She is a butterfly, he thought, or a hummingbird. Why does she not go away? I will not go—run away from her. He thought, as he tried to read her face, that her slimness was deceptive; strength came forth from her.
'Now, for ten cents, I go.'
He blinked. 'I save that to get rid of you to-night, perhaps.'
'I do not dance to-night. There is trouble, a bad thing. I come from far away.'
He thought he had better not ask questions. 'To-morrow there will be horse-racing, a chicken-pull, perhaps.'
'And you have a fine horse to race, black, with a white star and a white sock.' He grunted astonishment. She smiled. 'You are a good jeweler, they say. You made that bow-guard. You sold Red Man's belt to the American, they say, for sixty-five dollars.'
'You are like an old wife, trying to find out about everything a man is doing.'
'No, I am not like an old wife.'
They looked at each other for a long time. No, she was not like an old wife. Blood pounded in his ears and his mouth was dry. He pulled at the end of his dead cigarette. At length,
'You should stay for the racing. There will be fine horses, a beautiful sight.'
'I shall stay, perhaps.'
Her rising, her ascent of the rock, were all one quick motion. She never looked back. He stayed, not exactly in thought, but experiencing a condition of mind and feeling. Loud laughter of women roused him, to pass them with averted eyes and go forth dazed into the sunlight.
II
The last night of the dance was a failure for Laughing Boy, for all its ritual. He tried to join the singing, but they were not the kind of songs he wanted; he tried to concentrate on the prayer that was being brought to a climax, but he wanted to pray by himself. He quit the dance, suddenly very much alone as he left the noise and the light behind him, strongly conscious of himself, complete to himself. He followed a sheep trail up a break in one cañon wall, to the rim, then crossed the narrow mesa to where he could look down over the broad Ties Hatsosi Valley, a great pool of night, and far-distant, terraced horizon of mesas against the bright stars, cool, alone, with the sound of the drumming and music behind him, faint as memory. This also was a form of living.
He began to make up a new song, but lost interest in it, feeling too centred upon himself. He sat noticing little things, whisper of grass, turn of a leaf—little enough there is in the desert at night.
'Yota zhil-de tlin-sha-igahl...'
His song came upon him.
'A-a-a-ainé, ainé,
I ride my horse down from the high hills
To the valley, a-a-a.
Now the hills are flat. Now my horse will not go
From your valley, a-a-a.
Hainéya, ainé, o-o-o-o.'
Slim Girl sat down beside him. His song trailed off, embarrassed. They rested thus, without words, looking away into the night while contemplation flowed between them like a current. At length she raised one hand, so that the bracelets clinked.
'Sing that song.'
He sang without effort. This was no common woman, who ignored all convention. The long-drawn 'Hainéya, ainé, o-o-o-o,' fell away into the lake of darkness; silence shut in on them again.
On the heels of his song he said, 'My eldest uncle is here. I am going to speak to him tomorrow.'
'I should not do that if I were you.'
He rolled a cigarette with careful movements, but forbore to light it. Again they sat watching the motionless stars above the shrouded earth. No least breeze stirred; there were no details to be seen in the cliffs or the valley, only the distant silhouettes against the sky. A second time her hand rose and her bracelets clinked, as though speech unannounced would startle the universe.
'You are sure you are going to speak to your uncle, then?'
'Yes.' The second self that is a detached mentor in one's mind recognized that he would never have talked this way with any other woman. Etiquette had been left behind down in the narrowness of Ane'é Tseyi.
'Perhaps you will listen to what he says, I think; perhaps you will not. Perhaps your mind is made up now.'
'I am thinking about what I intend to do. I shall not change.'
'We shall see then. Good-bye.'
She rose like smoke. He called a startled 'Good-bye,' then began to follow at a distance. He stopped at the rim of the cañon, where the noise of singing that welled up from below passed him by as he stood watching her dark form, down to the bottom, along by the grove where his camp was, and beyond into the shadows.
He went back to the far edge of the mesa. He did not want to sleep, not ever again.
'Now with a god I walk,
Now I step across the summits of the mountains,
Now with a god I walk,
Striding across the foothills.
Now on the old age trail, now on the path of beauty wandering.
In beauty—Hozoji, hozoji, hozoji, hozoji-i.'
The deep resonance of the prayer carried his exaltation through the land. Then he began to analyse her words, finding in them nothing save unconventionality, no promise, and his own he found laggard and dull. Was she playing with him, or did she mean all he read into her brevity? Was she thus with other men?
'I ride my horse down from the high hills
To the valley, a-a-a...'
He was up and down, restless, no longer on the path of beauty, yet tormented by a new beauty. Far away, high-pitched, he heard the faint 'Yo-o galeana, yo-o galeana,' and the thudding drum. He walked to and fro. My mind is made up, I shall make things as they should be. Now with a god I walk—or is it a game, looseness?
Suddenly he fled to sleep for refuge, rolling in his blanket by a high place under thickly clustered, brilliant, unhelpful stars, falling asleep with the feeling of vastness about him and clean, gracious silence.
