Yosemite Fall (National Park Mystery Series) Page 8

  We fired back at them to keep them off while we tried to make our way forward, hugging the bluff as closely as possible. Our way was soon blocked by the Indians, who headed us off with a shower of arrows, two going through my clothing, one through my hat, which I lost. From above, the rocks began to fall on us, and in our despair we clung to the face of the bluff.

  Scrambling up, we found a little place in the turn of the wall, a shelf-like projection, where we succeeded in gathering ourselves, secure from the falling rocks, at least, which were being thrown by Indians under the orders from their Chief.

  The arrows whistled among us thick and fast, and I fully believe—could I visit that spot even now after the lapse of all these years—I could still pick up some of those flint arrow points in the shelf of the rock and in the face of the bluff where we were huddled together.

  We could see the old Chief Tenieya in the Valley in an open space with fully one hundred and fifty Indians around him, to whom he gave his orders which were passed to another Chief just below us, and these two directed those around them and shouted orders to those on the top of the bluff, who were rolling the rocks over on us. Fully believing ourselves doomed men, we never relaxed our vigilance, but with the two rifles we still kept them at bay, determined to sell our lives as dearly as possible. I recall, with wonder, how every event of my life up to that time passed through my mind, incident after incident, with lightning rapidity, and with wonderful precision.

  We were crowded together beneath this projecting rock (two rifles were fortunately retained in our little party, one in the hands of Aich and one in my own), every nerve strung to its highest tension, and being wounded myself with an arrow through my sleeve that cut my arm and another through my hat, when all of a sudden the Chief just below us, about fifty yards distant, threw up his hands and with a terrible yell fell over backwards with a bullet through his body [from one of our guns].

  Immediately, the firing of arrows ceased and the savages were thrown into confusion, while notes of alarm were sounded and answered far up the Valley and from the high bluffs above us. They began to withdraw and we could hear the twigs crackle as they crept away.

  It was now getting dusk and we had been since early morning without food or rest. Not knowing what to expect, we remained where we were, suffering from our wounds and tortured with fear till the moon went down about midnight. Then, trembling in every limb, we ventured to creep forth. Not daring to attempt the old trail again, we crept along and around the course of the bluff and worked our way up through the snow, from point to point. Often feeling the utter impossibility of climbing farther, but with an energy born of despair, we would try again, helping the wounded more helpless than ourselves, and by daylight we reached the top of the bluff.

  A wonderful hope of escape animated us though surrounded as we were, and we could but realize how small our chances were for evading the savages who were sure to be sent on our trail. Having had nothing to eat since the morning before, we breakfasted by stirring some of our flour in the tin cup, with snow, and passing it around among us, in full sight of the smoke of the Indian camps and signal fires all over the Valley.

  Our feelings toward the “Noble Red Man” at this time can better be imagined than described.

  Starting out warily and carefully, expecting at every step to feel the stings of the whizzing arrows of our deadly foes, we kept near and in the most dense underbrush, creeping slowly and painfully along as best we could, those who were best able carrying the extra garments of the wounded and helping them along, fully realizing the probability of the arrow tips with which we were wounded having been dipped in poison before being sent on their message of death. In this manner we toiled on, a suffering and saddened band of once hopeful prospectors.

  9

  “Time for a history quiz,” Chuck told Carmelita and Rosie, seeking to get their minds, and his own, off Thorpe’s death and Jimmy’s accident.

  Their footsteps echoed on the hikers’ bridge over the Merced River as they crossed it, following the same route to the south side of the valley Chuck, Janelle, and Ponch had taken on their way to Sentinel Ridge earlier in the day. They stopped in the middle of the bridge to check out the dozens of swimsuit-clad park visitors floating down the calm river on inner tubes and paddle boards. Gusts of wind swept in waves across the grassy field on the far side of the river. The meadow stretched to the south wall of the valley, which rose to dizzying heights ahead in a series of ridges, bluffs, and broken cliff faces lit by the early evening sun.

  “On the first day of the Battle of the Somme in World War I,” Chuck told the girls, “the Allied forces—the good guys—lost more troops than in any single day of battle ever before or since in the history of modern warfare. Can you guess why?”

  “What’s a world war?” Rosie asked.

  Carmelita told her sister, “It’s where everybody fights everybody else.”

  “Like where we’re going right now,” Rosie said with a serious nod.

  “Not quite,” Chuck said, turning forward. “We’re looking into a small battle that happened here 150 years ago between a few gold prospectors and the tribespeople who lived in the valley back then.”

  “You told us people were shooting at each other,” Rosie said. She stuck out a forefinger and blasted across the river at imaginary foes, making popping noises with her lips, before blowing on the end of her finger and sticking it in the waistband of her shorts.

  “You’re right,” Chuck said. “People were shooting at each other here in the valley. It’s the way they were shooting at each other that’s similar to what happened in the Battle of the Somme. It’s the main reason we’re here, in fact. Any ideas?”

  When the girls shook their heads, Clarence said, “Asymmetrical firepower, is that it?”

  “That’s right,” said Chuck. “Shortly after machine guns were invented, the Germans recognized how advantageous they were and set up thousands of them along the Western Front in France. When the Allied forces attacked, the Germans mowed them down with the machine guns.”

