Then some bull-teams going to Camp Apache had stopped over night at the Agency. The teamsters had sold the bucks5 whiskey, and the bucks had grown very drunk. The representatives of the two tribes which were hereditary6 enemies, and which the special agent of an all-wise Interior Department had, nevertheless, shut up within the confines of the same reservation, therewith fell upon and slew7 each other, and the survivors8 went upon the warpath—metal tags and all. So the troops had been called out, and Landor's was at San Carlos.
Landor himself sat in his tent, upon his mess-chest, and by the light of a candle wrote a despatch9 which[Pg 8] was to go by courier the next morning. Gila valley mosquitoes were singing around his head, a knot of chattering10 squaws and naked children were peering into his tent, the air was oven-hot, coyotes were filling the night with their weird11 bark, and a papoose was bawling12 somewhere close by. Yet he would have been sufficiently13 content could he have been let alone—the one plea of the body military from all time. It was not to be. The declared and standing14 foes15 of that body pushed their way through the squaws and children. He knew them already. They were Stone of the Tucson press, sent down to investigate and report, and Barnwell, an Agency high official, who would gladly assist the misrepresentations, so far as in his power lay.
Landor knew that they were come to hear what he might have to say about it, and he had decided16 to say, for once, just what he thought, which is almost invariably unwise, and in this particular case proved exceedingly so, as any one could have foretold17. On the principle that a properly conducted fist fight is opened by civilities, however, he mixed three toddies in as many tin coffee cups.
They said "how," and drank. After which Stone asked what the military were going to do about certain things which he specified18, and implied the inability of the military to do anything for any one. Landor smiled indolently and said "Quien sabe?" Stone wished to be told if any one ever did know and suggested, acridly19, that if the by-word of the Mexican were poco-tiempo, that of the troops was certainly[Pg 9] quien-sabe? Between the two the citizen got small satisfaction.
"I don't know," objected Landor; "you get the satisfaction of beginning the row pretty generally—as you did this time—and of saying what you think about us in unmistakable language after we have tried to put things straight for you."
Stone considered his dignity as a representative of the press, and decided that he would not be treated with levity20. He would resent the attitude of the soldiery; but in his resentment21 he passed the bounds of courtesy altogether, forgetting whose toddy he had just drunk, and beneath whose tent pole he was seated. He said rude things about the military,—that it was pampered22 and inefficient23 and gold laced, and that it thought its mission upon earth fulfilled when it sat back and drew princely pay.
Landor recalled the twenty years of all winter campaigns, dry camps, forced marches, short rations24, and long vigils and other annoyances25 that are not put down in the tactics, and smiled again, with a deep cynicism. Barnwell sat silent. He sympathized with Stone because his interests lay that way, but he was somewhat unfortunately placed between the military devil and the political deep sea.
Stone was something of a power in Tucson politics, and altogether a great man upon the territorial26 stump27. He was proud of his oratory28, and launched into a display of it now, painting luridly29 the wrongs of the citizen, who, it appeared, was a defenceless, honest, [Pg 10]law-abiding child of peace, yet passed his days in seeing his children slaughtered30, his wife tortured, his ranches31 laid waste, and himself shot down and scalped.
Landor tried to interpose a suggestion that though the whole effect was undoubtedly32 good and calculated to melt a heart of iron, the rhetoric33 was muddled34; but the reporter swept on; so he clasped his hands behind his head and leaning back against a tent pole, yawned openly. Stone came to an end at length, and had to mop his head with a very much bordered handkerchief. The temperature was a little high for so much effort. He met Landor's glance challengingly.
"Well done!" the officer commended. "But considering how it has heated you, you ought to have saved it for some one upon whom it would have had its effect—some one who wasn't round at the time of the Aravaypa Ca?on business, for instance."
The Agency man thought a question would not commit him. He had not been round at that time, and he asked for information. The lieutenant35 gave it to him.
