Читать книгу Waterless Mountain - Laura Adams Armer - Страница 10
ОглавлениеA NEW SONG
OUNGER BROTHER and Uncle had succeeded in rounding up the horses. The Big Man from the trading post was expected in a few days to look them over and choose what he wanted. The next task was to find the steers. The little Navaho boy had been excused from herding the sheep so that he could help Uncle. They were riding their ponies up a narrow rocky gorge and keeping a sharp lookout for the red-and-white yearling that was missing. Tracks led to the water hole. There in the damp sand beside the water, new tracks were found, tracks of the mountain lion. Uncle said:
“The Soft-footed Chief has been hunting. He is a good hunter and grows fat on our cattle.”
Younger Brother hoped his yearling had not helped to fatten the Soft-footed Chief. Uncle had given it to him when it was just a little calf. He had watched it grow and was proud of his possession. He asked Uncle if they were to hunt the mountain lion.
“No, my child. He is one of the pets the Turquoise Woman gave to our people. It is better that we leave him to follow his own trail of beauty.”
“Uncle, where does the Turquoise Woman live?”
“On an island in the wide water of the west. There she waits every day in her turquoise house for her husband, who carries the sun.”
“And when the Sun Bearer reaches his home in the west, what does he do with the sun, Uncle?”
“He hangs it up on a turquoise peg on the turquoise wall of the turquoise house of the Turquoise Woman. It goes Tla, tla, tla, tla, as it sways on the wall. When it is still, the Sun Bearer, resting on the floor, lights his pipe from its fire. He cannot rest too long, for every morning he must start across the sky from the east, bearing the sun on his left shoulder.”
“I should like to go to the wide water of the west, Uncle. I should like to see the turquoise house and the Turquoise Woman.”
The two talked as they rode. They were following a narrow stream of water that traced its way under the tender green lacery of alders. The trail their ponies followed was narrow and overgrown. Sometimes Younger Brother wondered if it were a trail, it was so full of loose rocks.
He was glad Uncle had let him ride with him. Uncle was a medicine man who knew the stories of the Holy People who lived in the land before the Navahos came. They were the people who built their dwellings in caves high up in the cliffs. They must have been a busy people, to judge from all the broken bits of pottery scattered about the country. The old pots were painted with black on white or red, and the designs were strange to the Navahos. Sometimes the Navaho mothers copied the designs in their weavings.
Uncle had told Younger Brother many stories of the ancient people and he knew about the boy who wanted to find a new song. He knew how the boy had traveled on a rainbow to reach the House of Dawn. Younger Brother had seen the House of Dawn and the House of Evening Twilight, high in a canyon wall—so high that everyone knew they could be reached only by a rainbow trail.
Younger Brother wondered if there were any stone houses of the ancient ones near where they were riding. Uncle had never before been so far up the canyon. Maybe no one had. It was very wild. The trail had given out and they were forced to ride up hill through brush and over loose rocks. They were still looking for the lost cattle.
Breaking through the brush, they came unexpectedly to a clear space. There, at the foot of a cliff, they found a spring of water. It fed the stream they had been following. Younger Brother could hardly believe his eyes when he saw his own red-and-white yearling drinking at the spring.
“Uncle,” he whispered, “the Soft-footed Chief did not kill my yearling.”
“It is well, my child. I will rope him and we will lead him home to the corral.”
While Uncle roped the yearling, Younger Brother rode around the end of the cliff. He liked this country with its rocks and mountains and trees. He felt light within, the way he had at the initiation. He thought he too would like to make a new song.
Suddenly the stillness of the mountains was broken by a queer sound like the rattling of hoofs on stone. Looking in the direction of the sound, Younger Brother saw a tremendous, round cave in the mountainside, filled with many little stone houses enveloped in blue shadow.
Younger Brother still heard the clattering, rattling noise, and then into a streak of sunshine on the floor of the cave leapt seven slender deer. Just for a moment they paused in the light and then they leapt and danced on the stone floor and were lost to sight in the shrubbery in front of the cave.
Everything was again still except Younger Brother’s heart. That was beating wildly and words were pounding in his head for release. He knew he had found a new song and the words poured out of him like the song of the bluebirds. This is what he sang:
In the yellow sun they danced,
Slender Horns and Slender Feet,
Near their shadowed homes they danced,
Slender Horns and Slender Feet.
Then he rode back to Uncle and whispered:
“The Deer People! I saw them enter their houses.”
Uncle looked at the child. His big brown eyes were opened wide. He was breathing fast and trembling. Uncle knew something had happened Probably the boy had been blessed with a vision. That was good. He would make a powerful medicine man if he had visions. He spoke to him.
“It is well, my child. We will return to the hogan. Tonight you may tell us all about the Deer People.”
Riding back and leading the red-and-white yearling, Younger Brother was very quiet. He knew he had seen the dwellings of the ancients. That night in the hogan by the fire he sang his new song for Uncle, who said:
“It is a new song. Never have I heard it before. Now you must have a new name. I shall call you Little Singer and because the Deer People danced for you, I shall teach you their songs. It will take many years to learn them. Not until you are a man will you know them all, but we shall begin in four days.”
Nobody believed that Younger Brother had seen a real cave with real houses. Only the Big Man believed because he knew that anything magic or wonderful could exist and did exist in Navaho land. Besides he had a photograph of the big cave with all the houses. He had never shown it to anyone because he too liked to watch the Deer People dance in the sunlight and he knew they never would if noisy people went to their homes with guns and canned goods. So he and Younger Brother kept the secret together.
