# Life Amongst the Modocs: Unwritten History/Chapter 31

CHAPTER XXXI.
THE LAST BATTLE FOE THE REPUBLIC.
ENDERLY at last I laid her down, and moved about. Glad of something to do, I gathered fallen branches, de cayed wood, and dry, dead reeds, and built a ready pyre.
I struck flints together, made a fire, and when the surf of light again broke in across the eastern wall, I lifted her up, laid her tenderly on the pile, composed her face and laid her little hands across her breast. I lighted the grass and tules. So the fire took hold and leaped and laughed, and crackled, and reached, as if to salute the solemn boughs that bent and waved from the cliffs above, as bending and looking into a grave. I gathered white stones and laid a circle around the embers. How rank and tall the grass is growing above her ashes now ! The stones have settled and settled till almost sunk in the earth, but this girl is not forgotten. This is the monu ment I raise above her ashes and her faithful life. ​
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I have written this that she shall be remembered, and properly this narrative should here have an end.
The u Tale of the Tall Alcalde," which men assert on their own authority to be a true story of my life here and her death, was written for her. I could not then make it literally true, because the events were too new in my mind. It had been like opening wounds not yet half healed. I was then a judge in the northern part of Oregon. I had, with one law book and two six-shooters, administered justice suc cessfully for four years, and was then an aspirant for a seat on the Supreme Bench of the State. Men who had some vague knowledge of my life with the In dians were seeking to get at the secrets of it and accomplish my destruction. I wrote that poem, and took upon myself all the contumely, real or fancied, that could follow such an admission.
At sunrise I began to make my way slowly up the river, towards the Indian camp, which I knew was not more than a day s journey away. I ate berries and roots as I could find them in my way, and at night I entered the village and sat down by the door of a lodge.
An old woman brought me water, but she could not restrain her eagerness to know of my companions, and at once broke the accustomed silence.
" Uti Paquita? Uti Olale?"
I pointed my thumbs to the earth.
She threw up her arms and turned away. The camp was a camp of mourning, for nothing but defeat ​
and disaster had followed them all the summer. Still they would mourn for Paquita and the brave young warrior, and they went up to the hill-top among the pines and filled the woods with lamentations.
Let us hasten to the conclusion of these unhappy days. I rested a little while, then took part in a skirmish, captured a few cavalry horses, and two prisoners, whose lives I managed to save at the risk of my own, for the Indians were now made desperate. The Indians were now doing what little fighting was done, entirely with arrows.
The Modoc Indians had exhausted all their arrows and were returning home. A general despondency was upon the Indians. No supplies whatever for the approaching winter had been secured. The Indians had been kept back from the fisheries on the rivers and the hunting grounds in the valleys. The Indian men had been losing time in war and the Indian women in making arrows and nursing the wounded. Even in the plentiful season of early autumn a famine was looking them in the face.
No gentleness marked our actions now; I did not restrain my Indians in any ruthless thing they un dertook.
I made a hurried ride through the Modoc plains around Tula lake and saw there but little hope of continuing a successful struggle as it was then being conducted. Lieutenant Crook, now the General Crook famous in American history, had established a military post on the head-la ​kes of Pit
river. This was in the heart of the Indian country, and almost on the spot where the three corners of the lands of the three tribes met, and he could from this point reach the principal valleys and the great eastern plains of the Indians with but little trouble.
A new and most desperate undertaking now entered my mind. It was impossible to dislodge the military from the Indian country as things then stood. I resolved to " carry the war into Africa."
I laid my plan before the Modocs, and they, poor devils, made desperate with the long and wasting struggle, were mad with delight.
It was resolved to gather the Indian forces together, send the women and children into the caves to hide and subsist as best they could, leave our own homes, and then boldly descend upon the white settlements. This we were certain would draw the enemy, for a time at least, from our country.
I never witnessed such enthusiasm. These battle- scarred, worn-out, ragged, half-starved Indians arose under the thought of the enterprise as if touched by inspiration.
I was to go down to Yreka, note the approaches to town, the probable strength of the place, the proper time to attack, while they gathered their forces together for the campaign and disposed of the women and children.
The attack was to be made on th ​e city itself.
There we were to strike the first blow. The plan was to move the whole available Indian force to the edge of the settlement and there leave the main body. Then I was to take the flower of the force, mounted on the swiftest horses, and, descending upon the town suddenly, attack, sack, and burn it to the ground.
We had had many a lesson in this mode of warfare from the whites and knew perfectly well how the work was to be done.
I mounted a strong, fleet horse and set out. On reaching the mountain s rim overlooking the valley I was struck by the peaceful scene below me. All the fertile plain was dotted yellow, and brown, and green from fields of grain. It looked like some great map. Peace and plenty all the way across the valley to the city lying on the other side, and thirty miles ahead.
At dusk I came to a quiet farm-house and asked for hospitality.
The old settler came bustling out bare-headed and in his shirt-sleeves, as if he was coming to welcome a son.
