Shaman's Dream: The Modoc War

By Lu Mattson

Shaman's Dream : the Modoc War is a literary non-fiction account of the 1873 standoff between besieged Modoc Indians and the United States Army on the California/Oregon border. The book -- a kaleidoscope of 'vested interests' -- draws together eye-witness accounts by settlers, military and governmental records, reports, diaries, letters, press releases, telegrams -- in a narrative that is a multi-cultural evocation of one of the last of the 'Indian Wars.' A new, over-zealous Superintendent of Indians for Oregon precipitated the 'war' in an ill-advised attempt to corral a group of Modocs and return them to the Klamath reservation. Loss of life and the burning of the camp at Lost River was repaid by Modocs escaping to a stronghold in the lava beds, where they were besieged for months, and where they were persuaded the 'Ghost Dance' would save them. The standoff between the native Americans and the United States army eventually ended, but not until peace commissioners were wounded and murdered. The Army trial of the accused ended with hangings and the exile of the tribe, subsequently to Oklahoma. President U. S. Grant's 'Peace Policy' whereby Christian ministers were employed to oversee the reservations died in the aftermath of these events. But most deeply wounded of all -- and more lastingly in this, some would say, inadvertently religious war -- were the shamans.

• Language: English
• Publisher: eBookIt.com
• Release date: Apr 26, 2016
• ISBN: 9781456609207

Book preview

Burro

Introduction

This book owes its genesis to a burro that wouldn’t cross the bridge at Glen Aulin Falls on the Tuolomne River in Yosemite. My friend and I were starting out on what was supposed to have been a two-week excursion up Matterhorn Canyon in Yosemite.

In 1984.¹

Let it be enough to report that the summer circumstance forced us to relinquish our well-laid plans. At a loss to know what to do next with all that now-unplanned vacation time and outdoor gear, we ate our steaks at a formica lunch-counter and cast about for an idea about what to do. We decided: we would head farther north on Highway 395, which runs on the east side of the Sierras, to the past, as it turned out -- or was it to the future. We would go to this place the roadmap showed: the Lavabeds National Monument. Modoc County. Right up at the California-Oregon state line. See what that might be like. Camp. Fish. Hike. Recruit our burro-bruised egos.

Twenty-five years later, after researching and writing and speculating and piecing-together, the story of the Modoc war we encountered that summer remains one of the best stories I know. And one of the worst.

Over time, following the trail of Captain Jack and the army and the settlers of northern California and Oregon eventually took us to army posts (and the abandoned sites of army posts), to a war-college, to national and state archives, to reservations (and abandoned sites of reservations), to colleges, to libraries prestigious or modest, out-of-the-way museums, riverbanks, sacred mountains, caves still marked by now-dimming sun-signs.

Now for me, with this book, my telling of it is at last finished.

Over the years, many have had a go at telling the historical fact of that little-known war. Some have focused primarily on the plot, occasionally introducing interlopers needed to fill out the story. Some have written histories. I wanted something else with the story that was growing richer for me the further I looked into it. I leaned on the shoulders of two reliable tellers-of-fact, Keith Murray and Edwin Thompson.² I revisited their sources, read the original documents they had used whenever and where ever I could find them, wondering all along what I thought I was going to do with all that document-scouting. For a long time, then, my search consisted of re-reading what they had already ably read in the record so that I could . . . do what! Increasingly, a question was prodding me: What was I going to do with all that pile of fact?

Unable to answer that, I started. And when I did, a cascade of people appeared on my desk, most of them waiting to say their piece. I began just listening to each of them as they chimed in. I respected all of their points of view, tried to let them say what was on their minds and in their hearts. The actors could come and go as they chose; I tried to be spokesman for them, not arbitrator of outcomes.

As the chapters grew, I really did feel that I grew in the ability to suspend my own disbelief and listen to these people. When I turned unauthentic narrator and pushed the narrative, they usually let me know before it was too late.³

This book is an attempt at what is a relatively new genre: literary non-fiction. Its practitioners⁴ emphasize fact (not fantasy) at the same time that they use fact to tell a verifiable story employing devices usually reserved for fiction such as character, setting, language. There are those critics who believe the approach does a disservice to all concerned writing in the established disciplines. Shaman’s Dream readers can decide for themselves whether or not this ‘mixed’ increasingly popular new genre succeeds -- or just falls between two stools.

A word or two about the language the documents themselves speak: It surprised me that as the book grew and came to reveal how it wanted to be told, the pattern of its fabric grew. The language of the ‘real world’ of the memorandum and the telegram and the report had its own cadences and inflections. ‘Will’ and ‘do’ and ‘must’ preempt ‘might’ and ‘if’ and ‘perhaps.’ Stern, undecorated. Pointed. With its own formalisms. ‘Obedient servants’ abound there. Some were, some were not ‘obedient.’ The documents, designated by italics, offer a glimpse of the more constrained world where officialdom has its own grammar of hidings and disclosures.

Weft and woof. Words and meanings.

What was being written small here in this Tule Lake area, with these war deaths had already been written large, over and again, across all the land.

What seemed a good idea to President Grant when he unveiled his ‘Quaker Peace Policy’ was in effect an attempt at social engineering. What looked to be a good idea turned out to be nothing more than a grasping at straws. Unfortunately, for the Modocs, their lives were to change definitively because of those events.

The incantation of the Ghost Dance could have been heard as the death knell for something important. Most deeply unfortunate.

It signaled a passing away. The ministers -- of both the state and of the cloth -- were presiding at the death of the shaman seers. When the seers left, the vitality of one American non-Christian belief went with them.

Theirs was the obituary of a whole way of knowing, of a way of dreaming. Presiding at the death, the dreamer. What happened next was an inevitability. Its repercussions still can be heard, muffled, modulated to fit the times.