  “The tribespeople wouldn’t have had any machine guns,” Carmelita said, tapping her chin, “but there was still something asym . . . asymmet . . .”

  “Asymmetrical,” Chuck finished for her. “Yes. The miners had rifles, while the tribespeople only had—” He paused, giving her the chance to fill in the blank.

  “Bows and arrows,” Carmelita said.

  “Right you are,” Chuck commended her.

  Rosie pretended to draw back a bowstring and release it, shooting an imaginary arrow at the sky. “Got ’em!” she crowed.

  Chuck explained, “Rifles vs. bows and arrows is what resulted in the genocide of indigenous tribespeople—Indians—all across the country in the 1800s, including here in California.”

  “What’s ‘genocide’ mean?” Carmelita asked.

  “It’s when a whole group of people are wiped out, killed, because of their religion or the color of their skin—just because they’re considered different than other people for some reason. But the miners weren’t coming here to kill the tribespeople who lived in the valley. They were looking for gold, and in their case, their rifles are what saved their lives.”

  “Except the two dead ones you told us about,” Carmelita said.

  “Their deaths are what Clarence and I have been hired to investigate.”

  “You’re not the police, though.”

  “This all happened too long ago for the police to be involved. Indigenous tribespeople who live in the West nowadays are the ones who are interested.”

  “Why?”

  “There’s been renewed interest in recent years about battles and crimes that happened in the Old West. People want to make sure the historical accounts of what took place are as accurate as possible—the Mountain Meadows massacre in Utah for one, the Sand Creek massacre in Colorado for another. The Indigenous Tribespeople Foundation looks into old crimes said to have been committed by tribespeople that, in fact, m
ight have been committed by others.”

  “You mean, might have been part of the genocide you were talking about?”

  “That’s the big question.” Chuck rested his hand on Carmelita’s skinny shoulder. “The whole story started with the discovery of gold in the Sierra Nevada Mountains, which resulted in the California gold rush of 1849.”

  “And,” Clarence added, “the name of the San Francisco 49ers football team.”

  “Prospectors kept going deeper into the mountains looking for gold,” Chuck continued. “One of the places they eventually came to was right here, Yosemite Valley.”

  Rosie’s eyes widened. “They went looking for gold in a national park?”

  “It wasn’t a national park back then. It was just a beautiful valley where the Yosemite tribespeople lived.”

  Carmelita said, “I bet they didn’t like it when the gold miners showed up.”

  Chuck squeezed her shoulder in agreement. “This was the only home they’d ever known. It was their special place. Most of the tribespeople in the area had already been killed or taken as slaves or kicked off their lands and forced to live on reservations. Remote valleys like this were the last places indigenous tribespeople in California were still living on their ancestral lands. They were ready to defend themselves.”

  “But they only had bows and arrows,” Rosie noted.

  “And the gold prospectors had guns,” said Carmelita.

  “Asymmetrical firepower,” Chuck agreed. “The miners made their camp somewhere in the meadow near here after coming in on a trail from the southeast.” He pointed down the valley through the welded lattice of steel support beams rising ten feet above the walkway on either side of the bridge.

  “I think I can see the trail going up through the trees,” Carmelita said, peering through the latticework. She grasped two of the beams and hoisted herself off the deck of the bridge, climbing the support structure.

  “Whoa, whoa, whoa!” Chuck cried, reaching for her.

  She stopped a couple feet off the deck of the bridge, balanced on the metal beams. “I’m just getting a better look,” she told Chuck over her shoulder.

  “Sure, but—”

  Janelle laid a hand on Chuck’s arm. “She’s fine.” Janelle looked at her daughter. “Aren’t you, Carm?”

  Carmelita’s gaze flicked between Janelle and Chuck.

  Chuck shrugged, less than certain. “I guess if your mamá thinks it’s okay.”

  Rosie urged, “Go for it, Carm.”

  Clarence added, “Yeah, baby cakes. Let’s see what you can do.”

  Carmelita resumed climbing. She reached the top of the support structure, ten feet above the bridge deck, in seconds.

  Rosie asked, “What’s it look like from up there, Carm?”

  “It’s really cool.” Carmelita rested her arms over the top of the uppermost steel bar, her feet even with Chuck’s head. The afternoon sun lit her dark hair, blown back from her head in wavy tendrils by the breeze coursing up the river. “I can see forever.”

  Chuck wrapped his arm around Janelle’s waist. “Good for you, letting Carm go up there. She takes after you. She’s fearless.”

  Rosie poked herself in the chest with her thumb. “So am I. I’m fearless, too.” She pointed at her sister, perched on the metal latticework above. “I just don’t want to climb way up there.”

  “You’re fearless, too, all right,” Chuck said.

  Leaning against Chuck, Janelle told Rosie, “You’re beyond fearless. Which is what keeps me up at night.”

  Chuck looked up at Carmelita. “She’s the one who ought to be keeping you up at night.”

  “Remember,” Janelle said to Chuck, “it’s you who started her on this whole climbing thing.” She followed his raised gaze to Carmelita. “Like you keep saying, she’s good at it.”

