'I shall try not to make it wiggle,' he said.
'What are you going to do?'
'Cut it off just by the hole; I can't pull all that through your arm.'
'It is a good arrow. Pull it through.'
There was never another woman like this one. 'Do you think I would use this again?'
He held her arm very carefully, he cut with all possible gentleness, but the shaft moved and moved again. He heard her take in her breath and looked quickly to see her teeth clenched on her lower lip. She should have been a man. Every dart of pain in her arm went doubly through his heart. The wood was cut short, just above the wound.
'Now,' he said, 'are you ready?'
'Pull.'
He jerked it out. She had not moved. She was rigid and her eyes were almost glassy, but she had not made a sign. He still knelt, staring at her, at the fresh blood welling, and at the red stump of the arrow in his hand. She was brave, brave.
She whispered, 'Get me some of the whiskey.'
He gave her a stiff dose in a cup. She emptied it at once, and sighed. A little colour came back.
'It will be dark soon. You had better go now. I can take care of myself. But before you go, know this: whatever you have seen, I love you and you only and altogether. Good-bye.'
She handed him back the cup. As he took it, their fingers touched, and he looked into her eyes. Something snapped inside of him. He fell forward, his head close to his knees, and began sobbing. She laid her hand on his shoulder.
'You have been hasty, I think. One should not turn up a new trail without looking around. And you have not eaten, you are tired. This has been hard for you. In a minute I shall heat some coffee, and we can talk straight about this.'
II
The night was plenty sharp enough for a fire indoors. Under her directions he prepared canned goods and coffee, but neither of them did more than toy with the food. He had a feeling that she was going to find a solution for them; the experience that they had just shared had changed everything again, he didn't know where he was. Landmarks shifted too quickly, he was in a turmoil once more, with his determinations to be made anew.
She asked him to roll her a cigarette; then,
'Make the drink as you have seen me do, only make some for me, too.'
He hesitated.
'Do not be afraid of my medicine.'
He muttered a denial and fixed the drink. She sipped at hers slowly. She needed strength, for she was nearly exhausted, and there was a battle to be fought.
'You cannot know whether a thing is good or bad unless you know all about it, and the cause of it. I do not try to say that what I have done is good, but I want to tell you my story, that you do not know; then you can judge rightly.'
He hardly had expected her to come so directly to the point. He prepared to sift lies.
'Roll me a cigarette.
'I have to begin way back. Hear me.
'When I was still a little girl, they took me away to the all-year school at Wide Water, as you know. They took me because I did well at the day school at Zhil Tséchiel, so they wanted me to learn more. I told you how they tried to make us not be Indians; they succeeded pretty well. I wanted to be American. I forgot the gods then, I followed the Jesus trail. I did well, then, at that school.
'While I was there both my father and mother went underground. My mother had no brothers or sisters living, and I was her only child. I saw no reason for returning to The People. I was an American, with an American name, thinking in American.
'I grew up. I wanted to work for Washindon on a reservation, like that Papago woman who writes papers for the American Chief at T'o Nanasdési. But I could not get that work right away, so they said I could work for a preacher at Kien Doghaiyoi—you know that big town? The Americans call it Oñate.'
'I have heard.' He was studying her intently. Her voice came low and toneless; she spoke slowly, but behind it was something intense.
'I went there, about three years ago. I loved the Jesus trail; I thought it was very good to work for a preacher. That way it was.'
She stared into the fire as she took a sip of liquor.
'He was a good man, and his wife was very good. He did not let her have much to say. I worked pretty hard, but it was all right.
'I learned some strange things. I learned about the bad women—they make their living by lying down with men, just any men who will pay them. Some of them were Americans, some had been schoolgirls like me. The preacher used to preach against them sometimes; I thought, he did not need to do that. Something had happened to their faces, their eyes; their mouths were terrible. They were like something in a bad dream. That way I thought.
'Then by and by I fell in love with a man. He was big and good-looking and he talked pious. He was a cow-puncher; he worked on a ranch near there. Lots of American girls liked him. When he paid attention to me, I was flattered. He was wonderful, I thought. We should be married and have a ranch together; it was almost too good to believe, I thought.
'I was frightened when he wanted me to lie with him, but he made me feel all right. He knew all about how to make women forget themselves, that man.
'Then I saw I was going to have a child. The next time he came to town, I asked him to marry me quickly. He made promises. Then he didn't come to town again, so I went to the ranch where he worked. He was angry when he saw me there. He offered me money, but I said I wanted marriage.
'I became frightened, I begged and I cried. He got very angry, he called me names. He said to get out of his way, he couldn't be bothered with a "squaw." That is a word Americans use to mean Indian women; it is contemptuous. I learned a lot then; right then I was not so young as I had been, I think.
'I went back to the preacher's. I was not afraid to tell him, but I was ashamed. I could not be calm about it, it was hard to say. I just walked in on them and said:
'"I am going to have a child. It is that man's. He will not marry me.
