I

During the greetings, Laughing Boy took stock. With entire confidence in his wife’s ability to win over these people, he carried himself as though he had no faintest idea that there might be strained relations between them, but in his mind he was calling the roll of his family. Wounded Face, sitting apart in his blanket like a sleepy eagle, was against him. Spotted Horse, the younger uncle, was waiting; meantime he intended to be cordial. Spotted Horse would follow somebody’s lead, whoever spoke most commandingly; afterwards, if the issue were unpleasant, he would mildly deplore it. His mother was against him, but she too waited, not declaring herself, not closing her judgment yet. His sisters took no position, but welcomed the stranger and did their best to make her at home because she was his wife. Bow’s Son, his brother, and Bay Horse, his brother-in-law, both evidently thought he had made a fool of himself, and felt hostile towards her. Bay Horse could be discounted; he did not belong to the clan, and the taboo which forbids a man’s looking upon his mother-in-law kept him away from the family circle most of the time.

Out of the corner of his eye, without seeming to pay attention, he watched Slim Girl with relish as she said and did exactly the right things, giving an excellent impersonation of just any attractive woman.

Now Jesting Squaw’s Son dismounted before the hogan and stood beside him, looking anxious and hesitant. It was plain to see that he was concerned only lest there should be some estrangement between them, lest an alien life might have made a gulf. Friendship stood firm and true. So they embraced and wrestled and spoke loudly to each other.

He faced his father last, and most anxiously. Two Bows had held back from the others; his was an awkward position in this matter. Long days of teaching the jeweller’s craft, hunts together, lessons in the trail and the bow, work shared, had brought them very near to each other. They were father and son, and they were close friends. Laughing Boy admired and emulated the old warrior, and he could confide in him. Two Bows saw some of himself bearing fruit anew in the young brave. And yet, in a matter like this, his rights were only those of courtesy⁠—to Laughing Boy’s own clansmen, to his mother and her brothers, was the decision. He could only watch for the time when his purely personal influence might turn the scales. Now, he said nothing. His son could feel fondness and sympathy there, but whether approval went with it he could not tell.

II

Laughing Boy had been half-afraid lest, like Friend of the Eagles, or Reared in a Mountain, he would find that his own people seemed dirty and smelled badly when he returned to them. Secretly, even a little shamefacedly, he considered the life that he was living perhaps not so far removed from that of ordinary Earth People as the Eagles’ home in the sky, or the mother-of-pearl and turquoise dwellings of the Divine Ones, but still something apart, like the magic country at the end of Old Age River. He had waited somewhat anxiously for his first impression, and found that his home was delightfully as he had imagined it. Everything was the same; it seemed a miracle. That which had been intimate and dear was so still, only now nothing was taken for granted, but every commonest detail leapt to him with new vividness.

There were constant little surges of delight in his heart over trivial, minor things⁠—a shadow across a cliff, the bend of a cottonwood, the sheep coming in at evening, their silly, solemn faces all about the hogan⁠—why should they have changed? A man does not realize that he has changed himself, or only partially recognizes it, thinking that the world about him is different; a familiar dish has become no longer enjoyable, a fundamental aphorism no longer true; it is a surprise, then, when his eyes and ears report unchanged, familiar impressions. So the wonderful sameness of things, the unfailing way in which expectation was fulfilled, were proofs of something beautiful in the order of the world. It was glorious to pick up the threads of talk where he had dropped them, discussing the old, well-worn subjects casually and in detail, as though they were still inlaid in his life, with just a little seasoning of the attitude of one who has been farther and seen more.

One could see that his family had expected some outlandishness. Now they were puzzled; some disappointed, and some pleased to see how normal and Navajo were Laughing Boy and his wife. Her blankets spoke for them with many tongues, and the solid evidences of their prosperity, all Navajo, nothing bizarre or American, but good honest silver, turquoise, coral⁠—“hard goods”⁠—and handsome Indian ponies.

