SELLING YOUR FATHER'S BONES

In the summer of 1877, around seven hundred members of the Nez Perce Native American tribe set out on a 1,700-mile exodus through the mountains, forests, badlands and prairies of modern-day Oregon, Idaho, Wyoming and Montana. They had been forced from their homes by the great wave of settlement that crashed over the West as the American nation was born. The Nez Perce used their knowledge of the landscapes they passed through to survive six battles and many more skirmishes with the pursuing United States Army, as they raced, with women, children and village elders in their care, towards the safety of the Canadian border. But all Chief Joseph wanted was to return to his beloved Wallowa valley, which his dying father had ordered him never to abandon: 'Never sell the bones of your father and your mother.'

Short-listed for the Jonathan Lewellan Rhys prize.