The Dying Grass, page 10
You don’t know nothing. See how I just swept up this whole hand?
That’s not fair!
Of course it ain’t. Cards ain’t supposed to be fair.
You’re out of luck. Nobody takes shinplasters at The Dalles. It’s near about impossible even to cash a greenback.
How about Lewiston?
O, if you can hold out until then! Always some good Samaritan up there who’ll take your d——d money.
You may not know this, general, but I recently met your son in the Sportsmen’s Emporium. He was buying gunmetal-polish on your behalf.
On Front Street?
Yessir. A likely young officer.
Thank you. That would be Guy, my eldest. No, Fletch, everything has already been gone over. Enjoy yourself . . .
Wallowa? Is that where we’re goin,’ Doc?
Don’t you even remember?
I’m just trusting you. You said we could be volunteers.
Only if we need to.
I want to.
Then go sign up with that d——d general over there by the paddlewheel. I don’t care shit about glory.
How come Blurick ran away?
He’ll get his.
Don’t he have an aunt or something in Hood River?
He’s dead to me.
No, he was near the bottom of his class at West Point.
No danger in this section.
Fine spot for a saw-mill.
We’ve got no warrant to settle on wild lands beyond the latest boundaries until they have been ceded in an orderly way.
What are you, some kind of Jew lawyer?
Well, the truth is, Lizzie is mad about that rock soap washing powder you can send away for in San Francisco. So when she thought to do Mrs. Perry a kindness and give her a pound of it, I couldn’t refuse.
Of course not, sir. As soon as we arrive at Lapwai I’ll hand it off.
A relief to get rid of it. Thank you, Fletch, for troubling yourself—
So I’m workin’ with you, Doc. I swear I’ll do just what you say.
You’ll do fine.
Doc, you said you’d seen them Nez Perces.
That’s right. Been to Wallowa scores of times.
What’re they like?
Just Injuns.
And you can speak Injun, right?
Ain’t nothin’ to it.
Why won’t you say more about Wallowa?
Them green lands in Wallowa, why should Injuns get the benefit? And that lake, we’ll call it Lake Heaven. Wait till you see it. Honest Injun, you can see the fins of speckled trout forty foot down! And salmon red as blood. That’s how it is—
You swear?
Sure. And right there I seen gold inside of a hill, with that genuine yellow color. Travis already struck it rich, and he’s nothin’ but a squaw man wolfer. And them, they ain’t hardly better than animals. You know what I spied them doin’ one time? Well, they—
Good morning to you, General Howard. Good morning, lieutenant.
Good morning, Captain Wolf. What’s for breakfast to-day?
Salmon, coffee, steak and potatoes.
This scenery is unsurpassed. These wild cascades!
Well, general, one gets used to it. And how are Mrs. Howard and the children?
Now the sun goes as wide as Blurick’s wagon-wheels, and they see
dark green and light green late summer forest walling the river in
and the morning’s white gloss on alder leaves
and two more woodhawks felling trees to vend to boilermen
as white breath speeds from our tall dark smokestack, Old Glory seething upon its forward-canted flagpole, passengers gripping the railings
and the shadow of Rooster Rock reflected in a stagnant marsh.
He’s a nigger lover.
Who is?
Him:
tall, whitebearded now, immaculately medalled, tricked out in double button-rows and epaulettes, the empty sleeve stiff and straight.
Shut your mouth. He’s looking at us.
No he ain’t.
He turned tail at Chancellorsville.
That’s not so. He exercised the functions of a commanding officer against overwhelming—
He’s a—
Now the cliffs descend (the ship’s white flank briefly exploding into sunny dazzlement) and the golden grass becomes a sort of sky inhabited by blue-grey clouds of trees
and striated basalt cliffs where a dark pine droops down its needles like a weeping willow, dark rock snickering irregularly through the orange grass,
the world brown and gold,
silver and blue,
and the pale yellow of the hill grass at noon,
the wettish, blondish-green fleece on steep and windy slopes along the Columbia at The Dalles:
Fast and shipshape, captain!
