House Made of Dawn (17 page)

When Milly heard that, the way he told it, she got so tickled she didn't know what to do. She couldn't stop laughing, and pretty soon we had to laugh, too. And then she got the hiccups, and that just made it worse. We almost laughed ourselves sick. We were just sitting there shaking and the tears were coming out of our eyes and we were acting like a bunch of damn fools, I guess, and we didn't care. She was pretty when she laughed.

There was a girl at Cornfields one summer
.

Milly believed him, you know, because she wanted to believe everybody; she was like that, and she made us believe it, too, that everything was going to be all right, and we were happy and making some plans about how it was going to be.

Pony, they called her, and she laughed, and her skin was light and she had long little hands and she wore a dark blue velveteen blouse and a corn-blossom necklace with an old najahe like the moon and one perfect powder-blue stone
….

I guess he believed it. But it wasn't going to be like that. It wasn't going to turn out right, because it was too late; everything had gone too far with him, you know, and he was already sick inside. Maybe he was sick a long time, always, and nobody knew it, and it was just coming out for the first time and you could see it. It might have been like that.

 

There was a girl at Cornfields one summer, and she laughed, and you never saw her again. You had been away at school, and it was the first time and you were homesick and it was good to be out there again. It looked just the same, like the land was going on forever and nothing had changed. You got off the bus at Chambers and walked all the way to the trading post at Wide Ruins, and you weren't used to walking way out like that and it took a long time and it was hot and you were tired. You went in there to get a cold drink, and old man Frazer acted like he was glad to see you. And you were feeling pretty big, because you had been away and you figured you had seen what there was to see. It was hot, and it was getting on toward late afternoon, and you didn't feel much like walking the rest of the way home. You were kind
of hoping that your grandfather might be coming for water, but Frazer said that he had been there the day before. You were glad just to be inside where it was cool, and Frazer acted like he was glad to see you, and the two of you stood around talking about everything. He said there was going to be a squaw dance near Cornfields the next night. And you hadn't been to a squaw dance in a long time. It sounded good to you, and right away you wanted to go. You were feeling pretty big, and you started trading with Frazer just like an old-timer, kind of slow and easy, like you didn't care much about it. And after a while you asked him if he had any good horses for sale. He had a good black, he said, but it was worth a lot of money and he didn't figure to sell it right away. You just nodded and let it go for a while, but then you told him you had an uncle over there west of Cornfields who had a fine old
ketoh
that he was going to give you. He had had it for a long time, you said, and it was good work; there was a great spider web in the center and a circle of little matching ones all around, and the silver was heavy and thick. But it was old, you said, the kind you didn't see around much anymore. And you acted like that was too bad, it being so old and out of style, and right away you could see that he was thinking about it hard. He asked you when you were going to get it, and you acted like you hadn't thought much about it and said maybe if you went to that squaw dance you would talk to your uncle about it. And then he asked you what you were going to do with it when you got it. Well, you said, you didn't know for sure. You liked it all right because it was heavy and old, and you didn't see things like that anymore. You guessed you would hold on to it for a while and see what happened. And that's when he said, “Come on, let me show you that horse; it's a good one.” It was, too. It was a pretty little black, all sleek and round and long-legged. It looked like it could run. It looked kind of slow, you said, and lazy, like maybe it wasn't getting enough exercise. Maybe you would buy that horse, you said, but first you would have to try it out for a couple of days. If he wanted, you said, you would ride that horse out to Cornfields and try to get the
ketoh.
He said no at first, but you went on about your uncle, how the trader at Ganado had seen that
ketoh
and wanted to buy it,
and finally he got a bridle and led the horse out and put the reins in your hand
.

The black horse felt good under you, and you let it lope all the way out to your grandfather's place. The sun was going down and the land was red and a little wind was getting up and it was cool and you were home again
.

 

It's going to rain all night, I guess. It's cold and rainy up there on the hill, and nobody's there. It's dark and quiet and muddy up there. It will be muddy for a long time. He wanted me to tell him how it was going to be, you know. It's funny how it can be so clear like that one night and rain the next, and go on raining like it wasn't ever going to stop. Maybe he's out of it, you know? He's way out there someplace by now, and maybe it isn't raining and he's awake and he can see the stars and the moonlight on the land. The train will slow down and begin to climb the mountains around Williams and Flagstaff and the moonlight will be all over the trees and you can see the black trees against the sky. Maybe he's awake and all right.

And then the train will head south and east and down on the land, and the sun will come up out there and you can see a long way out across the land. You can see the land coming up on the Painted Desert and the dark gullies and the red and purple earth in the early morning, all beautiful and still, and the land reaching out toward Wide Ruins and Klagetoh and Cornfields
.

 

You felt good out there, like everything was all right and still and cool inside of you, and that black horse loping along like the wind. Your grandfather was another year older and he cried; he cried because your mother and father were dead and he had raised you and you had gone away and you were coming home. You were coming home like a man, on a black and beautiful horse. He sang about it. It was all right, everything, and there was nothing to say
.

