figure it.
“Well,” Meacham said, getting to his feet, “that’s for the future. For now, I’ll send my brother. Conceivably to stop a war if Jesse is right. At a minimum to gain a perspective.”
“And I will get one, too,” Canby said, rising. “Maybe Jackson can get us some insight.”
#76
John Meacham, now Klamath agent, would get right on it. He and Ivan were ready. He had sent a message through Modocs visiting at Yreka asking for a meeting with Jack at Lost River. The army wasn’t after him for the crime, John Meacham told them to tell Jack. Keep cool, he advised, until a meeting with the Superintendent could be arranged. That would have to be delayed. In the meantime, he was willing to come over to Lost River to talk. He would wait for Jack’s reply.
He waited.
No answer from Jack. John Meacham waited some more. Sent John Fairchild: Jack trusted him. Only silence. Got Old Schonchin down there: even an Indian elder urged talks. Nothing.
No response. Nothing, except from Jesse Applegate. Rent, for the land the cattle were on. Rent for the ranch. That was what Jack was demanding if the man he asked for wouldn’t come, not talk with someone else. Applegate told Jack to go whistle.
John Meacham was doing that himself, as if to let off some of the steam, when word of the raid on the wagon train came in.
“Black Jim,” the man said, furious. “Jack sicced him on it, I’d guess. Right by Applegate’s place. Made a demonstration. Nothin’ but supplies. But still, goddammit! …”
John Meacham knew what he meant: … it could have been otherwise, could have been people’s lives. It was a reminder of the old days. Not too long after the raid, before things could get organized to go after the Indians, the word came in:
“Captain Jack, he say he talk now. He meet you and Ivan Applegate and two others, Jesse’s ranch. That’s all he want to see coming. Else, no more talk to no one.”
#77
There were supposed to be two of them, not twenty. And they, too, were supposed to be unarmed. That had been the agreement.
“What’s going on?” John Meacham turned to Ivan and asked as they stood on the porch and watched the file of Indians, each with sidearms and an old rifle on his back, ride onto the ranch. They stopped at the corral and sat waiting.
“I don’t exactly know,” said Ivan. “But I think I can guess. You and me: we’re the wrong people. Not exactly the ones they think should be here.”
“But they came anyway.”
“Yes, but on their terms. That’s the message. Come on. We better not keep them waiting.”
Ivan started down the steps from the veranda’s shade, out into the radiating heat of the August afternoon. He looked more eager than John Meacham felt. Ivan read off the cast of characters: Curley Headed Doctor, the shaman; Boston Charley, the neatly dressed one; Black Jim, the big man, well-built; John Schonchin, Old Schonchin’s brother. The list went on, too many for John Meacham to keep in his head. And finally Jack, there, in the patched-up, striped shirt.
Not especially distinguished, the agent thought. Middle aged, middle height. Hair parted in the center, cropped medium short. John Meacham wouldn’t have picked him out as the leader. Not unhandsome, but not what you would expect, either. An uncomplicated looking sort of man, he told himself.
“Okay, let’s go get this over.”
As they reached the clear area in front of the barn, he was surprised at what greeted them. From the one called ‘Black Jim.’
“We don’t like tyees from the army or from Washington, from these ‘Departments’ you people keep talking of. We know you Meacham’s brother. Got Knapp’s job.”
“Why don’t you get down off those horses and come on over here in the shade,” Ivan said. “We want to sit down so we can talk.”
“We don’t want Ivan telling us what to do. Ivan says one thing, means another. Sends soldiers down on Jack.”
“You still should come down here to do your talking,” John Meacham said. “I want to meet with you for my brother.”
“We don’t trust your brother, neither. He supposed to get us a reservation. And Jack here asked him to come. But he didn’t do either one. He sent you. And we still got nothin’.”
But despite his complaints, the Indian swung down off his horse and led it over to the pasture. He took down the gate and ran the horse in on the sparse grass. The others did, too, then followed him over to the little pool of shade by the barn. Black Jim picked his spot and sat down, shrugging his muzzle-loading rifle off his shoulder and laying it on the ground beside him.
“You gonna smoke?” he demanded.
“I don’t have any tobacco here,” John Meacham said, off to an inauspicious start, “but I’ll get some. Let’s begin. I am here to talk about peace in this country.”
An Indian dressed in town clothes who spoke good English -- seemingly the youngest man there, small, with handsome, regular features, intelligent eyes -- translated for the rest, his voice dispassionate. But there was no mistaking the arrogance, the anger, in the voices of the Modoc speakers themselves.
“Tell me your name,” John Meacham interrupted. “You know mine.”
“Bostin-Ah-gar,” the translator responded. “Boston Charley.”
“He is a good friend to the whites,” Ivan declared encouragingly. “A good worker. They hire him.”
“Don’t talk about that,” Black Jim demanded, picking up his gun and swinging it toward the two white men. “Talk about what them snakes in Washington going to do to get them dog soldiers off us. When they going to stop being like women? Cowards sneaking around and breaking the word they give the Indian. When they… .”
He didn’t finish. From behind him, with a low command that stopped a ripple of discontented muttering that was flowing among the seated men, Captain Jack hushed him. But from the back of the group another -- the shaman -- called out angrily. Once again, Boston Charley picked up his monotone English:
“We got the drop on you. See? Only two of you. No guns. We should shoot you now. Stop all this talking like woman gossip.”
Another man, older, his hand resting on his pistol, sitting so close to Jack that he touched him, shouted after the voice of the doctor. His Modoc words were unintelligible to John Meacham, but the message perfectly clear. This time Ivan was the one to step in.
“Boston, tell John Schonchin we’re not afraid. He can put up his weapons. We came here to talk, not fight.”
