Bitterroot:
Echoes of Beauty and Loss
Published 2016. Publisher: Beaufort Books of New York City
My youngest son Alex and I travel the Oregon Trail with that remarkable 19th-century traveler Pierre Jean De Smet who takes us to the Rocky Mountains where we join Lewis and Clark during their difficult crossing of the continental divide, several weeks that almost killed them. Along that trail we meet the Nez Perce tribe who helped save the lives of Lewis and Clark and their “corps of discovery”. On the return trip, we join the Nez Perce in their long flight from General O. O. Howard and the U. S. army. This is a travel book like Waterwalk, like Blue Highways by William Least Heat Moon or John Graves’ Goodbye to a River, with vivid accounts of historical events along the way: the Chinese Massacre in Rock Springs, the Nez Perce battle at Big Hole, the Battle of the Little Bighorn from the perspective of two Sioux boys who lived through it.