“What an extrahordin’ry culture, actually,” he murmured, “to hold to archaic customs in the face of the ridicule they must receive from some quarters—such as gaping tourists.” He was silent for a moment. “I say, let’s ask the chap in for coffee—it’s a deuced cold morning.”
The Indian smiled, showing dazzling white teeth against his rosy copper skin as I handed him coffee. His high-cheek-boned face was decidedly handsome; I decided he was probably a bit more than middle-aged, but certainly the man breathed of vitality and health. He was like a fresh breeze in a musty room. His manner was gracious and natural, his English excellent, even colloquial, with sudden humorous uses of current slang. He said he didn’t work often for the lady from Texas—only occasionally when he needed ready cash. He lived at the pueblo, farmed his land, cared for his stock. Sometimes when he felt like it, he painted pictures of horses or made poetry about the birds. His name, he said, was Joe Sun Hawk.
I had just refilled his coffee cup when there was a knock at the door, and without waiting for an answer the lady from Texas burst in.“Kid,” she said to Sun Hawk, “I’m not paying you to drink coffee. I’m paying you to chop wood.” I tried desperately to think of something cutting to say, and Lord Freddy, I knew, was speechless with anger.
As time went on, the situation became worse. An aura of depression, if not actual evil, hung over the mean little house, and we spent days wandering the village looking for anything habitable. We also went to a few rather spiritless art exhibitions and several literary evening parties. Lord Freddy finally declared if he had to listen to another intellectual dissection of Proust or post-mortem on Henry James, he would scream.
“Blahst it,” he said, “I came to be with Indians—not a bally bunch of intellectuals.”
But that was difficult, if not down-right impossible. We had learned that not only the Indians themselves preferred their aloof seclusion, but also the United States Government frowned upon whites living at the pueblo. True, a few men had achieved it, but women were absolutely taboo. It seemed that many years before, two white women had been invited to live at the pueblo but had not conducted themselves with the dignity to which the Indians were accustomed. The tribal council then passed a law excluding them forever.
It was bitterly cold the morning I arrived for coffee to find the kitchen full of smoke and Freddy nearly strangling. The stovepipe had fallen down. When he finally got his breath, Lord Freddy swore vehemently. “Not even in England are things worse muddled,” he choked. His eyes were full of tears, and I suspected not entirely from the smoke.
I opened the door to let in fresh air just as Sun Hawk dismounted from a sturdy, shaggy horse. “Gee whiz!” he exclaimed, as the smoke poured out. He shook his head deprecatingly and said, “What a place to live!” Without more ado, he set about fixing the fallen pipe. When it had been temporarily repaired, and we were finally drinking our coffee, Sun Hawk remarked casually, “She told me not to come here.” His eyes twinkled as he added, “She said you are a bad woman and that he is a tramp.” When he rose to go, he grinned and said, “I am only an indio,” and he shot a quick, humorous glance at Freddy, “but there is always faith, hope, and Cherokee!” And he left, chuckling to himself.
It couldn’t have been more than two or three days afterwards that I arrived at Freddy’s kitchen door to find Sun Hawk’s farm wagon drawn up before it and Sun Hawk and Lord Freddy hurling his possessions into it. Traveling bags, clothing, books, firewood, groceries went in indiscriminately. Freddy paused for breath.
”I am going to live in a cottage in Sun Hawk’s mother’s orchard.“ He giggled a little. “Sun Hawk seems absolutely terrified that She will come and accuse him of stealing her tenants. We want to get away before She returns.”
Sun Hawk had been going through the house like an Indian tornado. Finally he tossed a pair of shoes onto the pile and said with a grin, “All aboard, Freddy, for the pueblo. We’re sorry to leave you, Ruth, but we’ll be seeing you.” He clucked to the horses, slapped the reins on their backs, and Lord Freddy and Sun Hawk went rumbling off. I stood rather in a daze, thinking a little bitterly that it’s a man’s world after all.
Epilogocito (Little Epilogue)
Yesterday I had lunch in the little house in the orchard with Lord Freddy and Madrecita, Sun Hawk’s mother, who has completely adopted Freddy. Madrecita must be over seventy, but her hair is shiny tar black; her wise old Indian eyes follow her adopted son’s movements with affection. She is fat and comfortable—and utterly lovable. She speaks little English, but the understanding which my cousin and she have reached does not seem to need many words.
We sat in the tiny, snug living room, gay with Indian blankets and pottery that Madercita herself had made, before the whitewashed Indian fireplace, drinking small glasses of plum wine that she had also made. The Aztec puppy bounced about happily outside; a horse ambled up to look in the window and went on. A long line of Madrecita’s white ducks quacked questioningly at the door for food. Freddy broke up bread and threw it to them.
“Y’know, my deah,” remarked Lord Freddy, “actually, it’s quite remarkable, don’t you think, for an Englishman to be rescued by American Indians?” He was thoughtful for a moment. “Madrecita, Sun Hawk, and I have already begun to collaborate on our language project. I have already found authentic relationship between many words of the Taos dialect and Chinese. Perhaps we shall make great discoveries…”
What Lord Freddy and the Indians may discover, no one yet knows. But I do know that in a hectic world which has won a war but not a peace, in the little house in Madrecita's orchard under the shadow of the sacred Taos Mountain, there is an aura of quiet contentment that is almost tangible.
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