He took care of my horse, hurried me into the house, hurried his good wife about the kitchen, and I soon was seated at the table of a Christian eating a Christian meal.
It was the first for a long, long time ; I fell to thinking as of old, and held down my head.
After supper the old man sat and talk ​ed of his
cattle and his crops and the two children climbed about my knees.
No sign of war here. Not a hundred miles away a people all summer had been battling for their fire sides, for existence, and yet it had been hardly felt in the settlements. Such is the effect of the quiet, steady, eternal warfare on the border. It is never felt, never hardly heard of, till the Indians become the aggressors.
The old lady came at last and sat down with her knitting and a ball of yarn in her lap. She talked of the price of butter and eggs, and said they should soon be well-to-do and prosperous in their new home.
I retired early, and rising with the dawn, left a gold coin on the table, and rode rapidly toward the city.
I was not satisfied with my desperate and bloody undertaking. As I passed little farm-houses with vines and blossoms and children about the doors, I began to wonder how many kind and honest people were to be ruined in my descent upon the settle ments.
The city I found assailable from every side. There was not a soldier within ten miles. Fifty men could ride into the place, hold it long enough to fire it in a hundred places, and then ride out unhindered.
It seems a little strange that I met kindness and civility now when I did not want it. Of course I was utterly unknown, and having taken c ​are from
the first to dress in the plainest and commonest dress of the time, there was not the least suspicion of my name or mission.
As I rode back, the farmers were gathering in their grain. On the low marshy plains of Shasta river they were mowing and making hay. I heard the mowers whetting their scythes and the clear ringing melody came to me full of memories and stories of my childhood. I passed close to some of these broad-shouldered merry men, as they sat on the grass at lunch, and they called to me kindly to stop and rest and share their meal. It was like merry hay making of the Old World. All peace, merriment and prosperity here ; out yonder, burning camps, starving children, and mourning mothers ; and only a hun dred miles away.
I did not again enter a house or partake of hospi tality. I slept on the wild grass that night, and in another day rode into the camp where the Indians had gathered in such force as they could to await my action.
A council was called, and I told them all. I told them it was possible to take the city, that my plan was feasible, and yet I could not lead them where women and children and old men and honest labourers would be ruined, and perish alike with the arrogant and cruel destroyers. An old man answered me ; his women, his children, his old father, his lodges, his horses had all been swept away ; it was now time to die. ​
Never have I been placed in so critical a position, never have I been so crucified between two plans of life. But I had said when I climbed the mountain and looked back on the green and yellow crops below, that I would not lead my allies there, come what might, and I doggedly kept my promise through all the stormy council of that long and unhappy night.
Time has shown that I was wrong ; I should have taken that city and held on, and kept up an aggres sive warfare till the Government came to terms, and recognized the rights of this people.
I rode south with my warriors, and we gathered in diminished force on a plateau not far from Pit River, and prepared to make another fight.
If there is a race of men that has the gift of prophecy or prescience I think it is the Indian. It may be a keen instinct sharpened by meditation that makes them foretell many things with such precision; but I have seen some things that looked much like the fulfilment of prophecies. They believe in the gift of prophecy thoroughly and are never without their seers. Besides the warriors are constantly foretelling their own fate. A distinguished warrior rarely goes into battle without telling what he will do, whom he will encounter, who will be killed, amd how the battle will be determined. They often fore tell their own deaths with a singular accuracy. They believe in signs of all kinds : signs in the heavens, signs in the woods, on the waters, anywhere; and a ​
chief will sometimes suddenly, in the midst of battle, call off his warriors even when about to reap a victory, should a sign inauspicious appear.
Klamat, shadowy, mysterious, dark-browed little Klamat, now a tall and sinewy warrior, was strangely thoughtful all this time. He went about his duties as in a dream, but he left no duty unperformed. He prepared his arms and all things for the approaching battle with the utmost care. He bared his limbs and breast and painted them red, and bound up his hair in a flowing tuft with eagle feathers pointing up from the defiant scalp-lock.
At last he painted his face in mourning. That means a great deal. When a warrior paints his face black it means victory or death. When a warrior paints his face black before going into battle he does not survive a defeat. It is rarely done, but an Indian is greatly honoured who goes to this extreme, and when he goes out to battle the women sit on the hills above the war-path and sing a battle song with his name in a kind of chorus, calling their deity to witness his valour to defend him in battle, and bring him back victorious. I was standing down by the river alone, waiting and looking in the water, when he came and laid his hand upon my shoulder. He had his rifle in his other hand and his knife, toma hawk, and pistol in his belt. He looked wild and fierce. He scarcely spoke above a whisper.
u I will not come back," he began, " I have seen the signs, and I shall not come back. It is all right, I ​
am going to die like a chief. To-morrow I will be with my people on the other side of darkness. They will meet me on my way, for I have had their revenge."
