Laughing Boy

by Oliver La Farge

  'At the full of Little Snow Moon.'

  It was obvious that he looked forward eagerly to the visit. This was to be her test that was coming, one more test, and she felt there were enough already. She excelled herself in tenderness and charm, and strengthened his drinks. His response to her was evidence of a steadily burning fire that would momentarily lull her doubts. In every act and word and look he seemed to testify his steadfastness, but still she was uneasy.

  On the night before the start for T'o Tlakai, they sat late by the fire. He spoke eagerly of his own country, while she answered little. The colourful cliffs and cañon,s, the warm rock, the blue masses of distant mountains—

  'When it gets all hot there in the valley, when it is sunlight in the little crevices, and everything you look at seems to jump out at you, you look over towards the east. Just above the rim of the cliffs you see Chiz-na Hozolchi Mountain. It is far away, it is blue and soft. Even when the sky is blue as turquoise and hard as a knife-blade, it is soft, and more blue. You will like that country.'

  Is he trying to persuade me to stay there? Perhaps we shall have to, in the end. I shall need all my strength.

  'It will be fine when we ride in together. We shall have two good ponies. They will envy our jewelry. They will envy my saddle-blanket that you made me.'

  And they will know about me, and his own people will talk to him.

  'They are good people. You will like them.'

  They are my enemies, more than if they were Utes.

  When he fell silent, he would touch her arm with his finger-tips. Then he would speak again, staring into the fire as a man will when he is seeing something, but always turning to look at her, almost shyly.

  She relaxed, relieved of her fear. I am a fool. I am a crazy damned fool. I am the centre of all that he is thinking. He is all tied up in me. He cares for this and that, but I am the door through which it all comes. Listen to the way he is talking, see how he looks. We can go to a thousand dances and he will still be mine. Not all The People in the world can take him away. If he is ever lost to me, it will be I who have lost him.

  She moved over and leant against him, her head on his shoulder. 'I think your country will be very beautiful. I shall be glad to see it. Your people will not like me, I think, but I do not care, if we are together.'

  II

  Slim Girl's idea of travel on horseback was that one should ride during the cooler part of the morning, rest out the noon down-pour of light and heat in a shady place, and use the last of the day to find the nearest friendly hogahn. There could be none of that now, she knew. Her man was a Navajo and a horseman; when he settled in the saddle, as the sides of his calves touched his pony's barrel, and he felt the one current run through them, there was always that little look of uplift. Probably half of the waking hours of his life had been spent on a horse's back, but not the longest day could destroy in him a certain pleasure in even the workaday jog or mechanical, mile-eating lope of a good pony.

  She thought of this, as they skirted Los Palos in the dawn, and sighed, foreseeing heat and fatigue, stiffness and soreness in unromantic places, all to be concealed from this man of hers. He did not even know that it was necessary for one to be toughened to the saddle; he thought people were born that way, if he thought about it at all. She wondered, doubting, if any of the exaltation of their first ride to Los Palos would carry her through this.

  It was not so bad as she had feared. At this late time of year it was hardly hot even at midday. Her weaving and occasional hours in the cornfield had hardened her somewhat. The high-cantled Navajo saddle he had made for her, with its seat of slung leather over which a dyed goatskin was thrown, was more comfortable than one would have thought possible. The miles stretched out before them, shrank, and were overpassed. She was tired in the late afternoon, thirsty from dust, silent. She watched this man who rode before her, so easy in his saddle, so at home, going back to his own country.

  She no longer had her own, different background. She was afraid because of him. It was no longer she who was strong, leading, marking the places for him to set down his feet. Now it was she who must fumble, uncertain, and he who must hold her up. What hobbles would she have on him now? It was all right, that he felt all for her, that she was the centre of things, but how could she be sure when his own people and his own things spoke to him? There was nothing to do but wait and be watchful, and meantime a little mouse was gnawing at her heart.

