House Made of Dawn (8 page)

It made him glad to be in the midst of talk and celebration, to savor the rich relief of the coming rain upon the rows of beans and chilies and corn, to see the return of weather, of trade and reunion upon the town. He tossed his head in greeting to the shy Navajo children who hid among the camps and peered, afraid of his age and affliction. For they, too, were a harvest, in some intractable sense the regeneration of his own bone and blood. The
Dîné
, of all people, knew how to be beautiful. Here and there in the late golden light which bled upon the walls, he saw the bright blankets and the gleaming silverwork of their wealth: the shining weight of their buckles and belts, bracelets and bow guards, squash blossoms and pale blue stones. Had he anything at all of value, he would have liked to barter for such a stone, a great oval spider web, like a robin's egg, to wear upon his hand. And he would have been shrewd and indifferent; he would certainly have had the better of it. Such a stone was medicine, they said; it could preserve the sight. It could restore an old man's vision. They sang about it, he supposed, and no wonder, no wonder.

He turned in to the Middle and the holy place. The shrine for Porcingula, Our Lady of the Angels, had been raised at the center of the north side and adjacent to the kiva. It was a small green enclosure, a framework of wood and wire, covered with boughs of cedar and pine. He bowed before it, though as yet there was nothing but the bare altar and the benches inside. Tomorrow it would be made beautiful with candles and cloth and holy with incense. He would see to it, for he was the sacristan, after all. Two young boys would stand with rifles at the open side, and he would remind them of their trust. And after Mass the lovely Lady would be borne in procession from the church, and the little horse would come to greet her in the aisle, would precede her out into the Campo Santo and dance beside her in the streets; and the bull would lope all around and wheel and hook the air with its wooden horns, and the black-faced children, who were the invaders, and the clowns would follow, laughing and taunting with curses, upon its heels. The Lady would stand all day in her shrine, and the governor and his officials would sit in attendance at her feet, and one by one the dancers of the squash and turquoise clans would appear on top of the kiva, coming out upon the sky in their rich ceremonial dress, descend the high ladder to the earth, and kneel before her.

He took hold of the smooth poles and raised himself slowly up the rungs of the ladder, careful to place the crooked leg just so, where, if his weight should shift on it, the bone itself would suffice like a cane to hold him up. But it was a nearly empty precaution, not against his strength so much but against some element of doubt and fear that had lately come upon him like the shadow of his old age. His arms and hands were strong, and his shoulders bunched at the back of his neck and made a deep groove of his spine. He crept closer to the high vertical wall of the kiva, pressing the whole surface of his body against the slanting poles and rungs of the ladder, so that even the weight of his chest and shoulders amounted to nothing almost and there was no center to it; at last he laid his cheek on the final rung and saw
the gray warp of the wood where the sun had dried and split it open and the red metal winding which spliced it to the poles and cut into it and stained it with rust. Then, without looking, could he reach upward and take hold of the wall itself. He drew himself over the top and stood for a moment to catch his breath. The rain had overtaken the hills above the town and the sky grew dark overhead. He felt the whirlwinds which ran upon the roofs and heard the distant bleating and lowing of the livestock, milling about on the weather's edge. And under him the great rafters of the kiva vibrated with the sound of thunder and drums. He looked south and west in the direction of the sunlit fields; they lay out like patchwork in the pool of light; and beyond, the black line of the mesa was edged with light. He let himself down into the great earthen darkness of the room.

When he emerged with the other holy men out of the kiva, it was dusk and the rain had begun to fall in the streets, unevenly at first, spotting and pitting the dust with dark, round stains; then it grew fine and steady, and the hard earth of the Middle began to shine. The people had come out of doors, and they stood about, waiting in the rain. He drew his blanket around him and went with the others to the house from which the little horse was now made ready to come. When they got to the doorway, he opened the screen and the horse began to dance. The collar of tin shells began to tremble with sound, and at the same time the drummer began the incessant roll and rattle of the sticks upon the drum. The little horse emerged into the dim light and the rain, and the drummer and the old men followed. The horse was an ancient likeness, like the black Arabian of the Moors, its head too small and finely wrought and the arch of its throat too severe. But it was a beautiful, sensitive thing, and the dancer gave it life. The spotted hide was taut and smooth on the frame, and the framework rode hard and low on the dancer's waist. It was he who gave it motion and mystery. He was dressed all in black, and under the bright kilt which hung from the shoulders and haunches of the little horse his black boots minced upon the
earth, moving too little and too fast to follow. And his body and the body of the little horse were set in high, nervous agitation, like a leaf in the stiff wind. But all the strange and violent tremor ceased at his head, and he seemed to be standing there, perfectly still and apart, mindless and invisible behind the veil. And the black hat and the black mask of the flowing veil, which lay in the wind and rain upon the bones of the face, made a dark and motionless silhouette upon the dusk, and the blur of motion under it gave it sheer relief.

