Sing Down the Moon (5 page)

"He may be barking at a wild animal," I said.

"It is time to go," Nehana said.

The moon was rising over the hill behind us. But it was dark night in the draw where we were hidden. There was no other way out of the draw save the narrow way we had come. We started toward the stream where the moonlight glittered on the water and the cottonwoods. My black dog was still barking.

Nehana said, "I would rather die than be captured again."

I felt the same as Nehana did. I followed her closely and Running Bird followed me. The three of us rode out of the draw, gripping the horses' reins. We were ready to flee at the first sight of the Spaniards.

Before we reached the stream, two horsemen came out of the trees into the moonlight. Something about them—the size of their horses and the way they rode—made me think they were Indians. We were not more than a dozen paces apart. Still I was not certain.

The black dog rushed at them and stopped. Then one of the horsemen shouted to us, a single word in Navaho. I knew the voice. I would know it anywhere. Quietly I answered him.

I think Tall Boy was more surprised than I was, for he rode up slowly and sat there on his horse staring at me. Mando, his friend, also stared at me.

Nehana said, "The Spaniards are near."

Without a word the five of us rode off, Tall Boy taking the lead. We rode hard until the first light of day. Tall Boy spoke only once to me during the long night. It was about my black dog and I have forgotten what he said, but I remember that it made me happy.

Near dawn while we slept, the Spaniards came along the stream. My black dog barked when they were still a distance away. We mounted our horses and rode out of the ravine where we were hidden. Mist was rising from the water. A cool wind blew from the east. It brought to us the sound of hoofbeats and the neigh of a horse.

"We cannot outride the Spaniards," Tall Boy said. "We will therefore go slowly on the trail toward
home, as if we did not fear them. We will not heed them unless they speak. We will not fight unless they attack us."

Tall Boy said this solemnly but I knew by the fire deep in his eyes that he wanted to kill all the Spaniards, that he would do so if the chance came.

We went in single file along a bank of the stream, toward the rising sun. The sound of hoofs was muffled in the tall grass. Mando and Tall Boy rode last with their lances sheathed and their bows unstrung.

As the sun came up the three Spaniards overtook us. The one with the white teeth spoke to Tall Boy.

"The women ride horses that belong to us," he said in Navaho. "The horses were stolen."

Tall Boy did not answer. He spurred his horse and trotted up beside Nehana and me, saying in a whisper that we should not dismount. We rode on, bunched together, the Spaniards close behind us. There was no sound except the ringing of hawk's bells on their silver bits.

We came to a clump of trees beside the stream. Here the leader shouted at us. I saw him swing down from the saddle and take a rifle from its holster. The two other Spaniards pulled up their horses.

Tall Boy told us to ride on and stop behind the trees. Then he said something to Mando under his breath. Together they gave a piercing war cry.

I had heard this cry before, many times since my childhood. It always froze my blood to bear it, and it did now. It sounded to me as if some evil spirit had leaped out from the far depths of the earth. The cry was not a human sound nor the sound that any animal makes whether in pain or fright.

The leader held the rifle in one hand and the reins of his stallion. At the sound of the war cries the horse leaped sidewise, dragging his master with him. By the time the Spaniard loosed the reins and brought the rifle to his shoulder, Tall Boy swept past him and in one swift thrust planted the long lance.

The other Spaniards, seeing the death of their leader, fled into the trees. Tall Boy and Mando did not pursue them. Instead, they motioned to us and set off up the stream. There was no sign of the two men.

We had not gone far when a shot sounded from the trees where the Spaniards were hidden. A second shot struck Tall Boy.

He clutched the saddle horn but made no sound. He spurred his horse into a gallop and we followed. There were no more shots. The Spaniards did not come out of the trees. In a short time Tall Boy slowed his horse. He had turned pale and blood showed on his back.

He stopped his horse and said, "I can no longer sit
in the saddle. Take this rope and tie me there."

Mando and I took the rope and put it around his waist and tied him so that he could lean over the neck of the horse.

