Chapter 7

Freezing Rain Moon

It could only be the sort of place a man might come to die.

Captain Jack brooded as he peered out on the drizzling sleet that pounded the section of the Lava Beds where his people had fled after the soldiers attacked their Lost River village. Smoky fires sputtered and hissed whenever the cruel wind sent a gust of wind into the caves, accompanied by a spray of the icy sleet.

The children cried for water or from empty bellies or because they could not go out to play—escaping the captivity of the dank, smelly caves where the Modocs hid from the rain and ice and cold. Always the children were crying.

And now there were even more mouths to worry over. Late yesterday the Modocs from the Hot Creek area had come in with stories to frighten the women and children—stories of the white men in Linkville preparing to murder them all, even though they were desiring only to hurry to the reservation.

If the white man would kill women and children who were willing to surrender themselves to the reservation life—then there was no hope to make talk that would see his people out of this tragedy.

He hated the way the cold of that realization had settled in his belly and wouldn’t leave—like an unwelcome relative come to live off his family. One who would not admit his welcome was worn-out. He first noticed the cold in his belly when Hooker Jim, Curly Headed Doctor and the others had come roaring into the caves in this central part of the Lava Beds located at the south shore of Tule Lake.

It was to this place the various bands had agreed they would flee if ever attacked.

But when Curly Headed Doctor’s fourteen warriors showed up with their women and children, they were also carrying the scalps of fourteen white men. Fresh scalps, dripping not only with freezing rain, but dripping still with gore. So there was great celebration among Jack’s people when the others arrived—singing and rejoicing over the scalps. The killings were justified because other white settlers had attacked their camp across Lost River from Jack’s village. They had simply avenged a blood debt.

Still, the cold knot of doubt troubled Jack. He did not like all white men. But those he had come to know, like Elisha Steele in Yreka, had taught him enough about white men for Jack to realize the white men and their own avenging armies were going to consider the killing of the settlers by Hooker Jim’s warriors as simple murder. Not as war.

Racing some thirteen miles across the choppy surface of Tule Lake in their dugout canoes, the Modoc women and children had joined their men who hurried overland, all fleeing to the middle of the Lava Beds—this narrow, forbidding landscape covering something on the order of fifty long miles of uninhabitable terrain.

Except for some dried bunch-grass and an abundance of sagebrush, the maze of caverns was notable only for its austere lack of vegetation and absence of animal life. If it weren’t for the freezing rain captured in tiny pockets on the shredded rock, his people would be without a source of water. The place was nothing more than blackened, volcanic rock scattered in a long and narrow bed, angling south from Tule Lake into the sage-dotted foothills like a slightly deformed spine of some monstrous demon long ago fallen to the earth in a fiery time gone—leaving nothing but its blackened bones to tell of its evil passing.

So rough was this three-mile-wide strip that it appeared the ground had suffered eruption after violent eruption of volcanic activity. And during the lull between each successive eruption, more of the lava flow cooled, until in the end there were no more massive, cinder boulders to hurl into the air. The landform solidified into a cruel, sadistic smear of hulking black jutting across the countryside, from afar looking much like a stream of old blood gone cold on the sand.

In between each violently uplifted ridge of cruel rock the size of a San Francisco city block were a maze of chasms and crevices forming winding pathways where smaller, even the tiniest of pebbles, waited to quickly slash through a thick, cowhide boot. Over some of the Modocs’ caves the walls of the canyons towered as much as twenty, forty, sixty feet above a man—man thereby made to feel especially small and unimportant in the midst of the bleak ugliness assaulting this dead place.

Just less than a mile from the south shore of the lake, the winding, tortuous trail through the ugly chasms led to a large crater in the lava flow. Here in this small, natural amphitheater, Jack stationed his people. Here would be his Stronghold where they could hold out against the white man. To reach this hollowed pit, the soldiers would have to run the gauntlet of that rugged trail, on either side of which stood walls of jagged lava-cooled spires jutting up like the fangs of some prehistoric creature. Here the Modoc warriors could rain their riflefire down on all who trespassed on this, their last bastion of hope for their people.

Surely, Jack kept brooding as the first cold, gray days ran into freezing black nights, the white man and his soldiers will leave us alone now that we have come here. They cannot want these abandoned beds of frozen fire where no crops can grow and no cattle can graze. Only the Modoc can survive here—if the spirits allow. Only the Modoc can survive here.

