not, if I might ask?”
Meacham sighted down his line of reasoning before he continued. He had worked out his thoughts all across the continent as the train from Washington rolled its uninterrupted way west. He had glimpsed once again parts of the territory he and his brother had driven their oxen through twenty years earlier. This time, however, the landmarks had slid past his window, one after another, in too-easy succession. As the quick miles unreeled behind him, he knew it was the future which rushed him ineluctably to the new land. It was tomorrow -- and its hordes of people -- that breathed down his neck.
“Because unless the Indians change what they believe in, they won’t be like us,” he said. “And if they insist on being different, we won’t let them do it.”
“That’s drivel.”
“No, it’s not. I volunteered to help save them. I believe what we offer is right. I believe in peace, in the brotherhood of the races, the equality of all men -- all that. I would lay down my life for those ideas. But all that aside, I’m certain the Indians -- our ‘Wards of the Nation’ -- have to give up what they believe in -- and their shamans with it. They must embrace what we bring them: a higher understanding of life’s purpose … .”
Meacham stopped and measured the agent with his eyes.
“… because otherwise we will kill them. It’s as simple as that. We are a wave cresting, I’ve been told. And when we break, we will sweep everything before us. You may hear the same strains I’ve heard: We are going to exterminate them.”
Knapp watched him in silence for a moment, then he said:
“I must apologize, Meacham; I had you wrong. I read you for a Bible-thumping, teetotalling, hand-wringing Christian for a moment there. But I see I was way off. Instead, you are a cynic like I am.”
“No,” Meacham replied. “I’m not.”
“What are you then?”
“You would best call me a ‘meliorist,’ I think. I fix things. I make them better.”
“Then you’re worse than I thought! A do-gooder by profession, not belief! You better be good at it, Mr. Meacham. God help a lot of people if you’re not.” Knapp stopped and heaved a great sigh. “All right,” he said. “So you fix things. So let’s go on to your last point, Superintendent. How do you plan to handle Captain Jack?”
“I don’t know yet,” Meacham said. “Let’s get through the coming week with the Klamaths out there under the trees. When that’s over, get us Ivan.”
#14
“Funny,” Ivan said. “Five years, and I never saw this.”
He unbent himself from the paper he had been hovering over and straightened his back. A fair copy of the treaty lay spread before them on the table. Little rosettes of ink indicated where the daubs of red wax on the original stood, next to the crude marks the Indians had scratched beside their names. He ran his finger down the list, counting each ‘x’ as he went: twenty-one Klamaths, headed by Lalakes; Old Schonchin and Keintpoos -- Captain Jack, Stak-it-ut and Chuck-e-i-ox for the Modocs; just two for the Yahooskin Snakes.
“My uncle-in-law, Huntington, negotiated it. Your predecessor,” Ivan said to Meacham. “And my father translated it to the Indians. Good you brought it. It’s something to confront Jack with. Jog his recollection.”
Knapp snorted at the notion, but Meacham nodded.
“Right,” he said. “It’s not much, but it’s where the world of bureaucracy left off. Ancient history. Make a treaty, and nobody hears anything of it again. That must be how it seems to him.”
“He repudiated it anyway when he pulled out of this place and went home,” Knapp said. “I would have done that, too. Big promises, no action. Nothing much forthcoming for his people. Or for the Snakes for that matter, was there? What happened? Seems the Klamaths got it all. But Jack didn’t want to sign in the first place. That’s what I’ve heard.”
Ivan colored at the criticism of what had been an Applegate show.
“Makes no difference,” Meacham said. “I’m pledged to getting the whole lot of them onto this reservation in any case. And now the amendments. They don’t amount to much. I don’t expect trouble getting the Klamath chiefs or the Snakes to agree to them. It will be interesting, though, to see how this all strikes Captain Jack. He’d better not balk. I need him, and I need his mark on these changes. You won’t hear Grant’s proclamation making the treaty final until I tell him all the i’s have been dotted.” Meacham refolded the paper into its wrapper, replaced it in his map case. “‘Keintpoos,’ we had better call him, I suppose.”
“He doesn’t seem to mind the Boston name,” said Ivan. “Uses ‘Captain Jack’ himself more often than not. He likes it, I think.”
“As far as the treaty goes,” Knapp said, “he told us what to do with that when he left and took his people with him. That’s four years ago. Five years since the signing. And no one’s ever called his bluff.”
Meacham studied his agent. “Maybe we will manage to call it ourselves, you and I.”
“His bluff?” Ivan said. “If that’s what it is! We Applegates couldn’t ever get past it, and neither could Huntington.”
“Did you even try?” Knapp asked.
“We called him in after he left, to talk things over.”
“Let me guess. He declined.”
“He did. Sent word he would stay where he was and didn’t want to see us. He would let us know when we might go down there again.”
“Let me guess again: You never got invited,” Knapp said.
“There were enquiries. Father made one visit, but it failed. When the first allotment goods came in, I guess it was ‘67, Jack snubbed them. Wouldn’t come to get them; said we should bring them to him. Huntington didn’t take to that, so he led some men down to collect him. But Jack wasn’t sufficiently impressed by being visited by Oregon’s Indian Superintendent. Ran him off. Said if he ever tried to cross his river to get to his camp again, he’d shoot him. Huntington came back for some soldiers, but the fort wasn’t interested. That was the end of that. We dropped it. There was enough to do just to get the agency set up and the Klamaths settled.”
“But this was Klamath land already,” Knapp said. “How much settling could you have to do?”
“There were things to take care of. And we had to work on the problem with the Snakes.”
“Well, we’ve got a good number of them here now, if you two can keep them,” Meacham said. “Now it’s Jack’s turn for a little attention.”
“He’ll be trickier than you’d expect,” Ivan cautioned.
“I’d say he already has been,” Meacham said.
“What
