Waterless Mountain

by Laura Adams Armer

  After Hasteen Sani had drawn the cross and circle on the basket of porridge, he placed an old pottery jar of water and a gourd ladle in front of his daughter. She dipped the water with the ladle and poured it over Elder Brother’s hands while he washed them. Then he did the same for her.

  After that Hasteen Sani turned the east side of the wedding basket toward the couple and Elder Brother took a pinch of the porridge from the east end of the line of pollen. He ate it and then his bride did the same thing.

  After that they tasted from the south, west and north. Elder Brother’s hand was followed by the girl’s in its journey around the circle of life.

  The ceremony was finished. The wedding was over. Elder Brother and the beautiful young daughter of Hasteen Sani were husband and wife. She looked very shy and lovelier than ever.

  During all this time, Younger Brother watched everything, as he always did. He was proud of his handsome brother and his beautiful new sister. He did not know whether the far-away look was in her eyes because she kept them cast down.

  After all the relatives had finished talking and advising the young couple and everyone sat about eating and having a jolly time, Younger Brother slipped up to the girl. While no one was looking he gave her a present.

  It was a most precious deer hoof he had found under the brush on the Waterless Mountain. He told the daughter of Hasteen Sani that the Young Woman Who Tinkles had sent it to her for a wedding present, and of course she believed him. She tied it on the fringe of her red woven belt and looked up at Younger Brother with the far-away look in her eyes.

  He knew she could understand.

  CHAPTER X

  THE PACK RAT

  T WAS certainly lonely at the hogan by the juniper tree. Younger Brother missed the big brother who had always sat in a special place by the fire, telling of his hunting and riding adventures. Mother was the loneliest of all. It seemed as if she could not endure the absence of her laughing brown-eyed son, who used to bring her such good game to cook.

  But then everyone was talking about the wedding. They said it was the best basket ceremony for many a year. There was comfort in that.

  The first frost had whitened the round dome of the hogan and silvered the rims of the wagon wheels. The voice of the thunder was still and the snakes no longer listened to the words of men. It was safe to tell the sacred stories again.

  Every night Uncle came to teach Younger Brother the songs of the medicine men. The little boy liked to hear about Reared-within-the-Mountain. That is the name of a holy young man whose friends were the bears and all the other mountain animals. They all helped Reared-within-the-Mountain to hide from his enemies the Utes.

  Younger Brother liked the Pack Rat story.

  The Pack Rat lived under a flat rock on the hillside. There were little sticks and stones piled all around his nest. One day the Pack Rat saw Reared-within-the-Mountain running toward his house. He knew he was in trouble.

  “Hide me quickly,” said the boy.

  The Pack Rat said, “Lie down by the hole to my house.”

  It was such a small hole the boy couldn’t crawl in, so the Pack Rat puffed out his cheeks and his chest and blew a long, strong breath on the entrance to make it large enough for the boy to enter.

  Inside the house the Rat People were kind to him. They offered him food, which he couldn’t think of eating — chips and bones and shells of seeds and skins of fruit. The boy wouldn’t eat any of them. He noticed a long row of wicker jars standing on the floor.

  “What is in that black jar at the end of the row ?” he asked.

  The Rat Woman removed the top of the jar and took out some splendid piñon nuts and fruit of the yucca.

  “That is fine,” said the boy. “What is in the white jar ?”

  “Cherries and cactus fruit. Will you have some ?”

  The boy was very hungry and was about to eat the cherries and nuts and fruit when the wind whispered to him:

  “Do not eat the food of the rat in the home of the rat or you will turn into a rat.”

  So the boy, hungry as he was, put the nice food in a corner of his buckskin robe.

  Just about that time his enemy thrust a long stick through the little hole of the rat’s nest but nobody was hurt and the enemy became tired and went away before dark.

  Younger Brother always liked the Pack Rat People after Uncle told him that story.

