Nightway

by Janet Dailey

  On their wedding night, White Sage discovered his strange habit of sleeping without clothes. The People always slept in the same clothes they wore during the daytime, although White Sage recalled the white teacher explaining that white people wore a different kind of clothing to bed. But Laughing Eyes didn’t wear any, and he insisted that she should do the same. Gradually, she had become used to this peculiar trait of his.

  But all that was in the past. Now he was here, smiling at her. She went eagerly to meet him and be gathered into his strong arms. His embrace crushed her while he bent his head to press his cheek hard against hers.

  “I’ve missed you.” The gruffness of the voice whispering in her ear reminded White Sage of the wind rasping through the cedars. “I think I live only to be with you.” She could feel the hunger in his hands moving over her and knew the nighttime would not come soon enough to suit him. With an effort, he lifted his head and smoothed a hand over her cheek. “I worry about you when I’m away. Have you been all right?”

  “Yes,” she assured him and glanced at the young boy, now devouring the last stick of gum. There was a lump the size of a wren’s egg in his cheek. “This one helps me all the time.”

  “I’m glad to hear that.” The intensity of feeling left his voice and his tight embrace relaxed somewhat as he gazed at their son. “Because I brought him something besides a pack of gum. You’d better look in the back end of the truck, boy.”

  With his jaw working vigorously to chew the massive wad of gum, the young boy raced to the lowered tailgate of the truck. His deep blue eyes rounded in surprise. “A saddle!” Hoisting himself onto the bed of the truck, he hurried to the front, where he lifted a handsome, leather-tooled saddle to show his mother. Its weight and bulk were unwieldy, almost more than he could handle, but he didn’t ask for help.

  The present had to be immediately tried out, which meant catching the horse in the corral and putting the new saddle on it. After the stirrups were adjusted to the right length, The-One-Who-Must-Walk-Two-Paths had to take a short ride. He rode the horse in a large circle in front of the hogan so White Sage and J. B. Faulkner could watch him.

  “I wish Chad rode that well,” J. B. murmured, then appeared to immediately regret mentioning his other family.

  “He has been riding since he was smaller than a yucca stalk.” White Sage referred to their son, avoiding his name, since to speak it too often would wear it out. It was common among The People to have several names. Besides his secret name, he had a nickname of the Blue-Eyed-One, and the school had given him the name Jimmy White Sage. “Today he told me we should have sheep for him to watch. He doesn’t want to go back to school because they say he isn’t one of The People.”

  “He isn’t an Indian.” The pronouncement came in a quick, forceful retort, which J. B. tempered with a calmer explanation. “I know children from mixed marriages often consider themselves to be one of The People, but I won’t have him deny that he is half-white. And he’s going to finish school and go on to college. He is going to have the finest education I can give him. We’ve talked about this.”

  She nodded, but she remembered how painful it had been for her at school, where her way of life had been ridiculed and the beliefs of The People scornfully denounced. It had been the same that one time her family had journeyed to Flagstaff, where they had been looked on with contempt. White Sage had been frightened by the things the white men said to her on the street. She had been glad to escape back to the land and all the things that were familiar to her. She was content to make regular visits to the nearby trading post, where she could gossip with other customers. It was run by a Mormon man who had no hair on top of his head; it all grew on his face. His wife was a nice woman with iron-colored hair. White Sage had no desire to venture off the Reservation again. She worried about her son leaving it to get this education, but perhaps Laughing Eyes knew what was best.

  “You must talk to him,” she said. “He doesn’t like being different from the others.”

  “He is different—and it’s only beginning,” he announced grimly. When he glanced at her, he smiled, but it was not a genuine smile. White Sage saw its falseness and was troubled. “I will talk to him.”

  Moving away from her, he signaled to the boy to come to him. The boy reluctantly reined the chestnut horse to the corral, where his father waited. White Sage watched Laughing Eyes take hold of the horse’s bridle so their son could jump to the ground. Then she turned to enter the hogan and begin the preparations for their meal.

