Laughing Boy

by Oliver La Farge

  The American guide hailed her as she passed his camp, using her school name, 'Hi, there, Lily!' She dismissed him with a measuring glance that made his backbone feel cool.

  'God-damnedest la-dee-dah squaw I ever run acrost!'

  She had little appetite, but camped with a group of distant relatives all too ready to look askance at her, she took pains to do the normal, which was to sup well. She helped with the cooking, dipped into the pot of mutton, drank coffee, then rolled a cigarette. The Indians joked and laughed without reducing the speed of their eating. Chunks of meat and bits of squash were scooped, dripping, from the pot, to be compounded with bread into appalling, mouth-filling tidbits. Three coffee cups and a Hopi bowl served for all to drink in turn; a large spoon was purely a cooking implement. They sprawled on a half-circle of sheepskins within the open brush shelter, facing the fire, chattering and joking. Still in holiday mood, they heaped the blaze high, lighting up the circle and throwing lights that were ruddy, soft shadows on the bushes roundabout.

  Some of them prepared to sleep. Visitors dropped in; more coffee was made. Slim Girl drew apart, into the darkness, and rolled up. Over there, a chink of light showed in the blanketed door of a big, earth-covered winter hogahn. Singing came out of it, rollicking, running songs. They were gambling there; Laughing Boy would soon be penniless. She smiled at the thought of him and his stubbornness. The bushes rustled faintly. From where she lay, she could see a clump of yucca in a fixed pattern against the sky. The voices by the fire became distant. The stars stooped near.

  'In beauty it is begun. In beauty it is begun. Thanks.'

  6

  I

  At first light, before dawn, the desert is intimate, and each man feels the presence of others as an intrusion. Blinding colour has not supplanted soft greys, uncertain forms; cliffs harsh by daylight, and thunderous-walled cañon,s loom soft with wells of coolness. The east is white—mother-of-pearl—the world is secret to each one's self.

  Slim Girl, sitting apart, watching the slow increase of visible forms, looked towards the gambling hogahn. She heard them announce sunrise with the Magpie Song, and, after the last ringing 'It dawns, it dawns,' saw the straight dark forms coming out, moving away; some alone, some together talking, their voices intruding upon the hushed world.

  She rose to intercept the path of one. He stood before her, answering her smile with a smile, tall and straight and shameless as he let his blanket fall to show—no silver belt, no jewelry, only the lucky bow-guard on his left wrist.

  'Take this bow-guard, now, to keep. By first cold moon you will hear from me again. My uncles will look for you, or I shall."

  'So they won everything?'

  'Everything.'

  'Horse, belt, money?'

  'Horse, belt, money. I go to T'o Tlakai to make silver.'

  'You were foolish.'

  'What else could I have done? And it was fine play! I was happy. We sang, all night we sang. We made new songs about ourselves. Now I must work.'

  She was prepared for this. 'You are not a man yet, I think.'

  That gave him a start. 'Why do you say that? That is not a good thing to say.' Losing the goods meant little, but if losing them meant losing her, the world was a loom of lies.

  'You are like a child. You are happy now, so you forget what you wanted before.'

  'What thing?'

  'Where is the love-song now? "Now my horse will not go From your valley, a-a-a,'" she sang.

  'I tell you, I have nothing now. I have not even a horse. Nothing.' He struck his right hand across his left in emphatic gesture.

  'I tell you, you do not have to pay for me. I have no mother. If you come, you must come now.'

  'I am a man. I cannot come to you with nothing. I cannot let you buy me.'

  'Look at me.' She shook herself so that her jewelry clanked. He heard the sound, but his eyes were upon hers. The east was banded with orange, red, and purple. 'Look at me.' Her eyes were long and narrow, and deep enough to absorb a man. 'I am rich. I shall give you silver and turquoise to work, horses to breed, till you too are rich. Must I tell you twice?' Her eyes were more beautiful than springs among the rocks. 'You have spoken to your uncle; you know what he said. Your mother will give you no sheep, no horses for me. If you want to come with me, come now. I cannot wait until first cold moon. You cannot cache me in a tree until you are ready for me. You have your manhood and your weapons; if you are not good enough with them, nothing can make you good enough. Come now.'