He watched Slim Girl, seeing the shutters closed behind her eyes, correct, sure, in hand, doing just the perfect thing. He was swept by constantly recurring waves of pleasure in her, and felt, as he sometimes did, a faint fear of that detached self-command. Slowly they were being forced to accept her as really belonging to the People. It pleased his dramatic instinct, as well as the strong sense of privacy he had concerning their relationship, to play up, being very normal, and letting no look or gesture suggest that they two came from a land of enchantment.

Knowing her well, he could see that she was at high tension, and secretly watchful. He had no idea that that strain, that painful vigilance, was above all for himself.

When he was alone with his father, he showed him the silver-mounted bridle and some of his other jewelry. Two Bows turned over the harness, feeling the surface with his fingertips.

“I have nothing more to teach you⁠—that is well done.” He tapped the cheek-strap. “I should not have thought of using that design that way.”

From Two Bows, such praise made it hard to keep a quiet, modest face.

Jesting Squaw’s Son came back in the late afternoon. They drifted off together, with arms over each other’s shoulders, until they came to rest under the scrub oaks behind the peach trees. They discussed this and that, vaguely, trailing off into silence, playing with twigs and pebbles, running their fingers through the sand, occupying their hands. At length Laughing Boy looked at his friend and spoke:

“I do not talk to those people. Some of them have their minds made up, some of them will not understand. I do not think you will know what I am talking about, but you understand me. I want you to know.

“I have been down Old Age River in the log, with sheet-lightning and rainbows and soft rain, and the gods on either side to guide me. The Eagles have put lightning snakes and sunbeams and rainbows under me; they have carried me through the hole in the sky. I have been through the little crack in the rocks with Red God and seen the homes of the Butterflies and the Mountain Sheep and the Divine Ones. I have heard the Four Singers on the Four Mountains. I mean that woman.

“It sounds like insane talk. It is not. It is not just because I am in love. It is not what I feel when I am near her, what happens to my blood when she touches me. I know about that. I have thought about that. It is what goes on there. It is all sorts of things, but you would have to live there to see it.

“I know the kind of thing my uncle says. It is not true. We are not acting out here, we are pretending. We have masks on, so they will not see our real faces. You have seen her blankets and my hard goods. Those are true. Those are just part of it.”

Jesting Squaw’s Son answered, “I have seen the blankets and the hard goods; they sing. I am happy about you.”

He felt better after that, he cared that his friend should know, and, in contradistinction to the others, telling him did not lessen the rare quality of the thing described. He returned to the hogans feeling better able to act his part.

He found the evening meal most enjoyable as he watched the good ways and mannerisms of his family. Among them he could make out a growing perplexity. What had that old man told them to expect? A word slipped from his brother to his younger uncle gave him the cue, filling his heart with glee. When he got a chance he whispered to Slim Girl,

“What my uncle said⁠—they expected you to have no manners. They were waiting for you to act like an American, and give them something to talk about.”

He lolled back on the sheepskins, laughing inside himself. A smile shadowed the corners of his wife’s mouth.

III

Slim Girl watched the ceremony with interest, feeling in a pronounced fashion the mixed emotion she had towards so much that was going on about her. It might be a weapon to destroy her, for the very reason that it was a summation and a visible expression of many things in her people’s life that mattered to her. She had a sneaking suspicion that the family had gone to the expense of a full Night Chant largely because of the effect they thought it might have on the erring member.

It was sometimes absurd and sometimes quite beautiful. The masked dancers were grotesque, but there were moments by firelight when their shapeless heads and painted bodies, their rhythmic, intent movements, became grand and awe-inspiring. The long and repetitious prayers were often monotonous, chanted to dull, heavy music, but in the worst of them there were flashes of poetic feeling. Her American education had dulled her sensibility to the quick, compact imagery of a single statement, leaving to the hearer, the evocation of the picture intended that forms the basis of Navajo poetry. Still, she caught it sometimes,

“By red rocks the green corn grows,
Beautifully it grows⁠ ⁠…”

She saw it, and the terse implication that takes for granted all that the Indians feel about corn, contenting itself with merely calling forth that feeling.

