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 mountaintop 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 hogan.”
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 hogan.” 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? Someone 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 canyon. 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 hogan. 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!