The People: And Other Uncollected Fiction by Bernard Malamud Page A

yet told us the name, and which we do not want to go to, though we are not cowards. Nobody asked us where we would like to go or whether we are willing to live somewhere else. Also, nobody gave us a date of departure, though they must know it in their own minds. We were told three weeks from now but first we were told four. They count in bad numbers. They warn us of our fate but they do not ask if we will accept it. They will let it fall on our heads like rotten fruit.
    “Now is the time to speak from my heart,” he said. “I will call on our sub-chiefs and ask Wilderness Man, Split Jug, Fast Turtle, One-Leg-Is-Bad, and Indian Head to speak good words to us which course of action we ought to take. What shall we do now? I am your chosen chief. Give me your best words so I can weigh them before we act.”
    Wilderness Man wore his hair long and tightly braided. His voice was deep and his speech unhurried. He spoke, saying that each treaty they had signed in the recent past until they gave up signing treaties had deceived them as to its true intent, until they realized that the intent always was to expel them from the valley they thought they had been given to live in forever. The word of the white man was never more than the yapping of dogs. “We should have nothing more to do with them. They are men of broken words. They break them with their teeth and spit them on the ground.” Wilderness Man spat on the ground. The Indians of the inner circle grunted in approval.
    Then Split Jug, a lanky man with a black feather in his headband, struck his chest and spoke. He was a congenial bent-nosed man, who liked to challenge Jozip in games of arm wrestling. Jozip had won a handful of wampum from him in two trials.
    “My brothers,” said Split Jug in a high voice, “let us fool our
childish enemies who are born with ghostly faces and stupid thoughts. Seven days ago I saw a miner on our land fouling our fresh water as he stood in a stream tapping his hammer on a dirty rock he held in his hand; and when the rock crumbled and fell apart, the glow of the metal lit his face. If his companion had not grabbed him by the seat of his pants he would have drowned in a foot of water.
    “I say let us get rid of enemies by seeking out an unknown private place in this great land, where we will be able to go without asking permission or pardon from the whiteskins. When in our long history have our people needed men of bleached skin to tell us where and how to live? In some corner of this vast territory there must be at least some hidden valley full of elk and buffalo, and where the salmon leap out of the streams to greet our fishermen. Let us now depart this valley they have spoiled for us by taking away our sacred rights, and seek new hunting grounds where the whites won’t be able to find us.” Split Jug grunted as he resumed smoking his pipe. His brothers also grunted.
    Now Fast Turtle spoke swiftly and vehemently. “My brothers, we have bows and arrows and many lances. But we have not enough deadly weapons to destroy these men if the pony soldiers should attack us with all their forces. I want to fight and annihilate them, but I will not in my conscience try to persuade my brothers to begin a war against our enemies under such odds, although this thought pleases me. Since this is so I will forbear to give advice to our good Chief Joseph.”
    “Jozip,” said Jozip.
    “His name is Jozip,” said Indian Head.
    “Jozip,” Fast Turtle agreed.
    Then One-Leg-Is-Bad spoke angrily: “I would want to draw the whites into battle and destroy them as Custer of the Golden Curls was destroyed by Sitting Bull.” He turned to Jozip for a nod of approval but the chief did not want the words to inflame the braves, so he looked away. One-Leg-Is-Bad shrugged and puffed on his smelly pipe.
    Last Days, the medicine man, said he would talk.
    The medicine man of the purple headdress said he would speak
plainly. He said he would prepare a formula only he