But as fervently as he hoped his people would be left alone to eke out a living here among these lonely chasms, Jack was certain the white man would follow. Curly Headed Doctor and his bunch had seen to that by murdering many of the white settlers Captain Jack had called friends. This was a cloak he could not take from his shoulders—he was leader of the Modocs. Jack realized that in the end he would suffer for the crimes of his people.

His heart had grown heavy earlier that morning when he and a few others had gone scouting to the edge of the fractured terrain, scaling some of the higher lava rocks to see what they could of any attempt to follow or dislodge them. To his surprise, Jack discovered some of his white friends approaching from the west side of the lake, come for a parley. They left their horses to graze where they could on the soggy bunch-grass.

Though the wind was cruel and the sleet slashed at the openings of a man’s clothing, Fairchild, Dorris and O’Roarke talked long with the chief. Jack told the settlers they were free to use the Ticknor Road south of the Lava Beds without danger.

“But the Emigrant Road going around the north end of the lake is closed,” Jack told them sullenly. “Any man found on that road will be killed.”

Standing with the chief were Shacknasty Jim, Steamboat Frank and Ellen’s Man George. No longer was there any doubt of it—the lynch mob at Linkville had driven the Hot Creek Modocs into the arms of Curly Headed Doctor’s stirred-up warriors.

By the end of their council, the settlers found that their horses had wandered off. Jack called to his warriors to bring up three more of their own to exchange for the lost animals.

“I bring your saddles here—this place—if my men find your horses,” said the Modoc leader as the white men clambered bareback aboard the ponies.

“We do not want to fight you, Jack,” Ian O’Roarke sighed.

He nodded. “I know you—know all my friends. We want not to fight friends. Send soldiers away. We live happy on Lost River again.”

Fairchild and the others shook their heads sadly. “The army is coming, Jack. Come out and surrender now before any of your people are killed.”

This time Jack backed up several steps, straightening his stocky frame in the midst of the driving, icy rain, his hair dripping in rivulets down his dark face. “I cannot come out and give my body to the soldiers. Jack is a dead man already.”

*   *   *

Already the might of the U.S. Army was converging on the Lava Beds.

Lieutenant Colonel Frank Wheaton, commander of the Twenty-first Infantry, would become the first director of the campaign. He ordered Captain Reuben F. Bernard of the First Cavalry to immediately take all available mounted troops west from Camp Bidwell and march for Tule Lake, there establishing one of two army camps at the ranch owned by Louis Land. On that site directly across from the Peninsula jutting out from the east shore of the lake, Bernard went into camp some five miles from the Modoc hideout.

At the same time, Wheaton ordered Captain David Perry to take his F Company, First Cavalry, from Camp Warner and join up with Bernard. Wheaton himself would establish his own, and the second, camp at the Van Bremmer ranch fifteen miles west of the Lava Beds.

Fort Klamath was now all but stripped of its manpower and armaments for the coming campaign.

Until the heliographs were set up on the surrounding hillsides, and until the weather cooperated by providing enough sunlight to operate the signal mirrors, the two camps were forced to communicate by using either the rough Ticknor Road to the south or taking the easier, longer route looping completely around the north end of Tule Lake.

While Major Green and Captain Jackson were left to man their camp at Crawley’s cabin as a supply link north of the lake, Wheaton ordered Major Edwin C. Mason to lead B and C companies of the Twenty-first Infantry, who had only recently returned from chasing after the Apaches with Crook in Arizona, out of Fort Vancouver. Their confidence in their abilities to rout a motley band of coastal Indians was high.

A correspondent who would travel south with the command wrote, “Today the garrison is alive with preparation for war. Major Mason makes an interesting and conspicuous appearance mounted upon a snow-white war steed and wearing a fur cap. The greatest excitement prevails, but the troops are in good condition, and joyous over the expectations of coming events.”

Mason’s eager soldiers crossed the rain-swollen Columbia on a paddle-wheel steamer, and at Portland boarded a train that would carry them south by rail to Roseburg. From there the soldiers trudged on foot along muddy, rutted roads up the Umpqua Valley and over the snow of the Cascades. For three long weeks the freezing rain held dominion of the skies, slowing the troops and bogging down their wagons in a mire of mud and ice. The troops arrived at Van Bremmer’s ranch, cold and soaked to the skin after a journey sure to take much of the ardor out of any young man’s war-fever. The day they slogged into Bernard’s camp, the sleet turned to an icy snow.

With their arrival on 22 December, there were now 250 regulars readying to attack the Stronghold of the Modocs.

