With the Navajo on his native heath, idle gun-play is a very dangerous experiment, and may prove a grievous mistake. If one draws a gun, the Navajo expects that it will be used. He too has one in his belt, the Government being too pacific to object. There are no delicate preliminaries, such as the usual invitation to elevate the hands and behave. The Navajo reasons simply that a gun will explode in his face anyway, and he hopes to beat one to it. It is not an exhibition of his courage or judgment; nothing more or less than ignorant fatalism. While few Indians suicide, often a moody Navajo will announce that he is about to die, and perhaps, if the genii work upon him strongly enough, he may step toward the event. It is all right, though, and creates no comment or offense to have a somnolent gun in plain sight. The Navajo is used to weapons and the gesture is not one of potential threat.
About sixty yards from the group of Indians we found a shelter at the roadside. It had been hastily constructed—cottonwood poles, with a blanket across them to afford a little shade. The doctor stooped and crawled in to view his patient. Several elders of the family were there, besides the mother and father of the boy, and I shook hands with them. In a few moments the stockman was missed, but when next I looked toward the car he had returned there. Beside him perched a little Hopi boy.
“I’ve got him,” he called to me.
That part of it was finished nicely, but the question of keeping him was yet to be decided. Just then the physician crawled out from the shelter with no joy on his face.
“Bad,” he said. “Shot straight down through the top [[318]]of the skull. Looks as if he was fired on from above. He may live an hour—not longer than that.”
Now from the direction of the mesas the Hopi were gathering. We had passed a few of them on the road, trudging along determinedly. For the first time in my experience with them, they were going doggedly into the debatable country for a council with the old enemy, and with a view to resisting him if necessary. It looked as if there would be a fight, unless somebody weakened.
“They are not going to kill Lidge,” announced one sturdy fellow as we passed him.
“Keep quiet about that,” I cautioned him. “Let me talk with those fellows.”
So, when I walked toward the group of Navajo, I realized that Hopi were coming up and making an equally sullen group behind me. The Navajo crowd parted and old Billa Chezzi stepped out of it. He had a light rifle in his hand, and a woeful expression on his aged face. He put his arm around me and besought me as his younger brother. And then tears, large, globular tears, coursed down the ragged furrows of his cheeks, as he told me of the senseless crime that had been committed against them. A small boy wickedly shot down, an innocent slaughtered, a wanton killing. And so they must have blood for this thing: an eye for an eye,—though he had no knowledge of the sacred Books. That was the old law in the Desert. And he did not let go of the rifle. As he wept copiously on my shoulder, I reached down and took hold of the gun, too. Then we talked along sympathetic lines, each holding tenaciously to the weapon. I understood that it was the evidence in the case.
When he went further into his recital, through the interpreter, he came to mentioning the gun’s part, and [[319]]it was necessary for me to examine it closely. He did not want to give it up at first. But he finally yielded it. I opened the breech, and was glad to find it empty. Then I took it by the barrel, grounded the stock in the sand, and he never got hold of it after that. Somehow, I felt a little easier in having it to myself. In a measure, he had surrendered a bit of his problem into my hands.