  He was a long time answering, searching and searching her eyes. At last, 'It is good. Get your horse.'

  She thought she had stood for twenty years with a rifle pointed at her breast. Her face did not change; she walked away slowly. He saw that full day lay golden along the tops of the cliffs, and the sky was brilliant; from the camps he heard the noise of departure, bustle and low voices and laughter that to an American would have seemed furtive.

  I am like Natinesthani and the magician's daughter, he thought, but I have no sacred tobacco. I have just myself and my bow. I wonder what medicine will she give me? I shall make a bracelet that is like her walking; she is silver strong as iron. When I have horses again, we must both come back to T'o Tlakai. There is good water in Tseya Kien cañon,, that is the place for our hogahn.

  He rolled a cigarette. The freshness would leave the air soon. Already he felt tired.

  She rode as well as she danced or walked. Her pinto pony tossed its head, working against her light touch on the reins, ringing the tinklers on its bridle. That girl on that horse— ei-yei! Reaching him, she smiled, and he forgot his fatigue. He walked tall and proud beside her, one hand on her stirrup, not caring who might see.

  II

  Red Man sought out Wounded Face where he stood at his pony's head, talking to Killed a Navajo. Despite a certain jauntiness, he did not look like a gambler who had just won a small fortune. He addressed the older man rather abruptly,

  'Grandfather!'

  'Yes?'

  'Are you not the uncle of that man who won the horse-race, the one from T'o Tlakai?'

  'I am. What is it?'

  Red Man had meant to go slow, but his words were jumping out on him. 'Did he speak to you? Has he told you what he planned to do?'

  Wounded Face and his friend suddenly lost all expression; they became wooden.

  'I do not know what you mean. We talked together yesterday. What is in your mind?'

  'He has gone to Chiziai. He has gone—he has gone—he has not gone alone.'

  'He went with the woman who was stopped from dancing?'

  'Yes.'

  'Well?'

  'Do you not know about her?'

  'I have heard a little talk; I do not know anything. She is rich; perhaps it is a good marriage, I think.'

  Red Man saw that Wounded Face very much wanted first-hand information. 'I live not far from Chiziai. I know, not just talk. She lives alone, she does no work, she is rich. The Americans make her rich, for badness. She is two faces and two tongues. You see her clothes and her skin, and hear her voice, but all the rest inside is American badness. I know. Hear me, I know.'

  He had managed to be gay all night; he had been the cheer-fullest of all the gamblers, the readiest singer, the pleasantest loser. Now suddenly it all went back on him. He moved his lips, and found he did not dare speak. He raised his hand to his mouth with two fingers outstretched, and thrust it forward—two-tongued. He struck his heart, then raised his fist before his face and brought it down rapidly—heart that kills with a knife. He struck his heart again, then brought his right fist down on his left hand—like a stone—making the gesture with all his force. He repeated how she made her living; in sign talk it was frightfully graphic and coarse.

  'That is enough, Grandfather,' Wounded Face said. 'You did well to tell me.'

  Red Man departed.

  'Shall we ride after him?' Killed a Navajo asked.

  'No. That is what that young man wants us to do, I think. You saw him, how m
oved he was. We have heard something of what he says, but still, he had reason to lie. Besides, it would be no use. He is like me, he is like his mother, and his father. You know them. When it is something serious he makes up his mind; you cannot move him unless you can convince him. I have six nephews, he is the best of them.' Wounded Face stood with his hand on his saddle, staring at the stirrup. 'Well, we can only wait. Do not speak of it, my friend.'

  'I hear you.'

  He mounted swiftly, and rode off at a trot.

  III

  It grew hot when the sun was halfway up. Laughing Boy's last sleep seemed years ago. From time to time he looked at her as one might drink at a spring, and her occasional speech was like rain falling. She rode in triumph.

