Part 4

Beautiful Mountain looks so blue and so cold and so lonely now that the sun and the sheep and I are going.

If it were nearer to me and small, I could bring it into my mother's hogan under my blanket.

Then I need not leave Beautiful Mountain out there by itself in the night.

MEETINGS

For a long time there have been meetings of many men for many days.

At the meetings there is talking, talking, talking.

Some this way.

Some that way.

In the morning when my father leaves for meeting he says to us, "When I come here again then I will know if it is best to have many sheep or few sheep, to use the land or let it sleep."

But when my father comes home from meeting he does not know which talking-way to follow.

Tonight when my father came home from meeting he just sat, looking and looking.

My mother gave him coffee and bread and mutton, but my father just sat, looking.

Then my mother spoke to me.

She said, "A meeting is like rain.

When there is little talk, now and then, here and there, it is good.

It makes thoughts grow as little rains make corn grow.

But big talk, too much, is like a flood taking things of long standing before it."

My mother said this to me, but I think she wanted my father to hear it.

GOING HOME

After the sun has gone, my mother's sheep and I, we walk together, slowly, to my mother's hogan and the corral.

Most all the day my mother from her hogan door has watched me and the sheep to see that no harm came to us.

And now my mother comes to meet us.

She comes to welcome us as if we had been gone a long way, a long time.

Sometimes my father's singing comes to meet us across the sandwash.

It comes to meet us to sing us home.

Sometimes, the smoke from the supper fire comes to meet us across the dark blue of the night sky.

For me the hogan is waiting and the corral waits for the sheep.

NIGHT

Night is outside in his black blanket.

I hear him talking with the wind.

I do not know him.

He is outside.

I am here in my mother's hogan warm in my sheepskin close to my mother.

The things I know are around me like a blanket, keeping me safe from those things which are strange.

Keeping me safe.

IN SUMMER

IN SUMMER

Page

Today 105

Packing 106

Goodbye To My Hogan 107

Goodbye 108

Ready To Go 109

Goodbye Gray Cat 110

Across the Sand 111

Goodbye To Grandmother 112

Riding 113

Noon in the Sagebrush 114

Night Camp 115

Up the Trail 116

Summer Range 117

The Lake 118

Shelter 119

The Sheep Corral 120

Dawn 121

Morning Prayer 123

The Sheep 124

The Goats 126

Herding 127

Noon on the Mesa 130

Afternoon 131

Playmates 132

Possessions 134

Storm 135

Lightning 136

Fire 137

Rain 138

Evening 139

Supper 141

Talking 143

Sheep Dipping 145

Bedtime 146

The Star Song 147

The Artist 149

TODAY

Today we leave my mother's hogan my mother's winter hogan.

We leave the shelter of its rounded walls.

We leave its friendly center fire.

We drive our sheep to the mountains.

For the sheep, there is grass and shade and water, flowing water and water standing still, in the mountains.

There is no wind.

There is no sand up there.

PACKING

My mother's possessions we tie on the pack horses, her loom parts and her wool yarns, her cooking pots, her blanket and my blanket and the water jug, white sacks filled with food, cans of food, cornmeal and wheat flour, coffee and sugar.

My mother's possessions, we tie them all on the pack horses.

The packs must be steady.

The ropes must be tight.

The knots must be strong.

I cannot pack the horses, I am too little, but I can bring the possessions to my father and my uncle.

I am big enough for that.

GOODBYE TO MY HOGAN

My mother's hogan, I feel safe with your rounded walls about me.

But now I must leave you. I must leave your fire and your door.

The sheep need me.

I must go with them to a place they know, but that is strange to me.

I put my moccasins, my precious moccasins, by your fireplace, my hogan, so you will not be lonely while I am gone.

GOODBYE

Land around my mother's hogan and sheep trail and arroyo and waterhole, sleep in the sun this summer.

Rest well for my sheep will not be here to deepen the trail and arroyo with their little sharp feet.

They will not be here to eat the short grass, to drink the stored water.

Sleep, rest well, and be ready for our return.

READY TO GO

My mother scatters the ashes from her cooking fire.

She sweeps the hogan floor with her rabbit-brush broom.

My father lays the bough across the door to show that we have gone.

The dogs bark.

They run around the sheep corral telling the sheep we are ready to go.

The young corn in the field hangs its tasseled heads.

Young corn, my grandmother is staying at home.

She will take care of you.

My father mounts his horse.

He drives the pack horses before him.

