‘Departments’ you people keep talking of. We know you Meacham’s brother. Got Knapp’s job.”
“Why don’t you get down off those horses and come on over here in the shade,” Ivan said. “We want to sit down so we can talk.”
“We don’t want Ivan telling us what to do. Ivan says one thing, means another. Sends soldiers down on Jack.”
“You still should come down here to do your talking,” John Meacham said. “I want to meet with you for my brother.”
“We don’t trust your brother, neither. He supposed to get us a reservation. And Jack here asked him to come. But he didn’t do either one. He sent you. And we still got nothin’.”
But despite his complaints, the Indian swung down off his horse and led it over to the pasture. He took down the gate and ran the horse in on the sparse grass. The others did, too, then followed him over to the little pool of shade by the barn. Black Jim picked his spot and sat down, shrugging his muzzle-loading rifle off his shoulder and laying it on the ground beside him.
“You gonna smoke?” he demanded.
“I don’t have any tobacco here,” John Meacham said, off to an inauspicious start, “but I’ll get some. Let’s begin. I am here to talk about peace in this country.”
An Indian dressed in town clothes who spoke good English -- seemingly the youngest man there, small, with handsome, regular features, intelligent eyes -- translated for the rest, his voice dispassionate. But there was no mistaking the arrogance, the anger, in the voices of the Modoc speakers themselves.
“Tell me your name,” John Meacham interrupted. “You know mine.”
“Bostin-Ah-gar,” the translator responded. “Boston Charley.”
“He is a good friend to the whites,” Ivan declared encouragingly. “A good worker. They hire him.”
“Don’t talk about that,” Black Jim demanded, picking up his gun and swinging it toward the two white men. “Talk about what them snakes in Washington going to do to get them dog soldiers off us. When they going to stop being like women? Cowards sneaking around and breaking the word they give the Indian. When they… .”
He didn’t finish. From behind him, with a low command that stopped a ripple of discontented muttering that was flowing among the seated men, Captain Jack hushed him. But from the back of the group another -- the shaman -- called out angrily. Once again, Boston Charley picked up his monotone English:
“We got the drop on you. See? Only two of you. No guns. We should shoot you now. Stop all this talking like woman gossip.”
Another man, older, his hand resting on his pistol, sitting so close to Jack that he touched him, shouted after the voice of the doctor. His Modoc words were unintelligible to John Meacham, but the message perfectly clear. This time Ivan was the one to step in.
“Boston, tell John Schonchin we’re not afraid. He can put up his weapons. We came here to talk, not fight.”
The words were repeated, and another joined in, in undertones so that the others shut up to hear what he said.
“Hooka Jim says you gonna fight sooner or later, looks like. Better do it now, get it over. They don’t want to do any talking. Talking just like flies buzzing by some heap of cow shit.”
Now Jack turned to face the younger man in the open-collared shirt and tight, beaded necklace. Some words of disagreement passed between them, and Hooka Jim got to his feet. Over his shoulder, as he stamped away toward the pasture, he called back in clear English:
“I’m gonna go piss!”
His words were like the end of a chapter, and then the new one started. It was Jack speaking this time, without looking up, recounting as if for the hundredth time the list of grievances, urged on by the others to speak. They nodded and muttered in agreement at each item on the list. John Meacham knew them all by heart, dating back to the Ben Wright massacre, coming up to the present and his Klamath Agency. Worse, said Jack, than any of the rest: the shamans from over at Klamath who now had started killing them.
“Our object here is to avert war,” John Meacham said, stopping to help Boston Charley understand the words. “But you Modocs got to remember: it was you killed off all those settlers back in Ben Wright time. It’s you who are insolent to these settlers today.”
“Who says that about any of us bothering settlers?” Jack insisted.
“Never mind names,” Ivan said. “Some big important people. They’re afraid you Indians will go off on a killing.”
“I only killed Compotwas Doctor. To stop him.”
“Well, don’t do more, any of you,” John Meacham said. “My brother sent me to show you he cares about you Modocs. He could have sent someone who wasn’t his own family. But he wanted you to see how much he trusts you. Stay put, he wants me to tell you. Don’t go roaming around the country. Don’t fight the soldiers. Don’t listen to bad white men telling you ways that will get you in trouble. Only the military and the Salem Tyee Meacham or reservation agents can council with you. Be patient, until my brother can get things fixed up.”
Half of the Indians looked away, muttering in disgust. Half listened, their faces furrowed in concentration as Boston Charley’s voice droned on. Until at last Jack stood up. This was to be his last word, evidently.
“Keintpoos says, ‘You call off them soldiers. I won’t try to keep them whites from settling long as they don’t harm my people or try to keep them from doing what they got to do. I’m going to tell my boys not to go prowling about and frightening white women. You and your brother and Ivan here got to tell all them whites the Modocs are friendly to them. No need then for brass buttons.’”
When he walked out through the seated men toward the grazing ponies, he finally looked like a chief. It wasn’t the way he moved or anything special he did. In fact, John Meacham thought, there was an inward thing about him that made him seem too aloof to be a leader. But the others got up as one, crowding around him, the belligerent men as well as the others who seemed not so sure about things. As one, when Jack left, they did, too; no one looking back, no one talking to any other.
“Well,” Ivan said when they had ridden off, “killing the shaman accomplished something! Up until that happened, they wouldn’t sit and talk like this for anyone.”
“They’re afraid we’ll get the soldiers to go really after them.”
“Yes,” said Ivan. “They are touchy about that.”
“From what you told me, I thought the way the army fumbled around and didn’t find Jack would set us back. But looks like it didn’t. Some of them make it sound like they’re spoiling for a fight, but now I doubt it. I think your uncle’s got things wrong. Just getting those few ‘brass buttons’ out in field and parading them where the Modocs could see them got the Indians’ thinking on track, even if the troops rode home empty-handed. It’s nice to see a little respect for a change, even if it’s just for a gun. But in this game, you take what you can get.”
John Meacham clapped Ivan on the shoulder, the meeting over.
“Nice place your uncle’s laying out here,” he said. “Looks like an up and coming operation.”
And it did. The corrals were in; the barn and house finished. Stone fencing stretched a distance up toward the road that ran off into the timber. It was going to be a substantial spread, John Meacham observed, the biggest one he had come across over in this region. Why shouldn’t it be, he thought to himself. Good grazing. Plenty of water. This was the first time he had gotten over this way. A low ridge of hills separated the place from Tule Lake. Otherwise, you’d be able to see clear over to Shasta on the western horizon. Beautiful country, really. No, he told himself. Better than that. It had magic.