  Abruptly he stopped, gazing first at the trail, then over to the right, while with a hand on the bridle he stopped her horse. He said in a sure voice, 'Get off your horse.'

  She did not quite know why she obeyed so immediately. He took off saddle and bridle, tied a thong about the animal's lower jaw, then stood for an instant, one hand on the withers, head raised high. She saw his lips moving, and was afraid of his intent face and a hard, excited look about his mouth. With a quick gesture he strung his bow, and before she could speak to him, mounted and was off, galloping. There was nothing for it but to wonder and wait.

  She knew by the sun that he had not been gone over half an hour, but it seemed more than she could stand to wait longer. Her feelings alarmed her; was she falling in love? She saw him rounding a butte, trotting, driving two more ponies ahead of him. This, she thought, was madness. Truly, she must take him in hand. She rose as he drew near.

  'What have you done? American Chief will put you in jail.'

  'No; it is all right. That man'—he gestured toward the butte—'I did not hurt him much; besides, he is a Pah-Ute. He took this horse from my brother last year. He is bad, that one. He lives up beyond Oljeto. I saw him at the dance. Now I have something, to come with you. He was a bad shot, look.'

  He showed her proudly a long, shallow scratch on his forearm.

  'And the belt?' She pointed to the silver at his waist.

  'I do not know from whom he stole that. It is a pretty good belt.'

  They laughed together.

  Immensely alone in that white stretch of adobe desert, they rode side by side, like two men, like friends. It seemed to Laughing Boy that she promised freedom and astonishing companionship; her small mannerisms, her casual remarks, were unconventional without consciousness; it was good. The ponies stepped out well despite the heat, the bridle jingled, the spare horse, with high head, pranced alongside, obedient to the rope. He sat slackly in the saddle, leaning back, flicking his pony's quarters in rhythm to his song.

  They stopped seldom, ate little, and rode fast. It was hard on her; she was not accustomed to missing meals and sleeping where night happened to catch her, but she knew better than to complain. His easy toughness, his enjoyment of momentary comfort, were a compensation for her, and at night, camped beside a tiny waterhole, she listened to his singing.

  She was tired and stiff. Already she had been alarmed, worried, tired, and hungry for this man. With a sudden fear, as she looked at him across the fire, she realized that she loved him. She had started something she could not stop, then. Well, it was all right, it was good. If only he hadn't gone off after that Pah-Ute, it wouldn't have happened; it was that waiting without understanding; it was that imperious warrior who gave her orders and was suddenly stronger than she, and apart from her. That had done it. While he sang, she looked at his hands locked across his knees, at the bow-guard on his left wrist. When he loosed his shaft, the bowstring had snapped down across the leather on the inside; towards her he turned the lovingly worked silver on the back of it. The shaft had gone true, into the shoulder, between the neck and the butt of the aimed rifle. She shivered.

  He stopped singing. She rose and sat down again close beside him, and waited. He made no move. She knew now that these next few days when she would be with him alone were desperately important to her, but she was meeting with a restraint blended of tribal custom and ignorance for which her knowledge of the American's world had not prepared her. It was beyond all other necessity to possess him fully now while the trail was single and straight, but he was a religious man, schooled to obedience of absolute conventions.

  She thought. He was unused to her originality; she delighted him, but she came close at times to alarming him. She must go slow in all things. She would wait. The effort her decision cost her was so great that it frightened her. Perhaps, she told herself, it is a good thing to have to wait. I love him, but I must remain mistress of myself and him. This is good for me.

  She wanted to touch his face with her fingertips, to brush his hair with her lips. When they galloped together and he sang exultantly beside her, she wanted him to swing her to his saddle. There is very little gesture of tenderness in Indian experience, but she thought she saw latent in him the same desires, promising herself days to come when she would teach him many things. She thought to herself, I shall complete him with my knowledge. I shall make a god of him.

