WEBVTT

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This next Indian piece
is called "Bear Paw."

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The Bear Paw is the area--

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the Snake Creek
battleground is where

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the last battle was fought
by the Nez Perce Indians.

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Many of you probably have read
about the Nez Perce flight,

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which went on for
thousands of miles

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and for a long, long
time, back and forth

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across rather bleak and
aimless stretches of country.

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They were trying to avoid
being put on the reservation.

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And when they
finally got up north,

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on what we now call
the Hi-Line in Montana,

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they felt that they
were in Canada.

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They thought they were in
Canada and they were safe.

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And they woke up one morning
and the cavalry was very close,

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coming and coming at them.

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And they realized that
they'd miscalculated.

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And so they had a final battle.

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And when it was
over, a lot of people

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were dead, a lot of
soldiers, a lot of Indians,

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including Chief Looking Glass,
the famous Indian warrior

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chief.

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And then a younger chief who
was in charge of logistics

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and the women and children,
a chief named Joseph, made

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a famous speech of surrender.

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And the last line,
which has become

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very famous in
American folklore now,

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was, "From where
the sun now stands,

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I will fight no more forever."

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This is called "Bear Paw."

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The wind is 95.

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It still pours from
the east like armies.

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And it drains each day of hope.

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From any point on
the surrounding rim,

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below, the tipis burn.

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The wind is infantile and cruel.

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It cries, give in, give in.

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And Looking Glass is
dying on the hill.

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Pale grass shudders.

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Cattails beg and bow.

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Down the draw, the
dust of anxious horses

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hides the horses.

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When it clears, a car
with Indiana plates

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is speeding to Chinook.

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That bewildering
autumn, the air howled

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garbled information and the howl
of coyotes blurred the border.

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Then a lull in wind, V
after V of Canada geese.

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Silence on the Hi-Line.

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Only the eternal
nothing of space.

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This is Canada and we are safe.

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You can study plaques,
the unique names

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of Indians and bland ones of
the whites, or study books,

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or recreate, from any point
on the rim, the action.

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Marked stakes tell
you where they fell.

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Learn what you can.

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The wind takes all you learn
away to reservation graves.

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If close enough to stutter,
to take blood on your hands,

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you turn your weeping
face into the senile wind.

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Looking Glass is dead
and will not die.

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The hawk that circles overhead
is starved for carrion.

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One more historian is on his
way, his cloud on the horizon.

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Five years from
now, the wind will

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be 100, full of Joseph's
words and dusting plaques.

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Pray hard to weather,
that lone surviving god,

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that in some sudden
wisdom we surrender.

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