trailer with books and maps and even a kitchen and a shower for the children. Oh, my Navajos are going places at last.” She gave an embarrassed laugh at her long speech.
“One place your Navajos can go is to Salt Lake City,” Hall growled. “Get the state of Utah to settle that quarrel about who owns the land your schools and hospitals are being built on. Then I can get my hands on some leases up there.”
“I thought the Navajo reservation was in New Mexico and Arizona,” Sandy said.
“A small part of it is in southern Utah,” Hall explained. “That’s the part bounded by the San Juan River.”
“The argument over school lands is less important than our other disputes,” Chief Quail said carefully. He spoke good English but his words seemed to be tied together with string. Plainly, he had learned the white man’s language not many years ago. “The real problem—the one that is, how do you say, tying up millions of dollars of lease money—is to have a correct boundary drawn around the Hopi reservation.”
“The chief means,” Hall explained for the boys’ benefit, “that the Navajo reservation forms a large rectangle that completely surrounds a smaller square of land in Arizona where the Hopi Indians live.”
“Not a square, Mr. Hall,” Chief Quail objected. “The Hopis really own only a small triangle. Those primitive, stupid cliff dwellers claim thousands of Navajo acres to which they have no right. If I had my way in our Council, I would…”
“The Navajos and the Hopis are all grandmothers,” Salmon cut in angrily. “Squabbling over money like palefaces! Spending their royalties on things like schools and hospitals! When my tribe, the southern Utes, got its first royalty check, the Council voted to have some fun with the money. We spent it to build a race track for our fast horses!”
“Digger Indian!” The Navajo sneered at Salmon without moving a muscle of his broad face. “Fish eater! Soon you will waste all your easy money. When the oil runs out you will be running about naked again, living on roots and fried caterpillars like you used to!”
“Oh, no, John.” The Ute’s grin was just visible in the gathering darkness. “Maybe we’ll go on the warpath and take what we need from you fat Navajo sheep herders, as we did in the good old days. Or—” he added quickly as the chief lunged to his feet—“we’ll sing you to death. Like this!” Salmon began a wailing chant that set everyone’s teeth on edge. The Navajo stopped his advance as if he had struck a wall. He clapped his hands over his ears and, after a moment, stalked out into the night.
“You shouldn’t have done that, Ralph,” Hall said coldly. “Some day Chief Quail is going to take you apart if you don’t stop baiting him.”
“Can you actually sing people to death, Mr. Salmon?” Sandy said to break the tension.
“Of course not,” the Ute answered softly. “But the chief thinks I can, and I wouldn’t spoil his belief for anything. We have a set-to like this every time we meet. Some of our medicine men can sing people well, though. They chant awhile and then pull the pain right out of your tooth, ear, or stomach.”
“What does a pain look like?” Quiz asked, half convinced.
“Looks just like a fingernail about two inches long,” the Ute answered. “It’s bright red. If you strike it, it goes tinnnggg, like the reed of a saxophone.”
“Stop your nonsense, Ralph,” White commanded, “while I go out and smooth Quail’s ruffled feathers.” He followed the chief and brought him back five minutes later to receive an oily apology from his ancestral enemy.
“You Indians will be broke again, one of these days, if you keep quarreling among yourselves,” Hall said then. “Crooked white men are hanging around the Four Corners. They’re just waiting for something like that so they can trick you out of your oil and uranium rights, or even your reservations.”
Everyone had to agree that this was true, so the little party settled down in reasonable harmony to watch the giant stars come out. Salmon produced a guitar after a while. Then he and Kitty sang Indian and Mexican songs together. Sandy particularly liked one that went:
I wander with the pollen of dawn upon my trail.
Beauty surrounding me, with it I wander.
“That’s a Navajo song,” the Ute said, grinning. “We sing it in honor of Chief Quail. Here’s one by a white man that I like:
Mañana is a lovely word we all would like to borrow.
It means “Don’t sheen no wolfs today wheech you don’t shoot tomorrow.”
An’ eef you got some jobs to did, of which you do not wanna,
Go ’head and take siesta now; tomorrow ees mañana!
“Guess that’s a hint we’d better take our siestas,” Hall said to the boys. “Big day ahead mañana.”
“This country sort of grows on one,” Sandy said to Kitty as they shook hands. “I’m beginning to feel at home already.”
“Oh, you haven’t really seen anything yet,” the girl answered. “If you and Mr. Taylor get up in the neighborhood of my school, look me up. I’ll show you some of the wildest and most beautiful country on earth.”
“Mother said I’d fall in love with the place.” Sandy took a last look across the sleeping desert. “She was born not far from here. Met my father when he was working for the U.S. Geological Survey.”
“How interesting,” cried the girl. “Maybe my folks know her. What was her maiden name?”
“It was Ruth Carson.”
“Oh!” Kitty snatched her hand out of his. “She’s related to Kit Carson, isn’t she?”
“The general was my great-uncle,” Sandy said proudly. “That’s why I’m so interested in this part of—”
He stopped because Kitty had backed away from him until her back pressed against the motel wall. As he stared, she spat into the dust of the patio in a most unladylike fashion before turning and running toward her room.
“What did I do to her?” Sandy gasped, open-mouthed.
“Kitty’s mother is a Navajo,” Chief Quail answered. “Back in Civil War days, Kit Carson rounded up the Navajos to take us away from our reservation. We went on the warpath and retreated into the mountains. Carson followed. His soldiers shot several dozen of us, and slaughtered all our sheep so we would either have to surrender or starve. Even today, many of us would rather eat fish as the Utes do than touch one of Kit Carson’s descendants!” He turned his back and marched off.
“Ouch!” Sandy groaned. “I certainly put my foot into it that time.”
“Don’t worry too much about it,” said White. “Fact of the matter is that Kit Carson made a mighty good Indian Agent later on, and most Navajos admit it. He was the man who insisted that they all be returned to the reservation after the rebellion was over. He eventually died from overwork in behalf of ‘his Indians.’ Except for a few diehards, the Navajos won’t hold your mother’s name against you.”
“I certainly hope you’re
