Life Amongst the Modocs: Unwritten History/Chapter 24

by Cincinnatus Heine Miller

CHAPTER XXIV.

A PRISONER.

OME of the lawyers went away. A bed was improvised for me on the floor, and I believe Lockhart, or at least some one, kept watch over me during the night.

Judge Roseborough, who is now the chief Judge of the northern district of California, with his home still at Yreka, has seen fit to give to the world an account of my singular capture, imprisonment, and this Star Chamber proceeding, and I believe claims some merit for having saved my life.

No doubt the Judge, who is really, I think, a good man at heart, did save my life. But somehow, I cannot feel any great gratitude toward him for that, under the circumstances. At the best he only prevented a foul and cowardly murder. He might have done much more. He might have said some kind words, spoken some earnest advice, and given some direction to my unsettled and uncertain life.

I was dying, morally; I was starving to death for counsel and kind words after what had just been said and done. My heart was filling full of bitter ness. But perhaps he did not understand me.

Lockhart was in better temper the next morning. He told me, which no doubt was the truth, that the whole town and settlements were in a blaze of excitement about the massacre, and that I was liable to be shot by almost any one, unless I by a prudent course of conduct put down the suspicions against me.

I asked to be allowed to return to Soda Springs, but he insisted that the only safe thing for me to do was to join the expedition already on the way against the Indians. I saw that he was deter mined I should do this, and consented. He gave me a letter a very friendly letter to Joseph Rogers, a son of one of the men who had been murdered in Pit River Valley, and then with the expedition. It was an open and very complimentary letter. But other letters were sent in the hands of the two men who were sent with me.

These were men, I was told, belonging to the expedition, who had not yet left town, and would be glad to show me the way to the camp ; but the truth was, I was still a prisoner, and these men were my keepers.

Very soon and very early we rode out of town against the rising sun, past the grave-yard and past the gallows to Avar d Mount Shasta.

My heart was full of bitterness and revenge. As we crossed the crest of the little brown hill that looks above the town, I half turned in my saddle and shook a thin and nervous hand against its cold and cruel inhabitants.

I never entered that town again, save as an enemy, for more than a decade.

At dusk we came upon the camp of the expedi tion, noisy and boisterous, half buried in the snow.

This was the rudest set of men I ever saw gathered together for any purpose whatever. There were, perhaps, a dozen good men, as good as there were in the land ; but the rank and file were made up of thieves, bar-roorn loafers, gutter snipes, and men of desperate character and fortunes. They growled and grumbled and fought half the time.

We travelled by night, drawing the supplies on slides, in order to get the horses over the snow when it was hard and frozen. I had told them the story of my dangerous descent into the valley, but was not believed by half the company. They could not understand what upon earth a man could mean by such a hazard. They were practical fellows. They put everything on the popular conceived basis of the age. They could not see what interest I had in going there, could not see " what I could make by it." They did not see where I could make it " pay."

One day I woke up to a strange sensation. More than once I had heard some talk about " a man

living with the Indians." This man they talked of, and of whom they seemed to have but a rough idea, was to be captured, skinned alive, roasted, scalped, and, in fact, to undergo all the refined tortures known to the border.

It crossed my mind suddenly, like a flash, that I was that man.

I saw at the same time, however, that there was not the slightest suspicion that the pale, slim boy before them was u the man who lived with the Indians."

Through half- friendly savages and other means it had gone abroad among the settlers that there was a white man living with the Indians. Nothing could induce these men to believe that a man could live with the Indians for any other purpose than to take part with them in their wars, and to plunder the whites. And, as a rule, so far as I know, those who have cast their fortunes in with the Indians have been outlaws, men who could not live longer with their kind.

But these fellows expected to find the renegade a strong-limbed, bearded, desperate man. Perhaps had any one told them there and then that I was that man they would have laughed in his face.

My first impulse was to run away. Had it then been night I certainly should have fled. All day I watched my chance to escape, but no chance came. That night I had no opportunity without great hazard, and soon I began to think better of my projected flight through the snow.

Still cherishing the plan of my little Republic or independent Reservation, I saw that the Shasta In dians and their friends must show no sympathy with the Indians charged with the massacre, and deter mined to remain a little longer. Besides, I then liked the excitement of war, and the real men of the com pany were coming to be my friends.

The captain of the company was Gideon S. Whitey, a brave, resolute, and honourable man. He afterwards married a Modoc, or Pit River squaw, and now lives with her and his large family of chil dren at Canon City, Oregon.

At last we entered the valley. I had travelled nearly five hundred miles in the snow since leaving it ; forming a triangle in my route, with Mount Shasta in the centre.

We soon were at work. Tragic and sanguinary scenes occurred. I cannot enter into detail, it would fill a volume.

It would also fill many pages to explain how -by degrees I came to enter into the spirit of the war against my allies. Nor is there any real excuse for my conduct. It was wrong, but not wholly wrong. The surroundings and all the circumstances of the time contributed to lead me to take a most active part. I could not then as now rise above the situa tion and survey the whole scene. From a prisoner I became a leader.

