Sand In A Whirlwind, 30Th Anniversary Edition

The Paiute Indian War Of 1860

Ferol Egan

• Publisher: University of Nevada Press
• Year: 2016
• ISBN:
  9780874174564
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: World History
• Index: History

Sand in a Whirlwind is a dramatic account of the events surrounding hostilities between settlers and Pyramid Paiutes in the spring of 1860. Thirty years after its publication Ferol Egan's now classic tale continues to enlighten and engage readers.

PART I

A SEASON OF DISCONTENT 1859-60

CHAPTER 1

An Occurrence at Black Rock Canyon

The weather was cold for late April, colder than usual. Snow still lingered on the northeastern flanks of the Sierra Nevada just above Honey Lake Valley and the small settlement of Susanville in Utah Territory. Even a three-day ride into the northeastern desert had not made it any warmer for the men. It was not a comfortable season to be camping out in the lonely vastness of the Black Rock Desert. But though he was a pioneer trailblazer, a man who knew this land better than most, Peter Lassen was not able to resist the possibility of sudden riches. Despite all the disappointments, the old optimism was still with him.

Lassen knew he had wasted too many years and too much energy on the frontier without much to show for it. This silver strike in the Great Basin was another chance, perhaps a last chance. He hadn’t made it as a landowner or merchant, though he had tried more than once in California before the discovery of gold. And like his former employer, Captain John Sutter, he had failed to strike it rich during the Gold Rush. Yet silver was something new, something he hadn’t thought about, much less counted on. But the discovery of the Comstock Lode was all the talk of the sparse population in the sagebrush country, and Lassen wanted to stake his claim early. For, once the snow melted in the high country passes, there would be a rush of miners from California’s Mother Lode, where the easy pickings had ended.

As the fifty-nine-year-old Dane and his fellow prospectors sat around their campfire on the chilly evening of April 25, 1859, he might have worried about the possibility of such a small party being attacked by Indians. If so, he showed no sign of it. Instead, he talked easily to young Edward Clapper and Lemericus Wyatt, the sixty-year-old, broad-shouldered farmhand, handyman, and carpenter.

The plan from the start had included their rendezvousing with Captain William Weatherlow’s larger party. Lassen had assured the others that there would be no difficulty in doing this even though they were a few days behind the Weatherlow party. But this was their second day at Black Rock Canyon,* and there was no sign of the other men. Worse than that, now that Clapper had made a scouting trip to Mud Lake and back, it was very hard for a man to rest easy. All he had found were the footprints of two white men and the tracks of shod horses. Such signs could mean the Weatherlow party had been ambushed. They talked all this over with Lassen; and in the end, he convinced them “the advance party were over the mountains at another camping place.”¹ Come morning, they’d ride over there and join forces with them.

Lassen’s decision eased the tension. Neither Clapper nor Wyatt could hide their feelings. They had not liked this camp from the beginning. While they admitted that having a small creek of sweet running water was an advantage, this hadn’t removed their major concern. Camping in a box canyon was too much of a trap. Yet Lassen had persisted. He considered the three high lava cliffs as walls of defense. Any foe would have to come straight at them across the flat, open alkali plain. All this sounded fine, but there was a flaw. Both sides of the canyon floor had thickets of greasewood and tall sagebrush, and clusters of quaking aspens. There was more than enough cover for a man to ease a horse by if he happened to be clever enough.

But hell, everything was going to be all right. They’d spend one more night by themselves, no more than that. Feeling easier, the men relaxed by the fire. Tomorrow would be another day on the road to riches. It only made good sense that more men working together would increase the chances of striking a silver lode.

Completely at rest, all worries buried, Clapper and Wyatt were startled when Lassen quit talking and peered beyond the rim of light from their campfire.

They stared in the direction of the canyon mouth only to hear a sound behind them. Then from out of nowhere, as though he had always been there, the men saw an Indian on horseback. He was slowly, cautiously circling their camp, drifting in and out of the firelight like an apparition. Clapper and Wyatt reached for their rifles, but the Indian vanished into the darkness. When he reappeared, he was on foot, and he was standing at the edge of the firelight—standing and waiting.

Clapper and Wyatt waited for Lassen’s command. Instead, they heard him speak to the visitor in Paiute. As the old man talked, they looked around for more Indians and got ready for an attack. Neither man had lived among the Indians as had Lassen. And though they knew the Dane was Chief Numaga’s friend, they weren’t sure that the young Indian standing before them was Paiute. He hadn’t answered yet. Maybe he was with a hunting party of Pit River Indians from across the Sierra Nevada—the same tribe that had been defeated by Lassen, Weatherlow, and other men from Honey Lake Valley along with the help of Chief Numaga and his warriors.

