Sandoval sang then the chant of the Big Fly, and how he had come to The People to tell them that Black God and the warriors were returning victorious from their war against the Taos Pueblo and how the two girls had been sent by the people to carry food to the war band. This was the last chant before the vomiting and Sandoval was glad of that. It was the second day of the Enemy Way. His voice was hoarse and he was tired and there was still much to be done, much ritual to be completed before this man was free of the witch trouble. His daughter had been right and he should have listened to her. He was eighty-one (or eighty-two by the white man's way of counting) and loaded with too many years to conduct a three-day Sing like an Enemy Way.
Sandoval dipped the ceremonial gourd into the pot, filling it with the hot, milky fluid, and handed the gourd to Tsosie.
"Drink all of it," he ordered, thinking you shouldn't have to tell a man that. And, while Tsosie drank, he sang the last two chants. He refilled the gourd and handed it to Agnes Tsosie and then to the two sons. Let the others get their own, Sandoval thought, and he ducked past the double curtains hung over the hogan doorway to see if the time was right.
Outside the air was cool, almost cold after the closeness of the hogan. The eastern horizon was turning from red to yellow and Sandoval saw it was about the right time. He pulled back the curtains and called to Tsosie.
"Go out there behind the brush shelter," he ordered, "and remember that to make it right you want to vomit out the witching just as you can see the top rim of the sun coming up." When Tsosie came past the curtain, Sandoval handed him a chicken feather.
"Just when the sun is first coming up," Sandoval reminded him. "If the medicine isn't working, stick that feather down your throat."
Sandoval sat on the ground and leaned back on the wall of the hogan, relishing the coolness. He would have about thirty minutes before the vomiting was finished and then one more chant to sing while Tsosie and his family were rubbing the juniper stew on their bodies. Then it would be time for the people from the Stick Receivers to arrive. Sandoval yawned and stretched and looked out across the brush flats where the visitors were camping. Probably four or five hundred, he thought, and there would be more arriving today, mostly women bringing their girls to look for husbands at the Girl Dance tonight, and young men looking for girls, and gambling, and drinking, and trouble. Sandoval had meant to think about the ceremonial, to think just good thoughts and keep in harmony with the event. But he couldn't help thinking how times were changing. Mostly they came in their pickups and cars now. There were dozens of them parked out there and just a few wagons. And that was part of it. The white man's machines made it easy to travel about and people came just to visit and fool around. In the old days there wouldn't have been any drinking and gambling at a ceremonial like this. Sandoval watched a white carryall with the humped buffalo insignia of Law and Order drive up across the flat, and a man in blue jeans and a checked shirt get out of it and talk to a woman starting a cook fire near one of the pickups. The woman pointed in Sandoval's direction and the man came walking toward him.
He was short, with heavy shoulders and a Roman nose, and when he stopped in front of Sandoval and said, "My grandfather, I hope all is well with you," his voice was very clear and distinct. Sandoval, who had noticed lately that most young people mumbled, liked this. He invited the young man to sit beside him.
"I am called Joe Leaphorn," the young man said, "and I work for Law and Order," but after that he talked about other things-about the rains starting early this year, which was good, and about drinking and gambling at the ceremonials, which was bad. Sandoval approved of this, knowing that the policeman would get around to his business in good time and appreciating that here was a young one who knew the old and patient ways.
"There has not been an Enemy Way in this country in a long time," the policeman said, and from the way he said it, Sandoval thought that the time had come for business.
"I guess," the policeman added, "that they had a Star Gazer, or a Hand Trembler come." It was not a question, exactly, but the tone confirmed Sandoval's guess. The policeman was talking business now.
"Hand Tremble," Sandoval said. "They got Jimmy Hudson to come out here and hold his hand over Charley Tsosie and Hudson found out he had been witched. Hudson said the witch blew something on him."
"There was a man lived out here who they called Luis Horseman," the policeman said. "I wonder if he was a witch?"
"I don't know about him."
"I guess the Enemy Way will work even if you don't know who the witch is. But, my grandfather, I am an ignorant man about many things. There were no Singers in my family and I don't know how the Scalp Shooter gets the scalp if you don't know who the witch is."
"They know something about him," Sandoval said. He was enjoying this. Enjoying the young man's finesse and the sparring with words.
"I knew a Hand Trembler once who was wrong. He said a ghost had got at my uncle's brother's son and they had a Shooting Way Sing for that. Turned out he had tuberculosis."
"Hand trembling's not much good usually," Sandoval agreed. "But this time he got it right. They said this Navajo Wolf came down and bothered Tsosie's sheep in the night and Tsosie saw him. Looked like a big coyote but it was a man. And then after Hudson came and hand trembled, they got one of the outfit who knew some of the chants and they did a blackening on Tsosie and after that he felt better for a little while." Sandoval hadn't liked the remark about tuberculosis. He wondered sourly if the young man believed in witches. The policeman had a white haircut. Not the way the Changing Woman had taught. He was looking out across the sagebrush flat now, thinking. Sandoval guessed the next question would tell him something.
"My grandfather, I am using too much of your time today, but I keep wondering about this. I know you have never listened to gossip but I will tell you something you might need to know for your Sing. This man Horseman is dead now, and if he was the witch, you might need to know about it for the way you hold the Sing."
Sandoval wondered why the policeman thought a man named Horseman was the witch. The question would come now. Maybe it would tell him.
"As I said, I am ignorant about many things. I know it would be easier to cure Tsosie if the witch was already dead. But how would be the best way to kill the witch?"
Sandoval turned the question over carefully.
"The best way is with clubs."
The policeman was looking at him closely now. "Would it be a good thing to smother him? To pour sand over his head?"
"I never heard that. Sometimes with clubs and sometimes they shoot them." Sandoval was puzzled. He had never heard of Horseman and he had never heard of a man being killed like that. He saw Tsosie was coming back now from behind the brush shelter and he got to his feet. His bones felt stiff and he was irritated. He suspected the young man had left the Navajo Way and was on the Jesus Road.
"My grandson, I must go back into the hogan now. But now I have a question for you to answer. Tell me if you believe in witching."
"My father taught me about it," the policeman said. "When the water rose in the Fourth World and the Holy People emerged through the hollow reed, First Man and First Woman came up, too. But they forgot witchcraft and so they sent Diving Heron back for it. They told him to bring out 'the way to get rich' so the Holy People wouldn't know what he was getting. And Heron brought it out and gave it to First Man and First Woman and they gave some of it to Snake. But Snake couldn't swallow it so he had to hold it in his mouth. And that's why it kills you when a snake strikes you."