  One day when he was climbing up the boulders that led to his cave, he saw a Pack Rat scampering from the cliff. He watched the rat to see in what direction he ran. After the boy was in the cave, he noticed little tracks of the rat in the soft dust that had settled on the floor. The tracks led right around the edge of the cave and stopped at the north where the piece of shiny black petrified wood should be. The little shiny black treasure was not there.

  Younger Brother was frightened. He knew the Pack Rat had taken the treasure away. Then he remembered how kind the Pack Rats had been to Reared-within-the-Mountain. If he thought right about this it would be all right. Probably the rat needed the shiny black piece for his own home.

  That night when Uncle came, Younger Brother told him what had happened. That meant that Uncle must be told the secret about the cave and the treasures. He was the first one to share the secret and he said:

  “Surely the Pack Rat had a reason for taking the black shiny piece from the north. Tomorrow, my child, go again to the cave and see what is there.”

  He went and imagine his surprise to find in the north a pure white pebble where his black petrified wood had been.

  When he told Uncle about it that night, the wise medicine man looked serious and said:

  “The Pack Rat must know his medicine. Sometimes we put the white color in the north and move the black to the east.”

  Uncle was very serious about it. He knew that his pupil was a chosen medicine man. Everything pointed that way. The deer had danced for him, Yellow Beak had sent him a tail feather, and now the Pack Rat was telling him about the black and white, and the north and east. Uncle believed that his Little Singer might be one of the holy ones. So he was very serious.

  Not long after this the boy became ill. No one knew what was wrong. He couldn’t take the sheep out. Mother must do it, with everything else she had to do. Uncle stayed with Younger Brother and Sister.

  Uncle was puzzled about the boy. He lay on his sheepskin and said nothing. He ate nothing. After a while his face and hands became hot. Every day he grew hotter, till the fever in his head made him say queer things. He raved about his treasures in the cave, his feather, his red stone, and he raved about the Pack Rat. He was afraid the rat would take his strawberry jam picture.

  Most often he cried, “Hasteen Tso, Hasteen Tso.”

  He was calling for the Big Man. “Hasteen Tso, Hasteen Tso, Hasteen Tso.”

  Mother took out the sheep.

  Uncle told Father to ride to the trading post for help. At the post the Big Man was very busy trying to do something for everyone. A party of tourists was asking questions about every little thing. One wanted to know if the Indians still scalped people.

  “I have never seen it done,” said the Big Man as he went on addressing envelopes on his typewriter.

  When the Navaho father entered, the trader’s face softened. He shook hands with the Indian. No word was spoken for several minutes, then the father said:

  “For four days Younger Brother eats nothing. He has heat in the head. His sleep is torn from him.”

  The Big Man listened patiently. Nearly every day someone was ill. There should be nurses to look after such cases. The father continued:

  “He eats nothing and he calls, ‘Hasteen Tso, Hasteen Tso.’ Grandfather, will you see him ?”

  The Big Man was so very busy and he must take care of all the tourists. The Navaho still pleaded:

  “Grandfather, you can make him well. He calls, ‘Hasteen Tso.’ ”

  “I must go,” said the trader, turning to the tourists. “These people need me.”

/>   He cleared his desk, locked his safe, put some oranges in his car and a bottle of castor oil in his pocket.

  When he reached the camp of Younger Brother’s family, Mother had returned with the sheep. She was sitting on the floor beside her little sick boy, holding his fevered hand in her cool one. Uncle too was there, singing one of the sacred songs of the Deer People and keeping time with a gourd rattle.

  The boy was moaning and calling, “Hasteen Tso” as the Big Man entered the hogan. The trader was glad he had come. He told Mother how to fix the medicine while he peeled an orange for the little sufferer. He had entered the hogan so quietly that the child had not heard him and his eyes were closed. When the orange was peeled it filled the room with such a sweet pungent odor that Younger Brother opened his eyes. They rested on the Big Man and a faint smile played about his lips. He put his little hot hands out and eagerly said:

  “I want you to know about the Pack Rat. Maybe he took the picture with the red mountains.”