  IV

  The town of Los Palos shimmered in the heat. A lot of adobe houses and frame shacks pushed carelessly together were beaten down by the sun. Behind them was a strip of irrigated green like a back-drop, alfalfa, corn, beans, cottonwoods, alfalfa, corn, cottonwoods, a mile long and a few hundred yards wide. Rich, deep, cool green was not part of the desert landscape; it was something apart that the sands held prisoner. The mean little town was a parasite on the goodness of the water; here water and earth and man made beauty; there man and mud and boards created squalor.

  A few yards of concrete and some blistered paint made a gesture of civic pride at the railroad's edge. A two-story hotel, compounding Spanish mission with cubism, was a monument of the railroad's profitable beneficence. From a rise where the trail crossed the railroad track, a little way to the west, it all compounded into a picture; the dejected town with its dominant hotel-station, the green strip behind it, yellow-grey sand, and farther, dancing buttes in the mirage.

  Laughing Boy's attention was divided. 'Do these iron paths run all the way to Washindon? That is a beautiful place; there must be much water there. I have never seen so many houses; how many are there? Five hundred? I should like to go there. Are there many trading posts, or just one? Those are rich fields. Can one come here and see the iron-fire-drives?' He silenced himself, ashamed at having shown himself so carried away.

  'Let us not go there now,' she told him quickly; 'it is better that we go first to my hogahn. The horses are tired.'

  'You are right. Are there more than five hundred houses?'

  'Yes, a few more. The iron-fire-drives goes by many times a day; it goes that way to Washindon and that way to Wide Water. Any one may see it. Come now.'

  They gave the town a wide berth, trotting east past the end of the irrigated land along a trail between two buttes. About three miles farther on, where the clay walls widened again to face the southern desert, an adobe shack stood in the shadow of one wall. Behind it a tiny spring leaked out. Here they dismounted.

  'But this is not a hogahn, it is a house. Did an American make it?'

  'No, a Mexican built it. He went away to herd sheep, and I took it.'

  He stepped inside. 'It does not smell like Mexicans.'

  'I have been here a long time. Yellow Singer made the House Song for me. Is it not good? The door is to the east, like a hogahn.'

  'Yes, it is good. It is better than a hogahn, I think; it is bigger and the rain will not come through. It will be good summer and winter.' He hobbled the horses. 'There is not much grass by that spring; we shall have to find pasture.'

  'There is a little pasture just down there you can use. You must not let the horses run all over the place; this is American country. The Navajo country begins across the railroad track. There is good pasture just this side of Natahnetinn Mesa, enough for many horses. You must keep th
em up there.'

  She lit a fire in front of the house.

  'You have no loom. There is no sheep-pen.'

  'I have been alone. I have had no one to weave for, and no sheep.'

  'How do you live?'

  She was laying the big logs over the first flame.

  'I work a little bit, now and then, for the missionary's wife in the town. She is a good woman. Now I am going to set up a loom, and you shall have a forge.'

  He thought that something was wrong. Her face was too blank. 'Not all missionaries are good, they say. There used to be a bad one at T'o Nanasdési, they say.'

  'No, not all of them are good; but this one is.' She spoke musingly. 'His wife pays me much money. She is not strong; I am.'

  Her strange, pensive smile troubled him. He thought how beautiful she was. He thought again of the magician's daughter. He did not care what bad magic she might do to him; just she was worth all other things.

  Sprawled out on his saddle-blanket, he watched as she brought food from the house and began to prepare it. Her movements were like grass in the wind. He eyed a banquet of luxury—canned goods, tomatoes, fruit.

  'Perhaps when we go into the town to-morrow we can buy some candy.'

  She thought, he must be kept away from town. I must think of something. 'I have a little here.'

  'Sticks with stripes on them?'

  'Yes.'

  He sighed luxuriously. The food on the fire smelt good. It was cool. With a couple of ditches one could make a good cornfield by that spring, and plant peaches, perhaps. If they were to have food like this all the time—It was important to find that pasture for the horses, he must tend to it to-morrow. The town could wait. A swift movement caught his eye, lifting the coffee-pot aside. Ei! she was beautiful.