“You should have held this horse-race across the ford itself,” he said. “Water wouldn’t have left that gash in the white man’s skull.”
The President, glancing quickly up, saw the heavy, secret face musing upon the Secretary with dark speculation. But almost immediately the uncle spoke. “So it would. But this white man would have doubtless required a coin of money from my nephew for passing through his gate.” Then he laughed, mirthful, pleasant, decorous. “Perhaps it would have been better for that white man if he had allowed my nephew to pass through free. But that is neither here nor there now.”
“No,” the President said, almost sharply, so that they looked at him again. He held the quill above the paper. “What is the correct name? Weddel or Vidal?”
Again the pleasant, inflectionless voice came: “Weddel or Vidal. What does it matter by what name the White Chief calls us? We are but Indians: remembered yesterday and forgotten tomorrow.”
The President wrote upon the paper. The quill scratched steadily in the silence in which there was but one other sound: a faint, steady, minor sound which seemed to emerge from the dark and motionless group behind the uncle and nephew. He sanded what he had written and folded it and rose and stood for a moment so while they watched him quietly — the soldier who had commanded men well on more occasions than this.
“Your nephew is not guilty of this murder. My chief whom I have appointed to hold justice between us says for him to return home and never do this again, because next time he will be displeased.”
His voice died into a shocked silence; even for that instant the heavy lids fluttered, while from the dark throng behind him that faint, unceasing sound of quiet scratching by heat and wool engendered, like a faint, constant motion of the sea, also ceased for an instant. The uncle spoke in a tone of shocked unbelief: “My nephew is free?”
“He is free,” the President said. The uncle’s shocked gaze traveled about the room.
“This quick? And in here? In this house? I had thought. . . . But no matter.” They watched him; again the face was smooth, enigmatic, blank. “We are only Indians; doubtless these busy white men have but little time for our small affairs. Perhaps we have already incommoded them too much.”
“No, no,” the President said quickly. “To me, my Indian and my white people are the same.” But again the uncle’s gaze was traveling quietly about the room; standing side by side, the President and the Secretary could feel from one to another the same dawning alarm. After a while the President said: “Where had you expected this council to be held?”
The uncle looked at him. “You will be amused. In my ignorance I had thought that even our little affair would have been concluded in . . . But no matter.”
“In what?” the President said.
The bland, heavy face mused again upon him for a moment. “You will laugh; nevertheless, I will obey you. In the big white council house beneath the golden eagle.”
“What?” the Secretary cried, starting again. “In the . . .”
The uncle looked away. “I said that you would be amused. But no matter. We will have to wait, anyway.”
“Have to wait?” the President said. “For what?”
“This is really amusing,” the uncle said. He laughed again, in his tone of mirthful detachment. “More of my people are about to arrive. We can wait for them, since they will wish to see and hear also.” No one exclaimed at all now, not even the Secretary. They merely stared at him while the bland voice went on: “It seems that some of them mistook the town.
They had heard the name of the White Chief’s capital spoken, but it so happens that there is also a town in our country with the same name, so that when some of the People inquired on the road, they became misdirected and went there instead, poor ignorant Indians.”
He laughed, with fond and mirthful tolerance behind his enigmatic and sleepy face. “But a messenger has arrived; they will arrive themselves within the week. Then we will see about punishing this headstrong boy.” He shook the nephew’s arm lightly. Except for this the nephew did not move, watching the President with his grave and unwinking regard.
For a long moment there was no sound save the faint, steady scratching of the Indians. Then the Secretary began to speak, patiently, as though addressing a child: “Look. Your nephew is free. This paper says that he did not slay the white man and that no man shall so accuse him again, else both I and the great chief beside me will be angered.
He can return home now, at once. Let all of you return home at once. For is it not well said that the graves of a man’s fathers are never quiet in his absence?”
Again there was silence. Then the President said, “Besides, the white council house beneath the golden eagle is being used now by a council of chiefs who are more powerful there than I am.”
The uncle’s hand lifted; foamed with soiled lace, his forefinger waggled in reproachful deprecation. “Do not ask even an ignorant Indian to believe that,” he said. Then he said, with no change of inflection whatever; the Secretary did not know until the President told him later, that the uncle was now addressing him: “And these chiefs will doubtless be occupying the white council hut for some time yet, I suppose.”
“Yes,” the Secretary said. “Until the last snow of winter has melted among the flowers and the green grass.”
“Good,” the uncle said. “We will wait, then. Then the rest of the People will have time to arrive.”
And so it was that up that Avenue with a high destiny the cavalcade moved in the still falling snow, led by the carriage containing the President and the uncle and nephew, the fat, ringed hand lying again upon the nephew’s knee, and followed by a second carriage containing the Secretary and his secretary, and this followed in turn by two files of soldiers between which walked the dark and decorous cloud of men, women and children on foot and in arms; so it was that behind the Speaker’s desk of that chamber which was to womb and contemplate the high dream of a destiny superior to the injustice of events and the folly of mankind, the President and the Secretary stood, while below them, ringed about by the living manipulators of, and interspersed by the august and watching ghosts of the dreamers of, the destiny, the uncle and nephew stood, with behind them the dark throng of kin and friends and acquaintances from among which came steadily and unabated that faint sound of wool and flesh in friction. The President leaned to the Secretary.
“Are they ready with the cannon?” he whispered. “Are you sure they can see my arm from the door? And suppose those damned guns explode: they have not been fired since Washington shot them last at Cornwallis: will they impeach me?”
“Yes,” the Secretary hissed.
“Then God help us. Give me the book.” The Secretary passed it to him: it was Petrarch’s Sonnets, which the Secretary had snatched from his table in passing. “Let us hope that I remember enough law Latin to keep it from sounding like either English or Chickasaw,” the President said. He opened the book, and then again the President, the conqueror of men, the winner of battles diplomatic, legal and martial, drew himself erect and looked down upon the dark, still, intent, waiting faces; when he spoke his voice was the voice which before this had caused men to pause and attend and then obey: “Francis Weddel, chief in the Chickasaw Nation, and you, nephew of Francis Weddel and some day to be a chief, hear my words.”
Then he began to read. His voice was full, sonorous, above the dark faces, echoing about the august dome in profound and solemn syllables. He read ten sonnets. Then, with his arm lifted, he perorated; his voice died profoundly away and he dropped his arm. A moment later, from outside the building, came a ragged crash of artillery.
And now for the first time the dark throng stirred; from among them came a sound, a murmur, of pleased astonishment. The President spoke again: “Nephew of Francis Weddel, you are free. Return to your home.”
And now the uncle spoke; again his finger waggled from out its froth of lace. “Heedless boy,” he said. “Consider the trouble which you have caused these busy men.” He turned to the Secretary, almost briskly; again his voice was bland, pleasant, almost mirthful: “And now, about the little matter of this cursed ford. . . .”
With the autumn sun falling warmly and pleasantly across his shoulders, the President said, “That is all,” quietly and turned to his desk as the secretary departed. While he took up the letter and opened it the sun fell upon his hands and upon the page, with its inference of the splendid dying of the year, of approaching harvests and of columns of quiet wood smoke — serene pennons of peace — above peaceful chimneys about the land.
Suddenly the President started; he sprang up, the letter in his hand, glaring at it in shocked and alarmed consternation while the bland words seemed to explode one by one in his comprehension like musketry:
Dear sir and friend:
This is really amusing. Again this hot-headed nephew — he must have taken his character from his father’s people, since it is none of mine —
