“The universe is monstrously indifferent to the presence of man.” Werner Herzog
Not here, not on this ground. At the Big Hole battlefield, from Battle Mountain where the horses grazed, to the valley below where the camp was built, the air feels haunted, as if the horrors here are still playing out behind that thin veil between what we can see and what we cannot. Stand at the site of Joseph’s lodge (we know where it was because of the testimony of Yellow Wolf) next to the running creek, where visitors and relatives have hung bright cloth offerings and beadwork pipes on the naked lodgepole. Take in a cold lungful of the morning air. Then close your eyes and in a moment you can hear the gunfire, the screams, the hoofbeats, the children wailing. You can smell the burning tepees and the gunpowder and with it the metallic odor of blood. It’s all here, still, after a long century and more, and as you walk the ground you wade into the visions like a baptismal river.
We left Salmon, Idaho, in the dark. First, we picked up coffee from the Salmon River Coffee Shop which maintains vestiges of its former life as a cocktail bar and lounge. The shop dog is a lover, not a fighter, and shows you her belly.
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