Meacham continued, his words were studied, like those of one offering counsel:
“That’s right. You think straight. This goes even beyond the military. Killing us now is just what many out there wish you would do: give them just the excuse they need. They will say Ben Wright knew what he was doing, and so did all the settlers who rode into your camps and killed your women and children. The ones who came in the winter and burned what you had stored up against the long cold months. They will say you are, after all, just a savage. And savages should be exterminated. If the military won’t do it, they will kill you and your men and your women and children themselves. Someone will pay them to do it, just like the State of California did with Ben Wright.”
“Why is it I should believe you?” Jack asked. “No one up till now has told us the truth. If I trust you, and if you put us and our things in your wagons … ,” he started. But the others wouldn’t let him finish. They were all on their feet, shouting, Euchoaks and John Schonchin leading them:
“Don’t even talk about that! Don’t even say it to him!”
He had been thinking to say what Meacham wanted to hear. He had wanted to tell the others, when he could, that they could go where there were winter things for them, and if anything was wrong, they would come back. There were ways the brass buttons wouldn’t know of. But if they stayed here, and then Meacham sent the brass buttons on them …. But the others wouldn’t hear him, even if he could say it.
“How can you think this?” John Schonchin demanded. “One dish of stew got you ready to go with him! We will not follow you!”
The chorus of angry voices stopped him, and he couldn’t answer them. Why should he trust this stranger, this Meacham, when he had come to doubt even Lindsay Applegate? Why should he let himself trust this one when he knew he shouldn’t have trusted the others? What if he didn’t trust him? All anyone ever wanted from them was their land and that they should go away from it. Keintpoos knew this Meacham’s desires were the same. If they didn’t go, the soldiers would come with their new guns and kill them. He couldn’t see anything he wanted to choose.
“We will not go!” John Schonchin flared, pulling at his pistol this time. But someone laid a hand on the gun and shoved it down. It was Whim, young and untried, surely, but sensible, and strong enough in the heat of the moment to put his advice up against an elder’s:
“Listen!” he said. “Words aren’t what will hurt us.”
Meacham sat silently, a brave man or foolish, while the flame that had started with John Schonchin and the shaman spread to others. Out of the folds of their tattered clothing, their rude horsehide belts, those ones ripped their guns and knives, ready to shove Keintpoos aside.
“Wait! Wait! Hear me before you shoot!”
It was Keintpoos’ cousin, exhorting them in Modoc to keep the peace, not harm these people who had not come to fight. Who saw the one way that would save them. Who asked only to set things on a straight path! And Frank Riddle joining her, repeating only “Wait! Wait! Put the guns away! Put the guns away!” Saying it over and over. And two or three other voices joining them, saying “Wait!”
“Go away from here, Meacham!” Toby ordered. “Go away from this house. When it’s time, I call you!”
#26
“… but if they prevailed, then what would you say?”
Meacham did not often take an ironic view, but Knapp’s question threw him into that mode. “Taking the longest view possible, I would say that it wouldn’t make a particle of difference to any of us.”
Knapp seemed surprised to have gotten an answer he wanted. “Right!” he said. “You’ve got it. We’d all be dead. I think it’s a mistake not to send back to Linkville now. What good are a dozen men to us there?”
Meacham and his agent sat waiting outside the mat sleeping-hut the Modoc women had set up for them the previous night. The sage fire flared up fiercely when more brush was piled on the embers; it roared a while, then sank as quickly down again, letting the cold resume its attack. The Klamath women and McKay had settled into the bed of one of the wagons, their meager blankets and a canvas pulled over them. George Nurse and Gus Horn were holed up somewhere. The drovers were off by themselves at a second fire, which also had been brightening on and off fitfully through the night.
It was hard to say how late it had grown, and Meacham didn’t want to dig for his watch. Between the flurries, the sky would seem to widen out but never quite clear; then it would lower again and the snow would wrap itself once more around them, the little sleety flakes dusting their robes and disappearing into the fire.
“I say it ought to be now,” Knapp said. “If we wait long enough, we might as well save the trouble of sending for anyone.”
The agent shoved back the robe that was covering him and struggled to his feet. He crossed to the far side of the campfire and peered through the dark, off toward the dozen or so lodges that made up the village. As their own fire dimmed, Meacham could see across it to Jack’s big house. Smoke still circled up from the roof-hole, and here and there chinks of light showed through the mat and sod roof. The same sounds of haranguing came across the brittle air, interrupted on and off by shouts of derision. Then they would subside and another voice would take up the monotonous arguing. Once in a while he could make out what sounded like Toby. Under it all came the sound of the kiuks, chanting.
The agent stamped away into the darkness and returned with another armload of brush. The look of disgust was easy enough to read as the flames flashed up once again and he settled back into his blankets.
“How long do you think it would take to get there?” Meacham asked, relenting; then he answered his own question. “Two hours up and back on a fast horse; another hour to get them moving.” Just then one of the drovers heading into the darkness caught his attention, and the superintendent watched him. “In the best of circumstances, if all goes well, we would have them down here in the morning anyway. But you’re right. If something gets fouled up, we would wish we had sent for them tonight. Have it your way, Knapp,” he said, “I give in. Go ahead and send someone now. Tell him to say he’s looking for stray horses if they stop him.”
Knapp was on his feet and headed toward the drovers’ fire before Meacham could reconsider. “But make sure he goes quietly. And make sure he understands: They must come in absolute silence and stop well short of here. Absolute quiet, you hear? See to it. No mistakes.”
#27
When John Schonchin got started he never finished. He kept on saying the same thing over and over. The only difference was, he got madder and madder as he went along. He got going like something rolling down hill. A loose boulder. The veins would stand out on his neck and he’d sweat. And if you didn’t keep looking at him, he would step out of the center, give up the speaker’s place, and come over and shove against you. He’d push his big stinking face into yours and make you agree. Or try to. So you better keep your eyes locked on his, keep watching for a break, when he rolled onto a level place and you could take your turn in the middle. Or someone else could who knew how to sing more than one tune.
The younger man fingered the scar on his face, hooked his eyes onto John Schonchin, and waited for his chance.
“No!” Schonchin roared, this time his whole body was in it. “You don’t know what you’re sayin’! You weren’t there. You weren’t even born yet. I can tell you, and you better listen. This is just like that time. There was supposed to be a feast then, too. And gifts! I tell you, there’s only one gift a Boston ever is willing to give an Indian.” He was so mad