Читать книгу Shaman's Dream: The Modoc War - Lu Boone's Mattson - Страница 29

That night it was time to decide. With his house once again full of people, Keintpoos said to Meacham, as if he had a new idea, “And if I say no? If I stay here where I was born? If I and my people just kill you and send back your bodies to say what the answer is, then what happens?”

Meacham looked at him sadly: “Then not one of you Modocs will live.”

The words hung thick on the air after Toby had translated them.

“Well, then, Meacham, maybe me and my boys be ashamed to fight so few men as come along with you.”

When Meacham continued, his words were studied, like those of one offering counsel:

“That’s right. You think straight. This goes even beyond the military. Killing us now is just what many out there wish you would do: give them just the excuse they need. They will say Ben Wright knew what he was doing, and so did all the settlers who rode into your camps and killed your women and children. The ones who came in the winter and burned what you had stored up against the long cold months. They will say you are, after all, just a savage. And savages should be exterminated. If the military won’t do it, they will kill you and your men and your women and children themselves. Someone will pay them to do it, just like the State of California did with Ben Wright.”

“Why is it I should believe you?” Jack asked. “No one up till now has told us the truth. If I trust you, and if you put us and our things in your wagons … ,” he started. But the others wouldn’t let him finish. They were all on their feet, shouting, Euchoaks and John Schonchin leading them:

“Don’t even talk about that! Don’t even say it to him!”

He had been thinking to say what Meacham wanted to hear. He had wanted to tell the others, when he could, that they could go where there were winter things for them, and if anything was wrong, they would come back. There were ways the brass buttons wouldn’t know of. But if they stayed here, and then Meacham sent the brass buttons on them …. But the others wouldn’t hear him, even if he could say it.

“How can you think this?” John Schonchin demanded. “One dish of stew got you ready to go with him! We will not follow you!”

The chorus of angry voices stopped him, and he couldn’t answer them. Why should he trust this stranger, this Meacham, when he had come to doubt even Lindsay Applegate? Why should he let himself trust this one when he knew he shouldn’t have trusted the others? What if he didn’t trust him? All anyone ever wanted from them was their land and that they should go away from it. Keintpoos knew this Meacham’s desires were the same. If they didn’t go, the soldiers would come with their new guns and kill them. He couldn’t see anything he wanted to choose.

“We will not go!” John Schonchin flared, pulling at his pistol this time. But someone laid a hand on the gun and shoved it down. It was Whim, young and untried, surely, but sensible, and strong enough in the heat of the moment to put his advice up against an elder’s:

“Listen!” he said. “Words aren’t what will hurt us.”

Meacham sat silently, a brave man or foolish, while the flame that had started with John Schonchin and the shaman spread to others. Out of the folds of their tattered clothing, their rude horsehide belts, those ones ripped their guns and knives, ready to shove Keintpoos aside.

“Wait! Wait! Hear me before you shoot!”

It was Keintpoos’ cousin, exhorting them in Modoc to keep the peace, not harm these people who had not come to fight. Who saw the one way that would save them. Who asked only to set things on a straight path! And Frank Riddle joining her, repeating only “Wait! Wait! Put the guns away! Put the guns away!” Saying it over and over. And two or three other voices joining them, saying “Wait!”

“Go away from here, Meacham!” Toby ordered. “Go away from this house. When it’s time, I call you!”