Sleepwalk by John Saul

white people in Borrego who do the same thing Nothing to do is nothing to do, whether you’re Indian or white. And I think maybe that’s why the Kokatí have always stuck so close to the old ways. They have a lot to do in the pueblo. They’re still farming their fields the old way, still hauling their water up from the canyon, still doing everything else just the way they’ve always done it. They don’t havetime to go out and get drunk, and they won’t even accept any money from the Bureau. Of course,” she admitted, “they’re a lot luckier than most of the tribes. They still have almost all their old land, and they were never displaced.”
    Jed’s expression reflected his scorn. “If everything in the pueblo is so great, then how come my mother didn’t stay there?” he asked.
    Judith held Jed’s eyes with her own. “It seems to me,” she said, “that maybe that’s a question you ought to ask your grandfather.”
    Jed was silent for a moment, and when he spoke, his voice was hard. “All right,” he said. “Let’s do it.”
    Digging his heels into the flanks of the black gelding, he clucked to it, slapping the reins gently against the horse’s neck. Immediately the big animal broke into a fast trot, and Jed guided it directly toward the pueblo.
    They slowed the horses to a walk as they approached the pueblo, finally dismounting when they were still fifty yards away, tying the reins to a rail where five mules stood, their ribs showing clearly through their skin. They were work animals, nearly worn out from years of climbing up and down the steep trails that led from the mesa to the desert floor, their backs deeply swayed from the heavy weight of the ollas they carried as they hauled water up to the pueblo. They whinnied softly as Jed and Judith tied the two horses up, and shied away from the bigger animals, as if resenting their presence. For their part, Blackie and Ginger ignored the mules, choosing instead to begin munching on the straw that was strewn around the hitching rail.
    Jed and Judith skirted the edge of the pueblo’s ancient cemetery, then made their way down a narrow alley between two of the main structures of the pueblo. The alley opened into a plaza after fifty feet, and they paused to look around.
    In the decade since Judith had last been here, nothing seemed to have changed at all. A few women were working in the courtyard, constructing pots out of coiled ropes of clay. A little girl, no more than two, was playing with a wad of the soft clay, already trying to imitate the actions of her mother, rolling the clay between her tiny hands, looking almost surprised when bits of it dropped away into the dust in which she sat.
    For a few moments the women didn’t seem to notice them at all, but finally one of them looked up and smiled. “Jed! You finally decided to come up and see us again?” Then her eyes shifted to Judith and suddenly lit up. “Judy Sheffield!” She began speaking fast in Kokatí, and a moment later Judith was surrounded by five women, all of them asking questions at once.
    Jed watched the warm welcome Judith was receiving, and wished he hadn’t agreed to come here at all. Once again he felt like an outsider, while Jude, who wasn’t one of them at all, was being treated like a long-lost relative. One of the women turned to him. “Are you looking for your grandfather?”
    Jed felt himself flush slightly, but nodded his head.
    The woman tilted her own toward another of the narrow alleys. “He’s in the kiva.” Then she turned her attention back to Judith, and a moment later Jed, feeling as if he was being watched from every dark door and window in the pueblo, crossed the plaza and stepped into the shadows of the narrow passageway.
    He followed the alley, emerging onto the wideapron that lay between the pueblo and the rim of the canyon. Midway between the pueblo’s wall and the lip of the precipice, a low dome rose up a few feet. From its center a ladder emerged from