LITMIR.BIZ

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too much of that “take responsibilities” this last year. There had been a time when he could work with the men when he wanted to, and when work no longer interested him he could go away and find something that did. But a couple of years ago his father made the first talk about taking responsibilities and foisted onto him the biweekly church trips to Needles. Then it was the bookkeeping. Then it was the screw-fly patrol. Every newborn calf had to be found and have its navel doctored with antiseptic and pine-tar salve against screw-fly blow, so the screw-fly patrol was a tediously regular, unending job. It didn’t take all of South Boy’s time by any means, but it was another continuing curtailment of his freedom.

      He had the Yavapai roustabout to help him; but the Yavapai was a hired hand and an Indian besides, and wasn’t expected to take responsibilities. So if a newborn calf lay close under the low branches of a mesquite, as it usually did, it was South Boy who had to go into that mesquite. The Yavapai could pretend he didn’t see the calf. It was South Boy’s hide the thorns ripped while he got the calf out. It was South Boy who had to tie the calf and do the dirty work of doctoring while Yavapai got all the fun and excitement of fighting off the calf’s furious, red-eyed, bawling mother with the end of his rope.

      Sitting, watching the river, South Boy came to the definite decision that taking responsibilities meant taking on all the disagreeable jobs no one else wanted. “And the way they’re piling up on me I won’t have five minutes’ time for fishing by a year from now.”

      Somewhere in the “Gems of Great Literature” there was something said about the horns of a dilemma. South Boy knew then that he was caught between Hard Work and Exile-and-Involuntary-Confinement just as sure as he was at that moment sitting between two great limbs of a black-willow tree.

      Again came diversion. A big, gray, naked drift log was floating down the river, and on the middle of the log—stretched out belly down, his bandanna-wrapped head resting on a projecting snag that had been a root, one hand dangling down in the red-brown water, his clothes in a bundle on his broad back—rode a sun-blackened naked Mojave, singing a song about the Pleiades. Singing loud and full and hearty, as a mockingbird sings on a hot night.

      The log swung in on the Arizona side of the sand bar. The Mojave saw South Boy, raised his head, and pointed his wet hand upstream and shouted something about “Chemehuevi ah-way.”

      This second reference to Piutes certainly would have gained South Boy’s immediate attention if he had been in anything like a normal state of mind. As it was, he raised his hand in a languid salute and turned his head to watch the log shoot over toward the sand bar as it caught a sudden crosscurrent. The Mojave dropped his hand into the water and once more began singing, and the song and the singer faded away together around a bend in the river.

      There goes a man who is happy because he is an Indian, thought South Boy. An Indian was not faced with distressing alternatives, nor troubled by thoughts that raged in the back of his mind.

      All at once the heat became unbearable. South Boy slid out of the fork of the tree, down the bank, and into the cool water. He washed the caked mud from his head and ran his fingers through his half-long hair. Then he remembered what old Hook-a-row had said about twisting it into fifty strands and becoming a Real Person.

      South Boy rested his head on the root of the willow that projected just above the water and listened to the river grumbling like a drunken old man. It was talking Mojave:

      Kee-glug—glug—emk, it said, go—go, with a gurgle in the middle of the word.

      A great uprooted cottonwood tree came slowly tumbling through the current, end over end, top up first, leaf-covered branches held skyward for a moment, slowly falling over, disappearing beneath the water; then its torn and straggling roots came up to the sun, and down again.

      It made South Boy feel sad. Yet his troubles were fading out of his mind, and before he realized it, he was asleep.

      CHAPTER II

      THE HAWKS

      THE WILLOW’S shadow on the water was almost gone. The river was higher. It covered South Boy’s chest, and a wavelet lapped over his chin and filled his half-open mouth. South Boy sat up straight, sputtering, angry, surprised to see that the sun rode low over the stark, naked ridge on the Nevada side where Beale’s Trail crossed like a thin white scar.

      The river’s voice was louder, still talking—in garbled Mojave.

      Then another voice using good, plain Mojave spoke from above and behind, “I saw a dream on your face.”

      South Boy choked and looked up quickly to see Havek staring down at him from the willow’s fork. Then he smiled and spat out river water. Here was company. Here was the end of boredom and worry.

      “What did you dream?” Havek insisted. His black eyes were intent and his lips parted. He was a big boy, almost six feet tall—nearly “the size of a man,” as the Mojaves say. Being still under the jurisdiction of the government school at the Fort, he wore faded blue jeans and a hickory 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

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