Sing Down the Moon (7 page)

We were very careful with our jars of water, but on the sixth day the jars were empty. That night my father sent three of us down the trail to fill the jars at the river. We left soon after dark. There was no moon to see by so we were a long time getting to the river. When we started back up the trail we covered our tracks as carefully as we could. But the next day the soldiers found that we had been there. After that there were always two soldiers at the bottom of the trail, at night and during the day.

The water we carried back lasted longer than the first. When the jars were nearly empty it rained hard for two days and we caught water in our blankets and stored it. We also discovered a deep stone crevice filled with rainwater, enough for the rest of the summer. But the food we had brought with us, though we ate only half as much as we did when we were home in the village, ran low. We ate all of the corn and slaughtered the sheep we had brought. Then we ground up the sheep bones and made a broth, which was hard to swallow. We lived on this for two days and when it was gone we had nothing to eat.

Old Bear, who had been sick since we came to the mesa, died on the third day. And that night the baby of Shining Tree died. The next night was the first night of the full moon. It was then that my father said that we must leave.

Dawn was breaking high over the mesa when we reached the bottom of the trail. There was no sign of the soldiers.

My father led us northward through the trees, away from our old village and the soldiers' camp. It would have been wiser if we had traveled in the riverbed, but there were many who were so weak they could not walk against the current.

As soon as it grew light we found patches of wild berries among the trees and ate them while we walked. The berries were ripe and sweet and gave us strength. We walked until the sun was overhead then, because four of the women could go no farther, we stopped and rested in a cave.

We gathered more berries and some roots and stayed there until the moon came up. Then we started off again, following the river northward, traveling by the moon's white glow. When it swung westward and left the canyon in darkness we lay down among the trees. We had gone no more than two leagues in a day and part of a night, but we were hopeful that the soldiers would not follow us.

In the morning we built a small fire and roasted a basket of roots. Afterward the men held council to decide whether to go on or to stay where we were camped.

"They have burned our homes," my father said.
"They have cut down the trees of our orchard. They have trampled our gardens into the earth. What else can the soldiers do to us that they have not already done?"

"The Long Knives can drive us out of the canyon," my uncle said, "and leave us to walk the wilderness."

At last it was decided that we stay.

We set about the cutting of brush and poles to make shelters. About mid-morning, while we were still working on the lean-tos, the sound of hoofs striking stone came from the direction of the river.

Taking up his lance, Tall Boy stepped behind a tree. The rest of us stood in silence. Even the children were silent. We were like animals who hear the hunter approach but from terror cannot flee.

The Long Knives came out of the trees in single file. They were joking among themselves and at first did not see us. The leader was a young man with a red cloth knotted around his neck. He was looking back, talking to someone, as he came near the place where Tall Boy stood hidden.

Tall Boy stepped from behind the tree, squarely in his path. Still the leader did not see him.

Raising the lance, Tall Boy quickly took aim and drew back, ready to send it toward the leader of the Long Knives. He had practiced with the lance before we came down the mesa, time after time during all of one day, trying to get used to throwing it with his left hand. With his right hand he had been the best of all the warriors. It was with a lance that he had killed the brown bear beyond Rainbow Mountain, a feat of great skill.

But now, as the iron-tipped weapon sped from his grasp, it did not fly straight. It wobbled and then curved upward, struck the branch of a tree, and fell broken at the feet of the soldier's horse.

The horse suddenly stopped, tossing its head. Only then did the soldier turn to see the broken lance lying in front of him. He looked around, searching for the enemy who had thrown it. He looked at my father, at my uncle, at me. His eyes swept the small open space where we stood, the women, the children, the old people, all of us still too frightened to move or speak.

Tall Boy, as soon as he had thrown the lance, dodged behind the tree where he had hidden before, backed away into the brush and quietly disappeared. I saw his face as he went past me. He no longer looked like a warrior. He looked like a boy, crushed and beaten, who flees for his life.

The rest of the Long Knives rode up and surrounded us. They searched us one by one, making certain that no one carried a weapon, then they headed us down the canyon.

We passed the ruined fields of beans and corn and melons, the peach trees stripped of their bark and branches, our burned-out homes. We turned our eyes away from them and set our faces. Our tears were unshed.

Soon we were to learn that others bore the same fate, that the whole nation of the Navahos was on the march. With the Long Knives at their backs, the clans were moving—the Bitter-Water, Under-His-Cover, Red-House, Trail-to-the-Garden, Standing-House, Red-Forehead, Poles-Strung-Out—all the Navahos were marching into captivity.

T
HE SKY WAS GRAY
and the air smelled of bitter winds. The Long Knives drove us along the river and through the portals of the canyon. Like sheep before the shepherd, we went without a sound.

By noon on that day snow fell out of the gray sky. A sharp wind blew against us. The Long Knives made camp in a wooded draw and told us to do likewise. We stayed there in the draw until the snow stopped, until two days had gone. Then on the third morning we set off again.

My father asked one of the Long Knives where they were taking us. The soldier said, "Fort Sumner." He pointed southward and that was all.

On that day we met Navahos from Blue Water Canyon, more than fifty of them. They came down from their village, driven by the Long Knives. Their clothes were ragged and all were on foot. Most of them were old men and women, but one girl about my age was carrying two young children on her back. They were heavy for her and I asked if I could help her carry one of them.

The girl's name was Little Rainbow. She was small but pretty like a flower and her children, a boy and a girl, looked like flowers too, with their round faces and big dark eyes. She gave me the girl and I made a sling and carried her on my back the rest of that day.

Toward evening we came upon another band of Navahos. There were about a hundred of them, a few on horses. They belonged to the Coyote Clan and had been on the trail for a week, prodded along by five soldiers.