III
He woke to a feeling of expectation, and made his Dawn Prayer with all the gladness that his religion prescribed. He could not wait to see his uncle and have the matter settled before they went to the trading post for the races. At the same time, his own certainty told him that his eldest uncle, his mother, and all her kin were only wanted to ratify a decision already made. What was, was; he would announce what he wanted to do, not ask for permission.
Now he stood on the rim above the cañon,, bathed in sunlight, while below him in thick, visible shadow unimportant people moved, horses stamped, smoke rose from tiny fires.
His uncle was staying down by the trading post with Killed a Navajo. He started off without breakfast, leading the pony, and sorely tempted to mount and gallop those few miles, but the thought of the race and the pleasure of winning restrained him. I'll win for Slim Girl, he thought with a smile, and burst into song, lustily pouring forth keen delight from tough lungs over the empty flat. The dusty walk and hot sun, the heat that lay over the baked adobe and dull sagebrush, troubled him not at all. The bleak, grey parts of the desert have a quintessential quality of privacy, and yet one has space there to air one's mood. So Laughing Boy sang loudly, his horse nosed his back, a distant turtle-dove mocked him, and a high-sailing, pendent buzzard gave him up as far too much alive.
Killed a Navajo's hogahn was well built, of thick-laid evergreens over stout piñón poles. Looking in through the wide door one was conscious of cool darkness flecked with tiny spots of light, a central brilliance under the smoke-hole, vague outlines of reclining figures, their feet, stretched towards the centre, grotesquely clear. He stood in the doorway. Some one spoke to him, 'Come in.' He shook hands all round. They offered him a little coffee, left over from breakfast, and tobacco. He made himself comfortable on the sheepskins beside his uncle in the place of honour.
One by one the family went about their work; the children to tend the sheep, Killed a Navajo down to the store where he did odd jobs, and was needed to-day for distributing free food, his younger wife to preparing a meal for the many guests expected that day, his first wife to weaving, outside. Laughing Boy's cigarette smoke went up in shadow,
was caught in a pencil of sunlight, disappeared, and gleamed once again before it seeped through the roof. A suggestion of a breeze rustled the green walls. He studied his uncle's face—big and massive, with heavy, high-bridged nose and deep furrows enclosing the wide, sure mouth. Under the blue turban wisps of hair showed a little grey. Across his cheek-bone ran the old scar from which he took his name, Wounded Face. It was an old eagle's head. Laughing Boy was a little afraid of it.
'My uncle.'
'Yes, my child.' The old-fashioned, round silver earrings shimmered faintly.
'I have been thinking about something.'
They smoked on. A black-and-white kid slipped in the door, leaped up and poised itself on the cantle of a saddle. Outside was the rhythmic thump-thump-thump of a weaver pounding down the threads in her loom. A distant child laughed, some one was chopping wood—sounds of domesticity.
'I have been thinking about a wife.'
'You are old enough. It is a good thing.'
He finished his cigarette.
'You know that Slim Girl? The one who wears so much hard goods? She danced the first two nights.'
'She is a school-girl.' The tone was final. 'She was taken away to that place, for six years.'
'That is all right. I like her.'
'That is not all right. I do not know how she came to be allowed to dance. They made her stop. Water Singer let her dance, but we stopped him. She is bad. She lives down by the railroad. She is not of the People any more, she is American. She does bad things for the Americans.'
'I do not know what you mean, but I know her, that girl. She is not bad. She is good. She is strong. She is for me.'
'You come from away up there; you do not know about these things. Nor do you know her. What is her clan?'
'I do not know.'
'Well? And what makes you think you can go out and pick a wife for yourself like this? The next thing I know, you will jump into the fire. I tell you, she is all bad; for two bits she will do the worst thing.'
Laughing Boy sat up suddenly. 'You should not have said that, you should not have thought it. Now you have said too much. I hope that bad thing follows you around always. Now you have said too much. Ugh! This place is too small for me!'
He ran outside. He needed space. People were beginning to arrive; there was laughing and shouting around the trading post. He went off rapidly to get by himself, too proud to run before people. His mind was boiling; he wanted to hit something, he was all confused. This way he went on until at last he reached a small butte that offered protection. He tore around the corner.
Slim Girl was walking towards him, cool and collected. Her brows rose in surprise as she stopped. He came up to her uncertainly.
'Sit down; there is shade here.' They faced each other. 'You have seen your uncle.'
His hand fell forward in the gesture of assent.
'And he spoke to you.'
'He said bad things. I am angry with him.'
'And towards me?'
'You came here on purpose to meet me.'
'Yes; I knew that when you had seen your uncle, you should see me soon.'
'What my uncle said will stay with him. He has made a bad thing, it will follow him. The track of an evil thought is crooked and has no end; I do not want it around me; I do not keep it going. I have only good thoughts about you.'
'Your mother will never send some one to ask for me. You must just come with me.'
'Wait; what is your clan?'
'I am a Bitahni; and you?'
'Tahtchini; so that is all right. But I have nothing to give your mother, only one horse.'
