Part 2

Beautiful Mountain and the red rock canyons hide their faces in snow clouds.

The wind cries.

It piles the snow in drift banks against the poles of the sheep corral.

It pushes against the door of my mother's hogan, and it cries.

The wind cries out there in the snow and the cold.

My mother's hogan is cold. Snow blows down the smoke hole. Water drops on the fire.

The wet wood smokes and keeps its flames to itself.

The sun has not shown his face to tell us what time of day it is.

I do not like to ask my mother, "Is it noon now?" or "Is it almost night?" because she might think I wanted it to be time to eat.

She might think I wanted food.

THERE IS NO FOOD

There is no food.

There is no flour nor cornmeal to make into bread.

There is no coffee that my mother could boil for us to drink.

There is no food.

The corn my father planted in his field is gone.

We ate it.

There was so little. The corn pile in the storehouse was not high enough to last for long. It is gone.

Now all of it is gone. There is no food.

There is food at the Trading Post in sacks and in boxes, in bins and in cans on the shelf.

There is food at the Trading Post, but the Trading Post is far away and snowdrifts and snow clouds are heavy between.

There is food at the Trading Post but my father has nothing left of the hard, round money that he must give to the Trader for the food.

There is no food here in my mother's hogan.

When it is time to eat, we talk of other things, but not of hunger.

This thing called hunger is a pain that sits inside me.

At first it was little, but now it grows bigger and bigger.

It hurts me to be hungry.

THE DOGS ARE HUNGRY

The dogs are hungry, too.

They crowd in the hogan.

The black one is not sleeping now.

He lies with his head on his paws and looks at nothing.

The yellow one whimpers.

He has worked hard, but there is no food.

The gray shadow dog stays outside close to the tree trunk making no sound asking for nothing.

I think she knows nobody wants her.

MELTING SNOW WATER

The sheep are wet and cold.

They are hungry, too.

If the snow keeps falling, it will be bad for the sheep.

Perhaps that is why the wind cries.

Perhaps the wind is sorry for the sheep.

That is what I think.

My mother talks to my father.

Together they go out to shovel snow.

The ruffles on my mother's skirts make pretty marks on the top of the snow whiteness.

My mother and my father shovel a round place clean of snow out near the sheep corral.

They will build a fire to melt snow into water to give to the sheep.

It takes much wood to make a fire to melt snow into water, but if the sheep have water to drink they do not hunger so much.

When the round place is clear of snow, my mother comes into the hogan for dry wood to make the outdoor fire.

She picks a stick from our small pile beside the fire.

She picks another until she has a little armful.

My mother picks them up slowly for our pile is so small.

My father comes into the hogan.

He stamps his feet.

Little hills of dirty snow melt slowly by them on the hogan floor.

It takes a lot of snow in my mother's washtub to melt enough water for the sheep.

When my mother comes again into the hogan she is tired.

Her poor face is dark with cold.

I put my arms around my mother's knees.

It is the only way I know to show her that I am sorry she is cold.

NIGHT

Night is slow in coming, but at last it comes moving through the snowstorm.

Coyotes howl, far away.

Nearby the wind cries.

The wet wood smokes.

Snow water drips down through the smoke hole.

STORY TELLING

Then my father tells us stories.

Long stories made up of many words.

His words have power.

They have strength.

They seem to hold me.

They seem to warm me.

They seem to feed me.

My father's words, they comfort me.

His words have power.

My father tells The Star Story.

"When the world was being made, being made."

My father tells us, "When the Gods were placing stars, the stars, the stars in patterns in the sky, coyote stole the star bag."

Coyote spilled the stars out in the sky, helter skelter in the sky, when the world was being made.

Softly my father tells it, the story of the stars.

Outside, the wind and the night push against my mother's hogan door.

Outside, big flakes of snow fall thickly, fall softly, fall steadily.

Inside, snow water drips down the smoke hole and the words of my father's voice drop softly into the quiet of my mother's hogan.

"IT-IS-TWISTED"

The Star Story made my mother think of the string game, "It-Is-Twisted."

She said that the Spider People gave it to us to use in winter evenings.

My mother showed us how to make the game.

She made Twin-Stars and Many-Stars, Big-Star and Horned-Star with pieces of string.

PAWN

Just now, I heard myself saying, "I want some bread."

My father is not talking now.

He is looking at me.

My mother is looking at me.