But then, everything else was changing, too, speeding up. Ideas. Notions. Just as the trolley cars and buses were overtaking the horse-drawn delivery wagons on the streets of the growing cities. And the next new thing was awkwardly scratching its way itself free from its past.

Black Kettle, Cochise, Chief Joseph . . . ? In another quarter-century the ‘resettlement’ issue would be closed, eclipsed by events European. Here, with this little war and a few ‘mopping-up’ operations, it would have been decided: The Indian Wars were finished, and with them had died a whole religion.

For easy access to the list of major actors in this account of the Modoc War of 1873 -- the dramatis personae -- please turn to the final pages of this book.

Notes:

1. See Sunset Magazine centerfold, May 1985.

2. See ‘Suggested Further Reading’: Keith Murray, The Modocs and Their War; Erwin N.Thompson, Modoc War.

3. Some time I will recount my struggle with unauthentic-ness in an article on the subject.

4. Truman Capote, Joan Didion, Norman Mailer, for example.

PART ONE

Chapter 1: Spirit Road

#1

If he looked up, he would be able to see; otherwise there would be only Night’s shadow around him. Now it was dark, and now all would follow. He wondered if he was the one who had killed the girl. He did not need to open his eyes to feel darkness, did not need to listen for snapped twig, scraped stone. He knew the men would come tonight, as if they were tearing at his heart already. He looked for fear there and, sure enough, found it, crouched in shadow, less than a small flame. Nothing would stop this old thing from happening. Yet even as fear’s flame grew and licked toward his throat, he held on to the rightness.

He was lying on the ground, just there where some rocks spilled down to enter the water, but in darkness he could not see that. He lay face down, waiting, breathing the smell of dirt. When his legs had folded on him and he had settled down to wait, he had stretched his body out for almost the only time in his life with his head toward the horizon where Sun had disappeared. He knew it would also be for him the last time. As sleep had overtaken him, it had whispered that finally he could follow. Not now, not yet, but soon.

Now, awakening, he rolled onto his back to look at the star-track, searched for the way his feet might take him as he climbed the back of Night. He would gain the sky-path there to the eastward, would follow across the arc of brightness where the stars grew thick, the small lights of The People who had departed before him and even now were crowding toward Skoksun Kálo -- the Land of the Dead.

The girl would not be far ahead of him.

Ignoring the licking fear, Compotwas Doctor studied the sky, looking into his own heart, searching out what had happened, tracing again in his mind the trail that had brought him here, to this place. Against the line of the horizon, he found the girl’s face. Like that of Keintpoos, her uncle.

#2

Keintpoos had sent for him, and he had come all the way down from the reservation. Why shouldn’t he? After all, while many would not call Keintpoos a lá-ge, a leader, everyone knew him to be open-handed. That was the word even among the Bostons, who called him ‘Captain Jack.’ There was something there to see in the way of him. He was not, people said, just your ordinary Indian.

And he, Compotwas Doctor, a kiuks, was known to be one of the best of the shamans. A sucking doctor. A healer. He had agreed when Keintpoos called for him to come and summon his spirits. They would listen to him when he called them. They were the powers he had long ago wrestled and pleaded with, who had long evaded and tested him -- until they had submitted and had taken him. He was proud of the songs they had given him.

When the kiuks entered the house down on Lost River, he noticed in the little remaining light the buckskin thong hung over the rafter. It had been placed above the girl lying on the mat; it betokened Keintpoos’ offer. The price was a good one. Compotwas Doctor had seen the horse tethered outside the earth house. It was long-legged and handsome, not just an Indian pony. Two full blankets were folded over its saddle, good ones. He would claim the present after he had finished. The blankets could go, one with his Spokesman, the other with The Invoker, but he himself would keep the horse and the saddle.

He thought to himself that the Modocs who had stayed back at Sprague River -- up on the Klamath reservation -- would talk among themselves, saying how Jack must have prospered from going back to his old camping ground. Otherwise, they would say, how could he offer such a prize as this? We should have stayed out with him, they would say, not come crawling back here among the Klamaths for a piece of blanket and some army beef. Compotwas Doctor did not care that he himself would cause the people to say Jack had done right to leave the reservation and take all those Modocs with him. The folks over by Yainax could gossip as much as they wanted. For it was true: the horse he had agreed upon was a good one.

Now, however, he must surrender those thoughts and listen to his Invoker who had brought him here. As his eyes grew used to the semi-dark of the unfamiliar house and he settled into himself for the task before him, he felt the breath of the gathered people. They crowded in together, some along the walls, others pressing forward, the better to hear him, to miss nothing. Here and there in the shadows he recognized the faces of ones he had known back at the Klamath reservation. People who had followed Jack here to Lost River. They were not harried now but determined, ready to answer in chorus as The Invoker called out the names of the shaman’s spirits.

From among them Compotwas Doctor selected the ones he might need this night.

Kéis! Blaiwas! Tcûskai! Kówe! Coltz! Kumal! Witkátkis!

Rattlesnake! Eagle! Weasel! Frog! Porcupine! Pelican! Fish Hawk!

As his Invoker chanted each name, the chorus echoed it. So many! But the kiuks had still others:

Lightning! Bear! Ghost Spirit ….

The chorus hesitated at this last one; its words grew ragged and dwindled away to a whisper. They were afraid to have the death-bringer in the darkened room with them. Compotwas Doctor snapped his fingers at the singers, chiding them to press forward. If he could risk daring to bring these forces, the people could at least show they would welcome -- and honor -- them.

