Читать книгу Shaman's Dream: The Modoc War - Lu Boone's Mattson - Страница 73

Steele said to Roseborough: “I told him I couldn’t answer the question. I said, ‘You asking me what the white men will do to you for killing the shaman? Which white men are you talking about?’ I said. ‘The ones north of the border who might indict you and the others? They’ll lynch you. Oregon men would just like the excuse to get Captain Jack.’

“‘Them other ones wasn’t even there,’ he told me.”

Steele stopped and looked at the judge, to see his reaction. When Rosborough nodded his head in agreement, Steele continued.

“Of course, I didn’t bother to tell him how ironical it would be -- for the Oregonians to lynch one Indian because he killed another. Still, I think he got the idea. But that kind of subtle nicety would never occur to some bunch of Linkville patriots with a poker up their behinds.

“I told him, ‘I can’t make any promises about your Californians, either. But they’re not likely to be real interested. What was between you two was between you two. Besides, you didn’t kill him in California, so they can ignore it.’

“I don’t know what he made of those fine territorial distinctions. I don’t think it makes a whole lot of difference to him that something as abstract as a state line got drawn right below his village, even though he can see the mounds of earth that were piled up to show where it runs. Trying to answer him does make you pause to wonder about some things, though.”

Judge Rosborough grunted to say he agreed. “Well, much as I might want to help out, I for one am grateful that medicine-man headed north to get killed. I’ll be pleased, thank you very much, not to have the case show up in my California court!”

“Ah, yes!” Steele said. “‘Jurisdiction’ is another one of those interesting concepts, isn’t it? Who does the corpus delicti belong to? California or Oregon? Depends on a line. Federal or state officials? Depends on the boundaries inside the state. And who in the country has responsibility: the Department of the Interior or some other legal ‘entity’?” He paused and smiled grimly. “Another nice Latinate word!

“An Indian who has eloped from a reservation kills a reservation Indian not on a reservation… .

“And Jack comes in here with Black Jim, who barely speaks English, to do his translations and wants to know what the white men are going to do to him. Then he patiently waits for me to explain to his translator whether or not someone is now going to kill him. And Black Jim hears me out and then just stands there, as if there were more -- or less -- to be said. And then he turns to Jack and just shakes his head and shrugs. Flummoxed! That’s how to wear an Indian down: explain him to death!

“So I wrote to Meacham. ‘Don’t meddle,’ I told him. ‘Let them settle this thing their own way.’”

“Pray God he listens to you!” Judge Rosborough said devoutly.