Episode 74

The air in the council lodge hung thick with the scent of pine smoke and the weight of unspoken fears. Chief Tolo, his face a roadmap of a life lived in service to his people, scanned the faces of his advisors. The Nez Perce, the Niimíipu, were a proud people, their equestrian skills unmatched, their knowledge of these lands as deep as the roots of the ancient cedars. But the steady influx of white faces, their wagons like beetles crawling across the plains, was a disquieting tide.

"They take," Elder Speaks to the Wind began, his voice raspy with age and a lifetime of witnessing. "They take the grass our horses need. They take the water from our streams. They do not understand the balance."

A younger voice, that of Swift Arrow, a respected hunter, countered, "To stand against them is to invite war, Tolo. We have seen their weapons. Smallpox has already thinned our numbers. We must be clever, not just brave."