"But with this old man... under the medicine bags and bundles of rawhide onthe walls, he saw layers of old calendars, the sequence of years confused and lost as if occasionally the oldest calendarsr had fallen or been taken out from under the others and then had been replaced on top of the most recent years. A few showed January, as if the months on the underlying pages had no longer been turned or torn away.

Old Betonie waved his hands around the hogan. 'And what do I make from all this?' He nodded, moving his head slowly up and down. 'Maybe you smelled it when you came in.

'In the old days it was simple. A medicine person could get by without all these things. But nowadays...' He let his voice trail off and nodded to let Tayo complete the thought for him.

Tayo studied the pictures and names on the calendars. He recognized the names of stores in Phoenix and Albuquerque, but in recent years the old man had favored Santa Fe Railroad calendars that had Indian scenes painted on them- Navajos herding sheep, deer dancers at Cochiti, and little Pueblo children chasing burros. The chills on his neck followed his eyes: he recognized the pictures for the years 1939 and 1940. Josiah used to bring the calendars home every year from the Santa Fe depot; on the reservation these calendars were more common than Coca-Cola calendars. There was no reason to be startled. This old man had only done the same thing. He tried to shake off the feeling by talking."