the door. He had needed him over at Yainax, and Knapp had not been there.
Now, as he rode into the Klamath agency, the spaciousness of the whole layout surprised him. He had prepared himself for just another scattering of cabins, but here regular streets led off to substantial, well-maintained buildings. Wagons and some pieces of machinery were pulled up trimly on the lee sides of the workshops. In the far distance, two-story structures that must be the dormitories stood white-washed and gleaming against the dark green of the pines. Forest litter had been recently gathered together in neat piles ready for burning. There was a gratifying appearance of order about the place.
He turned and knocked again, aware as he did so that the house had a closed and unused feel about it. He stepped over to peer through a partially opened shutter, half-expecting to discover Knapp coming forward to meet him. Not so, however. The signs of Knapp’s arrival weeks ago still lay about the unlighted room: wicker trunks, satchels, valises that had not yet been unstrapped. In the dim light, the place had the cluttered look of a railroad waiting-room before some long overdue train has pulled in. But the man had been at the agency since the first day of October, and here it was, the beginning of December.
Well, what he did inside his own residence was really none of Meacham’s business. It would be all right just so long as Knapp managed affairs better outside than he seemed to have done inside that living room. But it did seem odd, didn’t it? Where was he? Meacham cupped his hands around his eyes to see deeper into the room.
“Looking for me, I guess, Mr. Superintendent.”
Meacham wheeled to find his agent coming down the walk toward him, a pinched expression on his closed and narrow face. Meacham felt his own cheeks flush, not in chagrin at being caught peering in at a chink of window, but in deep irritation at having been forced to it by the man’s inattention to common hospitality. It was a poor performance after the agent’s failure to meet him, if not on the trail with David Allen and Ivan Applegate, then certainly at the very least at Yainax. It seemed he sent his subordinates as proxies to let Meacham know how things stood.
“You could have gone in,” Knapp said, reaching past him and swinging the door open into the room. “I don’t lock it.”
Meacham had sent word ahead that he expected to stop over with him for the duration of the Big Talk with the Klamaths, but the house showed no sign that Knapp anticipated a visitor, especially not the Superintendent of Indian Affairs for the State of Oregon. There was no fire, and the damp cold of the room said there had been none. Meacham felt sure any preparations for dinner were only wishful thinking on his part, not what he had looked forward to after weeks on his first visitation to the neglected reservations he must now answer for.
“You can put your things in there,” Knapp said, motioning toward the darkness of a shuttered room. “I think you’ll find the bed is clear.”
Next morning Meacham sat contemplating the lukewarm cup of coffee and bowl of glutinous porridge. Like the previous night’s fare, it had been handed in to him through the front door by the shriveled old Klamath woman who scurried away without a glance. He had been too tired then, and too startled, to object, had accepted and eaten whatever was in the dish while Knapp disappeared into another part of the house, evidently uninterested in food. No wonder. Meacham could have ignored it, too, had his hunger let him.
Last night it had been a relief to exchange the iciness of Knapp’s company in the parlor for the clamminess of his own bedroom and some sleep. That was then. Now, waiting for Knapp’s morning appearance, he felt his anger rising. The agent should have been up and ready. Instead, Meacham had had to lay the fire himself to chase the miserable damp from the room.
On the table next to his dishes lay the agency records, the first hint that Knapp acknowledged the work they must do. Evidently he had set them out where Meacham would find them. The ledger opened to the most recent entry: a pile of ragged receipts. He could make sense of those later. Knapp had also set out a fair copy of Lindsay Applegate’s closing report, something Meacham had already read in his office at Salem. But it was the things it didn’t say that he wanted to know about. He needed Knapp to tell him.
First, though, he wanted to use the scant time he had with his agent to lay out a plan of action, to make sure they were pulling in tandem. When these Big Talks with the Klamaths were finished and he had straightened out this business with the Modocs down along the border, he would take himself home then swing over to see Siletz. There he had a well-run reservation with an attentive agent to greet him. He sat now, waiting for the door to this Captain Knapp’s room to open, trying to hold onto his patience.
Meacham fetched his watch from its pocket again, opened it. Eight-thirty three. “Come on, Knapp,” he said to the bedroom doors. “Let’s get this over.”
#12
Seven months earlier he had been kept waiting like this. That time the doors had been mahogany, with brass fittings. Not like these rough, white-washed ones. There he had been overseen by portraits. Of presidents looking out from gilt frames. Here, on this wall, there was only an old calendar page from an almanac. But waiting was waiting, he thought. This morning he’d had enough of it.
What he wanted now was closure.
He looked out the window. Beyond it, he could see the camp taking shape: tents being raised; cooking fires being lit. Dogs. Horses. And beyond all that, on the trails converging on the agency, wherever he looked, there were people.
He let the muslin curtain drop. He pictured again that Washington morning when the usher had let him into the room, left him to face the man at the desk. Frowning. Looking down at some papers. Toying with his pursed lips. Reading.
That day, Meacham had started to say the words he had pictured -- about coming to pay his respects, about the Inaugural, about his own endorsement of Grant’s thought -- the thoughts he admired most: about… He had stumbled, but gone on… ‘a humane course, to bring the aborigines of the country under the benign influence of education…. and civilization.’
He wanted to second what Grant had said in his speech, about ‘The Indian Question:’ ‘Can not the Indian be made a useful and productive member of society by proper teaching and treatment?’ Meacham wanted to say about that.... But his words stopped, seemingly of their own volition.
What Meacham had been rehearsing as he waited in the hallway that Washington morning was not going to cut it. The president hadn’t been listening. Instead, he had gone on reading until at last he found what was had been looking for. Pinning the word to the page with his finger, Grant had looked up.
“Excuse me, Mr. Meacham,” Grant had said. “I don’t mean to cut you off. But I had to reassure myself of something. Verify for me, will you? What are you?”
Meacham had felt his brow shoot up. “Pardon me?”
“You know. Your religious affiliation? Tell me.”
“That? Why, Methodist.”
“Please be seated then,” Grant had said. “There are some things I need to tell you. And then I’ll need to ask you a further question.”
In this room, Meacham could still summon his surprise. In March, he had made that trip to Washington as a part of the Oregon delegation. Dutifully made the rounds of congressional offices. Their politicking business finished, the delegation had been headed for home. Over that last morning’s coffee he had read the text of Grant’s declaration. Decided it wouldn’t hurt to try again. Penned a note. Asked for a moment to pay the Oregon respects to the newly re-inaugurated president.
The alacrity of the response had surprised him. At his earliest convenience, it said, he was invited to meet with the president.
Something had changed all right in the White House. In ‘66, Johnson hadn’t had time to shake the hand of the then-aspiring-to-be superintendent Meacham.