  J. B. led the horse into the corral and tied the reins to a cross-pole. “What’s this I hear about you wanting to quit school?” he questioned with seeming nonchalance as the boy stretched on tiptoes to loosen the cinch.

  “They say we are poor because we don’t have sheep. We are not poor, so we should have sheep to prove that we are not. When you bring them, I will stay home to watch them. I am old enough.” Not once did he meet his father’s inspecting glance.

  “Is that the only reason you don’t want to go to school?” He was met with silence. “Do they make fun of you at school because you are different?”

  “I am not different. I am the same as they are.” The boy tugged at the saddle skirt to pull the saddle from the horse’s back. J. B. stepped forward to lift it to the ground.

  “That isn’t true. You are different.”

  “No,” the boy insisted.

  “It’s false to pretend you are an Indian. You are neither Indian nor white. You are both. There is nothing wrong with being different.” When the boy still wouldn’t look at him, J. B. picked him up and set him on the top rail of the corral, so he could see his son’s face while he talked. “Be proud of it. You can never be only one or the other. All your life the Indians will expect you to be more Indian than an Indian, and the whites will expect you to be more white than they are.”

  Blue eyes frowned into his face, skeptical and wary. “How do I be both?”

  “Learn everything you can about The People and learn everything you can about the whites. Take what is best and wisest from each of them and make it yours. Do you understand?”

  There was a hesitant nod before he asked, “How will I know what to choose?”

  “That’s something you have to decide.” J. B.’s smile was grimly sad. “I can’t help you and your mother can’t help you. You are alone in this. And it will get harder as you grow older.” J. B. was just beginning to realize how hard it would be when the child became a man. His gaze turned skyward to see a solitary hawk soaring on the air currents. “You have to become like that hawk—alone—dependent on no one but yourself, and flying above it all.”

  Tipping his head back, the boy stared at the hawk, its wings spread in effortless flight. There was not a cloud in the sky, the hawk slicing alone across the great expanse of blue.

  “This day I am new,” the boy announced in an oddly mature voice. “From now on, I will be called Jim Blue Hawk.” He turned to his father. “Do you like it?”

  Pride shimmered liquid-soft in the lighter blue eyes. “Yes, I like it,” J. B. Faulkner replied.

  Chapter II

  That summer a life began to grow in his mother’s belly. Hawk, as he had come to think of himself, found many things to think about and began looking around himself with new eyes: keen eyes like those of his namesake. When the time came to return to the Reservation school in the fall, he listened to the white teacher, no longer resisting the things that were said which conflicted with what The People believed. Others still mentioned his blue eyes and the waves in his black hair, waves that were more predominant because Hawk had stopped wearing a headband in an effort to straighten the unruly mop. Hawk knew he was different, and because he was different, he was going to be better.

  Before spring arrived, he had a sister. Hawk noticed, with interest, that she was different, but not in the same way he was. Her eyes were large and brown like his mother’s, but her hair was brown like the trunk of a cedar tree—not the glistening black
of the crow. She was given the name Cedar Girl.

  Hawk began to call his sister The-One-Who-Cries-at-Everything. She cried when she was hungry, when she was sleepy, when she heard a loud noise, when his mother picked her up, or when she laid her down. Nothing and no one pleased her except Laughing Eyes. Initially, he suffered the pangs of rejection at the fuss his parents made over his new sister. His needs were of secondary importance to the demands of the baby. He was truly alone like the hawk, pushed out of the nest to fend for himself. But he could. Was he not nearly grown? Hadn’t he begun to wear a breech-cloth? Hadn’t he been initiated into the tribe? Hawk began to pity his sister because she was dependent on others.

  Because his baby sister demanded so much of his mother’s time, Hawk had to assume more responsibility. His father still came two or three times a week, bringing presents and food, staying a few hours or for part of the night, but always leaving before dawn. So it fell on Hawk’s shoulders to take over the duties that would have belonged to his father if he lived with them all the time.

  Thus, when his mother’s uncle became ill and it was divined that a Mountain Top Way had to be held to cure him, all relatives were required to contribute to the cost of the ceremony. While others agreed to furnish sheep to feed the hundreds—perhaps as many as a thousand—of guests who would come to witness the nine-night ceremony, Hawk agreed to provide the wood for the fires as his mother’s contribution, even though she was at his uncle’s hogan every day to help with the preparations.

