“I have been with that woman many moons now. I tell you that I know that those bad things are not true. Hear me.
“It is true that our life is different, but we are not following the American trail. Do not think it, that thing. She is different. She does everything as we do, more than most schoolgirls; but she is different. You have seen our silver, our blankets; if you come to us you will see how everything is like that. It is beautiful. It is the Trail of Beauty. You will just have to believe me, it is something I never imagined, we have nothing here to compare with it, that life. We do only good things. Everything good that I have ever known, all at once, could not make me as happy as she and her way do.
“Look at me. I am older than when I left here, I know what I say. My mind is made up. I do not want you to be angry with me; I do not want you to be unhappy about me; I do not want you to tell me not to come back. You may not believe me, but I want you to wait.
“It does not matter. I know. I have spoken.”
VI
Her triumph was real and urgent, but now was no time for indulging it. She walked back to the fire circle as though, from her waiting place apart, she had just seen the counsellors returning. It was time to go to bed; she found her place on the sheepskins inside the hogan. It was stuffy and warm in there save for a faint draft of air in under the blanket that closed the door and out the smoke-hole, and a coldness that seeped through the ground from outside, where the fingertips of one hand had touched the floor.
That is how he feels, then. All mine. I can do anything. Ya, Wounded Face! Then, if I am so sure of him, why not come to live here? It is dangerous there. What a strange idea: when I am most sure I can do as I want, I give it up. Hunh! We have made almost a thousand dollars in ten months, counting the horses he has now. Everything is going perfectly. George eats out of my hand. I am strong.
She was becoming drowsy and making pictures. There was a story she remembered faintly, how Nayeinezgani did not kill the Hunger People. An allegory; her Slayer of Enemy Gods could not kill them, either. She could do away with them.
I have seen more than you and all you People, I know more. I shall lead you on the trail.
I, Slim Girl, Came With War.
XIII
I
They rode away from T’o Tlakai in gay company—Bay Horse and Bow’s Son, Tall Brave from T’ies Napornss and his wife, and half a dozen others, men and women, returning towards T’o Tlikahn, Tsébitai, and Seinsaidesah. It had turned sharply cold, the ponies went well; they played and raced, showing off their jewelry and best clothes and horsemanship—all young people. Bay Horse smoked on a dead twig, blowing out clouds of breath.
“See my new magic! I take this twig, and it is a lighted cigarette.”
“Ei-yei, Grandfather; see if you can swallow all your smoke.”
They came to the foot of the slope leading to Gomulli T’o trading post.
A man said, “Let us go buy some crackers and canned fruit.”
“It’s too cold. Some coffee would be good, I think.”
“Maybe Yellow Mustache will give us some,” Laughing Boy said. “Why did he not come to the dance?”
“Yellow Mustache is not there any longer; he has gone to Chiezb’utso. The man there now is called Narrow Nose.”
“What is he like?”
“He is no good. When we put things in pawn, he sells them before we can buy them back. He is small; inside himself he is small.”
“He tries to be smart with us, but he is not good at it. His word is not good.”
“He thinks we are fools. He ought to look at himself.”
Laughing Boy broke into the chorus of information—“Wait a moment!”
He rode over to Jesting Squaw’s Son and whispered in his ear. His friend smiled.
“I am thinking about coffee. I can make him give us all coffee free, I think. Who will bet?”
“I know you,” said Bay Horse, “I won’t.”
Bow’s Son whispered to Slim Girl, “He is like this. They are like this, those two, when they are together. They are not for nothing, their names.”
“I will bet two bits, just to make a bet,” Tall Brave said.
A stranger offered fifty cents. Laughing Boy gave each of them his stake.
“Now, you all go up to the post. Go in. Do not buy, not anything. None of you know me; if anyone else is there tell him not to know me; but you all know my grandfather here. You, little sister,” he looked at his wife, “stay here.”
They rode away while he advised with his friend. Then he explained to Slim Girl, and took her silver bridle. After a slow cigarette he said,
“When that shadow reaches that stick will be time, I think. I go.”
Gomulli T’o trading post stood on a flat, bare shoulder of sand and rock, a level space of half a dozen acres, rising to the west, falling to the east. There was a corral with sides six feet high, and the L-shaped one-story house of stone and adobe with a corrugated iron roof. Around it was nothing green, nothing varied, just sand and rocks, some tin cans, part of a rotted
