Free Laughing Boy by Oliver La Farge Page B

Enemy Gods came to the Hunger People, they say ... He said, "Now I am going to kill you, because you are bad for my people." Hunger Chief said, "If you kill us, nobody will be hungry any more, nobody will care about feasting. They will not go out and hunt for good food, venison, and fat prairie-dog. Nobody will want to go hunting," he said,' they say.
    'Slayer of Enemy Gods said, "Then I shall let you live," they say.'
    He heard Talking God call in the distance, 'Wu, wu, wu, wu!' Then the god called again, nearer. He knew he was asleep, and tried to wake, to meet the god coming. He was terrified lest he should be asleep when the god called for the fourth time. He had an idea that he had put himself asleep deliberately, against the god's will. The call sounded for a third time, just outside the hogahn. Talking God was out there, standing on a bent rainbow, in company with many other Divine Ones. He had shut himself up in a pitch-black place with no entrance; he had locked himself away from the gods under a blanket of dark clouds.
    With a desperate effort he woke, sitting up, gasping with relief. His eyes drank in the dawn, the open space, the tree, the clay buttes, things apart from his dream. Over across, a turtle-dove called, 'Hoo, hoo, hoo-hoo-hoo.'

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    She was still asleep inside the house. He stood looking down upon her in the half-light. She seemed frail, childish, and sweet, with the shadow under the eyelids, her mouth faintly drooping, her figure reduced to almost nothing beneath the blanket. He thought of that drama of strength and weakness, of conquering and being conquered, fitting it to this small person, soft in sleep. Now that he was looking at her, he had no reservations; it only seemed a miracle that she should be his. He wondered at the mere chance it was; Slender Hair speaking to him of the dance and the racing, coming to Tsé Lani, this little incident and that, until out of nowhere that which might never have been entered and became the core of his life.
    The sun would be up soon. He went to meet it.
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'Dawn Boy, little chief,
May all be beautiful before me as I wander...'
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    She woke happy, watching him under lazy eyelids as he stood outside the door, naked save for his breech-clout, with the level sunlight touching the edges of his flanks and ribs, making a golden reflection where his upraised arms bunched the muscles at his shoulders. She thanked God and the gods indiscriminately. Whatever happened now, this could not be taken away. She shifted the blanket, closed her eyes, and assumed sleep.
    He sat down beside her, a little nervous about her awakening. Her eyelids quivered, she yawned deliciously, she stretched her arms like a kitten playing. She sat up and smiled at him, seeing his face brighten as he responded.
    'Have I slept so late? I shall get your breakfast as soon as I have fixed your hair. You should see it.'
    He felt of its disarray, with the queue hanging lopsided, then he grinned at her. 'Your own is just as bad; go look at yourself in the spring.'
    She reached over to a shelf and took down a small mirror, which she handed to him. He looked at himself in it; this was fascinating but a little disappointing. Finally she took it from him.
    'Come, now, dress, and do up my hair.'
    He had often exchanged that service with his brothers and sisters; it was a pleasant and friendly act. He had watched his mother and father together at it, one leaning against the other's knees, laughing when the brush pulled too hard, and he had seen that they extracted some pleasure from it which he did not know. Now he understood that, and the sheer domesticity of it delighted him. He felt really married, settled, a man who would soon have children, and speak as one of established position, no more a boy.
    Breakfast was welcome when it came.
    'To-day you must get me the wood for a loom,' she told him. 'It is a long time since I have woven, but I have beautiful blankets in my mind. I shall weave and