Avram Davidson - The Avram Davidson Treasury - a tribute collection

They talked on some more, and all the while the dust never settled in the road. They watched the whole tribe, what there was of it, go by towards the Agency — in old trucks, in buckboards, on horses, on foot. And after some time, they loaded up the pick-up and followed.

The Indians sat all over the grass in front of the Agency, and for once no one bothered to chase them off. They just sat, silent, waiting. A group of men from Crosby and Spanish Flats were talking to the Superintendent; there were maps in their hands. The cousins went up to them; the white men looked out of the corners of their eyes, confidence still tempered — but only a bit — by wariness.

“Mr. Jenkins,” Newt said to one, “most of this is your doing and you know how I feel about It—”

“You better not make any trouble, Quarterhorse,” said another townsman. Jenkins said, “Let the boy have his say.”

“—but I know you’ll give me a straight answer. What’s going to be done here?”

Jenkins was a leathery little man, burnt almost as dark as an Indian. He looked at him, not unkindly, through the spectacles which magnified his blue eyes. “Why, you know, son, there’s nothing personal in all this. The land belongs to them that can hold it and use it. It was made to be used. You people’ve had your chance, Lord knows — Well, no speeches. You see, here on the map, where this here dotted line is? The county is putting through a new road to connect with a new highway the state’s going to construct. There’ll be a lot of traffic through here, and this Agency ought to make a fine motel.

“And right along here —” his blunt finger traced, “—there’s going to be the main irrigation canal. There’ll be branches all through the Reservation. I reckon we can raise some mighty fine alfalfa. Fatten some mighty fine cattle… I always thought, son, you’d be good with stock, if you had some good stock to work with. Not these worthless scrubs. If you want a job—”

One of the men cleared his sinus cavities with an ugly sound, and spat. “Are you out of your mind, Jenk? Here we been workin for years ta git these Indyins outa here, and you tryin ta make um stay …”

The Superintendent was a tall, fat, soft man with a loose smile. He said ingratiatingly, “Mr. Jenkins realizes, as I’m sure you do too, Mr. Waldo, that the policy of the United States government is, and always has been — except for the unfortunate period when John Collier was in charge of the Bureau of Indian Affairs — man may have meant well, but Lord! hopeless sentimentalist — well, our policy has always been: Prepare the Indian to join the general community. Get him off the reservation. Turn the tribal lands over to the Individual . And it’s been done with other tribes, and now, finally, it’s being done with this one.” He beamed.

Newt gritted his teeth. Then he said, “And the result was always the same — as soon as the tribal lands were given to the individual red man they damn quick passed into the hand of the individual white man. That’s what happened with other tribes, and now, finally, it’s being done with this one. Don’t you know , Mr. Scott, that we can’t adapt ourselves to the system of individual land-ownership? That we just aren’t strong enough by ourselves to hold onto real estate? That—”

“Root, hog, er die,” said Mr. Waldo.

“Are men hogs? ” Newt cried.

Waldo said, at large, “ Told ya he w’s a trouble-maker.” Then, bringing his long, rough, red face next to Newt’s, he said, “Listen, Indyin, you and all y’r stinkin relatives are through. If Jenkins is damnfool enough ta hire ya, that’s his look-out. But if he don’t, you better stay far, far away, because nobody likes ya, nobody wants ya, and now that the Guvermint in Worshennon is finely come ta their sentces, nobody is goin ta protec ya — you and y’r mangy cows and y’r smutty-nosed sheep and y’r blankets—”

Newt’s face showed his feelings, but before he could voice them, Billy Cottonwood broke in. “Mr. Scott,” he said, “we sent a telegram to Washington, asking to halt the break-up of the Reservation.”

Scott smiled his sucaryl smile. “Well, that’s your privilege as a citizen.”

Cottonwood spoke on. He mentioned the provisions of the bill passed by Congress, authorizing the Commissioner of Indian Affairs to liquidate, at his discretion, all reservations including less than one hundred residents, and to divide the land among them.

“Mr. Scott, when the Treaty of Juniper Butte was made between the United States and the Tickisalls,” Cottonwood said, “there were thousands of us. That treaty was to be kept ‘as long as the sun shall rise or the grasses grow.’ The Government pledged itself to send us doctors — it didn’t, and we died like flies. It pledged to send us seed and cattle; it sent us no seed and we had to eat the few hundred head of stock-yard cast-offs they did send us, to keep from starving. The Government was to keep our land safe for us forever, in a sacred trust — and in every generation they’ve taken away more and more. Mr. Scott — Mr. Jenkins, Mr. Waldo, and all you other gentlemen — you knew, didn’t you, when you were kind enough to loan us money — or rather, to give us credit at the stores, when this drought started — you knew that this bill was up before Congress, didn’t you?”

No one answered him. “You knew that it would pass, and that turning our lands over to us wouldn’t mean a darned thing, didn’t you? That we already owed so much money that our creditors would take all our land? Mr. Scott, how can the Government let this happen to us? It made a treaty with us to keep our lands safe for us ‘as long as the sun rises or the grasses grow.’ Has the sun stopped rising? Has the grass stopped growing? We believed in you — we kept our part of the treaty. Mr. Scott, won’t you wire Washington — won’t you other gentlemen do the same? To stop this thing that’s being done to us? It’s almost a hundred years now since we made treaty, and we’ve always hoped. Now we’ve only got till midnight to hope. Unless—?”

But the Superintendent said, No, he couldn’t do that. And Jenkins shook his head, and said, sorry; it was really all for the best. Waldo shrugged, produced a packet of legal papers. “I’ve been deppatized to serve all these,” he said. “Soons the land’s all passed over ta individj’l ownership — which is 12 P.M. tanight. But if you give me y’r word (whatever that’s worth) not ta make no trouble, why, guess it c’n wait till morning. Yo go back ta y‘r shacks and I’ll be round, come morning. We’ll sleep over with Scott f’r tanight.”

Sam Quarterhorse said, “We won’t make any trouble, no. Not much use in that. But we’ll wait right here. It’s still possible we’ll hear from Washington before midnight.”

The Superintendent’s house was quite comfortable. Logs (cut by Indian labor from the last of the Reservation’s trees) blazed in the big fireplace (built by Indian labor). A wealth of rugs (woven by Indians in the Agency school) decorated walls and floor. The card-game had been on for some time when they heard the first woman start to wail. Waldo looked up nervously. Jenkins glanced at the clock. “Twelve midnight,” he said. “Well, that’s it. All over but the details. Took almost a hundred years, but it’ll be worth it.”

Another woman took up the keening. It swelled to a chorus of heartbreak, then died away. Waldo picked up his cards, then put them down again. An old man’s voice had begun a chant. Someone took it up — then another. Drums joined it, and rattles. Scott said, “That was old Fox-head who started that just now. They’re singing the death-song. They’ll go on till morning.”