Copyright 1990 - 1997 by Rob Perry and NorthStarr Productions
All Rights Reserved
FBI Agent Dr. Brian Scott
FBI Agent Dr. Barbie Basso EXT. BOISE IDAHO DAY INT. BOISE FEDERAL BUILDING INDIAN AFFAIRS Scott and Basso are having a meeting with the Director of Indian Affairs, John Plummer a distinguished looking man in his fifties. SCOTT Director, we understand you have the remains of Nez Perce Warriors massacred at Priest Lake. PLUMMER We have a warehouse full of Nez Perce bones. SCOTT Do you have them cataloged, as to where they were exhumed from? PLUMMER I think we have all the Priest Lake remains in warehouse FW 112 at Mountain Home Air Force Base. SCOTT What will it take to get them released to the Nez Perce Indians for proper burial? PLUMMER They must petition the Office of Indian Affairs and obtain the signature of a federal judge, then they can have the bones. SCOTT Ok, we'll pass it on to the interested parties. By the way what kind of volume are we talking about? PLUMMER We did an inventory last year and if my memory serves me right, I believe were talking about four to five hundred cases. BASSO Four to five hundred cases? SCOTT That'll be an expensive burial. BASSO We need to go Scott, our flight is at six - o'clock sharp. SCOTT Do you have much trouble with the Aryan Brotherhood? PLUMMER They have a strong following in Sandpoint and Hayden Lake. SCOTT Do you think they'll take over the panhandle of Idaho? PLUMMER It's hard to say. it depends how strong their leader is. Smith one of the strongest leaders died this morning from a heart attack. BASSO I'm sorry to her that. Let's go Scott. SCOTT Thank you Director, PLUMMER Your welcome. CUT TO: EXT. BOISE IDAHO DAY INT. BOISE FEDERAL BUILDING INDIAN AFFAIRS Scott and Basso are in the parking lot and have just opened the door of their car, when a big black GMC "Dualie" pulls up and a large man gets out of the passengers side and faces off with Scott. SCOTT May I help you? LONNIE SMITH (Challenging) Are you the piece of shit that is responsible for the death of my brother. Three other men get out of the truck armed with AK-47's and they surround the two agents. Basso takes out her SIG 9MM semi-auto pistol and holds the muzzle next to Smith's head. BASSO (Yelling) If they don't put the muzzles down on those AK's you're a dead man! What seems like minutes Smith nods at his men. LONNIE SMITH Ok boys put the muzzles down. (they quickly respond) You haven't answered the question! SCOTT (Firm) No, we're not responsible for your brothers death. (Pause) You see he is responsible for his own death our friend offered to help him and his remark was, I'd rather die than be touched by an Alien! LONNIE SMITH (In denial) I say bull shit to that! We think your Alien friend fucked him up so we want the Alien. SCOTT (Mellowing out) Look, Alva is back in her star-ship and they are now headed back to their planet. LONNIE SMITH (In rage) More bullshit! We think you dressed up a bunch of illegal's so we wouldn't see the color of their skin, while you made them do Toxic work, for five dollars an hour! BASSO Are you on drugs or something? LONNIE SMITH Drugs! Fuck no I'm not on drug's, hell I don't even smoke or drink, so you better watch your mouth little lady! BASSO Maybe so but talking filthy around women, what are you doing, trying to impress your skinhead friends. One of the men steps forward and points his finger at Basso. SKINHEAD ONE Who you calling a skinhead you lesbian bitch! Stepping in front of Basso, and shielding her from the assailant. SCOTT Ok, ok, back off. (holding his cell-phone) Look if I hit this button on my phone it will sense my location and in less than ten minutes the FBI will back me me up, so why don't you boys get back in your truck before you end up in jail. LONNIE SMITH Ok, but this isn't over yet, not by a long shot! You better keep an eye on Tonto and his friends, things are changing around here, we don't want no black, brown, yellow or red faces in the panhandle, so be prepared for war! BASSO Is that a threat? LONNIE SMITH Well actually, it's a form of a damn promise. Come on boys let's go before I puke all over these Indian lovers! All the men get in the truck and peel off down the street. The driver hangs his arm out the window and gives Scott and Basso the bird. SCOTT Well, what do you think of that bunch! BASSO I think we should go back to Indian affairs and warn them about this. SCOTT Boy, when you get pissed, you really are spunky! Your right let's do it! CUT TO: EXT. BOISE IDAHO DAY INT. BOISE FEDERAL BUILDING INDIAN AFFAIRS Scott and Basso are having a meeting with the Director of Indian Affairs, John Plummer. Scott is bringing him up to date on the run in with the Aryan Brothers. PLUMMER (pissed) They touch any of our Nez Perce and I'll have a couple of hundred United State Marshals clean up the Aryan Brothers. BASSO How many Nez Perce are still left and where do they live? PLUMMER Let me Susan Pond our Curator of Nez Perce Nation Affairs. She's A full blooded Nez Perce Indian and she has all the facts. (Picks up the phone and talks quietly) She has an office in the back follow me. Plummer leads them down the hall to an office door and opens it and they walk in. INT. BOISE FEDERAL BUILDING NEZ PERCE INDIAN AFFAIRS A beautiful young lady is seen sitting