II
The last night of the dance was a failure for Laughing Boy, for all its ritual. He tried to join the singing, but they were not the kind of songs he wanted; he tried to concentrate on the prayer that was being brought to a climax, but he wanted to pray by himself. He quit the dance, suddenly very much alone as he left the noise and the light behind him, strongly conscious of himself, complete to himself. He followed a sheep trail up a break in one canyon wall, to the rim, then crossed the narrow mesa to where he could look down over the broad Ties Hatsosi Valley, a great pool of night, and far-distant, terraced horizon of mesas against the bright stars, cool, alone, with the sound of the drumming and music behind him, faint as memory. This also was a form of living.
He began to make up a new song, but lost interest in it, feeling too centred upon himself. He sat noticing little things, whisper of grass, turn of a leaf—little enough there is in the desert at night.
“Yota zhil-de tlin-sha-igahl …”
His song came upon him.
“A-a-a-ainé, ainé,
I ride my horse down from the high hills
To the valley, a-a-a.
Now the hills are flat. Now my horse will not go
From your valley, a-a-a.
Hainéya, ainé, o-o-o-o.”
Slim Girl sat down beside him. His song trailed off, embarrassed. They rested thus, without words, looking away into the night while contemplation flowed between them like a current. At length she raised one hand, so that the bracelets clinked.
“Sing that song.”
He sang without effort. This was no common woman, who ignored all convention. The long-drawn “Hainéya, ainé, o-o-o-o,” fell away into the lake of darkness; silence shut in on them again.
On the heels of his song he said, “My eldest uncle is here. I am going to speak to him tomorrow.”
“I should not do that if I were you.”
He rolled a cigarette with careful movements, but forbore to light it. Again they sat watching the motionless stars above the shrouded earth. No least breeze stirred; there were no details to be seen in the cliffs or the valley, only the distant silhouettes against the sky. A second time her hand rose and her bracelets clinked, as though speech unannounced would startle the universe.
“You are sure you are going to speak to your uncle, then?”
“Yes.” The second self that is a detached mentor in one’s mind recognized that he would never have talked this way with any other woman. Etiquette had been left behind down in the narrowness of Ane’é Tseyi.
“Perhaps you will listen to what he says, I think; perhaps you will not. Perhaps your mind is made up now.”
“I am thinking about what I intend to do. I shall not change.”
“We shall see then. Goodbye.”
She rose like smoke. He called a startled “Goodbye,” then began to follow at a distance. He stopped at the rim of the canyon, where the noise of singing that welled up from below passed him by as he stood watching her dark form, down to the bottom, along by the grove where his camp was, and beyond into the shadows.
He went back to the far edge of the mesa. He did not want to sleep, not ever again.
“Now with a god I walk,
Now I step across the summits of the mountains,
Now with a god I walk,
Striding across the foothills.
Now on the old age trail, now on the path of beauty wandering.
In beauty—Hozoji, hozoji, hozoji, hozoji-i.”
The deep resonance of the prayer carried his exaltation through the land. Then he began to analyse her words, finding in them nothing save unconventionality, no promise, and his own he found laggard and dull. Was she playing with him, or did she mean all he read into her brevity? Was she thus with other men?
“I ride my horse down from the high hills
To the valley, a-a-a …”
He was up and down, restless, no longer on the path of beauty, yet tormented by a new beauty. Far away, high-pitched, he heard the faint “Yo-o galeana, yo-o galeana,” and the thudding drum. He walked to and fro. My mind is made up, I shall make things as they should be. Now with a god I walk—or is it a game, looseness?
Suddenly he fled to sleep for refuge, rolling in his blanket by a high place under thickly clustered, brilliant, unhelpful stars, falling asleep with the feeling of vastness about him and clean, gracious silence.