Free Cries from the Earth by Terry C. Johnston Page B

the land of your father.”
    Later, as their long-held customs dictated, Young Joseph had laid the skin of his father’s favorite horse over the covered grave where they put Old Joseph to rest for all time. Thin, peeled lodgepoles painted red were planted all around the grave. A pair of bells hung from the very top of each pole so that the stirring of the slightest breeze might make a gentle music above this place.
    Ever since, Joseph tried time and again to convince himself that he and Ollokot had not given away the land of their father.
    Why, the Nee-Me-Poo did not even have a word for “enemy” in their language. However, the concept of a “coming force” had been well understood ever since the first hairy-faces had arrived.
    So Joseph had long struggled to reconcile the death-watch vow he had given his father with the inevitability of the white man closing in around what had once belonged only to the Wallowa people. By choosing to go to the reservation, by doing as Monteith and the soldiers ordered, chiefs like him had ultimately decided that the lives of their people were more important than the pride of their warriors.
    â€œRather than kill a white man in a war,” Joseph had explained to Cut-Off Arm, “I will bring my people to Lapwai.”
    All the leaders felt as if they had been shamed by the soldier chief, given no chance to salve their wounded pride. When Cut-Off Arm not only talked about using force in the council but actually used force in dragging old Toohoolhoolzote to the iron-barred house, it was the same as if the soldier chief was showing them the rifle. In peace councils, a man simply did not speak of force, much less use it!
    Nonetheless, Joseph bravely asked the soldier chief for more time to reach the reservation than Cut-Off Arm had given the Wallowa band initially. Joseph attempted to explain how his people had to cross both the Salmon and the Snake on their way to Lapwai and at this time of year the snowmelt had swollen those rivers so the mighty waters roared and raged between their steep banks.
    Couldn’t the Wallowa put off coming in to the reservation until the rivers had quieted?
    â€œNo,” repeated Cut-Off Arm in a stern reproach that only served as one more serious wound to the Nee-Me-Poo pride.
    â€œI think the soldier chief and agent believe that the more time they give us,” Joseph explained later to his headmen and warriors, “the less likely we are to comply with their demands. Before we left the agency, Cut-Off Arm told us that any delay on our part might risk a dangerous confrontation with the soldiers already in the Wallowa.”
    And to further impress his audience of Non-Treaty leaders before they left Fort Lapwai to gather their peoples, the soldier chief had read aloud a petition he recently received from a large number of settlers along the Salmon River: Shadows who accused the Nez Perce of stealing horses, rustling cattle, and destroying the property of industrious white people. That petition, which demanded the immediate removal of the Indians from the river valley, had been signed by fifty-seven settlers who threatened to take matters into their own hands if the army didn’t resolve the tensions.
    â€œSo it’s dangerous for you to stay in the Wallowa any longer, Joseph,” Cut-Off Arm had declared. “Surely you don’t think you should stay where you’re not wanted, do you?”
    Even when the chiefs had gone with Cut-Off Arm to select the sites for their new homes, the soldier chief led Joseph and the others to some land that was already occupied by some Treaty Indians and a few white settlers.
    Nonetheless, Cut-Off Arm pointed about him and announced, “If you will come on the reservation, I will give you these lands and move these people off.”
    Even though his own home was being taken from him, Joseph had shaken his head, explaining, “No, that is not right to do. It is wrong to