Slim Girl brought out the bottle and an orange.
“Do not make the drink, little sister, I do not want it. I think I shall try not taking it.”
She kept herself from looking at him. She was troubled.
“All right.”
What was this? Probably nothing. When one walks on the sheer edge of a precipice, the meaningless fall of a stone over the side momentarily stops the heart. She studied him while they ate. She began to talk with him gravely of the life they were to make together, of the happiness that was in store for them.
He said to himself, “She was bothered when I refused that drink, the way she looked at me afterwards. She is nervous about me. I have done that, by acting as I have. Now she is trying to tell me how she really is; she is talking true; I know. I have wronged her.”
She saw the last trailing clouds pass from him. That evening was perfect, so perfect that, with his doubts banished and the feeling of intimacy upon him, he almost told her everything he had done and thought, but he postponed. It was the last of its kind for many days.
Like an ancient magician who, by saying the forbidden names, evoked genii whom he could not then drive back, Laughing Boy had given form to thoughts which were not to be forgotten. Unhappily for himself, he was no fool, and of an honest habit of thought. There was love in that place, and sometimes happiness, but if a religious-minded Navajo had entered there, he would have felt that the air was empty.
IV
Slim Girl continued weaving despite the poor sales, because she found relief and, one might say, a confidant in her craft. And then, they two, working side by side, reconstructed at least the outward signs of the harmony that was gone.
He eased his soul by shaping the half-stubborn, half-willing metal. It is a matter of patience, from the lump or the coins to the bar, from the bar to the bracelet. This, the most precious and beautiful of metals, is the easiest to work. That is a gift of the gods. Slow, slow, under successive light strokes the bar becomes longer, flatter, thinner: it is struck and it grows towards its appointed shape.
I am impatient these days, I get tired of the finishing. One must have one’s mind made up to it from the start, from four Mexican coins to the finely finished ornament; one must see it as it will be, and not stop short of what he has seen.
Having woven about a foot of blanket, the head-sticks of the loom are lowered, and the finished part is rolled around the foot-sticks, out of sight.
This is like time. Here, this little part showing, where I am weaving, is the present; the past is rolled up and gone; there are those empty warp cords above me. The weft is like handling a nervous horse; I lead the blue strand gently to the green, or it will break; I hate to break a strand, the knot where it is mended will always show, a blemish. But then, I pound the fork and the batten down hard, hard; they lock the weave and that much more is past.
He was curving the strip of flattened silver. This bracelet is coming out just as I thought of it. One must know his design before he starts; when this strip was still four coins, I knew that there would be tracks pointing one way from each end to the centre, clouds at each end, and that stone where the tracks meet. How do I know it? Not all men can; what is it I have? The Mexicans are lazy, their money is pure, soft silver; the American coins have something in them to make them hard, they are hard to work with. Those Americans!
Her fingers were deft, and she pulled at the warp like a harp-player. I am not sure I like this pattern, but it is too late to change it. No, it is a good pattern. Should I unravel all I have done, when it grows so slowly? When the blanket has been started, it is too late to change. The man who is always coming back to where he started, to figure out another road, will never get far from home. I wish I could just think my design and have it woven at an American mill. No, I don’t; it is because I toiled over them that I love them.
The turquoise is the important thing in this bracelet. I looked at it and saw the setting for it. But much of the time now I cannot think well, I am not myself. I have no design for myself, I do not know the nature of my jewel. I am hammering a piece of silver, and I cannot stop hammering, every day is another stroke; yet I do not know what it is to be. In the end it may be just a piece of good metal pounded flat. I do not know my design.
This blanket is like the other things. I am always being uncertain now. It is all like this blanket. Shall I unravel it, when I have been so long in getting so far? The design is set, a blanket with a broken design would be absurd, a failure. The only thing to do is to carry it through, with softness and with strength. My design is set.
XVII
I
As summer drew to a close, Laughing Boy took to spending more time than was necessary with his horses.
