Laughing Boy

by Oliver La Farge

  That was another thing about which Slim Girl had been right, that drink. She knew how to tame it. She had the secret of how to prevent American knowledge from doing harm; she made it serve a good purpose.

  He set down his cup of coffee, picked up a rock, and deliberately smashed the bottle. The liquid ran into the coals of the fire, caught, and for a moment the dampened sand burnt with a blue flame. That startled him. To drink something like that! He threw in the fragments of the bottle, in the bottom of which were still a few drops, and watched the blue light flicker briefly above them.

  He drank another cup of coffee, with sugar, then unearthed the second bottle from its cache. That had cost money, much money. Well, he'd had his money's worth. From now on he could think without the help of blue flames. He poured it over the fire, and the drenching put the fire out. Eh! This was strange stuff!

  To try to round up horses seemed out of the question. He stretched out in the shade of the rocks, craving sleep, his limbs feeling as though he had been through a furious wrestling bout. The sky was too blue, it hurt his eyes; the circling of a distant buzzard made his head ache. He turned over and fixed his gaze on a crack, studying it, sleepy, yet unable to keep his eyes shut.

  Yellow Singer and all his kind were bad. They were like an offensive smell. But a smell came from a carcass. Those people were the way they were because of the Americans. The town of Los Palos in the drenching sunlight, quiet, dead-looking beside its irrigated fields. What was it? Something in the air, something that perverted the world. Where they were was no place for Earth People. They had done something to Slim Girl, one could see that, but she seemed to have risen above it. But they were bad for her, too. It was beyond him.

  He smoked, and at length slept fitfully through the noonday heat, wakened now and again by flies, to drowse delightfully and return to sleep. In the late evening he went to where a waterfall in the arroyo made a trickling shower bath. The water refreshed him; he was hungry once more, and felt better.

  What he had thought last night had been true, but unbalanced; and all this about Americans had been just because he felt sick. He had always known Americans, traders and such, they were all right, just people of a different tribe. He stretched out, fed, smoking, surprised at his desire to sleep again. It would be pleasant, it would be beautiful, returning to T'o Tlakai rich, very rich, with her, and to settle down somewhere near there and have children. They needed children. Meantime they would make their way together. Oh, beautiful.

  III

  Next morning he felt better. The drunkenness and the emotiorial outburst had cleared his system. In pouring out the liquor, he felt that he had destroyed a bad thing; the enemies in his head had indeed proved to be nothing but cobwebs, and they were gone. Like the man who burned the tumbleweed when the Eagles were afraid of it, he thought.

  He rounded up the three horses he wanted, good ones. Only the best horses sold this year, and they did not bring so good a price. He rode home contented, quiet, and determined to do better with himself.

  He found his wife waiting before the door.

  'I did not know you were going to be gone so long; I have been lonely without you. Bring in your saddle while I get supper. I am glad when you come back.'

  'I am always glad to be back.'

  'As long as you feel like that, I shall continue to be happy.'

  Why should he worry himself about this woman? And why should he worry about anything else as long as he had this woman? He slapped the ponies' flanks to make them run around the corral. He looked at his growing corn, and as he broke the little mud dam across his irrigation ditch, he felt the coolness of evening seep along his veins as the bright water spread through the narrow channels. Clay bluffs were not as fine as painted rock, there was too much adobe in this sand, but it was a fair place. The fire gleamed before his house, he heard the flow of water and the occasional stamp of a horse in the corral.

  Slim Girl brought out the bottle and an orange.

  'Do not make the drink, little sister, I do not want it. I think I shall try not taking it.'

  She kept herself from looking at him. She was troubled.

  'All right.'

  What was this? Probably nothing. When one walks on the sheer edge of a precipice, the meaningless fall of a stone over the side momentarily stops the heart. She studied him while they ate. She began to talk with him gravely of the life they were to make together, of the happiness that was in store for them.

