Laughing Boy (20 page)

'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 angry 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.

'I am not surprised.'

'They call you "Went Away." Your uncle calls you "Blind Eyes."'

'Unh! He would. Well, I am changed, it is right that my name should change.'

Jesting Squaw's Son trailed his rope to get the kinks out of it. Coiling it again, 'But they miss you. You will always be welcome.'

'In the end, we shall return.'

'You live close to the Iron Trail?'

'On the other side of it.'

'
Ei-yei!
A good place?'

'You will see, a fine place, but we cannot turn our horses out there, as it is Americans' country.'

'But you are near the Zuñis, too.'

'About a day's hard ride that way. I trade with them—horses for turquoise.'

'Have you any children?'

'Not now. We have a plan. We are making much money now, we
are working as hard as we can. You would not believe how fast we make it. In a year or two we shall return to T'o Tlakai; we shall have perhaps fifty, perhaps sixty hundreds of dollars, in money and silver and horses, I think.'

'Ei-yei!'

'We shall be very rich. With that to start on, we shall be rich all our lives. We shall have our children then, we shall have a beautiful life. It is her idea, she thought of it. She takes care of the money, she trades with the Americans. She is remarkable.'

'You must be very happy.'

'I am.' He meant it.

 

II

 

Laughing Boy showed off the town, the irrigated strip, the railroad to his interested friend. Most delightfully, a passenger train went by; Jesting Squaw's Son sat his bolting, bucking horse with his head over his shoulder, his eyes glued on the marvel. His presence changed everything. Laughing Boy led him through the narrow place between the clay bluffs to his adobe house, the corral, the ditches and the hummocks of the summer's field, the sapling peaches. Jesting Squaw's Son admired, and a pain ran through him that there was not his own house and fields, and his own wife waiting by the fire.

Slim Girl came to the door. The autumn nights were already cold enough for the cooking to be done indoors. She greeted the visitor correctly, hospitably, and saw that her husband, although he seemed grave, was at peace with himself.

At the first moment when they were alone, Laughing Boy explained the situation, watching her anxiously. She nodded her head.

'Poor man, I am sorry for him. We must help him. He is going to get over his love, I think. He is already reconciled to it. It is that in combination with the other that worries him, I think.' Her husband, after a moment's thought, agreed. 'Now this is what
we must do; talk about what will keep him interested, talk about things you have done together, talk of what will remind him of the good taste of life in his mouth. Do not try to make him laugh, do not try to comfort him. We shall show him new things. I shall give him some of your drink, I shall talk about the Americans. Now, I think, he is keeping one thing in his mind all the time, we must make him let go of it. Do you see?'

'Yes, that is very good.'

Truly, his wife was a remarkable woman, so wise, so right. Hearing his friend returning, he kissed her quickly.

That evening was blissful, so harmonious that in the middle of it Jesting Squaw's Son excused himself, went down to the corral, and cried into the shoulder of the first available horse. A horse, warm and silky, is very nice to cry into when it stands still. The tears came readily. He had not cried before.

He stayed for three weeks, riding the range with Laughing Boy, watching the silversmithing, going down to see the trains pass by. He spent an entranced and delighted afternoon behind a bush, watching three negroes shoot craps, and nearly frightened them to death when he stood up suddenly, not five feet from them, bow in hand, to go away. He forgot about Alkali Water's daughter for hours at a time, until she became a curious, sad memory. He gave much thought to his hosts.

The novelty idea had been a good one, and they had plenty to offer, from the railroad and the cocktail, with its taste and surprising effect, to Slim Girl's talk of Americans. At night she spoke of their ways, of California, and of the other nations of people like Americans of whom she had heard, across Wide Water, toning down the more amazing things to credibility. They compared her knowledge with their experience on the reservation, and discussed the Americans' works, the good and bad things their coming had brought to the Navajo. They talked about the posse that hunted Blunt Nose, and stories of old times and the soldiers. That would lead to old wars with the Utes and the Jicarillas and the Stone House people, and they argued whether they gained or lost under
the present enforced peace. Laughing Boy and Slim Girl enjoyed themselves enormously.

