"That was when we were back in the cave, where he penned me till morning. There was no way I could tell him that there was a Diné among the Koshare."
"But I thought--" began Oliver, he looked over to where Arrumpa stood drawing young boughs of maple through his mouth like a boy stripping currants. "Couldn't you just have told him?"
"In the old days," said Moke-icha, "men spoke with beasts as brothers. The Queres had come too far on the Man Trail. I had no words, but I remembered the trick he had taught me, about what to do when I met a Diné. I laid back my ears and snarled at him.
"'What!' he said; 'will you make a Diné ofme?' I saw him frown, and suddenly he slapped his thigh as a man does when thought overtakes him. Being but a lad he would not have dared say what he thought, but he took to spending the night on top of the kiva. I would look out of my cave and see him there curled up in a corner, or pacing to and fro with the dew on his blanket and his face turned to the souls of the prayer plumes drifting in a wide band across the middle heaven.
"I would have been glad to keep him company, but as neither Tse-tse nor Willow-in-the-Wind paid any attention to me in those days, I decided that I might as well go with the men and see for myself what lay at the other end of the Salt Trail.
"I gave them a day's start, so that I might not be turned back; but it was not necessary, since no man looked back or turned around on that journey, and no one spoke except those who had been over the trail at least two times. They ate little,--fine meal of parched corn mixed with water,--and what was left in the cup was put into the earth for a thank offering. No one drank except as the leader said they could, and at night they made prayers and songs.
"The trail leaves the mesa at the Place of the Gap, a dry gully snaking its way between puma-colored hills and boulders big as kivas. Lasting Water is at the end of the second day's journey; rainwater that slips down into a black basin with rock overhanging, cool as an olla. The rocks in that place when struck give out a pleasant sound. Beyond the Gap there is white sand in waves like water, wild hills and raw, red cañons. Around a split rock the trail dips suddenly to Sacred Water, shallow and white-bordered like a great dead eye."
"I know that place," said the Navajo, "and I think this must be true, for there is a trail there which bites deep into the granite."
"It was deep and polished even in my day," said Moke-icha, "but that did not interest me. There was no kill there larger than rabbits, and when I had seen the men cast prayer plumes on the Sacred Water and begin to scrape up the salt for their packs, I went back to Ty-uonyi. It was not until I got back to Lasting Water that I picked up the trail of the Diné. I followed it half a day before it occurred to me that they were going to Ty-uonyi. One of the smells--there were three of them--was the Diné who had come in with the Koshare. I remembered the broken plaster on the wall and Tse-tse asleep on the housetops.ThenI hurried.
"It was blue midnight and the scent fresh on the grass as I came up the Rito. I heard a dog bark behind the first kiva, and, as I came opposite Rock-Overhanging, the sound of feet running. I smelled Diné going up the wall and slipped back in my hurry, but as I came over the roof of the kiva a tumult broke out in the direction of Pitahaya's house. There was a scream and a scuffle. I saw Tse-tse running and sent him the puma cry at which does asleep with their fawns tremble. Down in the long passage between Pitahaya's court and the gate of Rock-Overhanging, Tse-tse answered with the hunting-whistle.