Sing Down the Moon Read Free Page A

away. The one who spoke had a soft voice and many white teeth and long black hair.
    "A fine day," he said, "but we are lost. Which is the quick way to Corn Mountain?"
    I knew little Spanish then, not so much as I do now, yet I understood him. I pointed to the north
west and said that there was a trail near the rim of the canyon and that Corn Mountain was two leagues beyond as the eagle flies.
    While I was saying this, I saw something that I should have seen before. The other Spaniard held the reins of two horses, which he had been leading. Their saddles were empty and I knew in the time a breath takes that these men were slavers. For many years now they had come to the Navaho country and stolen girls to sell to families in the town who needed girls to cook for them and to wash their floors. One of the Navaho girls had escaped and come back to Canyon de Chelly and told us what had happened to her.
    The man with the white teeth glanced in the direction I was pointing. But from the corner of my eye I saw the other Spaniard come toward me. Running Bird screamed and fled across the meadow and screamed a second time. The Spaniard who had asked me the question caught her long before she reached the trail. Suddenly there was a cloth in my mouth and my hands were behind me and tied hard with a thong.
    My black dog was rushing around, barking and nipping at their heels. The Spaniard who had a flat-shaped head and a yellow scar on his chin struck him with a rifle and he lay still. Then they put us on the
two horses they had brought and tied our hands to the saddle horns.
    "We will not harm you," the Spaniard with the white teeth said. "You will like the place you are going. Do not try to flee."
    We went south along the mesa. As we passed the head of the trail, I looked for White Deer, hoping that she would be coming up with her flock and would see us. I saw no one. We took the Dawn Trail to the lowlands and at dusk reached the river, far below our village.

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    W E LEFT the canyon at a fast trot and did not halt until shadows began to lengthen. We rested beside a stream while the night gathered. The Spaniards made a small fire and warmed corncakes. They offered Running Bird and me some of the food, but we said that we were not hungry.
    All of the time we were there by the stream they kept their eyes on us. Often they would stop whatever they were doing to listen for the sound of hoofs.
They did not know that all of our young warriors were away in the west and only the old men were left in the village.
    A thin moon came up. We started off again, going southward into the country I did not know, through scattered groves of piñón pine and low hills deep in grass. Running Bird and I rode close together, sometimes holding hands for comfort. At first we were too frightened to speak, but as the night wore on we began to plan how we would escape from the Spaniards. They were riding in front of us and whenever they talked we had a chance to whisper to each other.
    "They will have to sleep sometime," Running Bird said, "and then we can flee."
    "If they hobble the horses," I said, "we can go on foot."
    "It is better on foot," Running Bird whispered. "We can hide easier without the horses."
    "We must go the first chance we have," I said.
    "Soon," Running Bird whispered. "At dawn if we can."
    When the moon set and it was too dark to travel, the Spaniards halted again. We thought that our chance to flee had come, but the men before they laid down to sleep bound Running Bird and me with leather thongs, tying our hands and feet so that we could not stand or crawl, or scarcely move.
    The Spaniards slept until the sun was high. They offered us water, which we drank, and cold corncakes. The man with the flat head did not like it that we would not eat the cakes and threatened us with a stick. Still we did not eat.
    We traveled until dark and waited for the moon to rise and started off once more into the south, riding along a dim trail through open