Laughing Boy (12 page)

 

III

 

The corn matured and was harvested. Seedling peaches that he had set out began to lose their leaves. First frost appeared in the night. The season of thunderstorms had passed; now was the time when one might say the names of the gods. Laughing Boy, riding herd, felt the tang in the air and touched his bow. This was good hunting weather, if one could go to the mountains. Down here there was nothing save the usual prairie dogs, coyotes, and jack rabbits. He began to feel restless.

One day he met two braves dressed in all their best and fanciest, one on a roan and one on a pinto. His own horse, freshly caught, was prancing as he rode up to them; theirs were lively.

'Ahalani!'

'
Ahalani,
Grandfather!'

'Where are you going?'

'To dance at Chilbito. And you, say?'

'Just riding around. I have horses here.'

'You have a good horse.'

'He is pretty good. I got him from a Hopi. Let us race.'

'Good. How much will you bet?'

'Five dollars.'

'That is too much for us; bet three.'

'Good. To that tree there?'

'All right.'

Hé!
His horse did well. Too bad he didn't have the bay. '
E-é-é-ya!
Come on now, my horse, come on, Grandfather!' Three horses tearing neck and neck, three men bent over their manes, urging. The pinto was nosing ahead. Laughing Boy pressed in his heels, his belly drew tight with the thrill of motion.

They hurtled past the tree, the pinto slightly ahead, and drew rein, laughing.

'You win, Grandfather.'

The man received his money.

'I am sorry I did not have my bay horse here. He is much faster than this one.'

'Bring your bay horse to the dance. There may be some racing, I think.'

'What dance is it?'

'A Night Chant. Wind Singer is leading it.'

'I shall think about coming.'

'It is only a five-day dance. It is for Twice Brave; he has not much money, they say. You had better come soon.'

'What made him sick?'

'He looked at his mother-in-law; he spoke to her, they say.'

'
Ei-yei!
How did that happen?'

'They lived near each other. When his wife was away, she got his food for him, they say. He came too soon and saw her. She covered her face, but he spoke to her, they say.'

'He spoke to her! He is crazy, I think.'

'Perhaps he is; he does strange things. When the missionary at Tsé Tlchi used to serve beans, a lot of us went to hear him. He held a sing every seven days, and afterwards there were beans, but there
was no dancing. We followed the Jesus Road until he stopped giving us beans. Then Twice Brave went back and stole a lot of red
t'oghlepai
that he had, it was something to do with his religion. It was good. But when he had drunk a lot of it, he went and made his horse drink it. He put the bottle down its mouth and made it take it, the way he had seen an American do. He made his horse crazy, just like a man. I saw it. It couldn't walk straight. And now he has spoken to his mother-in-law, they say. So he has a bad toothache. You should come to the dance.'

'
Ei!
I should like to see that man. I shall come if I can.'

He was glad that the season of the great dances was returning. As he rode home, he thought that it would be good to see the gods once more, perhaps to know the holy fear and exaltation when one swallowed the sacred arrows inside the Dark Circle of Branches. He loved the gatherings of people, the huge fires, and the holy things. There was religious experience and high thought, and then there was sociability on a large scale. Sometimes there were horse-races or a chicken-pull or gambling.

He had not thought about these things for so long, or at least he had thought of them distantly, himself apart. As a blanket and its design before dawn is seen, but has no colours, then with clear light grows vivid in red and green and yellow, so the feeling of his tribe swept over him. It was exhilarating.

 

IV

 

He spoke about it to her after supper. 'There is to be a Night Chant over at Chilbito, by Tseye Buckho. There may be racing.'

'How long will the song last?' There was no reason in the world why they should not go. She was searching in her mind, and found only that she dreaded it.

'Only five nights. It is for Twice Brave; he is not very rich, they say.'

'We do not want to go, I think. Let us wait for a complete one.'

She understood herself as she spoke; she was jealous of his people, of something they had in common which she could not share.

He looked at her inquiringly, catching a tone of earnestness in her voice. She had no reasons, yet very much did not want to go. He saw that it mattered to her.

'Perhaps you are right. We shall wait.'

'I think that is better.'

Both understood.

It was puzzling, though. He wondered about it as they sat there. He wanted to understand her. He told himself: 'If she wants me to know, she will tell me. I do not think she knows herself. I have made up my mind, there is no use hesitating on the trail. I make her my life, let her be my life. I do not know why she does this thing, but I know what I think of her. If I knew just what was in her mind, it would be worth thinking about, it would tell me something about her. Now there is so much of her I do not understand. I know what I want, that is enough.'

He watched her in the firelight, her slender lines, her oval face of sleeping fires. The trail of beauty lay within this house; not all the songs and horses in the world were worth this minute.

I

 

The life apart enclosed him again. If some encounter with Indians bound for a dance, some reminiscent incident, brought on a momentary restlessness, he did not have to deal with it. It simply expressed itself in the smug feeling that what he had was so vastly superior to anything in their philosophy. He was a little sorry for those people. When he felt like that, he would stir his pony to a lope, with his head high, uplifted, thinking of Slim Girl, of some little thing to say or do for her. He was a young man very much in love, a young man with his mind made up to love.

At the beginning of the month of Little Snow, he surprised her by bringing an Indian home with him. She was disturbed and uneasy as she prepared the extra food. There was no reason to be bothered; just because something had never happened before did not make it a bad sign. Underneath all her self-confidence was a feeling which she refused to recognize, that this life of theirs hung by threads. Really, in her heart of hearts, she was surprised that everything ran so smoothly. Little things upset her.

Long-haired and hatless, the man's pure Navajo costume, the heavy look of his jewelry, indicated the Northern country. Laughing Boy called him cousin, and questioned him about people and things at T'o Tlakai and all the Gyende district. The eager voice and the old, familiar names, the home things: she was afraid of all those people, those words. Life was lonely here. Perhaps if she were to keep him, she would have to give up and move back among his own kind. She observed to herself that this man, who was to bind her to The People, seemed to be driving her yet farther apart from them.

When they were alone for a minute, he said, 'Why did you not give me my drink? Why did you not offer him one?'

'That drink is medicine that I know. You must leave it to me. There are things that must not be done about it, just like prayer-sticks and sacred cigarettes.' As she spoke, she prepared a stiff dose. 'That man must not have it or know about it. You must not speak of it unless I say you may.'

'Good, then, I hear you.' He drained it off. He had missed it.

'I was afraid you would speak of it before him.'

'I thought about it. You had some reason, I thought. So I waited.'

She nodded.

'He is my uncle's son; not Wounded Face at Tsé Lani, another one from T'o Tlakai. His sister is sick. They are going to hold a full Night Chant, ten nights. They want us to come, he says. Mountain Singer wants me to dance in it; it is a song that I know well. I have been in it before when he led.'

His voice told her, 'This time I want to go. Now you must do something for me.' She saw that it would be a mistake to oppose him.

'Let us go, then; I think it will be a good thing. I shall be glad to see your country and your people, and a big dance like that is always good to go to.' There was under-pleading in her voice, but he knew that this was a gift to him. 'When is the dance to be?'

'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.