  They spent the night at a friendly hogahn. There, too, he was at home and she astray. She saw his natural sociability expand in the evening gossip, and she learned with surprise that he had an established place among these people, who looked at her faintly askance. He was already known, and his opinions on horses were listened to with respect.

  She had been drawn to him first just because of these things. She wanted him as a link between herself and just such as these people. But more, terribly more now, she needed him, himself completely hers with no fragment left out, and so they had become her enemies.

  Yet there was plenty with which to comfort herself. Their opinion of her changed visibly when they learned that it was she who had woven Laughing Boy's saddle-blanket. The red background, with the black and white interlocked fret of the heat lightning, was a gay and handsome thing. The women examined it, felt its weave, and spoke highly of it. There was an evident, kind-hearted relief at this proof that she was regular.

  More important was the subtle difference, the special quality of her husband's attitude towards her when compared with their host and his wife. In that house was the usual peace and understanding of an Indian's home, but there was none of that faint reverence and intimate desire that she felt when Laughing Boy spoke to her. She knew she should be proud and happy, but sleep was long in coming as they lay in their blankets about the dying fire.

  The second day was like the first, save that, instead of growing stiff and sore, she grew stiffer and sorer. Her fears rode with her behind the saddle; she wondered after her old, arrogant sureness.

  They made camp for themselves, having come to a section where no one lived. She was unhappy in mind and body, not overjoyed at their roofless stopping place and the prospect of a cold night, nor pleased with bread and coffee and a little dried meat. After supper they sat in silence, smoking and looking into the coals. She thought that silence was inimical.

  At last he said, 'I shall set a trap back there by those rocks; we should have a prairie-dog for breakfast. They are good. I know you do not care for this food we just had. You are used to better.'

  'I do not mind. You must not think about me.'

  'I wish you had brought some of that whiskey. Since you have taught me that, everything is flat without it. There is no salt in things. I missed it last night, and I do now.'

  'I brought some. I did not know you wanted it. Here is about enough for two drinks. You will have to take it just plain.'

  'That is all right. Give me some, then.'

  He drank his dose eagerly.

  'There will be none of that at T'o Tlakai,' she told him.

  'That is all right. It does not belong there; it is part of the new world you have made for me. I do not think I could go back to just living, like these other people.'

  She thought to herself, that is well enough, while we are alone. You will lose the need for the drink in the time we are there, perhaps you will forget about it.

  None the less she felt better, and noticed that the night was beautiful with stars. After all, camping thus was part of her people's heritage. She was doing a Navajo thing. Her blanket sufficed to keep her warm; she fell asleep as soon as she closed her eyes.

  As they went farther north, at first the desert rather appalled her. She was accustomed to the southeastern part of the Navajo country, grey bluffs, and grey rolling plateaus and harshly monotonous, distant mountains. Since she had known fertile California and the bustle and comfort of the places where civilized man gathers together to domesticate the scenery, she had never be
en able to feel any deep liking for the empty desert and the hostile fury of its silence. Now they were come among warm, golden cliffs, painted with red and purplish brown and luminous shadows, a broken country that changed with the changing sun, narrow cañon,s, great mesas, yellow sands, and distant, blue mountains.

  They rode along a defile, scarcely a hundred yards wide, whose walls, twice as high, looked as though they had just drawn apart, and might decide to close again. Scrub oak, in the bottom, clustered along a running stream. The place was full of shadow. Looking up, one saw magnificent, dark firs growing along the ledges and hanging valleys. Up there, the ruddy rock, touched by the sunlight, became dull orange and buff, with flecks of gold, and a golden line where it met a flawless sky. Their horses' feet made a tiny, soft noise in the sand. Nested on one ledge was a village of the long-vanished Old People, square little stone houses high up, with black spots of doorways that watched the cañon,. Laughing Boy pointed to the ruin.

  'Yota Kien,' he said. 'Some of the 'Divine Ones live there, they say. The two brothers came here when they were looking for Talking God, they say.'