The Spaniards did not follow us. We went slowly up the stream the way Tall Boy and Mando had come. We traveled slowly all day. At dusk we made camp and helped Tall Boy down from his horse and laid him on the grass. He ate a little food and drank some water, but I feared that he was dying. I sat beside him through the night, bringing him water when he asked for it. I prayed that he would not die.

Tall Boy seemed better the next day, so we rode faster and longer, making many leagues. But on the third day he could not climb into the saddle.

Out of two willow poles and a blanket we fashioned a sled and put him on it, hitching the sled to the strongest horse.

We went slowly that day and the next and on the fifth morning, as the sun rose, we came within sight of our canyon.

"You are near home," I said to Tall Boy. "Soon you will be well."

Tall Boy looked at me and tried to smile.

"I will ride on," I said, "and tell the medicine man."

"Yes," said Tall Boy, "tell him that he is needed."

I
RODE HARD
toward home. The stone cliffs were dark, but far above them the early light lay on their crests and the trees that grew there shone as if they were on fire.

A dawn wind blew, smelling of earth and wood smoke and corn ripe in the fields. It was a Navaho wind. Joyously I breathed it in.

White Deer was tending her flock by the river. She must have believed me dead long ago. For a moment I thought she would flee. I spoke to her and rode on and only then did she run after me, asking many questions all at once.

It was the same with my mother and father and sister. They came running out of the hogan and stood there gazing at me as though I were a spirit. Not until I spoke and told them that Tall Boy was wounded did they move or say anything.

Bitter Water, the medicine man, was in the next village. My father and four other men went out to meet Tall Boy and bring him in. When they came back, carrying him on a litter, the medicine man had come with his bag of curing things—two round blue stones, a small object with an oval knot in it that looked like an eye, one eagle feather and a groaning stick, a piece of wood from a lightning-struck tree.

Tall Boy was laid in the grass under a big sycamore, close beside the river. He was pale and gaunt faced and kept his eyes closed, even when I spoke to him. The medicine man cleaned the wide wound in his shoulder with river water and the juice of mottled berries. Then he touched him all over from head to foot, gently with the blue stones, and at last with the little object that looked like an eye.

That night Tall Boy ate something and the next day his father came and moved him to their hogan, not far up the river. My sister helped me cook food
that I thought he would like and we took it to him. We went every day and after a week he began to sit up. The color came back to his face, but he could not use his right arm. It hung limp at his side. My sister said that he would never use that arm again.

She said this to me as we were riding home. She said nothing more, but I knew what she meant. She wanted me to understand that he would never be able to hunt again, nor go out on raids with the other warriors.

The next morning my mother said, "You have thirty sheep and they all need shearing. But before they are shorn there are beans and squash to plant."

"I will start tomorrow," I said. "This morning I want to cook deer meat. Tall Boy likes it better than anything else."

My mother was combing her hair. She stopped and looked at me. "There are many women who can cook deer meat for Tall Boy. The moon is right for planting."

"The moon will be right tomorrow," I said.

My mother went on combing her hair. "Your sister has told me that he has an arm that will never again pull a bowstring or throw a lance. That is bad fortune. He will no longer be a warrior nor a hunter. He will have to sit with the women. Perhaps he will learn to weave and cut wood and shear sheep."

My friend Running Bird said, "I feel sorry for him."

Nehana, who was going to marry the son of a chief of a village far up the river, said the same.

My mother tied her hair and stood up, pointing to the bag of squash seeds hanging by the door. "Plant the seeds deep," she said, "for the earth is very dry."

Walking along in the hot sun, with the bag heavy on my shoulder, I made deep holes with a stick and dropped the seeds in, three seeds in each hole. But my thoughts were not there in the field. Even when I tried thinking of my sheep, I was unhappy.

I did not care, not for myself, whether Tall Boy would ever be able to hunt again or ride with the warriors. But my sister and my mother did care and there was nothing they would not do to keep me from marrying a cripple. It was my father who would decide and he had said nothing. Yet this did not give me any comfort, for he usually did what they wanted him to do.

