Laughing Boy (16 page)

'Round-soft-ones, hard-clear-ones, and brown sweets.'

The man was not really at home even in the trade language. He was a little hard of hearing; it hampered him in learning.

'How much are the round-soft-ones?'

'Two for a yellow.'

Laughing Boy examined his change carefully, and put a dime on the counter. 'Give me a blue's worth.'

The trader let four gum drops roll toward the customer. 'Give it to me.' He reached for the dime.

Laughing Boy held onto it. 'Haven't you any twisted-sticks?'

'No.'

'I don't want those.' He put his money back in his pocket. 'Give me a smoke.'

Narrow Nose eyed him for a moment, as though he would like to see him shrivel. Policy was policy. He slid a half-empty sack of Stud and some papers along the counter.

'Match, brother-in-law.'

'You have some.' He pointed to the Indian's shirt pocket.

'I need those.'

'Well, you go to hell!' Narrow Nose swore in English with that fatuous confidence of not being understood.

'Juthla hago ni,'
Laughing Boy paraphrased softly, half as
though interpreting to himself, half as though throwing it back. The insult, in Navajo, is serious. There was a laugh.

He lolled against the counter, lit his cigarette, and puffed at it critically.

'I think I buy that saddle. Let me see it.'

'I'll take it down if you really want it.'

It hung from a rafter, among other saddles, quirts, bridles, pots, Pendleton blankets, ropes, silk handkerchiefs, and axes.

'Let me see it. My saddle is worn out. I need a new one. I want that blanket there, I think, and four red cans of tobacco, the kind with the preacher in the long black coat on it.'

'Can you pay for all that?'

'I give this in pawn.'

He clanked the bridle onto the counter. Stinks Like a Mexican drew nearer.

'I want that handkerchief there, I think.' He nodded toward a silk one. 'And a knife that shuts.'

The trader got up, feigning reluctance. The way the man had made up his mind to buy was typical. He hefted the bridle—ninety to a hundred dollars. Things were looking up. If he got his hooks in this, in return for thirty dollars' worth of goods—

'Where do you live?'

'Chiziai.'

'Where's that?'

'Down there.'

Indians edged up to handle the silver. Narrow Nose turned to the policeman, who spoke a little English.

'Where's Chiziai?'

'Lo Palo. Mebbe-so lailload dack side him sit down. Him come flom dere now, me sabbey.' He didn't quite know what was up, but he wasn't going to spoil it.

'Los Palos, hunh? I know.'

'I came up for the dance, now I go back. In Eagles' Young Moon I shall come back and take out my bridle.'

That sounded good. Five—six months, likely he'd forget it. Likely it wouldn't be here.

'Is he speaking true?' The trader asked the store in general.

Bow's Son held up the bridle. 'This is the kind of work they do down there. It is not like the work up here, not like my father's jewelry,' he lied. Bay Horse and Tall Brave agreed. Narrow Nose knew them and Two Bows well. He believed them.

'Good, I take your bridle.' He reached for it, wanting to feel its possession.

'Wait a moment; put down the goods.'

He assembled them laboriously. 'Forty-one dollars and one blue.'

'How?'

'Saddle, twenty-seven; blanket, ten—thirty-seven; tobacco, six blues; handkerchief, two dollars; knife, twelve bits; forty-one dollars and one blue. I make it forty-one dollars.'

Laughing Boy strung out the bargaining stubbornly, until he heard singing outside. The trader had stuck at thirty-five dollars.

'Good, I take them.'

He started to push over the bridle; Narrow Nose had his fingers on the heavy silver. Jesting Squaw's Son and Slim Girl entered together.

'Ahalani!'

'Ahalani, shichai!'

The two men strode up to each other, Laughing Boy still clutching the harness. The trader's hands felt empty. They hugged each other, wrestled, went through a huge pantomime of friendship.

'It is good to see you, my friend!'

'Very much it is good to see you!'

'Hozhoni!'

'Aigisi hozhoni!'

'What are you doing here?'

'I came up for the dance, but I am too late, they say. What are your news?'

'I have just got married. This is my wife, she comes from Maito.'

'Good!'