He looked at me sharp and sudden, and his black eyes shot fire. He lifted his hand high above his head and twirled it around as if shaping a beaver hat. His eyes danced with a fierce delight as he hissed between his teeth,
" The Judge ! Spades ! "
He struck out savagely, as if striking with a knife ; as if these men stood before him, and then laid his hand upon his own breast.
Great Heavens ! I said to myself, as he shouldered his rifle and joined his comrades, and it was this boy that killed them ! The Doctor and the Prince had understood this all the time and could not trust me with the secret. They had borne the peril and re proach that they might save these two and bring them back beyond the reach of the white man. I never till that moment knew how great and noble were the two men whose lives mine had touched, spoken to, and parted from as ships that meet and part upon the seas.
We had to fight a mixed body of soldiers and settlers, and a short, but for the Indians bloody, battle took place.
The chief of the Pit River Indians fell, and many of his best warriors around him. Early in the fight I received an ugly cut on the forehead, ​which bled
profusely and so blinded me that I could do nothing further for my unhappy allies. It was a hopeless case. While the fight waxed hot I stole off up a canon with a number of the Shasta Indians and escaped. I came upon an old wounded warrior leaning on his bow by the trail. The old man said " Klamat ! " bowed his head and pointed to the ground.
The prophecy had been fulfilled.
Do not imagine these were great battles. Other events had the ears of the world then, and they were probably hardly heard of beyond the lines of the State. Half armed, and wholly untrained, the Indians could not or did not make a single respectable stand. The losses were almost always wholly on their side.
Had they been able to make one or two bold advances against the whites, then negotiations would have been opened, terms offered, opinions exchanged, rights and wrongs discussed, and the Indians would at least have had a hearing. But so long as the troops had it their own way, the only terms were the Reservation, or annihilation.
The few remaining Modoc warriors now returned to their sage-brush plains and tule lakes to the east ; the Shastas withdrew to the head-waters of the McCloud, thus abandoning lands that it would take you days of journey to encompass ; and the Pit River Indians, now almost starving, with an approach ing winter to confront, sent in their remain ​ing women
and children in sign of submission. They were sadly reduced in numbers, and perhaps less than a thousand were taken to the Reservation. To-day the tribe is nearly extinct.
And why did the Government insist to the bitter end that the Indians should leave this the richest and finest valley of northern California ? Because the white settlers wanted it. Voters wanted it, and no aspirant for office dared say a word for the Indian. So it goes.
The last fight was a sort of Waterloo. There was now no hope. My plans for the little Republic were utterly overthrown. I could now only bring ruin upon the Indians and destruction upon myself by remaining. I resolved to go.
At last a thought like this began to take shape. I will descend into the active world. I will go down from my snowy island into the strong sea of people, and try my fortunes for only a few short years. With this mountain at my back, this forest to retreat to if I am worsted, I can feel strong and brave ; and if by chance I win the fight, I will here return and rest.
My presence there, instead of being a protection, was only a peril now to the Indians. I told Warrottetot, the old warrior, frankly that I wished to go, that it was best I should, for the white men could not understand why I was there, except it was to in cite them to battle or plunder.
I sat down with him by the river, and with ​a stick
marked out the world in the sand, showed him how narrow were his possessions, and told him where all his wars must end. He gave me permission to go, and said nothing more. He seemed bewildered.
The old chief, the day before my departure, rode down with me from the high mountains to the beau tiful Now-aw-wa valley, where I had built a cabin years before. We stopped on a hill overlooking the valley and dismounted; he took fragments of lava and built a little monument. He pointed out high landmarks away below the valley embracing almost as much land as you could journey around in a day s travel.
" This is yours. All this valley is yours ; I give it to you with my own hand." He went down the hill a little way, and taking up some of the earth brought it to me and sprinkled it upon and before my feet.
"It is all yours," he said, u you have done all you could do, and deserve it; besides, I have no one to leave it to now but you."
u You will go on your way, will win a place in life, and when you return you will have lands, a home and hunting-grounds. These you will find here when you return, but you will not find me, nor one of my children, nor one of my tribe."
The poor old Indian, battle-worn, wounded and broken in spirit, he was all heart, all tenderness and truth and devotion. He could not understand why that land should not be wholly mine. H ​e had not
the shadow of a doubt that this gift of his made the little valley as surely and wholly mine as if a thousand deeds had testified to the inheritance. He could not understand why he was not the lord and owner of the land which had been handed down to him through a thousand generations, that had been fought for and defended from a time as old, perhaps, as the history of the invader.
Under the madronos my horse stood saddled for a long, hard ride. Good-byes were said, I led my steed a little way, and an Indian woman walked at my side.
Some things shall be sacred. Recital is some times rofanity.
It was a sudden impulse that made me set my horse back on his haunches as he bounded away, un wind my red silk sash, wave a farewell with it, toss it to her, and bid her keep it till my return. In less than forty days, I rested beneath the palms of Central America.