Throw down the plank.
Aye, aye.
Well, General Howard, welcome to The Dalles,
city of tents, formerly bazaar of Indians
(even the Modocs used to trade here),
where at present the serviceberries remain far from ripe, and three young ladies stand giggling and waving by the floating dock. Cordwood and plumped out oat-sacks, trodden dirt; thus The Dalles—not yet as wide and busy as the railroad terminal at Council Bluffs, Nebraska, but Progress is coming. The pilot lets fall the mail sack; citizens swarm around it. A pair of honeymooners make their pic-nic on a blanket beneath an aspen, beaming at each other. An off-duty cavalryman waters his horse. Starting, he salutes the general, who smilingly nods in return. Indians sit in the dirt streets, quietly drinking whiskey because it’s too early for them to cure salmon. One of them shows each passerby a letter signed by some unknown person and reading: This is a good Indian. Soon we will get them onto some reservation. General Howard lays down his head at Umatilla House, among the many who seek sleep with their boots on. Fletch is already snoring heartily. How young he is! Reminds me of Guy, who I’m sure is doing well. In which establishment will that young couple I saw under the aspen find peace to-night? Not here, I hope. Lizzie and I were about that age when we were married. I’ll not forget how tenderly she used to smile at me. She seems wonderfully discouraged nowadays. LORD, may I soon discover how to cheer her! Now I lay me—but already he can feel between himself and sleep his mind’s weary hand sorting through that faded saddlebag of hemp and cornstalks in which our dreams are kept, and finding, inevitably, Edisto, of which he would rather never dream. No, I shall not. Accordingly, the nightmares arrive, like thin dark streams of Illinois regiments wisping down the raw Allatoona hillside to reënforce our Union fort. First the flower-scented porches of Beaufort rise up about him, and he begins once more to see the elderly negresses standing in the dirt outside the Fuller House (now in moderate disrepair since the dismissal of General Saxton), with that pencil-shaped sentry-box tall and white beside them, and shade trees behind the fence. Against all desire he perceives himself approaching John Seabrook’s white plantation mansion on Edisto Island, with a single cloud centered over the roof and confiscated cotton drying on the lawn—but no, the lawn has returned to its immaculate state, and the Seabrooks control their cotton as before. A negro crowd gazes upon him in a silence not yet hopeless even now; somehow he will save them. General: You will acknowledge the receipt and obedience of these instructions—which he must now read to them who wait upon him here at Edisto. No, I decline. He sits up. The lantern being merely half-shuttered—sufficient light to work—on the table he unrolls Colton’s map, weighting the corners with four bullets:
The Dalles right here, then east to Celilo (must ask about that Spanish Hole up inland):
Our general never quits, GOD bless him!
and Wallula on the Columbia where it narrows, right north of Old Fort Walla-Walla, then east-southeast to Walla Walla:
A credit to the service.
Are you fixing to rejoin?
and Lewiston,
which the reds once called Riverfork,
and the pre-American blankness, already gridded, of the Nez Perce Indian Reservation into whose northwestern part Lewiston and consequently Fort Lapwai have insinuated themselves:
Not enough excitement anymore,
Lapwai now metonymized in his mind by Colonel Perry’s smooth bearded spadeshaped face, which in former years appeared gentle
and Mrs. Perry’s, poor lady,
and going down the south-southeasterly snaggle of the Salmon River, we come first to White Bird Creek, then John Day’s Creek, then the two easterly branches of Slate Creek, along which restless Americans have already begun to settle; and in the blank map-country eastward of those tributaries we find Nevada, Florence (whose gold mines are petering out) and Millersburg,
then, of greatest present significance, the northern half of Joseph’s valley, which on Colton’s map is still called WALLOWA IND. RESERVN.—mistakenly now that it has been withdrawn again from the Indians. Whipple’s bunch are keeping that country buttoned down, I trust.
And the Roseburg citizens aim to put in an oil mill.