'I have no parents; they died when I was at school. I belong to myself. All this'—she raised the necklaces, turquoise, coral, white shell and silver, one by one, then let them fall back together—'is mine. All this'—she touched her rings, and shook her braceletted wrists—'and much more is mine. They left it for me. Now I do a little work for the missionary's wife there at Chiziai; she pays me money, so I grow richer. I shall give you silver to make jewelry, and I shall weave, and you shall have fine horses. You can make money with them, and we shall be rich together.'
The long, talking eyes looked into his now, with nothing hidden. He felt her strength, this woman who could talk so straight, who made the direct road seem the only sensible one. It ceased to be strange that they sat and talked about love, while elopement became obvious and commonplace in a scheme of things the whole of which was suddenly miraculous.
After a while she said, 'We shall go to-night, after the races.'
He reflected. 'No, I came here to gamble. I told Red Man I would play against him. If I do not do it, he will say I am afraid.'
'He is crooked; he will take your money.'
'That makes no difference; I cannot back down now. If I let this go because I was afraid to lose, what would I be? If I refused because of you, what kind of a man should I be for you?'
He saw that he had spoken well.
'It will be time for the races soon; you must go. I go the other way round.'
He was in a new and more profound daze returning, but yards that had seemed miles were passed as inches. He floated over the ground, he was a walking song.
4
I
The horse-races were to be held in the latter part of the afternoon; during the hottest time almost everybody took a siesta, while those who were entering horses tended to them. Jesting Squaw's Son joined Laughing Boy in going over the black pony. They discussed the other entries, agreeing that competition would be severe. A man from Navajo Mountain, in old-fashioned fringed buckskin shirt and high leggins, had brought a dun mare, said to be swift as thought. Jesting Squaw's Son had seen her; she moved beautifully, he said. From Tsézhin came the undefeated bay, and the local contender, a big iron-grey, had a good reputation. Its sire was an American stallion, it was long in the quarters, and relatively heavy-boned; Laughing Boy thought that in a short racecourse—the usual Navajo track is under a quarter of a mile—it could not do justice to itself.
Laughing Boy planned to bet a little on the saddle-changing race, and put the rest of his money on himself. His friend would bet here and there, though mostly on him.
'Are you going into the chicken-pull?' Jesting Squaw's Son asked.
'Why not? That one race won't tire my pet.'
'But the chicken-pull will come first, they say.'
'That's bad. Why is that?'
'That man from Tsézhin, his horse got loose, they say. He is out tracking it. So your race will be held last, to let him be in it.'
'The devil! Then I can't go in the chicken-pull. I won't risk having something happen to spoil this one. And you?'
'I shall go in.'
All the time they talked so, Laughing Boy was thinking, how do I do this? I am talking about the same things, thinking about them. And I am the man who is going away with that girl to-morrow. I am going away with Slim Girl. I feel like shouting. I am not as all these people.
Jesting Squaw's Son noticed something in his manner. 'You seem very eager, my friend.'
'Why not? Is not all well? I trade everything I have, two ponies, a blanket, five dollars, for this one because I love a fine pony, because I think this one is better than all that. Then I come down here, and right away I make nearly ninety dollars, when I began with nothing. Now we have a race. Nothing is more beautiful than galloping as hard as you can. I do this thing, that I love, on this pony that I bought for pleasure, where many people'—and one person, oh, beautiful!—'may see and speak well of me. If I win, I double my money, for doing what I enjoy. If I lose, it is only what I never had until yesterday.'
And whatever happens, I have won more than all the money and hard goods in the world.
He meant what he said. Jesting Squaw's Son nodded.
There was a shot. The pony jumped. Then two shots together, from somewhere over to the right. Hastily tethering the animal, they raced to their camp to get their bows. People were running all about; women gath
ering around the camp-fires, packing up bundles, men snatching their weapons and making towards the noise. Three more shots had been fired, about ten seconds apart. The men did not rush towards the firing as Americans would; they went rapidly, but keeping a sharp lookout, and ready to take cover. Some one shouted that a Hopi had killed a Navajo; some one else called that it was Americans. Now they heard a burst of quick shooting, both rifles and revolvers, at a greater distance. Topping a slight ridge, the two friends saw the Navajos just ahead, nearly a hundred already, in an irregular, slightly crescent-shaped line. They came up and pushed to the front. No one was talking.
About twenty paces in front, facing the crescent, stood Tall Old One, the district headman, and an American from the agency in army hat, riding-breeches, and leather leggins. The American had a rifle and a revolver. Behind these two, in open order, stood Man Hammer and Left Hand, policemen, and a Hopi and a Tewa policeman, all with rifles. The latter two wore parts of khaki uniforms. Over to one side a Navajo leant against a tree, looking sick. Blood ran down his sleeve and dripped from his fingers; at his feet lay a revolver. Farther back another policeman, Mud's Son, stood guard over a handcuffed Navajo, and, partly hidden by a clump of bushes, somebody was stretched out on the ground.
The American official and the Hopi were acutely conscious of the fact that several hundred Navajos were thinking that these aliens had started something, and if only the native officials would step aside it might as well be finished now. They also knew that those same officials were aware of this feeling, and sympathized with it. There were a couple of dozen rifles and revolvers in the crowd, and at that range a bow is just as effective. The Indians were all looking at the wounded man; he made an ugly exhibit.
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