  The Big Man did not know what Younger Brother was talking about, but he smiled and said:

  “I shall see about it, Grandchild, but first I want you to take the medicine and the sweet yellow fruit.”

  After that was done the Big Man sat by the little boy until he went to sleep. Then he asked Uncle if he knew about the picture with the red mountains, or about the Pack Rat.

  “I do not know about the picture, but the Pack Rat is teaching our grandchild.”

  Then Uncle told the Big Man about the cave and they both went to see it. Neither one could crawl in because each was too big, but they could look in and reach everything. When the Big Man found the strawberry jam label in the little cloud bowl, he understood what was troubling Younger Brother.

  He put everything back in place and added to the treasures of the pottery bowl, a very blue turquoise bead he had been carrying in his pocket for years.

  Uncle made sure that the four colors were placed as the Pack Rat wanted them and then the two big men left the cave. The white man said:

  “Let the child rest for a while and he will be all right.”

  “Yes,” said Uncle, “the spell is removed and he is restored in beauty. The Pack Rat is wise in his teachings. He made the child call you to help him.”

  The Big Man laughed and said to himself, “So it was the Pack Rat that saved me from those tourists.”

  CHAPTER XI

  CHRISTMAS AT THE TRADING POST

  OTHER took care of the sheep for several days till her little boy was strong enough to go out again. The clear calm days of fall brought health to Younger Brother. Summer stood back to back with winter. The earth months were finished, having yielded the lambs, the wool, and the corn. Only the piñons, those sweet little nuts of the single-leaved pine, remained to be gathered.

  By the time the month of Slender Wind came, Younger Brother was well and strong and able to go to the piñon forests to help fill the sacks for the trader. He went with Elder Brother and his bride. Mother and Father stayed home with Baby Sister and the sheep.

  The piñon pickers traveled by wagon and horseback to the forests high in the mountains. They camped under the trees, enjoying the clear sky and the still sunshine of the month of Slender Wind.

  The ground beneath the trees was strewn with smooth brown nuts which had fallen from the pine cones. Younger Brother worked with interest, hoping that Mother would take him to the trading post when she went to sell the piñons.

  He wanted to see the Big Man again and tell him he had found the turquoise bead in the little pottery bowl. Uncle had told him that Hasteen Tso had put it there. Now that he shared the secret of his cave with Uncle and the white medicine man, he did not feel so lonely. He still remembered how good the sweet yellow fruit smelled.

  While he was thinking about all these things, he noticed two young Navahos coming down the mountain with their arms full of spruce boughs. They loaded their horses with the spruce and rode away. Younger Brother knew there was to be a sing at Two Rivers where the spruce would be needed for the costumes of the Yays. The Yays always wore deerskin masks with spruce collars, when they danced in the Night Chant. Younger Brother remembered how sacred the spruce was when he was initiated the year before. He was glad he knew where it grew, because some day, when he had a horse of his own, he could gather spruce boughs for Uncle.

  All through the month of Slender Wind the sun shone brightly. The nights were bitter cold and the campfires were kept burning all night. In the distance the coyotes sang their songs to the clouds. Then came the month of Big Wind. Still there was day after day of sunshine and the people of the earth traveled on, gathering piñons further back in the mountain.

  Younger Brother enjoyed himself immensely. It was fun to pick up the nuts and sift the dirt from them through a wire screen the trader had sent: and when it was time to eat, his new sister always had the coffee boiling on the campfire. She made good bread in the Dutch oven and roasted the mutton over the coals on a wire door mat from the store. She was very happy with her handsome husband and they played and laughed together like two children.

  Younger Brother noticed that she still wore the deer hoof on the fringe of her red belt. There were little shells tied to the fringe also. Women always wore shells. That was to make them remember the White Shell Woman of the east. She was the younger sister of the Turquoise Woman of the west and was related to the water.