"It was a little spree they had here in '71. Some Tucson citizens and Papago Indians and Greasers undertook to avenge36 their wrongs and show the troops how it ought to be done. So they went to Aravaypa Ca?on, where a lot of peaceable Indians were cutting hay, and surprised them one day at sunrise, and killed a hundred and twenty-five of them—mostly women and children."
The reporter interposed that it was the act of men maddened by grief and their losses.
"I dare say," Landor agreed; "it is certainly more[Pg 11] charitable to suppose that men who hacked37 up the bodies of babies, and abused women, and made away with every sort of loot, from a blanket to a string of beads38, were mad. It was creditably thorough for madmen, though. And it was the starting-point of all the trouble that it took Crook39 two years to straighten out."
Stone held that the affair had been grossly exaggerated, and that the proof thereof lay in the acquittal of all accused of the crime, by a jury of their peers; and Landor said that the sooner that highly discreditable travesty40 on justice was forgotten, the better for the good fame of the territory. The press representative waxed eloquent41 once more, until his neck grew violet with suppressed wrath42, which sputtered43 out now and then in profanity. The officer met his finest flights with cold ridicule44, and the Agency man improved the opportunity by pouring himself a drink from the flask45 on the cot. In little it was the reproduction of the whole situation on the frontier—and the politician profited.
In those days some strange things happened at agencies. Toilet sets were furnished to the Apache, who has about as much use for toilet sets as the Greenlander has for cotton prints, and who would probably have used them for targets if he had ever gotten them—which he did not. Upon the table of a certain agent (and he was an honest man, let it be noted46, for the thing was rare) there lay for some time a large rock, which he had labelled with delicate humor "sample of sugar furnished to this agency under—" but the name doesn't matter now. It was close on a[Pg 12] quarter of a century ago, and no doubt it is all changed since then. By the same working out, a schoolhouse built of sun-baked mud, to serve as a temple of learning for the Red-man, cost the government forty thousand dollars. The Apache children who sat within it could have acquired another of the valuable lessons of Ojo-blanco from the contractors47.
Beef was furnished the Indians on the hoof48 and calculated by the pound, and the weight of some of those long-horn steers49, once they got upon the Agency scales, would have done credit to a mastodon. By this method the Indian got the number of pounds of meat he was entitled to per capita, and there was some left over that the agent might dispose of to his friends. As for the heavy-weight steers, when the Apache received them, he tortured them to death with his customary ingenuity50. It made the meat tender; and he was an epicure51 in his way. The situation in the territory, whichever way you looked at it, was not hopeful.
When the moon rose, Barnwell and Stone went away and left Landor again with the peeping squaws and the wailing52 papooses, the mosquitoes and the legacy53 of their enduring enmity,—an enmity not to be lightly despised, for it could be as annoying and far more serious than the stings of the river-bottom mosquitoes. As they walked across the gleaming dust, their bodies throwing long black shadows, two naked Indian boys followed them, creeping forward unperceived, dropping on the ground now and then, and wriggling54 along like snakes. They were practising for the future.
