“Don’t sell any land. Accept as much education as you can get, but keep up the ancient cycle of celebrations. Drinking liquor might be fine for whites, but for us it’s poison. Don’t abuse your wife and kids the way whites do. And—here it comes—don’t gamble.”
She glanced at her old friend, but Sadagoyase was waiting in silence. She said, “He didn’t mean don’t play the peach-pit game or bet on snow-snake matches. He was a warrior, brought up in the Old Time. He got his scalping knife wet at Devil’s Hole. He was saying, ‘These are the temptations that the modern world is sending our way. Watch out.’ I think he was right.”
“What about now?” he asked. “Is he still right?”
She took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “For hundreds of years the Five Nations kept the peace, managed a unified foreign policy with fifty or sixty other nations, and played the Dutch, English, and French off against one another. Now on half the reservations there are competing governments and splinter groups, and Iroquois burning their own buildings and taking shots at each other. And every time one side looks like it’s losing, they call for intervention by the New York State Police or Quebec or Ontario Provincials, or the Canadian or American federal governments. They’ve always gotten it, and they always will.”
“Are you worried about hard feelings or loss of sovereignty?”
“I don’t think those are two issues. They’re the same. I’m not saying all of that would happen at Tonawanda. But it would be especially stupid if any of it happened here. Everybody around here knows that in 1838, when the state was kidnapping chiefs to force them to sign the land treaty, not one single chief from Tonawanda let himself be caught. I hope people remember that the reason for that was that the chiefs were willing to risk their lives to disappear, and the people were willing to risk theirs to hide them. That’s not just why we’re still here. It’s who we are.”
“So what you’re afraid of is just that I’ll get dehorned?”
“Not you, Billy—Sadagoyase. Once gambling comes in, you’ve got to think of what else happens. New York State will want a vested financial interest the way they did with the Oneidas, and they’ll have to police the gambling and everything around it.”
“That boat sailed in 1821,” said Sadagoyase. “The State of New York versus Tommy Jimmy.”
He needed only to allude to the case because it was one of the legal precedents that had established the boundaries of the modern Seneca world. A witch named Koquatau had murdered a man at Buffalo Creek, and Tommy Jimmy had been appointed by the council to act as her executioner. He had followed her into Canada and, as soon as he had her back on Seneca land, had cut her throat. He had been defended at his trial by Red Jacket, one of the greatest orators of his time, and acquitted on the grounds that he was following Seneca law. After that, the state had asserted its jurisdiction.
“Same principle, different consequences,” said Jane. “There’s a big difference between having the cops investigate a crime every ten years and having dozens of them move in with you to protect the financial interests of the legislature and its cronies.”
“What cronies?”
“Building hotels and casinos can’t be done without money from outside. That means some big corporation with investors and boards of directors is going to have more to say about what goes on here than we are. It may have occurred to you that Senecas haven’t had a lot of luck trusting either the state of New York or corporations in the past. This state has a perfect record. It has never, even in the most minimal way, lived up to any agreement that it has ever made. It has never even felt itself constrained by federal laws.”
Jane could feel that she had talked herself into an agitated heat. She paused, let the passion cool for a moment, and said, “I guess I’m working up to what I wanted to say. I read in the paper that there are already offers from gambling companies on the table. One of them is an outfit called Pleasure, Inc.”
“That’s right.”
“If the decision is that we’re not in the gambling business, forget I ever told you this. If there is gambling, make sure no agreement includes Pleasure, Inc.”
“Why not?”
“I met a man who used to work for them. They’re criminals in the usual ways: skimming money from the casino, feeding illegitimate cash into the games and redeeming the chips with checks and credits to launder it, investing secret profits in illegal enterprises. They’re capable of killing people when it suits them.”
“How in the world did you meet anybody who knew that?”
“It’s just one of those crazy things that happens if you travel a lot. You meet people you wouldn’t otherwise.”
“You should have paid the airline for an upgrade,” said Sadagoyase. “Why would he tell you and not the police?”
“He was afraid of them, and he wasn’t afraid of me. I just have that kind of face.”
“But—” he began.
“No more questions. I won’t answer them, and that will spoil this beautiful day. Use the information as you think best. If you think it will help in council, you can use my name. I can’t tell you his.” Jane stood up to leave.
“What will you do if gambling comes in?”
Jane gave a little shrug. “I’ll give myself an extra fifteen minutes to drive out here in the traffic, and another fifteen to find a place to park.”
“All Senecas would be entitled to a share of the profits. Would you take it?”
She shook her head. “No. That I couldn’t do.”
He watched as she bent down to kiss Violet, her long straight black hair swinging to touch his wife’s; she came to him and did the same. Then she turned and walked to her car. As she passed under the big hemlock and the sunlight fell in bright dapples on her head and shoulders, he felt himself losing perspective. He could not help feeling he had just received an official visit from his grandmother’s grandmother.
10
It was nearly noon. The three men at the far end of the enormous conference table had begun to look bored. Calvin Seaver watched Stella Olson’s eyes sweep down the page of her report to the summary. This was one of the reasons why Seaver was in awe of Stella. Some of the people in this room would have decided to hold the big guys’ attention by tickling them with cheerful patter, or just droned on, insisting that if these three persisted in owning a casino, they would have to hear all about how it was run. Stella just said in her clipped, soothing voice, “Thirty-two hires, two terminations, eight on medical leave, four resignations, for a net gain of eighteen, which will cover all existing positions until the end of September.” She sat down, closed her folder, and watched the three men attentively. Seaver saw Max Foley’s eyes slip to one side, then the other, and come to some understanding with his partners. “Are the salary figures in the report?”
Seaver couldn’t tell whether the three partners had decided to humiliate her because she had been the one to hire Pete Hatcher or to ask a polite question because Stella had earned the right to their attention, but he knew that probably Stella could tell which it was. She was a poker player, and she seemed to have a gift for reading faces. She came back at them without looking down at her papers.
“Salary and benefits on the eighteen new hires adds up to an additional $52,500 a month. Lower starting salaries on the fourteen replacements offsets $5,833 of it. So the extra cost is $46,667 for this month only. On September first we lost eight regulars who went back to college for additional work, and eight shifted from full to part time. We have three scheduled retirements. We’ll make up the $46,667 on October fourteenth.”