“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?
III
Before supper there was the well-mixed drink again, with its attendant elation and the curious feeling at the back of his teeth. He finished the brew.
“I should like to take some more of that.”
“That is not a good thing to do.”
“Why not?”
“If you take too much you become foolish. You grow old before your time.”
“That would not be good. Perhaps it would be better not to take any. You do not take it.”
“It is not everyone who is able to drink it. It is not meant for women, that drink, it is for men. If I take it, it makes me sick quickly. It is all right for you, you are strong. It just makes you feel well, doesn’t it? You like it, I think?”
“Yes, I like it. I think it is good for me.”
“It is good for you.” And she told herself, “I shall tie you with it. It is another hobble around your feet, so that you will not go away from me.”
IX
I
Time passing and corn growing cannot be seen; one can notice only that the moon has become so much older, the corn so much higher. With a new life almost more regular than the old, yet far more thrilling, with a rich supply of silver and choice turquoise, with horses to trade and a cornfield to care for, and all the world made over new, time for Laughing Boy went like a swift, quiet river under cottonwood trees. For him, life—which had never been a problem—was solved and perfected, with none of Slim Girl’s complication of feeling that such happiness was too good to last. Had he sat down at T’o Tlakai to compose a song of perfection, he could not have imagined anything approaching this.
It had always been a pleasure to him to work in the corn, to help make the green shafts shoot up, to watch them dance, and contrast their deep, full green with the harsh, faded desert. Among his people corn was a living thing; to make a field beautiful was not so far from making a fine bracelet, and far more useful. He drew the precious water into his field thriftily. At its corners he planted the four sacred plants.
Slim Girl did not understand it at first; she had rather wanted to bar it as entailing unnecessary labour, but decided not to say anything. He saw that she thought it dull, drudging work. He did not try to explain it to her directly, but told her the story of Natinesthani and the origin of corn, and taught her the songs about the tall plant growing. When the stalks were past waist-high, he took her to the field at evening, while sunset brought the drab clay bluffs to life with red, and a soft breeze made the leaves swing and whisper. He made her see the whole field in contrast, and the individual hills, the slender plants and their promise, talking to her of Corn Maiden and Pollen Boy, and of how First Man and First Woman were made from corn. Her eyes were opened to it then, as much through understanding how he felt