They do not know it was not I, but this hunger pain inside me that said those words, "I want some bread."

They do not know that, and I do not know how to tell them.

My father sits still.

He sits quietly.

He is thinking.

My mother looks down at her hands where they are resting in the folds of her skirt.

Outside, the wind cries the wind cries to my thinking.

Slowly my father takes his concho belt from about his waist.

Slowly his fingers touch the belt, counting, counting, counting the conchos.

Slowly my mother takes her coral string from about her neck.

She looks at it.

She looks at it.

Slowly she puts it back again around her neck.

Then my mother takes from her finger her largest turquoise ring.

My father puts his concho belt upon the floor.

My mother puts her turquoise ring upon the floor.

The concho belt and the turquoise ring make a splash of color in the gray-lighted hogan.

He will pawn them because our food is getting low.

The concho belt and the turquoise ring are for pawn.

They are for pawn.

Pawn to the Trader for food.

Pawn to the Trader that we may eat.

Our hard goods, our possessions we give them for salt and for flour.

They are for pawn.

Who knows when we can buy them back.

The snow water drops from the smoke hole like tears.

The wind cries.

Quickly my father sings a funny song to make laughter come to my mother and me.

MORNING

The wind lies still.

It has not gone away I know, for I can feel it lying there outside hiding in the snow.

The wind lies still behind the snowdrifts, but sometimes it starts up with a low cry, then falls again to hide.

Cold bends over the land.

The white feathers of snow fall slower and slower.

My mother and my father get up early.

My mother will kill a sheep so my father can eat something before he starts for the Trading Post.

My father waits for my mother to butcher the sheep and to cook a piece for his breakfast.

Then my father finds his horse.

He ties an empty flour sack behind his saddle.

He wraps his blanket about him and leaning his body against the storm he rides to the Trading Post.

My father rides into the snow-filled world.

His blanket and his horse are the only colors moving through the white.

Snow comes into my heart filling it with cold when I see my father ride away.

SHOVELING SNOW

For a little while I sit in the hogan thinking of my father riding along the snowy trail to the Trading Post.

Snow stops falling. Cold blows its blue breath across the white.

I help my mother shovel snow.

We make a path to the sheep corral and to my grandmother's hogan.

The snow, so soft to feel, is hard to shovel.

The cold slaps at my face.

It traps my hands and my feet in icy feeling.

My mother takes me into the hogan.

She rubs my face and hands and my feet with snow.

Soon little hot pains come to play with my cold fingers and my cold toes. Soon the icy feeling goes away.

CAT'S CRADLES

The day moves slowly.

My father does not come back along the trail.

It is far to the Trading Post.

The snow is deep.

I think of my father and his concho belt.

I look at my mother's finger.

One finger looks bare without its turquoise ring.

I pull my sleeve down over my bracelet.

Perhaps I should have given it to my father.

My grandmother comes to see us.

She brings a piece of bread for me and for my mother to eat with our meat.

She brings a piece of string.

She shows me how to make Cat's Cradles.

She shows me how to make "It-Is-Twisted."

We make Bird's-Nest and Butterflies and Coyotes-Running-Apart with the piece of string.

FATHER COMES BACK

We hear my father singing as he rides along the snowy trail.

My grandmother goes to her hogan and my mother and I, we stand together, laughing.

We stand together outside our door, happy because my father comes back again.

Behind my father's saddle is tied the flour sack filled with food.

It is not empty now, but a sack of bumps and bumps, and heavy looking.

In front of him my father carries a dry wood box that the Trader gave him.

My mother takes the sack of food.

I take the dry wood box.

My father takes the saddle from his horse.

We go into the hogan with our bundles in our arms.

My mother breaks the box with her foot.

She breaks the pieces across her knee.

She feeds them to the fire.

The dry wood box makes the fire flame dance in the hogan fire.

My mother puts meat to cook.

She mixes flour and water, a little ball of lard, a little pinch of salt in our round tin bowl.

She takes some out and pats it flat, and pats it round, and pats it thin, and throws it in a kettle full of boiling fat.

This hunger pain inside me is bigger now than I am.

It is the smell of cooking food that makes it grow, I think.

Soon the fried bread in the hot fat swells big and brown.

Soon the meat in the stew pot makes bubbling noises.

Coffee boils smelling strong and good.

The hunger pain is now so big I cannot understand Why I do not see it.

SUPPER

Now we are eating the good food.

We eat slowly.

We eat a long time.

