One could see that his family had expected some outlandishness. Now they were puzzled; some disappointed, and some pleased to see how normal and Navajo were Laughing Boy and his wife. Her blankets spoke for them with many tongues, and the solid evidences of their prosperity, all Navajo, nothing bizarre or American, but good honest silver, turquoise, coral—“hard goods”—and handsome Indian ponies.
He watched Slim Girl, seeing the shutters closed behind her eyes, correct, sure, in hand, doing just the perfect thing. He was swept by constantly recurring waves of pleasure in her, and felt, as he sometimes did, a faint fear of that detached self-command. Slowly they were being forced to accept her as really belonging to the People. It pleased his dramatic instinct, as well as the strong sense of privacy he had concerning their relationship, to play up, being very normal, and letting no look or gesture suggest that they two came from a land of enchantment.
Knowing her well, he could see that she was at high tension, and secretly watchful. He had no idea that that strain, that painful vigilance, was above all for himself.
When he was alone with his father, he showed him the silver-mounted bridle and some of his other jewelry. Two Bows turned over the harness, feeling the surface with his fingertips.
“I have nothing more to teach you—that is well done.” He tapped the cheek-strap. “I should not have thought of using that design that way.”
From Two Bows, such praise made it hard to keep a quiet, modest face.
Jesting Squaw’s Son came back in the late afternoon. They drifted off together, with arms over each other’s shoulders, until they came to rest under the scrub oaks behind the peach trees. They discussed this and that, vaguely, trailing off into silence, playing with twigs and pebbles, running their fingers through the sand, occupying their hands. At length Laughing Boy looked at his friend and spoke:
“I do not talk to those people. Some of them have their minds made up, some of them will not understand. I do not think you will know what I am talking about, but you understand me. I want you to know.
“I have been down Old Age River in the log, with sheet-lightning and rainbows and soft rain, and the gods on either side to guide me. The Eagles have put lightning snakes and sunbeams and rainbows under me; they have carried me through the hole in the sky. I have been through the little crack in the rocks with Red God and seen the homes of the Butterflies and the Mountain Sheep and the Divine Ones. I have heard the Four Singers on the Four Mountains. I mean that woman.
“It sounds like insane talk. It is not. It is not just because I am in love. It is not what I feel when I am near her, what happens to my blood when she touches me. I know about that. I have thought about that. It is what goes on there. It is all sorts of things, but you would have to live there to see it.
“I know the kind of thing my uncle says. It is not true. We are not acting out here, we are pretending. We have masks on, so they will not see our real faces. You have seen her blankets and my hard goods. Those are true. Those are just part of it.”
Jesting Squaw’s Son answered, “I have seen the blankets and the hard goods; they sing. I am happy about you.”
He felt better after that, he cared that his friend should know, and, in contradistinction to the others, telling him did not lessen the rare quality of the thing described. He returned to the hogans feeling better able to act his part.
He found the evening meal most enjoyable as he watched the good ways and mannerisms of his family. Among them he could make out a growing perplexity. What had that old man told them to expect? A word slipped from his brother to his younger uncle gave him the cue, filling his heart with glee. When he got a chance he whispered to Slim Girl,
“What my uncle said—they expected you to have no manners. They were waiting for you to act like an American, and give them something to talk about.”
He lolled back on the sheepskins, laughing inside himself. A smile shadowed the corners of his wife’s mouth.
III
Slim Girl watched the ceremony with interest, feeling in a pronounced fashion the mixed emotion she had towards so much that was going on about her. It might be a weapon to destroy her, for the very reason that it was a summation and a visible expression of many things in her people’s life that mattered to her. She had a sneaking suspicion that the family had gone to the expense of a full Night Chant largely because of the effect they thought it might have on the erring member.
It was sometimes absurd and sometimes quite beautiful. The masked dancers were grotesque, but there were moments by firelight when their shapeless heads and painted bodies, their rhythmic, intent movements, became grand and awe-inspiring. The long and repetitious prayers were often monotonous, chanted to dull, heavy music, but in the worst of them there were flashes of poetic feeling. Her American education had dulled her sensibility to the quick,