When the squash and beans were planted, I helped with the shearing and drove my flock to pastures by the river. The grass was not so good as it was on the mesa, but we were afraid to go too far from the village. Every week my mother and I went to visit Tall Boy and his family. She never again said anything about his arm and when he had trouble, when it was awkward for him to do something, she always looked away in pity.

By the time the hot days came we did not go to see Tall Boy anymore. Once in a while he rode down to see us, but he did not stay long or have much to say. Then other boys began to visit. They came and sat under the trees in front of our hogan and joked with each other and played stick games.

One night my mother said, "It is time for the girl to become a woman. Tomorrow I will send word of the Womanhood Ceremony."

O
N THE FIRST DAY
of Kin-nadl-dah, twenty-one relatives and many friends came to our hogan, also Bitter Water, the medicine man, and his singers. My mother dressed me in my best tunic and gave me all her turquoise and silver jewelry to wear. She combed my hair so that it fell loose around my shoulders and tied it in the middle with a string of sacred buckskin.

Everyone told me how handsome I looked. My aunt, who was very old and never had been married,
said that I was too pretty for any man she had ever seen. I walked back and forth in front of the hogan, so all my relatives and friends could look at me.

I walked there for only a short time, because my mother brought four sacks of corn from the storehouse and led me to the big grinding stone.

"The Womanhood Ceremony lasts four days," she said, "so we need lots of flour to eat. You are not good at the grinding stone, but now you must put your mind to it and make four full sacks of fine meal."

In my best clothes and my borrowed jewelry, I knelt and began to grind the corn. I worked for only a short time.

My cousin came to me and said, "Wood is scarce."

I laid my grinding tool aside and went to the bottom of the orchard and chopped an armload of wood and stacked it in front of the fire. Then I began grinding corn again. After a while, one of the neighbors handed me an empty jar.

"Your mother tells me," she said, "that goat's milk is needed."

I jumped up and ran down to the river and found a goat and milked it and brought the jar back. Again I began to grind the corn.

Then my uncle came. "Your aunt wishes a blanket," he said.

It went on in such a fashion all that day. Everyone
wanted something. Everyone gave me orders. I was flying here and there and between times I knelt at the grinding stone. This was to make me industrious and obedient, my mother said.

During these four days, early each morning I had to run east, south, west, and north, as though I was running a race. This was to make me a good runner. Furthermore, I could not eat sweet things nor anything with salt in it, nor drink too much water. Nor was I allowed to scratch myself. And I was told to sleep as little as possible. These things were to make me comely.

The fourth morning men relatives dug a large hole in front of the hogan and kept a fire burning there all day. Toward evening when the fire died down, the women lined the hole with corn husks and poured in a lot of mush, covering it over with more husks.

At nightfall we ate some of the corncake and went into the hogan and I sat on the west side across from the door. Then the medicine man sang the twelve songs. The other singers chanted lucky songs about sheep and jewelry and soft goods. They chanted all night. I had to keep awake and listen or else I would have bad luck.

Just before dawn my mother gave me a basket with water and yucca root in it and helped me to wash my hair. Then, as the sun came up, I ran out from the hogan toward the east, past the orchard and the cornfield.

All the boys ran after me, even Tall Boy, who still had not gained his strength. We raced to the river and back again. But it was not a real race to see who could run the fastest. For if any of the boys had won, had beaten me by so much as a step, then they would become old and toothless long before I did.

I had hoped that Tall Boy would not try to run at all. But he was the first to start after me. I ran much slower than I could, hoping that it would help him. This he did not like. He shouted at me to go faster.

"You run like an old woman," he cried.

I went a little faster and came to the river and floundered around, pretending to slip on the grass bank.

"My grandmother runs faster than you," he said.

His words made me angry and I began to run as fast as I could and left him far behind. Pale and out of breath, he came in last. The rest of the morning he went around scowling. I tried to make him smile but he would not forgive me for running fast, even though he had taunted me.