Excerpt of Dance Hall of the Dead by Tony Hillerman

Chapter One Sunday, November 30, 5:18 P.M.

Shulawitsi, the Little Fire God, member of the Council of
the Gods and Deputy to the Sun, had taped his track shoes
to his feet. He had wound the tape as Coach taught him,
tight over the arch of the foot. And now the spikes biting
into the packed earth of the sheep trail seemed a part of
him. He ran with perfectly conditioned grace, his body a
machine in motion, his mind detached, attending other
things. Just ahead where the trail shifted down the slope
of the mesa he would stop -- as he always did -- and check
his time and allow himself four minutes of rest. He knew
now with an exultant certainty that he would be ready. His
lungs had expanded, his leg muscles hardened. In two days
when he led Longhorn and the Council from the ancestral
village to Zuñi, fatigue would not cause him to forget the
words of the great chant, or make any missteps in the
ritual dance. And when Shalako came he would be ready to
dance all the night without an error. The Salamobia would
never have to punish him. He remembered the year when he
was nine, and Hu-tu-tu had stumbled on the causeway over
Zuñ Wash, and the Salamobia had struck him with their
yucca wands and everyone had laughed. Even the Navajos had
laughed, and they laughed very little at Shalako. They
would not laugh at him.

The Fire God half fell onto the outcropping of rock that
was his regular resting place. He glanced quickly at his
watch. He had used eleven minutes and fourteen seconds on
this lap -- cutting eleven seconds off his time of
yesterday. The thought gave him satisfaction, but it faded
quickly. He sat on the outcrop, a slender boy with black
hair falling damp across his forehead, massaging his legs
through the cotton of his sweat pants. The memory of the
laughing Navajos had turned his thoughts to George
Bowlegs. He approached these thoughts gingerly, careful to
avoid any anger. It was always to be avoided, but now it
was strictly taboo. The Koyemshi had appeared in the
village two days ago, announcing in each of the four
plazas of Zuñ that eight days hence the Shalako would come
from the Dance Hall of the Dead to visit their people and
bless them. This was no time for angry thoughts. Bowlegs
was his friend, but Bowlegs was crazy. And he had reason
to be angry with him if the season did not forbid it.
George had asked too many questions, and since George was
a friend he had given more answers than he should have
given. No matter how badly he wanted to be a Zuñ, to join
the Fire God's own Badger Clan, George was still a Navajo.
He had not been initiated, had not felt the darkness of
the mask slip over his head, and seen through the eyes of
the kachina spirit. And therefore there were things that
George was not allowed to know and some of those things,
the Fire God thought glumly, he might have told George.
Father Ingles didn't think so, but Father Ingles was a
white man.

Behind him, above the red sandstone wall of the mesa, a
skyscape of feathery cirrus clouds stretched southward
toward Mexico. To the west over the Painted Desert, they
were flushed with the afterglow of sunset. To the north
this reflected light colored the cliffs of the Zuñ Buttes
a delicate rose. Far below him in the shadow of the mesa,
a light went on in the camper near the site of the
anthropologist's dig. Ted Isaacs cooking supper, the Fire
God thought. And that was another thing not to think
about, to avoid being angry with George. It had been
George's idea to see if they could find some of the things
made by the Old People in the Doctor's box of chips and
beads and arrowheads. He would make use of it on a hunting
fetish George had said. Maybe make one for both of them.
And the Doctor had been furious, and now Isaacs would not
let anyone come anymore to watch him work. Crazy George.

The Fire God rubbed his legs, feeling a tightening in the
thigh muscles as breeze dried the sweat. In seventeen more
seconds he would run again, cover the last mile down the
mesa slope to where George would be waiting with his
bicycle. Then he would go home and finish his homework.

He ran again, moving first at a slow jog and then faster
as the stiffness left. Sweat again dampened the back of
his sweat shirt, darkening the stenciled letters that
said "Property of Zuñ Consolidated Schools." Under the
angry red sky he ran, into the thickening darkness,
thinking of crazy George, his oldest and best friend. He
thought of George collecting cactus buttons for the doper
at the hippie commune, and eating them himself in search
of visions, of George going to the old man at the edge of
Zuñ to learn how to become a sorcerer, and how angry the
old man had been, of George wanting to quit being a Navajo
so he could be a Zuñ. George was certainly crazy, but
George was his friend, and here now was his bicycle and
George would be waiting.

The figure which stepped from behind the boulders in the
red darkness was not George. It was a Salamobia, its round
yellow-circled eyes staring at him. The Fire God stopped,
opened his mouth, and found nothing to say. This was the
Salamobia of the mole kiva, its mask painted the color of
darkness. And yet it was not. The Fire God stared at the
figure, the muscular body in the dark shirt, the bristling
ruff of turkey feathers surrounding the neck, the black
and empty eyes, the fierce beak, the plumed feathered
topknot.