The girl lay on her back, on a pallet against the east wall of packed earth, neither a child nor a woman by the look of her. She had the face of her uncle: wide-spaced eyes, clear features, full mouth, but now sweat plastered her hair to her forehead. Her hands tugged at the meager cloth covering her. When she turned toward him, the kiuks saw she had fear, but her eyes, like those of Keintpoos, though they were needful, were steady. The people watched as he drew the strip of red-painted buckskin from his bag and laid it next to her. His long fingers arranged the feathers -- yellowhammer, woodpecker -- and smoothed them.

Compotwas Doctor sat at the foot of her bed, facing the girl and his Spokesman, waiting for the room to hush. He rummaged in his bag and found his pipe and lit it, the acrid red-willow bark smoke filling his mouth and stinging his tongue. In the dark silence he rocked to and fro, trailing the smoke from his lips, blowing it over and over again in little gusts across the girl’s body. He traced with his fingers his own arm then reached out and touched the girl so. Where he laid his hand he felt the skin wince, then warm under his touch. He proceeded to her leg, her belly, her head. Still rocking, now blowing his own breath across her, he felt her soften, felt her breathing fall into rhythm with his own. He reached for the sprig of sage at his side, dipped it into the water-basket and, calling silently to the spirits now crowding the room, let the droplets fall onto the silent girl.

What had happened? Who had done this? He must know.

The women had been sure they could tell him: their gossip had come to Compotwas Doctor that afternoon as he entered the Lost River camp. She was headstrong, like her uncle. She would do what she pleased and not be led. She had just finished her preparation for womanhood, but she had not listened to them. She had dared to stop dancing that fifth night, the last one. She had said she was too tired and must sleep. They had told her she could not stop, risk sleep, for she must not dream. And she knew that. But, tired as she was, she did not like what they said. She had cried out at them and had run off through the brush into the dark. In the morning when they found her, her feet were swollen and bleeding, and she said she had not slept. But the women did not believe her. They were sure she had just tried to deceive them. This sickness, they said, proved it. Surely she had slept and dreamed of herself, just as they had warned her she would. She must have done so, even though she denied it; had denied it even as she sickened.

-- Blaiwas -- Compotwas Doctor must have Eagle to climb the dry air and circle, looking from on high, swinging out over the flinty land and the lakes.

It could have been that she saw what she should not have: a spirit-being, not to be beheld by a mortal. But sometimes luck would have it so, and that could be what had happened here. A young girl, full of the glow of life, parting the tules to find fish, would find one, swimming against her bare leg or coming to the surface and looking at her, opening and closing its circle mouth, or floating on one side and staring at her with one wide eye, then disappearing. That would be a spirit Fish only to be seen in the other world. Dangerous here; like all spirits ill-intentioned and unwilling to be seen by anyone, but especially an unheeding girl, unprepared for the sacred.

-- Kéis -- Compotwas Doctor must know what Rattlesnake, delving under the ground, could tell him.

For maybe it was a kiuks he was looking for, some shaman angry at this girl’s parents or someone else from the family. It could be that this other kiuks shot a pain into her, just as the fish spirit could have done, through her mouth or her ear. And the pain resided now in her, put there to plague another. Compotwas Doctor had asked and knew she had no father, at least not one who would be named. So her uncle had always spoken for her. Perhaps it was that this Keintpoos -- ‘Captain Jack’ the Bostons called him -- had started up the trouble. He had enemies enough. There were those who said he would not listen, found the path he had started his people down a wrong one when he led them back here to Lost River. There were those who said he wanted not only Old Schonchin but himself to be la`qi, and perhaps he did. Leader, sound of judgment, able to act in an emergency, diplomat. He would need to be all those things. Some said being himself a la`qi would be good only for him and for the Bostons, the white men. Not everyone believed this, but that was the talk back on the reservation. As he chose which of his spirits to summon, Compotwas Doctor must not neglect thinking that someone against Jack had caused this illness in the girl. Yes. He thought of Euchoaks, the kiuks from the camp just across the river, whom they called Curley Headed Doctor. They said he was off now raiding horses, not here as the girl sickened. Did his absence not seem somehow wrong? Compotwas Doctor kept his own counsel in all these things, but he had thought about them as he rode down here to do this healing. He was thinking of them now as he summoned his powers.

He would need Lightning. It lit up Sky and Earth and Night. Nothing that could see Lightning could hide. He shut his eyes and thrust his clenched fist against his lips, mouthing the names of other Spirit-ones jostling unseen near him. He thought of those he knew were watching from afar but nonetheless vigilant to see if he would remember this time to call them. Jealous spirits, resentful, unwilling to be tamed. All of them alert to his neglect. And dangerous.

He began with the first of his songs, each his own, each proven from the day long ago when he first gained that spirit, wooed that power into his service. The people responded, repeating the song to him, until The Invoker entreated the spirit to come:

It will fly here now, certainly, the Invoker told them, from above the cloud. Medford Eagle Spirit is coming now, from the eeyrie in the north, because Compotwas Doctor calls Eagle who sees what is hidden. Listen to Compotwas Doctor, he cajoled the spirit. Come here and see this girl, Eagle who never fails. Assist her.

As The Invoker’s words ended, Compotwas Doctor left off his singing, the words fading, replaced by his scream, the call of an eagle as it circled, hunting. As Eagle Spirit entered the house, Compotwas Doctor called out in slurred syllables, made clear by his Spokesman: Go wait there, Eagle, now, by that wall, to the north, the direction where you come from! Then Compotwas Doctor went on to summon the next of his powers.

He commanded each chosen one to a place he named for it: near the door, by the center post, at the hearth, so the watching people could understand and remember when later he called one from the shadows to him. Thus they would know which spirit was yielding power to the kiuks. At last he sensed them, all his spirits, in place, the ones he had chosen, restive, impatient. His others had drawn back into the shadows to be guardians, to stave off the spirits of some other shaman who could come to attack him at this dangerous moment of exposure. At last he was ready to seek an answer: how had it come to pass that this girl was sick, even to the point of dying? Who had done this?