Meanwhile, the local citizenry of both California and Oregon were consolidating their desire to avenge the deaths of the white settlers. Besides a band of twenty-five California volunteers loosely confederated under the leadership of John Fairchild, a larger group of 120 volunteers had formed themselves into the Oregon militia under the leadership of General John E. Ross. Upon their arrival at the scene, these men placed themselves under Wheaton’s command. Most of the sixty-eight Oregon volunteers under the command of Oliver Applegate were Klamath trackers who jumped at this chance to assist the white man wipe out their old enemies. So they would not be mistaken for Modocs, the Klamath trackers were provided regulation army kepi hats with white badges emblazoned on them.

The rest of the men under Applegate were Linkville citizens, itching all on their own for a shot at the Modocs gathered with Captain Jack.

Since Fairchid’s volunteers were in a large part hired hands working neighboring ranches, over the next several months they would continue to tend cattle and sheep and account for their chores between sporadic scouting and fighting. For that service to the Modoc campaign, these California volunteers would receive their regular wages, in addition to fifty-five cents per day and a clothing allowance from the army.

Eventually, four hundred men were assembled in camps on the south shore of Tule Lake to dig seventy Modoc warriors from the Lava Beds.

While the troops arrived with their meager supplies and the Oregon militia rode into camp intending to eat from the largesse of the quartermasters, the army’s supply line soon bogged down. After requisitioning every horse and mule in the Klamath region to serve as a pack-train to haul supplies, Wheaton’s officers had no other place to turn but to the merchants of nearby Linkville, who promptly marked everything up a hundred percent. Sorely in need of saddles, the army found itself paying forty dollars for a saddle priced the day before at twenty.

Determining that it could not live with such exorbitant prices, the army strung out its supply line all the way west across the Cascades to Jacksonville. Since wagons could not force their way over the muddy, snowy passes, the horse and mule pack-trains were put into service. Adding insult to injury, little of the army’s whiskey ration arrived at the scene. Civilian packers claimed most of it had leaked out on the hazardous trip over the icy mountains.

At the same time, rumors circulated hinting that the Modocs had somehow rustled themselves a herd of more than one hundred head of cattle now grazing on the limited grass in the Lava Beds. Yet Jack and his head men were not satisfied, and determined to somehow get their hands on more supplies in the event of a protracted stalemate as the white man slowly drew his noose tighter and tighter on their Stronghold.

Despite the gloomy situation in the field, District Commander General Edward R.S. Canby remained cheerful:

“I do not think the operations will be protracted. The snow will drive the Indians out of the Mountains and they cannot move without leaving trails that can be followed. It will involve some hardships upon the troops; but they are better provided and can endure it better than the Indians. In that respect, the season is in our favor.”

Canby and the rest were about to find out how wrong they could be.

For several hours beneath the pewter sky of 21 December, the Modocs had shadowed an incoming quartermaster’s wagon from Camp Bidwell.

Following the disastrous events of 29 November, Captain Bernard had so hurried to the scene that his troops found themselves running low on supplies. In addition, the captain realized the forthcoming attack on the Stronghold would require more ammunition. As important as that shipment was to his encampment, an overconfident army sent only five soldiers to ride as escort for the single wagon carrying those much-needed commissary staples and Bernard’s additional ammunition.

“That was gunfire, Lieutenant!” shouted the captain as he rose from his camp stool, stepping from beneath the canvas awning. It was drawing close to three o’clock that dreary winter afternoon.

John Kyle huffed to a stop before Bernard. “From the south, sir.”

“What detail do you have out?”

“None, Captain.”

Bernard slammed a fist into his palm. “It can only be the supply train we’ve been expecting from Bidwell!”

Kyle was already turning when the captain barked his orders.

“Take the men you have ready and ride to their relief, Mr. Kyle! I’ll send another platoon right on your tail to support you.”

In the time it takes a man to fly to his saddle, the young lieutenant was riding at the head of a column of ten cavalry troopers and a single gray-eyed civilian. As Kyle was disappearing up the road toward Clear Lake, Bernard was scribbling the dispatch he would send with a rider to the headquarters camp, requesting reinforcements.

The veteran lieutenant turned once to look over his platoon, finding the civilian easing up on the outside of the galloping column. Kyle waved him on, then waited for the stranger to come alongside him as they raced up the icy road. “You familiar with this terrain, mister?”

“Not from this country, Lieutenant,” Seamus apologized.

The older Kyle regarded the civilian as the cold wind whipped tears from his eyes. “I thought you were one of the settlers from around this country.”

