Chief Joseph & the Flight of the Nez Perce (20 page)

Each of these choices had its virtues and liabilities, and each had its proponents and detractors. But whatever they chose would shape the future of their people, so they set up camp at a creek near the house of a friendly white man named McClain and set about making this momentous decision.

The original intention as determined in the Weippe had been to cross the trail then continue on east to buffalo country. This was still the preference of Looking Glass. But as they were camped, three Nez Perce came riding in from the north. They had been scouting for the U.S. government against the Sioux and knew something of the forces and situation in the surrounding territory.

“You are fools to go to buffalo country,” they said. “Too many settlers. Too much military. Better to go north to the Old Woman Country. There you can be safe.”

White Bird, Toohoolhoolzote, and most of those who were not intimately familiar with buffalo country took this counsel to heart. They listened intently as one of the newly arrived scouts, named Grizzly Bear Youth, explained what he had learned about where the whites had established the border between the Americans and the Old Woman Country. It was a 240-mile journey over easy country from where they were camped. The route to buffalo country was much longer and across much more difficult terrain.

But others were quick to point out that a turn to the north would take them right past the new soldier fort being built at Missoula and into Blackfeet country. No tribe was more hated and feared than the Blackfeet, and no tribe was less trusted. With the women and children and elderly, the Nez Perce would be too vulnerable to hostile attack.

Even if the many settlers who were filling the valleys to the north let them pass, even if the soldiers let them travel in peace, the Blackfeet would force them to fight. The route might be easy in terms of terrain, but it was fraught with perils in terms of potential human enemies. Also, what were they to do for food and blankets if they went north? They had lost at least half of their goods when they had been forced to run from the Clearwater. Without the meat and buffalo blankets they would obtain in buffalo country, they would soon find themselves living in cold country without adequate shelter and provisions.

These people spoke up for the route to the buffalo plains. Some preferred the route directly east. This broad passage had the virtue of ease of travel. But it too was filling up with settlers and miners. Looking Glass, who had recently been to the buffalo plains, preferred to drop south then take the trail across through the Big Hole valley and the land of the Bannocks. It was not much more physically demanding, he claimed, and it surely was less populated and less likely to offer up surprises. It also would bring them directly into the land of the Crows, their friends and allies.

Pile of Clouds and some of the other warriors agreed with this assessment, but they did not like the idea of traveling into the open Crow country. The people were traveling with thousands of horses; their group included hundreds of women and children and elderly. The Crow country was mostly open, rolling plains that offered little protection and hiding place for the people if they had to engage in battle. Better, they felt, to travel down the valley, as Looking Glass proposed, but to turn west on their southernmost trail through the Bitterroots, then move back into the safety of the steep, forested mountains where the timber and terrain would be their allies in the event of further conflict with the military.

In the end, after heated debate, Looking Glass's position won out. He had already been appointed leader, and he was probably the most familiar with both the buffalo country and the Crows. He had also been present at the conversations with Captain Rawn and was most friendly with the white settlers through whose country they would have to pass. If he thought the war was over and the southern route to their Crow allies was the best decision, the others would go along with it. White Bird, however, issued a caution. “If the white men fire on us,” he said, “we will burn their fields and take their scalps. Their life will be no better than ours.”

Joseph said nothing. When asked for his position, he did not even rise to speak. “Since we have left our own country,” he said, “it matters little where we go.” In his mind, they were now a people in exile. No choice they made would lighten the burden in his heart.

With their course of action determined, the concern now turned to what sort of welcome they would receive from Chief Charlot and his Flathead people as they passed through their lands. The Nez Perce had never doubted the friendship of the Flatheads. But the presence of Flathead warriors with Captain Rawn had raised questions about the strength of that friendship.

On July 28, Looking Glass and a few warriors went ahead to meet with Charlot while the rest of the travelers retrieved some camping goods from one of McClain's outbuildings, where they had been cached on a previous journey to buffalo country. All made sure not to disturb or take anything that was not their own. Then they settled in and established the first truly relaxed camp that the weary people and animals had experienced since leaving the Weippe.

Soon Looking Glass returned, dark with anger. He had met with Charlot and extended his hand in friendship. Charlot had refused to accept it, saying he did not wish to touch a hand that had spilled white man's blood. Looking Glass had responded angrily. Yes, he had spilled white men's blood, he said, but only because he had been attacked. “Your hands are as bloody as mine,” he'd told Charlot. “I did not come to talk about blood. I came to ask you the best place to camp.”

Looking Glass's chiding had bothered Charlot. He was in an impossible situation. The Nez Perce were indeed his friends, but the survival of his people depended upon his continued good relations with the whites who had settled in his country. A military fort was being constructed only thirty miles north near the town of Missoula, and Missoula itself had already grown to be a community of five hundred white people. Peaceful coexistence with these newcomers was more important to the welfare of his people than assisting a brother tribe that had already decided to fight.

“All right,” he told Looking Glass. “You may camp here. But if you raise a hand against any white person, we will drive you out.”

This was not the bond of friendship and support for which Looking Glass had hoped, but it did at least tell him that the Flatheads would not oppose him as he led his people through the valley so long as no violence occurred. With this assurance, he arranged for the bands to break camp the following morning and move south to set up camp on Charlot's land.

The new camp was right outside the town of Stevensville, a small settlement of about 150 men, women, and children. Stevensville had originally been settled to meet the supply needs of miners in the area and was a thriving little mercantile community with a single main street bordered by wooden buildings. Looking Glass had been here many times and had traded with the people, as had other Nez Perce traveling across the Lolo on their way to buffalo country. It was here that the local Black Robe priest, Father Ravalli, gave medicine to the Nez Perce through a little window in his house when they rode up and asked for assistance. They had every reason to expect a friendly reception when they rode into town the following day.