  When the two sisters were young girls, they were all alone on a mountain top. They were very, very lonely. The Turquoise Woman looked at her lovely young sister and said:

  “It is so lonely here. We have no one to speak to but ourselves. We see nothing but the orb that rolls over us in the sky, and the silver waterfall below us. I wonder if they can be people.”

  “I think they are people, sister,” said the White Shell Woman, “for sometimes I hear the waterfall calling me softly. I feel that I must go to the waterfall. Sister, I am going.”

  The Turquoise Woman watched her little sister as her slender shell-white feet sped from stone to stone. She watched her crescent body sway in the sunshine along the rainbow trail of glistening spray. For one shining moment the maiden stood in all her whiteness against the shadowed rocks. The Turquoise Woman waved goodby to her, for she knew that no more would they dance together on the mountain tops.

  Her loneliness was more than she could bear and she threw herself on the hot rocks and cried to the sun, “Come to me, come.”

  After that the sisters were not lonely, for the waterfall gave the gentle Child of the Water to the White Shell Woman, and the sun gave the Turquoise Woman a most glorious shining young god of light. These two boys had always helped the Navahos and Younger Brother liked the stories of their adventures the best of all, and he liked their mothers, who were so kind and beautiful.

  As he watched his brother’s wife laughing in the sunshine with him, he thought she was like the Turquoise Woman, but when she looked at Younger Brother, he knew she was the White Shell Woman, who loved the water and cool, quiet places of mystery. That was why he knew she would understand his innermost thoughts about his treasures.

  The piñons were nearly gathered and there came a bitter cold spell. The people suffered. One little baby had its feet frozen. The young mother rode horseback for two days till she reached the post. There the trader’s sister rubbed oil on the little feet and cried a bit because she loved all the babies. She loved them so much she was making Christmas presents for them.

  She told the young mother to let all the other mothers know there would be a Christmas tree and gifts for all the children in seven days.

  The Navahos counted how many times the sun set, and bright and early on Christmas morning, they began to arrive at the post.

  Fathers drove their wagons from miles around and many little children were in every wagon. The piñon pickers were through for the year and they came with hundreds of pounds of nuts in sacks.

  Younger Brother was there with Mother and Baby Sister. No one knew what Ch
ristmas meant. It was a day when white people seemed kinder and did not ask for money when they gave the children apples and candy.

  Inside the store a fire was burning in the big stove and coffee was boiling for everyone. The place was crowded with children and someone was telling them that soon the door would be opened and they could see the tree. They could hear people laughing and talking in the other room. They wondered what the tree was. They were such wild little children they felt uncomfortable, even afraid. They liked trees out of doors but wondered what kind of tree grew inside a room.

  Then the door opened and there stood a dark green tree all blooming with little fires. On the very top a great star glittered. It was really enough to frighten any child of the woods who had never before seen a tree of fire, but when a terrible-looking fat Yay jumped right in front of the tree and jingled little bells, all the children began to cry.

  Younger Brother was braver than the rest and he looked at everything. He noticed that the Yay had on a red mask with white hair and whiskers. His clothes were bright red trimmed with white fur. He was taking little bags of candy and nuts off the tree. Such queer things grew on that tree that it was a long time before Younger Brother recognized it as a spruce.

  When he did, he remembered the spruce boughs gathered on the mountain. He remembered how the stars shone through the trees at night and how a big star once rested on the very top of a dark tree. Then he began to feel at home. This must be the white man’s way of using the sacred spruce for a ceremonial.

  Navaho Yays were kindly. Probably this white Yay, whom they called Santa Claus, was all right. Thinking this way, Younger Brother became brave enough to accept a bag of candy. Then the other little children followed his example and soon everyone was eating candy and apples, and blowing tin horns or chewing the ends of them. There were pink celluloid rattles for the babies, tin buckets and shovels and a little tin man that could walk.

  The white lady at the post was very happy watching the children and had almost forgotten how lonely she was for her own little girl away at school in the city. Suddenly she remembered and before she knew what was happening, a big tear rolled down her cheek. An old Navaho man noticed that she was crying and said to her: