Sing Down the Moon (2 page)

With the first flash of sun on the canyon wall, the men rode out of the meadow. Tall Boy led the way, moving briskly on his white pony. He did not look to either side, nor at those who had come to wish the warriors farewell, nor at me. He looked straight in front of him, his bold chin thrust out and his mouth drawn tight.

My mother watched him go by, then she said, "I hope that he does not kill another bear. If he does he will call himself Very Tall Boy and we will have much trouble with him."

My mother did not like him, but I did not mind
his haughty ways. For his sake I wished he would kill another bear.

The warriors reached the end of the meadow and Tall Boy led them across the stream. On the far bank he turned for a moment and glanced over his shoulder, then raised his hand. I thought he might be waving at me, so I waved back. I watched until he disappeared and the sound of hoofs died away.

After breakfast I drove my sheep to the mesa. White Deer and Running Bird were already there with their flocks. When the sheep had settled down we sat under a tree and talked about the warriors. We talked and laughed together all the morning. At noon the two girls left to move their flocks.

An eagle was soaring overhead on a wind that did not blow here on the mesa and I watched until it drifted out of sight. A herd of white-tailed antelope came to graze among my sheep. I was driving them away when I heard Running Bird call. She was standing on a ledge that jutted out over the canyon. She pointed down, down with two quick thrusts of her hand. As I ran toward her I heard the sound of a gun.

I went to the ledge where she stood and gazed down into the canyon.

Far below, moving along the river, was a line of horsemen. There were ten of them. They were not
Indians. They carried long rifles slung to their saddles and their hats were broad brimmed and turned up at one side. They were white soldiers who lived to the south of our canyon, at Fort Defiance. I knew them because they had ridden through our canyon on a day last summer.

"What shall we do?" Running Bird said. She was frightened. "Shall we hide?"

I was frightened, too, but I said calmly, "No, let us stay here and watch."

"Last summer they threatened to come back and burn our village," Running Bird said. "They are back."

"They would burn our village if we did not keep the peace is what they told us. We have kept the peace."

"But our warriors are away now on a raid," said Running Bird.

"They have gone to raid our enemies, the Utes," I said. "That is different from raiding the white men."

As we watched, the first of the soldiers came to the village. He got off his horse and went to the hogan where Old Bear lived. Dogs were barking but there was no other sound in the village. Then Old Bear came out of the hogan and greeted the soldier and they went inside. The other soldiers sat on their
horses and waited, with their rifles held across their laps. On the barrels of their rifles were fastened long, sharp-looking knives. That is why we always called them the Long Knives.

The sun crawled up the sky. It was a long time before the Long Knife came out of the hogan. We watched while he mounted his horse and the ten rode away, one by one out of the canyon. Not until they were far out on the plain, until they were a small cloud of dust, did my people come out of their houses.

Running Bird said, "I want to go down and learn what the Long Knife told Old Bear."

She grasped my arm. I held back, remembering the time I had left the sheep when the storm came.

"You go," I said. "I will watch your sheep until you return."

She ran across the meadow and disappeared. I heard the clatter of stones as she went down the trail. Her sheep were wandering and with the help of my black dog I gathered them in. Running Bird did not return until it was time to drive the sheep home. She was out of breath from the long climb and did not speak until we were halfway down the trail. I had to ask her twice what the Long Knife had said to Old Bear before she answered me.

"He asked Old Bear," she said, "'where are your
warriors?' Old Bear told him that they were in the north, hunting in the North Country. And the Long Knife said that was good, but if they were not hunting, if he learned that they were on a raid somewhere, he would come back and burn the houses and kill everyone in the village. Even the women and children he would kill, even the sheep and the dogs. That was the last thing he said to Old Bear."

"What did Old Bear say?" I asked her.

"He said that he would keep the peace. He would keep it unless our village was attacked by the Utes or the Spaniards or our other enemies. Then he would fight as he had fought before when they had come to plunder us."

