I didn’t bother to include in the equation was the settlers. I calculated without them. They were like this Applegate clan -- and their immigrant brethren. They had a whole different set of ideas, and they undid everything I patched together with the Indians.
“I’ll spare you the details, if you don’t know them. Suffice it to say that by the time it was all finished, I was the one who had changed. I had opposed the notion of forcing the Navajos onto reservations because it cut against the grain of their whole wandering way of life. By the time it was all over, I was the strongest proponent of locking them up. Because if we didn’t, the settlers were going to kill them. Simple as that. This is the same thing all over again.”
“It’s why I have to go to see my Umatillas, to reassure myself these things can work.”
Meacham stopped himself, a bit ashamed at the sarcastic note that had crept into his voice.
“Cheer up, Meacham,” Canby said, “we’ll have our new reservation. Either the one you proposed to Washington, or else Malheur. When it’s open. That’s sufficiently far north to be out of the line of fire from the settlers. If we can get our red friends there before things blow up. By the way, I understand Ivan talked Captain Jackson into sending out some men from the fort.”
“Not enough, to hear Ivan tell it.”
“Probably not. We may not see eye-to-eye on this, Meacham. But Jackson did right, doing little. That may frustrate you, but I’m advised to let the Modocs settle this matter their own way.”
“I know. So am I. By Steele and Rosborough. And some others.”
“And you think … ?”
“That I don’t want to have to touch it either. It complicates matters. What concerns me first is to get this Lost River reservation business finished with Washington. We say what Jack did is murder, but I have to keep my eye on the bigger picture. I don’t want the Indian service to be the cause of Jack’s removal. I want that group held together until we can get them settled.”
“So you wish the army would do what, then?”
“About what it’s doing. Keep the fear of God in them for the time being. Until we hear.”
“Then we are on the same page, Meacham. You and I, at least. I’m not sure that includes Ivan.”
“It doesn’t, I assure you. When your army people couldn’t locate Jack, Ivan got a really hare-brained idea: wanted to personally lead an expedition to run Jack down.”
“That doesn’t sound like Ivan, does it!” Canby said.
“No. He’s usually more cautious. Don’t worry though. I threw water on it. Told him if you didn’t choose to pursue the matter, he should just lay it before the Grand Jury down there. Let the Oregon civil authorities indict, if they care to. Frankly, I can’t believe they’ll trouble themselves much about what one Indian did to another. In any case, the last thing I want is a vigilante action with an Indian agent running it.”
“So we’re together for the present,” Canby said, sounding gratified. “But I would go you one better. If we really want to keep Jack quiet, offer him amnesty; offer him a tribunal of Indians. I don’t care.
“But I should be more forthcoming with you, since we’re on the subject. You asked what I thought about the letter. There’s something about this doesn’t strike me just right.” Canby picked it up and scanned it. “There’s some bug biting these Applegates. I don’t doubt for a minute that Jesse is rightly representing the two points of view here, but he makes it sound as if everything is tinder waiting to ignite. You once told me that was a favorite Oregon settler tune, and now I hear it from him, too. Yet somehow I doubt that judgment. Nothing has happened with these Indians lately, has it, except for this business with the shaman?”
“Nothing I’ve heard about,” Meacham said.
Here was something to wonder about, he told himself; he couldn’t at the moment figure it.
“Well,” Meacham said, getting to his feet, “that’s for the future. For now, I’ll send my brother. Conceivably to stop a war if Jesse is right. At a minimum to gain a perspective.”
“And I will get one, too,” Canby said, rising. “Maybe Jackson can get us some insight.”
#76
John Meacham, now Klamath agent, would get right on it. He and Ivan were ready. He had sent a message through Modocs visiting at Yreka asking for a meeting with Jack at Lost River. The army wasn’t after him for the crime, John Meacham told them to tell Jack. Keep cool, he advised, until a meeting with the Superintendent could be arranged. That would have to be delayed. In the meantime, he was willing to come over to Lost River to talk. He would wait for Jack’s reply.
He waited.
No answer from Jack. John Meacham waited some more. Sent John Fairchild: Jack trusted him. Only silence. Got Old Schonchin down there: even an Indian elder urged talks. Nothing.
No response. Nothing, except from Jesse Applegate. Rent, for the land the cattle were on. Rent for the ranch. That was what Jack was demanding if the man he asked for wouldn’t come, not talk with someone else. Applegate told Jack to go whistle.
John Meacham was doing that himself, as if to let off some of the steam, when word of the raid on the wagon train came in.
“Black Jim,” the man said, furious. “Jack sicced him on it, I’d guess. Right by Applegate’s place. Made a demonstration. Nothin’ but supplies. But still, goddammit! …”
John Meacham knew what he meant: … it could have been otherwise, could have been people’s lives. It was a reminder of the old days. Not too long after the raid, before things could get organized to go after the Indians, the word came in:
“Captain Jack, he say he talk now. He meet you and Ivan Applegate and two others, Jesse’s ranch. That’s all he want to see coming. Else, no more talk to no one.”
#77
There were supposed to be two of them, not twenty. And they, too, were supposed to be unarmed. That had been the agreement.
“What’s going on?” John Meacham turned to Ivan and asked as they stood on the porch and watched the file of Indians, each with sidearms and an old rifle on his back, ride onto the ranch. They stopped at the corral and sat waiting.
“I don’t exactly know,” said Ivan. “But I think I can guess. You and me: we’re the wrong people. Not exactly the ones they think should be here.”
“But they came anyway.”
“Yes, but on their terms. That’s the message. Come on. We better not keep them waiting.”
Ivan started down the steps from the veranda’s shade, out into the radiating heat of the August afternoon. He looked more eager than John Meacham felt. Ivan read off the cast of characters: Curley Headed Doctor, the shaman; Boston Charley, the neatly dressed one; Black Jim, the big man, well-built; John Schonchin, Old Schonchin’s brother. The list went on, too many for John Meacham to keep in his head. And finally Jack, there, in the patched-up, striped shirt.
Not especially distinguished, the agent thought. Middle aged, middle height. Hair parted in the center, cropped medium short. John Meacham wouldn’t have picked him out as the leader. Not unhandsome, but not what you would expect, either. An uncomplicated looking sort of man, he told himself.
“Okay, let’s go get this over.”
As