as the meeting escalated to a higher level of hostility, not wanting to be noticed but afraid of simply leaving the two men to their own recriminations.
“We notified you as soon as we knew of their going, but you did nothing.”
“What was I to do, tell me. By the time I heard anything of it, practically every Modoc on the Klamath Reservation had taken French leave of your operation. How did you expect me to stop them if even you didn’t see this coming? By your own admission -- ‘proclamation’ might be better -- everything was fine here. It was all under your control, last report I heard. That’s how you would have had it understood, I believe.”
“Still, you could have intercepted them.”
“How? You still can’t tell me how they left. They didn’t exactly march down the road to Linkville whistling ‘Dixie.’”
They would have gone over the shoulder of Saddle Mountain, Ivan thought to himself. They would have followed the footpaths straight south and swung around the eastern side of Lost River. They would have crossed the range of hills there into the Clear Lake basin and picked up the old trail someplace. No one would have had to see them. They might have passed by the place Jesse Carr was trying to homestead, with his uncle Jesse Applegate’s assistance. It was all old Modoc range. They made their summer settlements out there each year, gathering epos, and drying fish or meat. They had old ceremonial centers there as well. All that country south of the Sprague River from the ridge of Saddle Mountain on down was country the Lost River Modocs used. They could have filtered through there almost anywhere and no one would ever have had to see them.
He was sure he could go out and find the marks of their passing through the land. Three-hundred and seventy one of them would have left plenty of sign. But he wasn’t about to do it. Knapp could, if he was able to figure it out. But Ivan had just shrugged when the agent raged at him.
“I don’t like admitting it,” Knapp said now to Ivan, as if the lieutenant were not there, “but Meacham was right. I tried to tell him otherwise, but I was wrong. The military at the fort are entirely useless. I can see now. They are no good at anything but marching up and down that parade ground and drawing their pay.”
Lieutenant Goodale stiffened at the insult, then said: “If those Modocs hadn’t been driven from the agency by ineptitude, they would be here yet. Pardon me, but I will commit troops when settlers are threatened, not before. You had them here; you have lost them. Having gotten them here once, perhaps you will remember how to do it again.
“Good day. Sir. I’m afraid my duties at the post require my presence.”
He stood at attention and snapped off a salute to the agent, then turned and strode out through the agency office door. The few lingering Klamaths fell back as he came down the stairs and mounted his horse. Without a further glance, he was gone down the agency street toward the fort.
“How many did Jack bring with him?” Knapp demanded, staring after the diminishing blue figure.
“I can’t say exactly,” Ivan answered. “Something over three hundred.”
“No, dammit!” Knapp said. “I know that without your telling me. How many did he bring with him when he came in? You passed out the blankets to them!”
“Oh, that!” Ivan said. “You were with them. Depends how you count, I guess. Forty-one, I believe, if you just count braves. More like one-hundred and fifty if you throw in the women and children.”
“So we’re down now to practically no Modocs.”
“A few, I guess. Those who had some reason for hanging on here. But you’ve lost your chief with Old Schonchin gone.”
“Well, Ivan, you’ll have to go get them.”
“Me, sir? I don’t think so. This time it will take an army.”
“And our young commanding officer has made it clear enough. He’s only here to protect settlers.”
The agent stood glaring down the road where the soldier had just disappeared. For a few moments he was silent, then he said, without turning:
“Well, then, Ivan. That’s it. If you can’t get the Indians, you’ll have to go and get me the settlers.”
Chapter 6: Yreka
#51
The hut needed finishing, and they had to hurry up. Pretty soon Ellen’s Man’s wife would have to go in it, from the looks of things. You could see the baby was having a hard time waiting. At least that was what her mother told her, pointing to the woman’s belly. It sagged so she had to hold it up. It forced her to arch her back and spraddle her legs out for balance when she stretched to lash the willow branches into the domed roof. When the others chattered at her to watch out she didn’t start things happening, Ellen’s Man’s wife scolded them for wasting strength talking. They all should hurry up and get this done.
“We’re coming!” someone said. “We’re coming! How come you didn’t do this long time ago, when you first knew it? You laid around long enough to get this way. How come you didn’t get up and get this hut going? You knew you’d be wanting it.”
Ellen’s Man’s wife threw down the branch she was stripping and glared hard at them until they all laughed. They knew she couldn’t do any hut building till they got back down here to Keintpoos’ old camp.
“Don’t worry!” they said. “We won’t let you down.”
The girl thought to herself: It was nice to watch them work, to see the little house take shape. It was good, when she tried to join in, that they didn’t run her off the way they used to when she was little. Good, too, to go off alone to the riverbank and slide down to the willows, take the knife to them and toss the sticks up the hill to where she could bundle them to carry back to the women. “Come with me, Willow,” she said. “Make us a place to be a woman in.” The women nodded to her where to put down her load of greening branches. It made her feel good to watch their brown hands weave the withes together, like it was their hands weaving not just the hut but the day.
As they worked, the gossip flew about among them.
Whose husband had cut up a deer in the wood? someone wanted to know, and by that spoiled the snares.
“Whose?” they agreed.
Hadn’t they heard about it?
“Not Kéis this time!” someone joked. “Not Rattlesnake! Can’t blame him!” The one who said it laughed at the idea.
“No!” another exclaimed. “I think it was Whim done it.”
“Then we’ll know it! He’ll be down to only two teeth!” The woman let go of the willow branch she was weaving into the roof ribbing and held out two fingers, like fangs, in front of her lips.
They laughed together then, everyone, including her mother.
“Tomorrow, when his wife shows up here, we’ll ask her! Maybe this time he’ll admit it!”