"I hope Tall Boy does not raid among the Utes," I said.

"Or if he does," White Deer said, "the soldiers will never hear of it."

We had reached the stream and the sheep were wading toward the far shore. Suddenly Running Bird put her arm around my waist.

"Tall Boy is very brave but not foolhardy," Running Bird said. "He will come back safely and he will not bring back a Ute girl. You will see that I am right."

She gave me a squeeze and we walked on through
the river in silence. Dusk was falling and blue smoke rose from all the hogans. I drove my sheep into the corral and closed the gate and sang to myself as I walked homeward.

O
UR HOGAN
was quiet that night. All the hogans in our village were quiet. The Long Knives' threat hung over us. Had our young warriors been home there would have been much talk and chanting and threats against the Long Knives. But there were only women and children who had nothing to say and old men who had seen the power of the white man and feared it.

The evening fires went out early. The night was
long and I was glad when dawn came. At the first gray light I opened the gate and drove the sheep across the river and up the trail. As the sheep bells tinkled in the silent canyon, I sang little songs to myself. Some were happy and some were not, but all of them were meant for the ears of the gods who listen.

When I reached the mesa the sky was gold along the edges and pink overhead. With my black dog I drove the flock beyond the aspen grove to a place where the grass was uncropped.

Running Bird came soon and the two flocks grazed together. My sheep were easy to find because they were marked with red dye, a red circle on each ear. That afternoon when the sun was hot I would mark the ten sheep my mother had given me, using two red circles to show that they were mine.

Running Bird began to talk about the soldiers. I listened to her, nodding and making polite sounds, but I was thinking about my sheep all the time. The ewes my mother had given me would lamb in the summer. When spring came again I might have twenty or thirty sheep of my own to drive to the mesa. Thirty sheep! The thought made me dizzy with happiness. Right at the moment Running Bird asked me what my father had said about the soldiers I jumped up and began to dance. I could not help it,
thinking of thirty sheep grazing in the meadow, each one with two red circles on its ears.

Clouds drifted in from the north, but they were spring clouds, white as lamb's wool. In the stream that wandered across the mesa speckled trout were leaping. Jays were chattering in the aspen trees and two little red-tailed hawks came and hovered over the meadow.

It was the barking of my black dog that first alarmed me. None of the sheep had strayed. Everything was peaceful in the meadow. There was no reason for him to bark. Then, close to the aspen grove, I saw two long shadows.

I saw their shadows before I saw the men. They were not soldiers because they did not wear bright buttons on their coats and bright cloths around their necks. They were dressed in deerskin, with tall hats and silver spurs, riding horses that had heavy silver bits. They were Spaniards.

I jumped to my feet. They rode up at a trot and reined in a few paces away. The one who spoke had a soft voice and many white teeth and long black hair.

"A fine day," he said, "but we are lost. Which is the quick way to Corn Mountain?"

I knew little Spanish then, not so much as I do now, yet I understood him. I pointed to the north
west and said that there was a trail near the rim of the canyon and that Corn Mountain was two leagues beyond as the eagle flies.

While I was saying this, I saw something that I should have seen before. The other Spaniard held the reins of two horses, which he had been leading. Their saddles were empty and I knew in the time a breath takes that these men were slavers. For many years now they had come to the Navaho country and stolen girls to sell to families in the town who needed girls to cook for them and to wash their floors. One of the Navaho girls had escaped and come back to Canyon de Chelly and told us what had happened to her.

The man with the white teeth glanced in the direction I was pointing. But from the corner of my eye I saw the other Spaniard come toward me. Running Bird screamed and fled across the meadow and screamed a second time. The Spaniard who had asked me the question caught her long before she reached the trail. Suddenly there was a cloth in my mouth and my hands were behind me and tied hard with a thong.

My black dog was rushing around, barking and nipping at their heels. The Spaniard who had a flat-shaped head and a yellow scar on his chin struck him with a rifle and he lay still. Then they put us on the
two horses they had brought and tied our hands to the saddle horns.

