for thesiege.
The fury of the Indian warriors and of the watching squaws isindescribable. The foe deflected to left and right, vainly seeking tocarry their dead from the field with them. The effort cost many Indianlives. The long grass on either side of the stream was full ofsharpshooters. The morning was bright now, and we durst not lift ourheads above our low entrenchment. Our position was in the centre of aspace open to attack from every arc of the circle. Caution counted morethan courage here. Whoever stood upright was offering his life to hisenemy. Our horses suffered first. By the end of an hour every one ofthem was dead. My own mount, a fine sorrel cavalry horse, given to me atFort Hays, was the last sacrifice. He was standing near me in the brownbushes. I could see his superb head and chest as, with nostrils wide,and flashing eyes, he saw and felt the battle charge. Subconsciously Ifelt that so long as he was unhurt I had a sure way of escape.Subconsciously, too, I blessed the day that Bud Anderson taught O'mieand me to drop on the side of Tell Mapleson's pony and ride like aPlains Indian. But even as I looked up over my little sand ridge abullet crashed into his broad chest. He plunged forward toward us,breaking his tether. He staggered to his knees, rose again with a lunge,and turning half way round reared his fore feet in agony and seemedabout to fall into our pit. At that instant I heard a laugh just beyondthe bushes, and a voice, not Indian, but English, cried exultingly,"There goes the last damned horse, anyhow."
It was the same voice that I had heard up on "Rockport" one evening,promising Marjie in pleading tones to be a "good Indian." The same hard,cold voice I had heard in the same place saying to me, as a promisebefore high heaven: "I will go. But I shall see you there. When we meetagain my hand will be on your throat and--I don't care whose son youare."
Well, we were about to meet. The wounded animal was just above our pit.Morton rose up with lifted carbine to drive him back when from the samegun that had done for my horse came a bullet full into the man's face.It ploughed through his left eye and lodged in the bones beyond it. Heuttered no cry, but dropped into the pit beside me, his blood, streamingfrom the wound, splashed hot on my forehead as he fell. I was stunned byhis disaster, but he never faltered. Taking his handkerchief from hispocket, he bound it tightly about his head and set his rifle ready forthe next charge. After that, nothing counted with me. I no longer shrankin dread of what might happen. All fear of life, or death, of pain, orIndians, or fiends from Hades fell away from me, and never again did myhand tremble, nor my heart-beat quicken in the presence of peril. By thewarm blood of the brave man beside me I was baptized a soldier.
The force drew back from this first attempt to take the island, but thefire of the hidden enemy did not cease. In this brief breathing spell wedug deeper into our pits, making our defences stronger where we lay.Disaster was heavy upon us. The sun beat down pitilessly on the hot, dryearth where we burrowed. Out in the open the Indians were crawling likeserpents through the tall grasses toward our poor house of sand, hopingto fall upon us unseen. They had every advantage, for we did not dare tolet our bodies be exposed above the low breastworks, and we could notsee their advance. Nearly one-half of our own men were dead or wounded.Each man counted for so much on that battle-girt island that day. Oursurgeon had been struck in the first round and through all the rest ofhis living hours he was in a delirium. Forsyth himself, grievouslywounded in both lower limbs, could only drag his body about by his arms.A rifle ball had grazed his scalp and fractured his skull. The pain fromthis wound was almost unbearable. But he did not loosen his grip on themilitary power delegated to him. From a hastily scooped-out pit where welaid him he directed the whole battle.
And now we girded on our armor for the supreme ordeal. The unboundedwrath of the Indians at their unlooked-for failure in their first attacktold us what to expect. Our own guns were ready for instant use. Thearms of our dead and wounded comrades were placed beside our own. Notime was there in those awful hours to listen to the groans of thestricken ones nor to close the dying eyes. Not a soul of us in thosesand-pits had any thought that we should ever see another sunset. All wecould do was to put the highest price upon our lives. It was ten o'clockin the forenoon. The firing about the island had almost ceased, and thesilence was more ominous than the noise of bullets. Over on the bluffthe powers were gathering. The sunlight glinted on their arms andlighted up their fantastic equipments of war. They formed in battlearray. And then there came a sight the Plains will never see again, asight that history records not once in a century. There were hundreds ofthese warriors, the flower of the fierce Cheyenne tribe, drawn up inmilitary order, mounted on great horses, riding bareback, their riflesheld aloft in their right hands, the left hand grasping the flowingmane, their naked bodies hideously adorned with paint, their longscalp-locks braided and trimmed with plumes and quills. They were thevery acme of grandeur in a warfare as splendid as it was barbaric. AndI, who live to write these lines, account myself most fortunate that Isaw it all.
