wishful thinking on his part, not what he had looked forward to after weeks on his first visitation to the neglected reservations he must now answer for.
“You can put your things in there,” Knapp said, motioning toward the darkness of a shuttered room. “I think you’ll find the bed is clear.”
Next morning Meacham sat contemplating the lukewarm cup of coffee and bowl of glutinous porridge. Like the previous night’s fare, it had been handed in to him through the front door by the shriveled old Klamath woman who scurried away without a glance. He had been too tired then, and too startled, to object, had accepted and eaten whatever was in the dish while Knapp disappeared into another part of the house, evidently uninterested in food. No wonder. Meacham could have ignored it, too, had his hunger let him.
Last night it had been a relief to exchange the iciness of Knapp’s company in the parlor for the clamminess of his own bedroom and some sleep. That was then. Now, waiting for Knapp’s morning appearance, he felt his anger rising. The agent should have been up and ready. Instead, Meacham had had to lay the fire himself to chase the miserable damp from the room.
On the table next to his dishes lay the agency records, the first hint that Knapp acknowledged the work they must do. Evidently he had set them out where Meacham would find them. The ledger opened to the most recent entry: a pile of ragged receipts. He could make sense of those later. Knapp had also set out a fair copy of Lindsay Applegate’s closing report, something Meacham had already read in his office at Salem. But it was the things it didn’t say that he wanted to know about. He needed Knapp to tell him.
First, though, he wanted to use the scant time he had with his agent to lay out a plan of action, to make sure they were pulling in tandem. When these Big Talks with the Klamaths were finished and he had straightened out this business with the Modocs down along the border, he would take himself home then swing over to see Siletz. There he had a well-run reservation with an attentive agent to greet him. He sat now, waiting for the door to this Captain Knapp’s room to open, trying to hold onto his patience.
Meacham fetched his watch from its pocket again, opened it. Eight-thirty three. “Come on, Knapp,” he said to the bedroom doors. “Let’s get this over.”
#12
Seven months earlier he had been kept waiting like this. That time the doors had been mahogany, with brass fittings. Not like these rough, white-washed ones. There he had been overseen by portraits. Of presidents looking out from gilt frames. Here, on this wall, there was only an old calendar page from an almanac. But waiting was waiting, he thought. This morning he’d had enough of it.
What he wanted now was closure.
He looked out the window. Beyond it, he could see the camp taking shape: tents being raised; cooking fires being lit. Dogs. Horses. And beyond all that, on the trails converging on the agency, wherever he looked, there were people.
He let the muslin curtain drop. He pictured again that Washington morning when the usher had let him into the room, left him to face the man at the desk. Frowning. Looking down at some papers. Toying with his pursed lips. Reading.
That day, Meacham had started to say the words he had pictured -- about coming to pay his respects, about the Inaugural, about his own endorsement of Grant’s thought -- the thoughts he admired most: about… He had stumbled, but gone on… ‘a humane course, to bring the aborigines of the country under the benign influence of education…. and civilization.’
He wanted to second what Grant had said in his speech, about ‘The Indian Question:’ ‘Can not the Indian be made a useful and productive member of society by proper teaching and treatment?’ Meacham wanted to say about that.... But his words stopped, seemingly of their own volition.
What Meacham had been rehearsing as he waited in the hallway that Washington morning was not going to cut it. The president hadn’t been listening. Instead, he had gone on reading until at last he found what was had been looking for. Pinning the word to the page with his finger, Grant had looked up.
“Excuse me, Mr. Meacham,” Grant had said. “I don’t mean to cut you off. But I had to reassure myself of something. Verify for me, will you? What are you?”
Meacham had felt his brow shoot up. “Pardon me?”
“You know. Your religious affiliation? Tell me.”
“That? Why, Methodist.”
“Please be seated then,” Grant had said. “There are some things I need to tell you. And then I’ll need to ask you a further question.”
In this room, Meacham could still summon his surprise. In March, he had made that trip to Washington as a part of the Oregon delegation. Dutifully made the rounds of congressional offices. Their politicking business finished, the delegation had been headed for home. Over that last morning’s coffee he had read the text of Grant’s declaration. Decided it wouldn’t hurt to try again. Penned a note. Asked for a moment to pay the Oregon respects to the newly re-inaugurated president.
The alacrity of the response had surprised him. At his earliest convenience, it said, he was invited to meet with the president.
Something had changed all right in the White House. In ‘66, Johnson hadn’t had time to shake the hand of the then-aspiring-to-be superintendent Meacham. Wasn’t interested in seeing someone who ‘wasn’t a Johnson Man.’ Wrong party.
Now, waiting for Knapp, as he looked back, the whole experience had been more surprise than he had bargained for. He had thought about it endlessly as the train made its way all the way back across the continent. All the way to Council Bluffs, across the wide Missouri, then onto the brand new tracks where the east-west lines were getting linked.
He had allowed himself some sense of destiny on that train ride as he gazed out the windows at the scattering of the little towns, the thinning-out of the fields, the groves, the barns. The new tracks leading him through the grasslands. Sweeping westward. The train whistle and chuffing of the engine, the vibration. He had dreamed his way through all of that, scarcely taking it in because he was fixated on the picture the man in the tweed coat had painted for him of what needed to be done.
The army.
The civilians.
The cresting wave of people, filling up the land.
The corruption.
The corruption of the agencies. Agents selling off trade goods meant for the tribes.
The whisky.
The Indian agents colluding with traders; selling everything.
The selling of women. Indian women. Pregnant Indian women. Ostracized. Abandoned. Damaged goods.
The…outright scandal of the forts.
“I think you moved Indians,” Grant had said.
“I did, with my father,” Meacham had said. “Sacs and Foxes. In Iowa,”
Grant had nodded: “Quite a time past.”
“Yes.
