Laughing Boy raised his head. “You have said those things once, uncle, and I have heard them. Do not say them again, those things. If you do, there will not be any talk. Tell yourself that I have heard them, and know what I think of them. They were said in Killed a Navajo’s hogan. I heard them there. Now go on from that.”
They talked, watching the end of their cigarettes, or with the right hand rubbing over the fingers of the left, as though to bring the words out, or touching each fingertip in turn, with their eyes upon their hands, so that the even voices seemed utterly detached, the persons mere media for uttering thoughts formed at the back of nowhere.
“Perhaps you are mistaken, I think, but I do as you say. You are making unhappiness for yourself, you are making ugliness. You are of The People, the good life for you is theirs. It is all very well now while your eyes and your ears and your nose are stopped up with love, but one day you will look around and see only things that do not fit you, alkali-water to drink. You will want your own things, and you will not be able to fit them, either, I think.
“It is all very well that you deceive the younger people with your clothes and hard goods and manners, but we can see that all the time you are apart. And you are just a light from her fire, just something she has made. She has acted and spoken well here, that one. She speaks above and below and before and behind, but she does not speak straight out forward, I think.”
“We live like other People.”
“Even your beginning was like Americans. You talked about it with each other, you two arranged it face to face. You had no shame. She caused that. Have you been married?”
“Yes.”
“Who sang?”
“Yellow Singer.”
“Did you look at him? No, I think. You looked at him with your eyes, so as not to fall over him when you walked past; did your mind see him? No, I think. If you think now about him, you will see him, perhaps. You will see what is left of a man when he leaves our way, when he walks in moccasins on the Americans’ road. You have seen other People who live down there. Some of them are rich, but their hearts are empty. You have seen them without happiness or beauty in their hearts, because they have lost the Trail of Beauty. Now they have nothing to put in their hearts except whiskey.”
Slim Girl winced.
“Those people cannot dance in a chant and do any good. You would not want Yellow Singer to hold a chant over you, it would not bring you hozoji.
“You say live like The People. Why do you live apart, then? Does she not like to be with The People, that woman?
“I have spoken.”
Laughing Boy made a gesture of brushing aside. His uncle threw his cigarette butt into the fire with an angry motion.
Walked Around leaned forward. “What my brother says is good, but it is not all, what he has said. I have watched you, how you go about. This valley T’o Tlakai speaks to you with tongues, I think. When you look over to Chiz-na Hozolchi you hear singing, I think. You hasten to speak with your own people, you like to use your tongue for old names. You care more to talk about our sheep and our waterholes—your waterholes—than we do. You belong with us, and we want you. We want good for you. When you are gone, we know that you are away. That woman keeps you from us. Why does she do it? If she means good towards you and we mean good towards you, why should she be afraid of us? Perhaps because she wants to make you into something else, she does it. Perhaps because if you were among us you would see straight.
“She has no parents, no uncles, that she should build her hogan near them. There are plenty of the Bitahni Clan here; let her come here. Come and live among us, your own people. Perhaps then, if she is not bad, we shall see that we are wrong, we shall learn to love her, my child.”
Clever, clever, you bitch!
Laughing Boy moved his hand again.
Wounded Face took up the word. “You are young, you do not like to listen.”
His voice was level, but he was angry; there was tension in the hut. That was good; if they showed anger they would lose him forever.
“You do not intend to hear what we say.”
Mountain Singer interrupted him. “His father taught him to hunt, to dance, and to work silver. His father knows him best of us all, I think. Grandfather, what is in your mind?”
This was more important than anything heretofore.
Two Bows spoke slowly. “We have all seen his silver, her blankets. We have seen him dance. We know, therefore, how he is now. We know that, now, all is well with him.
“A man makes a design well because he feels it. When he makes someone else’s design, you can tell. If he is to make someone else’s design, he must feel it in himself first. You cannot point a pistol at a man and say, ‘Make heat-lightning and clouds with tracks-meeting under them, and make it beautiful.’
“My son is thinking about a design for his life. Let him tell us, and if it is not good, perhaps we can show him.”
“You have spoken well, Grandfather.”
“Yes, you have spoken well.” It was Spotted Horse’s only contribution.
They all shifted slightly, watching Laughing Boy. He spoke without hesitation, but selecting his words precisely.
“I had not spoken,