  They stopped to rest and water the horses. She looked about her, feeling the quiet, absorbing the place. She had a sense of rest and of growth. She had not known that one could feel intimate about anything so grand.

  He brought her to a high place late one afternoon, a spur of Dzhil Clizhini. It had been a fatiguing, scrambling climb, with one piece to be done on foot, alleviated by the increasing growth of jack pine and spruce. At length they trotted along a level, following a winding path under firs. There was a short stretch of broken ground, grey, knobbed rock, oaks whose branches one had to duck, a tumbling little gorge at the left, with the smell of water. They were shut in by trees.

  He drew rein, motioning to her to come up beside him. She did so, crowding past the twigs that hemmed in the path. Right before their horses' feet the cliff fell away, some fourteen hundred feet, and there, under their hands, lay all the North Country. It was red in the late sunlight, fierce, narrow cañons with ribbons of shadow, broad valleys and lesser hills streaked with purple opaque shadows like deep holes in the world, cast by the upthrust mesas. The great, black volcanic core of Agathla was a sombre monstrosity in the midst of colour. Away and away it stretched, jumbled, vast, the crazy shapes of the Monuments, the clay hills of Utah, and far beyond everything, floating blue mountain shapes softer than the skies. She drew back in the saddle.

  'When any one comes here, even if he has been here many times, it hits him in the face. Wait and look, by and by you grow until you can take all this inside of you. Then nothing can make you angry or disturb you.'

  They sat in silence, looking, absorbing. He dismounted, added one to a cairn of stones, and squatted, gazing out. There was something about it that made Slim Girl choke. It made her want to cry.

  The trail led down over the face of the cliff in an alarming manner, a test for sure-footed ponies. Below, it was all thick shadow. Their animals, stepping delicately, were taking them down from sunlight into late evening.

  You, too, have your magic, your strong medicine, Laughing Boy, and I think it is greater than mine. This is what I want you for. Some day we shall put our two magics together; some day you will bring me here, to have this always. You will bring me, if it does not take you from me first.

  III

  At length they were reaching T'o Tlakai, riding down a slope of bald rock into a valley about three miles square, surrounded by moderately high cliffs. Here and there, at their feet, were clumps of scrub oak, peach trees, and the marks of summer cornfields, where water seeped out under the rocks. Along the north cliff was a long ledge, with the rock above it rising in a concave shell of light reflected under shadow. Along the ledge stretched an imposing ruin of the Old People, at one end of which, where there must be a spring, a strip of grass showed very green. Down the middle of the valley spindly cottonwoods marked the course of the wash. The rest was dull and colourless—sand hills, sand, rocks, sagebrush, greasewood, some sheep. Nearly in the centre were five hogahns, two square ones of leaves, deserted now that winter was at hand, and three dome-shaped mud ones. The framework of the medicine-lodge for the dance had already been set up. There were a good many horses tethered around the settlement.

  It did not look like much, but she found it threatening, inimical. She wanted some sign; it would have been a relief if people had come buzzing out as they appeared over the brow of the rock, if there had been shouts of anger, anything. The houses were more than a mile away still. Would they be clever people or stupid, hostile, friendly, or resigned? Were they able opponents or could she conquer them? The quiet houses fascinated her. Just she against all those, against everything here, these rocks, these underfed trees, those far-off mountains, the little bushes. She had fought against worse, but this meant so much. The horses seemed barely to crawl.

  Ahead of her, Laughing Boy was singing a hymn, half aloud:

  'Dawn Boy Hill rises,

  Jewels Hill rises,

  White Corn Hill rises ...

  Those people their fields, my fields, now they rise all beautiful before me!'

