"Scott O'Dell - Sing Down The Moon" - читать интересную книгу автора (O'dell Scott)

One night my mother said, "It is time for the girl to become a woman. Tomorrow I will send word of the Womanhood Ceremony."
On the first day of Kin-nadl-dah, twenty-one relatives and many friends came to our hogan, also Bitter Water, the medicine man, and his singers. My mother dressed me in my best tunic and gave me all her turquoise and silver jewelry to wear. She combed my hair so that it fell loose around my shoulders and tied it in the middle with a string of sacred buckskin.
Everyone told me how handsome I looked. My aunt, who was very old and never had been married, said that I was too pretty for any man she had ever seen. I walked back and forth in front of the hogan, so all my relatives and friends could look at me.
I walked there for only a short time, because my mother brought four sacks of corn from the storehouse and led me to the big grinding stone.
"The Womanhood Ceremony lasts four days," she said, "so we need lots of flour to eat. You are not good at the grinding stone, but now you must put your mind to it and make four full sacks of fine meal."
In my best clothes and my borrowed jewelry, I knelt and began to grind the corn. I worked for only a short time.
My cousin came to me and said, "Wood is scarce."
I laid my grinding tool aside and went to the bottom of the orchard and chopped an armload of wood and stacked it in front of the fire. Then I began grinding corn again. After a while, one of the neighbors handed me an empty jar.
"Your mother tells me," she said, "that goat's milk is needed."
I jumped up and ran down to the river and found a goat and milked it and brought the jar back. Again I began to grind the corn.
Then my uncle came. "Your aunt wishes a blanket," he said.
It went on in such a fashion all that day. Everyone wanted something. Everyone gave me orders. I was flying here and there and between times I knelt at the grinding stone. This was to make me industrious and obedient, my mother said.
During these four days, early each morning I had to run east, south, west, and north, as though I was running a race. This was to make me a good runner. Furthermore, I could not eat sweet things nor anything with salt in it, nor drink too much water. Nor was I allowed to scratch myself. And I was told to sleep as little as possible. These things were to make me comely.
The fourth morning men relatives dug a large hole in front of the hogan and kept a fire burning
there all day. Toward evening when the fire died down, the women lined the hole with corn husks and poured in a lot of mush, covering it over with more husks.
At nightfall we ate some of the corncake and went into the hogan and I sat on the west side across from the door. Then the medicine man sang the twelve songs. The other singers chanted lucky songs about sheep and jewelry and soft goods. They chanted all night. I had to keep awake and listen or else I would have bad luck.
Just before dawn my mother gave me a basket with water and yucca root in it and helped me to wash my hair. Then, as the sun came up, I ran out from the hogan toward the east, past the orchard and the cornfield.
All the boys ran after me, even Tall Boy, who still had not gained his strength. We raced to the river and back again. But it was not a real race to see who could run the fastest. For if any of the boys had won, had beaten me by so much as a step, then they would become old and toothless long before I did.
I had hoped that Tall Boy would not try to run at all. But he was the first to start after me. I ran much slower than I could, hoping that it would help him. This he did not like. He shouted at me to go faster.
"You run like an old woman," he cried.
I went a little faster and came to the river and floundered around, pretending to slip on the grass bank.
"My grandmother runs faster than you," he said.
His words made me angry and I began to run as fast as I could and left him far behind. Pale and out of breath, he came in last. The rest of the morning he went around scowling. I tried to make him smile but he would not forgive me for running fast, even though he had taunted me.
"You do not need to feel sorry about my arm," he said. "It is getting stronger every day."
"Soon you will be bending a bow," I answered.
"You do not think so, but I will bend many bows before I die," he said.
"I think so."
"No one thinks so, but I will," he said.
That afternoon when the relatives and friends and the medicine man and his singers had gone, my mother sent me to the field. She gave me a sack of pinto beans and a long pointed stick. Though I was now a woman, I had to work the rest of the day planting seeds.
Tall Boy rode through the field on his way home, but did not stop.
"You think that I went to the white man's village just to rescue you," he said as he passed. "You are wrong. I went there for another reason."
I watched him ride away, sitting stooped in the saddle, one shoulder lower than the other, and my heart went out to him.
The pinto beans pushed up through the earth and the peaches began to swell. Wool from the shearing was stored away for winter weaving. My father and brother went into the mountains and brought back deer meat which we cut into strips and dried. It was a good summer and a good autumn.
Then early one winter morning three Long Knives came. They were from the white man's fort and they brought a message from their chief. When all of our people were gathered in the meadow one of the soldiers read the message, using Navaho words. He read fast and did not speak clearly, but this is what I remember.
People of the Navaho Tribe are commanded to take their goods and leave Canyon de Chelly.
The Long Knife read more from the paper which I do not remember. Then he fastened the paper to a tree where all in the village could see it and the three soldiers rode away.
There was silence after the soldiers left. Everyone was too stunned to speak or move. We had
been threatened before by the Long Knives, but we lived at peace in our canyon, so why should they wish to harm us?
Everyone stared at the yellow paper fastened to the cottonwood tree, as if it were alive and had some evil power. Then, after a long time, Tall Boy walked to the tree. Grasping the paper, he tore it into many pieces and threw them into the river. We watched the pieces float away, thinking as they disappeared that so had the threat of the white men. But we were wrong. At night, in the dark of the moon, the Long Knives came.
The morning of that day we knew they were coming. Little Beaver, who was tending his mother's sheep, saw them from the high mesa. He left his flock and ran across-the mesa and down the trail, never stopping.
He fell in front of his mother's hogan and lay there like a stone until someone threw a gourd of water in his face. By that time all the people in the village stood waiting for him to speak. He jumped to his feet and pointed into the south.
"The white men come," he cried. "The sun glints on their knives. They are near."
"How many?" Tall Boy said.
"Many," cried Little Beaver, "too many."
My father said, "We will take our goods and go into the high country. We will return when they are gone."
"We will go," said other men.
But Tall Boy held up his hand and shouted, facing the elder Indians, "If we flee they will fol-
low. If we flee, our goods will remain to be captured. It is better to stay and fight the Long Knives."
"It is not wise to fight," my father said.
"No, it is not," my uncle said, and all the older men repeated what he said.