Finally, the young man answered Lassen in Paiute. More conversation followed, until the old man persuaded the Indian to join them beside the fire. The men watched carefully as the Paiute walked across the clearing. He moved as though he were gliding. When he reached the fire, he gracefully settled into a cross-legged sitting posture and began to speak.

While the two men talked, Lassen’s companions waited for a translation. But the tension had eased, and they were no longer so disturbed. They relaxed and listened to the foreign sounds of the Indian’s speech. Still, everything was going to be all right. The man was a Paiute, and Paiutes were friendly. So they sat and listened to the mixture of sounds: the deep-in-the-throat speech, the running creek water, and the wind-rustled leaves of the quaking aspens. Then these safe sounds were suddenly shut off by the loud report of a rifle—the noise bouncing back and forth off the canyon walls.

Before anyone moved, the visitor said, “Paiute.”

“Where?” Lassen asked.

“From our camp.”

“How many men hunt with you?”

“Five more.”

The tight expression of Lassen’s face relaxed. He rapidly translated so that the others would know who had fired the shot, and that everything was all right.

The men listened, but they were not as sure about this as their leader. Yet one thing was very clear. If the Indians were up to something, they were sure as hell risking the life of the man sitting beside the fire.

When no more shots followed, the men settled down again. Obviously, the Indian had told the truth. There was nothing to worry about.

The conversation continued for a while longer. Then the young hunter got up, said good-by, and eased back into the darkness, where he mounted his horse and rode away. The men listened intently, but once he was outside the perimeter of their camp, they could not even hear the movements of his horse. Yet there were perfectly good reasons for this. The soil was soft in the meadow grass beside the creek, and the hunter’s horse was not shod. But it didn’t put a man’s mind to rest. If one Paiute could do this, what was to keep a war party of Pit River Indians from doing the same thing? There, by God, was the real worry, and there was no escaping it until they got together with the Weatherlow party.

For now, for this one night they’d have to accept the conditions of their position. Knowing this, the men stretched out their bedrolls on the ground near the glowing coals and fading warmth of the campfire. The night air was cold in this high desert country, and overhead the bright stars were like pure silver specimens that had been removed from the dull, blue ore. In the morning, they’d break up camp, locate the others, and get on with the business of getting rich.

2

Before daylight, the men shivered beneath blankets covered with frost. All that remained of the night’s fire was a pile of gray ashes, glowing coals, and a thin streamer of smoke hanging in the stillness of dawn like a giant spider’s thread. The men moved around in their blankets, tossing about in that half-world between sleep and full awareness. Then the quiet of first light was shattered with the echoing shock of a rifle shot.

Lassen and Wyatt were out of their blankets before the last re-echo of the shot had faded into the air. They had to pick up their gear and supplies and get out of this trap. Wyatt moved from one thing to another, frantically trying to decide what to grab first. Blankets, they’d need their bedrolls! Wyatt turned around, and for the first time, he realized that Clapper was still asleep—asleep with all this noise. He reached down to shake him, missed his shoulder, and touched his face. My God! His fingers felt something warm and sticky, and when he pulled his hand back it was covered with blood. Feeling sick about what he knew he would find, he rolled Clapper’s limp body over. There was no longer any question about the reason for the rifle shot. Clapper had been shot through the temple. The blood was still pumping out of the small entry wound, and the other side of his head had a larger hole where the bullet had smashed out of his skull and scattered blood, brains, and bone fragments.

Stunned and sick, Wyatt turned and looked at Lassen. Somehow, if there was any chance at all, he knew the old mountaineer would get them out of this canyon alive.

“I’ll watch for Indians while you gather up things,”² Lassen said.

Working rapidly, moving as fast as he could, Wyatt grabbed things at random. Food! They’d need food! He reached for the food packs. As he hefted them across his broad shoulders, he saw the tools: axes, picks, shovels, cooking pots and pans. He picked up all he could hold, moving from one thing to another, piling item on top of item, and resting all of them on his large hands and arms, until he had to cradle them against his chest. When he could not bend over for any more, he started for the small grove of quaking aspens where the frightened horses were pulling at the picket ropes, trying to break away.

Seeing that the nervous horses would get loose at any moment, Wyatt began to run. The distance wasn’t far, but the frosty and slippery grass made it hard for him to keep his balance. Hanging tightly to his heavy load, he stumbled along as best he could in his awkward gait. As he neared the horses, he realized Lassen wasn’t right behind. He yelled for him to run for it while there was still time.

When he didn’t answer, Wyatt stopped. He looked back, and “Uncle Pete” was still standing in the open. With one hand, he was shading his eyes against the glare of the first sunlight striking the canyon walls as he searched for Clapper’s killer. In his other hand, he held his rifle ready for use.