at a desk and she stands and smiles at her guests. After Plummer does the introductions he leaves the room and closes the door. SUSAN POND So what can I do for you Agents Scott and Basso? BASSO May I call you Susan? SUSAN POND Yes by all means. BASSO We notified your Director we were threatened by the Aryan Brothers and in conversation they mentioned causing trouble with the Nez Perce Indians. SUSAN POND Who was it the Smith Brothers? SCOTT Lonnie Smith, his brother died of a heart attack this morning. BASSO They want all the land in the panhandle of Idaho, and they are taking away land that belongs to the Nez Perce. SUSAN POND Let me tell you a little about the Nez Perce. They had a different name, Chopunnish. It means real people. The name Nez Perce came from the French Trappers meaning pierced nose because some of the Indians had a bone pierced in their nose. You pronounce it Nez Purse. In the winter the Nez Perce lived in long houses. Every family had their own fire that was in a trench that ran through the middle of the inside of the long house. The long house had a hole in the center of the roof. In the summer they lived in teepees that were small. They took the mats from the winter homes to cover the roofs and walls. Where they live now, on the reservation it's not that much better. BASSO They sound like really tough people. Did they have plenty of food? SUSAN POND The women and girls were the ones that mostly picked the food. They picked wild berries and camas bulbs. The camas is a flower. The bulb is crunchy, sweet and juicy. In spring they took a sharp stick to get to the roots of a kouse plant. Most other things they ate were meat like elk, rabbit, deer and mountain sheep. Late summer everybody went to get salmon. Their diet hasn't changed that much BASSO (Emotional) You know this really makes me sick, a great country like this and these people are forgotten. We spend our money sending food to countries all over the world but we just don't take care of our beautiful Native Americans. It makes me want to vomit Shit this was their land and we took it away from them I mean really, is this any different than what Hitler did to the Jews! SCOTT Chill Basso, chill! BASSO Chill my ass, when we killed Indians it was a victory for us and when we lost our people, it was a slaughter by savages! SCOTT We didn't scalp them! BASSO The scalping was brought over to this country by the Europeans, they were just getting even! I'm sorry Susan go ahead. SUSAN POND Between 1700 and 1730 they traded shells, beads and other things for horses with the Shoshone. With horses the Nez Perce could go into the east to where the plains were and get buffalo. With buffalo the Indians could have meat and clothes. Men started to wear the war bonnet like the plains Indians. They had hair in a pouf with braids. They wore fringed buckskin moccasins, leggings and shirts. They were beautiful people. The women started to wear fringed buckskin dresses that had elk teeth, quill work and beads. They wore round hats and knee- high moccasins. The women made the clothes. Now all the resources are gone, the animals are protected and they are limited to what animals they can take, and on and on. BASSO Susan, doesn't it piss you off that the white man did this to all your people? SUSAN POND When I was younger thinking about it day after day made me so depressed I would cry myself to sleep every night. Agent Basso what can I do, what can I do? I wonder what the white man would do if we came from another country and took the land away from them. SCOTT It would be the start of World War III! But we would never start it. BASSO Bull shit, the Japanese dropped bombs on Hawaii, because they were trying to get back the land that was taken away from them and we pay them back by dropping Nuclear Bombs on them and destroying hundreds of thousands of their people, including, kids, mothers, grandmothers, grandfathers and whatever was left of the men. The Native Americans were babies compared to what we have done to all kinds of people. Again, I'm, sorry go ahead. SUSAN POND (smiling) Tenacious isn't she? SCOTT You have no idea! What about their religion? SUSAN POND They thought that the earth was mother and the Great Spirit was father and that the Great Spirit was the ruler of all things. They believed that all of them had to find a spirit guide. The spirit guide was to help guide a person through their whole life. When the children were from 10 to 13 they were supposed to find a vision in which their spirit guide is in. If they didn't get a vision nothing exciting would happen in their lives. SCOTT What were some of the things they did to try and contact their spirit guide? SUSAN POND They believed in sweat houses. Sweat houses were supposed to purify the body. This is how it worked. Right beside the stream there was a sweat house for baths. The Nez Perce took heated stones and put them in the sweat houses and they just sat and sweated. During the sweat they would meditate with their spirit guide and obtain vital information for their future. When they went out they dove into the cool stream to take away germs and dirt. SCOTT So they lived in paradise, then what happened? SUSAN POND The Nez Perce territory was approximately 17 million acres. This covered portions of