Well, once we build up Wallowa—
The air grows as thick as Pittsburgh factory-smoke. Sitting on the corner bed, two miners play cards all night. One of them keeps saying: Hardly better than animals.— Men are marching loudly out to piss. A fat grocer fans himself, then vomits in a chamberpot. An old rancher and his son are murmuring sadly over the news from Cleveland: the Standard Oil coopers have gone on strike. Why should it trouble them? Perhaps their relations live out there. A loathsome fly drones round and round his ear; he cannot catch it. Perhaps if I still had my right hand . . . A Spaniard of some sort lies on his back, masticating pilot biscuit. A stockman entertains three comrades with loud declamations from Fox’s Ethiopian Comicalities. None of this is how it ought to be, but who am I to insist on special treatment? The Army holds no sway here. I’m not so old yet, nor so proud. So he lights a candle and reads Cicero, on whom they began last month at the Officers’ Club in Portland. To be sure, I enjoyed Dumas’s adventure-entertainments with less reserve. Does that mean I’m worn out? I must keep my Latin up—it cost me so much labor to con it in the first place! O, me! The thing is to remain unaffected by those evil-mouthed citizens over there. LORD preserve me from hating them! May they be less corrupt than they seem. Refugees from justice, familiars of some livery stable, Indian haters, claim hunters, what are they? Deliver me from evil; their indiscretions are not my business. O, but like this fly they are hateful beyond description. Hardly better than animals. And the water, and the grass, and Edisto, and Lizzie’s thin trembling mouth, and this journey, and those profane men over there, although it’s not for me to call them bad, when will they all swim away? I must confess, Latin is more difficult than the parlez-vous we used to play at back at Bowdoin College. And Lizzie’s eyes, is it merely the change of life or do I fail her worse and worse? I pray that Joseph will come in as easily as Cochise and his Apaches did. No doubt he will, if I reason with him. The Apache case testifies to the power of goodness. O, how unpleasant General Crook became once I prevented him from putting them out of the way! (That manner he has of turning his face infinitesimally to one side when he stares at one with his blue-grey eyes—quite inhuman, for a fact.) And as I get older I worry more, of course; last week Lizzie said: Dearest, you never used to see such difficulties in anything.— Well, the anniversary of Father’s death is coming round: thirty-seven years. That never fails to unman me. And I’ve told her, but she doesn’t realize: Crook’s influence truly waxes against me in Washington. Is that why Sherman has grown cold? He’s been less available since Edisto. It didn’t help that I lost two years of military service. But surely he won’t replace me, so long as this business goes smoothly at Lapwai. Monteith is awfully strong against Joseph, I believe (must learn what Sladen thinks). Nearly every settler dislikes Indians and would wipe them out. How can I help the Nez Perces to know their own interest? Sherman hates them all worse than negroes. If I resigned the service, Lizzie wouldn’t know what to do with me. But if I were to be ordained . . . The stink of their boots! When will this night end? Sherman used to advise me to write a book. I should, actually. I’ll pay off the lawyers this year, and if Congress would give me relief . . . But my salary’s in depreciated greenbacks. Grace’s tuition is paid up through Christmas; praise GOD. That pledge of ten thousand dollars to the university, was I crazy? Lizzie never complains. After seven children, the skin of her face remains fair, delicate and taut . . . It must please her, to look so much younger than her age. If I have disappointed her, I pray that she will forgive me. I have tried many things with her now, and . . . But those men in the corner don’t care how foul they are. Their low type has brought about most of our Indian problems. They’re worse than squaw men, whose licentiousness may at least improve into marital love. Their crimes cry out to Heaven. And so, for the Indians’ own sake . . . Lizzie never asks me anything anymore. She has forgotten everything but unhappiness. When Harry and Bessie are older I’ll bring her here to see the country. Perhaps Grace will find time to accompany us, but I suppose she’ll have married one of her beaux. Someday, when the Indians are finally ripe for education, I hope to endow them their own college. Have those men no consideration for the sensibilities of others? They goad me like flies on a mule’s open sores! But nobody else is troubled, so I must bear it. No, they are uttering obscenities now. That’s too much.