The medicine men presided over the little horse with prayers and plumes, pollen and meal. And elsewhere in the streets, approaching on a wave of sound, the bull came running. The clowns were close upon it, and it veered and drew up short and crouched, only to wheel among them and run on. And the black-faced clowns gave chase, shouting their obscene taunts, and the small invaders, absurd in the parody of fear, grabbed at their gored flesh and lay strewn about in the path of the beast. And the bull was a sad and unlikely thing, a crude and makeshift totem of revelry and delight. There was no holiness to it, none of the centaur's sacred mien and motion, but only the look of evil. It was a large skeleton of wood, drawn over loosely with black cloth upon which were painted numerous white rings like brands. Its horns were a length of wood fixed horizontally upon the sheepskin head; its eyes were black metal buttons and its tongue a bit of faded red cloth. But it was a hard thing to be the bull, for there was a primitive agony to it, and it was a kind of victim, an object of ridicule and hatred; and harder now that the men of the town had relaxed their hold upon the ancient ways, had grown soft and dubious. Or they had merely grown old. The old man heard the clamor of the clowns. He knew without looking around that the bull had come into the Middle, and it was at his back and he could see it perfectly in his mind. He thought of Mariano and of running. The rain and the cold reminded him of a time long ago when the flurries of snow rose up in the dawn and his legs were hale and he ran whole and perfectly toward the town. And once
he, too, had been the bull—twice or three times, perhaps. He could not remember how many, but he could remember that it was done honorably and well. He had bent far forward and crouched with the likeness of the bull on his back, the way he must, and even so, in the angle and pain of that posture, he could have run away forever from the clowns. But he must not think of that now. The solemn little horse vibrated before him; the veiled rider held its fine head high and its croup level, never once relaxing the constant, nearly furious imposition of life upon it; the black mane and tail lay out in commotion with the rain. The little horse moved here and there among the elders of the town to be received and anointed. The cacique spoke to it and sprinkled meal upon it. And the townspeople and the visitors to the town huddled in the rain and looked on. The bull went running in the streets, and the clowns and the antelope followed.

 

The rain diminished, and with nightfall the aftermath of the storm moved slowly out upon the plain. The last of the wagons had gone away from the junction, and only three or four young Navajos remained at Paco's. One of them had passed out and lay in his vomit on the floor of the room. The others were silent now, and sullen. They hung upon the bar and wheezed, helpless even to take up the dregs of the wine that remained. The precious ring of sweet red wine lay at the bottom of a green quart bottle, and the dark convexity of the glass rose and shone out of it like the fire of an emerald. The green bottle lay out in the yellow glow of the lamp, just there on the counter and within their reach. They regarded it with helpless wonder. Abel and the white man paid no attention to them. The two spoke low to each other, carefully, as if the meaning of what they said was strange and infallible. Now and then the white man laughed, and each time it carried too high on the scale and ended in a strange, inhuman cry—as of pain. It was an old woman's laugh, thin and weak as water. It issued only from the tongue and teeth of the great evil mouth, and it fell away from the blue lips and there was nothing left of
it. But the mouth hung open afterward and made no sound, and the great body quaked and the white hands jerked and trembled helplessly. The Navajos became aware of him. And throughout Abel smiled; he nodded and grew silent at length; and the smile was thin and instinctive, a hard, transparent mask upon his mouth and eyes. He waited, and the wine rose up in his blood.