We lighted fires that night and had a gathering. The Long Knives left us alone, but we could see them watching us from the trees while we chanted our songs and our prayers. Little Rainbow came and we sat together in the grass, playing with the children. She took the girl with her when she went off to sleep, but in the morning gave her back to me.

Sometime in the night, Tall Boy slipped into our camp and lay down by the fire. We found him there in the morning, his clothes torn and his feet bare and bleeding. He ate the mush I brought to him but would not talk. He had the same shamed look about him that I had seen when he fled from the Long Knives, his lance lying broken upon the ground.

The trail led south and eastward across rough country and we went slowly because of the old people. We had two wagons with good horses but they were not enough to carry all those who needed help. We made scarcely a league during the whole morning.

At noon two large bands of Navahos overtook us. They were mostly men, some of them wounded in a fight with the Long Knives. They went by us with their eyes on the ground, silent and weaponless.

That afternoon we saw many bands of Navahos. They came from all directions, from the high country and from the valleys. It was like a storm when water trickles from everywhere and flows into the river and the river flows full. This was the way the trail looked as night fell, like a dark-flowing river.

Little Rainbow did not come for her child when we camped that night and I asked my mother what I should do.

"There is nothing to do," she said.

My sister said, "You were foolish to take the child. You have enough to carry without her."

"We will find the girl tomorrow," my mother said, "or she will find us. In the meantime she knows that her child is safe."

We did not find her the next day. Tall Boy went out looking at sunrise, but soon returned, saying that a soldier had threatened him. The soldier told him to go back to his clan and not to wander around or someone would shoot him.

All day as we trudged eastward I looked for Little Rainbow. I asked people I did not know if they had seen her. Everyone shook their heads. In a way I was glad that I did not find her. I was carrying three rolled-up blankets and a jar filled with cornmeal. It was a heavy burden even without the little girl. But she was good all the time, making happy sounds as the two of us went along.

As on the day before, Navahos by the hundreds came out of the mountains and forests to join us.

The river flowed slower now and many old people began to falter. At first, the Long Knives rode back and forth, urging them on if they lay down beside the trail. But so many fell that afternoon when the cold wind blew from the north that the soldiers did not take notice anymore, except to jeer at them.

The march went on until dusk. Fires were lighted and people gathered around them. Our clan said little to each other. We were unhappy and afraid, not knowing where we were driven.

"The soldiers tell me that it is a place of running water and deep grass," my father said. "But it lies a long walk to the east."

He said this every night as we huddled around the fire. I think he believed it. He wanted us to believe it, too.

"Cast your eyes around," he said. "You will see many people sitting beside their fires. They are hungry but not starving. They are cold but they do not freeze. They are unhappy. Yet they are alive."

"We are walking to our deaths," my mother said. "The old die now. The young die later. But we all die."

Tall Boy stared at the fire, saying nothing. He had said little since that day when he tried to throw his iron-tipped lance and had failed. The Navahos, his people, were captives of the Long Knives and there was nothing he could do to free them. Once he had been haughty, his wide shoulders held straight, his black eyes looking coldly at everyone. I wished, as I sat there beside him, that he would act haughty once more.

My sister took the little girl from my lap, where
she was sleeping. "She is heavy," Lapana said.

"No wonder," my mother answered. "She eats a lot, as much as I do almost. And food is scarce. Every day there will be less until there is none."

I took the child back and wrapped her in a blanket and lay down with her in my arms.

The fire died away and I could see the stars. I wondered what the little girl's name was. She was like a flower, like a flower in a spring meadow. I gave her that name—Meadow Flower—as she lay beside me.

The north wind was cold and far off among the trees the horses of the Long Knives were restless.

A
NEW MOON
showed in the west and grew full and waned and still we moved on.

The hills and the piñón country fell behind. There were few streams anymore. When we came to water we drank deeply and filled our jars to the brim. The land was covered with gray brush and rolled away so far that it hurt the eyes to look.

By this time there were thousands of Navahos on the march. We spread out along the trail for miles, each clan keeping to itself by command of the soldiers, who rode at the head of the column and at the rear. At night the Long Knives posted guards near all the Indian fires.

We now had six wagons, each drawn by two horses. At first they carried only water and flour and blankets, but as old people grew lame or sick the supplies were taken out of the wagons to make room for them.

For those who died, we scooped out shallow holes in the frozen earth and laid them there, putting rocks on the graves to keep the wild animals away.

My grandmother was the second old woman to die. Somehow she got herself out of the wagon where she had been riding and stumbled off into the brush. She lay down and pulled a blanket over her head. She wanted to die and drove us away when we tried to help her.

Food grew scarce. The soldiers sent some of the young Navahos out to kill deer and buffalo, but hunting was not good.

People began to eat their pets and from then on I never let my black dog out of sight. Before I went to sleep at night I put a leather rope around his neck and tied it to my wrist, as I had at the crone's hut.

In the beginning I fed the little girl first, which did not please my mother or my sister. When food ran low I fed her from my share so they could not complain. My back got very sore from the sling I carried her in. Tall Boy fashioned a carrying board from brush and pieces of cloth. This made my load seem lighter.

The country changed during the next moon. The flatlands rolled up into hills and we crossed many draws where water ran. Grass was springing everywhere, which helped us feed our starving horses. Every afternoon rain fell and our clothes never dried out from one day to the next.

It was about this time that the little girl became ill. We had a chant for her one night. Then the medicine man went over her from head to foot with his gentle hands. He drove away some of the evil spirits so that she smiled and was better.

A large band of Navahos came straggling down upon us. They were ragged and hungry and many were sick. Many, they said, had died on the trail. They came from the rim rock country far to the west. Now the line of people struggling along stretched from one horizon to the other. In the daytime flocks of buzzards followed us and at dusk coyotes sat on the hills and howled.