WE RODE AWAY EXACTLY WHEN WE WISHED

JULY 12

And now it is exactly like this:

Our meat is spoiled, and Red Owl has lost his country,

but we defeated Cut Arm

—since we killed many of his slaves and fought him for awhile, then tired of him and rode away exactly when we wished,

grieving for the beaded shirts, gold dust, flour, camas and other fine things now seized by the Bostons

and for Red Thunder, Going Across, Grizzly Bear Blanket, and Whittling—all shot dead by Cut Arm

as Red Owl’s women wail for their home;

and we are riding away

(Cut Arm has burned eighty lodges);

with our blankets tight about us we are riding away:

Chief Red Owl and Chief Three Feathers,

Swan Necklace, he who started this war

(now he is helping his dear sister Where Ducks Are Around; her horse cannot stop being afraid)

and Burning Coals

(that cunning old man has saved nearly all his horses),

wise old White Bird beside Kate, his clever wife, who rescued his Medicine treasures

(her WYAKIN is SPRING ICE);

then the half-breed Bunched Lightning, who did not fight much but amused our hearts by yelling GODd——n you! at the Bostons,

Sun Tied, that quiet young man who always helps his sister and his pregnant wife,

Roaring Eagle, who nearly captured Cut Arm’s pack train;

(Shore Crossing murmuring to his wife: I am ashamed because Swan Necklace urged me into doing bad things,

dreading that Swan Necklace may overhear);

Hahtalekin, Húsishúsis Kute, Star Doctor and all the other Palouses:

Wounded Breast, who just now has won his fine good name:

desiring to make himself brave, he rode up into range of the Bluecoats, received the wound of his desiring:

pim:

turned his horse around, and as he was cantering away, a bullet entered his back

—pim!—

and departed his chest,

so that he lay down in the river, sang his WYAKIN song, purged himself and returned to the fight;

Red Heart with his family;

while beside his dear wife Helping Another, his mother-in-law Towhee and his strong sister Wetwhowees,

who will soon show her Power in the fight at Ground Squirrel Place,

rides Wounded Head, leading another pony by the halter, with their tiny son tied on it (the boy is just now out of the cradleboard),

followed by Looking-Glass, who rides straight and tall on Home From Capture, with his hat low over his eyes and his Winchester slung over his shoulder in its beadworked case; his heart is perfect; he can do everything; he is leading and protecting his wives:

Blackberry Person, quiet and sad (their tipi is burning; the kettle islost),

Asking Maiden

(whom Good Woman suspects is pregnant)

imperious in her Boston shirt of Navy blue broadcloth, decorated with elkteeth and brass buttons, her cuffs cut from a blood-red King George blanket

(no holes yet in her goatskin leggings);

behind them come both daughters, and then

brave Rainbow, who has saved his bay war horse,

Rattle Blanket, Five Snows, Stripes Turned In, Coyote With Flints,

Heinmot Tooyalakekt,

recognizing from far away the red, black and beige triangles upon Springtime’s woven hat and the many bead-stripes on her leggings, his heart screaming qoh-qoh-qoh! to learn that she and the baby have not been safe

—to-day he has lost many blanket-coats and buffalo robes—he turns round his horse, riding back to her . . .

and then Going Alone, a brave one who killed a Horse Person at Sparse-Snowed Place,

Animal In A Hole, he who has finally given up betraying his People

(riding carefully, in pain, his thigh wrapped up and yarrowed against the wound the Bostons gave him),

Peopeo Tholekt riding easily on that yellow horse, his leg beginning to heal, eagle feathers curving back away from his head,

Ollokot in a checked Boston shirt, with his hair roached high and shining and a nine-looped necklace of white beads around his throat, a wide ribbon knotted at his sidelock, the two ends, exactly even, sweat-soaked and clinging to his neck, his eyes shocked and weary but not yet defeated,

and then Cloudburst leading seven packhorses,

Fair Land with her son tied to her, and a saddlebag filled with precious things;

and now again Heinmot Tooyalakekt, who can foresee the end but never expected this, riding back silent among his braves with their long Dreamer hair and their plaid or striped blanket-coats,

and behind them Good Woman, bareback on White Stripe,

leading Short-Tailed One and Ocher One

(she has saved more things than most women);

Sound Of Running Feet, who has lost all her horses but the one she rides:

her favorite, Little One,

and Springtime riding White Belly-Spot, with her braids flowing loose (she has lost her beargrass cap),

with her baby girl sleeping in the cradleboard, safely looped over the high pommel,

then cowardly Loon, hiding among the old ones and

Welweyas the half-woman, she who can rub a penis until it shines

(all she now owns are her horse, her clothes and a bag of cous flour);

and beside her, her old mother, Agate Woman, weeping because she too has lost most everything,

Red Moccasin Tops’s father Yellow Bull,

White Bird with all his People from Sparse-Snowed Place

and dogs darting between their stallions’ legs, hoping to steal meat somewhere, even a loose leather strap;

