II
After the steam bath and the water and the foaming yucca-suds, it was good to lie with hair spread out, drying, and talk vaguely of things to be done, and now and again to touch her. Great achievements completed themselves in a phrase. He drew the design of a bracelet in the sand; he braided his hair and mimicked the nasal speech of a Ute. They fell to talking of the ways of different tribes, the old wars, and the present semi-hostility between the Navajo and the Pah-Utes.
“There is not often trouble with them,” he told her, “but we do not like them. They live wild up in that country beyond Oljeto, where they are hard to catch, and they steal things. Mostly they trouble the Mormons; the Mormons are afraid of them, they say. Since I was a little boy, only once we had real trouble with them. Then one time we went on the warpath for them. I went on the warpath that time.”
He felt proud of the part he had played, and wanted to tell her about it.
“That was three years ago; I was just about full grown. Blunt Nose, he made the trouble, that one. He was chief of a band of them; he lived up beyond Naesjé canyon, near Tsé Nanaazh. That is wild country, almost in the mountains. He was bad.
“He used to kill Mormon cattle all the time, a cow, and a cow, and a cow, here and there. He needed to keep no sheep. He did the way he pleased. He wore two pistols, and had a gun on his saddle, they say. He would ride down the middle of the trail, and not turn out for anyone.
“One time he heard the Mormons had sent for soldiers, so he left their country alone. Then he sat quiet for a while, but his people got hungry. A Pah-Ute will eat almost anything, but there is very little up there. That is why the Navajos leave them alone; there is nothing in that country but a few Pah-Utes and a few antelopes. You cannot make anything out of the skins of either, so we let them alone.
“Well, now Blunt Nose decided to try mutton. He came down by Jahai Spring where Hungry Man lived. He had all his braves with him. They started to run off Hungry Man’s sheep. Then The Doer came along. You have heard of him? He is the one who killed those two Americans; his father was Generous Chief, the one who never was captured when The People went into exile. So The Doer came along; he saw that man’s wife, where she came running. He rode up, he started shooting at those men. They shot back at him. They were too many for him; he rode away and they chased him. But he killed one.
“Then Blunt Nose was angry. He killed Hungry Man, and his two children. He ran off the sheep. He went back into the Naesjé country.
“The People around there gathered together to hunt him, but the trader at Oljeto told them not to. He told them to wait while he wrote a paper to American Chief at T’o Nanasdési. So they did that. Meantime Blunt Nose was talking. He learned that there were no soldiers in the Mormon country, but he said he liked mutton. He said no Coyote could kill one of his braves and not be punished; he said the Coyote People would pay for what they had done. He talked like this all around; he talked brave, calling us that name.
“In a little while he came down again. But they had men on watch, they made smoke signals. A lot of people came together and went after him, so that he had to make a big circle, around by Oljeto, to get back. When he went past the trading post, he shot into it. He did not hurt anyone, but he spoiled some tin cans and broke some windows. Then, on his way home, he crossed the bridge over T’o Atsisi Creek. It is a big wooden bridge that you can ride a horse over; Washindon had it built. They sent two Americans to show how it should be built.
“Well, he came by this bridge. He was angry, so he burnt it, that man. And he got some sheep, and went home.
“Then the trader wrote another paper, a strong one, and sent it to American Chief. Meantime The Doer was getting up a war-party. The People were angry; they wanted to kill them, all those Pah-Utes. So American Chief wrote a paper saying that he was getting up a war-party of Americans who would do the fighting. He said to have good horses ready for them, and that the Navajos must not start fighting or there would be soldiers. That was what he said.
“He tried to talk to Dokoslid over the talking wires, to get the war-party, but a man down by Besh Nanaazh had cut some of the wires to mend his wagon, so he had to wait a day to fix them. Meantime he sent a rider with this paper.
“The rider came by Gomulli T’o trading post. His horse was lame and he was tired. I was there with a good horse, a roan. Yellow Mustache was the trader there; he told me to carry the paper. He told me to ride hard. He said I would be paid.
“I rode all day. I rode at night until the moon set. I rode after it was all dark, but I was afraid of the spirits. Then I made camp. The next morning I saw a fresh horse, so I caught it and rode on. The sun was about halfway up when I saw Oljeto. And right then the Pah-Utes saw me. They started after me, and I went as hard as I could for the trading post.
“I could hear them shooting at me; I could hear their bullets. I was very much afraid, but there was nothing to do except ride hard.
“Then I felt something hit me. It made a dull thump; it did not hurt. I thought, ‘I have been hit in the bottom of my spine. In a minute it will hurt. Probably I shall die, I do not want to die.’ That way I thought.
“I thought all that all at once, then I felt behind, but there was nothing. Then people began shooting from the windows of the trading post, and the Pah-Utes went away. I rode up to the door and got off, wondering if I should fall. But I was all right. There was a bullet in the cantle of my saddle; that was what I had felt.
“We waited five days for the American war-party; meantime they got some good horses together. Blunt Nose was around all the time. People gathered together in groups of ten to twelve families, or more, like in the days when we were always at war. Then those men came.
“There were eight of them. They all had badges on their shirts, like policemen, only not quite the same. One of them was a fat man; we did not see why they brought him.