She tried to think that these things were native and close to her, but found that she could only observe them objectively. She was foreign now. She could sympathize with their spirit, but not enter into it. A door had been closed to her, and at times, even standing here among the other spectators, in the heart of the Navajo country, she was swept again by a hopeless nostalgia for the country and the people, forever lost, of her dim childhood.

When she had been a very little girl, she had trembled with terror and awe at the sight of the very gods coming into the circle of people. Out in the darkness one heard their distant call, repeated as they came nearer, until with the fourth cry they entered the firelight. They danced and sang there, majestic and strange; then they vanished again to return to their homes in the sacred places. Now they were just Indians whom she knew, dressed up in a rather silly way. Like many unreligious people, she kept slipping into the idea that these worshippers were pretending to be taken in by the patently absurd. Most of the adult spectators had been through the Night Chant initiation; all of them knew that the gods were no more than men in masks; how could they be so reverent? What was her devout husband’s ecstasy, or his devoutness, when he himself put on the painted rawhide bag trimmed with spruce and feathers, pretending to be Talking God?

She remembered the sacrament at school when she had been Christian. She had known that the wine came from the vineyard of an Italian who was a Catholic⁠—something vaguely wicked⁠—and that the bread was just bread. She knew the minister for a nice man whose wife rather bullied him. Yet she had believed that Christ’s blood appeared in the wine, or something like that, and had been uplifted when she partook of it.

A Klamath girl had cried bitterly before her first communion. It came out that she feared that eating Christ would make her conceive. In a legend of her own people, Raven had made a woman conceive that way. The minister had been very patient with her, and afterwards the other girls had made fun of her.

The casual way in which the minister handled the jug of wine when it came used to shock her, yet when he raised the chalice, his face would be inspired. He knew it was just the Italian’s wine and himself, but he had not been pretending.

These Navajos were just like that. She couldn’t make it seem reasonable to herself, but she understood it. And what effect would it have on Laughing Boy?

During the day she occupied herself with the women’s work of preparing the semi-sacramental ceremonial foods. She knew very little, indeed, about the ancient ways of cooking, but her sisters-in-law taught her. They were prepared to like her. Her bad reputation had reached them only vaguely, and already they were discrediting it, so that she became to them someone somehow belonging to a larger world, said to be dangerous, hence superior. Now they found her ignorant in this matter, humble, and anxious to learn. She was normal, then, what their slight experience had taught them to expect of returned schoolgirls, who were always to be pitied. They were delighted to make her their protégée and have the feeling of taking this woman of the world under their wing. Her warm response was not all acting, either; it was not often that women of any race were friendly to her without reservations.

Their mother, she saw, was merely conscientiously fulfilling the ceremonial requirement that everyone should feel kind towards everyone else during the days of the dance. That atmosphere of hozoji pervaded the whole camp with a sweetness that was saved from being laughable by the deep devotion behind it. The time of trial was not yet. Slim Girl had some cause to be happy, and so fell in with the general frame of mind, finding a certain reality of meaning in the eternally repeated “trail of beauty,” “walking in beauty,” of the ceremony.

In a sentimental way she played at believing her people’s religion, and indeed began to find some truth in its basic doctrine, but when she attempted to extend acceptance to the forms which she observed, her sense of the grotesque made it a farce. Meantime she was conquering these people; some were her friends already; her enemies were checked and nonplussed. The opening skirmishes, at least, were hers. She was moving ever more in the stream of Navajo life. She did have cause to be happy. The religion might remain meaningless to her, and probably always would, but the underlying concept of the active force of hozoji became real.

