It was a stone-lined pocket, scarce twenty feet across, narrower at the top. One went forward along a ledge at one side, shouldering against young aspens, then slid down a rock face into a curving bowl, with a seep at one lip from which silent water oozed over moss and cress into the bottom. Spears of grass grew in cracks. By the tiny pool of water in the bowl was a square of soft turf with imprints of moccasins. He squatted there, leaning back against the rock. Here was all shade and peace, soft, grey stone, dark, shadowed green, coolness, and the sweet smell of dampness. He dabbled his hands, wet his face, drank a little. He rolled a cigarette with crumpled cigar tobacco. This was good, this was beautiful.
Away above, the intolerant sky gleamed, and a corner of cloud was white fire. His eyes shifting lightly, the edge of the rocks above took on a glowing halo. He amused himself trying to fit it back again, to get the spot the cloud made back against the cloud, playing tricks with his half-closed eyelashes that made things seem vague.
“Ahalani!” The two-toned greeting came from a voice like water.
He returned to himself with a start. Slim Girl stood poised on the edge of the bowl, above his shoulder, water-basket in hand.
“Ahalani, shicho.” Dignified, casual.
“Move over, wrestler, I want to come down.”
He observed her small feet in their red, silver-buttoned buckskin, sure and light on the rocks as a goat’s. She seemed to be hours descending. She was businesslike about filling the basket, but she turned utilitarian motions into part of a dance. Now she knelt, not two feet from him, taking him in with the long, mischievous eyes that talked and laughed.
She is a butterfly,
he thought, or a hummingbird. Why does she not go away? I will not go—run away from her.
He thought, as he tried to read her face, that her slimness was deceptive; strength came forth from her.
“Now, for ten cents, I go.”
He blinked. “I save that to get rid of you tonight, perhaps.”
“I do not dance tonight. There is trouble, a bad thing. I come from far away.”
He thought he had better not ask questions. “Tomorrow there will be horse-racing, a chicken-pull, perhaps.”
“And you have a fine horse to race, black, with a white star and a white sock.” He grunted astonishment. She smiled. “You are a good jeweler, they say. You made that bow-guard. You sold Red Man’s belt to the American, they say, for sixty-five dollars.”
“You are like an old wife, trying to find out about everything a man is doing.”
“No, I am not like an old wife.”
They looked at each other for a long time. No, she was not like an old wife. Blood pounded in his ears and his mouth was dry. He pulled at the end of his dead cigarette. At length,
“You should stay for the racing. There will be fine horses, a beautiful sight.”
“I shall stay, perhaps.”
Her rising, her ascent of the rock, were all one quick motion. She never looked back. He stayed, not exactly in thought, but experiencing a condition of mind and feeling. Loud laughter of women roused him, to pass them with averted eyes and go forth dazed into the sunlight.
II
The last night of the dance was a failure for Laughing Boy, for all its ritual. He tried to join the singing, but they were not the kind of songs he wanted; he tried to concentrate on the prayer that was being brought to a climax, but he wanted to pray by himself. He quit the dance, suddenly very much alone as he left the noise and the light behind him, strongly conscious of himself, complete to himself. He followed a sheep trail up a break in one canyon wall, to the rim, then crossed the narrow mesa to where he could look down over the broad Ties Hatsosi Valley, a great pool of night, and far-distant, terraced horizon of mesas against the bright stars, cool, alone, with the sound of the drumming and music behind him, faint as memory. This also was a form of living.
He began to make up a new song, but lost interest in it, feeling too centred upon himself. He sat noticing little things, whisper of grass, turn of a leaf—little enough there is in the desert at night.
“Yota zhil-de tlin-sha-igahl …”
His song came upon him.
“A-a-a-ainé, ainé,
I ride my horse down from the high hills
To the valley, a-a-a.
Now the hills are flat. Now my horse will not go
From your valley, a-a-a.
Hainéya, ainé, o-o-o-o.”
Slim Girl sat down beside him. His song trailed off, embarrassed. They rested thus, without words, looking away into the night while contemplation flowed between them like a current. At length she raised one hand, so that the bracelets clinked.
“Sing that song.”
He sang without effort. This was no common woman, who ignored all convention. The long-drawn “Hainéya, ainé, o-o-o-o,” fell away into the lake of darkness; silence shut in on them again.
On the heels of his song he said, “My eldest uncle is here. I am going to speak to him tomorrow.”
“I should not do that if I were you.”
He rolled a cigarette with careful movements, but forbore to light it. Again they sat watching the motionless stars above the shrouded earth. No least breeze stirred; there were no details to be seen in the cliffs or the valley, only the distant silhouettes against the sky. A second time her hand rose and her bracelets clinked, as though speech unannounced would startle the universe.
“You are