'They were astonished; then the preacher looked angry. He called me bad. He asked what good all my training had done me; he called me ungrateful. He said a lot of things. If I had waited until he got through, his wife would have spoken, and they would have taken care of me, I think. But I was finding out that every one said one thing and did another. The Jesus trail seemed to be a lie, too. I told him that. I threw his religion at him. Then he said all sorts of things about me, and ordered me out of his house.
'My money was soon gone. I went hungry. I thought I had shame written all over my face. But even then I was strong; I thought that the world had beaten me now, but I would keep on fighting and by and by I would beat it. But just then I was desperate.
'Then those bad women spoke to me. They took me in and fed me; they were kind, those bad women. All my ideas were turned upside down now. I did not care. My heart was numb. I learned their trade. I did what they did. In a few months so, with the baby in me, that made me very sick. They took care of me, those bad women.
'I suffered much pain, the child was born much too soon, dead. I was glad.
'When I was well, I went back to work among them. I had thought a lot, I learned a great deal. I saw how this new life was bad. I saw the faces, the empty hearts of those women, kind though they were. I hated all Americans, and I made up my mind that an American should pay for what an American had done. I remembered my true name. I would have gone to my people, but I did not know how, and I wanted to be paid back. I had my plan.
'I noticed one thing—that the men, when they went with those women, liked to be helped to fool themselves that they were with another kind of woman, that they were loved. I did not look like those women yet. I looked young, and decent. They liked that, those men. By then it meant nothing to me; it was just as if I cooked them a meal. It had nothing to do with love, nothing to do with what you know.
'I watched for my chance, and by and by I saw it—a man from the East, that one. He had good manners. He was lonely. And he did not have the poor ideas about Indians that
most of these people have, that man.
'I was very careful with him. I did not do any of the things those women usually do to get money away from a man and be rid of him quickly. I acted as innocent as I knew how. He said he was sorry to see me leading such a life. I caught him. He was in Kien Doghaiyoi three nights, and all three nights he came to me. I found out all about him.
'Two weeks later he came back, and I saw him again. I had him, I thought.
'Ten days after that I came here to Chiziai. I had money. I took that house where you saw me. I watched and waited. He lives a day from here. On the fifth day he came in. I managed to meet him when he was alone. He was surprised and glad. I asked him to come to my house in the evening. I had food and much whiskey for him, so that finally he went to sleep.
'When he woke up in the morning, that was the test. He felt badly then, and ashamed to wake up in the house of a bad woman. I handed him his money, two hundred dollars, and told him to count it, that it was all there. Then I gave him coffee, and a little whiskey, and then food. He asked how much I wanted. I said I was not doing this for money. Then I gave him a little more whiskey, and so I kept him all day. I did not let him get drunk, and I acted like a good woman who called him friend.
'The next morning he said he had to get back to work. He said he would see me when he came back to town, and he wished I was not what I was. He was lonely, that man. These were not his people, these Americans here; they did not talk the same. Like a Navajo living among Apaches.'
Her voice was taking on a timbre of triumph.
'I said, "You will not find me here."
'He said, "At Kien Doghaiyoi, then."
'"No," I said, "I am through with all that. I only did it because I had to. I hated it."
'He asked how that happened. I told him about half the truth and half lies, to make it sound better, saying I had been bad only a few weeks. Now I said an old Navajo whom I had always known was come for me; I did not love him, but he was a good man, and I was going to marry him. But first I wanted to see him—the American—I said, because he had been kind to me, because he was not like the others. So I had come here for just a few days, I said.
'He thought a little while. He said, "Stay." He said he would give me money. I pretended not to want to take money from him; I made him persuade me. I was afraid he might ask me to marry him, but he was not that much of a fool. Finally I said, "All right."
'I had conquered.'
There was a strong triumph in her voice at that last phrase; now it returned to the level, slow, tired speech.
'I told him I could not just live there, a Navajo woman. It would make talk, men would annoy me. It would be better if I married the old Navajo and lived near by, then I could meet him when he came to town. With whiskey, I said, that man could be kept happy. I said he was old.
'He did not want it to be known he was providing for a Navajo woman, so he agreed. He gave me fifty dollars.
'There was no Navajo.'
She paused. 'Roll me a cigarette.' She smoked it through, then resumed:
'I was not happy. I was provided for, I was revenging myself through him, but I was not living. I wanted my own people. I was all alone. That was why I made friends with Red Man. He is not good, that man. He did not care if I were bad, he hoped I might be bad with him. I never was, but I kept him hoping. With him I remembered the ways of The People, I became quick again in their speech. He helped me much. He is not all bad, that man.
'The People looked at me askance. I was a young woman living alone, they did not know how, so they made it up. They do that. Your uncle knows that talk. This went on for over a year. Then I saw you, and everything changed. I had thought I was dead to men, and now I knew I loved you. With you I could live, without you I was already dead.