You were tired then, and you went to sleep thinking of the morning. And at first light you went out and knew where you were. And it
was the same, the way you remembered it, the way you knew it had to be; and nothing had changed. The first light, you thought, that little while before sunup; it would always be the same out there. That was the way it was, that's all. It was that way on the day you were born, and it would be that way on the day you died. It was cold, and you could feel the cold on your face and hands. The clouds were the same, smoky and small and far away, and the land was dark and still and it went all around to the sky. Nothing could fill it but the sun that was coming up, and then it would be bright, brighter than water, and the brightness would be made of a hundred colors and the land would almost hurt your eyes. But at first light it was soft and gray and very still. There was no sound, nothing. The sky was waiting all around, and the east was white, like a shell. At first light the land was alone and very still. And you were there where you wanted to be, and alone. You didn't want to see anyone, or hear anyone speak. There was nothing to say
.

The sun came up behind you and you rode the black horse out on the way to Cornfields. It was a good horse, all right, better than most. It was deep and wide in the chest, and long-winded. It could go on loping and loping like that all the way if you wanted to hurry. But it was early enough, and you didn't have far to go, half a day's ride and a little more. You could see the earth going away under you, and you could feel and hear the hoofs. It was early enough, and the heat was holding off; and the black horse carried you just hard enough into the slow morning air. It was good going out like that, and it made you want to pray
.

You went up by Klagetoh, to the trading post there, and spent the early afternoon inside, talking and laughing, boasting of the black horse, until the sun was low and it was cool again. You rode on to Sam Charley's place, and he went the rest of the way with you. And the two of you laughed and made jokes about the girls at school—the Nambé girls and Apaches—and Sam Charley's horse was old and used to work. It was a poor thing beside the black, and the black horse danced around and threw its head and wanted to run. There was no
ketoh,
but the black horse was yours for a while and you were riding it out to Cornfields and that was all that mattered
.

And there, afterward, a little way west of Cornfields, the sun was
going down and the sunset was deep and purple on the sky and the night fell with cold. And there were wagons and fires, and you could hear the talk and smell the smoke and the coffee and the fried bread. And there was a spotted moon coming up in the east, like a concho hammered out thin and deep in the center. And the drums. You heard the drums, and you wished you were still on the way and alone, miles away, where you could hear the drums and see only the moonlight on the land and then at last the fires a long way off. You can hear the drums a long way on the land at night and you don't know where they are until you see the fires, because the drums are all around on the land, going on and on for miles, and then you come over a hill and suddenly there they are, the fires and the drums, and still they sound far away
.

They began the dance and you stood away and watched. There was a girl on the other side, and she was laughing and beautiful, and it was good to look at her. The firelight moved on her skin and she was laughing. The firelight shone on the blue velveteen of her blouse and on the pale new moon
najahe
of the corn blossom. And after a while you watched her all the time when she wasn't looking, because you saw slowly how beautiful she was. She was slender and small; she moved a little to the drums, standing in place, and her long skirt swayed at her feet and there were dimes on her moccasins
.

“Hey, hosteen.” Sam Charley's hand was on your shoulder. “She has her eye on you. She's thinking it over.”

“That is a fine necklace,” you said. “Who is she?”

“Ei yei! It's a fine necklace! Maybe you want to give her something for it, huh? They call her Pony. She lives over yonder by Naslini, I think.”

And after a while there were many couples dancing around the fires. They passed slowly in front of you, under their blankets, holding hands, stepping out lightly to the drums, the shapes of their bodies close together and dark against the fires. And you lost sight of her. You looked all around, but she was gone. Sam Charley said something, but you couldn't hear what it was; you could hear only the drums, going on like the beat of your heart. And then she was holding on to your
arm, laughing, and she said, “Come on, or give me something that is worth a lot of money.” Her laughter was a certain thing; it made you careless and sure of yourself, and you wanted always to hear it. She gave you her blanket and led you out in the open by the fires. And you let the blanket fall over your back and you held it open to her and she stepped inside of it. She was small and close beside you, laughing, and you held her for a long time in the dance. You went slowly together, slowly in time around the fires, and she was laughing beside you and the moon was high and the drums were going on far out into the night and the black horse was tethered close by in the camps and the moon and the fires shone upon the dark blue velvet of its rump and flanks and your hand lay upon dark blue velvet and looking down you saw the little footsteps of the girl licking out upon the firelit sand, the small white angles of the soles and the deep red sheaths and the shining silver dimes. And you never saw her again
.

 

We were coming home one night fom Henry's place. We had been standing around outside with a lot of other guys, and we were talking pretty loud and having a big time, you know, but after a while it broke up, and it was late and we decided to come on home. We were just walking along kind of slow and talking pretty loud, I guess, and the street was dark and empty. There's an alley down there. It's a dead end and empty, except for a pile of used lumber and some garbage cans. It's always dark in there at night because the nearest streetlight is down at the end of the block. There are a lot of pigeons in there in the daytime, because people are always throwing things away in there; there's always a lot of cans and broken glass and stuff lying around, and it smells pretty bad. Well, we were going by that alley, and Martinez stepped out in front of us. He just stood there at first, tapping that stick in his hand and looking at us. He made us jump, coming out of that dark alley like that, and right away we shut up, you know, and I was scared. Then he told us to go into the alley, and he followed us. I was sober right away; it was dark in there and he
was close and I could barely see him. I didn't know what he was going to do, and I was scared and shaking.