My uncle mounts his horse.

They ride away together, singing, across the empty sand.

GOODBYE GRAY CAT

Gray Cat, I am telling you goodbye.

Today I go to the mountains.

I take my sheep to summer range, but you, Gray Cat, you have no sheep so you must stay at home.

Stay here with my grandmother, Gray Cat.

She will feed you.

Goodbye, Goodbye.

ACROSS THE SAND

My mother lets down the bars of the sheep corral.

The flock crowds around her.

The goats look at me.

I think they are saying, "We know where we are going."

The little lambs walk close by their mothers.

They are like me, they do not know if they will like this place where we are going.

My mother and I, we drive our sheep across the sand.

My grandmother stands at her door looking after us.

GOODBYE TO GRANDMOTHER

My grandmother, my little grandmother, now I am leaving you.

Last year I was too small to go to the mountains.

I stayed with you, but this year I am big, I am almost tall so I must help drive the sheep to summer range.

My grandmother, my little grandmother, do not be lonely.

I will come back again.

RIDING

Riding, riding, riding on my horse to herd the sheep across the yellow sand.

Yellow sand is around me.

Yellow sun is above me.

I ride in the middle of a sand and sun filled world.

Riding, riding, riding on my horse to herd the sheep across the yellow sand.

Sun heat and sheep smell and sand dust wrap around me like a blanket as I ride through the sand with my sheep.

NOON IN THE SAGEBRUSH

At noon we reach the sagebrush flats.

Gray-green sagebrush scents the air.

Gray-green sagebrush softens the yellows of the land.

My mother makes a little fire no bigger than her coffee pot.

Food is good and rest is good at noon in the sagebrush.

NIGHT CAMP

At night we make camp in the juniper covered hills.

My father is waiting for us there.

The moon looks down on the restless sheep on the hobbled horses.

The moon looks down on a shooting star.

But I am too tired to look at anything.

I sleep.

UP THE TRAIL

Morning sunrise sees us climbing up and up on the mountain trail.

There are pine trees standing straight and tall.

Brown pine needles and green grass cover the ground.

Shadows play with the sunlight.

There is no yellow sand.

The sheep hurry upward, climbing and pushing in the narrow trail.

I ride after the sheep.

My horse breathes fast.

His feet stumble in the narrow trail.

All day long the sheep climb upward.

They want to eat and I am hungry, too, but my mother says, "No."

All day long we ride to herd the sheep.

Night is almost with us when we reach the top.

SUMMER RANGE

Summer range in the mountains is on a high mesa, a steep, high mesa, a flat-topped mesa, with tall growing pine trees, with short growing green grass, with little, winding rivers and rain filled lakes.

This is summer range for our sheep.

THE LAKE

Between the trees I see water standing in a bowl of green rushes.

The water is quiet.

It is still and blue and cold.

It is a lake with land all around it.

It is a lake.

The sheep drink long and steadily.

They stand in the shallow water at the edges of the lake.

Their little pointed feet dig deep into the mud of the lake banks.

I see colored fish beneath the water swimming in a rainbow line.

I throw stones into the lake.

The water pushes back in circles to take the stones.

The dogs swim far out into the cold waters.

They are thirsty and hot.

I have never seen a lake before.

Gentle rain pools I have seen and angry flood waters, but never before a still, blue lake.

It is beautiful.

A lake is beautiful.

SHELTER

Beneath the trees I see our summer shelter.

My father and my uncle have made a shade to shelter us from night rains and from the cold of near-by snow peaks.

They have made us a shade of cottonwood boughs and juniper bark.

It has the clean smell that trees give.

THE SHEEP CORRAL

My father and my uncle made a sheep corral while they were waiting for the sheep and for us to come up the trail.

They made the sheep corral of branches, a circle of branches, a circle of dark colored boughs.

The sheep stay safe in their corral tonight and I sleep beneath the cottonwood shade.

DAWN

This morning when I opened my eyes from sleeping I could not remember what place this is.

I thought I was in my mother's winter hogan.

Now I remember.

This is summer camp.

Tall trees stretch above me.

In the darkness they look blacker than the night.

As I lie here, safe and warm beneath my blanket, all around me turns to gray mist, all around me turns to silver.

Darkness is gone, but it made no sound.

It left no footprints.

The world is still asleep.

Through the pine trees day comes up light comes up.

In the pine trees bird wings are stirring, bird songs are stirring.

I hear them.

I hear them.

