Thunder Rolling in the Mountains by Scott O'Dell

Author:Scott O'Dell [ODell, Scott]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

Twelve

LEAN ELK kept us on the move. Warriors rode at the head of our band and in the rear. The women, children, and old men rode in the middle with our extra horses. We were on our ponies before daybreak and traveled until the sun was halfway up the sky. Then we stopped to cook a meal. The ponies grazed while we rested. Then we got back into the saddle and traveled again until long after dark. Each sun we journeyed far.

More of our wounded died. Gray Eagle, the father of White Feather, died after three suns. One old woman who had been hit in the belly stayed behind to die alone. She said she could go no farther on a travois. I believe that she felt she slowed our march and endangered the tribe. We laid her in the shade of a willow and left food and a bottle of water beside her.

We crossed the mountains and turned again toward the rising sun. When we rested, we talked. People talked against the whites and agreed that they were all enemies. Settlers from the Bitterroot Valley had fought beside the soldiers at Big Hole. The same people who had smiled at us and sold us sugar had killed our women and children as they slept. Anger ran deep through the camp.

When our scouts stole horses from the ranches we passed, no Ne-mee-poo said a word against them. The horses we took could not be used by the soldiers who came after us. On one raid for horses, the warriors killed three men on a ranch. But our warriors obeyed Chief Joseph. They did not scalp the dead men. Instead they covered the bodies with blankets. They took no money, only cloth to bandage our wounded.

One morning scouts warned that soldiers were nearby. The one-armed general and his men were at the place we had camped last night, between two clear streams filled with trout. There was shade from cotton woods and willows and deep grass for horses. The soldiers stopped there to rest.

The chiefs called the warriors together. "If the general has no horses, the Blue Coats cannot ride," said Lean Elk.

"If he has no mules, the general will have no wagons. Without wagons, he cannot follow us. Tonight we steal his herds."

That day we rested in the Camas Meadows. The camas blossoms had faded. The roots were still small, but we gathered enough to feed us for many suns. Some we ate raw; the rest we dried. We would mix them with huckleberries and shape them into cakes. The cakes were easy to carry on our horses.

While we worked, the chiefs planned the raid. After the sun had dropped behind the mountains, the warriors went out in three bands, with Ollokot, Looking Glass, and Too-hul-hul-sote as leaders. Swan Necklace and Two Moons rode with Ollokot.

When the raiding party left, I slipped out and climbed on my pony. I did not tell my father. I knew he would forbid me to go.

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