shirt, and his thick hair was shingled. But being on a vacation at that season of the year his neck was wrapped with perhaps a thousand strands of small blue and white beads, making a very uncomfortable-looking bundle. Across his lap were a six-foot bow and seven hunting arrows, such as any Mojave boy would carry, whether he was in school or not.
South Boy studied for a moment, trying to remember his dream. While it was no matter to him he wanted to oblige Havek, for he knew the great importance Mojaves attached to dreaming; but the dream, when he remembered, seemed such a trivial thing he didn’t want to talk about it. Finally he said: “It was nothing. White people always dream nonsense.”
“No,” said Havek promptly. “Your ghost saw something important. I saw it on your face!” He was leaning far out from the tree, staring almost directly down at South Boy. The flesh on his brown chin quivered so that its two vertical lines of blue tattooing wriggled like little snakes.
“Just dreamed of two hawks, and nothing more,” said South Boy.
Havek came down out of the tree as though a bee had stung him. Standing on the bank, clutching his bow and arrows in his left hand, he wiped the sweat from his face with his right sleeve. “Truly!” he whispered. “He’s told me truly!”
By this time South Boy began to share some of Havek’s excitement. He searched his mind and could not remember anybody ever having told him about the importance of hawk-dreaming. He clambered out of the water and stood dripping on the bank, diffident about showing too much interest for fear Havek might be making game of him. He knew it was a Mojave trick to make a great to-do about some small matter and then break out laughing when the victim began to take it all seriously. Still, Havek wasn’t much of a joker.
South Boy picked up his shirt and overalls and doused them in the river to wash away the dried mud. He got into his clothes, shivering a little. The air was little cooler than when he had come to the river; but a strong gusty wind was blowing, and working the same magic on his wet clothes as it did on the water jar.
Finally he said, “What does a hawk-dream mean?”
Havek spoke out of a deep study. “I’m not certain. Complete knowledge in such matters was not given to me. You are white, so it may mean nothing. We must go ask some old man.”
Well, South Boy decided, he’s certainly in earnest about it. Then he said, “I saw Hook-a-row going down-river this morning. We can trail him. He won’t go far.”
Havek shook his head. “My trail goes north. In the north there’s a very great hota holding a boys’ sing beyond the Fort. Can you go there? It is important.” He spoke in greatest earnest.
“Well,” said South Boy, “that’s better than sitting here like a toad on a lump of mud. Let’s go.”
“But you may not be coming back directly. Fetch something. Be prepared to be gone some days.”
“Good!” said South Boy. “There’ll be four days of this crazy weather and nothing to do. I’ll go home and get my shotgun.” And he started off toward the ranch.
“Leave the gun. Bring a bow,” Havek called after him.
“I broke my bow,” said South Boy.
“Leave the gun, anyway,” said Havek. “It’s too heavy for traveling.”
Thus to escape boredom, with no idea as yet of escaping the horns of his dilemma, South Boy set out on his fateful journey. When he got to the ranch he heard noises that told him the cook was again in the summer kitchen; so he stuck his head inside the screen door and told her he was going visiting and would be gone two or three nights. The cook began thanking the Virgin and the twelve apostles, naming them one by one.
South Boy went to the house and crawled under the back gallery to the hole where the cat had her kittens. From it he took a fishing line with several hooks attached, wrapped around a stick. Then he began to dig in the soft dirt at the bottom of the hole, which was temporarily free of kittens. Three or four inches down he uncovered a bundle carefully wrapped in a greasy rag. He unwrapped the rag and there, well-swathed in axle grease, was a new nickel-plated revolver . . . a weapon that was very dear to him because it was forbidden.
Six months ago he had sent his life’s savings to a Chicago mail-order house and in due course this treasure had been sent to him. No one knew about it, not even Havek. He broke the gun to see that it was loaded, a needless procedure because he knew he hadn’t used the last six cartridges he had left in the cylinder a couple of weeks before. He snapped it shut, tucked it under his belt inside his shirt, and backed out into the yard.
Almost as an afterthought he went into the kitchen, took one small box of soda crackers from a shelf and three or four handfuls of black, salty strips of jerky from the meat bin. One of these he crammed into his mouth, sucking gratefully at the salt which his body craved after much sweating.
Thus with a fishline, a box of crackers, a half pound of jerky, an old broken pocketknife, a little water-tight case full of sulphur matches (two items he was never without), and a belly-gun (the latter only a sort of talisman) South Boy felt himself equipped to go anywhere the Colorado flowed.
His clothes were dry now, so that he found the return trip to the river very hot; but he was buoyed up by the prospect of spending the night at the “sing,” and by the tantalizing mystery of the hawk-dreaming.
Why was Havek so excited about it?
There was more excitement when he got to the river. He went down into the water to his knees, stooped to drink his fill, slopped water over his head till his half-long hair was dripping-wet, and climbed the bank.
There stood Havek, leaning on his long bow. The seven hunting arrows were thrust into the back of his belt, and in his right hand he held a three-foot willow rod a little thicker than a man’s thumb. Bound to this were four carefully fletched arrows. Unlike the hunting arrows, unlike any ordinary Mojave arrows, these had iron points—small, longish, triangular, and quite sharp.
“Apache arrows!” cried South Boy. He had never seen the like twice in his life.
“There’s a war,” said Havek.
“You go making war with those arrows and the agency police will jug you!” South Boy warned.
“Far,” said Havek, jerking his chin toward the north. “Faraway war!”
Then South Boy remembered he had twice heard mention of Piutes that day and he opened his mouth to ask Havek for talk, but Havek was already trotting away along the river bank.
The sun was very low. The trees made much shade. Even when they had turned inland and had passed through the willows and the cottonwoods and were shuffling through the gourd vines in the wide spaces between the mesquite trees, there was still shade. And the wind continued to blow, making the heat bearable. They traveled at a little trot, like roaming dogs.
Suddenly South Boy found himself very content and very comfortable. There was meat and water in his belly and there was salt in his mouth, for he was chewing another strip of jerky. The thoughts that came from the back of his head to worry him were gone entirely. He was a different person. He was his old self. He cared nothing for the future at all—not even for the answer to such tantalizing questions as “Why Apache arrows?” and “What means a hawk-dream?” He just felt good.
He began chuckling to himself as he jogged along. Havek