“They said they wanted four Navajos to be trackers. The Doer was to be head tracker. There were two other young men, and then they took me. They said they would pay me a dollar a day. That was a new idea to me, to be paid for hunting Pah-Utes. I thought you just hunted them.
“We tracked them for three days without seeing them. They tried to make us go at night, but we pretended not to be able to follow the trail. When The Doer told them that, they believed him. It was not an easy trail. Their horses were not shod, and they went a great deal over bald rock, they turned and doubled, they dragged branches behind them.
“We did not get much to eat, we could not make a fire. Those Americans brought a brown, sweet candy, and a little, dried-up black candy in boxes, something sticky. These we ate; you could go a long time on them. Then we had some dried corn. We started at first light; we went till it was quite dark. During the day it was hot among those rocks. We were hungry. It did not seem that we were following Pah-Utes; we were just following tracks in the sand, or little scratches on the rock, and some day we should come to the end of them, and something important would happen. Now the only thing in the world was those marks. When you saw one where you had not expected it, it seemed to shout at you.
“But we were gaining on them. On the fourth day they were much fresher, those tracks. We were close to them. Then we saw a couple of them, on lame horses, and we chased them. They had to cross a deep arroyo; when they went down into it we raced, hoping to catch them at the bottom of it. But they got up the other side; they just came up that side when we got to the near edge. Right away they started shooting. They shot at that fat man.
“Right away he fell off his horse. He landed on his stomach, and as soon as he landed he began to shoot. He shot between his horse’s legs. He hit one Pah-Ute in the leg and one in the arm. Then we knew why he had been brought along, that fat man.
“We wanted to kill them, but the chief American said that they had to go to T’o Nanasdési to be punished. Their horses were no good, so they put them on those two young men’s horses, and sent them back with them and one American to Oljeto. That left me and The Doer. I had never seen him before, that man, but everybody has heard about him. I was anxious to do well in his eyes.
“In the afternoon we came to the mouth of Yotatséyi Canyon. The trail was fresh and clear. The Doer told them that the other end of the canyon was halfway up Napani Mountain, to our right. It went in a big curve, he said. If they got out there, we could never catch them, he said. So he told them to send three men with him, and he would take them straight across there. He would reach it by nightfall, he said. Then, in the morning, we could start in from both ends and catch them, he said. So they did that. I stayed with the four at the lower end. I thought about there being still ten Pah-Utes, but I did not say anything. I did not want to seem afraid, if The Doer was not.
“We went a little way into the canyon and made camp. The chief American lent me a pair of magic tubes that he had, that you put to your eyes, and they made everything far away look near. I watched with them until I saw The Doer’s smoke signals. He signalled that they had had a fight, and the enemy were coming towards us. So we watched, but we saw no sign of them. It was dark soon after. We watched all night.
“When it was getting near dawn, but no light as yet, we started on foot. As soon as there was a little light, they sent me along the top of the talus along one wall, to look out for ambushes. The canyon was about five hundred paces wide; the walls were at least that high. The chief American watched me with those tubes. I would wave my hand, as a sign that I saw no one, and they would come forward, strung out across the canyon.
“It was full light when we got near where the canyon turned the corner. I went on ahead again, very slowly. I could look down into the sand and see the tracks that we had been following so long. I felt very much alone. I knew that man was watching me as I crept; that made me feel a little better. My father told me that the warpath was like stalking mountain sheep, only more exciting. I thought that there was more to it than that. Mountain sheep do not shoot back at you: mountain sheep are not people who are thinking about you just as hard as you are thinking about them.
“Then I saw them. They must have made camp up in the middle of Yotatséyi; now they were coming to try to get out this way. There were nine of them, in single file, riding carefully and watching. So I signalled to the Americans, and saw them take cover. I made myself as hard to see as I could. Suddenly I thought that I was enjoying myself a great deal.
“They came around the corner; now I looked right down on them, from behind a bush. One of them, looking around, looked straight at my bush. He was searching for people hiding. I thought that that bush was not nearly thick enough. His eyes passed on, and for just a moment I felt weak.
“Then the Americans started shooting. So I stood up and gave the war-cry and started. As I was shouting, I thought, they will hear the Coyote howl and know he’s a Wolf. There was a brave just below me in a buckskin shirt with beadwork on it, and a hat with a silver hatband. I noticed all about him while I shot at him. I wanted to kill him; I wanted it to be known that I had killed one. I saw my arrow in the air a long time; I saw it strike. He fell off his horse. Then I saw that he was not dead, and I was glad. I do not know why.
“There were five of them down now, and the others put up their hands, so the Americans took them prisoners. One had been killed over in the other end of the canyon.
“We went back to Oljeto, and they paid us as they said. Then we had ourselves purified from the blood, and we spent several dollars on canned food. I bought a big paper bag, as big as a hat, full of all different kinds of candy, and went home, and we all ate it.
“When I was telling about what happened, I got to the part about thinking I was shot, and I started to laugh. I could not stop, I just laughed. So they started calling me by that name. That is all.”
Slim Girl said, “I am glad you are a man like that.” She thought to herself, he is a warrior. That was worth ten thousand schools. He must have been about eighteen. Where is basketball against that?