  12

  I

  During the greetings, Laughing Boy took stock. With entire confidence in his wife's ability to win over these people, he carried himself as though he had no faintest idea that there might be strained relations between them, but in his mind he was calling the roll of his family. Wounded Face, sitting apart in his blanket like a sleepy eagle, was against him. Spotted Horse, the younger uncle, was waiting; meantime he intended to be cordial. Spotted Horse would follow somebody's lead, whoever spoke most commandingly; afterwards, if the issue were unpleasant, he would mildly deplore it. His mother was against him, but she too waited, not declaring herself, not closing her judgment yet. His sisters took no position, but welcomed the stranger and did their best to make her at home because she was his wife. Bow's Son, his brother, and Bay Horse, his brother-in-law, both evidently thought he had made a fool of himself, and felt hostile towards her. Bay Horse could be discounted; he did not belong to the clan, and the taboo which forbids a man's looking upon his mother-in-law kept him away from the family circle most of the time.

  Out of the corner of his eye, without seeming to pay attention, he watched Slim Girl with relish as she said and did exactly the right things, giving an excellent impersonation of just any attractive woman.

  Now Jesting Squaw's Son dismounted before the hogahn and stood beside him, looking anxious and hesitant. It was plain to see that he was concerned only lest there should be some estrangement between them, lest an alien life might have made a gulf. Friendship stood firm and true. So they embraced and wrestled and spoke loudly to each other.

  He faced his father last, and most anxiously. Two Bows had held back from the others; his was an awkward position in this matter. Long days of teaching the jeweller's craft, hunts together, lessons in the trail and the bow, work shared, had brought them very near to each other. They were father and son, and they were close friends. Laughing Boy admired and emulated the old warrior, and he could confide in him. Two Bows saw some of himself bearing fruit anew in the young brave. And yet, in a matter like this, his rights were only those of courtesy—to Laughing Boy's own clansmen, to his mother and her brothers, was the decision. He could only watch for the time when his purely personal influence might turn the scales. Now, he said nothing. His son could feel fondness and sympathy there, but whether approval went with it he could not tell.

  II

  Laughing Boy had been half-afraid lest, like Friend of the Eagles, or Reared in a Mountain, he would find that his own people seemed dirty and smelled badly when he returned to them. Secretly, even a little shamefacedly, he considered the life that he was living perhaps not so far removed from that of ordinary Earth People as the Eagles' home in the sky, or the mother-of-pearl and turquoise dwellings of the Divine Ones, but still something apart, like the magic country at the end of Old Age River. He had
waited somewhat anxiously for his first impression, and found that his home was delightfully as he had imagined it. Everything was the same; it seemed a miracle. That which had been intimate and dear was so still, only now nothing was taken for granted, but every commonest detail leapt to him with new vividness.

  There were constant little surges of delight in his heart over trivial, minor things—a shadow across a cliff, the bend of a Cottonwood, the sheep coming in at evening, their silly, solemn faces all about the hogahn—why should they have changed? A man does not realize that he has changed himself, or only partially recognizes it, thinking that the world about him is different; a familiar dish has become no longer enjoyable, a fundamental aphorism no longer true; it is a surprise, then, when his eyes and ears report unchanged, familiar impressions. So the wonderful sameness of things, the unfailing way in which expectation was fulfilled, were proofs of something beautiful in the order of the world. It was glorious to pick up the threads of talk where he had dropped them, discussing the old, well-worn subjects casually and in detail, as though they were still inlaid in his life, with just a little seasoning of the attitude of one who has been farther and seen more.

  One could see that his family had expected some outlandishness. Now they were puzzled; some disappointed, and some pleased to see how normal and Navajo were Laughing Boy and his wife. Her blankets spoke for them with many tongues, and the solid evidences of their prosperity, all Navajo, nothing bizarre or American, but good honest silver, turquoise, coral—'hard goods'—and handsome Indian ponies.

  He watched Slim Girl, seeing the shutters closed behind her eyes, correct, sure, in hand, doing just the perfect thing. He was swept by constantly recurring waves of pleasure in her, and felt, as he sometimes did, a faint fear of that detached self-command. Slowly they were being forced to accept her as really belonging to the People. It pleased his dramatic instinct, as well as the strong sense of privacy he had concerning their relationship, to play up, being very normal, and letting no look or gesture suggest that they two came from a land of enchantment.