IV

The men who took part in the dance kept pretty well by themselves. For several days she did not speak to her husband. It was during the fifth afternoon that, seeing him go over where the sun warmed a rock to snatch some sleep, she followed and sat down beside him. She dreamed, watching his face. She loved him so much. There was that love, enough in itself, and then there was so much more. As she had hoped, after all, he was the means of returning to the good things of the Navajo, the good things of life. She could not lose him. What would happen when the dance was over, when it was time to leave, when old Wounded Face showed his hand? She was dependent on this man, her husband; she could not lose him.

She smoked and waited. At length he woke. She reached out and drew her fingers across the back of his hand.

“You must not do that.”

“Why not?”

“I am thinking about the Holy Things. I have to concern my mind only with them. You should not have come here.”

“Is it bad to think about me? Are your thoughts of me not⁠—hozoji?” She smiled.

He remained grave. “They are hozoji, but they are not all of it. When I think about the whole, I am thinking about you, too. I give thanks for you. But I must not just think about you and forget all the rest. Now, go away.”

“I see.”

She went softly. Two voices spoke within her; one, that this was the beginning of destruction; the other, that this meant nothing; indeed, that it was a good sign that her presence could disturb him so. Overriding both opinions was a feeling that, unless she was the whole for him, she could not be sure of holding him, and her imperiousness rebelled at being ever subordinate.

And still the ceremony was only half over. What would the remainder bring? She watched the changing rites. The ninth night passed, and the tenth day. She marvelled at the men’s endurance; they had periods of rest, but there were night vigils, and for Mountain Singer, endless preparatory prayers. He did not seem tired; rather one would say that he drew rest and strength from his songs. She was sorry for the sick girl, a passive bundle of blankets inside the medicine hogan, sadly in need of quiet and fresh air.

During that last day visitors began to arrive, until two or three hundred were camped in the valley. There was a slaughtering of sheep and wholesale boiling of coffee and tea. Slim Girl was kept gratefully busy helping in the preparations. The tenth night, with the rite of the Grandfather of the Gods, was the climax.

It was a fine spectacle, the many dancing figures in the firelight, their strange masks and the dull earth-colours, blue, red, white, yellow, black⁠—a broad white zigzag across a black chest, a red figure on blue, outlined with white, standing out in the half-light of the fire. The dancers were never more intent, the chanting more ecstatic. There was real dramatic quality in the entrance of the Grandfather. She was interested, excited. These were her people, putting themselves in touch with eternal forces by means of voice, strength, rhythm, colour, design⁠—everything they had to use. They were creating something strong and barbaric and suitable, and still beautiful.

“In beauty it is finished,
In beauty it is finished,
In beauty it is finished,
In beauty it is finished!”

V

The next day was one of letdown and much sleeping. By dusk, most of the visitors had ridden away. After supper, Laughing Boy’s mother and uncles went over to one of the deserted summer hogans. He finished his cigarette and followed. Wounded Face returned and spoke to Two Bows, who went back with him. Mountain Singer rode in, dismounted, and joined them.

So she was not to be allowed to fight for herself. None of the others at the fire paid any attention; not even casting an extra glance towards Slim Girl. She remembered vaguely that, when a marriage-contract was under discussion, it was the correct thing for the girl concerned to go well away from the house. She supposed that some such etiquette could be invoked to cover this occasion. It would have to do. She slipped out into the darkness, watching to see if her going caused any commentary of exchanged looks. Then she went swiftly away from the hogans, past the corral, where she deliberately startled a herd-dog into barking.

She circled behind to come up on the summer hogan, carefully now, thinking of the silent feet and quick ears of her people, feeling herself clumsy, her limbs managed by indirect control. She crouched in the shadow of the back wall, clutching her blanket about her for warmth, praying that her teeth would not chatter. She was clearly conscious of the beauty of the night, its stars and sharp cold, the smell of sage and sand, the faint rustle of leaves on the hogan.