  When school was dismissed early, his first thought was how much wood he would be able to chop before dark. A little snow would not stop him. But it was more than a little snow that fell from the flint-gray clouds that darkened the sky. Two inches were on the ground and more flakes were falling when the school bus let him out more than two miles from his home. Hawk mentally filed away the information that the white teachers had correctly predicted this storm.

  The flakes fell heavily and straight down. Before he reached the hogan, the wind caught up with the storm to blow the snow around. Visibility was reduced, but Hawk didn’t have to enter the hogan to know there was no fire warming the inside. No smoke curled from the chimney hole. Hawk trudged through the snow toward the door, assured that his mother and little sister had stayed at his uncle’s because of the storm.

  As he passed the corral, the horse whickered. Hawk stopped still, staring through the screen of white at the sound. Inside the corral stood the chestnut horse, wearing its harness and collar. He searched again, but the buckboard wasn’t in the yard.

  Turning to look in the direction that led to his uncle’s house, he was enveloped in a swirling storm of snow. He could see nothing, no movement except the falling snow. Turning again, Hawk ran to the corral. He didn’t bother to unharness the horse and put on the saddle. Hopping on bareback, he gathered the long reins and tied them short.

  The chestnut horse did not want to go out in the storm. It took repeated proddings and a slap of the reins to make it leave the corral. Hawk pointed the horse in the direction of his uncle’s hogan, a route that the horse knew well.

  Into the face of the howling wind, the horse plodded through the snow, which had begun to accumulate into drifts. Almost to his uncle’s hogan, Hawk found the buckboard in a dry wash with a broken axle. Taking the chance that he hadn’t passed his mother and sister, he rode on to his uncle’s hogan. Since she had been closer to it, it was logical to assume she had returned there.

  But she hadn’t. Hawk stayed long enough to warm the numbness from his bones. His relatives tried to convince him that he didn’t have a hope of finding his mother and sister in this storm, but Hawk wouldn’t be dissuaded from going out to search for them. In the absence of his father, he was responsible. And Hawk knew he was doing what his father would do in his place.

  With a warm Pendleton blanket of his cousin’s, Hawk set out again. The storm was worse, the temperatures dropping, and the wind whipping it still lower. Pain lay like a cold bar across his forehead. Snow was drifting over the buckboard. Hawk almost didn’t see it.

  The snow was deeper and the wind blew it into high drifts. The horse began to labor, plunging through belly-high snows. More than halfway home, the horse staggered to its knees. Hawk finally recognized the futility of going farther. Dismounting, he tied the reins to the harness with numbed fingers and turned the horse loose. Snow and ice were encrusted on its shaggy coat. On its own, the horse would turn its tail to the wind and gradually drift toward its home corral.

  Seeking the shelter of a windbreak, Hawk found a tumble of snow-covered boulders and crouched behind it. He wrapped the blanket around him like a tent. It accomplished nothing to rail against the conditions imposed upon him. Indian-like, Hawk practiced the blind acceptance of the circumstances. This was a time to renew his strength from within, to ignore the cold, the wind, and snow raging around him. Surrendering his mind and body, he relaxed into a self-induced torpor where nothing existed but what was within.

  Time passed without thoughts. Hawk didn’t change his huddling, yoga-like position inside the walls of his blanket-tent. The accumulation of snow on the blanket acted as insulation to keep out the freezing temperature.

  An inner sense told him when the storm was over. Straightening, he shook off the weight of the snow on his blanket and drew it around his shoulders, crossing it in front of him. The world was white and still, newborn and strange, the familiar landmarks hidden by a concealing mantle of snow. Gradually, his eyes unmasked the disguises the landmarks wore. Hawk started out unerringly in the direction of his home.

  If he had survived the storm, then his mother and little sister could have, too. They might already be at the hogan, waiting and worrying about him. If they weren’t, he would have to resume his search.

