you wouldn’t listen. You wouldn’t listen to Curley Headed Doctor or Black Jim. You wouldn’t listen to Ellen’s Man. You wouldn’t listen to nobody but that Meacham -- and Toby. And now you want my brother to fix this for you. You won’t stand up no more against Knapp. You won’t stand up to Ivan. Way I see it, you gonna be the biggest reservation Indian we got.”
After that, they didn’t talk the whole way back to the camp.
Next morning, Jack was on his way to the agency with Scarfaced Charley. No one but his wives knew of his going. When he told them where he was headed, they just kept on stirring at the mush.
#45
This time he just laid his hand on the door and shoved it open. Knapp sat at the desk, the papers spread before him. He looked up in surprise as the two men came in. He didn’t bother to get up. He sat there just holding the pencil over the page he had been writing on while Scarfaced Charley said what Jack had told him to, like he was waiting for it to be over so he could write down the next thing. The agent’s face got redder and redder as Charley talked, so Keintpoos figured he was remembering to say it all. Charley didn’t even bother to look at him for instructions. When he finished one thing, he just went on to another, talking even, not raising his voice, but saying the words out steady like, without any stopping. Charley raised his arm and gestured around the agency. He pointed off toward the Sprague. When he finished talking, he just shut his mouth up, and the two of them stood there facing Knapp. Waiting.
Knapp chewed for a while at his lip, then he said, “I’m damned sick and tired of this bellyaching. Tell him this for me so you can stop coming around to bother me.” The agent said his words level like Charley’s had been -- not loud, just determined. “You black son of a bitch, damn your heart; if you come and bother me any more with your complaints, I will put you where no one will ever bother you again.
“There. That clear enough? Tell that black bastard that, then tell him to get his black ass out of here and over where he belongs. Tell him I’m the one to do the demanding on this reservation!
#46
It was April, and the men passed before Lieutenant Goodale.
The grass was green on the parade ground, pressed flat by the tramping feet of the blue column that passed back and forth, forth and back. The column marched by the old barracks, toward the whitewashed guardhouse and the post magazine. At the guardhouse, with its sloping roof, covered stoop, three steps, iron-barred windows, the column wheeled right. Marched on past the cavalry barracks, the privy and woodpile, up past the flagpole to the infantry barracks. Wheeled right. Right again. Marched past the officers’ quarters. Wheeled right past the old barracks toward the whitewashed guardhouse, the post magazine. Past the cavalry barracks, the privy and woodpile. Wheeled right …
#47
It was Sun made them dally on their way over from Sprague River. It was the kind of day said put away the heavy robes soon, move on into the summer houses. They came over for the council because they had been summoned -- and because there would be gambling after. The riders who had come to tell them to head over to the Williamson River said so. Keintpoos wouldn’t stop it, not this time. And maybe there would be something to eat. So they mostly all came over, all except for a few who stayed back to be be with Old Schonchin.
Eventually enough of them straggled in to start the meeting -- the Sprague River people over by Yainax; the Hot Creeks and Willow Creeks from down at the ranches by Mahogany Mountain; the ones who had been gathered up from Lost River and Tule Lake. After old friends finished with their greetings, they all sat down together on the grass because Sun was shining and because something was coming that was about them.
John Schonchin started the talking. He said he did it because he felt like he belonged to two bands -- to the Sprague River Modocs because his brother was their la`qi and he had been raised among them. To the Lost River band because that was where his home was, and these men were his family to him. The Lost River Indians had called everybody over here to council because this was a thing for all the Modocs. They shouldn’t forget they were none of them Klamaths. They were Modocs, every one.
Euchoaks talked to them. There was a great danger hanging over them. They could be sick with forgetting. Living on another’s land, you could get so you didn’t remember how to do things. You could get to thinking that another’s way was the right one. When if you remembered, you knew the right way, the way you had been given. It wasn’t like another’s way was wrong for other people to follow. But it wasn’t what had been your people’s. He was there to remind them about that, he and the other shamans.
Everybody knew it would be Keintpoos’ time to talk soon, and they wished he’d hurry up and get at it. They knew it was going to be about the trouble with the Klamaths. They had been hearing from them that the Lost River Modocs were all just women. And it seemed like it was true. Didn’t they let their rails and fish be taken? Didn’t they let their women get troubled by the Klamath women, let their children get whipped?
Pretty soon he got up and said it. Scarfaced Charley stood with him. They told what had happened over at the agency. How Knapp had said about Jack being a bastard. How he had said he’d kill him and sent him out of his house. How he wouldn’t protect them, even when that was what Meacham promised.
“But how come you let the Klamaths take that timber and didn’t put up no fight?” someone from Sprague River called out.
“Because I give my word on it,” Jack said. “I told it to the Meacham.”
“But how come you just take it? The tyees promised, too. That they’d keep the Klamaths off of you. But they ain’t doing it. You can’t let the Klamaths run you. It’s your place here now.”
“I’ve done some thinking about that. That’s where the trouble comes in,” Keintpoos said. “It isn’t our place.”
“Who says so? The Big Tyee in Washington says it is.”
“But it isn’t the Big Tyee’s to give.”
“Well, he done it.”
Jack said: “He tried to. But who passed it over to him to start with? No one had to do anything, I think, unless the Big Tyee kept to the treaty. And for a long time now, nothing’s happened. They left us alone over at Lost River. Think about it. It’s five years and more, and he says the land is his, but he never came across with what he said he would. You’re hungry now; so you know what I’m saying. Same with my people. When I think about that, I think there’s no treaty. I take my mark off it. If I need a treaty, I can use the old one, the one we had before, with Steele. That was good enough according to me.
“They forced me to put my mark on this last one even though I didn’t agree with it, even though I didn’t get it, what it meant. Same with Old Schonchin. You can ask him. Anyhow, I take my mark off this one. If there’s no treaty, there was no land given. And if there’s no land given, this place here belongs to the Klamaths. Always has. Our place is off yonder at Lost River, and I mean to go there!”