And then they were ready, the two of them. They went out into the darkness and the rain. They crossed the highway and walked out among the dunes. The lights of the junction shone dim in the distance and wavered like candle flames in back of the swirling mist. When they were midway between the river and the road, they stopped. They were near a telegraph pole; it leaned upon the black sky and shone like coal. All around was silence, save for the sound of the rain and the moan of the wind in the wires. Abel waited. The white man raised his arms, as if to embrace him, and came forward. But Abel had already taken hold of the knife, and he drew it. He leaned inside the white man's arms and drove the blade up under the bones of the breast and across. The white man's hands lay on Abel's shoulders, and for a moment the white man stood very still. There was no expression on his face, neither rage nor pain, only the same translucent pallor and the vague distortion of sorrow and wonder at the mouth and invisible under the black glass. He seemed to look not at Abel but beyond, off into the darkness and the rain, the black infinity of sound and silence. Then he closed his hands upon Abel and drew him close. Abel heard the strange excitement of the white man's breath, and the quick, uneven blowing at his ear, and felt the blue shivering lips upon him, felt even the scales of the lips and the hot slippery point of the tongue, writhing. He was sick with terror and revulsion, and he tried to fling himself away, but the white man held him close. The white immensity of flesh lay over and smothered him. He withdrew the knife and thrust again, lower, deep into the groin. The whole strength of his arm and back lay into the slant of the blade across the bowels, and the flesh split open and the steaming gore fell out upon his hand. The
white hands still lay upon him as if in benediction, and the awful gaze of the head, still fixed upon something beyond and behind him. Then the head inclined a little, as if to whisper something of the darkness and the rain, and the pale flesh of the face twitched, and the great blue mouth still gaped open and made no sound. The white hands laid hold of Abel and drew him close, and the terrible strength of the hands was brought to bear only in proportion as Abel resisted them. In his terror he knew only to wield the knife. He turned it upon the massive white arms and at last the white man's hands fell away from him, and he reeled backward and away, whimpering now, exhausted. Abel threw down the knife and the rain fell upon it and made it clean. When he looked up, the white man still was standing there, still intent upon some vision in the near distance, waiting. He seemed just then to wither and grow old. In the instant before he fell, his great white body grew erect and seemed to cast off its age and weight; it grew supple and sank slowly to the ground, as if the bones were dissolving within it. And Abel was no longer terrified, but strangely cautious and intent, full of wonder and regard. He could not think; there was nothing left inside him but a cold, instinctive will to wonder and regard. He approached and knelt down in the rain to watch death come upon the white man's face. He removed the little black glasses from the white man's face and laid them aside, carefully. At last the eyes of the white man's face curdled and were impervious to the rain. One of the arms lay out from the body; it was there, in the pale angle of the white man's death, that Abel knelt. The sleeve had been cut away, and the whole length of the arm and the open palm of the hand were exposed. The white, hairless arm shone like the underside of a fish, and the dark nails of the hand seemed a string of great black beads. He knelt over the white man for a long time in the rain, looking down.

There was the sound of the censer and the drum. The procession of men
and women wound out of the church and through the streets. The statue rode high upon the train and shone in the sun. The little horse danced on the way, and the bull went running and turning around. And the sun was high and the valley shone and the fields were bright and clean after the rain.

In a while the dancers filed out of the kiva. In two long lines they danced, and the gourds and evergreen boughs in their hands dipped and swayed to the sound of the singing and the drums. Their feet fell upon the earth in perfect time, and their eyes were solemn and looked straight ahead. And the single deep voice of the singers lay upon the dance, lay even upon the valley and the earth, whole and inscrutable, everlasting.

“Abelito.” The old man Francisco rode out in the wagon to the fields. The lines lay low upon the flanks of the mares, but the mares knew the way and they went on their own to the river and the fields. The river was high, and they drew the wagon into it and drank. Without thinking, knowing only by instinct where he was, the old man looked for the reed. It was there still, but the rise of the river had reached it and made it spring; it leaned out
over the water, and the little noose hung from it like a spider's thread.

And later, when he had got down from the wagon and hobbled the mares, he carried his hoe into the rows of corn. The corn was high, and the long blades glistened in the sun. The harvest was all around him and the tassels were dark and damp with the rain and the great green ears were heavy and full of fragrance. He could hear the distant sound of the drums and the deep, welling voice of the singers. He tried not to think of the dance, but it was there, going on in his brain. He could see the dancers perfectly in the mind's eye, could see even how they bowed and turned, where they were in relation to the walls and the doors and the slope of the earth. He had an old and infallible sense of what they were doing and had to do. Never before had he been away from the dance. “Abelito,” he said again, and he began to hoe the rows. The long afternoon went on around him, and he was alone in the fields. He knew only that he was alone again.