'I was right. Our way of life, to which you have led me, my weaving, our songs, everything, is better than the Americans'. You have made this.
'I had enough, but I thought I could have better. I wanted it for you; you were giving back to me what the Americans had robbed from me since they took me from my mother's hogahn. I thought it right that an American should pay tribute to you and me, I thought it was the perfection of my revenge. After what had happened to me, things did not seem bad that seem bad to other people. So I kept on. I did not tell you, I knew you would not like it.
'I thought it was all right. What I did with him had nothing to do with what I did with you, it was just work. It was for us, for our life.
'And I did not want to herd sheep and grow heavy and ugly early from work, as Navajo women do. I wanted much money, and then to go North and have children with you and stay beautiful until I am old, as American women do. I was foolish.
'Then I saw your face in the window, and the world turned to ashes, and I knew that there were things that were worse than death. That is all, that is the truth. I have spoken.'
She sank back, exhausted, with closed eyes. Laughing Boy lit a cigarette from the fire. Then he said:
'I hear you. Sleep. It is well.' He squatted in the doorway, smoking.
III
He was at peace within himself. Now at last he knew his wife, now at last he understood her, and it was all right. Error, not evil. Something inimical and proud in her had been destroyed. He was tired, emotionally drained, but he could let his smoke curl up to the stars and feel the cold air penetrate his blanket, calmly, while he thought and knew his own mind. He had a feeling, without any specific reason, that he should keep a vigil over Slim Girl, but he became so sleepy. He went in by the fire, pulled sheepskins about himself, and slept.
In the morning he brought her food and tended her wound. After they had eaten and smoked, he spoke.
'You have lived in a terrible world that I do not know. I cannot judge you by my world. I think I understand. You have deceived me, but you have not been untrue to me, I think. Life without you would be a kind of death. Now I know that I do not have to do what I thought I had to, and I am glad for it. Now I know you, and there is no more of this secret thing that has been a river between us.
'As soon as you are able, we shall go North. If there is a place where you have relatives, we can go there. If not, we can go to T'o Tlakai, or some place where your clan is strong, or wherever you wish. We shall get the sheep that my mother is keeping for me, and we shall buy others, and we shall live among The People. That is the only way, I think.
'Understand, if we go on together, it is in my world, The People's world, and not this world of Americans who have lost their way.'
They kissed.
'I shall be happy with you anywhere that you wish to take me. As you have said, there is nothing between us now. You have made up to me, and revenged me, for everything the Americans have done to me, My Slayer of Enemy Gods.'
'You must not call me that; it is wicked to call a human being by such a name.'
She answered him with another kiss. He thought he had never seen her look so happy. For the first time since he had known her, she looked as young as she was, a year or so younger than himself. Her face was full of peace.
They fell to planning. Reckoning their resources, they coneluded that they had amassed the astounding sum of three thousand dollars in money, goods, and horses. He did not want to take what came through her lover, but she said:
'No; I took it like spoils in war. It was war I made with him. And you made it yours when your arrow struck him. And we both paid for it, I think.'
'Perhaps when he gets well he will send policemen after us.'
'No, I know him. He will say nothing; he will be ashamed, I think.'
20
I
During the interval, Laughing Boy moved most of his horses a couple of days' ride farther north, not far from Zhil Clichigi, where he penned them in a box cañón in which there was a spring and still a little feed. He bought provisions at a trading post on the road to T'o Hatchi. Slim Girl had confessed to him that the story about the warrant out for him on account of the Pah-Ute had bee
n a lie, but, all things considered, she felt it best that he stay away from town. He said that it had seemed a little odd that there should be so much trouble over a Pah-Ute.
'No,' she said, 'they do not want any shooting.'
'That is true. Whenever there is cause for a fight, they want to send men to do the fighting, and only let us come as guides, like that time with Blunt Nose. They must be very fond of fighting, I think, and they have not enough of their own, so they do other people's fighting for them. It is a good thing and a bad thing.
'I do not understand them, those people. They stop us from raiding the Stone House People and the Mexicans, which is a pity; but they stop the Utes and the Comanches from raiding us. They brought in money and silver, and these goods for our clothes. They bring up water out of the ground for us. We are better off than before they came.
'But yet it does not matter whether they do good things or bad things or stupid things, I think. When one or two come among us, they are not bad. If they are, sometimes we kill them, as we did Yellow Beard at Kien Dotklish. But a lot of them and we cannot live together, I think. They do good things, and then they do something like taking a child away to school for five years. Around Lukachukai there are many men who went to school; they wear their hair short; they all hate Americans. I understand that now. There is no reason in what they do, they are blind, but in the end they will destroy everything that is different from them, or else what is different must destroy them. If you destroyed everything in me that is different from them, there would only be a quarter of a man left, I think. Look at what they tried to do to you. And yet they were not deliberately trying.
'Well, soon we shall be where there are few Americans, very few. And we shall see that our children never go to school.'
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