–William Dean Howells The Atlantic Monthly July 1876 In blaming our Indian agents for malfeasance in office, perhaps we do not sufficiently account for the demoralizing influence of merely beholding those false and pitiless savage faces moldy flour and corrupt beef must seem altogether too good for them. The red man…is a hideous demon, whose malign traits can hardly inspire any emotion softer than abhorrence. A defiant hand reaches down into the dust, throws a fistful high into the turbulent air, where the wind carries it away like smoke.Īnd when, moments later, the shooting starts, the sharp reports, the shouted commands, the holler and yell, the screams of revenge and death and loss, the impartial wind carries those away, too. The camp’s evidence drifts low, close to the ground and away: the wood smoke and mother’s call, the din of copper pots and horses’ whinny gradually fall away in a nervous silence, which is soon filled with fierce cries and indignant protests. It scratches the dust from the sparse, low hills, sands the clapboards of hastily constructed shacks, snaps heavy canvas tent flaps, and everywhere makes gaps and spaces sing. The wind smells like time, high and sharp, like snow, rolling across the northern steppes.
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