  He said to himself, 'She was bothered when I refused that drink, the way she looked at me afterwards. She is nervous about me. I have done that, by acting as I have. Now she is trying to tell me how she really is; she is talking true; I know. I have wronged her.'

  She saw the last trailing clouds pass from him. That evening was perfect, so perfect that, with his doubts banished and the feeling of intimacy upon him, he almost told her everything he had done and thought, but he postponed. It was the last of its kind for many days.

  Like an ancient magician who, by saying the forbidden names, evoked genii whom he could not then drive back, Laughing Boy had given form to thoughts which were not to be forgotten. Unhappily for himself, he was no fool, and of an honest habit of thought. There was love in that place, and sometimes happiness, but if a religious-minded Navajo had entered there, he would have felt that the air was empty.

  IV

  Slim Girl continued weaving despite the poor sales, because she found relief and, one might say, a confidant in her craft. And then, they two, working side by side, reconstructed at least the outward signs of the harmony that was gone.

  He eased his soul by shaping the half-stubborn, half-willing metal. It is a matter of patience, from the lump or the coins to the bar, from the bar to the bracelet. This, the most precious and beautiful of metals, is the easiest to work. That is a gift of the gods. Slow, slow, under successive light strokes the bar becomes longer, flatter, thinner: it is struck and it grows towards its appointed shape.

  I am impatient these days, I get tired of the finishing. One must have one's mind made up to it from the start, from four Mexican coins to the finely finished ornament; one must see it as it will be, and not stop short of what he has seen.

  Having woven about a foot of blanket, the head-sticks of the loom are lowered, and the finished part is rolled around the foot-sticks, out of sight.

  This is like time. Here, this little part showing, where I am weaving, is the present; the past is rolled up and gone; there are those empty warp cords above me. The weft is like handling a nervous horse; I lead the blue strand gently to the green, or it will break; I hate to break a strand, the knot where it is mended will always show, a blemish. But then, I pound the fork and the batten down hard, hard; they lock the weave and that much more is past.

  He was curving the strip of flattened silver. This bracelet is coming out just as I thought of it. One must know his design before he starts; when this strip was still four coins, I knew that there would be tracks pointing one way from each end to the centre, clouds at each end, and that stone where the tracks meet. How do I know it? Not all men can; what is it I have? The Mexicans are lazy, their money is pure, soft silver; the American coins have something in them to make them hard, they are hard to work with. Those Americans!

  Her fingers were deft, and she pulled at the warp like a harp-player. I am not sure I like this pattern, but it is too late to change it. No, it is a good pattern. Should I unravel all I have done, when it grows so slowly? When the blanket has been started, it is too late to change. The man who is always coming back to where he started, to figure out another road, will never get far from home. I wish I could just think my design and have it woven at an American mill. No, I don't; it is because I toiled over them that I love them.

  The turquoise is the important thing in this bracelet. I looked at it and saw the setting for it. But much of the time now I cannot think well, I am not myself. I have no design for myself, I do not know the nature of my jewel. I am hammering a piece o
f silver, and I cannot stop hammering, every day is another stroke; yet I do not know what it is to be. In the end it may be just a piece of good metal pounded flat. I do not know my design.

  This blanket is like the other things. I am always being uncertain now. It is all like this blanket. Shall I unravel it, when I have been so long in getting so far? The design is set, a blanket with a broken design would be absurd, a failure. The only thing to do is to carry it through, with softness and with strength. My design is set.

  17

  I

  As summer drew to a close, Laughing Boy took to spending more time than was necessary with his horses. Sometimes he would crave company, and, if he found it, would be sociable and garrulous; at other times he kept very much to himself. No one who met him then for the first time would have named him 'Laughing Boy.' Locally he was known as 'Horse Trader,' and latterly one Indian had applied to him, in jest, the name of the legendary character 'Turns His Back,' which bade fair to stick. Partly he liked to be away from home because of the chance of a happy return. If she were waiting for him, if she had not been in to town, If he was tired from the long ride and at peace with himself, the old spell would surround them. If she was just back from that work of hers, or if she came in after he did, she overtired, brooding, and a little nervous, it was a failure. Once or twice they quarrelled; she had an amazingly sharp and clever tongue. The quarrels ended in reconciliation and passion which exhausted them both without bringing peace to either.