Again Wyatt shouted for him to run. But almost as the words left his mouth, they were lost in the air as another shot filled the canyon with its reverberating shock. To Wyatt’s horror, Lassen clutched at his chest. For a moment, it was all frozen in Wyatt’s mind. It wasn’t possible! None of it could really be happening! Then the nightmare became reality. Lassen fell backward as though the echoing report of the shot had roped his legs and jerked them out from under him.

Wyatt dropped everything he was carrying. He ran back across the clearing. When he reached Lassen, he knelt and gently raised him from the ground. Lassen’s face was as white as the alkali desert. But his eyes were not glazed, and he was still breathing. As Wyatt watched him try to speak, his eyes darted wildly. Wyatt thought he heard him say, “They have killed me.”³ That was all he said. Anything else was lost as he gasped for air. His body shuddered, and before Wyatt could catch him, Lassen slid from his grasp. He fell face down on the ground, gave a spasmodic jerk, and was gone.

Frantically, Wyatt got up and ran for the horses. As he neared them, the frightened animals reared back, pulled their picket ropes loose, and stampeded past him. Running desperately, his lungs burning for air, Wyatt trailed after the horses as they ran toward the mouth of the canyon. In all the confusion, he heard another shot. Almost in the same instant one trouser leg flapped violently, nearly tripping him. But there was no searing pain, no sudden shock of wound to topple him to the ground.

Now he ran wildly, crazily. He ran with a speed born of fear and desperation. At the canyon’s entrance, he plunged through a low line of sagebrush, and stumbled onto the alkali plain.

Hope of survival vanished as he stared ahead. Out on the white alkali plain, a cloud of moving dust hid the runaway horses that were his only hope of staying alive. Then before his disbelieving eyes, “the form of his own fine black pacing horse suddenly appeared. The animal had faced about, apparently struck by some sudden impulse.”⁴ And it galloped back toward him as though it had been ordered to do so.

Wyatt watched the horse draw closer and closer. When it was almost upon him, he stepped aside. With a kind of agility he had never known in his whole life, he grabbed the horse’s flowing mane with one hand, the halter with his other hand. Jumping upward, using all his strength, he pulled himself astride, and headed the horse out across the glistening alkali flat.

He gripped the horse’s withers by tightly squeezing his legs inward, and he reached down and grabbed the dragging picket rope to use as a rein. From that point on, the miles and hours ran into each other. Whenever the horse slowed to a walk, Wyatt looked behind with dread. But nowhere in the vast plain was there any sign of pursuers. Still, he was not certain of his direction. All he truly knew was that he had to travel over one hundred miles to the southwest. There, if he didn’t get lost, he would find safety in Honey Lake Valley and Susanville. Other than that, he knew he was alive, and that Clapper and Lassen were dead. Ahead of him was a long ride for his life.

---

*The modern name is Clapper Canyon.

CHAPTER 2

A Desert Mystery

After four long, weary days and nights, Lem Wyatt and his exhausted black horse reached Susanville. The old man had never been much of a horseman, but somehow he had managed to ride nearly 140 miles without a saddle and with only a picket rope for a rein. His knees and calves were rubbed raw from gripping the horse’s withers, and his hands were rope-burned. Every inch of his body was one solid ache. Yet before he rested, he told the tragic story of Peter Lassen’s death at Black Rock Canyon.

The reaction of the other settlers in Honey Lake Valley came swiftly. While Lem Wyatt couldn’t read or write, he had never been a man to stretch the truth. Besides, all any doubter had to do was look at Wyatt. His worn-out legs were still shaky from having been cramped like a vise for so many hours; his eyes were bloodshot from too much sun and too little sleep; his skin was afire with sun and wind burn, and his clothing and skin had a fine coating of alkali dust and sand. A man in Wyatt’s condition had to be telling the truth: Edward Clapper and Peter Lassen had been murdered by Indians, and Lemericus Wyatt was lucky to be alive.

Now there was even more to worry about. Wyatt had not seen any sign of Captain William Weatherlow’s party. If the Indian raiders who ambushed Lassen were hitting all whites in the desert, the chances of survival for Weatherlow and his companions were very dubious, at best. Betting on the slim chance that at least some of them were alive, the settlers quickly formed a relief party. Armed and ready for trouble, they rode northeast into the desert. They were on their way to help the living, to bury the dead, and to kill the Indians who had made Black Rock Canyon into a death camp.

2

Two days out of Susanville, the relief party met Captain Weatherlow and his men. They had run short of supplies and were on their way home. When told of the tragedy, they were astounded and then enraged. The two parties discussed all the possibilities as to who might have killed Lassen and ...