The hunger pain is gone.

It went somewhere, but I do not know when, it left so quickly.

My father tells us that the wife of Tall-Man's brother suffers from something.

She is sick.

My father tells us that tomorrow there will be a Sing for this woman who has sickness.

We will go, he says, if the sun shines tomorrow.

We will go to the hogan of the wife of Tall-Man's brother.

SLEEP

Now that I am warm and have no pain and feel well fed with my mother's good cooking, I feel sleepy and glad.

Lying on my blanket bed on the floor of the hogan, I say to myself over and over, "If the sun shines tomorrow we will go to the Sing."

MORNING SUN

Last night went quickly with sleeping.

It is tomorrow now.

I open my eyes to a beautiful world of sun and snow.

Everywhere I look the snow shines as if someone had sprinkled it with broken bits of stars.

My father says, "snow is good for the land.

When the sun melts it the thirsty sand drinks in the snow water."

Grass patches show again.

They look fresh and clean.

The goats hurry about eating all they can.

Even the sheep move more quickly, eating.

GOING TO THE SING

My father goes for dry wood.

He has to go to the foothills to get it.

My mother cooks bread and meat.

I sit by the door in the sunshine and think about the Sing.

My grandmother comes to my mother's hogan.

She will look after the sheep while we are gone to the Sing.

The sun shines.

The sun shines.

Soon we will go to the Sing, the Sing.

After awhile my father comes back with the wagon.

He piles the wood near the hogan.

He says he is ready to go to the Sing and we are ready, too.

It is not far.

Not long after the sun has finished with the day we will get there.

We will get to the hogan of the wife of Tall-Man's brother.

We will be at the Sing, the Sing, the Sing.

The ruts in the road are deep and frozen.

The wheels of the wagon have a song of their own.

I sit in the back of the wagon in a nest made of blankets.

I listen to the song of the rolling wagon wheels.

My father sits on the wagon seat.

He is driving his horses.

My mother sits beside him.

Straight and tall my mother sits on the wagon seat beside my father.

My father sings as he drives along.

He is happy.

He sings, "Now is winter.

Thunder sleeps.

Falls the snow.

Thunder sleeps.

Grass is gone.

Thunder sleeps.

Birds are gone.

Thunder sleeps.

Warmth is gone from the sands, from the red rocks, from the canyons.

Thunder sleeps.

It sleeps."

In my father's wagon we go.

Behind my father's horses we go.

On the trail of the Holy Songs we go to hear the voices of the Gods.

THE SING

It will be a long time before the night sky bends down and the stars hang low and the supper fires of the camping people dot the night.

Our wagon comes within the circles of supper fires, comes within the circle of firelight, and I see all the People who have come to the Sing.

There are many People here.

There are many horses here.

There are many wagons here.

There is one truck.

It makes me happy to see all of the People walking around and standing and sitting.

It makes me happy to see all the colors that there are in the skirts of the women in the shirts of the men and in the blankets that all the People wear.

I can see the horses, all the horses.

I can see a race horse that belongs to a man my uncle knows.

After the Sing is over, the men will race their horses.

My father will bet which horse will win.

And then perhaps he will win a better concho belt than the one he has in pawn to the Trader.

There is a new hogan built just for the Sing.

There are some shelters built just for the Sing, and at one side is the Cook Shade where all kinds of foods are cooking.

The smell of food makes me happy.

I think it is good to be happy when food is near.

As it gets darker more fires are lighted and within the circle a big one burns.

Smoke gets in my eyes and I can taste it in my mouth.

In the folds of my mother's blanket, in the warmth of my mother's blanket, in the quiet of my mother's blanket, close to her heart I sleep and awaken to hear the Gods, the Singers of Songs.

Now is the time for the singing.

Now is the time for the songs.

We go, we go, on the Holy Trail of Song.

We go, we go, to hear the voices of the Gods.

They say, on the path of the rainbow, they say, on the bridge of the lightening, they say on the trail of pollen went the Elder Brother, Reared-in-the-Mountains, Young Man, Chief.

We go to hear them say it.

Look! Look! they say, they say, the Gods are walking.

The Gods are walking.

Follow the trail of song.

Hu-Hu-Hu-Hu.

Look! Look! they say, they say, the Gods are dancing.

The Gods are dancing.

Follow the trail of song.

Hu-Hu-Hu-Hu.

Look! Look! they say, they say, the Gods are singing.