  On one day, when autumn had begun to take the weight out of the noon sunshine, he sat basking on a hillock, smoking, with his pony beside him. He was lazily content, and comfortable enough within himself not to mind the sight of a human approaching. He felt like talking to some one.

  The jogging dot drew nearer. Still looking black, the motion of the shoulders told that it was an Indian. Yes, and probably a Navajo, with a flaming scarlet headband. Laughing Boy sat up straight. He knew that bald-faced chestnut, he knew that swing of the whip hand. He made sure. He was surprised, curious, and delighted. What brought his friend so far from home? He rose to his feet. Jesting Squaw's Son slowed from lope to trot, to a walk, and stopped beside him.

  'Ei-yei, my friend!' Laughing Boy took his hand. 'It is good to see you!'

  'My friend.' He smiled, but he dismounted slowly, and his eyes were hurt. 'I am glad to find you.'

  'Sit down. A cigarette?'

  'Yes.'

  'Where are you going?'

  'Just riding around.'

  'What is the news at T'o Tlakai?'

  'All well. Your people are all well. Your sister, the one who married Bay Horse, has a son. The other one has just married Yellow Foot's Son.'

  'Good.'

  'There has been good rain, and the traders are paying twenty, twenty-five cents for wool.'

  'Good.'

  'And you, tell?'

  'All well. Our goods sell well, the corn was fine this year. All well.'

  They smoked.

  'It is good to see you.'

  Jesting Squaw's Son made no answer. Laughing Boy studied him; he was too quiet.

  'What brings you so far from home?'

  'Nothing, just riding around.'

  'You will come to our hogahn?'

  'Yes.'

  They finished their cigarettes, and sat looking at nothing. There was a pleasant, afternoon feeling that tended to make talk slow, the smell of the warm sand, quietness. After about five minutes, Laughing Boy said:

  'You might as well show me your true thought. It is all around you like a cloud. It is what you are thinking of all the time you are talking about anything else. You are hurt. What hurts you, whom I have called friend, hurts me.'

  'You are right. Give me tobacco.'

  He rolled another cigarette and smoked it through before he began to speak.

  'You remember that joke we played on Narrow Nose at Gomulli T'o? Do you suppose we did anything bad by accident? Did we start any evil working?'

  'What makes you think that?'

  'You remember, I said I was bringing back a wife from Maito. That made me wonder. I went to Maito a little while ago.' He was looking at the tips of his fingers. Now he paused.

  'We wanted to trade a cow for some sheep. Your brother and White Goat and I were riding along. We saw a Pah-Ute driving a cow he had taken from the Mormons, so we took it away from him. There is no pasture for cattle up there, but we heard of a man at Maito who kept a herd. So we took it down to him. His name is Alkali Water.

  'The cow was pretty thin. We were there three nights trading on it.

  'I saw his daughter. At the end of the first day I knew that I had been born only for her, that that was what I had always been waiting for. I was all one piece, everything in me was to one purpose. I do not know how to say it.'

  'I know.'

  'Yes, you know. That is why I am here. I know now why good men sometimes have to do with other people's wives. I have learned a great deal about myself.

  'I shall not try to say what she looked like. What would be the use? She was not small, like your wife; she was strong. Her eyes and mouth were beautiful, she was beautiful, and you could see beauty inside her by her eyes and her mouth.

  'We stayed there for three nights, for three nights and two days I was watching her and listening to her. I think she felt as I did; we did not speak to each other, hardly at all. When we went away she looked at me.