He gestured to the north wall of the house where he had placed Eagle and pointed up the ladder to the roof-hole: Off! Far-seer. Father air. Flame feather. Look! See if there is someone hiding! His syllables were guttural, half-formed, choked in his gullet. They issued forth in the half-dark, unintelligible.

His Spokesman helped him and filled out the words, instructing the people: Compotwas Doctor is sending out Eagle to seek the one who did this, even if he is hiding so he will not be found out. In chorus the women sang, picking up Compotwas Doctor’s Eagle song.

The kiuks felt Eagle shudder to life, then lift up, sweep the room with broad wings; saw in his heart the flight, arrow-quick, up into the blinding sky of night. Compotwas Doctor heard, too, the people mutter their satisfaction as the shaman turned and gestured next to the place he had sent Rattlesnake. Now Compotwas Doctor would search not just from the sky but in the earth as well. The people’s assent buoyed him. Echoing their agreement that this was right, they gave him strength to command such a spirit.

One by one he called forth the spirits he had chosen from his familiars, sent them out in order: searching, looking for another shaman or another spirit, the one who could have sent the pain into the girl through some sound, some water, some food. Surely he would find who had hidden the object, the pain, in her. His spirits would return, were coming, to argue and tell him. Through his heart their travels; through his mouth their voices until all was resolved: how this had happened. He felt, as the spirits came at his calling, sped away to do his bidding, that nothing could ever stay hidden from these. Ghost Spirit lingered, most dangerous of all, ill-intentioned, friend to none. But able to sweep away all dissention, able to speak clearly when other spirits had fallen to wrangling and would not agree. Ghost Spirit then must be believed and obeyed. The kiuks had not needed to send Ghost Spirit today or in many curings lately, so great were the skills of his other spirits. The others, who were returning even now, so soon, so quickly.

The sounds poured from his mouth as they rushed back, eager to tell what they had seen or heard. Compotwas Doctor gasped out the spirit voices, filling the dark air with half cries. His Spokesman struggled to unbraid the sounds, weave them again into words for the people.

Frog had returned first, said not food. Frog had looked at all she had eaten of, had tasted with that long tongue. Then Fish came back. Not water from the pool. Fish had swum in it, had learned she drank only from her cupped hands, had not dirtied it. Not the Bostons’ kiuks, either. Beaver Spirit had been to the Boston camps along the river, and there were no Sunday doctors with medicine strong enough to command a spirit; only one at the town, and he was just saying words; his medicine was weak. Mountain Spirit said not Curley Headed Doctor; he had not sent the afflicting spirit. He was not hiding, only raiding for horses over on Pit River, as he had said he would do. One after another the spirits returned, each denying any luck. In the thick air of the earth house, the watchers grew restless, worried, as nothing was discovered.

With each disappointed murmur of the people, Compotwas Doctor struggled, urging the next denial from his throat, until not one was left and he fell silent. Reluctantly then he turned and pointed to the west, beyond The Invoker and the clustered heads of the people. Resigned that he must do so, Compotwas Doctor called Ghost Spirit from the place in the house where he had sent it, stood there as the power limped through the space that had opened in the midst of the people. Compotwas Doctor held his head flung back as if some force pulled his hair from behind. From his scarcely parted lips, the word issued: Doc-tor, he hissed.

Doctor! his Spokesman cried. "Ghost Spirit says a kiuks has done this. No sacred right broken by the girl; no vengeful spirit. A doctor has caused this, has put in the object that pains her."

Now from Compotwas Doctor’s mouth gibberish flew, the sounds all mixed of Eagle and Crow and Mountain, disputing, then sinking into angry silence. He heard the quick disagreement of the women. When he clapped his hands at them sharply, they, too, fell quiet, waiting to hear Ghost Spirit’s words naming the man. But none came. Again Compotwas Doctor tried to summon the spirit. But if still there, Ghost Spirit was mute, and Compotwas Doctor found no word in his heart. And then he understood: Ghost Spirit thus would chastise him for choosing others to send forth instead. Cruel, the power would now tell the shaman less than all that could be known. Ghost Spirit, neglecting to tell him the fullness of what he needed to hear, would teach him about neglect.

The night was half gone, and Compotwas Doctor had gotten only part of an answer. He stood there, shaken by the silence, wrung out from his efforts. Ghost Spirit’s refusal drew his sweat from him, dried his mouth. He thought to quit, admit he could not go on until he had made peace with the angry spirit. He could not search out the one named, as he always did, and force him to retrieve the pain. Still, his heart urged him to continue. He would proceed alone, not knowing just where to look or what he would find. Shaking his head at his Spokesman, bidding his spirits wait, he sank to the floor at the foot of the pallet. He found again his pipe and the red-willow tobacco. He would rest, then continue. This night would be a long one.

#3

By dawn, he had finished, but the girl lay dead. What if at the outset another doctor did sicken her, because of some hidden hatred for Jack? Or what if the women were right and she did dream of herself and not dance? None of that mattered, and he was sure of it. The last fault was his own. Had he quit last night to make peace with Ghost Spirit, she might have lived. Another kiuks could have been called to save her. By proper action, Compotwas Doctor could have made it right. Instead, he had thrust on toward this shaman’s death.

He had plunged into the curing ceremony sure he would find the clear splinter, the pain icicle shot into the girl by some spirit at the hidden doctor’s bidding. He had called on his own aides to find and grasp it: Fish Hawk and Osprey with strong talons; Pelican, with pouch and beak; Mouse, who could squirm into small places. He himself had tried here and there on the patient, seeking the hiding place of the object: her head, her stomach, her breast. He had sucked until he feared her skin would break, but he did not receive into his own mouth the blood around the object or the object itself. When he spat into the basket, the issue was not a bloody poison, only his own spit. Try as he might, his mouth would not taste the familiar flavor of healing. And later, when he should have been able to draw the green bile from the site, again only spit. Once more he tried the ablutions, dipped his finger into the water basket, cleansed his tongue and lips. Then he fell again to sucking, but nothing came. The girl grew cooler, and at last he understood that the breath had left her heart, gone out through the top of her head.

