"What did we do to you?" the chief asks in his head

His people's feet are bloody from the miles they'd tread

A young woman falls and he helps her to her feet

Worry scrunches his brow and he can feel defeat

He'd taken his people from their land to anew

And he knows all the things they've been put through

All he wanted was peace on Earth

Between the kind Americans and the gentle Nez Perce

 

Behind them, soldiers scramble with guns

Trying to capture their honor and give it to their sons

"Get them," the general had yelled, "or don't come home!"

So on they went without showers or a comb

They stomp their boots deep into young children's graves

Unaware that they are being used as war slaves

Their hunting equipment is cocked and loaded

And their sobriety has long eroded

 

The chief up ahead hears a noise and awakens

He almost hopes that he is mistaken

The forest comes alive as a bear comes out

But she's following the scent of berries in her snout

His intemperate fear of the Americans' odium

Becomes slightly assuaged when he sees his people sleeping

They'd suffered the loss of family and friends

The least he could do was let them sleep in

 

The soldiers press on, bayonets raised

Each carrying wounds where arrows grazed

They don't know of peace, all they know is conquest

They don't know enough to impugn and protest

Their lives were ignoble to their hungry superiors

Who only wants the land of the inferiors

The hypothetical praise drove their plight

It kept them awake all hours of the night

 

The chief's people are tired and weary

The night before had been rainy and dreary

Babies were dying and men had dissipated

But it was better than being Christianized and expurgated

Out of nowhere soldiers emerge

The chief's heart becomes stricken with pain and hurt

Before they shoot, he gives out a cry

He can't let anymore of his people die

 

He tells them that whether they like it or not

They'd been captured and had lost

Family had died and returned to the earth

Resting with the people who'd given them birth

They were taken to Oklahoma and many died

The chief watched with tears in his eyes

His promise to his father had been broken

And to his people he'd committed the ultimate treason