Old Yellow Wolf

—he who once lived in the same house as Tsépmin—

he is silently grimacing, riding beside his dear sister Swan Woman, who has now poulticed his head-wound with the roots of Oregon grape; with them rides her son, his nephew White Thunder,

whose griefs, thronging in like buffalo on a dusty hazy day, cannot yet be distinguished one from the other, although at least he knows in his heart that the face of DEATH Who watched him from behind the pines on that ridgetop, pounding bones as a woman does cous, never did penetrate past his shell of mere amazement; he showed no fear;

and Shooting Thunder

with his war-friend Naked-Footed Bull, who is ready to kill all Bluecoats but not yet to murder any Boston, for his sister Goose Maiden in her white dress of antelope skin still lives to ride a horse; his three young brothers Charcoal, Claw Necklace and Lone Crane have not yet been killed;

and Toohhoolhoolsote, robbed of nearly twenty of his horses

(his anger and grief resembling something known by smell),

raging at our crooked young men, his loop necklace of bone beads rattling like the skeleton they came from

(both old wives riding behind, afraid of him),

Going Across’s mother weeping

(once Cut Arm has passed on to Kamiah, she will ride back to bury her son beneath the tree where he died),

our lives now as steep as Cliff Place;

indeed we are riding away; this is easy for our People, who have already gazed so many times into the greenish-brown mirror of the Big Water at sunrise and moonset and evening. Cut Arm can never catch us.

Wottolen, Over The Point and the Three Red Blankets scout behind us, safely shadowed by ridgetop stones, in order to inform their hearts of Cut Arm’s laughable creepings:

First comes Tsépmin,

he whom we once helped,

riding his lovely grey horse,

crooked Tsépmin, whom Looking-Glass pitied and warned away so that our young men would not kill him along with the Bostons,

he to whom we taught our language

(now he would kill us),

galloping so bravely up here

—if he comes closer perhaps we shall kill him—

—but his wicked Boston friends begin to appear behind him, the tall grass swaying in time with their horses’ manes,

enough of them to trouble us,

and we withdraw to warn our chiefs.

Riding like ghosts through our old home, we camp in High Rock Place,

settling in a circle,

young boys making new bridles out of grass, to replace the ones which fell into the Bluecoats’ hands,

babies weeping, shlak, shlak!

as White Thunder washes his wounded eye in spring water,

because water is Medicine for everything,

while yet again Looking-Glass tells Ollokot (who smiles meaninglessly): All their promises to me about my reservation have been no good; the Bostons were lying to me! Cut Arm wanted me to keep still while he herded the rest of you People. I kept quiet but it has done no good. Now I begin to hate these white people . . . !

—women laying out food to see how much was saved

and boiling yarrow for the injured men,

making that dark greenish-brown tea which smells sweeter than spearmint,

and while Heinmot Tooyalakekt and Ollokot are opening the horses’ blisters with serviceberry twigs,

Wottolen comforts his brave son and his wife

(their tipi has been burned, and likewise all their camas bags):

thirsting for the pinkish-orange evening light over the far side of the river in the Buffalo Country, he who remembers promises to bring them to a rich hunting-ground without Bostons

as wolfskin-caped Arrowhead, who has saved her white stallion, comes to see how Peopeo Tholekt’s bullet wound is healing

and the Three Red Blankets whisper together with Swan Necklace

(after which Strong Eagle cries out: It has always been so! I shall not lie down and keep quiet!);

and no one calls out: Hasten; evening shadows be!

but Cloudburst is singing to some children the old song about the girls of the FIR PEOPLE.

Looking-Glass says: You People are like women. How can you defeat Cut Arm? That is exactly why I moved my lodges.

White Bird’s young men, and Toohhoolhoolsote’s—it is their warriors who began this war—keep quiet, listening to Looking-Glass with disgust in their hearts

—for just as COYOTE once died and then transformed Himself into a Salish brave so that He could come back and marry His own desirable daughter, so Looking-Glass, having died to us by fleeing to his painted land, has now returned to take up a place that should not be his.

Five Snows and Stripes Turned In approach our chiefs, saying: What shall we do now? Our women have nothing to eat!

—but Heinmot Tooyalakekt tells these young men: Since you would not open your ears to my words, now you may feed your bellies with war!

(he is making them ashamed by speaking),

after which Fair Land gives them soup.

Sound Of Running Feet is fondling her favorite puppy. She says: My father, when shall we come back?

My dear daughter, we shall be gone for awhile.

Certain Wallowa People come to him wailing: women and old ones. They sorrow because Cut Arm burned their lodges. To them he says: The young men could not endure to enter painted land. This day we have seen that they will not fight, either. What is left to us but riding away?

