This story is about Andrew Nine Pipe, a Bitterroot Salish man, who came out of the Bitterroot Valley with Chief Charlo in 1891, when he was just five years old. I heard this story from the late Bitterroot Salish elder, Louie Adams.
Around 1940, a non-Indian newcomer arrived on the Flathead Indian Reservation in an area called Valley Creek, not too far from the SKT Home Office in St. Ignatius. This newcomer had a ranch and needed some seasonal help to mend fences—nothing too strenuous. Despite being in his fifties, Andrew Nine Pipe expressed interest in the job. The rancher asked around about him, and everyone had good things to say about Andrew and his reliability.
Andrew started work the following Monday. The rancher, unsure how to break the ice, asked him what the weather was going to be like. On that sunny morning, Andrew calmly replied, “It will rain this afternoon.” Sure enough, clouds rolled in, and it poured later that day.
The next day, under gloomy skies, the rancher asked again, “What’s the weather going to be like today, Andrew?” Andrew confidently stated, “It will clear by noon and be sunny the rest of the day.” The rancher was impressed when the day played out exactly as Andrew predicted.
For the rest of the week, Andrew continued to accurately forecast the weather with 100% precision. By late Friday, the rancher was in awe. He told his wife that Andrew must be one of those Salish medicine men he’d heard about from other ranchers at the local watering hole in Arlee. He wondered what other powers Andrew might possess and was eager to see if he could maintain his weather streak the following week.
Come Monday, Andrew arrived on time as usual. The rancher, eager to test him again, asked, “So, Andrew, what’s the weather going to be like today?”
Andrew shrugged and said, “I don’t know, my radio broke over the weekend—I couldn’t catch the weather report.”
