II + 

The night was plenty sharp enough for a fire indoors. Under her directions he prepared canned goods and coffee, but neither of them did more than toy with the food. He had a feeling that she was going to find a solution for them; the experience that they had just shared had changed everything again, he didn’t know where he was. Landmarks shifted too quickly, he was in a turmoil once more, with his determinations to be made anew. + 

She asked him to roll her a cigarette; then, + 

“Make the drink as you have seen me do, only make some for me, too.” + 

He hesitated. + 

“Do not be afraid of my medicine.” + 

He muttered a denial and fixed the drink. She sipped at hers slowly. She needed strength, for she was nearly exhausted, and there was a battle to be fought. + 

“You cannot know whether a thing is good or bad unless you know all about it, and the cause of it. I do not try to say that what I have done is good, but I want to tell you my story, that you do not know; then you can judge rightly.” + 

He hardly had expected her to come so directly to the point. He prepared to sift lies. + 

“Roll me a cigarette. + 

“I have to begin way back. Hear me. + 

“When I was still a little girl, they took me away to the all-year school at Wide Water, as you know. They took me because I did well at the day school at Zhil Tséchiel, so they wanted me to learn more. I told you how they tried to make us not be Indians; they succeeded pretty well. I wanted to be American. I forgot the gods then, I followed the Jesus trail. I did well, then, at that school. + 

“While I was there both my father and mother went underground. My mother had no brothers or sisters living, and I was her only child. I saw no reason for returning to The People. I was an American, with an American name, thinking in American. + 

“I grew up. I wanted to work for Washindon on a reservation, like that Papago woman who writes papers for the American Chief at T’o Nanasdési. But I could not get that work right away, so they said I could work for a preacher at Kien Doghaiyoi⁠—you know that big town? The Americans call it Oñate.” + 

“I have heard.” He was studying her intently. Her voice came low and toneless; she spoke slowly, but behind it was something intense. + 

“I went there, about three years ago. I loved the Jesus trail; I thought it was very good to work for a preacher. That way it was.” + 

She stared into the fire as she took a sip of liquor. + 

“He was a good man, and his wife was very good. He did not let her have much to say. I worked pretty hard, but it was all right. + 

“I learned some strange things. I learned about the bad women⁠—they make their living by lying down with men, just any men who will pay them. Some of them were Americans, some had been schoolgirls like me. The preacher used to preach against them sometimes; I thought, he did not need to do that. Something had happened to their faces, their eyes; their mouths were terrible. They were like something in a bad dream. That way I thought. + 

“Then by and by I fell in love with a man. He was big and good-looking and he talked pious. He was a cowpuncher; he worked on a ranch near there. Lots of American girls liked him. When he paid attention to me, I was flattered. He was wonderful, I thought. We should be married and have a ranch together; it was almost too good to believe, I thought. + 

“I was frightened when he wanted me to lie with him, but he made me feel all right. He knew all about how to make women forget themselves, that man. + 

“Then I saw I was going to have a child. The next time he came to town, I asked him to marry me quickly. He made promises. Then he didn’t come to town again, so I went to the ranch where he worked. He was angry when he saw me there. He offered me money, but I said I wanted marriage. + 

“I became frightened, I begged and I cried. He got very angry, he called me names. He said to get out of his way, he couldn’t be bothered with a ‘squaw.’ That is a word Americans use to mean Indian women; it is contemptuous. I learned a lot then; right then I was not so young as I had been, I think. + 

“I went back to the preacher’s. I was not afraid to tell him, but I was ashamed. I could not be calm about it, it was hard to say. I just walked in on them and said: + 

“ ‘I am going to have a child. It is that man’s. He will not marry me. + 

“They were astonished; then the preacher looked angry. He called me bad. He asked what good all my training had done me; he called me ungrateful. He said a lot of things. If I had waited until he got through, his wife would have spoken, and they would have taken care of me, I think. But I was finding out that everyone said one thing and did another. The Jesus trail seemed to be a lie, too. I told him that. I threw his religion at him. Then he said all sorts of things about me, and ordered me out of his house. + 

“My money was soon gone. I went hungry. I thought I had shame written all over my face. But even then I was strong; I thought that the world had beaten me now, but I would keep on fighting and by and by I would beat it. But just then I was desperate. + 

“Then those bad women spoke to me. They took me in and fed me; they were kind, those bad women. All my ideas were turned upside down now. I did not care. My heart was numb. I learned their trade. I did what they did. In a few months so, with the baby in me, that made me very sick. They took care of me, those bad women. + 

“I suffered much pain, the child was born much too soon, dead. I was glad. + 

“When I was well, I went back to work among them. I had thought a lot, I learned a great deal. I saw how this new life was bad. I saw the faces, the empty hearts of those women, kind though they were. I hated all Americans, and I made up my mind that an American should pay for what an American had done. I remembered my true name. I would have gone to my people, but I did not know how, and I wanted to be paid back. I had my plan. + 

