Laughing Boy (21 page)

The stallion drew away from him, and he slowed his pace. It cantered past an adobe house standing alone under two cottonwoods, and, just beyond, fell to grazing in a little hollow. Laughing Boy advanced cautiously, using the house as cover. He figured that he could dismount behind it, and with a quick rush corner the animal in the angle of two wire fences protecting irrigated fields. The pony was already moving into the trap, unconscious of the wire.

He rode at a walk, close along the mud wall from which the sun was reflected with a stuffy, muddy smell. As he passed the window, he looked in, and reined his horse so suddenly that it reared, while
his heart stopped for a moment and his whole body was a great choking. An agonized, clear voice cried out, inside,

'
Sha hast'ien, sha hast'ien codji!—
My husband, my husband there!' And a man said, 'My God!'

Before he had started thinking, he wheeled and rode madly for the door side. As he came around the corner, an American, hatless, came out, saw man and horse coming upon him, jumped aside and stood for a moment. His hands strung his bow without conscious willing. The man began to run towards the town. Arrow leaped to string almost of itself, hands and arms functioned, drew, released, but the excited pony would not keep still and the missile went wide, to the right. A second was in the air before the first landed, but it passed just over the man's shoulder, hard by the ear, startling him into an amazing leap and burst of speed. There was something ridiculous about it which calmed Laughing Boy. He steadied his pony and shot with care. The arrow struck just below the shoulder, the American fell doubled up, almost turning a somersault, picked himself up, and with a last effort rounded the corner between the outermost houses at the end of the straggling street.

Calmly, he waited before the house. Afterwards there were going to be terrible feelings and thoughts, but now he knew what was to be done. His face showed no particular age, young or old; it was hardly the face of an individual, rather, of a race.

Slim Girl stood in the doorway, neat, dressed in American clothes.

'Come here, little sister.' Voice even and impersonal.

She walked slowly. For the first time since he had known her, he saw that her self-possession was only a surface. She looked as though a searing light were shining before her, showing her Hell. She stood beside his saddle.

'Did you kill him?'

'No, I hit him in the shoulder.'

This was the fourth arrow. It was right that such a thing should happen by fours. The gods were in it.

'You have killed us both, I think.'

She did not answer. He looked at her eyes, then avoided them; not from shame, but because there was too much in them. He did not want to begin to realize yet. He must keep his head. He thought how beautiful she was, and began to feel the greatness of his loss.

'You understand what I am doing?'

Again she did not answer.

He notched the fourth arrow meticulously, drew to the head, released. The twang of the string echoed and reechoed over great spaces. At the sound, he became aware of agony pent up behind his mind like high waters behind a too-slight dam, about to break through and carry away. At the same time, with the instant of releasing the string, he saw her open right hand pass across the face of the bow, her left arm rise. Now she stood, smiling stiffly, her eyes her own again. Her right hand was still in front of the bow in a stiff, quaint gesture. There was blood on the tips of the fingers. The arrow stood, through nearly to the feathers, in her left forearm.

He saw her as at a great distance. This was all wrong, something impossible had happened. She held her arm up rigidly, her lips remained set in that stiff smile. In a moment she was going to speak. The feelings and realizations were coming upon him. He lifted the reins and rode slowly around the corner of the house.

The stallion watched him nervously.

'Go your way, little brother.' He watched the animal as he rode past, then he contemplated the ears of his mount. 'You are saddled and ridden, but you are better off than I. This would be a good world if we were all geldings, I think.'

 

II

 

The pony, wandering unguided, brought him slowly within sight of his house. He turned it aside, making a wide circle to come to the high place by the tree from the other side. The house,
the field of corn-stubble, the five struggling peach trees, the corral, all very dear, stood like unanswerable refutations in the long streaks of afternoon shadow. As the sight of the perfect, familiar body of some one just dead, or the little possessions, the objects just set down, ready to be picked up again as always, again and again render that death incredible, so was the sight of these things to Laughing Boy. Her loom stood under the brush sun-shelter before the door, with a half-finished blanket rolled at its foot. Unbelievable, not true, only—it was so. He went through the past day, searched the farther past, as though by travelling it again he could find where the false trail branched off, and reduce this calamity to an error.

Ten thousand things told him that what he had learned was ridiculous, but it always led again to the window in the adobe house and the clear frightened voice crying,
'Sha hast'ien, sha hast'ien codji!'

Now it was time to think, but an hour or more passed before he could prevent the beginnings of thought from turning to frantic revolt. Prayer helped him. He got himself in hand and rolled a cigarette.