But the stories of the Salmon River killings had preceded the people across the mountains, and the local residents were not inclined to greet them with open arms. Indians might be friendly as individuals, but the experience of the Salmon River and Slate Creek settlers were reminders of what could happen when things went bad. As far as the settlers here knew, the people murdered in the Salmon River had been every bit as friendly to the Nez Perce as they themselves had been here in the Bitterroot Valley. Who knew what sort of dark grievances those Indian people carried in their hearts and what sort of dark crimes they might be capable of committing?

So when the Nez Perce arrived, hoping to purchase goods to make up for those they had lost in their rapid flight from the Clearwater, they discovered an empty town of locked doors and shuttered stores, while the white families and shopkeepers huddled behind the walls of nearby Fort Owen, an abandoned adobe trading post that they had fortified with chunks of sod. Some had already been barricaded there for almost three weeks, not wishing to be caught by surprise by these Indians they had considered their friends but who apparently had gone on a murderous rampage in towns like theirs across the mountains in Idaho.

But Looking Glass's promises of peace had given them a measure of relief. A few of the tradesmen, having dealt with the Nez Perce often in the past, ventured back to their stores to sell the Indians the supplies they desired. They knew the Nez Perce as a wealthy and fair people. If they wanted goods, were willing to pay, and truly intended to pass through peacefully, the Stevensville merchants were more than willing to assist them in their passage while making a few dollars in the process.

Looking Glass made the Nez Perce position clear to the tradesfolk. There would be no killing or stealing. The Nez Perce had gold dust and gold coins as well as silver and horses to trade, and their women had American greenbacks tied in their braids. They would pay fairly, would pay what was asked. “But if you will not sell,” he said, “we will take what we need. We will not leave our women and children hungry.”

The Indians' needs were simple: flour, sugar, coffee, tobacco, some dry goods, some cloth. They also wanted bullets, and some of the young men wanted whiskey. The townspeople were quick to oblige except for bullets and whiskey. They could see that the older tribal members were trying to keep order but that the young men were on the edge of violence. It would take only one shot fired by either side and the battle-hardened Nez Perce with their repeating rifles and strong horses would overrun the town and make the Salmon River massacre look like child's play. If there was one commodity likely to set off that shot, it was whiskey.

Nonetheless, one of the merchants could not resist the lure of easy money. He began selling whiskey from a barrel until some of the other townsfolk stopped him. There was a clamor to hang the man for his greed and stupidity. But such a public event might incite the Nez Perce, so he was merely separated from his supply of whiskey at the point of a gun and sent back to the fort where he could cause no more trouble.

The Indians too sought to keep tensions down. Looking Glass sat on his horse in the middle of the town's main street, keeping his whip ready to strike anyone who stole or destroyed property not his own. When one of the young men insulted a white woman, the chief grabbed him and sent him back to the Indian camp. No indiscretion, however small, was to be tolerated.

It was a tense but ultimately peaceful day. With stern faces and severe decorum, the chiefs and elders kept tight rein on the situation. Though the merchants were charging exorbitant prices—Joseph was forced to give up his powder horn just to get a bit of milk to give to the children—conflict needed to be avoided at all costs. Charlot had meant what he had said about expelling the Nez Perce by force if any raised a hand against a white man, and he had his own warriors patrolling the streets along with the Nez Perce chiefs and elders. No one wanted to see that first shot fired because all knew that any confrontation would come to a tragic and bloody end.

The next day, after breaking camp, the Nez Perce passed by Stevensville one final time before proceeding south. The townsfolk looked on in amazement as the tribesmen and -women rode past arrayed in their finest clothes—white tanned buckskin shirts and dresses covered with beadwork and ermine tails; shell breastplates; colorful blankets. Their horses had elaborate beaded bridles, and the men carried their rifles in beaded gun sheaths. Babies slept soundly on cradle boards beaded with sky blue swirls and intricate floral patterns. Even their riding quirts were beaded. No opportunity for adornment had been overlooked, from the braids in the women's hair to the saddles and bridles of the horses. Looking Glass himself had a mirror framed in a leather star hanging from his wrist, and Joseph wore a red coat covered with small mirrors. The residents of Stevensville watched with relief and awe as the regal procession with its hundreds of families and thousands of finely bred horses passed by right across the river. One man estimated that the parade stretched for five miles. It took more than an hour for the whole group to pass.

Once through Stevensville, only a few isolated settlements remained before the Nez Perce reached the place where the trail turned east toward buffalo country. No opposition was expected. The little town of Corvallis held no more than a hundred inhabitants, the town of Skahalko, no more than seventy-five. Outside these towns, homesteads were widely scattered in the valleys and hillsides, often separated from each other by miles of open country. The last military post lay far to the north at Fort Missoula, where Captain Rawn had come from, and they had made peace with Captain Rawn.

The Nez Perce settled down to a leisurely pace of twelve to fifteen miles a day, breaking camp late and setting up camp early, just as Looking Glass had always done when traveling to buffalo country. As always, each band and family was free to travel in its own most comfortable fashion, some leaving earlier than others and each taking whatever route suited its fancy. At night they would gather in a common camp.

One evening, the young men of Toohoolhoolzote's band burst into camp boasting. They had found a white man's house where nobody was home. They had gone inside, tossed a few things around, and taken several hundred pounds of flour and coffee for the people.

Looking Glass was incensed. Toohoolhoolzote's band was always the hardest to control. They had been among the bands most cruelly treated by the whites back in their own country, and they all still smarted from the insult done at the council where General Howard had imprisoned Toohoolhoolzote and dressed him in the clothing of a bride. They were proud of their belligerence and took every opportunity to express it.