Washington, Idaho, and Oregon. They would travel with the seasons. The seasons would guide the Nez Perce where to locate foods. At times, they would go as far east as the Great Plains to hunt buffalo and fish for salmon on the Columbia River. The Nez Perce were well known as breeders of the Appaloosa horse. SCOTT Oh really, they are a beautiful breed of horse. SUSAN POND During the 1600s, the horse was theorized to have been brought to the New World. They were believed to have come from Spain or the Near East in a shipment of goods to Mexico. These horses moved northward through native trade routes. They reached the Nez Perce between 1680-1720. The Appaloosa have very distinct markings. There are white spots located around the eye. On various parts of the body there are white spots . Most of the time there are white markings on the eyes and hooves. The Nez Perce were well known racers and breeders of horses. The horse was bred for speed, strength, and agility. Nez Perce territory proved to be an excellent place to keep the Appaloosa horse. There was plenty of forage during all times of the seasons. There is one theory on how the Appaloosa got its name. It states that it came from the "Palouse" after one of the river valleys in which it was raised. Then it went through a few name changes--- Apalouse, then Apalousie, and to the present Appaloosa. BASSO The white man, known all over the world as the most violent of all the species! SUSAN BASSO The European Settlers had a big effect on the Nez Perce. At first the Nez Perce were nice to the white people. They acted as guides through the mountains. They helped Lewis and Clark get through to the Columbia River. They thought it kind of cool how the white people could talk to each other on paper. They wanted their children to learn that so they got Elizabeth Spaulding and her husband as their first teacher. Of course they didn't know they would be forced to be Christians if they wanted their children to go to school. At first they liked Mr. Spaulding, but then they began to dread him because he whipped the Indians who didn't want to be Christians. Then he said to them they had to farm the land if they wanted their children to go to their school. They didn't want to dig up the earth, but they wanted to have their children educated. BASSO (Pissed) Of course that was just the beginning. SUSAN POND The White Man started to bring all sorts of new diseases to the them. Thousands of the Nez Perce were killed by small pox. The next year thousands were killed by measles. SCOTT Why does the White Man destroy every beautiful gift of God. They killed thousands of Nez Perce, they killed millions of buffalo, why? BASSO We have the devil right here on Earth, it's the White Man, they are really pieces of shit! SCOTT Thank you Barbie for the nice compliment! BASSO If the shoe fits, were it! So what happened next? SUSAN POND In 1850 gold was discovered, and lots of prospectors went through Nez Perce land to get gold. Then Gold was discovered in Nez Perce territory. The government tried hard to keep the white man out of their land, but nobody listened. In 1855 the Nez Perce decided by treaty that they should split into three groups. One would have all the modern technology like schools and houses, money and plowed land. The next group did not like the treaty because they would have to be on a small reservation that did not have their favorite place, the Wallowa Valley. The third group wanted to get the white man off their land. SCOTT So the war started? SUSAN POND Chief Joseph (with the second group) did not like the reservation and took the group to the Wallowa Valley, where he died and was buried in 1871. Then his son, Young Joseph, became chief. BASSO I know this part is going to make me really sick but go on. SUSAN POND Three white men attacked a Nez Perce brave, then the white man and Indians started a war. The Indians decided to go up to Canada where they would be safe, but the white man followed them. The white man caught up to them finally and Chief Joseph surrendered and they were put on the Lapwai Reservation in Idaho. BASSO How many Nez Perce are left? SUSAN POND There are still Nez Perce Indians that live on the reservation. When last counted there were 4,113. That was in 1990. Lots of the THEM were killed by diseases and epidemics so now there is so few of them. Many Nez Perce were killed by the white men when they found the Nez Perce trying to escape to Canada. Wallowa Band Nez Perce Indians once lived in the beautiful Wallowa Valley located in the far northeast corner of Oregon. A peaceful tribe, they befriended many of the early explorers and settlers. That was until their expulsion and the events that led to the Nez Perce War of 1877. BASSO Why are we so bad, we are devils. I'm sorry go ahead. SUSAN POND Wallowa lands were left to the Nez Perce in an 1855 treaty, but gold and settlement caused the US Government to make new treaties, and although the Wallowa Band never signed them, government and settler pressure eventually convinced Young Chief Joseph that he must comply and move to an Idaho reservation. In 1877 the band of about 250 men, women, and children, with horses and cattle and all of their possessions, crossed the Snake River and joined other non-treaty bands on the way to the reservation. A