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1
prospect
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| n.前景，前途；景色，视野 | |
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lasting
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| adj.永久的，永恒的；vbl.持续，维持 | |
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filthy
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| adj.卑劣的；恶劣的，肮脏的 | |
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4
appreciative
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| adj.有鉴赏力的，有眼力的；感激的 | |
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5
bucks
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| n.雄鹿( buck的名词复数 )；钱；（英国十九世纪初的）花花公子；（用于某些表达方式）责任v.（马等）猛然弓背跃起( buck的第三人称单数 )；抵制；猛然震荡；马等尥起后蹄跳跃 | |
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6
hereditary
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| adj.遗传的，遗传性的，可继承的，世袭的 | |
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7
slew
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| v.（使）旋转；n.大量，许多 | |
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8
survivors
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| 幸存者，残存者，生还者( survivor的名词复数 ) | |
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despatch
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| n./v.(dispatch)派遣；发送；n.急件；新闻报道 | |
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10
chattering
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| n. （机器振动发出的）咔嗒声，(鸟等)鸣，啁啾 adj. 喋喋不休的，啾啾声的 动词chatter的现在分词形式 | |
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11
weird
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| adj.古怪的，离奇的；怪诞的，神秘而可怕的 | |
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12
bawling
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| v.大叫，大喊( bawl的现在分词 )；放声大哭；大声叫出；叫卖（货物） | |
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13
sufficiently
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| adv.足够地，充分地 | |
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14
standing
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| n.持续，地位；adj.永久的，不动的，直立的，不流动的 | |
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15
foes
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| 敌人，仇敌( foe的名词复数 ) | |
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16
decided
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| adj.决定了的，坚决的；明显的，明确的 | |
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foretold
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| v.预言，预示( foretell的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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18
specified
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| adj.特定的 | |
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19
acridly
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| adj.辛辣的；刺鼻的；（性格、态度、言词等）刻薄的；尖刻的 | |
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20
levity
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| n.轻率，轻浮，不稳定，多变 | |
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resentment
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| n.怨愤，忿恨 | |
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22
pampered
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| adj.饮食过量的，饮食奢侈的v.纵容，宠，娇养( pamper的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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23
inefficient
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| adj.效率低的，无效的 | |
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24
rations
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| 定量( ration的名词复数 )； 配给量； 正常量； 合理的量 | |
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25
annoyances
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| n.恼怒( annoyance的名词复数 )；烦恼；打扰；使人烦恼的事 | |
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26
territorial
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| adj.领土的，领地的 | |
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27
stump
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| n.残株，烟蒂，讲演台；v.砍断，蹒跚而走 | |
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28
oratory
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| n.演讲术；词藻华丽的言辞 | |
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luridly
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| adv. 青灰色的(苍白的, 深浓色的, 火焰等火红的) | |
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30
slaughtered
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| v.屠杀，杀戮，屠宰( slaughter的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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31
ranches
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| 大农场， （兼种果树，养鸡等的）大牧场( ranch的名词复数 ) | |
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32
undoubtedly
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| adv.确实地，无疑地 | |
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33
rhetoric
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| n.修辞学，浮夸之言语 | |
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34
muddled
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| adj.混乱的；糊涂的；头脑昏昏然的v.弄乱，弄糟( muddle的过去式)；使糊涂；对付，混日子 | |
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35
lieutenant
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| n.陆军中尉，海军上尉；代理官员，副职官员 | |
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36
avenge
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| v.为...复仇，为...报仇 | |
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37
hacked
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| 生气 | |
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38
beads
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| n.（空心）小珠子( bead的名词复数 )；水珠；珠子项链 | |
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39
crook
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| v.使弯曲；n.小偷，骗子，贼；弯曲(处) | |
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40
travesty
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| n.歪曲，嘲弄，滑稽化 | |
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41
eloquent
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| adj.雄辩的，口才流利的；明白显示出的 | |
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42
wrath
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| n.愤怒，愤慨，暴怒 | |
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43
sputtered
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| v.唾沫飞溅( sputter的过去式和过去分词 )；发劈啪声；喷出；飞溅出 | |
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44
ridicule
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| v.讥讽，挖苦；n.嘲弄 | |
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45
flask
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| n.瓶，火药筒，砂箱 | |
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46
noted
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| adj.著名的，知名的 | |
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47
contractors
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| n.（建筑、监造中的）承包人( contractor的名词复数 ) | |
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48
hoof
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| n.(马，牛等的)蹄 | |
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49
steers
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| n.阉公牛，肉用公牛( steer的名词复数 )v.驾驶( steer的第三人称单数 )；操纵；控制；引导 | |
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50
ingenuity
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| n.别出心裁；善于发明创造 | |
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51
epicure
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| n.行家，美食家 | |
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52
wailing
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| v.哭叫，哀号( wail的现在分词 )；沱 | |
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53
legacy
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| n.遗产，遗赠；先人(或过去)留下的东西 | |
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54
wriggling
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| v.扭动，蠕动，蜿蜒行进( wriggle的现在分词 )；（使身体某一部位）扭动；耍滑不做，逃避（应做的事等）；蠕蠕 | |
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