It had been as if he had forgotten how to do it, as if he had never known. Even now, lying here in the night and waiting for what must surely come, it was as if those ancient actions were gone from him, vanished even as his spirits. He had stood up, his sight darkened, not sure where he was. And The Invoker had shouted to the people:

Leave now! Leave this place! The spirits, Ghost Spirit….

But The Invoker had not been able to finish. The people, terror-stricken at the last name and the death of the girl, had cast him aside as they fought one another to climb the ladder through the roof hole, had tumbled through the doorway out into the night. Except for the girl’s mother and Jack. They had grasped the body, the woman wailing, The doctor was Compotwas Doctor! The doctor was Compotwas Doctor!

He himself turned and fled, less from the site where he had failed than from the place where he had been deserted. Outside, the people had stopped running. They waited at a distance to see what he would do. The horse still stood where it had been tethered. Crossing to it, he flung the blankets to the ground, untied and mounted it. The horse was his now, rightly. No one would stop him. But one would follow, leading others, and he knew it. Not now, but after the body’s burning and after the five days of ritual mourning. The reservation could not save him. He accepted that nothing could. But he must return there. There were things to finish before the next nights ended and Keintpoos came to find him.

He gathered the bitter rope reins in his hand and turned the horse north, toward the place where he could ford the river.

Chapter 2: Golden Eagle Chief

#4

Compotwas Doctor knew the knowing would precede him. He could ride the wind, and still, when he arrived at the Yainax Station commissary on the Klamath Reservation, the word would already be there, waiting for him. It would be in Ivan’s mouth.

He must not see Ivan.

Or Ivan’s brother. Especially his brother: Oliver, the leader once, now teacher.

As always, Oliver would have the word about Compotwas Doctor’s doing of the old, forbidden way of his people. Not for nothing the young bucks called this Oliver ‘Blaiwas La`qi’ -- ‘Golden Eagle Chief.’ His eyes could see.

Compotwas Doctor would have to hide the horse from the gaze of Oliver’s golden eyes, too. Or let it go.

Could be his own medicine had failed because of those brothers. He could see their medicine was other, sent to bring him down. And with him, the other shamans.

The old headsman, too. It was Oliver who did that. Compotwas Doctor’s mouth still tasted the bitterness of the day he had witnessed it, and heard the end of time in the roar of Oliver’s big laughter:

Oliver’s hands were huge. Hanging at the ends of the arms he draped along the corral’s top rail. That big day two years ago, the hands had seemed at rest and easy, sure of how to do things. They could lay hold of an axe handle so it looked like a twig or gather in a Klamath man toward his bosom as if the man were child. The hair grew golden on the backs of the hands, and on the arms it thickened, pouring up out of his shirt collar. Hair overflowed his face, young as it was, half hiding the wide, determined mouth -- like Ivan’s.

They knew to call him ‘Captain,’ though he was the youngest of them all. From a distance Compotwas Doctor had seen how the young bucks pressed in around him and listened when he told them how to clear a field of sod, turn the dark earth and plant it. How to ditch, or wright a wheel. The young Klamaths were proud in the face of the Modocs and Snakes. Oliver taught them; he did not teach the others. You’ll be my proof, he said to the young Klamaths. The old Klamath men hung back, listless, and as soon as Oliver was out of sight, they sifted away into the trees. Left the row unfinished, until he came and found them, prodded them back into the clearing again.

Dang you, he said. This ain’t no sabbath!

#5

Well, then, candidates, Oliver said, addressing the half dozen young men before him, That’s settled. Let’s get on with it. Who do you say should be chosen? Don’t look to the others, now, for an answer. Just think about what I told you. And let’s hear your speech when you’re ready.

The cluster of young Klamaths stood before him, uneasy, out in the dirt of the corral, facing him as he dangled his questions before them, dallying the words like a rope. Off to the side, out of the sun, the women waited to hear who among the men should know the answer. Farther off still, back where the pines began to thicken, the old men lounged against the tree trunks or stood in clusters, ignoring the proceedings, missing nothing.

It was bad enough for them that old Lalakes had been accused of something. But that he, a headsman, their principal la`qi, could be dismissed was beyond their figuring. What did ‘dismissed’ mean? This Oliver used words they didn’t know. Even when Oliver had explained it, they had frowned and turned away. Who dismissed? How did you dismiss the spring from a creek, or the root from a tree? Did a new headsman just jump out of the brush, some jack-rabbit, ready to lead the chase? How did you have a family without the father? Could any son know what to do with no one to mark out the way -- except some other sons, all of them blown together, like the leaves, into a dust-devil? A shape, perhaps, but flimsy as air. And, like leaves, as fleeting, as easy to strew across the land when the wind died. This Oliver, they told themselves, spoke nonsense, but the sons were listening to him, nodding their heads as if they understood and agreed.

All the old headsmen, not just Lalakes, had gone away that day. They did not even wait among the men in the trees behind the women to find out how this thing would be. What Oliver said at first that morning sounded familiar, and the old headsmen started out assenting, until they slowly understood that words between Oliver and them were things of two sides: the one side Oliver faced, the one they did. Councils would be used, he had said, but a new kind, to go with the new times that were upon them. And of course they had agreed.

Certainly that was how they would decide things. They always had. There had never been any other way. When everyone sat down together to counsel, the one who was la`qi would stand before the people and say how things should be, talk at them long into the night, wear them down with words that said the headman saw right. And when the talk was finished, the people would agree. They would get up together and have just one heart.

