Читать книгу Shaman's Dream: The Modoc War - Lu Boone's Mattson - Страница 18

“Funny,” Ivan said. “Five years, and I never saw this.”

He unbent himself from the paper he had been hovering over and straightened his back. A fair copy of the treaty lay spread before them on the table. Little rosettes of ink indicated where the daubs of red wax on the original stood, next to the crude marks the Indians had scratched beside their names. He ran his finger down the list, counting each ‘x’ as he went: twenty-one Klamaths, headed by Lalakes; Old Schonchin and Keintpoos -- Captain Jack, Stak-it-ut and Chuck-e-i-ox for the Modocs; just two for the Yahooskin Snakes.

“My uncle-in-law, Huntington, negotiated it. Your predecessor,” Ivan said to Meacham. “And my father translated it to the Indians. Good you brought it. It’s something to confront Jack with. Jog his recollection.”

Knapp snorted at the notion, but Meacham nodded.

“Right,” he said. “It’s not much, but it’s where the world of bureaucracy left off. Ancient history. Make a treaty, and nobody hears anything of it again. That must be how it seems to him.”

“He repudiated it anyway when he pulled out of this place and went home,” Knapp said. “I would have done that, too. Big promises, no action. Nothing much forthcoming for his people. Or for the Snakes for that matter, was there? What happened? Seems the Klamaths got it all. But Jack didn’t want to sign in the first place. That’s what I’ve heard.”

Ivan colored at the criticism of what had been an Applegate show.

“Makes no difference,” Meacham said. “I’m pledged to getting the whole lot of them onto this reservation in any case. And now the amendments. They don’t amount to much. I don’t expect trouble getting the Klamath chiefs or the Snakes to agree to them. It will be interesting, though, to see how this all strikes Captain Jack. He’d better not balk. I need him, and I need his mark on these changes. You won’t hear Grant’s proclamation making the treaty final until I tell him all the i’s have been dotted.” Meacham refolded the paper into its wrapper, replaced it in his map case. “‘Keintpoos,’ we had better call him, I suppose.”

“He doesn’t seem to mind the Boston name,” said Ivan. “Uses ‘Captain Jack’ himself more often than not. He likes it, I think.”

“As far as the treaty goes,” Knapp said, “he told us what to do with that when he left and took his people with him. That’s four years ago. Five years since the signing. And no one’s ever called his bluff.”

Meacham studied his agent. “Maybe we will manage to call it ourselves, you and I.”

“His bluff?” Ivan said. “If that’s what it is! We Applegates couldn’t ever get past it, and neither could Huntington.”

“Did you even try?” Knapp asked.

“We called him in after he left, to talk things over.”

“Let me guess. He declined.”

“He did. Sent word he would stay where he was and didn’t want to see us. He would let us know when we might go down there again.”

“Let me guess again: You never got invited,” Knapp said.

“There were enquiries. Father made one visit, but it failed. When the first allotment goods came in, I guess it was ‘67, Jack snubbed them. Wouldn’t come to get them; said we should bring them to him. Huntington didn’t take to that, so he led some men down to collect him. But Jack wasn’t sufficiently impressed by being visited by Oregon’s Indian Superintendent. Ran him off. Said if he ever tried to cross his river to get to his camp again, he’d shoot him. Huntington came back for some soldiers, but the fort wasn’t interested. That was the end of that. We dropped it. There was enough to do just to get the agency set up and the Klamaths settled.”

“But this was Klamath land already,” Knapp said. “How much settling could you have to do?”

“There were things to take care of. And we had to work on the problem with the Snakes.”

“Well, we’ve got a good number of them here now, if you two can keep them,” Meacham said. “Now it’s Jack’s turn for a little attention.”

“He’ll be trickier than you’d expect,” Ivan cautioned.

“I’d say he already has been,” Meacham said.

“What I mean is, this isn’t his place, not the way it’s Old Schonchin’s. The old man’s a Modoc, too, but his band is at least from near here. He’s home, so to speak. But not Jack. You have to ride fifty miles or more down to Lost River to get to him. His range is a different world altogether. Even the river doesn’t go anywhere, just circles from one of his lakes to another, part way underground. His ancestral land. His birthplace. It’s sacred, he’ll tell you, from all his forefathers’ ashes. You can’t take a Modoc very easily from where he was born. He doesn’t think he belongs anywhere else. It’s an idea you can’t reason him out of.”

“You shouldn’t settle for that! If you do, what good is a treaty, ratified or not?” Knapp asked. “It’s worthless if you don’t enforce it. I don’t think the Lost River Modoc’s opinion makes a whole lot of difference here.”

“You’d bring them all in by force without messing with this, wouldn’t you?” Meacham asked Knapp.

“Well, at least I would try it. I would have tried it a long time ago.”

“Good luck to you then,” Ivan offered.

“See here, Ivan, you tell us what you think would work, and that’s where we’ll begin. You know these people. We don’t,” Meacham said.

“That’s right, you don’t. You haven’t even laid eyes on them. Maybe it will turn out we have to force them -- which the settlers would love to watch. But if the army won’t go pick him up, you’re going to have to approach him. He sure won’t come to you. He won’t want to hear about coming back to be by Old Schonchin either; Jack’s too much a renegade to want to be around another head chief. But that’s not even the big problem. That one’s between him and the Klamaths. If you can persuade him, though I don’t think you can, you’ll have to figure out how to keep them off him. This beef goes back further than anyone can remember. They despise each other. Modocs say the Klamaths fight like women. They speak practically the same language, but the only advantage to that, far as I could ever tell, is to let them insult the pants off each other and kick up trouble. What one doesn’t start, the other one will. You’ll soon see why we didn’t go after them. Klamaths and Modocs: they’re dogs and cats, or oil and water. You won’t be glad you mixed them.”

“Then what about the Snakes? They have to live here, too.”

“They’re not the same problem. Far as the Modocs are concerned, they’re not even worth noticing. They live on bugs and wander around through the desert. Worst thing a Modoc can say to really insult someone is to accuse him of being like a Paiute -- like a Snake.

“I admit it. None of us ever knew how to get Jack and his folks in, or even close to it. But maybe if you wait some, until the weather gets colder, maybe you’ll get them then -- if it strikes him there’s something to gain here. Maybe he’ll come in to collect from you, where they can winter better. But even then, I doubt it. You’re going to find them tough people, Mr. Meacham. They don’t think like you and I do about much of anything. They’re cruel, blood-thirsty savages, if you listen to the settlers or even neighboring tribes. Everyone will tell you there’s no one quite like them. I must say, I more than half agree with that.”

“Still I have to try. If what you say is right, I’d better back up some and ask him to come meet with me,” Meacham said.

“You can give that a shot, but don’t get insulted by his answer. And don’t kill the fatted calf before you see him coming.”

There was plenty at the reservation to fix, and he would have it done, Meacham thought. Directly. All of it, including the gathering up of Jack. The work here: it was like building a home; you raised one log at a time. No. It was more like the cleansing of a house, already built, of the demons -- so it could be inhabited again.