  Hawk had traveled no more than a hundred yards when he saw a patch of bright green against the snow. It was the same shade of bright green as the velveteen blouse that was his mother’s favorite. In a stumbling run, he plowed through the snow to reach the spot. When he stopped, he could see the outline of a human figure in the snow mound. The extra hump would be the cradleboard and his sister. There was no movement. Hawk stared for a long, silent moment, then hesitantly reached down and brushed aside the snow on the cradle. Tears were frozen on Cedar Girl’s cheeks.

  He took one step backward, then a second. Quickly, he turned and ran, putting distance between himself and the bodies of his mother and sister. The cold tore at his lungs, forcing him to slow down. Without looking back, he trudged on toward the hogan.

  Across the silence of the white world came the muffled thud of hoofbeats and the creak of saddle leather. Hawk lifted his gaze. He stopped at the sight of the horse and rider approaching at a lunging canter, puffs of white vapor coming from the nostrils of the horse. The rider was leading a second horse, the chestnut, still wearing its harness.

  “Hawk!” His father’s shout prompted the boy to wave.

  The horse grunted and snorted as it was reined to a stop, and the rider slipped out of the saddle to rush forward and grasp the boy’s shoulders. Relief briefly overrode the concern in his expression.

  “I found the horse. … Where is your mother? The baby?” Large, gloved hands dug through the blanket into his shoulders.

  “They are gone.” It was a flat, unemotional statement.

  “Gone? What do you mean—gone?” J. B. Faulkner demanded in a desperate kind of anger.

  “They are gone—on the path that goes only one way.” Hawk returned the piercing gaze with a stoic acceptance of the fact.

  “No! Dammit! I won’t let them be dead!” His voice was a raging cry. “You are going to take me to them!”

  “No!” The boy recoiled in fear, trying to pull free of the powerful hands that held him.

  “You are going to take me to them! Do you hear?” The command was reinforced by a brutal shake that snapped the boy’s head back.

  He didn’t give Hawk a chance to refuse as he spun him around and dragg
ed him along by the arm. Following the tracks in the snow, J. B. Faulkner began retracing the boy’s route. Frantically, he scanned the snow-covered ground ahead of them. There was an audible breath when he saw the footprints leading to a patch of green where the snow was disturbed to reveal the white-frosted face of the baby girl. He started running, pulling the boy along with him. Hawk lost his balance in the deep snow and fell. He was dragged a few feet on his knees before J. B. released the dead weight to go on alone.

  The thick cushion of snow broke his fall. The blanket was forgotten and abandoned as Hawk pushed onto his knees. He was shivering, more from fear than from the cold. The terror built as he saw Laughing Eyes heaving the snow away from the bodies with mighty sweeps of his gloved hands. Terrible sounds were coming from him—sounds of a crazed man.

  “No!” Hawk screamed in panic when he saw Laughing Eyes lifting his mother’s body from its deathbed of snow.

  Ice crystals of blood were frozen to her forehead. Hawk looked quickly away, avoiding the sight of her white-frosted face. His fear increased when his father began rubbing the rigid limbs. In a wretched and tortured voice, Laughing Eyes beseeched her to speak to him, calling her name over and over. When he pressed his mouth to the blue lips and tried to force his life into her empty shell, Hawk’s fear for his father was greater than his own.

  “No!” He ran to his father’s kneeling figure and pulled frantically at his arm. “You must leave them! You must not look upon them! Please! Please!” He was almost sobbing. “Terrible things happen if you look upon the dead! Their ghosts will possess you! Come away from them!”

  Some of his warning penetrated because his father turned to look at him. Stark horror held the boy in a paralyzing grip. His father’s face was contorted into a mask as frightening as the ones the kachinas wore.

  “Let go of me!” The snarling voice came from his father’s mouth, but it didn’t belong to him.

  Too stunned by the frightening face before him, Hawk never saw the arcing, backhanded swing until the very last second when it was too late to avoid it. Pain exploded in his right jaw and cheek. The force of the blow sent him reeling backward, but Hawk was unconscious before he crumpled to the snow.