got thinking about that because of the miner with the padlock -- and the Indian who trusted him, when he shouldn’t have. It’s a funny story. Even I think so, and I don’t have much sense of humor left: a buck Indian with a padlock stuck through his nose. But it says a lot about things.”
“That’s like the story about old Chief Winnemucca and his hat,” Fairchild said as he headed for the door, Steele following him. “The tin pan he wore on his head because no one had the decency to tell him it was for eating out of.”
“Yes. Like that. Funny. Not funny. Funny because they’re fools to trust us? Funny because they’re dumb and we’re smart? Not funny because they wouldn’t shame someone, but we would?”
With one hand on the doorknob, Fairchild turned to face the attorney.
“You’re right. They’re back again because they made the new treaty up in Oregon six years ago but the government didn’t deliver. It managed to pick up their land, of course, and let the settlers claim it, but somehow it couldn’t figure out how to come through with a few blankets or tools or food. They didn’t get what they were promised when they followed Meacham back up to the reservation, either. Bogus Charley said as much when he brought me the letter. Said they were hungry enough up at Klamath they started in eating their horses. And now Ivan wants us to bail him out of this, him and his boss over at the agency.”
“Of course, that’s not exactly what Superintendent-of-Indian-Affairs-in-Oregon Meacham is saying up at Salem, is it?” Steele asked.
“Isn’t it? What’s his version?”
“Oregon papers said that according to him -- as he protects his posterior -- the Modocs left because Captain Jack led them. Jack left because he wanted to be a chief, and wasn’t sure he could do that if he stayed on at the reservation. ‘Love of royalty,’ I believe, is what Meacham called it.”
Fairchild swung the door open and stepped out into the hallway. “Good thing Jack can’t read!” he said. “And now they’re trusting Ivan!”
Steele called down the stairs after him as he headed for the street: “And trusting us! Can’t exactly accuse them of learning fast, can you?”
#56
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.
#57
“I wouldn’t say he exactly threatened me,” Jesse Applegate said.
It was the middle of July, and heat of the summer was on them. Far as the eye could see, the air shimmered over the dry sage-brush. On the hottest days, a haze hung between the house and the western mountains. Medicine Mountain was blue now. The tip of Shasta stood white beyond it.
“What was it he wanted, then?”
The round-headed man with the neatly trimmed grey whiskers stood in the still-unfinished living room. His tan summer suit, the pongee cravat, the hand-lasted fine-leather boots said ‘city.’ The flat wide-brimmed black hat with its silver concho band said ‘vaquero.’ All of him said ‘rich.’
His clipped words were insistent, the voice one of a man who brooked no interference.
“Rent,” Jesse Applegate said.
“Rent!” the man exclaimed. “By whose leave? Why didn’t you shoot him?”
“No need for that,” Applegate said. “In fact, that would be quite a mistake.”
He could see by the arched eyebrows that had flown up and were yet to come down that the man was in some consternation. He set out to soothe him.
“It doesn’t really mean anything,” he said. “Jack’s just feeling his oats, I’d guess. This is an old issue between us.” He could see the man was waiting. You couldn’t slide by him without full explanations.
“The trail.” Applegate gestured along the lake’s shore. “Coming through here when we blazed it, we actually followed along an old Modoc path. It took us past half a dozen or more Modoc places between Goose Lake on over past Lower Klamath. Summering places, mostly. All of them abandoned at least half the year, since the Indians move back and forth between summer and winter quarters.
“That’s what got their noses out of joint. They always complained we whites and our wagons drove the game off -- or desecrated their sacred places.”
“So what?” the man asked. “How did they expect you to get through here? Fly like a bird?”
“No, I don’t think that’s what they had in mind.”