Chief Joseph & the Flight of the Nez Perce by Kent Nerburn Read Free Book Online

Perce who were in the area went to hear the boys talk and came away amazed. This confirmed all they had been hearing from the trappers and the Iroquois. The Soyapo truly did have special knowledge from the Creator, and that knowledge was all contained in the secrets of the Book of Heaven. If the Nez Perce could get that book, perhaps they could get that knowledge for themselves and would not have to hunt beaver to trade for Soyapo power and goods.
    The Nez Perce met in council and decided to send some men in search of the book. With their Flathead friends they created a hunting party of seven men and sent them off to Soyapo country. They decided to go to the place where Captain Clark was now the head chief, a place the trappers called St. Louis. It was in American country, many weeks’ journey far over the mountains on the other side of the buffalo plains, in a place where the Nez Perce had never been. They had considered going north to the British Soyapo country where the two boys had received their books, but that would have meant traveling through the country of the murderous Blackfeet, and none wished to take this risk. Besides, Captain Clark had been generous to them before. If he had one of these Books of Heaven, he would surely give it to them.
    The seven men set off with a group of mountain men who were returning to the land of the white man to trade for goods. Their journey took them over the mountains and across the great rolling buffalo country farther toward the east than any of them had ever traveled. Three of the men became afraid and turned back before reaching St. Louis. But the others made it safely and found themselves in an encampment unlike any they had ever seen.
    There were lodges made of wood and stone that stood as high as trees. These lodges had walls made of something as thin and clear as river ice so a man could see out and the light of day could come in. There were horses pulling boxes that moved on rolling circles, and in the rivers were boats as long as the great lodges the Nez Perce lived in during the winter. All the buildings had doors made of flattened trees that would not open unless you put a piece of metal in a small hole and turned it around and around. Everywhere you looked were tools and weapons made of steel. It was truly a place of power and magic.
    The men found Mr. Clark, who greeted them warmly. Though they could not speak each other’s languages, they could make themselves understood through signs and gestures. They were taken to a great stone building filled with candles and wooden figures of bearded men. There they met spirit law teachers and were given crosses and the Book of Heaven. They had succeeded in their mission.
    But two of the men soon became sick and died. Something in the white man’s world was not good for their health. They were buried in that place, far from their land and their people. Then the others took the book and began the journey home.
    Sadly, they too died before returning, and the book they carried with them was lost. So the Nez Perce remained without the Book of Heaven and the power it possessed.
    But their hunger for it did not decrease.
    While in St. Louis, the Nez Perce messengers had created a great stir. Walking the streets in their tribal dress, in an apparent quest for the Christian gospel, they represented everything the American people wanted to believe about the hunger of the Indian people for deliverance from their savage ways.
    The year was 1831, and the young American nation was in the throes of a great religious revival. The conviction that a person could be saved from hellfire only by God’s whim was being replaced by a belief that God’s touch, earnestly sought, could change a person’s heart and place that person among the saved. Faith in this power of conversion was sweeping the land.
    To those who felt they had already been saved, no task was more important than bringing the word of God to others who were still