"We will not harm you," the Spaniard with the white teeth said. "You will like the place you are going. Do not try to flee."

We went south along the mesa. As we passed the head of the trail, I looked for White Deer, hoping that she would be coming up with her flock and would see us. I saw no one. We took the Dawn Trail to the lowlands and at dusk reached the river, far below our village.

W
E LEFT
the canyon at a fast trot and did not halt until shadows began to lengthen. We rested beside a stream while the night gathered. The Spaniards made a small fire and warmed corncakes. They offered Running Bird and me some of the food, but we said that we were not hungry.

All of the time we were there by the stream they kept their eyes on us. Often they would stop whatever they were doing to listen for the sound of hoofs.
They did not know that all of our young warriors were away in the west and only the old men were left in the village.

A thin moon came up. We started off again, going southward into the country I did not know, through scattered groves of piñón pine and low hills deep in grass. Running Bird and I rode close together, sometimes holding hands for comfort. At first we were too frightened to speak, but as the night wore on we began to plan how we would escape from the Spaniards. They were riding in front of us and whenever they talked we had a chance to whisper to each other.

"They will have to sleep sometime," Running Bird said, "and then we can flee."

"If they hobble the horses," I said, "we can go on foot."

"It is better on foot," Running Bird whispered. "We can hide easier without the horses."

"We must go the first chance we have," I said.

"Soon," Running Bird whispered. "At dawn if we can."

When the moon set and it was too dark to travel, the Spaniards halted again. We thought that our chance to flee had come, but the men before they laid down to sleep bound Running Bird and me with leather thongs, tying our hands and feet so that we could not stand or crawl, or scarcely move.

The Spaniards slept until the sun was high. They offered us water, which we drank, and cold corncakes. The man with the flat head did not like it that we would not eat the cakes and threatened us with a stick. Still we did not eat.

We traveled until dark and waited for the moon to rise and started off once more into the south, riding along a dim trail through open country. Just as the moon went down, I heard a sound behind us. I looked quickly over my shoulder. There on the low rise we had climbed a moment before I saw what I was sure was a Wolf, a Navaho Wolf.

Running Bird saw it too, but she said nothing. We were too fearful to speak, for these Wolves are sometimes witches. They are humans who dress up as wolves and try to do you harm. I was too far away to see its long claws and sharp fangs.

Soon after the moon set we halted and made camp. Neither Running Bird nor I saw the Wolf again, though we stayed awake and looked for him and listened.

W
E WENT SOUTH
for three suns. I knew it was south because the North Star was behind us. We traveled at night and slept in the daytime, always away from the trail. During the day while they slept, the Spaniards tied Running Bird and me together. At night they let us ride free, but there was no chance to escape and we did not try.

At dawn when the fourth sun rose my black dog was sitting under a tree close to where Running Bird
and I lay. I was overjoyed to see him, having thought he was dead. He would not have left the sheep alone, so I knew that my mother had come to the mesa and driven the flock home.

When the Spaniard with the flat head awoke and saw the black dog there under the tree he wanted to shoot him. But the other Spaniard made the man put his gun away.

"These Navahos are happy with their dogs," he said. "Happy girls bring better prices than unhappy girls. That I have learned and do not need to learn again."

The fourth night when the moon was overhead, I saw dim lights in the distance and soon we came to a place where white people lived. There was a wide street with many houses along it and many trees in a row.

"My grandfather came to this place once," Running Bird whispered to me. "I think it was this place. He said that he saw more houses than a dog has fleas. They were close together and painted different colors and there were trees in front of the houses. He gave it a name but I have forgotten."

The two Spaniards stopped at the edge of the town and untied us and told us to get down from the horses. They led us to a hut among the trees and knocked on the door. An old woman came, clutching a candle in a bony hand. With her other hand she snatched me inside. Then she snatched Running Bird. Then the two Spaniards rode away.