They were lighting a fire. When it was burning well, they gathered close to it, so that peering between the leaves and branches she saw them as dim, significant masses with their faces faintly shown, identifying them. Mountain Singer was in the place of honour, with his back to her; on his left sat Walked Around, Laughing Boy’s mother; on his right was Spotted Horse. Wounded Face was next to him, facing Laughing Boy, and Two Bows sat a little bit back, near the door. She summed them up to herself, wishing she could be present to use her skill and have her share in the approaching conflict. It was not fair. She wished she could see Mountain Singer’s face; that old man’s influence would be emphasized, now that he was just through conducting the chant, and her husband with serving him as acolyte. He was the leader of the Tahtchini Clan in this section; his importance was shown by his seat of honour in this conclave of people to whom he was only distantly related. Spotted Horse did not amount to much. Walked Around hated her, personally and with fear. Wounded Face was set against her for more general, but weighty reasons. As for Two Bows, she could not tell. He had a quality of understanding which might make him her friend or her most dangerous enemy. In any case, he was here only as a privileged outsider.

The fire began to make warmth, and tobacco was passed round. Nobody spoke for several minutes. Then Mountain Singer said:

“We are thinking about my younger brother here; we are thinking about what he should do. We have come here to talk it over with him.”

They went on smoking. They were sombre bundles of shadow, in their blankets, with faces of people faintly seen. Wounded Face spat out a grain of tobacco. “My nephew, we do not think it is good, this thing you are doing. We have talked about it a long time among ourselves. We know about that woman, that she⁠—”

Laughing Boy raised his head. “You have said those things once, uncle, and I have heard them. Do not say them again, those things. If you do, there will not be any talk. Tell yourself that I have heard them, and know what I think of them. They were said in Killed a Navajo’s hogan. I heard them there. Now go on from that.”

They talked, watching the end of their cigarettes, or with the right hand rubbing over the fingers of the left, as though to bring the words out, or touching each fingertip in turn, with their eyes upon their hands, so that the even voices seemed utterly detached, the persons mere media for uttering thoughts formed at the back of nowhere.

“Perhaps you are mistaken, I think, but I do as you say. You are making unhappiness for yourself, you are making ugliness. You are of The People, the good life for you is theirs. It is all very well now while your eyes and your ears and your nose are stopped up with love, but one day you will look around and see only things that do not fit you, alkali-water to drink. You will want your own things, and you will not be able to fit them, either, I think.

“It is all very well that you deceive the younger people with your clothes and hard goods and manners, but we can see that all the time you are apart. And you are just a light from her fire, just something she has made. She has acted and spoken well here, that one. She speaks above and below and before and behind, but she does not speak straight out forward, I think.”

“We live like other People.”

“Even your beginning was like Americans. You talked about it with each other, you two arranged it face to face. You had no shame. She caused that. Have you been married?”

“Yes.”

“Who sang?”

“Yellow Singer.”

“Did you look at him? No, I think. You looked at him with your eyes, so as not to fall over him when you walked past; did your mind see him? No, I think. If you think now about him, you will see him, perhaps. You will see what is left of a man when he leaves our way, when he walks in moccasins on the Americans’ road. You have seen other People who live down there. Some of them are rich, but their hearts are empty. You have seen them without happiness or beauty in their hearts, because they have lost the Trail of Beauty. Now they have nothing to put in their hearts except whiskey.”

Slim Girl winced.

“Those people cannot dance in a chant and do any good. You would not want Yellow Singer to hold a chant over you, it would not bring you hozoji.

“You say live like The People. Why do you live apart, then? Does she not like to be with The People, that woman?

“I have spoken.”

Laughing Boy made a gesture of brushing aside. His uncle threw his cigarette butt into the fire with an angry motion.

