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 canyons, 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 fingertips. 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.”