Читать книгу Shaman's Dream: The Modoc War - Lu Boone's Mattson - Страница 21

He said turn them back, said he wouldn’t see them then. But maybe they didn’t listen. There, in the depth of his house, Keintpoos stood looking up the ladder to the roof opening, listening to the commotion outside. He heard the horses running back along the trail, heard them heave to a halt, heard footsteps race up the roof.

“They’re coming!” the look-out shouted down to him through the smoke-hole. “They wouldn’t hear me. They’re many.”

Keintpoos turned to John Schonchin who sat with the kiuks Euchoaks and some others next to the fire. In the dusk of the sleeping areas of the families, the women stopped what they were doing and fell silent, shushing the children.

“Hear that?” Keintpoos asked, and John Schonchin nodded yes.

“Who are they?” Keintpoos demanded of the messenger.

“Some of our women and their Klamath men, the ones who came before to see you. McKay. A red-whiskered man. Another in town clothes, black. He must be the one.” The messenger looked down the ladder, impatient for Keintpoos’ answer. “Frank Nurse’s come with them, too, I think, and Horn. McKay said they must see ‘Captain Jack.’ He used that name, not ‘Keintpoos.’”

“Soldiers?” John Schonchin asked.

“No brass buttons. Only these.”

“I told you to say I wouldn’t see them. I don’t wish to speak to them now. When I want to, I’ll send a messenger.”

“I said that, but the one in black shoved past us. We couldn’t stop him. He’s here. Now. I’ll tell him again.”

The lookout withdrew, and outside there was turmoil. Keintpoos could hear the raised voices, the high keening sound of women off at a distance. His own women picked it up, began chattering. He looked again at the men by the fire. The kiuks stared before him, but John Schonchin nodded his head. “You’re going to have to hear them,” he said.

“I’ll see one!” Keintpoos shouted to the watchman. “Tell them I’ll say when that one should come!”

The messenger looked back down the ladder, then withdrew, crying out in broken English to those outside, “Keintpoos see one only. One only come alone! You all others leave now. Go on b…!” He could not finish his words, though, because the black-clad figure had knocked him away and had slid without stopping, sprawling at the bottom of the ladder in a cloud of roof-dirt and of dust kicked up from the floor mats.

He cried out some Boston words as he got up. He dropped his parfleche at his feet to pull back his coat, show his white shirt, the belt and trousers. Keintpoos could see for himself there was no gun, unless in a pocket. But the man was coming forward as if he knew the thought. He was saying in his own tongue -- something. Scarfaced Charley took the words from him and made them into Modoc:

“‘I have no weapons,’ he says. ‘You must look. And I come in peace. I am Superintendent Meacham. Who of you is Captain Jack?’”