pocket knife. Ignoring it, the old man held the parcel in the pool of light that fell from the lamp onto the table. He picked stubbornly at the unyielding knot that held the cord in place around the letters.
“I believe that’s what the boy in the telegraph office was hinting at,” Oliver shouted from the kitchen, not paying much attention to whether anyone was listening. “But I didn’t want to come right out and ask him. That office leaks like a rusty bucket. Any information that is in it always ends up in the street. Have you noticed that?”
He rattled on good-naturedly as usual, ebullient just to be here at last, the bearer of tidings, however bad. Under the lamp-light, Jesse’s finger picked on at the knot.
“Here, Uncle,” Ivan insisted. “Let me.” But Jesse persevered, just as Lindsay, still grousing, kept at the desk.
“I’ll tell you what it says,” Oliver called out to them. “This is according to the telegraph boy: ‘Sorry to hear about your dad’s job,’ he says. ‘Seems a shame to lose the agency.’ He says, ‘I wonder what this Knapp fellow’s like,’ he says. ‘Not as good for the area as your family, I guess.’ And when I got back to the stable, the missus comes out of the house to ask if you would be moving back to Ashland Mills, or would you be going back up to the valley to be by Uncle Charley after this Knapp arrived.
“Look in there, Uncle, and see if that isn’t the name: Knapp.”
“He’ll be looking for these,” Lindsay said, crossing from the desk to the table with the black-bound ledgers held before him. He set them where the lamp light could fall on them, then went back to rummage further.
“What’s that?” Oliver asked. “Ah, yes. The books!” He stood holding a plate of food, fork poised, regarding the documents and little slips of paper his father piled before his brother Ivan.
“The books,” Lindsay repeated. “Of the Klamath Agency. Not quite up to date, but everything should be there. Everything they’d care to see. They’re welcome to them. Good riddance, I say. Let this Knapp see how he takes to government red-tape. I didn’t like it.”
“You can see that, all right,” Ivan said. “Better let us have a look.”
He took a sheaf of loose papers and started shuffling through them, then drew one of the ledgers to him and opened it. Neat lines of script filled the first few pages, notations of amounts received, paid out, the names of the recipients, the items. Cash to provisioners for nails, flour, tools. Money approved by Washington, allocated by the Oregon Superintendent for Indian Affairs. Goods delivered in the past to the agency for their charges: blankets, grain, clothing. Wages paid to the sub-agents: to Ivan and Oliver and Lucien. Gifts received recently from the Methodist church to assist the school. Beginning October 1864, noting the opening of the agency, pursuant to the treaty -- still not ratified -- with Lindsay appointed agent, the list ran on for pages, dates carefully entered. Eventually, though, six pages, six months or a year later, the entries thinned, the labored penmanship grew illegible; many lines were left incomplete.
Ivan sat with a wad of receipts in his hand, the ledger opened before him, while his father watched, chewing at his lips, the line between his eyes furrowing his brow more deeply. Ivan drew a deep breath, regarding the wisps of paper, but said nothing. Instead, he simply began sorting, slowly examining both sides of each paper, setting it into its place atop the proper stack, then going on to the next one.
“He’s right,” Jesse said. The packet, finally overcome, lay open before him, and he held the telegram in his hand.
His brother looked at him; so did his nephews, inquiring. “Who is?” Lindsay asked.
“The boy at the telegraph office. The man’s name is Knapp. Orson C. Knapp. Captain Knapp. To replace Lindsay Applegate. Knapp to report directly to the Office of Indian Affairs, to Parker, just like his boss, Mr. Meacham. Guess Superintendent Meacham doesn’t get to superintend his own new agent. Not the neatest of arrangements, is it? But it makes for an interesting line of reporting. Then Parker to the Interior Secretary to Grant. Well, at least its not Parker to the War Department to Grant. We can take some comfort from that.” He held out the telegram to his brother. “So, Knapp, then. Our captain will be here October 1. What do we know about him?”
“Nothing, evidently,” O. C. said when no one responded. “Maybe a new retiree.”
“Likely,” Jesse said. “Woods are full of ‘em now. I must compliment you, Oliver. Your trip to Salem was timely. For a while there, I thought we’d have more than just a retiring officer as agent. I thought the state’s reservations would be turned over to the army down to the last horseshoe nail and blanket.”
“So did I,” O. C. answered. “And so did Meacham, evidently, along with all the others. But I cornered our senator and reminded him he was elected and wanted to be next year. I put him in mind of all those purveyors of goods and services, all those officials and functionaries who hoped they would be able to vote for him. Jogged his memory about the virtues of civil authority. He high-tailed it to Washington to look after the jobs of voting Oregon citizens. Army’s going to have to find some other sinecures for its excess stock of officers, now that the war is over.”
“Meacham must have thanked you. Saved his new position for him!” Lucien said. “Looked for a while there like he could stop unpacking.”
“Let’s just say I didn’t discourage his understanding about who he had to be grateful to. That storm about jurisdiction’s blown over for the moment, but I don’t assume the matter’s finished.”
#9
“Then that is the worst of it,” Lindsay said. The clock on the mantle said that it was past two a.m. Like late-hour poker players breaking up, the cluster of men scraped their chairs back on the wooden floors, stretched out their cramped limbs. “Hardly a federal offense.” He made the words sound defensive.
“Imaginative book-keeping, you could call it,” Oliver boomed at him. He clapped his father on the back encouragingly. “They can’t expect much more here on the edge of the continent, off in the wilds like this. Cheer up, old man.”
Ivan, the only one still seated, held the last ledger open before him, his fingers thrust into the pages they had worked through. “I would hold off on that optimism,” he said. “We haven’t exactly finished the last of it.”
Jesse and Lucien grunted in unison, voting with him for caution.
“So what if the records are sketchy?” Oliver said. “Ivan can fill in what’s missing, and Captain Knapp can have his books. We can even show him how to do it when his time comes to be audited.”
“That’s not funny, Oliver,” Lindsay said. “It’s my job we’re talking about here.”
“It’s mine, too,” Oliver replied, “and Ivan’s and Lucien’s if we don’t keep ahead of them on this. Don’t think I’m not serious! Look at the books! I’ve been everything around here from Translator to Superintendent of Farming, some things twice. Looks to me like a clean sweep of all of us if they choose to make it one. But I don’t think they will if we’re smart. Forgive me, Papa, if I sounded flippant, but I don’t relish going back to selling sewing machines!
“If we’re going to outlast this new captain, as I assume we mean to, we must make ourselves indispensable. We should cut our losses; not wait for this Knapp -- or maybe even Superintendent Meacham -- to persuade Washington to set us adrift. They need someone to make this place operate. Let’s have Ivan go on now as sub-agent over at Sprague River; Knapp has no reason to dismiss him. Lucien and I can be signed on as teachers. I’ve done that, and it’s what they can use. What we need to do is whip this place into shape, tie up the loose ends. It’s like the books: there are things to be done around here -- things we had better get around to, while there’s any