The thought stayed with him as he wandered about kicking up the snow for bits of dead wood. He knew that it was an entity in itself, and saw it as a tall old man who leered as he walked beside and slightly behind him, a bad, strong old man. The old man kept at him about it, that he had been a fool, that he should have avoided all this. And he thought, in answer, that it was too late now, why couldn’t he be left alone? He tried to explain to himself, to the old man, that he couldn’t have helped doing what he did. He himself, as a third person, repeated that all the suffering was worth while for the happy months, but the old man only sneered. He tried to get himself in hand, and think of a new design for a belt, but that was useless. He would walk around for a long time without looking for wood at all. Picking up his pony’s tracks, he followed them out into the main canyon until he saw the horse in a sheltered place under the east wall, then, realizing how far he had gone from the place of vigil, hurried back. Everything had gone to pieces, he did everything wrong. The old man had waited for him, he was triumphant over this breach of observance.
Nightfall was at least a change. Having plenty of wood, he built the fire up high, and went to some trouble to make himself comfortable. This was the fourth night, he was more or less out of his head. The old man had long ceased to be a personification and become a reality; he got in under the same blanket and hammered, hammered at him about the unfortunate past. Laughing Boy saw an empty, drifting future, always with this old man. He saw himself a long time from now, and the dead boy who had ridden down to Tsé Lani crying across a gap full of darkness to the empty husk of a man who had destroyed him. He tried to call on the gods, but there came only Hunger People, Old Age, and Cold Woman. Yellow Singer and his wife were there, looking sorry for him in that unpleasant, understanding way, like the day he was married. They all looked at him that way. He saw the stricken face of Jesting Squaw’s Son, and thought, “You too have received the wound, but you were lucky, the knife was pulled out as soon as it was thrust into you.”
The old man was pulling at his bow-guard. There was something around his right wrist, and that seemed to be being pulled too. The old man said,
“Where did you get that bow-guard?”
“I made it.”
“I’ll give you six dollars for it.”
“I don’t want to sell it.”
He did not really speak, but the words were saying themselves for him in answer to the old man, from a great distance, all the way from that hogan by Tsé Lani.
The old man went on, “That turquoise is no good, and the work is not very good.”
The work was good. He touched the silver with his right hand, to show the four-points-with-three-points design. But it was not that design, it was not the bow-guard he made at T’o Tlakai, it was that one he made at their hogan, the one with stars-following.
He said out loud, “This is the one I made when she was weaving. I will not sell it.”
He felt the thing on his right wrist; it was the thin, gold circlet. He saw her hand and arm under the blankets, he saw the tomb in the dusk, and her face as he bent over it, so still. His in-turned torment was obliterated by the memory of that exalted agony. He remembered her last kiss, and her voice, and the mound of her blankets and jewels above her. His arms clutched about his knees, his left hand closed around the foreign bracelet, and he began to weep, tears pouring plenteously. As though they were rain on the desert, a coolness spread through him, a sense of majestic beauty.
He threw his arms wide, looked up, and began to pray,
“House made of dawn light,
House made of evening light,
House made of dark cloud,
House made of he-rain …”
The old man was gone, and the Hunger People and all the rest. He stood up, stepping back from the fire, stretched out his hands, and his prayer rose in powerful song,
“Kat Yeinaezgani tla disitsaya …
Now, Slayer of Enemy Gods, alone I see him coming,
Down from the skies, alone I see him coming.
His voice sounds all about,
His voice sounds, divine.
Lé-é!
Now, Child of the Waters, alone I see him coming …”
He finished, and stood with high head and hands still held forth. A log on the fire fell in, the flames leapt up, slightly dazzling his sight. When it had cleared, along the level of his fingertips he saw a Une dividing a deeper from a lesser blackness. The line spread right and left, and now along its upper edge a white glow appeared and widened; the sky above was changing from black to blue, the cliffs of the far side of the main canyon were silhouetted against the corning day.
“Hozoji, hozoji, hozoji, hozoji!
“Dawn Boy, Little Chief,
Let all be beautiful before me as I wander,
All beautiful behind me as I wander,
All beautiful
