look belligerent. Look friendly and hope some of the modern Indian dialects we know can make connection with them.”
*
The two scientists began, at a gradual pace, to make their way toward the old man, the young man, and the girl. As they approached, the girl drew back slightly. The young man reached over his shoulder and from the furred quiver slung on his back drew an atlatl lance and fitted it to his throwing stick, holding it ready. The other warriors, all about, followed suit.
The medicine man alone stepped forward. He held up a short colored stick to which bright feathers were attached and shook it at the two white men. They stopped.
“That’s his aspergill,” observed Sidney. “I’d like to have that one.”
The medicine man spoke. At first the scientists were puzzled, then George told Sidney, “That’s Pima, or pretty close to it, just pronounced differently. It probably shows we were right in thinking the Pimas descended from these people. He wants to know who we are.”
George gave their names. The medicine man replied, “The man who has white skin instead of red speaks our language in a strange way. I am Huk.” He turned to the young man at his side and said, “This is Good Fox, our young chief.” He indicated the girl. “That is Moon Water, his wife.”
George explained what he and the other white man with him were doing here. Huk, along with all the other Indians, including Good Fox and Moon Water, listened intently; they seemed greatly excited and disturbed.
When George was finished Good Fox turned to Huk and said, “You have succeeded, wise one, in bringing us forward, far in the future to the time of these men with white skins.”
“This is the truth,” said the wrinkled Huk; he did not boast but rather seemed awed.
Moon Water spoke in a frightened tone. She looked about at the partially excavated ruins and asked, “But what has happened to our village?” She faltered, “Is this the way it will look in the future?”
“It is the way,” Good Fox informed her sorrowfully.
“I weep for our people,” she said. “I do not want to see it.” She hung her pretty face over her bare body, then, in a moment, raised it resolutely.
Good Fox shook the long scraggly black hair away from his eyes and told the white men, “We did not mean to harm you. We did not know what else to do upon finding you here and our village buried.”
Ignoring that in his excited interest, Sidney asked, “What year are you?”
“Year?” asked Good Fox. “What is this word?”
Both Sidney and George tried to get over to him what year meant in regard to a date in history, but Good Fox, Huk, and Moon Water, and none of the others could understand.
“We do not know what you mean,” Huk said. “We know only that we live here in this village—not as you see it now—but one well built and alive with our people. As the medicine man I am known to have extra power and magic in visions. Often I have wondered what life would be like in the far future. With this group I conjured up a vision of it, carrying them and myself to what is now here before us.”
George and Sidney glanced at each other. George’s lips twitched and those of Sidney trembled. George said softly to the Indians, “Let us be friends.” He explained to them what they were doing here. “We are trying to find out what you were—are—like. Especially what made you desert people leave your villages.”
They looked blank. Huk said, “But we have not left—except in this vision.”
In an aside to George, Sidney said, “That means we’ve caught them before they went south or wherever they went.” He turned back to Huk. “Have the cliff people yet deserted their dwellings?”
Huk nodded solemnly. “They have gone. Some of them have joined us here, and more have gone to other villages.”
“We have read that into the remains of your people, especially at Casa Grande,” Sidney told him. With rising excitement in his voice he asked, “Can you tell us why they left?”
Huk nodded. “This I can do.”
Now the glance of Sidney and George at each other was quick, their eyes lighting.
“I’ll take it down on the typewriter,” Sidney said. “Think of it! Now we’ll know.”
He led Huk to the table set in front of the tent, where he brought out a portable typewriter and opened and set it up. He sat on one chair, and Huk, gingerly holding his aspergill before him as though to protect himself, sat on the other.
Good Fox, Moon Water and the other Indians crowded about, curious to see the machine that came alive under Sidney’s fingers as Huk began to relate his story. Soon their interest wandered in favor of other things about the two men with white skin. They wanted to know about the machine with four legs.
George opened up the hood of the station wagon and showed them the engine. He sat in the car and started the motor. At the noise the Indians jumped back, alarmed, and reaching for their atlatls. Moon Water approached the rear end of the car. Her pretty nose wrinkled at the fumes coming from it and she choked, drawing back in disgust. “It is trying to kill me,” she said.
Clearly, she did not approve of an automobile.
George cut off its engine.
Over Good Fox’s shoulder hung a small clay water jug hung in a plaited yucca net. George asked for a drink from it and when he tasted it and found it fresh it was wondrous to him that its water was hundreds of years old. He brought out a thermos, showing the Indians the modern version of carrying water. They tasted of its contents and exclaimed at its coolness. Good Fox held the thermos, admiring it.
“Would you like to have it?” asked George.
“You would give it to me?” the handsome young Indian asked.
“It’s yours.”
“Then I give you mine.” He gave George his clay water jug and could not know how much more valuable it was than the thermos.
George then took them to the portable television set and turned it on. When faces, music, and words appeared the Indians jerked back, then jabbered and gathered closer to watch. A girl singer, clad in a gown that came up to her neck, caused Moon Water to inquire, “Why does she hide herself? Is she ashamed?”
The standards of modesty, George reflected as he glanced at the lovely nude form of the prehistoric Indian girl, change with the ages.
Of the people and noises on the TV screen Good Fox wanted to know quite solemnly, “Are these crazy people? Is it the way you treat your people who go crazy?”
George laughed. “You might say it’s something like that.”
A shout came from Sidney at the card table near the tent where he was taking down Huk’s story. “George! He’s just told me why the cliff people left! And why the desert people will have to leave in time. It’s a reason we never thought of! It’s because—”
Just then a big multi-engined plane came over,