When Oliver Applegate -- Captain of the Oregon Volunteers, now 25, clerk sometimes, sometimes commissary, sometimes teacher for his agent father at their reservation -- had finished his explaining, they had realized that words were two-sided things. This new kind of ‘Council’ thing would be used to try them, the old headsmen. To try them was to judge, he said, whether they were innocent; whether they could continue to lead -- or whether they would be replaced. Replaced: someone, not yet settled on, would take over the leading. Someone who understood better than they did what this new way would be. Did they get what he was saying?

No, said Lalakes. And when Oliver sighed and ran his big fingers through his massy hair and gathered breath to begin his explanations again, the old headsman held up his hand to stop him, since words were two-sided things. No, he said again, not meaning he did not understand, but meaning no, this would not be. He understood. They all did. There was no need for Oliver to say it again.

And what about you? Oliver asked, turning to the young men. You see how this would be? New councils you made up, from people you voted in, they would try the old chiefs fairly to see who knows the way of progress. Later, the councils would do all the trying here on the reservation, to say who was guilty of things that ought not to be done. Things that were not right. They would decide. Right now, they would say, these councils, which sub-chiefs could go on leading. If the majority says yes -- that means if most of the men on a council give their votes for a chief -- if the majority says yes, then that chief could go on leading. If the majority says no, this has not been a good chief, then that chief is guilty and he must lead no more. Because the people say so, through their councils. That’s democracy, and democracy has come now to this country. And you young men, who will be tomorrow’s leaders, you must bring it in. Bring it to this reservation so the Klamaths can be a tribe in step with what is coming.

He leaned back against the corral fence and faced them. Off in the distance, beyond the meadow, the lake ran blue up to the edge of the mountain.

Lalakes was the first to come before them, and he spoke in Klamath to all his people, shifting into the style that would tell them the words he was speaking were important. "I don’t use this word ‘chief’ when I talk to you. That word comes on us from these Bostons. You know, and I know, I’m a la`qi, a ‘headsman.’ If you say I am an old headsman, where is there harm? he asked, letting the words float free in the afternoon air. There is none, he continued, for that is what I should be. I am your elder. If you say I am a bad headsman, that is different. I should stand before all of you and tell you to go on a right way, out of the path of shame. Another should stand there also before all of you and say how I say wrong. And when you all agree my way goes right, then you must know that it is true, for the people say it. Or the people must say that I am wrong, and we will all see what is to be done. That is the old way, and it is the way that we should do it. If I follow this, I am not a bad headsman. This way we have always done does not seem so different from what I am hearing, until I listen more.

Ours is not the council Agent Oliver is saying. He is saying there shall be a group of young men. He is saying they will know better how things should be in these days for those of us who live on our old land -- but they call it now the ‘Klamath Reservation.’ Now that he shows us how to do farming, run cattle. Even though they are not so good at remembering, these young men and their new council will hear me and talk among themselves and then they will tell me if I am ‘guilty.’

He spat out the new word.

They will tell you that about me. And then they will tell you that about you. And then they will tell that about the next one. He stopped and waited while the young men ceased their muttering. The people waited, too, and would not look at him. "But I will not wait for this new ‘Council’ to tell me whether I can be la`qi or no. While I am headsman, only you will do that telling, the old way. I am not this ‘guilty’ thing I am hearing of."

He paused and looked around at them all, trying to lock eyes with them, but failing. Then he said, Well, and now I tell you also something you did not know you would hear: I am not your headsman any longer. But it is I who tell you this, not this new council thing. With that he strode away, through the group of young men, forcing them to open a pathway through them so that he could leave. One after another the other old headsmen did the same, walked out through the people, who looked away.

When it was over and the last one was gone, a silence hung over all of them, for no one knew how to go forward from that place. But Oliver did. He let them wait until they could wait no longer, and then he leaned against the fence rail and stretched his arms out, letting his huge hands dangle, at ease. And his big laugh boomed out among them, not rude, but sure, encouraging all of them that now the way was open and things would be all right.

Well, that was settled, he said. Let them go. Now the people could choose a new chief from among the young men, and things would be even better than they had become. Then they could figure out an Indian sheriff for the reservation, and all the sub-chiefs would be sergeants. They should trust him that this would be right. He had brought them clothes and blankets and tools from The Dalles, hadn’t he? And he had taught them farming and about cattle. Now they no longer had to rely on what the men could kill in hunting or on the epos bulbs and water-lily seed, the wocus, the women could gather. They could build good wood houses like the Bostons. They could make good clothes, not just stitch together rags like the Modocs. One or two of their young men had gone with him to the tyee councils to argue to keep the reservation from the soldiers, and they had seen where the tyees lived. Now these young men knew how things could be. They would be better still. Right here. Because he would teach them.

Then you lead us, one called out, and the rest agreed. You can show us what we need to know. You did already lead us. From The Dalles, with the great caravan for the Klamaths. We cut the trail, but you led us. No other white man but you. The captain. But you weren’t even a man yet. Now you don’t have to be just our captain. You can take Lalakes place!

The rest agreed, calling him ‘Golden Eagle Chief’ and crowding around him. The women chattered to each other, uneasy at yet another new thing, wondering if it could be possible. But the older men held their silence, waiting to see where this new road would lead, wondering whether this would be the time to block it. They wouldn’t have to try that, though, and they were relieved to see it, for Oliver’s voice boomed out his refusal.

No, he said. That would not be a right thing. You must lead yourselves in the new way. You don’t want a white chief. This reservation must remain a place for Indians, and you must show here through your husbandry and your self-regulation that you can live according to the new way without a Boston to guide you. I will be your teacher, be your father. But you shall elect a chief!