Now the chiefs and warriors have a smoke:

Even though he disappointed our young men back there at Big Water

(for his fighting was no more distinguished than that Wallowa camp-chief Heinmot Tooyalakekt’s),

Looking-Glass, the excellently-travelled,

he who once paid twenty horses for a bride when other men offered five,

will be head-chief as we go

so that his heart-hurt begins to be eased

(although Toohhoolhoolsote has said: Looking-Glass, you were a fool to enslave yourself to some hardtack and a trifle of sugar and coffee. You trusted Cut Arm, and he devoured your country. Looking-Glass, hear me! I want no child for my head-chief!);

and to-morrow we shall make bullboats to cross the river near Kamiah,

maybe at Fish Trap Place,

by the grass-grown fossilized Heart of the MONSTER from whose blood COYOTE made the people

(exactly there where our People once helped Lewis and Clark from one bank to the other)

where the thickets are already shining orange with rosehips;

then perhaps we shall return to White Bird’s country to dig camas

or even to Wallowa,

Wallowa,

or ride to the Buffalo Country for awhile, just for awhile.

Toohhoolhoolsote, as sunlight glows in the wrinkles of his dark cheeks, takes the pipe to say: I know it is not right to run away from our home. We are exactly at this place. We want to remain exactly at this place. How many times must they wipe their buttocks on our heads? Hear me, my chiefs! Let us ambush the Bluecoats at MONSTER-Udder Place. We should kill them and die.

Over The Point replies: Too many young men did not show bravery. I am telling you three times! They will not fight,

and Wottolen, he who remembers, looks and listens, so that our children’s children will know.

Then Heinmot Tooyalakekt smokes and says: Here is my heart. Listen!

I shall ride to Cut Arm for a talk. Perhaps he will even let me ride out again . . .

—at which White Bird,

whose best men we now begin to blame for this war,

swipes away the pipe: My chiefs, great men, this heart of mine means no evil against Heinmot Tooyalakekt, who is our brother. But if he goes to the Bluecoats, some People may fear that he will desert us to act in the enemy way.

Ollokot speaks angrily: Surely my elder brother must be trusted to do the right,

—to which Looking-Glass answers: I did everything for the Bostons and they attacked me! Heinmot Tooyalakekt, how can you trust Cut Arm now?

All of you know my heart. Looking-Glass, you are as my brother—

Looking-Glass being silent, the Wallowa chief continues: I have warned you that we cannot win this war. The Bluecoats and Bostons keep hunting us. Shall we flee and flee forever until we starve in the mountains? Perhaps we can still knot some kind of peace.

Snatching the pipe, Toohhoolhoolsote shouts: Would you have Cut Arm choke us in rope? I shall not die that way, not with your peace-knot about my neck—

No. I would ride alone to Butterfly Place, and speak to Cut Arm about what is now best both for our People and the Bostons.

My dear brother, the Bostons’ hearts are not so. And what if they turn your heart away from us?

They can never do that.

White Bird says: Toohhoolhoolsote speaks straight. The People from Butterfly Place, they who were once our relatives, have become our enemies forever.

Heinmot Tooyalakekt says: Then I shall not go.

He lies down with his family on buffalo robes; they have no tipi anymore, since Cut Arm burned it.

Springtime and Cloudburst have already gathered a basket of snowberries, from which Fair Land is making tea; her kettle bubbles mulululu. Good Woman has likewise saved her kettle, together with some pounded roots, so there is soup. When White Thunder comes to eat, he offers her his pistol which his mother Swan Woman gave back to him, but she smiles, points to her daughter’s Colt, and says: Sound Of Running Feet will protect me.

Although Fair Land has lost her pestle for pounding meat, Ollokot can make her another. Cloudburst is gathering grass for bedding. Ollokot visits his brother to say: You would make a better head-chief than Looking-Glass.

What would be the use? The People’s hearts are apart on everything. I shall be camp-chief; that is all,

suddenly unable not to see his dead father, who tore up the thief treaty:

his round frail face grew almost womanly in old age; his braids hung thinly down to his breast.

Smiling quickly, Ollokot returns to his wives and son.

Sound Of Running Feet will not eat. Perhaps she is sorrowing for her horses. She sits with her hair down and her knees drawn up, gazing at the ground.

Springtime, suckling the baby, turns away from him

(Cut Arm has swallowed up the cattail mats she wove at Split Rock; now she must make new ones for when the rain comes),

so he goes to Good Woman,

remembering when he first laid fine cloth over Springtime’s head, showing his heart to marry her,

trusting in the loving patience of Good Woman, his loyal elder wife,

who now murmurs: Husband, hear her! Had it not been for our nephew, Cut Arm would have devoured her!

Ashamed for all of them, White Thunder wraps himself in his blanket.

Heinmot Tooyalakekt sits still, calming his heart. Springtime should not have insulted him, but he pities her. Taking one of her braids in his hand, he tells her: Síikstiwaa, I am chief, and must take care of everyone. The young men were not of one heart. In their weakness they let Cut Arm enter our camp. Then what could I do but help all the People?

Since she will not answer, he says: And why did my women not ride together?

Now Good Woman grows angry, while Springtime regards him with wondering doubt. He remembers the night he first began to know her body, when she lay in his arms very softly singing the song that the magic bride sings when she wishes the trees to bend down to her.

As for Looking-Glass,

he who is also called Black Swan and Wind-Wrapped,

he has already begun explaining to the young boys how many sleeps it will be until we reach the Salish Country.