They were arrayed in battle lines riding sixty abreast. It was a man ofgenius who formed that military movement that day. On they came inorderly ranks but with terrific speed, straight down the slope, acrossthe level, and on to the island, as if by their huge weight and terriblemomentum they would trample it into the very level dust of the earth,that the winds of heaven might scatter it broadcast on the Arickareewaters. Till the day of my death I shall hear the hoof-beats of thatcavalry charge.
Down through the centuries the great commanders have left us theirstories of prowess, and we have kept their portraits to adorn ourstately halls of fame; and in our historic shrines we have preservedtheir records--Cyrus, Alexander, Leonidas at Thermopylae, Hannibalcrossing the Alps, Charles Martel at Tours, the white-plumed Henry ofNavarre leading his soldiers in the battle of Ivry, Cromwell with hisIronsides--godly men who chanted h
ymns while they fought--Napoleon'sgrand finale at Waterloo, with his three thousand steeds mingling thesound of hoof-beats with the clang of cuirasses and the clash of sabres;Pickett's grand sweep at Gettysburg, and Hooker's charge up LookoutMountain.
But who shall paint the picture of that terrific struggle on thatSeptember day, or write the tale of that swirl of Indian warriors, athousand strong, as they swept down in their barbaric fury upon thehandful of Anglo-Saxon soldiers crouching there in the sand-pitsawaiting their onslaught? It was the old, old story retold that day onthe Colorado plains by the sunlit waters of the Arickaree--the whiteman's civilization against the untamed life of the wilderness. And forthat struggle there is only one outcome.
Before the advancing foe, in front of the very centre of the foremostline, was their leader, Roman Nose, chief warrior of the Cheyennes. Hewas riding a great, clean-limbed horse, his left hand grasping its mane.His right hand was raised aloft, directing his forces. If ever themoulds of Nature turned out physical perfection, she realized her idealin that superb Cheyenne. He stood six feet and three inches in hismoccasins. He was built like a giant, with a muscular symmetry that wasartistically beautiful. About his naked body was a broad, blood-redsilken sash, the ends of which floated in the wind. His war bonnet, withits two short, curved, black buffalo horns, above his brow, was amagnificent thing crowning his head and falling behind him in a sweep ofheron plumes and eagle feathers. The Plains never saw a grander warrior,nor did savage tribe ever claim a more daring and able commander. He wasby inherent right a ruler. In him was the culmination of the intelligentprowess and courage and physical supremacy of the free life of thebroad, unfettered West.
On they rushed that mount of eager warriors. The hills behind themswarmed with squaws and children. Their shrieks of grief and anger andencouragement filled the air. They were beholding the action that downto the last of the tribe would be recounted a victory to be chanted inall future years over the graves of their dead, and sung in heroicstrain when their braves went forth to conquest. And so, with all thepower of heart and voice, they cried out from the low hill-tops. Just atthe brink of the stream the leader, Roman Nose, turned his face a momenttoward the watching women. Lifting high his right hand he waved them aproud salute. The gesture was so regal, and the man himself so like aking of men, that I involuntarily held my breath. But the setblood-stained face of the wounded man beside me told what that kingshipmeant.
As he faced the island again, Roman Nose rose up to his full height andshook his clenched fist toward our entrenchment. Then suddenly liftinghis eyes toward the blue sky above him, he uttered a war-cry, unlike anyother cry I have ever heard. It was so strong, so vehement, so full ofpleading, and yet so dominant in its certainty, as if he were invokingthe gods of all the tribes for their aid, yet sure in his defiant soulthat victory was his by right of might. The unearthly, blood-chillingcry was caught up by all his command and reechoed by the watchers onthe hills till, away and away over the undulating plains it rolled,dying out in weird cadences in the far-off spaces of the haze-wreathedhorizon.
Then came the dash for our island entrenchment. As the Indians enteredthe stream I caught the sound of a bugle note, the same I had heardtwice before. On the edge of the island through a rift in thedust-cloud, I saw in the front line on the end nearest me a horse alittle smaller than the others, making its rider a trifle lower than hiscomrades. And then I caught one glimpse of the rider's face. It was theman whose bullet had wounded Morton--Jean Pahusca.
