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and I walked with the sheep in the place whose name meant “Among the Oak Trees.” I could picture it so clearly. The view from Grandmother’s land was beautiful in all seasons. Patches of bright green in spring, with the new buds on the oaks and scrub oaks. Masses of silver-green in summer, with the chamisa and sagebrush growing as tall as a small adult. Splashes of gold and red in autumn, when the oak trees changed color. Red and white in winter, the snow deep and nourishing over the brick- and tan-colored soil. And a powerful sky watched the changing seasons, turquoise blue and studded with stark white clouds—a view you drank in like cold water on a sweltering day.
    When I arrive home after this war, I promised myself, my father will be happy to learn how the Navajo language helped the troops. My family will be proud of my part in developing the top secret code. I just had to make it through, so I could see Chichiltah again.
    I smiled, remembering the sheep and goats, the sound of their bells. The baby sheep and goats wore jingle bells, and the adults a kind of small cowbell, nothing too loud, just enough noise to reveal their location if they wandered off. I loved the sound, like soft chimes in the dark. Maybe, if I concentrated, I could block out the gunfire and hear, instead, the bells.

CHAPTER TWO
    Sheepherding, Back on the Checkerboard

Mid-1920s
    The smell of Auntie’s coffee and the bleat of a lamb woke me well before sunrise. Opening my eyes to slits, I looked for Old Auntie. Was she still angry? Yesterday my older brother Coolidge and I had lagged behind the herd, playing with our slings. We got in trouble with Old Auntie.
    Ah! There she was, piling juniper branches onto the campfire. Her form etched a black shadow against the dark gray of the landscape. Shimá Yázhí (“auntie” or “little mother”) hummed as she worked. She must be in a better mood.
    I turned and stared up into the dark. The sky arched above me, decorated by First Man and First Woman with familiar groupings of stars. The rain had stopped. Lying still, I savored the aromas of earth, wet piñon, and sagebrush. The comforting smell of damp wool and the fragrance of juniper sticks burning in Auntie’s fire told me that all was as it should be. I breathed quietly, not wanting Old Auntie to know I was awake. In a few minutes I’d get up and start chores.
    I hadn’t heard the owl last night. That was good, because the previous night its screeching had awakened us. If the owl followed us, it meant there was trouble—even death—brewing, and we’d have to find a medicine man to set things straight. I’d been born in winter, and this was my sixth spring, but I already knew the importance of the “Right Way.” Things must be in balance.
    Even before sunrise, I could picture the wide-open country, thousands of unfenced acres, that surrounded me. The land spread out like a random-patterned blanket. Piñon, juniper, and oak trees stretched in dense, intermittent bands. Occasionally, the delicate blue-green foliage of cedars interrupted the yellower green of their relatives, the junipers. 11 In the open areas, silvery chamisa sprang up in the rust-colored earth. Cactus, too, thrived: many-branched cholla and flat-lobed prickly pear. Yucca plants, with sharp, swordlike leaves and spectacular white flower clusters, stood like soldiers. And over everything stretched the sky—at times boiling with thunderheads, at others a bottomless inverted lake of pristine blue. The sun ruled supreme, making its powerful presence known nearly every day.
    â€œShimá Yázhí,” I said, “I’m awake.”
    â€œMe, too,” said Old Auntie’s twelve-year-old sister.
    My two older brothers, Charlie Gray, in his early twenties, and Coolidge, in his teens, rolled out of their bedrolls. Uncle, Auntie’s late-twenties brother, just a couple of years younger than Old