Narrow Nose thought he must be progressing in the language, he could understand most of what they said. Usually when they
talked among themselves, he could not follow, they seemed to mess it around so. He had no idea that they were using baby-talk for his special benefit, any more than it occurred to him as unusual that a man should be bringing a bride to live in his settlement, instead of going to hers.

Jesting Squaw's Son shook hands with his other friends there, as though he had just come back from a trip.

'I have just finished building our hogahn, over towards T'ies Napornss. We are going to make the House Prayer in a little while. I want you all to come now, we shall make a feast afterwards. You, my friend, you must come. Come now.'

He nodded at Tall Brave, who started to the door with a couple of the others.

'But I am making a trade here. I must finish it.'

'You can make a better trade with the trader at T'ies Napornss. He is a good man.'

Narrow Nose swore to himself. He wanted that bridle, and he wanted that new couple's custom. Jesting Squaw was well-to-do; she would give her son plenty of sheep.

'I give you a good trade. Stay here and finish it.'

'I go with my friend to feast, I think. All these people are going.'

'Yes,' Tall Brave struck in from the doorway, 'it is time to eat.'

'Why don't you buy food and feast here?'

'I have food there, coffee and meat and bread. Why should they buy food here?' Jesting Squaw's Son told him.

The trader made a quick calculation, involving about a dollar and a quarter.

'I will give you coffee and crackers and some canned plums. How is that?'

'
Ei-yei!
Then we shall stay.'

'He must be a good man to deal with,' Laughing Boy said solemnly.

Narrow Nose called through the back door,

'Make about three quarts of coffee, quick, and put jest a little sweetnin' in it. Bring out ten cups.' He set out two boxes of saltines and four cans of plums. 'Now, give me the bridle.'

'I think I get something more, a rope, perhaps. You are a good man to buy from.' He laid the bridle on the counter, but hung onto the reins.

Narrow Nose climbed onto the counter and pulled down a length of rope. 'This is good.'

'No, I want horsehair.' With his mouth full.

'No horsehair.'

'Rawhide, then.'

He had to search under the counter for hide ropes that Indians had made. Laughing Boy went over them minutely. The coffee came. The Indians wolfed down the food and drink, and tipped up the cans to drain the fruit juice.

Laughing Boy said, before he had swallowed his last mouthful,

'I do not think I want those things.'

'Hunh?'

Drawing at the reins, he made the bridle seem to walk off the counter.

'Hey, stop!'

He turned at the door. 'Another time, perhaps.'

'Hey, by Gawd!'

All the Indians streamed out, with the trader after them. Laughing Boy was off at a gallop, his wife and Jesting Squaw's Son close behind. The rest followed, whooping and swinging their ropes and whips. Narrow Nose stood in the sand.

'Hey!'

Inside the store, Stinks Like a Mexican collected some tobacco and a handkerchief. He slid through the door, and vanished around the corner of the house.

'God damn a red devil!'

The Indians went fast; already their singing was distant. It was cold. He stuck his hands into his pockets and stared after them.

'God damn a red son of a bitch!'

I

 

It began to snow on the morning of the third day of their trip home, not far from Kintiel. The ground, where it had any dampness in it, had been frozen since the night before, and they had hurried under a threatening sky, having still a good day's ride before them. The storm came down like timber-wolves, rushing. A mountain-top wind sent the dry flakes whirling past, stinging their ears and the sides of their faces; there was no sun, they could see only a few yards ahead of them. Pulling their blankets up over their heads, they guided themselves by the wind at their backs.

An Indian takes the weather passively, accepting and enduring it without the European's mental revolt or impatience. Comfort and fat living had changed this to some degree in Laughing Boy; he was unusually aware of discomfort, and resentful, rating the blizzard as colder than it was. Slim Girl was simply miserable. They did not speak, but jogged on, punishing their horses.

Time passed and the wind slackened, so that the snow about their ponies' hooves stayed still, although the fall of flakes continued. Laughing Boy was preoccupied with thoughts of the road, but his wife contrasted this ride with the other time when they had ridden this way together. First it is the top of a stove and then it is an ice-machine, she thought; yet I am beginning to love it.

Cliffs loomed before them, duskily blue with snowflakes rebounding and zigzagging before they touched the rock. The snow was beginning to drift.

