Читать книгу Shaman's Dream: The Modoc War - Lu Boone's Mattson - Страница 37

He wrote:

“25 December 1869

Dear Brother Oliver: … .”

Ivan dipped the pen again and sat calculating, his eyes on the blue flame that licked along the edge of the fresh log he had laid on the fire. He hunched lower into his jacket, rocking a bit, blowing his breath onto the tips of his fingers to warm them. Cold air sifted through every crack in the house. He had come back to the news about Lucien -- and Lucien’s anger. Now, before his brother beat him to it, he must prepare Oliver.

What was it that would pull Oliver back from the brink before them? Their brother finally had jumped ship, and Oliver must be told about it. Lucien’s version was, of course, that he was going to be pushed by the superintendent and the agent. And probably they would have been up to doing that, in time. But Lu was demanding Ivan and O.C. now follow him, throw off their agency jobs. Protest his forced ‘retirement.’ Not likely, Ivan thought to himself. He didn’t intend to lose, especially now when it seemed he and Knapp were beginning to cement something between them. He planned, instead, on a surer route. He would go on being indispensable, figuring to be at the agency long after Knapp and others had passed on through it. He took a little pride in knowing how to survive, how to manage things so they came out right for him and his. He had learned it by watching his father’s mistakes. He was neither going to jump nor be shoved.

Besides, how else bring about a restoration? All the Applegates had to do was wait, he figured. Patience and determination might be their only weapons at the moment, but they would be adequate. He was sure of it. Patience and determination, dear Oliver. Try it.

Ever since Knapp’s arrival it had been clear that something more would be laid on the altar by way of an Applegate offering. Too bad it had to be their brother. Ivan could go into that later.

First, though, he would tell him what had transpired at Lost River. The plan he had put together, it appeared, had worked. The little party had triumphed, so Knapp said in the message he sent ahead to let Ivan know when they would be coming. Now Ivan was directed to remain at the agency and wait for Jack’s Modocs, who would be starting on Tuesday, weather permitting. They had had a very stormy two days of it, and as Knapp was writing, a hard rain had started to fall. But rain or no, nearly all the Indians would be in. So said Knapp, crisp and business-like in the message, only an undertone of self-satisfaction showing through.

Ivan thought of the Modocs lurching along through the mud in the open government wagons, heading north of Linkville to the place where the rocks jutted out into the lake. It would be a miserable, wet bunch of sullen people he would greet in that windswept place the next day. Hardly a homecoming party. And where were they to put them? Or what feed them? Those were his kinds of problems now. He half resented Meacham’s and Knapp’s gleaning the success, even though he was a main part of it. It shouldn’t have been so easy for the newcomers. Still, he had to admit it, at least to himself: that any plan at all had worked -- given stiff-necked Jack -- amazed him.

He wrote: One hundred and fifty of them; he would meet them at Rocky Point, as instructed, with the blankets and beef and all of the other things that had been promised.

There still remained, however, the matter that Ivan had to raise with O.C of the grain they had turned over, and the issue of the number of horses turned in. When he left, Meacham would take all the receipts and the agency books along to do his reckoning. So there soon would be questions. And there were the reimbursements to ask for, to pay off three of the Klamaths… .

He realized he was wandering into details Oliver didn’t need to hear about on this snowy Christmas evening. He didn’t want to distract him with that sort of thing. It was more important Oliver not be discouraged or angry, for they would have to pull in harness together now, especially since there were only two Applegates left to work the reservation.

He wrote, trying to get his younger brother thinking right: “I trust you will use all possible courtesy toward Capt. Knapp, -- for the present at least, and I can manage him -- All will work o.k. in time.”

He sat for a few moments tapping his fingernail against his lower teeth. Patience. Then he dipped the point of his pen into the ink one last time and finished:

He wrote: “Be of good cheer. We have a lifetime before us.”