The grass beside my blanket is wet with night rain.

Morning mist is on the leaves and in my hair.

I put one toe out, one brown toe out.

It is hard to get up when it is cold.

Blue smoke from my mother's fire curls upward in a thin blue line.

The sheep move inside their corral.

I come out from under my blanket, from under my warm blanket.

Like the other things around me, I come out to greet the day.

MORNING PRAYER

Silent and still my father stands before our summer shelter.

He is thinking a prayer to the Holy Ones, asking them this day to keep our feet on the trail of Beauty.

Filling the silence of my father's prayer I hear the bluebird's song.

THE SHEEP

The poor sheep are cold.

Their winter wool was cut off last week at shearing time.

When early summer painted flowers on the desert with bunches of new grass, when snow water melted and softened the hard earth, when Sun-Bearer smiled on the sheep and the people.

Then my mother said, "Now, it is shearing time."

My mother said that last week.

Last week it was shearing time.

Last week at shearing time, my mother caught her sheep.

One by one she caught them.

She tied their feet together and with her shears she clipped their wool.

My mother's hands were sure.

She cut the wool but once from underneath.

She did not fumble, cutting it here and there into short pieces.

She cut the wool but once.

Her hands were sure.

My mother's hands were strong.

She pulled the wool back.

She folded it back to come off in one piece.

My mother's hands were strong.

The sheep lay still beneath her gentle fingers.

Trusting my mother's hands, the sheep lay still.

But now the poor sheep are cold.

They stand in their corral this morning and shiver and bleat and call loudly for the sun and for me to come.

THE GOATS

Goats lead the sheep.

They go first into everything.

That is their way.

They are not afraid.

My uncle says in the English, "Goats are tough."

Goats eat the grass too far down.

They eat the trees too far up.

That is their way.

They do not care.

My uncle says in the English, "Goats are tough."

Goats, more than sheep, get into my mother's stew pot.

Their meat is good, but it takes chewing, too much chewing.

I say with my uncle, "Goats are tough."

HERDING

After we have eaten our morning food, my father and my uncle ride down the steep trail to the Trading Post.

My mother kneels beside her loom before the cottonwood shade.

I see the sun on my mother's brown hands.

I see the sun on my mother's black hair.

I give my mother a long look, then I turn my back.

I walk to the sheep corral.

My feet are brown.

My feet are bare.

The wet grass parts to make a way to let me pass.

I walk to the sheep corral.

My skirts are long.

My skirts are many.

The flowers move back to make a way to let me pass.

I walk to the sheep corral.

I let down the bars.

The sheep go first and I follow.

The sheep walk slowly for they like to eat the short sweet grass under the trees.

I walk slowly for I am lonely.

Things here are strange.

I am afraid.

I know that my mother sits before our shelter weaving a blanket at her loom.

I know she is near me, but I cannot see her.

I can see only tall trees and bits of sky.

I am a child of the yellow sand.

Mesa top and pine trees, green grass and colored flowers are strange to me.

Unknown things live here.

I am afraid.

I creep to the edge of the mesa while my sheep are feeding.

Far, far below me is the world I know, the yellow world of sand and wind and sand.

Far below I see sheep walking, someone's sheep walking, in a dust cloud of their own making.

Far below I see a sand whirl made by an angry wind fighting the land.

Far below I see the heat haze, colored heat haze blanketing the desert.

I see these things through tears for they are the things I know.

I am lonely without them.

Here on top of the mesa is a strange world of shadows and water and grass for the sheep.

Grass for the sheep, I had forgotten that.

Grass for the sheep to give them life, to make them strong.

Here on top of the mesa there is grass for our sheep.

Surely the gods are good who live here.

The sheep drink slowly.

Shadows sleep.

The quiet of the mesa pushes against me.

I can feel it, heavy, heavy, it pushes against me.

Surely, the gods who live here are known to me.

The words of the Holy Song are known to me.

"On top of the mountain are found the gods."

These are the words of the Holy Song.

NOON ON THE MESA

Day grows long and bright with sunlight.

The sheep eat their way to the rain lakes under the willows.

Little rivers run through the tall grass and hide away in the rushes.

I see a line of scattered clouds across the sky.

Sun-Bearer rests on his way to the House of Turquoise Woman in the Western Waters.

It is the middle-time of day.

AFTERNOON

Lying on my back under the willows I can see an eagle flying far above in great circles against the blue.

I feel and see and listen, but I do not talk.

There is no one to hear me.