Читать книгу Shaman's Dream: The Modoc War - Lu Boone's Mattson - Страница 27

They must eat, this Meacham said. As soon as the first of the wagons got there, he would make the Indians a feast. There would be beef and bread and sweets and strong coffee. And when they were through and their bowls were turned over, they would smoke the Big Tyee’s tobacco -- and then the Modocs were to decide, and then they would do what the Modocs agreed to.

First of all, thought Euchoaks, they would not eat. Not John Schonchin nor Keintpoos nor him, nor any of the Modocs who could remember or had ears. There had been another feast offered here on Lost River, by another who had shown his snakeskin underneath. When they had been too afraid that he would poison them, they had refused to eat what he gave them. Then pretty soon that Ben Wright had come back with his white flag early one rainy morning to the camp. “Where’s Schonchin?” he asked, but the headman wasn’t there. “Then what you done with the settlers’ things?” he demanded. “What things?” somebody said. “Them things you took at the slaughter. Bloody Point things!” said Wright. “No things with us!” said another. When Wright shot through the blanket he was wearing for a jacket and a Modoc Indian fell dead, all the village men came running out of their houses and huts. And the whites who were hiding stood up on the bank above them and shot them. Shot them dead where they stood in the rain, looking up. Shot them where they ran into the tules to hide in the water. Shot them in the sage-brush. Rounded up who was left and shot them dead, too. Then scalped them and cut them up. “That’s for Bloody Point!” Ben Wright said. Forty gone -- men, women, children. Five survivors. John Schonchin was one. So was he. So was Old Schonchin. They didn’t need any more feedings. So why was Jack messing with this? No good could come to any Modoc from it.

There wasn’t anything new for the Bostons to say, so how come there was all this talking?