“Me uncle is,” he answered, easing the Henry out of its saddle scabbard. “I don’t know the country—but I know fighting Injins.”

Kyle grinned as he appraised the brass-mounted repeater, but it was as quickly gone. “Glad to have your gun along.”

As the road brought itself around a large stand of timber, pointing east, they finally saw the wagon far ahead, stopped in the middle of the dark, rutted smear across the countryside, still at least an eighth of a mile away.

With a shift in the wind at that next moment, the Modocs heard the soldiers clattering and slogging down the icy road. The warriors were just then crawling atop the wagon, ripping through the oiled canvas stretched over the high-walls.

Try as he could, Seamus could not find sight of a single one of the military escort for the shipment. There were a few army mounts wary and nervous, some prancing and rearing, held by a handful of the Modocs. But no soldiers as Kyle’s unit came within rifle range.

Over the Irishman’s head buzzed some angry wasps. A soldier behind him grunted. Seamus turned to find one of the young troopers gripping his upper arm, blood beginning to seep between the fingers of his woolen gloves. Donegan was just twisting back in the saddle when he found Kyle looking at him.

“They’re going to make a fight of it, Lieutenant!” he shouted into the cruel wind.

Kyle threw up his arm, signaling a halt. “Dismount and form a skirmish line—there!”

“Three horse-holders to the rear,” shouted a young sergeant, directing a trio of soldiers to handle the mounts for the entire platoon. With hunched shoulders the three hurried back down the road and into the trees as Kyle and Donegan led the other seven into the brush.

“Spread ’em out, Lieutenant.” Seamus waved an arm to the left, then to the right. “Keep your heads down, boys—don’t shoot less’n you have a good target.”

“We don’t want to waste ammunition now,” Kyle repeated. He looked up the road as some of the Modocs continued work in the back of the wagon, the rest fanning into the timber. “How many you figure to be up there?”

“Two dozen. Maybe more that we never saw,” was Donegan’s answer.

From the left flank of their pitifully small force came a volley of riflefire. Lead slapped the leaves of the trees, stung the brush about the soldiers. And with it arose many shrill, eerie Modoc war cries. Enough to send a jolt of cold down the Irishman’s spine. He knew the inexperienced soldiers were likely worrying about soiling their blue britches.

“There!” he shouted, catching some movement through the brush and shadow of the thick timber lining the road.

More gunfire erupted, this time from a few of Kyle’s men. In answer, more formless war-cries greeted the right end of the flank. The young soldiers returned a frantic fire.

“We’re pinned down now, Lieutenant,” Seamus growled.

“They’ve flanked us, haven’t they?”

“Appears so—I’d better get back to those holders before the Modocs eat them for supper,” he whispered out of hearing of the other soldiers as he rose to a crouch. Donegan burst into the timber, at a dead run, hunched over and making himself as small as he could.

A bullet whined past his nose, cutting through the branches. A second snarled close at his heels. Seamus kept going, dodging and weaving until he drew close to the horse-holders. Two of the mounts were already down. The rest just then clattering out of the timber, no longer held by the three soldiers who huddled behind the two heaving, thrashing brown carcasses.

One of the soldiers, frightened and wide-eyed, pulled up his rifle on the Irishman as Donegan came sprinting up. Modoc bullets slapped the dying horse as Seamus made himself small behind the carcass.

“Just about killed you, mister,” whispered the soldier.

“I know, sojur,” he replied, the remnant of a grin disappearing now. “Let’s you and me turn our guns on them Injins.”

“We ain’t got a chance!” shrieked another of the three.

Seamus grabbed the youngster’s tunic with his left hand. “We don’t have a chance you give up like this. Now use that goddamned rifle!”

As they laid their rifles over the ribby side of the still-warm carcasses and began firing back into the trees, the gunfire from the Modocs intensified. Along with the hair-raising war-whoops. Then, as suddenly as it had thickened, the gunfire died off.

“They pulling back?”

Seamus nodded at the young soldier. Then he understood why. Down the road to their right plodded the double-timing infantry, huffing out of the gray of the soggy afternoon along the icy scar of the Fort Bidwell Road that poked itself from the timber. Above their heads hung a seeping cloud of breath smoke, like sheer muslin, cold and gray.

“We’ve just been rescued, Private,” Seamus announced quietly. Then he fell silent as he heard the mumbled prayer of a youngster lying on his side, eyes clenched tightly, blood seeping from a shiny hole in his side.

“… and deliver us from evil…”