Walked Around leaned forward. “What my brother says is good, but it is not all, what he has said. I have watched you, how you go about. This valley T’o Tlakai speaks to you with tongues, I think. When you look over to Chiz-na Hozolchi you hear singing, I think. You hasten to speak with your own people, you like to use your tongue for old names. You care more to talk about our sheep and our waterholes⁠—your waterholes⁠—than we do. You belong with us, and we want you. We want good for you. When you are gone, we know that you are away. That woman keeps you from us. Why does she do it? If she means good towards you and we mean good towards you, why should she be afraid of us? Perhaps because she wants to make you into something else, she does it. Perhaps because if you were among us you would see straight.

“She has no parents, no uncles, that she should build her hogan near them. There are plenty of the Bitahni Clan here; let her come here. Come and live among us, your own people. Perhaps then, if she is not bad, we shall see that we are wrong, we shall learn to love her, my child.”

Clever, clever, you bitch!

Laughing Boy moved his hand again.

Wounded Face took up the word. “You are young, you do not like to listen.”

His voice was level, but he was angry; there was tension in the hut. That was good; if they showed anger they would lose him forever.

“You do not intend to hear what we say.”

Mountain Singer interrupted him. “His father taught him to hunt, to dance, and to work silver. His father knows him best of us all, I think. Grandfather, what is in your mind?”

This was more important than anything heretofore.

Two Bows spoke slowly. “We have all seen his silver, her blankets. We have seen him dance. We know, therefore, how he is now. We know that, now, all is well with him.

“A man makes a design well because he feels it. When he makes someone else’s design, you can tell. If he is to make someone else’s design, he must feel it in himself first. You cannot point a pistol at a man and say, ‘Make heat-lightning and clouds with tracks-meeting under them, and make it beautiful.’

“My son is thinking about a design for his life. Let him tell us, and if it is not good, perhaps we can show him.”

“You have spoken well, Grandfather.”

“Yes, you have spoken well.” It was Spotted Horse’s only contribution.

They all shifted slightly, watching Laughing Boy. He spoke without hesitation, but selecting his words precisely.

“I had not spoken, because I thought all your minds were made up. Now I shall tell you. I heard what my uncle told me that time; I saw Yellow Singer and those others down there. I have thought about all those things. I have not just run in like a crazy horse. Everything has been new, and I have watched and thought.

“I have been with that woman many moons now. I tell you that I know that those bad things are not true. Hear me.

“It is true that our life is different, but we are not following the American trail. Do not think it, that thing. She is different. She does everything as we do, more than most schoolgirls; but she is different. You have seen our silver, our blankets; if you come to us you will see how everything is like that. It is beautiful. It is the Trail of Beauty. You will just have to believe me, it is something I never imagined, we have nothing here to compare with it, that life. We do only good things. Everything good that I have ever known, all at once, could not make me as happy as she and her way do.

“Look at me. I am older than when I left here, I know what I say. My mind is made up. I do not want you to be angry with me; I do not want you to be unhappy about me; I do not want you to tell me not to come back. You may not believe me, but I want you to wait.

“It does not matter. I know. I have spoken.”

VI

Her triumph was real and urgent, but now was no time for indulging it. She walked back to the fire circle as though, from her waiting place apart, she had just seen the counsellors returning. It was time to go to bed; she found her place on the sheepskins inside the hogan. It was stuffy and warm in there save for a faint draft of air in under the blanket that closed the door and out the smoke-hole, and a coldness that seeped through the ground from outside, where the fingertips of one hand had touched the floor.

That is how he feels, then. All mine. I can do anything. Ya, Wounded Face! Then, if I am so sure of him, why not come to live here? It is dangerous there. What a strange idea: when I am most sure I can do as I want, I give it up. Hunh! We have made almost a thousand dollars in ten months, counting the horses he has now. Everything is going perfectly. George eats out of my hand. I am strong.

She was becoming drowsy and making pictures. There was a story she remembered faintly, how Nayeinezgani did not kill the Hunger People. An allegory; her Slayer of Enemy Gods could not kill them, either. She could do away with them.

I have seen more than you and all you People, I know more. I shall lead you on the trail.

I, Slim Girl, Came With War.