He saw her as at a great distance. This was all wrong, something impossible had happened. She held her arm up rigidly, her lips remained set in that stiff smile. In a moment she was going to speak. The feelings and realizations were coming upon him. He lifted the reins and rode slowly around the corner of the house.
The stallion watched him nervously.
“Go your way, little brother.” He watched the animal as he rode past, then he contemplated the ears of his mount. “You are saddled and ridden, but you are better off than I. This would be a good world if we were all geldings, I think.”
II
The pony, wandering unguided, brought him slowly within sight of his house. He turned it aside, making a wide circle to come to the high place by the tree from the other side. The house, the field of corn-stubble, the five struggling peach trees, the corral, all very dear, stood like unanswerable refutations in the long streaks of afternoon shadow. As the sight of the perfect, familiar body of someone just dead, or the little possessions, the objects just set down, ready to be picked up again as always, again and again render that death incredible, so was the sight of these things to Laughing Boy. Her loom stood under the brush sun-shelter before the door, with a half-finished blanket rolled at its foot. Unbelievable, not true, only—it was so. He went through the past day, searched the farther past, as though by travelling it again he could find where the false trail branched off, and reduce this calamity to an error.
Ten thousand things told him that what he had learned was ridiculous, but it always led again to the window in the adobe house and the clear frightened voice crying, “Sha hast’ien, sha hast’ien codji!”
Now it was time to think, but an hour or more passed before he could prevent the beginnings of thought from turning to frantic revolt. Prayer helped him. He got himself in hand and rolled a cigarette.
Now I must choose between her and myself. If I stay with her, I lose myself, really. I am a man. I am a warrior. If I do not give her up, I become something else from what I have always been. The world changes, the good things, the bad things, all change for me. And they change for the bad. I cannot shoot her again. I cannot do that thing. If I leave her, I am still I, but I and the world are dead. Oh, my friend, my friend, your choice was so simple, you were lucky. The arrow only grazed you; it has gone through my bowels. And when it came my turn to send the arrow back, I missed.
Oh, well named, Came With War, Came With War, oh, beautiful! Why do they give women names about war? I know all about that now. My uncle was right. I cannot go now and see their faces. Kill myself. That would settle it. But not now, not in this place. If it keeps on being like this, I shall do that, in my own country. Came With War, Came With War, Slim Girl, you coyote, you devil, you bad woman.
I must go away. I cannot stay with her. She is worth everything in the world, but there is something in me that I have no right to trade for her. That is what I must do.
He struggled for a long time, facing this decision, until it sank into him. The sun was low, the little valley between the buttes was all shadow. He had not seen her return, and hoped she had not. There would be begging, talk, tears—terrible. If she were not there, he would just take his things and go; the missing goods would explain.
It was all too much for him. He felt as if he were shaken by high winds. That little house down there was a place of waiting torment. He stood, clutching his hands together and weaving his head from side to side. This was far worse than war. He turned to the gods, making the prayer of a man going alone to battle:
“Shinahashé nageï, nageï, alili kat’ bitashah …
I am thinking about the enemy gods, the enemy gods, among their weapons now I wander.
A-yé-yé-yé-ya-hai!
Now Slayer of Enemy Gods, I go down alone among them,
The enemy gods, the enemy gods, I wander among their weapons.
Touched with the tops of the mountains, I go down alone among them,
The enemy gods, the enemy gods, I wander among their weapons.
Now on the old age trail, now on the path of beauty walking,
The enemy gods, the enemy gods, I wander among their weapons.”
It was apposite, and it helped enormously. Now it was not merely he battling with these terrific things, now the unseen power of good would uphold him. Leading his horse, he went down slowly to his house.
XIX
I
There were her tracks, wind-blurred in the sand. She must have come straight home, arriving before he reached the high place. With dread he entered the door, grateful for the half-darkness inside. She had got back into Navajo clothes, moccasins, skirt, and sash, but her blouse was only pulled over the right shoulder, leaving the left arm and breast bare. Did she think—? He saw her as an enemy.
“I am going away.”
“All right. But first pull this out; I am not strong enough.” She held out her arm with the arrow through it.
He stared at it, and it made him feel sick. He was frankly avoiding her face,
