Her voice was taking on a timbre of triumph.
“I said, ‘You will not find me here.’
“He said, ‘At Kien Doghaiyoi, then.’
“ ‘No,’ I said, ‘I am through with all that. I only did it because I had to. I hated it.’
“He asked how that happened. I told him about half the truth and half lies, to make it sound better, saying I had been bad only a few weeks. Now I said an old Navajo whom I had always known was come for me; I did not love him, but he was a good man, and I was going to marry him. But first I wanted to see him—the American—I said, because he had been kind to me, because he was not like the others. So I had come here for just a few days, I said.
“He thought a little while. He said, ‘Stay.’ He said he would give me money. I pretended not to want to take money from him; I made him persuade me. I was afraid he might ask me to marry him, but he was not that much of a fool. Finally I said, ‘All right.’
“I had conquered.”
There was a strong triumph in her voice at that last phrase; now it returned to the level, slow, tired speech.
“I told him I could not just live there, a Navajo woman. It would make talk, men would annoy me. It would be better if I married the old Navajo and lived near by, then I could meet him when he came to town. With whiskey, I said, that man could be kept happy. I said he was old.
“He did not want it to be known he was providing for a Navajo woman, so he agreed. He gave me fifty dollars.
“There was no Navajo.”
She paused. “Roll me a cigarette.” She smoked it through, then resumed:
“I was not happy. I was provided for, I was revenging myself through him, but I was not living. I wanted my own people. I was all alone. That was why I made friends with Red Man. He is not good, that man. He did not care if I were bad, he hoped I might be bad with him. I never was, but I kept him hoping. With him I remembered the ways of The People, I became quick again in their speech. He helped me much. He is not all bad, that man.
“The People looked at me askance. I was a young woman living alone, they did not know how, so they made it up. They do that. Your uncle knows that talk. This went on for over a year. Then I saw you, and everything changed. I had thought I was dead to men, and now I knew I loved you. With you I could live, without you I was already dead.
“I was right. Our way of life, to which you have led me, my weaving, our songs, everything, is better than the Americans’. You have made this.
“I had enough, but I thought I could have better. I wanted it for you; you were giving back to me what the Americans had robbed from me since they took me from my mother’s hogan. I thought it right that an American should pay tribute to you and me, I thought it was the perfection of my revenge. After what had happened to me, things did not seem bad that seem bad to other people. So I kept on. I did not tell you, I knew you would not like it.
“I thought it was all right. What I did with him had nothing to do with what I did with you, it was just work. It was for us, for our life.
“And I did not want to herd sheep and grow heavy and ugly early from work, as Navajo women do. I wanted much money, and then to go North and have children with you and stay beautiful until I am old, as American women do. I was foolish.
“Then I saw your face in the window, and the world turned to ashes, and I knew that there were things that were worse than death. That is all, that is the truth. I have spoken.”
She sank back, exhausted, with closed eyes. Laughing Boy lit a cigarette from the fire. Then he said:
“I hear you. Sleep. It is well.” He squatted in the doorway, smoking.
III
He was at peace within himself. Now at last he knew his wife, now at last he understood her, and it was all right. Error, not evil. Something inimical and proud in her had been destroyed. He was tired, emotionally drained, but he could let his smoke curl up to the stars and feel the cold air penetrate his blanket, calmly, while he thought and knew his own mind. He had a feeling, without any specific reason, that he should keep a vigil over Slim Girl, but he became so sleepy. He went in by the fire, pulled sheepskins about himself, and slept.
In the morning he brought her food and tended her wound. After they had eaten and smoked, he spoke.
“You have lived in a terrible world that I do not know. I cannot judge you by my world. I think I understand. You have deceived me, but you have not been untrue to me, I think. Life without you would be a kind of death. Now I know that I do not have to do what I thought I had to, and I am glad for it. Now I know you, and there is no more of this secret thing that has been a river between us.
“As soon as you are able, we shall go North.
