II
They were storm-bound for all the next day. He was anxious to be home again, now that the restraint of the ceremony and after-ceremony was ended. He wanted to have Slim Girl to himself, at leisure, and to enjoy their own special kind of life once more. So he was impatient and ready to find fault.
It was a long time since he had been confined in a winter hogan, with its crowded things and people and close-packed smells. Their house at Los Palos was always aired. At T’o Tlakai it still had been warm enough to leave the door unblanketed during the day, and he had spent most of his time in the brush-walled medicine-lodge. He found it too close here, and was made self-conscious by fearing what she might think of it.
The modern Navajo diet, boiled mutton and tough bread, tough bread and boiled mutton, a little corn and squash, coffee with not enough sugar, tea as black as coffee, had none of the delicacy of the old ceremonial dishes. He went outside only on rising, when they all rolled in the snow (it had never occurred to him to warn Slim Girl of that custom, but she followed suit without a sign), and again for half an hour to look at his ponies. The thick air inside weighed upon him; he felt dull after a heavy breakfast, and had no more appetite.
Then there were the lice. His wife had rid him of them, conquering his sincere belief that they were a gift from Old Couple in the World Below to enable people to sleep. He had rated that as one of her minor magics. No new ones had got on to him at T’o Tlakai, but in this crowded place they stormed him. He was not used to being bitten, so he was tormented, and he scratched a great deal.
His host asked him naively, “You have many lice, Grandfather?”
He caught his tongue in time, answering, “No, but they nearly froze yesterday. Now they have waked up again, and they are hungry.”
Slim Girl gave him a look of approval and sympathy, with a little gesture of scratching furiously at herself. He smiled.
The afternoon and early evening were better, for his host recounted the second part of the Coming Up story to his children, the part about the Twin Gods, Slayer of Enemy Gods, and Child of the Waters, which Laughing Boy loved best. He noticed that Slim Girl listened intently. Some day he would be telling his children. It seemed a long time for them not to have had any, but he really did not know very much about these things. It was the woman’s business; the children were hers, after all. She would arrange it in due time, according to her wisdom. He drowsed and was soothed by the tale of the familiar, strange adventures, the gate of the Clashing Rocks, the trail over Boiling Sands, Monster Eagle and Monster Elk and Big God, lightning-arrows and cloud-blankets. After supper the close air drugged him; his eyes were nearly closed as he listened to the last of the myth.
The snowflakes, drifting through the smoke-hole, fell into the fire with little hisses. The even voice went on, telling the end.
“Slayer of Enemy Gods came to the Hunger People, they say …”
But it was not his dream, there was nothing portentous about this voice. Slim Girl had slain the Hunger People. He smiled and listened, cradled in drowsiness, distantly conscious of a louse biting him, and comforting himself with the thought that tomorrow all that would be attended to, tomorrow they would be home again. These poor people, they could not know. He half-opened his eyes, seeing his wife’s thoughtful, delicate face, and said, as sleepy people will, much louder than he realized,
“Hasché Lto’i!”
“What was that, Grandfather?” asked the man.
“Nothing.”
“I thought you said something about Hunting Goddess.”
“No, I said ‘hashké yei itei,’ the gods are brave.”
“Unh! That is well said.”
Slim Girl reflected. Hashché Lto’i was one of the few real goddesses, but she had nothing at all to do with the Coming Up story. He had covered his slip neatly, that man of hers. He was no child. They two would go far, far, under her direction.
The story-telling ended, and the flakes had ceased falling through the smoke-hole. Tomorrow would be clear. The banked fire became a dull redness, scarcely glowing.