III
Jesting Squaw’s Son’s arm was over his shoulder, his ears were full of the beat and uproar of music. He was a man among men, swinging with them, marking the rhythm, releasing his joy of living in ordered song.
“Nashdui bik’é dinni, eya-a, eyo-o …”
A late moon rose, cool and remote, dissociated. They brought another tree up to the bonfire, standing it on end a moment so that the hot light played on its dead branches; then they let it topple over and fall, sending up in its place a tree of moving sparks into the blackness.
Night passed its middle and stood towards day. The girls moved off together in single file, blankets drawn over heads, worn out by the night of unremitting dancing. The older people fell rapidly away. Inert forms like mummies stretched out in their blankets by the embers of the feast fires. Most of the young men gave in, leaving about a hundred knotted in a mass, still hard at it. They surrounded the drummer, an older man, intently serious over drawing forth from a bit of hide stretched across the mouth of a jar rapidly succeeding beats that entered the veins and moved in the blood. He played with rhythm as some men play with design; now a quick succession of what seemed meaningless strokes hurried forward, now the beat stumbled, paused, caught up again and whirled away. Devotedly intent over his work, his long experience, his strength and skill expended themselves in quick, wise movements of the wrist, calling forth a summation of life from a piece of goatskin and a handful of baked clay, while younger men about him swayed and rocked in recurrent crescendos.
Night stood towards morning, now night grew old. Now the first white line was traced across the east far away, outlining distant cliffs. Now it was first light, and Dawn Boy was upon them. The drumming stopped; suddenly the desert was empty and vast. Young men, whose bodies felt like empty shells and whose heads still buzzed with songs, moved down to drink at the pool.
“Hayotlcatl Ashki, Natahni …”
Laughing Boy breathed his prayer to himself, feeling a moment of loneliness,
“Dawn Boy, Chief …”
He rolled up in his blanket. When he rode his horse in the races, people would see; he would ride past the people, back to T’o Tlakai, with all his winnings. That girl was strong for one who looked so slight. He would make a bracelet about her, thin silver, with stars surrounded by stone-knife-edge. His horse came to stand by him. He roused himself to look at it, struggled awake, and dragged out the corn from under his saddle.
He pulled his blanket over his head. All different things melted together into one conception of a night not like any other.
II
I
Someone was calling him,
“Ei shichai, ei-yei!”
He opened his eyes, staring upward at the face of Jesting Squaw’s Son that laughed at him as he sat high above him in the saddle. The face was in shadow under the circle of his stiff-brimmed hat, cut out against the gleaming, hard sky. The sun was halfway up.
“Wake up, Grandfather! Big Tall Man is going to play tree-pushing against everybody.”
“Hakone!” He was up at the word. “Give me a smoke, Grandfather.” He climbed up behind his friend’s saddle. “Come on.”
They stopped for coffee at a hogan near the pool, where the woman of the house mocked him for sleeping late.
The people were gathered in a little box canyon, where fire had destroyed a number of scrub oaks and piñons under one wall near a seep of water. There they were dividing into two groups, according to whether they backed Big Tall Man or Man Hammer, the policeman from over by T’o Nanasdési. Hill Singer rode back and forth between, collecting and announcing the bets. Most of the money was on Big Tall Man, and there were few takers. Laughing Boy could not place any. He saw that girl sitting among the neutral spectators.
“Who is that girl,” he asked Slender Hair—“the one who had so much hard goods on last night?”
“She is called Slim Girl, I think. She comes from down by the railroad track, from near Chiziai, I think.”
Big Tall Man and Man Hammer moved up to two dead trees of roughly the same size. Hill Singer and Hurries to War were judging. Now they pushed and strained at the trees, digging their feet in the sand, heaving shoulders. Big Tall Man’s tree began to crack; then suddenly it went over. People exclaimed and laughed. After that nobody more wanted to play against him.
Then they had wrestling for the young men. Laughing Boy bet a little and lost a couple of dollars. There was a tall man wearing an American shirt and trousers and a hat, who made a great deal of noise about himself. He beat one challenger easily. Laughing Boy recognized the man who danced so outrageously last night.
“Who is that?” he asked.
“That is Red Man. He comes from down by the railroad.”
“He is too skinny. I am going to beat him.”
He challenged Red Man.
“How much will you bet on yourself?”
“I have three-fifty and this bow-guard.”
“That makes eight-fifty.”
“The bow-guard is worth more; it is worth ten dollars.”
The man looked at it judgingly. “Well, it is worth eight. That makes eleven-fifty. Why don’t you bet your belt?”
“It is not mine.”
“So you are sure you are going to lose, I
