He did his thinking then, detached from his emotions, mildly introspective, reflective. He would weigh each thing and value it, go back, retrace, and balance. It was one thing to have made up his mind, another to know exactly where he was—the difference between setting out on a new trail and marking down all the landmarks of the discovered country. The horse shifted from clump to clump, making soft noises, hooves in sand, and crunching. Cigarette smoke wavered and turned with breezes too soft to feel, the movement of the heat in the air. Thoughts became pictures, changing slowly.
He had accepted Slim Girl’s difference and unconventionality, but for some time still she occasionally startled him. He wanted to understand her; he thought he was sure of what she was, but yet admitted that there were things about her that were beyond him. And for some reason, he always resented the idea of her working in the town. Not that it was a novelty for Navajos to work for Americans, or that he had any means of taking an attitude towards menial labour. His people had owned slaves in the old days; a few still survived, but he had no particular idea of the position of a servant. Yet he wished she would not go there. Then again, he sympathized entirely with her idea of amassing a fortune. Perhaps it was just because the town and its Americanism were part of an unknown world, perhaps because when she returned from there she seemed so tired, and once or twice he had surprised in her eyes a puzzling look, a look of a man who has just killed and scalped a hated enemy. But it was no use his trying to form an opinion. He did not know his way here; with only his people’s judgments and measures, he could decide nothing. He certainly could not expect everything to be the same. As well expect, when one had ridden beyond Old Age River, into the Mormon country, to turn and still see Chiz-na Hozolchi on the eastern horizon.
On those few occasions when she warned him that the missionary’s wife would want her to stay overnight, he did not like to come home. He tried it once, and found that the house without her was a long song of emptiness. Usually he would stay with some friends on the reservation, feeling a little patronizing towards their family life, slightly disturbed only by the presence of their children. Those nights he missed his drink, finding himself with but a poor appetite for supper, and with little desire for talk. Their food seemed coarse to him nowadays.
Aside from all other things, going away was worth while for the sake of coming back, well tired, to be greeted at the house. It was so different from coming back to T’o Tlakai. There was a thrill in riding up to the door, particularly when he came on a newly traded, yet finer horse. Or it was a real source of pleasure to bring in a string for the tourist company, whooping at them as they debouched from the narrow place between the bluffs, herding and mastering them at a run, into the corral, conscious of Slim Girl leaning in the doorway, delightfully aware of her admiration. There would be news, talk, and all the magic when the sun began to set. Quite often he was first home. He would amuse himself by arranging things for supper, piling wood, drawing water. He learned to handle the can-opener. Then she would come through the opening; he would see her pace quicken as she noticed his horse in the corral, and he would sit back, smiling, to receive her smile.
II
One day he raced home before a thunderstorm that caught him just at the end, first a fine spray, then such a drenching as one might get from buckets, then the spray again, and a pale sun that had no warmth. The valley was all in shadow when he reached the house; he was wet and cold. She had not arrived yet. He built up the fire, and then, searching for coffee, came across the bottle. That was just the thing. But no, he decided, it is she who understands that, and went on looking for coffee. He found the package, empty. Well, he would try a little whiskey.
There was no fruit in the house, so he poured himself about half a mug of clear liquor. Bah! It was filthy-tasting stuff.
“Mule’s water!” he said.
But even that little taste was warming. He sugared the whiskey, held his nose, and bolted it. First he felt sick to his stomach, then he began to feel better. Ei-yei! There was a fire in the middle of him, he was warm all over. He was walking on air. He rolled and lit a cigarette. He began to feel so well! He sang,
“Now with a god I walk,
Striding the mountain-tops …”
That was the way to take it, it was fine stuff. He wished Slim Girl would come soon. He thought of many things to say to her. He would make her see how he felt about her, how beautifully he understood her. She must know what wonderful things he knew how to say, how perceptive he was. She must stop thinking about all those things she was always thinking about, and drink some of this, and sing with him. There would be such love as never had been in all the world before. Tomorrow he would bring his horses and they would ride to T’o Tlakai, and if that missionary’s wife said anything about it, he would shoot her and tie her scalp on his bridle. It was foolish working for her, when his jewelry and his horses were so entirely sufficient. Life in T’o Tlakai would be a dream. He could see just how beautiful it
