“ ‘You must go away, you must not see me again. I must not see you,’ she said.
“I asked, ‘Why?’
“She said, ‘What is your clan?’
“I told her, ‘I am an Eshlini.’
“She lowered her head, then she looked up again. Her face looked calm, but her eyes were wounded. ‘I, too, am an Eshlini,’ she said.
“We touched hands, and I rode away.”
Jesting Squaw’s Son bowed his head on his knees. Laughing Boy felt his throat hurt, and yet in a curious way he felt better than he had in a long time. He was taken out of himself; he needed something like this.
“I could not go home then. I rode to T’o Atinda Haska Mesa, and went up to the top of it. I have been there a day and two nights. I did not eat. Why should I?
“At first I did not even think. I was just wild at first. All I could do was remember that happiness, that had been for nothing. I felt like asking her to come with me even so. I frightened myself. Am I an animal? Would I sleep with my sister? I did not know what to do. Why could she not have been a Tahtchini or a Lucau or an Eskhontsoni? But it was not her fault. And could I curse my mother because she was not a Bitahni or a T’o Dotsoni or a Nahkai?
“Then I got myself calmer. I could not have her. I made up my mind to it. I accepted it. But I still loved her. I still do. I still remember that happiness.
“That is very bad, it is beastly. My heart must be bad. I am frightened. Perhaps I should kill myself. Why not?
“I came here to see you. I did not want to go home to all my people. Perhaps you can help me. That is all.”
Laughing Boy stared into the ground. He was shocked, and his heart was wrung. He had never imagined that such a thing could happen; had it been told him of some unknown man, he would have supposed there was something bad about him to start with. It was such a disaster as an angry god might send, as though one heard in some legend, “He went mad and fell in love with a woman of his own dan.” But his friend was good, all good. He knew what he was suffering. He remembered his feelings those first days at the dance. He thought hard. They must have sat for half an hour there before he spoke.
“Do not kill yourself. And do not feel ashamed, do not think you have sinned, or your heart is bad. No, you have shown it is good, I think. It would be bad if you kept on wanting to marry her, but what has happened to you is not something you do yourself. It is as though you were shot with an arrow.
“I nearly went away with my wife without asking her clan. We spoke directly to each other, without shame, when we saw there was nothing else to do.
“It is not your fault that you were shot. Suppose you had starved for a week, and some American, trying to be funny, the way they do, offered you fish to eat. If you ate it, it would be bad, but if your belly clamoured for it while you refused it, could you be blamed? No, you would have done a good thing, I think. You have done a good thing, a very hard thing. I think well of you.”
Jesting Squaw’s Son gazed at him searchingly, and saw that he meant what he said.
“I think you are right. You have cured me of a deep wound. Thank you.”
“Let us start home. There are some of my horses in that little canyon, we shall get one, and turn yours loose. It looks thin. There is pasture there, it will not wander.”
They caught fresh horses, and Jesting Squaw’s Son exclaimed at the height of the grass, which in some places grew over a foot, in clumps. There was some like that at Dennihuitso, and in Kiet Siel Buckho, but not at this time of year.
They jog-trotted towards Chiziai, silent most of the time, talking occasionally.
“Up there, now, they do not call you by your old name,” Jesting Squaw’s Son said, and hesitated. Even when he is a close friend, one is not free about discussing a man’s name before him.
“I am not surprised.”
“They call you ‘Went Away.’ Your uncle calls you ‘Blind Eyes.’ ”
“Unh! He would. Well, I am changed, it is right that my name should change.”
Jesting Squaw’s Son trailed his rope to get the kinks out of it. Coiling it again, “But they miss you. You will always be welcome.”
“In the end, we shall return.”
“You live close to the Iron Trail?”
“On the other side of it.”
“Ei-yei! A good place?”
“You will see, a fine place, but we cannot turn our horses out there, as it is Americans’ country.”
“But you are near the Zunis, too.”
“About a day’s hard ride that way. I trade with them—horses for turquoise.”
“Have you any children?”
“Not now. We have a plan. We are making much money now, we are working as hard as we can. You would not believe how fast we make it. In a year or two we shall return to T’o Tlakai; we shall have perhaps fifty, perhaps sixty hundreds of dollars, in money and silver and horses, I think.”
“Ei-yei!”
“We shall be very rich. With that to start on, we shall be rich all our lives. We shall have our children then, we shall have a beautiful life. It is her idea, she thought of it. She takes care of the money, she trades with the Americans. She is remarkable.”
“You must be very happy.”
“I am.” He meant it.
II
Laughing Boy showed off the town, the irrigated strip,
