He read her face, remembering that her grandmother had been an Apache who, in her time, had sat contemplating the antics of men tied on ant-heaps. And he knew this woman pretty well.
“Good, Grandmother,” he said respectfully, “we shall come.”
She left without more words. In the town she had shopping to do—food, a jeweller’s simple tools from a trader, a can of Velvet tobacco and big, brown Romanian cigarette papers. Then she rifted idly to the post-office, sauntering past it in an abstracted manner, not seeing the men who lounged there. One of them immediately walked off in the other direction. She continued down the street, till it became merely a strip more worn than the land on either side of it at the edge of the town, where she entered a small, neat ’dobe house. In a few minutes he followed, closing the door behind him.
He wore a clean, checked woollen shirt, the usual big hat, and very worn, well-cut whipcord riding-breeches. He was of good height, light-haired but tanned, with rather sad eyes and a sensitive mouth. Even now, when he was plainly happy, one could see a certain unhappiness about him. He threw his hat on the table, put his hands on his hips, and drew a breath as he looked down on her, smiling.
“Well, you’re back on time.”
“Yes, why not? Didn’t I tell you?” She held out her hand to him. Speaking English, she retained the Navajo intonation.
He sat down on the arm of her chair, and ran the tip of his index finger along the curve of her throat. “That’s a terrible dress, about the worst you’ve got. I’d like you to get some good clothes.”
“How will I do dat? Do you tink I can walk into dat store, dat one down dere, and dey sell me a dress? Will one of dose women, dey make dresses, work for me? You talk silly, you say dat. Maybe I give you my measure, maybe you write to dat place in Chicago, hey?”
“Sears Roebuck, my God! Well, it’s not such a bad idea. All right, bring me your measurements.” He leant over to kiss her.
“Don’t start dat now. I got to go back soon now.”
“What the hell?”
“My husban’, he makes trouble, dat one. I can’ stay away right now. Soon maybe.”
He heaved a sigh of exasperation. “Listen! you’ve kept me waiting a week while you went off on that trip. Now you put me off again. You’re always putting me off. I don’t think you’ve got a husband.”
“Yes, I have, an’ he’s a long-hair. You know dat. Don’t I point him out to you one time, dat one? You want him to kill me, hey?”
“Well, all right. Tomorrow, then.”
“I can’ do it. It ain’t I don’ want to, George. I can’, dat’s all.” She passed her hand along his cheek, slowly. “You know dat.”
He kissed her fingertips. “Day after, then, Tuesday. That’s flat, and no two ways about it. I have to go back to the ranch Wednesday; ought to be going back now. You can manage; I think you can manage anything you want. Understand? Tuesday.”
She studied him. He was difficult, this man. Now you had him, now you didn’t. There were different kinds of Americans; this one came from the East; he was easy, and he was hard. Well, she could manage almost anything.
“All right, dat will be nice, I tink. I’ll be glad to come den. So you go get me two bottle of wiskey now, to take home, den I fix it. Tuesday.”
“That old souse! I wish he’d fall over a cliff and break his damned neck.”
She smiled at him. “I wish dat too, sometimes. But he ain’t a bad man, dat one. He has been good for me.”
“I suppose so.”
“Now get de wiskey.”
“Kiss me first.”
II
She thought hard on the way home. The difficulties are beginning already. My path is beset with ambushes. And this is hard. Four days—Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, too late. Oh, no, Laughing Boy, I must bend you. I cannot be robbed of this, I have a right to it. Now I’ve got to manage, I, Came With War. I have earned this, I think. I am afraid of you, Sings Before Spears; I do not like to be afraid. I shall conquer you, or else I’ll herd sheep. I cannot be conquered. God give me help—hmph, that God! Well, I know how. I make my own trail of beauty. I know what to do. I am strong, Laughing Boy, Laughing Boy.
She was dressed as a Navajo again when he returned from Natahnetinn. He inspected the jeweller’s tools which she spread out for him, praising them, while she set to preparing food.
“They were talking about you in the town today,” she told him.
“How was that? I do not understand.”
“That Pah-Ute, the arrow went in farther than you thought. He went to Nahki Zhil trading post; there he bled to death. He told them about you. Now American Chief has made an order to put you in jail.”
“Perhaps we had better go away from here, then.”
“No, they will not do anything; it was only a Pah-Ute, they say. Only if you come into town and they see you, some policeman will take you then.”
“I am sorry. I should have liked to see that place. However, some day they may forget.”
“People have long memories for some things.”
Yellow Singer and his wife came just at the end of the afternoon. He watched them walking, with their long shadows rippling over the unevenness of the ground and the occasional bushes.
“What are those coming? They look like Pah-Utes, perhaps. They look like Hunger People! What rags!”
“They are Navajos; that is Yellow Singer. They look like that because they are poor, that’s all. He has come to sing over us.”
There was something about those two faces that made Laughing Boy uncomfortable, as though a black veil had been pulled in front of