  Carmelita climbed back down, rejoining the others on the bridge deck. They crossed the remainder of the bridge and continued on the wide walking trail through the meadow toward Southside Drive.

  Rosie spun in a circle. “Are you going to dig up all the grass?” she asked Chuck.

  “No,” he replied. “This area has been excavated over and over again. Each time an artifact works its way to the surface, park service archaeologists conduct a surrounding excavation to learn more about it. There’s not much left to be discovered down here in the valley bottom.” He pointed past Southside Drive at the bluffs and cliffs that made up the valley’s south wall. “But there might still be something to learn up there.”

  He took the girls’ hands and crossed the road, stopping at the foot of the valley wall. Unlike the unbroken granite faces lining the north side of the valley, the south side consisted of granite outcrops and knobs broken by ledges and overhangs. Where water courses plunged between the granite promontories, ponderosas grew above an understory of whiteleaf manzanita.

  “The group of prospectors consisted of eight men,” Chuck told the girls. “The morning after they made camp, five of them headed up the valley looking for gold. The other three stayed behind. After a while, the three men in camp heard screaming and shouting. The five prospectors who’d headed up the valley were under attack. Two of the five crossed the river and reached camp despite being wounded by warriors’ arrows. But the three other men were trapped on the far side of the river. Those three all happened to own a gold mine together outside the valley. One of the three—his last name was Rose—yelled that he and the other two were done for, and that the rest of the prospectors should make a run for it.” Chuck looked at Rosie. “Can you guess which way they ran?”

  Rosie’s eyes went to the granite bluffs and outcrops looming above. “I’d go up there. It would be like a fort for them.”

  “Good thinking,” Chuck praised her. “That’s exactly what they did. They grabbed their guns and ammunition and hightailed it up into the cliffs. One of the survivors, Stephen Grover, told the story of how they ran up there with the warriors’ arrows flying all around them.” Chuck crouched between the girls and lowered his voice to a conspiratorial whisper. “And that’s where the real mystery begins.”

  10

  Chuck straightened from his crouch between Carmelita and Rosie and took folded sheets of paper from his pocket. He held them low, so the girls could look at the printout of Grover’s account with him.

  “Here’s how Grover described what happened,” he said. “Listen for the clues, okay?”

  “‘We tried to escape by the old Mariposa Trail,’” Chuck read from the account. “‘We had proceeded but a short distance when we were attacked in front by the savages who had cut off our retreat.’” He broke from his recitation to tell the girls, “That’s what they used to call indigenous tribespeople back then.” He went back to reading. “‘Death staring at us on almost every hand, and seeing no means of escape, we fled to the bluff.’”

  Rosie stared wide-eyed at Chuck. “Whoa. That really happened?”

  “Yep,” Chuck said. “A long time ago.”

  Carmelita looked around her. “They got chased right across this field,” she said, her voice filled with wonder.

  “Somewhere near here,” Chuck agreed. He lifted a finger to the bluffs. “And on up into those cliffs, just like Rosie figured they would.”

  “Where’d they go up there?” Carmelita asked.

  “That’s one of the questions Clarence and I have been hired to answer.”

  “You don’t know?”

  “No one does. Our job is to see if we can figure it out.”

  “Someone’s paying you? Why?”

  Chuck again dropped his voice to a furtive whisper. “Because of the mystery.”

  “The clues,” Janelle said. “Read them again, would you?”

  Rosie clung to Chuck’s arm as he studied the sheets in his hand. “First, they tried to escape via the Mariposa Trail, their original route into the valley from the south the day before.” He continued to paraphrase from the sheets. “They ‘proceeded but a short distance’ before
they were cut off and ‘fled to the bluff.’ Notice he uses the singular term, ‘bluff,’ not bluffs.”

  He peered with Carmelita and Rosie up at the valley wall. A prominent nose of rock pressed out from a cliff face two hundred yards east of where they stood. To the left of the granite nose, a tight chute served as a channel, draining rainwater and snowmelt around the outcrop. Higher up, the chute opened onto a forested slope, speckled with boulders, that rose to the southern skyline.

  Chuck looked back at the sheets of paper and continued quoting Grover. “‘From above, the rocks began to fall on us, and in our despair we clung to the face of the bluff. Scrambling up, we found a little place in the turn of the wall, a shelf-like projection, where we succeeded in gathering ourselves, secure from the falling rocks, at least, which were being thrown by Indians under the orders of their Chief.’”

  He lowered the sheets and studied the cliff face once more.

  Beside him, Clarence quoted from memory. “A ‘little place in the turn of the wall, a shelf-like projection.’”

  Chuck aimed a finger at a protected, cavern-like space beneath the prominent nose of rock. “There. See where it’s shadowed? That’s the place I spotted on my computer, using satellite data, that looks most promising to me.”

  “Could that be it?” Janelle asked.

  “It fits Grover’s description. It’s the most protected place all along this section of the valley.”

  “Since they were cut off from the Mariposa Trail,” Janelle said, “it makes sense that they’d have headed for the drainage on the far side of the rock because it leads all the way out of the valley.”