So that very day, with the clear blue lake and sky as witness, after they had agreed to their new councils, after the old headsmen had taken themselves away, they did this other new thing. Those who wished to were to speak again, this time to all the people, and say who should be the one to become their chief of chiefs -- to talk to the tyees. They could not understand all the new words Oliver gave to them, but they remembered what he wanted. One should be named, and then another, and even more. And then at last no more would be named, and those ones would make their talks about how they thought to lead. Then everyone who was there should get in line before their man. And then everyone would know who would be the main chief.

Compotwas Doctor had seen it, he and the other kiuks, from there beyond the corral, off into the trees. At first the old Klamath men had hung back, while the new chief got elected in place of the old headsman; but later, when the new councils got made, they became used to the idea and started to like it. In the days that followed, they went from place to place whenever the Indian sheriff caught someone; they listened to the new councils say who was guilty. Sometimes they spent whole days just going from here to there to see another council. It was better than farming.

Captain Jack, the man who would kill him, had heard of it, too. Even though he was off the reservation. Some Lost River Modocs and some Snakes had watched from the edge of the clearing, seeing what the Klamaths were doing. Compotwas Doctor knew the word would go with them, spreading out across the country. Down on Lost River, those who had thrown in with Jack wouldn’t like it. They would not like it, and neither would the shamans.

#6

Ashland, Oregon

June 8, 1869

Brother Ivan: Since you were away, I thought to begin setting Klamath Agency in order, getting ready for the changeover. It got clearer and clearer that I had better shake the dust off my boots instead and head for the Superintendent’s office. I therefore rode over here all night and leave for Salem as soon as I can get my bags packed. Better to meet our new Superintendent face to face -- and make sure his first impressions of the Applegate ‘endeavors’ are the right ones. (Brother E. L. says not to worry about this Meacham. He has known and approves of him. Advises instead spending time fretting that the Indians will scatter while the new Superintendent settles in, and we will just have to begin gathering them again. I can’t credit that one. True enough, Meacham will find his predecessor left things a mess, but unruly Indians is not for the moment one of them. For the time at least, all is quiet in our corner of the world -- except for the muffled sound of Progress.)

Along those lines, we come to the reason for this letter: Lalakes is resigned, and we have our new young Turk. It is David Allen, as you thought it would be. For a while I worried that things would not turn out right. Blowe got nearly as many votes (5 less), and it seemed at first that he would go and teach David Allen how much better it is to be a big Indian. It took a while to explain to him that he should not just crack some heads with his war club or take those who had voted for him and leave. Instead, he should learn that five votes difference is more than enough to point out the man. Thank Heavens he got the idea, or we should probably have had to start again. But get it he did. In the end he went over and congratulated Chief David Allen, despite some grumbling from those who had voted for him. I think a big lesson was learned by all of the Klamaths. We can thank Providence for it.

Now on to our next task; our meeting must be soon after I return. Let me first find out what I can about the changes that are coming. -- and arrange that we not be hurt by them.

Your brother,

Oliver

P.S.: Nearly forgot the real reason for this letter! I enclose for your edification a fair copy of how one Council worked. This was adopted just yesterday, after a dispute/discussion, what-have-you about stock-grazing that lasted practically all day. I sat there and held my tongue -- most of the time -- and am very pleased with the outcome. I quote:

The Indians unanimously rule that it is all right to drive stock through their reservation without paying. It is all right to stop less than a day if the person pays a reasonable consideration. Travelers overnight who allow their stock to graze the meadows must pay. Passers through who adopt these rules will not be troubled. Will you please make out a copy and sign it as I.D. Applegate, Commissary, Klamath Agency?

Get father to sign it as US Indian Agent at Klamath Reservation, then note it in care of Ben Drew, Head Chief of Sprague River Klamaths. Progress will then be official, if not complete.

Hold good thoughts for me! -- and for us. The next few weeks in Salem are crucial.

O. C.

#7

My dear brother, Jesse Applegate snapped, that incisive mind of yours will scarcely cut butter. The reforms are coming, like it or not. If Washington ever gets its so-called mind made up one way or the other, there won’t be a damned thing you or any other reservation agent can do about it, except try to get out of the way of the big, new broom. If you don’t do that, you’ll be lucky not to be ridden out of state on a rail.

Lindsay did not like hearing it, even in the privacy of this council of the family men. People could say what they would, but a new administration in Washington had no right overturning what they had done here -- in just a few years, with such effort. Only four, really, if you counted from the agency’s establishment.

I’ll repeat it again, Jesse, then never more, Lindsay intoned. Ivan and Lucien groaned and traded glances as their father continued. "That’s all right, my sons, you go ahead and look at each other, but you can take a lesson from this. Without us -- your uncle Jesse and me at first, and then you two and your brother Oliver -- this whole area would still be a wasteland, overrun by drunken savages, producing nothing, left in the darkness of perdition. With no settlers, no roads, no civilization. No schools. No churches.

And no E.L. he added, thinking to name another son. Don’t leave him out of this. Running for Congress and everything.

I don’t think you’ll raise much interest in that homily in Washington, Papa, with a new administration and a new Indian Bureau, and a battle royal going on about who’s going to run these places, Ivan said.

Well, that part at least seems settled, thank God! Lucien said. At least it won’t be turned over to the army, this agency. Neither will Siletz or Grand Ronde.

Not for the moment, you mean, his uncle Jesse corrected him. "But that’s what I mean about the big broom. It missed Klamath this time…."

… but maybe not with the next sweep, Ivan finished for him.

Missed whom? Lindsay grumbled.

Not you. I apologize, father, Ivan said. But at least we can stay ‘civil service’ for the time. If we play our cards right."

"If Grant can name Ely Parker -- an Indian -- to head the Bureau, it’s hard to imagine what he won’t do. An Indian who wants the army to take over! Figure that one!" Jesse said.

