when no one responded. “Maybe a new retiree.”
“Likely,” Jesse said. “Woods are full of ‘em now. I must compliment you, Oliver. Your trip to Salem was timely. For a while there, I thought we’d have more than just a retiring officer as agent. I thought the state’s reservations would be turned over to the army down to the last horseshoe nail and blanket.”
“So did I,” O. C. answered. “And so did Meacham, evidently, along with all the others. But I cornered our senator and reminded him he was elected and wanted to be next year. I put him in mind of all those purveyors of goods and services, all those officials and functionaries who hoped they would be able to vote for him. Jogged his memory about the virtues of civil authority. He high-tailed it to Washington to look after the jobs of voting Oregon citizens. Army’s going to have to find some other sinecures for its excess stock of officers, now that the war is over.”
“Meacham must have thanked you. Saved his new position for him!” Lucien said. “Looked for a while there like he could stop unpacking.”
“Let’s just say I didn’t discourage his understanding about who he had to be grateful to. That storm about jurisdiction’s blown over for the moment, but I don’t assume the matter’s finished.”
#9
“Then that is the worst of it,” Lindsay said. The clock on the mantle said that it was past two a.m. Like late-hour poker players breaking up, the cluster of men scraped their chairs back on the wooden floors, stretched out their cramped limbs. “Hardly a federal offense.” He made the words sound defensive.
“Imaginative book-keeping, you could call it,” Oliver boomed at him. He clapped his father on the back encouragingly. “They can’t expect much more here on the edge of the continent, off in the wilds like this. Cheer up, old man.”
Ivan, the only one still seated, held the last ledger open before him, his fingers thrust into the pages they had worked through. “I would hold off on that optimism,” he said. “We haven’t exactly finished the last of it.”
Jesse and Lucien grunted in unison, voting with him for caution.
“So what if the records are sketchy?” Oliver said. “Ivan can fill in what’s missing, and Captain Knapp can have his books. We can even show him how to do it when his time comes to be audited.”
“That’s not funny, Oliver,” Lindsay said. “It’s my job we’re talking about here.”
“It’s mine, too,” Oliver replied, “and Ivan’s and Lucien’s if we don’t keep ahead of them on this. Don’t think I’m not serious! Look at the books! I’ve been everything around here from Translator to Superintendent of Farming, some things twice. Looks to me like a clean sweep of all of us if they choose to make it one. But I don’t think they will if we’re smart. Forgive me, Papa, if I sounded flippant, but I don’t relish going back to selling sewing machines!
“If we’re going to outlast this new captain, as I assume we mean to, we must make ourselves indispensable. We should cut our losses; not wait for this Knapp -- or maybe even Superintendent Meacham -- to persuade Washington to set us adrift. They need someone to make this place operate. Let’s have Ivan go on now as sub-agent over at Sprague River; Knapp has no reason to dismiss him. Lucien and I can be signed on as teachers. I’ve done that, and it’s what they can use. What we need to do is whip this place into shape, tie up the loose ends. It’s like the books: there are things to be done around here -- things we had better get around to, while there’s any point to doing them.”
“So you’ll just let me go, then. Is that what I’m hearing?” Lindsay asked.
“That’s done, Papa,” Oliver replied. “The telegram says it. Better to save some of us than none of us. Our job now is to hold on to what’s left.”
Ivan was listening closely, and he swung in his chair now to look up at his younger brother. “What are you thinking, then?”
“For one thing, there’s the non-existent saw-mill, even though it was promised in the treaty. We’d better figure out either how to build it with no funds or how to explain why we never got around to it. The Klamaths have been cutting logs for months now, waiting to use it. Sure, the money went on operating expenses. But one of these days someone beside an Indian’s going to come along looking for a mill. Better get our ducks in a row on that one.
“And then there are the missing Indians. Most of the Snakes we managed to bring in have drifted away off north of the reservation. They’re not going to complain as long as we lay off of them. But when someone tries to go get them, they’ll have their old gripes about being driven off by agents -- that’s us, friends. They’re going to say they’re hungry -- because we supposedly didn’t give them enough to eat. So what if we were trying to teach them independence?” He scratched at the whiskers under his chin.
“And of course there’s the small matter of Captain Jack.”
“I tried to talk him back three years ago,” Lindsay defended himself. “He’s not interested. Won’t submit to Old Schonchin again, first off. Also won’t take orders from the Klamaths. Won’t this. Won’t that. Refuses to abide the Snakes.”
“None of which really surprised us, as I recall. Still, now it seems a little more urgent. Maybe you didn’t talk hard enough, Papa,” Oliver said. “Somebody better go get him and the rest of his Modocs.”
“Let’s see you do it,” challenged Ivan.
“What about the army?” Oliver asked. “Let them finally do something useful.”
“This army?” Ivan laughed at the preposterousness of the notion. “The army might be glad enough to take over the reservation; run it their way. But the Fort Klamath military just bring in the Modocs as a service to us? Not likely!”
“There’s reason to demand it,” Lucien said. “Jack’s breaking the treaty, and besides, he’s an outlaw. He sold ammunition to the Snakes, and we can prove it. David Allen can, at any rate. He traced it. Jack knows it. He probably expects the army to come after him any time. We need to push on that, move it along; at least start it going before this Knapp gets here.”
“So far no one’s said anything new. How, exactly are we supposed to move them if you can’t come up with anything better than that?” said Lindsay.
“I’m not sure yet,” Oliver said to his father. “I got to considering, maybe we need to think a little deeper about the settlers.”
“The settlers aren’t going after any Modocs!” put in Lucien. “They grouse enough that there’s a bunch of marauding savages wandering around. But they don’t do anything much about it -- except complain to us.”
“That’s true. But they’re not real pleased with any high-falutin’ ideas about our ‘Red Brethren’ either. Maybe the settlers of southern Oregon would look different to us if we thought of them as a lever.” Oliver broke off: “I don’t know. It’s something to turn our minds to.”
For a moment no one moved; then Ivan reached for one of the discarded paper scraps, examined it, and turned it over.
“All
