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Updated: June 6, 2025
When the race of man had passed it would, perhaps, stand there still. It was not for many eyes to see. Only by toil, sweat, endurance, blood, could any man ever look at Nonnezoshe. So it would always be alone, grand, silent, beautiful, unintelligible. Shefford bade Nonnezoshe a mute, reverent farewell.
Shefford sensed in him a measureless grief, an impenetrable gloom, a tragic acceptance of the meaning of Glen Naspa's ruin and death the vanishing of his race from the earth. Death had written the law of such bitter truth round Glen Naspa's lips, and the same truth was here in the grandeur and gloom of the Navajo.
The Indian, with a hand clutching his mustang's mane, rode up a steep, sandy slope on the other side that Shefford would not have believed any horse could climb. The burros plodded up and over the rim, with Withers calling to them. Joe Lake swung his rope and cracked the flanks of the gray mare and the red mule; and the way the two kicked was a revelation and a warning to Shefford.
The aged Navajo lifted a shaking hand. "Me no savvy Jesus Christ! Me hungry!... Me no eat Jesus Christ!" Shefford then made signs that indicated the missionary's intention to take the girl away. "Him come big talk Jesus all Jesus.... Me no want Glen Naspa go," replied the Indian. Shefford turned to the missionary. "Willetts, is he a relative of the girl?"
But the white man sells him rum and seduces his daughters.... He will not leave the Indian in peace with his own God!... Bi Nai, the Indian is dying!" That night Shefford lay in his blankets out under the open sky and the stars. The earth had never meant much to him, and now it was a bed. He had preached of the heavens, but until now had never studied them. An Indian slept beside him.
The fact seemed to bring bitter reality to Shefford. Nothing was going to happen. The valley was to be the same this night as any other night. Shefford accepted the truth. He experienced a kind of self-pity. The night he had thought so much about, prepared for, and had forgotten had now arrived.
Shefford came to where the horses had plowed down a gravelly bank into the clear, swift water of the brook. The little pools of water were still muddy. Shefford drank, finding the water cold and sweet, without the bitter bite of alkali. He crossed and pushed on, running on the grassy levels. Flowers were everywhere, but he did not notice them particularly.
"It's pretty lonesome," said Shefford, hesitating as if at a loss for words. Then the Indian girl came up. Presbrey addressed her in her own language, which Shefford did not understand. She seemed shy and would not answer; she stood with downcast face and eyes. Presbrey spoke again, at which she pointed down the valley, and then moved on with her pony toward the water-hole.
Then the girl drew back a little into the shadow, while the man sat with his legs crossed and his feet tucked under him. His dark face was smooth, yet it seemed to have lines under the surface. Shefford was impressed. He had never seen an Indian who interested him as this one.
They were sleek, shiny, long-maned, long-tailed, black as coal, and, though old, still splendid in every line. "Do you remember them?" whispered Shefford. "Oh, I only needed to see Black Star," murmured Fay, her voice quivering. "I can remember being lifted on his back.... How strange! It seems so long ago.... Look! Mother Jane is going out to them."
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