few young warriors, distraught and angry, killed some white settlers. Joseph and other chiefs, their hands forced, then led their people on a 1,400 mile fighting retreat that ended in capture in Montana, just 40 miles from the Canadian border. BASSO So now Lonnie Smith and his pack of killers want to take all the remaining Nez Perce land away from the few that are left. Why don't they go the US government? SUSAN POND Despite eastern sympathies and Joseph's trips to Washington for meetings with President Hayes and congressmen and diplomats, the Nez Perce... specifically the Wallowa band that had made this country home for generations, were not allowed to return to the Wallowas. War veterans, widows and children were shipped to malarial lands in eastern Kansas and then to "Indian Territory." Finally, those who didn't die of disease and broken spirits were allowed to return to the Northwest. SCOTT So that's it? SUSAN POND The Nez Perce Indians dwelled in Idaho for thousands of years before the coming of the Europeans. After decades of intermittent war, the tribe made peace with the American government. Today, they occupy a reservation southeast of Lewiston Idaho. There are 138,000 acres of Indian reservation land after the treaties of 1855, 1863, and 1887. Of this total, 24 % of this land is Indian owned, including tribal ownership and tribal allotments. Full records could not be located, but it was recorded that a daughter was born to Chief Joseph at Lolo Lake in June of 1877. She died at Fort Oakland and was buried alongside at least 100 other Nez Perce children who were born here while the tribe was imprisoned and died of malaria and other diseases. Also buried here is a man named Halahtookit, who was born to a Nez Perce woman and fathered by William Clark, BASSO (breaking up) Figures, that was the first award given to a rapist, making him look like a hero. SUSAN POND In 1805 the Lewis and Clark expedition came out of the Rocky Mountains western side. The Nez Perce found them starved, sick, and near death. They fed them and took care of them until they were well enough to continue. The Nez Perce and the whites remained good friends until the yellow fever of "gold" turned them into enemies. Treaties and promise after promise was broken by the whites, supported by the U.S. Army. BASSO I can understand that, many promises to me have been broken by the White man.. SUSAN POND In 1863 a new treaty was offered, giving them a new small reservation. The first Chief Joseph, known as old Joseph, refused to sign the treaty. He died in 1871 and U.S. officials immediately ordered the Nez Perce to leave Wallowa, in what is now Washington state, and go to Lapwai in what is now Idaho. The new chief, Young Joseph, also refused to go. After much harassment and mistreatment, Nez Perce warriors fought with and killed some soldiers. Joseph, advised by sub-chiefs White Bird, Looking Glass, his brother Ollokot, and the tribal elder-prophet Tozote, decided to take the Nez Perce to Canada for safety. SUSAN POND The army pursued them through snowstorm and blizzard, and after brutally killing more than 500 women and children, 250 warriors in a pre-dawn attack, the army succeeded in turning the Nez Perce southward. BASSO This makes me sick, they have to leave their own land and when attempting to find another home all the wives and children are killed. SUSAN POND Traveling south through Yellowstone Park they were attacked by General "Bear Coat" Miles, so named by Indians because of his habit of wearing a large bearskin coat. Miles had 30 Sioux and Cheyenne scouts who had been recruited from the Indian force which had defeated Custer, and these scouts led 600 troops of the 7th Cavalry in a charge upon the Nez Perce. The charge was stopped by Nez Perce warriors, then under a flag of truce Chief Joseph was taken prisoner. Bear Coat Miles received reinforcements and the Nez Perce were besieged. Their war chief, Looking Glass, was killed, as was Tozote, the prophet. BASSO This is pathetic, how we can live with our selves after we did this to our beautiful Native Americans. SUSAN POND It was then, as a prisoner, that Chief Joseph, in order to save the lives of the remaining women and children, surrendered and made his now famous speech which ended with "I will fight no more forever." Some warriors escaped to Canada, but the remaining Nez Perce were taken to Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, instead of to the promised Lapwai reservation. One hundred Nez Perce died there before they were sent to Fort Oakland (Tonkawa) where more died of sickness and mistreatment. By 1885 only 285 Nez Perce remained alive, most of them the very young or the very old. In 1887 some were returned to Lapwai in Idaho, but Chief Joseph and a few other warriors were sent to the Colville reservation in northern Washington, where they lived in exile and separated from the other Nez Perce. On September 21, 1904 Chief Joseph, died at the age of 63. A security guard walks into the room and addresses Susan Pond. GUARD They are having problems at the Aryan brothers compound. Lonnie Smith has taken the Nez Perce Elder, John Elk so the director want's you and the FBI agents to see what you can do! CUT TO:Go to Part 4
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