It was cold enough for a blanket over the shoulder, the day that Jesting Squaw's Son and Laughing Boy rode out to the pasture and caught his horse. Laughing Boy was sad at his friend's departure. They mounted their animals and clasped hands.

'I shall wait for you in the North.'

'We shall come, but I hope you will visit us here again.'

'I hope you will come too soon for that. I have lived in your house, I have seen you. You are both happy, I think; you are both in love. But you are afraid. All the time you are enjoying yourselves you are watching for something over your shoulders, I think. I do not understand this. It is what I saw. This life of yours, it all looks like The People's life; only her going into town is strange. But it is not just she, it is you both that are not living like us, I think. I do not know what it is, but you are wearing moccasins that do not fit you. The sooner you both come back to your own people, the better, I think.

'I shall be waiting for you. You have restored my life.'

'It will be a good day when we meet again.'

It was a pity he was gone; he had been such pleasant company. They had been too much alone, and he had cured that. He had misunderstood it, too. He wanted to see his wife and talk about their guest. He hurried home.

I

 

It had come round to the beginning of Little Snow Moon again, a time of year when horses, seeking feed, are likely to wander. Laughing Boy kept close watch on his herd, and was little surprised, on one day of high wind that covered the tracks, to find a stallion, a three-year-old, missing. It must have been gone for some time; he was unable to find it in the immediate district, and soon lost its trail completely. Returning to his house, he made preparations to be away for a week in search of it; the animal was valuable.

Slim Girl procured chocolate and other dainties for him. The weather was no longer warm, he could not tell where he might camp, she felt that he would undergo hardships. But, as he said, one could not let as good a pony as that wander at will in a country entirely populated by connoisseurs and lovers of horseflesh.

Four days passed in vain. On the fifth, acting on the tip of a Hopi mail carrier, he picked up its trail north of Winslow. The next morning he found it, scarcely fifteen miles from Los Palos.

It had no mind to go back to the herd. At first sight of him it began walking as it grazed, then, seeing him draw slightly nearer, broke into a trot, and thus all morning, matching its pace to his, kept a quarter of a mile between them. He tried to edge it towards the left, but it seemed to guess his intention, taking advantage of a butte that prevented heading off to break sharply right and gallop furiously a mile in the direction of the railroad. It was never panicked, never too hurried, expending always just enough effort.

As he pursued, Laughing Boy admired. The chestnut stallion
was coming into its strength, gleaming, round quarters, bunched muscles at the juncture of the throat and chest, a ripple of highlight and shadow on the withers, arched neck, pricked small Arab ears, bony head, eyes and nostrils of character and intelligence. It was one of those ponies, occasionally to be found, in which one reads a page of the history of that country; a throwback to Spanish
Conquistadores
and dainty-hooved, bony-faced horses from Arabia.

Midday was warm, sandy dust rose from the trail in clouds. Laughing Boy munched raisins and chocolate as he rode, remembering when the men on the posse had offered him the same rations. That girl, she was a whole war-party in herself! The stallion balked at the railroad tracks, considered, and cleared them with a nervous leap.

Now Laughing Boy thought he had it; the dingy suburbs of the town, on the far side from his hogahn, made a half-circle before them. He advanced cautiously. It was a question of getting it cornered so that he could dismount, for Navajos do not rope from the saddle. Now the stallion began to rush, and the work became fast—a break to the right, Laughing Boy, pouring leather into his pony, headed it, then left, and the houses turned it again. A desperate race to prevent a desperate attempt to break back across the tracks; it wheeled again, straight between two houses, stallion and mounted man going like fury, to the admiration of an old Mexican woman and the clamorous terror of a sleeping cur.