Читать книгу Shaman's Dream: The Modoc War - Lu Boone's Mattson - Страница 60

They couldn’t set up at the springs. The Bostons had got there in the time that had gone by since the last camas season. The whites had gone ahead and put up a big barn and made some corrals. They had cattle. There was a house going up, like the white ones at the agency. Keintpoos swung his people past the place in a wide arc up on the north flank of the butte, keeping it between them and the settlers. He headed them east toward the head of Lost River, half a day’s walk farther on. They could start their digging there, until he figured out what was going on at the springs. Where the Bostons were putting the buildings was just down the slope from where the cremation place was and the spot the Modocs had for their ceremonies. It looked like they were doing their building just off the old trail, on the green.

Next day, his people got moved onto the edge of the meadow below the black rocks of the canyon. All around there was that little time when the buck-brush went green and the flowers of the lava beds lit up, the days grew longer all the while. The women put up their summer houses. Not roofed enough to close out the starlight at night. But the season of rain was over, so it didn’t matter. The winds, if they blew, would come through the little shelters, but the girls could go get brush to pile against them, and usually that was enough.

While the women were setting things up, Keintpoos sent Boston Charley back to find out who that was in there. He could almost talk like a white man. Pretty quick he came in with the news. He had met Jesse and Oliver Applegate and some other man they also called Jesse. Maybe it was his place that was building, but it looked like Jesse Applegate was figuring to stay there, too. He had told Boston Charley to come on and work for them. They would show him how to do cattle. They were fixing to lay out a spread, he said, and ranch it.

Keintpoos’ people scattered along the canyon and off onto the flats and got their camas dig going. The women wove sacks out of sedge and tules while the roots were doing their half-drying in the sun. In the morning, it was time for the men to get fish, time for the women to turn the drying bulbs. In the heat of the day they rested in the shade cast by the little shelters and let Sun do the work. At night, just at dusk, when the bats started flittering against the sky, Keintpoos’ first wife told stories about the time before this, after Kumush had gotten things started. She spoke deep in her throat, like the bat people do, and told the Näníhläs story, about how they captured all the deer in the world in the deep pit; about how Maûk, the fly, led the others to find and release them.

Keintpoos sat apart with Scarfaced Charley and figured how they would put aside some of the camas for trading, so much from each family. They worked out how they would explain it, for the women would not likely give up what they had gathered for their husbands and children. The women would argue that when Tániäs Sléwis blew they would need all the dried camas they could store away. It would be hard to talk the women around after the hunger of last winter. The two men made up some plans for getting hold of a few ponies for trading. They figured how they would have Boston Charley write down on a paper all the names of the people to give to Steele. They talked about what it would be like if they were to be like white men.

When John Schonchin came over from where his wife had set up their shelter, they stopped talking about that.