John glared down at us from the summit near the cabin. He didn’t say a thing about her face, or the dance, but you could see him adding it up in his head. “You are really something,” he said, making it half praise and half mockery. She said, “Yippee ki-yay, cowboy.” “My cabin,” he said, and strode off. She hesitated, shrugged, and followed the boss. “I’ll wait in your cabin,” I said. I started looking around inside. Like the rest of us out on the rez, Harry Goulding improvised everything. Without materials, the basics of living required creativity. We found uses for empty cans and cardboard boxes you wouldn’t believe. So Harry made these cabins catch-as-catch-can. There was no timber for twenty miles, all the way to San Juan River, so Harry made the cabins from stone, which was free and available underfoot. He traded some Navajos cans of Mr. Coffee, what the Navajos call Hosteen Cofay, and Bluebird flour to mason the walls. They put the buildings up fast and went to a little trouble only for the roofs, like Indians and whites did all over this country.