To set his house in order, Lindsay brooded. So they replace me!

They’ll probably take the position that you’re no different from any of the other agents. That you’ve mainly exerted yourself to line your and your family’s pockets with money intended to lure the Indians onto the reservations. That’s what they’ll say if we don’t get down to work here, Ivan urged.

Then they’ll have to prove it! Where’s your brother? Lindsay demanded. He should have been here an hour ago.

He’ll be here, Papa. This meeting was his idea. Ivan went back to the argument. They’ll probably say, further, that you’ve allowed the deprivation of at least two tribes in your charge, the Modocs and the Snakes.

They’re already saying it. Don’t I know! And all those Indians had to do was conform to a few regulations, just like the Klamaths.

They’ll say you’re no better than the agents all up and down the western territory ‘who are withholding goods and services from subject people.’ Ivan looked at his father from under arched eyebrows, then relented. He shrugged. They’ll probably ask to see your books.

Is that before or after they fire me?

A dark silence settled over the group, each man thinking his own thoughts. Ivan roused himself from the chair at the end of the table and crossed to the window. He drew the curtains aside and stared out to the darkness of the late summer night. The road, still empty, disappeared into the forest beyond the few whitewashed buildings marking out the agency street.

Maybe Uncle Jesse’s right: we’d better have a look at them -- and set our own house in order, he said, letting the curtain drop.

I beg your pardon, young man, Lindsay responded. Are you speaking to me as your father or as your superior? You are, I believe, only a Commissary.

Yes, and I acknowledge you’re the Agent. But if someone from Washington is going to be requisitioning the records, then maybe we should all look together first. He turned and studied his father’s face, then added, This is, I imagine, a scene going on in more than one place, but here it involves all of us.

Come along, now, Lindsay, Jesse said to his brother. Some say this reservation is a joint-stock company. It’s got ‘Applegate’ written on it from top to bottom. And I won’t have our name pulled through the mud. Wrongly or rightly. I don’t think we’ve got much to fear, but we should look at the records together. This evening. That’s what I came down here for. I don’t want to get keel-hauled over this one the way we were with the road.

That, of course, settled it. When Jesse made up his mind to the ‘right way,’ nothing could deflect it. At fifty-eight, he was Lindsay’s junior by three years, but there never had been much question about who was the ‘senior partner.’ It had been the same twenty-five years earlier when the idea for the new trail bit him.

Weren’t they short on settlers here in Oregon?, he asked then. Didn’t the territory need them? Wasn’t the land there for the taking? What would set them all up was more commerce. Didn’t Lindsay see the beauty of the idea? With just a little persuasion, he said, the flow of settlers could be turned into Oregon across a new cut-off that would come right up their valley. No need to lose them all to California or wait for them to trickle down from the route up along the Columbia, their wagons abandoned at The Dalles. Where their kin could drown as easily as their two boys had before anyone could get to them.

Jesse had not rested until he had towed Lindsay and fourteen others eastward, out along the old Indian and trapper trails across the Modoc highlands to Goose Lake, over what they now called Fandango Pass and the Warner Mountains through Surprise Valley. Trusting scraps of map he got off of an old explorer, waterless, watching provisions disappear, Jesse captained them over the desolation of Black Rock Desert wilderness, to the place he calculated that season’s westward-headed settlers had to have reached.

With that strange urgency of his, he had hurried along, cajoling and trail-blazing, rushing to be in time to intercept the wagons before they took on the desolation of the Humboldt sink.

New promised land! he said waylaying them at last at Fort Hall, clear over in Idaho country. Worn down by the trail, their losses, the emigrants stopped and listened to this man with the pugnacious jaw and desert-crusted face, fearful of what was to come, aware that time was now shifting against them. Maybe his scheme made sense. It was true that you could feel the change in the air, they told each other. No doubt there was more heat coming in the days ahead, but still, something was different: the angle of the light, a new sharpness to the wind. It frightened them, reminded them that they had to hurry. Jaded as they were -- sick, beat, exhausted, tired to death of one another -- there was no time to waste here talking, except that these Applegate men were saying they had a new way, a shortcut. To Oregon. Easier. Quicker. Into new country they had settled that was just waiting to welcome new folks.

Here it was, August. Some of the wagons which had started off from the Missouri in April at the beginning of the season, maybe eighty or one-hundred of them, had already passed this point of intersection. But the rest could turn off here and get, in a shorter time, to a better place. That’s what these brothers, this what’s-his-name was saying.

Indians? Some, but that would be true no matter the direction. The Snakes, really Wahooskin Paiutes. Then there were Achumawi -- Pits, they were called -- there by the pass between Surprise Valley and Goose Lake. Then came the Modocs. Four, five days, a week at most would take the wagons through their country once they had passed Goose Lake, to the range of the Shastas, then up into the valley by the Rogue.

There was this odd eagerness about this ‘Jesse’ -- the way he rushed on -- as if he had thought of everything. They had only to do what he told them.

Adequate water stops almost all along the way, at least after the burnt desert part, the dry stretch. Send a crew of able-bodied men to widen the trail the Applegates had just blazed. Send a party two or three days ahead of the wagons to dig out reservoirs at the springs. Save the Antelope Springs and Rabbit Hole Springs water for the teams. Drive the loose animals on through to Black Rock, where there was hot water aplenty, twenty -- no, a hundred -- acres of green for the cattle. You could do it. Not exactly easy going, but much better than the torture that was waiting for them if they gambled they could make it along the Humboldt.

Good grazing once you were over the mountains west of the desert. Then eventually, after the train crossed into California and turned up into Oregon, bountiful country. Timber. Good stock-raising territory, good farm-land. After the Umpqua, the Willamette Valley. Good for orchards.