III
The brush fence enclosed an oval some forty feet across, in the centre of which blazed the bonfire, higher than a tall man. All around the edge sat people, several hundreds of them; they were happy, their faces were grave but joyful. At one end were the singers.
Now Red God came into the open space, leading a file of dancers, the Grandfather of the Gods, who guided Reared in a Mountain through the homes of the Divine Ones, who saved him from the Utes. With his plumed sticks and his sacred insignia, Red God led the dance before them.
Talking God and South God and Young Goddess came before them with dancers, and all the place was full of sacred songs. They were leading good dances, with good music.
The magicians came in and planted the yucca root. They sang and danced about it; the yucca grew, it became tall, it flowered. In midwinter the enchanted yucca bloomed before them. These were the magics that the people of distant tribes brought to the first Mountain Chant. Now the magicians placed the board and the disk of the sun on the ground, the people all shouted, “Stand! Stand!” The board stood up on end, the sun rose to the top and set slowly; four times the sun rose and set by magic; then the board lay flat again.
A man, stripped to his breechclout, danced before a basket. Out of the basket an eagle feather rose; it danced up into the air, to the height of the man, and there it moved backward and forward in time with him.
Jesters came in, dressed as Americans and Mexicans, and made the people laugh. The spirits of the ancestral animals, hovering over the brush circle, were made happy. Laughing Boy, sitting among friendly strangers, smiled at them and said,
“It is good!”
The great central fire and the small fires that people made for themselves, kept the place warm. He had eaten, he was comfortable. He did not realize how sleepy he was. At times the details of what he was watching became blurred and he drowsed deliciously; but he was permeated with the general feeling of the prayer, and he looked upon it as he had when an uninitiated child.
Young men painted all white with black forearms, foxskins hanging from their waists, came in with the magic arrows adorned with breath-feathers. This was the holiest part; this was the charm that the Tall Gods taught to Reared in a Mountain in their divine home. The young men danced, they swallowed the arrows and shouted in triumph; these were the very acts of the gods.
Laughing Boy felt a deep sense of peace, and rejoicing over ugliness defeated. The gods danced before him, he felt the influence of their divinity. The naked youths danced with torches, they bathed in flame, they leapt through and through the fire. He had been bathed in flame, he had been through a fire.
The past and the present came together, he was one with himself. The good and true things he had thought entered into his being and were part of the whole continuity of his life.
It was beginning to dawn, the last prayer came to a close. Quietly, the people left the enclosure. He went to where his horse was tethered and rolled up in his blanket. Sleepily there, he kissed the gold bracelet, saying,
“Never alone, never lamenting, never empty. Ahalani, beautiful!”