Code Talker Read Online Free PDF Page B

goat’s milk to the cow’s milk provided at the trading post.
    I walked over to Old Auntie. “Is there any goat cheese left?”
    â€œJust a little. I’m saving it for later. But breakfast will be ready soon.”
    Auntie took the soda bottle filled with sheep’s milk and fitted a nipple onto the top. She fed a lamb whose mother had abandoned her, holding the bottle with the nipple facing downward and tugging it gently, causing the lamb to suck noisily. It was unusual for a ewe to ignore her lamb, but fairly common among the goats and kids. So we always kept a couple of soda bottles and nipples on hand.
    I laughed, watching the hungry little animal. Despite her mother’s neglect, she was thriving. She’d adapted well to the bottle.
    The others joined us, and we six gathered around the campfire, a source of warmth and orange-tinged light in the still-dark morning. We ate the breakfast Old Auntie had made—blue cornmeal mush and goat’s milk. The herd was already restless, and just before sunrise it would be on the move, so we ate quickly in the wavering light cast by the fire.
    That day we would follow the three hundred sheep to a new grazing area, where we’d stay for a few days before moving on. Ewes and lambs made up our herd, along with a few goats and kids. The eight rams belonging to Grandmother, Shimásání (the old mother), were corralled until mating season. The really young lambs and kids were corralled separately, and didn’t accompany the herd until they were strong enough to keep up. When we had newborns in the herd—in the spring—we brought the mothers back to nurse them at night or nursed them by bottle. Later, when Grandmother’s herd more than tripled in size, the logistics became quite complicated.
    The sheep were placid and easy to care for. Even so, Old Auntie wanted us to be on constant alert. The twenty goats who also accompanied the herd were more lively than the ewes. Traditionally, Navajos had a lot of respect for sheep, and not so much for goats, although they were certainly cute and fun when they were babies. At any rate, combining sheep and goats was a common practice. The two species blended well.
    After breakfast, we all helped Auntie pack bedrolls, the remaining food, and the heavy water bag onto the big brown “sheep horse.” This horse lived on the range with the sheep and carried the items necessary for us Diné to survive.
    Snow, a white eighty-pound dog, stood alert at one side of the herd. Five other dogs took up their posts around the fringes. Then my two aunties, my uncle, my two brothers, and I moved out with the animals. We walked through deep grass, never worrying about our flocks having enough to eat. Other Navajo families shared the range, with no fences to keep anyone out.
    After grazing in one place for two or three days, Grandma’s herd moved on to new grass. I knew that the constant movement was good for the safety of the livestock. Predators did not gather in any one area, knowing where to find the animals.
    We followed the sheep. The day grew warm and quiet. A straggler headed toward a clump of juniper. I glanced at Old Auntie. She nodded, then watched me throw a small rock out beyond the lamb, turning her back in toward the rest of the herd.
    A gray shadow flashed off to my right. Coyote? The hated animals often lurked among the thick piñon and sagebrush. I stood absolutely still and waited, then carefully bent down and picked a stone, fitting it into the rubber of my inner-tube slingshot. Young Auntie held a coffee can filled with rocks at the ready. The noise of the rocks, when the can was shaken, would scare a coyote. But I heard and saw nothing.
    Just as I turned back to the herd, the sharp cry of a kid rang out. A coyote had grabbed the baby goat by the leg, pulling it into a clump of sagebrush. My heart beat fast as I aimed the slingshot, heard it thud, then charged toward the fracas.