Rising, he says: Gentlemen, you’re offending this house. Go out or be quiet.
You can’t discipline us, general. We’re not in the Army.
This place is under Army jurisdiction. Now keep the peace at once, or I’ll have you arrested.
Ain’t you the general who—
Sir,
his empty sleeve swishing angrily like a whip,
as Fletch now leaps up, longing to defend him,
I don’t know who you are, but since you’re asking who I am, I am a soldier who has never turned a corner to avoid a bullet. Now will you do as I say? I won’t warn you again.
They glare at him, one man actually gnashing his teeth, but so far govern themselves as to converse in ugly whispers.— So he wishes Fletch a second good night, rolls up Colton’s map and returns to Cicero. He cannot approve that writer’s vanity, nor, worse yet, his inability to make up his mind, nor, worst of all, his cowardice. A slaveholder, moreover, and a rented rhetorician! At least Cicero can be called happy in his friend Atticus. Who would not desire such a companion, who never fails to advise, console and flatter upon request? To-night General Howard has almost reached the end of the year 50 B.C. Caesar determines to cross the Rubicon. Once he does, the Civil War will commence; and the statues of the Roman gods will sweat blood. Long have they pass’d. Pompey, who disdained when he should have flattered, now too late begins to fear his rival. As for Cicero, he has obligated himself to both dictators. Pompey represents the legitimate authority of the Republic, so Cicero feels bound to serve him, but the man’s many errors repel him—yet he dreads his own fate should Caesar be victorious. He writes another desperate letter to Atticus. “Depugna,” inquis, “potius quom servias.” Which is to say: “Fight,” you tell me, “rather than be slaves.” The result will be proscription if one is vanquished and slavery even if one wins. “What shall I do then?” What the cattle do, who when scattered follow flocks of their own kind. As an ox follows the herd, so shall I follow the “right party,” or whoever are said to be the “right party,” even if they rush to destruction. First the general considers this question; then it seems to him that he continues to consider it, until the clerk knocks shockingly at each door, announcing: Four-o’-clock! so that no one will miss the train to Celilo,
which unseeingly passes Toohhoolhoolzote and seven other Dreamers watching from the rocks there where the river is bifurcated by the reflection of Cape Horn as the shining tracks run on along the base of that basalt cliff and curve round into the yellow morning sky, running on to Celilo:
the birds fall silent; then comes the train, roaring, smoking and hooting,
making itself gone
(it is warped, says Toohhoolhoolzote),
gone to Celilo
where the steamer waits to convey Fletch and the general upriver, because
I pledge allegiance to the flag
and to this green-gold and brown-cliffed land,
all things soft and low,
and my Lizzie
mirror-river, rock columns in frozen explosions, bursting out of grass-slopes, bursting out of clouds
of the United States of America
such dappling, such slopes of green and gold
(America),
the hills like soft prisms because they show so many cañons, so many facets
of America. The land has always belonged to us.
More coffee, general?
Yes, please. I must say, it’ll be extremely pleasant to be sitting ourselves down again on Colonel Perry’s porch! And that gracious wife of his!
Yessir.
Tell me, Fletch, entre nous, which of our ladies at Lapwai is the favorite of the younger officers?
Well, general, I should have to say Mrs. Theller—
Of course. A regular belle! Are you tired?
Not at all, sir.
Take a snooze if you wish; I won’t need you at all this morning . . .
I voted for Tilden because he’s a hard money man. Hayes has been bewitched by easy money.
We all voted for Tilden. Therefore, he won. Well, look who moved into the White House—
Excuse me, general, but I’d like your autograph to give to my mother.
Hayes made no mistake on the national debt.
All right. Here you are, sir.
Thanks, general; it’ll be a real feather in her cap. She’s a collector. All you Government men have been real kind to her. Tilden’s the only one who ever turned her down.