“I noticed one thing⁠—that the men, when they went with those women, liked to be helped to fool themselves that they were with another kind of woman, that they were loved. I did not look like those women yet. I looked young, and decent. They liked that, those men. By then it meant nothing to me; it was just as if I cooked them a meal. It had nothing to do with love, nothing to do with what you know. + 

“I watched for my chance, and by and by I saw it⁠—a man from the East, that one. He had good manners. He was lonely. And he did not have the poor ideas about Indians that most of these people have, that man. + 

“I was very careful with him. I did not do any of the things those women usually do to get money away from a man and be rid of him quickly. I acted as innocent as I knew how. He said he was sorry to see me leading such a life. I caught him. He was in Kien Doghaiyoi three nights, and all three nights he came to me. I found out all about him. + 

“Two weeks later he came back, and I saw him again. I had him, I thought. + 

“Ten days after that I came here to Chiziai. I had money. I took that house where you saw me. I watched and waited. He lives a day from here. On the fifth day he came in. I managed to meet him when he was alone. He was surprised and glad. I asked him to come to my house in the evening. I had food and much whiskey for him, so that finally he went to sleep. + 

“When he woke up in the morning, that was the test. He felt badly then, and ashamed to wake up in the house of a bad woman. I handed him his money, two hundred dollars, and told him to count it, that it was all there. Then I gave him coffee, and a little whiskey, and then food. He asked how much I wanted. I said I was not doing this for money. Then I gave him a little more whiskey, and so I kept him all day. I did not let him get drunk, and I acted like a good woman who called him friend. + 

“The next morning he said he had to get back to work. He said he would see me when he came back to town, and he wished I was not what I was. He was lonely, that man. These were not his people, these Americans here; they did not talk the same. Like a Navajo living among Apaches.” + 

Her voice was taking on a timbre of triumph. + 

“I said, ‘You will not find me here.’ + 

“He said, ‘At Kien Doghaiyoi, then.’ + 

“ ‘No,’ I said, ‘I am through with all that. I only did it because I had to. I hated it.’ + 

“He asked how that happened. I told him about half the truth and half lies, to make it sound better, saying I had been bad only a few weeks. Now I said an old Navajo whom I had always known was come for me; I did not love him, but he was a good man, and I was going to marry him. But first I wanted to see him⁠—the American⁠—I said, because he had been kind to me, because he was not like the others. So I had come here for just a few days, I said. + 

“He thought a little while. He said, ‘Stay.’ He said he would give me money. I pretended not to want to take money from him; I made him persuade me. I was afraid he might ask me to marry him, but he was not that much of a fool. Finally I said, ‘All right.’ + 

“I had conquered.” + 

There was a strong triumph in her voice at that last phrase; now it returned to the level, slow, tired speech. + 

“I told him I could not just live there, a Navajo woman. It would make talk, men would annoy me. It would be better if I married the old Navajo and lived near by, then I could meet him when he came to town. With whiskey, I said, that man could be kept happy. I said he was old. + 

“He did not want it to be known he was providing for a Navajo woman, so he agreed. He gave me fifty dollars. + 

“There was no Navajo.” + 

She paused. “Roll me a cigarette.” She smoked it through, then resumed: + 

“I was not happy. I was provided for, I was revenging myself through him, but I was not living. I wanted my own people. I was all alone. That was why I made friends with Red Man. He is not good, that man. He did not care if I were bad, he hoped I might be bad with him. I never was, but I kept him hoping. With him I remembered the ways of The People, I became quick again in their speech. He helped me much. He is not all bad, that man. + 

“The People looked at me askance. I was a young woman living alone, they did not know how, so they made it up. They do that. Your uncle knows that talk. This went on for over a year. Then I saw you, and everything changed. I had thought I was dead to men, and now I knew I loved you. With you I could live, without you I was already dead. + 

“I was right. Our way of life, to which you have led me, my weaving, our songs, everything, is better than the Americans’. You have made this. + 

“I had enough, but I thought I could have better. I wanted it for you; you were giving back to me what the Americans had robbed from me since they took me from my mother’s hogan. I thought it right that an American should pay tribute to you and me, I thought it was the perfection of my revenge. After what had happened to me, things did not seem bad that seem bad to other people. So I kept on. I did not tell you, I knew you would not like it. + 

“I thought it was all right. What I did with him had nothing to do with what I did with you, it was just work. It was for us, for our life. + 

“And I did not want to herd sheep and grow heavy and ugly early from work, as Navajo women do. I wanted much money, and then to go North and have children with you and stay beautiful until I am old, as American women do. I was foolish. + 

“Then I saw your face in the window, and the world turned to ashes, and I knew that there were things that were worse than death. That is all, that is the truth. I have spoken.” + 

She sank back, exhausted, with closed eyes. Laughing Boy lit a cigarette from the fire. Then he said: + 

“I hear you. Sleep. It is well.” He squatted in the doorway, smoking. + 