We held back our fire again, as in the first attack, until the foe wasalmost upon us. With Forsyth's order, "Now! now!" our part of the dramabegan. I marvel yet at the power of that return charge. Steady,constant, true to the last shot, we swept back each advancing wave ofwarriors, maddened now to maniac fury. In the very moment of victory,defeat was breaking the forces, mowing down the strongest, and spreadingconfusion everywhere. A thousand wild beasts on the hills, frenzied withtorture, could not have raged more than those frantic Indian women andshrieking children watching the fray.
With us it was the last stand. We wasted no strength in this grimcrisis; each turn of the hand counted. While fearless as though he borea charmed life, the gallant savage commander dared death at our hands,heeding no more our rain of rifle balls than if they had been the dropsof a summer shower. Right on he pressed regardless of his fallen braves.How grandly he towered above them in his great strength and superbphysique, a very prince of prowess, the type of leader in a land wherethe battle is always to the strong. And no shot of our men was able toreach him until our finish seemed certain, and the time-limit closingin. But down in the thick weeds, under a flimsy rampart of soft sand,crouched a slender fair-haired boy. Trim and pink-cheeked as a girl,young Stillwell was matching his cool nerve and steady marksmanshipagainst the exultant dominance of a savage giant. It was David andGoliath played out in the Plains warfare of the Western continent. Atthe crucial moment the scout's bullet went home with unerring aim, andthe one man whose power counted as a thousand warriors among his ownpeople received his mortal wound. Backward he reeled, and dead, ordying, he was taken from the field. Like one of the anointed he wasmourned by his people, for he had never known fear, and on his bannersvictory had constantly perched.
In the confusion over the loss of their leader the Indians again dividedabout the island and fell back out of range of our fire. As the tide ofbattle ebbed out, Colonel Forsyth, helpless in his sand pit, watchingthe attack, called to his guide.
"Can they do better than that, Grover?"
"I've been on the Plains since I was a boy and I never saw such a chargeas that. I think they have done their level best," the scout replied.
"All right, then, we are good for them." How cheery the Colonel's voicewas! It thrilled my spirits with its courage. And we needed courage, forjust then, Lieutenant Beecher was stretching himself wearily before hissuperior officer, saying briefly:
"I have my death-wound; good-night." And like a brave man who had donehis best he pillowed his head face downward on his arms, and spoke notany more on earth forever.
It has all been told in history how that day went by. When evening fellupon that eternity-long time, our outlook was full of gloom. Hardlyone-half of our company was able to bear arms. Our horses had all beenkilled, our supplies and hospital appliances were lost. Our wounds wereundressed; our surgeon was slowly dying; our commander was helpless, andhis lieutenant dead. We had been all day without food or water. We wereprisoners on this island, and every man of us had half a hundredjailers, each one a fiend in the high art of human torture.
I learned here how brave and resourceful men can be in the face ofdisaster. One of our number had already begun to dig a shallow well. Itwas a muddy drink, but, God be praised, it was water! Our supper was asteak cut from a slaughtered horse, but we did not complain. We gatheredround our wounded commander and did what we could for each other, and noman thought of himself first. Our dead were laid in shallow graves,without a prayer. There was no time here for the ceremonies of peace;and some of the men, before they went out into the Unknown that night,sent their last messages to their friends, if we should ever be able toreach home again.
At nightfall came a gentle shower. We held out our hands to it, andbathed our fevered faces. It was very dark and we must make the most ofevery hour. The Indians do not fight by night, but the morrow mightbring its tale of battles. So we digged, and shaped our stronghold, andtold over our resources, and planned our defences, and all the timehunger and suffering and sorrow and peril stalked about with us. Allnight the Indians gathered up their dead, and all night they chantedtheir weird, blood-chilling death-songs, while the lamentations of thesquaws through that dreadful night filled all the long hours withhideous mourning unlike any other earthly discord. But the darknessfolded us in, and the blessed rain fell softly on all alike, on skilfulguide, and busy soldier, on the wounded lying helpless in their beds ofsand, on the newly made graves of those for whom life's fitful fever wasended. And above all, the
loving Father, whose arm is never shortenedthat He cannot save, gave His angels charge over us to keep us in allour ways.