Читать книгу Shaman's Dream: The Modoc War - Lu Boone's Mattson - Страница 42

“Maul rings. Cross-cut saws. Wedges. That’s it? Guess you Modocs didn’t hear: Christmas is past.”

“What you say, boss?”

“Tell him chopping axes.”

“You already got those,” Knapp said after Scarfaced Charley translated. He made a list of the tools -- all except the axes -- on the tablet before him. “You tell him he got those first thing when you all got here. What happened to them? They gone already?”

The Klamaths hanging around nearest the open door relayed the message back to the crowd on the porch as soon as Knapp said it, almost in unison with Charley, who told it to Jack.

“Goddam it,” Knapp said. “Shut that, will you! I can’t hear myself think, much less follow you two with all that clatter.”

Scarfaced did as he was told, shoving the listeners back over the threshold of the office to get the door shut.

“Okay, Jack,” Knapp said. “I’ll get what you ask for. But you’re personally responsible. You sign for those tools, just like you signed on the treaty. And I get them back in good shape or it comes out of your allotment. You understand?”

He waited while Scarfaced relayed the words in Modoc and Jack responded.

“Captain Jack say you come see for yourself we take care of them.”

“Just like you did the axes, I suppose. You better find them.”

“They not lost.”

“Where are they at, then?”

Scarfaced Charley looked at him a moment, thinking, then said flatly: “Klamaths got them.”

“Took them?”

Scarfaced Charley had just looked at the agent, neither responding nor translating.

“What happened to them?” Knapp demanded. “You don’t get any of this stuff ‘til I get an answer.”

When the Indian still stood there, unresponsive, he said:

“You lost them gambling, didn’t you?”

“We didn’t.”

“But your boys did, didn’t they? Goddam it, you get them back before you draw a single tool from this list. “Open that door,” he ordered, then shouted out at the clump of Klamaths who stood waiting on the porch.

“David Allen, you out there? Get in here!”

Those on the porch stepped aside to let the Klamath chief through.

“Scarfaced here says your boys been gambling. Says you got the axes we gave the Modocs. I want them back.”

“We ain’t got no axes,” David Allen said, giving Scarfaced Charley a dirty look.

“Then you better find some. You get them here quick, or I’ll write Meacham. He’ll take them out of your next shipment -- or out of your boys’ hides. He told you no gambling. Scarfaced, you say that to Jack, here, too.”

He waited for the translation, then said,

“Go on. Get out of here, all of you. David, you get those axes here in an hour, or else. Jack, when he does it, you can come pick up your requisition -- and your axes. I don’t want to see any of you around here after that. Now get going.