'These are not the right cliffs,' he said; 'the wind must have shifted, I think. I was afraid it would.'

'What shall we do, then?'

'I think this is Inaiyé Cletso'i; we follow to the left.'

'Why not camp here?'

'We must find firewood. We might just sleep here and not wake up. Come along, little sister, perhaps we shall find a hogahn.'

They continued, he fully occupied, she miserable with nothing to do save follow. Sometimes the snow whirled up at them, sometimes a flaw would sting their faces with fine, white dust. Their heavy blankets felt thin as cotton over their shoulders.

'There's a hogahn.' She pushed forward.

'
Hogay-gahn
, bad. Do not stop here!'

'What do you mean?'

'Don't you see it is deserted? Don't you see the hole in the north side? Some one has died here. Come along.'

She sighed in anger, gritted her teeth, swore under her breath, and turned her horse back. Nothing on earth would make a Navajo stop there; he would not even use the dry timbers for firewood to save his life. Well, it was part of the rest.

'We are coming somewhere now,' he called to her.

'How?'

'I smell smoke. There, you can see.'

It was a well-built hut beside a corral. Smoke issued from the hole in the roof. The dome of daubed mud and untrimmed logs looked beautiful just then. Laughing Boy shouted at the door, and a middle-aged man crawled out.

'Where are you going?'

'To Chiziai.'

'You are out of the trail; it is far.'

'This snow confused us.'

'Where from?'

'To Tlakai.'

'Where's that?'

'Between Seinsaidesah and Agathla.'

'
Ei-yei!
You come far! Just beyond, there, is a box canon. There is shelter and feed. Put your horses there, Grandfather. Drop your saddles here, I shall bring them in. Come in, Grandmother.'

They lost no time over the horses, and crawled gladly into the
smoky, fetid, warm hogahn. There were the man, two women, four children between eight and fifteen, and two dogs. The space was a circle some twelve feet in diameter—the average size; with the people, the fire in the middle, saddles, cooking utensils, a loom and blankets, it was well filled.

'You live at T'o Tlakai?'

'No, at Chiziai. My parents live there. There was a Night Chant; for that we went. It was a full ten days' chant. Mountain Singer conducted it.'

'Beautiful!'

'Yes.'

The elder wife served them a pot of boiled mutton and corn, with a chunk of the usual tough wheat bread. They ate readily. It flashed through Laughing Boy's mind that he had not enjoyed a meal so much since his arrival at Tsé Lani, but then he thought that that was silly. The foods to which he was accustomed!

 

II

 

They were storm-bound for all the next day. He was anxious to be home again, now that the restraint of the ceremony and after-ceremony was ended. He wanted to have Slim Girl to himself, at leisure, and to enjoy their own special kind of life once more. So he was impatient and ready to find fault.

It was a long time since he had been confined in a winter hogahn, with its crowded things and people and close-packed smells. Their house at Los Palos was always aired. At T'o Tlakai it still had been warm enough to leave the door unblanketed during the day, and he had spent most of his time in the brush-walled medicine-lodge. He found it too close here, and was made self-conscious by fearing what she might think of it.

The modern Navajo diet, boiled mutton and tough bread, tough bread and boiled mutton, a little corn and squash, coffee with not enough sugar, tea as black as coffee, had none of the delicacy of the old ceremonial dishes. He went outside only on rising, when
they all rolled in the snow (it had never occurred to him to warn Slim Girl of that custom, but she followed suit without a sign), and again for half an hour to look at his ponies. The thick air inside weighed upon him; he felt dull after a heavy breakfast, and had no more appetite.

Then there were the lice. His wife had rid him of them, conquering his sincere belief that they were a gift from Old Couple in the World Below to enable people to sleep. He had rated that as one of her minor magics. No new ones had got on to him at T'o Tlakai, but in this crowded place they stormed him. He was not used to being bitten, so he was tormented, and he scratched a great deal.

His host asked him naively, 'You have many lice, Grandfather?'

He caught his tongue in time, answering, 'No, but they nearly froze yesterday. Now they have waked up again, and they are hungry.'

Slim Girl gave him a look of approval and sympathy, with a little gesture of scratching furiously at herself. He smiled.