This next Indian piece is called "Bear Paw."
The Bear Paw is the area--
the Snake Creek battleground is where
the last battle was fought by the Nez Perce Indians.
Many of you probably have read about the Nez Perce flight,
which went on for thousands of miles
and for a long, long time, back and forth
across rather bleak and aimless stretches of country.
They were trying to avoid being put on the reservation.
And when they finally got up north,
on what we now call the Hi-Line in Montana,
they felt that they were in Canada.
They thought they were in Canada and they were safe.
And they woke up one morning and the cavalry was very close,
coming and coming at them.
And they realized that they'd miscalculated.
And so they had a final battle.
And when it was over, a lot of people
were dead, a lot of soldiers, a lot of Indians,
including Chief Looking Glass, the famous Indian warrior
chief.
And then a younger chief who was in charge of logistics
and the women and children, a chief named Joseph, made
a famous speech of surrender.
And the last line, which has become
very famous in American folklore now,
was, "From where the sun now stands,
I will fight no more forever."
This is called "Bear Paw."
The wind is 95.
It still pours from the east like armies.
And it drains each day of hope.
From any point on the surrounding rim,
below, the tipis burn.
The wind is infantile and cruel.
It cries, give in, give in.
And Looking Glass is dying on the hill.
Pale grass shudders.
Cattails beg and bow.
Down the draw, the dust of anxious horses
hides the horses.
When it clears, a car with Indiana plates
is speeding to Chinook.
That bewildering autumn, the air howled
garbled information and the howl of coyotes blurred the border.
Then a lull in wind, V after V of Canada geese.
Silence on the Hi-Line.
Only the eternal nothing of space.
This is Canada and we are safe.
You can study plaques, the unique names
of Indians and bland ones of the whites, or study books,
or recreate, from any point on the rim, the action.
Marked stakes tell you where they fell.
Learn what you can.
The wind takes all you learn away to reservation graves.
If close enough to stutter, to take blood on your hands,
you turn your weeping face into the senile wind.
Looking Glass is dead and will not die.
The hawk that circles overhead is starved for carrion.
One more historian is on his way, his cloud on the horizon.
Five years from now, the wind will
be 100, full of Joseph's words and dusting plaques.
Pray hard to weather, that lone surviving god,
that in some sudden wisdom we surrender.