  'I waited a few days at home. I was very happy; I did not know such happiness could exist. Then I returned to Maito. I wanted to see her again, to be sure, and to find out her clan before I asked my mother to ask for her. I did not want any one to be able to object, as they might, since she did not live near us.

  'I cannot make up songs as you do, but I made up a pretty good one. I sang all along the trail. I neared her hogahn galloping and singing the Wildcat Song. She was coming out along the trail towards me. I galloped close to her and reined up short, in a handsome way. She came beside my horse and laid her hand on its neck.

  "'My friend," she said.

  'I was so happy then that there is no name for it. There was no earth under me, I had no limits. Then she went on.

  '"You must go away, you must not see me again. I must not see you," she said.

  'I asked, "Why?"

  'She said, "What is your clan?"

  'I told her, "I am an Eshlini."

  'She lowered her head, then she looked up again. Her face looked calm, but her eyes were wounded. "I, too, am an Eshlini," she said.

  'We touched hands, and I rode away.'

  Jesting Squaw's Son bowed his head on his knees. Laughing Boy felt his throat hurt, and yet in a curious way he felt better than he had in a long time. He was taken out of himself; he needed something like this.

  'I could not go home then. I rode to T'o Atinda Haska Mesa, and went up to the top of it. I have been there a day and two nights. I did not eat. Why should I?

  'At first I did not even think. I was just wild at first. All I could do was remember that happiness, that had been for nothing. I felt like asking her to come with me even so. I frightened myself. Am I an animal? Would I sleep with my sister? I did not know what to do. Why could she not have been a Tahtchini or a Lucau or an Eskhontsoni? But it was not her fault. And could I curse my mother because she was not a Bitahni or a T'o Dotsoni or a Nahkai?

  'Then I got myself calmer. I could not have her. I made up my mind to it. I accepted it. But I still loved her. I still do. I still remember that happiness.

  'That is very bad, it is beastly. My heart must be bad. I am frightened. Perhaps I should kill myself. Why not?

  'I came here to see you. I did not want to go home to all my people. Perhaps you can help me. That is all.'

  Laughing Boy stared into the ground. He was shocked, and his heart was wrung. He had never imagined that such a thing could happen; had it been told him of some unknown man, he would have supposed there was something bad about him to start with. It was such a disaster as an a
ngry god might send, as though one heard in some legend, 'He went mad and fell in love with a woman of his own dan.' But his friend was good, all good. He knew what he was suffering. He remembered his feelings those first days at the dance. He thought hard. They must have sat for half an hour there before he spoke.

  'Do not kill yourself. And do not feel ashamed, do not think you have sinned, or your heart is bad. No, you have shown it is good, I think. It would be bad if you kept on wanting to marry her, but what has happened to you is not something you do yourself. It is as though you were shot with an arrow.

  'I nearly went away with my wife without asking her clan. We spoke directly to each other, without shame, when we saw there was nothing else to do.

  'It is not your fault that you were shot. Suppose you had starved for a week, and some American, trying to be funny, the way they do, offered you fish to eat. If you ate it, it would be bad, but if your belly clamoured for it while you refused it, could you be blamed? No, you would have done a good thing, I think. You have done a good thing, a very hard thing. I think well of you.'

  Jesting Squaw's Son gazed at him searchingly, and saw that he meant what he said.

  'I think you are right. You have cured me of a deep wound. Thank you.'

  'Let us start home. There are some of my horses in that little cañón, we shall get one, and turn yours loose. It looks thin. There is pasture there, it will not wander.'

  They caught fresh horses, and Jesting Squaw's Son exclaimed at the height of the grass, which in some places grew over a foot, in clumps. There was some like that at Dennihuitso, and in Kiet Siel Buckho, but not at this time of year.

  They jog-trotted towards Chiziai, silent most of the time, talking occasionally.

  'Up there, now, they do not call you by your old name,' Jesting Squaw's Son said, and hesitated. Even when he is a close friend, one is not free about discussing a man's name before him.