the red seal had been. “That was your mark there, that ‘x.’ Next to your name there, ‘Keintpoos.’ Old Schonchin signed. But so did you, Keintpoos. For the Modocs.”
“I did not know anything about that paper. I did not know what was on it. The old man Schonchin, this John Schonchin’s brother, he is the one who did the talking. When he went over to the reservation, he did not know what was on the paper. He just went to be a-going. The old man made the treaty!”
“Toby, tell him he will not be imposed upon,” the Meacham said. “Say the treaty requires that no Indian shall impose upon another. I will guarantee that protection. Because of the difficulty between you and the Klamaths, I propose to put you at Yainax, near the Paiutes. You are to occupy the same farm and improvements. Ocheo is fixed on the east side of the spring, and you can reside on the west side.”
Euchoaks throat constricted as if to choke him. He could hear Jack going down; he could hear him accepting:
“I do not want to go where the Snake Indians are. I am not a bad Indian.”
“I know your friend Judge Steele went to Washington to defeat this treaty,” Meacham said. “But the tyees there told him it was good.”
He could hear Keintpoos collapsing, those words rushing him back to that certain place, that reservation. So Curley Headed Doctor had leaped to his feet, shouting at Keintpoos not to listen, not to agree; he had shouted ‘I -- a kiuks -- I am not going! I am telling these others they must not agree to go with you!’ And the others had risen, too, snatched by his words from the dreaming this Meacham was putting them into. It had almost been too late, but he had awakened himself and the others.
“Tell him I am a good man,” Keintpoos said then to Toby. “I have not done anything wrong. I don’t fight. I have not done anything to the white man, and I don’t want to go to Klamath.”
Then Euchoaks could breathe again. The bad spirit was passing, and Keintpoos was finding his tongue:
Scarfaced Charley said the words for him: “Only a short time ago I told my people they were to die here. My people are not to go away from here unless they go after game. You saw these papers from town. I do not talk much. There is my hands. You see there is no white man’s blood on them. They are clean. You do not know me…. Maybe you think I am a common man and no account and that is the reason why I want to stay here in my country. If you know I am guilty of any thing and will ask me to go, I will go. I want good men to live with me here. Why do you want to talk about that paper? That is a stolen paper from the Indians. Do you know how little Indians know about papers? I do not know anything about papers. That is the stolen paper. Maybe you did not understand about that paper -- that is, who made it. Perhaps that is the reason you talk so about that paper.”
Meacham shrugged and re-folded the treaty. He made a sign that it was there, speaking to him and whoever would listen.
Keintpoos talked then before the Meacham. He said about his man being killed at the agency, how the Modocs had liked him. Keintpoos said then how he wanted to die here on this small piece of land, not back on the reservation where he would be sick.
“I have but a small piece of land here,” Keintpoos told the Meacham. “The white men have taken the rest of it…. Maybe you feel sore because I don’t want to go.”
He promised too much, though, started wheedling again, let it look like he was asking when he should have stayed strong:
“This is a poor country. You don’t need it. It would not be of any account to you. The white men can come when they please and live close by us. I have but a few people and I want to look after them. This is a poor country -- all of this. Klamath is a good country.”
Then Meacham’s words were stern and out of patience:
My heart is not bad. I came here because I was told to come and give you advice. I come to represent a Government that will do just as it says. The reason I want to put you alongside the Snakes is to set an example to show them how to work. I have heard much of your people. They are like the white people …. I don’t care what part of the reservation you want to go on. I understood you to say you would go if you would be protected, and that is the reason I talked the way I did. The Government of the United States owns all the land from one end of the country to the other, and she gives portions of it to the Indians. She looks upon all the Indians as her children and tells them where to live. The Government says they must live on Reservations where they can be cared for. It is my duty, as you made a Treaty with the Government, to see you and ask you to go onto the Reservation. If you are ready to go with me I will take care of you, and if not I will turn you over to the Military.
There it was. Now everybody could hear it. This was what they knew, what they had always known since Fort Klamath and Fort Warner and Fort Bidwell got going and the brass buttons came to them to do their marching. The people did not know how to answer. They only knew Keintpoos should do it.
“I told you!” Euchoaks spit out the words.
Again Toby picked up Meacham’s words: “I told the Commander of Fort Klamath that Captain Knapp and myself would go first and see the Indians. The officer said, ‘All right, if they go with you, all right. And if not, the Soldiers will come after them.’ I am your friend. If the soldiers come after you, you will remember what I have said.”
And Meacham told them even the Yreka people had made a petition to have them removed. He pointed out George Nurse and Gus Horn and said: “They told me that if you go there, back to the reservation, and are there yourself they would come with you.”
Then he stood the red-whiskered man up with him and told them this was an army captain but acting as a citizen. And the red-whiskered man got up and said:
I am the Agent of Klamath. If you go with the Superintendent and myself, you shall be protected. The Government owns all the Country. You have agreed to abide by the law of the United States. If you go you will be protected. If you are turned over to the military, you will be forced to come.
And then it was the Meacham again: “…. I want you to say whether you will go peaceably or stay and let the Soldiers come after you as if you were coyotes. I have twelve soldiers coming. They may be here tomorrow or possibly tonight. If you want to go with me all right and if not the soldiers will force you.”
That was what he said.
Euchoaks stopped in the track and listened, certain now that he did hear the drovers and the wagons. At least that much of what Meacham said was true. Afraid that the rest might be, also, and that Keintpoos would listen, he turned and hurried back. They were coming to take them, and it felt to him as if it would be to an execution. This knife edge Keintpoos walked along even talking to these Bostons: he should not go near it.
#23
They must eat, this Meacham said. As soon as the first of the wagons got there, he would make the Indians a feast. There would be beef and bread and sweets and strong coffee. And when they were through and their bowls were turned over, they would smoke the Big Tyee’s tobacco -- and then the Modocs were to decide, and then they would do what the Modocs agreed to.
First of all, thought Euchoaks, they would not eat. Not John Schonchin nor Keintpoos nor him, nor any of the Modocs who could remember or had ears. There had been another feast offered here on