Now I must choose between her and myself. If I stay with her, I lose myself, really. I am a man. I am a warrior. If I do not give her up, I become something else from what I have always been. The world changes, the good things, the bad things, all change for me. And they change for the bad. I cannot shoot her again. I cannot do that thing. If I leave her, I am still I, but I and the world are dead. Oh, my friend, my friend, your choice was so simple, you were lucky. The arrow only grazed you; it has gone through my bowels. And when it came my turn to send the arrow back, I missed.

Oh, well named, Came With War, Came With War, oh, beautiful! Why do they give women names about war? I know all about that now. My uncle was right. I cannot go now and see their faces. Kill myself. That would settle it. But not now, not in this place. If it keeps on being like this, I shall do that, in my own country. Came With War, Came With War, Slim Girl, you coyote, you devil, you bad woman.

I must go away. I cannot stay with her. She is worth everything in the world, but there is something in me that I have no right to trade for her. That is what I must do.

He struggled for a long time, facing this decision, until it sank into him. The sun was low, the little valley between the buttes was all shadow. He had not seen her return, and hoped she had not. There would be begging, talk, tears—terrible. If she were not there, he would just take his things and go; the missing goods would explain.

It was all too much for him. He felt as if he were shaken by high winds. That little house down there was a place of waiting torment. He stood, clutching his hands together and weaving his head from side to side. This was far worse than war. He turned to the gods, making the prayer of a man going alone to battle:

 

'
Shinahashé nageï, nageï, alili kat' bitashah...
'I am thinking about the enemy gods, the enemy gods, among their weapons now I wander.
A-yé-yé-yé-ya-hai!
Now Slayer of Enemy Gods, I go down alone among them,
The enemy gods, the enemy gods, I wander among their weapons.
Touched with the tops of the mountains, I go down alone among them,
The enemy gods, the enemy gods, I wander among their weapons.
Now on the old age trail, now on the path of beauty walking,
The enemy gods, the enemy gods, I wander among their weapons.'

 

It was apposite, and it helped enormously. Now it was not merely he battling with these terrific things, now the unseen power of good would uphold him. Leading his horse, he went down slowly to his house.

I

 

There were her tracks, wind-blurred in the sand. She must have come straight home, arriving before he reached the high place. With dread he entered the door, grateful for the half-darkness inside. She had got back into Navajo clothes, moccasins, skirt, and sash, but her blouse was only pulled over the right shoulder, leaving the left arm and breast bare. Did she think—? He saw her as an enemy.

'I am going away.'

'All right. But first pull this out; I am not strong enough.' She held out her arm with the arrow through it.

He stared at it, and it made him feel sick. He was frankly avoiding her face, but he knew that the blood was gone from beneath the bronze surface, leaving it yellow-white with a green tinge under it. He kept on looking at the arrow, his arrow, with his marks on it.

'You must come out to the light.'

She rose with difficulty, steadying herself against the wall. He supported her to the door.

The arrow had passed through the flesh of the under side of her arm, just missing the artery and the bone. The shaft stood out on both sides. From the barbed, iron head to the wound there was blood in the zigzag lightning grooves. The roundness of her arm was caked with dried blood and already somewhat swollen. To the one side was the barbed point, to the other were the eagle feathers and the wrappings. He took out his knife.

'I shall try not to make it wiggle,' he said.

'What are you going to do?'

'Cut it off just by the hole; I can't pull all that through your arm.'

'It is a good arrow. Pull it through.'

There was never another woman like this one. 'Do you think I would use this again?'

He held her arm very carefully, he cut with all possible gentleness, but the shaft moved and moved again. He heard her take in her breath and looked quickly to see her teeth clenched on her lower lip. She should have been a man. Every dart of pain in her arm went doubly through his heart. The wood was cut short, just above the wound.

'Now,' he said, 'are you ready?'

'Pull.'

He jerked it out. She had not moved. She was rigid and her eyes were almost glassy, but she had not made a sign. He still knelt, staring at her, at the fresh blood welling, and at the red stump of the arrow in his hand. She was brave, brave.

She whispered, 'Get me some of the whiskey.'

He gave her a stiff dose in a cup. She emptied it at once, and sighed. A little colour came back.

'It will be dark soon. You had better go now. I can take care of myself. But before you go, know this: whatever you have seen, I love you and you only and altogether. Good-bye.'

She handed him back the cup. As he took it, their fingers touched, and he looked into her eyes. Something snapped inside of him. He fell forward, his head close to his knees, and began sobbing. She laid her hand on his shoulder.

'You have been hasty, I think. One should not turn up a new trail without looking around. And you have not eaten, you are tired. This has been hard for you. In a minute I shall heat some coffee, and we can talk straight about this.'

 

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.