Two decisive battles, or rather massacres, took place, and perhaps five hundred Indians perished.

The men fought as well out of camp as in camp, and that is saying a vast deal for their valour.

However, I have not that high opinion of physical courage in which it is too generally held. My obser vation proves to me that the very worst possible man in the world may also be the very bravest man, for a day at least, that lives. I have seen too much to be mistaken in this. I have seen a row of men standing up on whisky barrels under a tree, with ropes around their necks, ready to die at the hands of the unflinching vigilantes. They sang a filthy song in chorus, howled and cursed, and then danced a breakdown till the kegs were kicked from under them. The world sets too high a mark on brute, bull-dog courage.

After a time Lockhart came up with his command from Red Bluffs, and desiring the control of the whole force, a difficulty arose and Whitey resigned. Another man was chosen as nominal leader, but the plain truth is, before we had been in the valley a month I gave direction, and had in fact charge of the expedition. Most of these men are dead now, but scattered around somewhere on earth a few may be found, and they will tell you that by my energy, recklessness, and knowledge of the country and Indian customs, I, and I .only, made the bloody expe dition a success. I tell this in sorrow. It is a thousand times more to my shame than honour, and I shall never cease to regret it.

Before leaving the valley, we surprised a camp by

stealing upon it at night and lying in wait till dawn.

It was a bloody affair for the Indians. More than a hundred lay heaped together about the lodges, where they fell by rifle, pistol, and knife.

The white butchers scalped the dead every one. One of the ruffians, known as Dutch Frank, cut off their ears and strung them about his horse s neck. After drawing off the force some of the men lingered behind and shot and plundered the medicine-man, or priest. This priest is a non-com batant, is never armed, and comes upon the field only after the fight to chant for the dead. This one was dressed in a costly robe of sables, with a cap made of skins of the white fox. The rear of our force, on return to camp, showed a man dressed in this singular garb still wet with blood.

I was glad when we broke camp to return. We had found the valley without a white man ; we left it with scarcely an Indian.

I had had a hard time of it. I had endured insults from the roughs of the party rather than enter into their battles, which were generally fought out with the fist. It had in fact become intolerable. One morning I gently cocked my pistol, and asked the ruffian who had taken more than one occasion to insult me to step out. He declined to do this, said he was not my equal in the use of arms, but that some lucky day he would get even. He waited his time.

The snow had disappeared as we returned ; spring was upon us, and the journey was very pleasant. Nearly every man carried a little captive Indian before him on his horse; most of them had Indian scalps clinging to their belts, and, dressed in furs and buckskins, cut in fantastic shapes for Indian wear, they were a strange and motley sight to look upon as they moved in single file through the deep, dark forests.

At the camp, after crossing the summit, with the McCloud and my Indian camp to the left, and Yreka in front, I determined to leave the command and seek my tawny friends at the base of Shasta.

I fancied I had made friends, and expected to have honourable mention from those who returned to the city. I do not know whether this was the case or not. Newspapers never reach an Indian camp, and I never entered Yreka again, save as an enemy, for more than a decade thereafter.

Sam Lockhart I never saw again. He was a brave man, prejudiced and reckless, but, I think, a good man at heart. He was killed in one of the hand-to- hand battles over the mines of Owyhee.

I made a little speech to the party, shook hands with about half of them, mounted my mule, and rode away alone in one direction, while they took another.

After about an hour s ride I heard some one calling after me. I turned round ; they called again, and I rode back. On nearing a thicket, a

double-barrelled shot gun loaded with pistol balls was fired across my breast.

The assassin nearly missed his mark. Only my right arm was shot through and disabled by a pistol ball, and the mule was hit slightly in the neck. I did not see any one. The mule wheeled and dashed through the bushes on the back track at a furious speed.

How dreadful I felt. To think that this was done by one or more of the roughs, who had followed me, after having been my companions in war !

They had sneeringly cautioned me to look out for Indians that morning as I was preparing to leave. They had taken this course to murder me, and lay it on the Indians, as is often done on the border.

My bitterness knew no bounds. I could not return and overtake the company, wounded as I was. I rode on rapidly, bleeding and faint.

I laid the matter on the whole company. I some times felt that a good number must have consented to this, if they had not advised it. Then I came to the conclusion that they had determined from the first who I was, and that I should die; but after finding how useful I was, deferred my attempted execution till the campaign was over. I long nursed that thought, and am even now not certain that it was incorrect.

I reached the Now-aw-wa valley, now known, I believe, by the vulgar name of " Squaw valley," and found it still as a tomb. Mountain Joe and I had

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built some cabins here and sheds for the stock ; but no stock, no Indians were in sight. At last, sick from the loss of blood, I found a camp up on a hill side, and there dismounted. The Indians were silent and sullen. A woman came at last to bring me water, and then saw my wound. That moved their pity. I told them the white men had done it, and that made them more than half my friends again.