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There in the black northern sky, a huge reddish glow stretched from the horizon up into the atmosphere. Not just a faint glimmer, but a spectacular light show dancing to the left and right with bright white-hot beams shooting over us past the highest point in the sky. "A UFO!" someone shouted. (I knew that was coming…) But really, could this really be happening or was it a hallucination?? Just what WAS in the chai tea we had been drinking? What we were gawking at was in fact a large solar storm, a rare phenomenon we could not have seen in the City. Here in the high desert, the flare-up was so bright it startled the onlooker, a light show as vivid and shocking as the Aurora Borealis on a clear Alaskan night. Flagstaff is home to the Lowell Observatory with good reason. So there we were, gazing red skies at night with a rugged assortment of backwoods hippies. I was officially not in the city anymore, I thought…
The next morning as we awoke, I looked out the window and saw the three resident horses standing rigid in the early sun. It was a good sight, reminding me we were on a true ranch. Their coats glowed as they stared at nothing, stoic and noble. We quickly brewed some coffee and embarked on what was to be a very memorable day… Annie was thinking about moving out to Navajo country and caretaking at her friend Ed's uninhabited ranch. My mission was to escort her there and see if it would be a good place to live. The Navajo country is completely in the sticks. The serious sticks. And even if America's second most visited national parkwais only 60 miles away, it is a different reality out on "the Rez" and it is a world away from the amenities of the Grand Canyon and the menacing RVs. We headed out down a two-lane highway, flat and long. Eventually, we turned down a dusty road to out right that led to the property. Flat plains and plain grey scrub stretched far into the horizon, with only the Hopi mesas and a huge mountain range visible in the distance. It was rugged out here, we agreed. As the first watering hole passed behind us, we began to look carefully up ahead for the narrow, unmarked driveway to the encampment. It was dusty and hard to see anything, even straight in front of us. A few cattle lounged in the hazy shade of some cottonwood trees and payed only slight notice to us as we passed by. The heat of the day was starting to bear down. I could only imagine July out there. As we cleared another curve Annie said, "There it is." * * *
Two Dalmations, born and raised there on the property, whimpered with excitement as we parked and got out. They had been visited only twice a week in recent months so they kept getting red dirt on our clothes as they jumped up and down and all over us. Anne nicknamed them the Pink Dalmations because their coats were smothered in the distinctive dirt of Northern Arizona. Two of their puppies peered out from a mound under the trees as we walked closer to the first house. Man, I thought, these animals must be damn rugged even if they did look pretty in pink. The ranch was remote. REALLY remote. If someone screamed here, no one would hear. The sound of a gunshot wouldeven fade away before a tangible outpost of civilization could register it. And in the unlikely event that it did reach a far-distant human ear, the Navajo had few restrictions on firearms. No one would pay much care to the sound of a gun around here. Here we were. The fenced-in property sprawled out for an acre, with four adobe structures, a decrepit well, solar panels, and a small garden scattered over the hot, dusty soil. Each building was partially built into the ground to insulate it and provide cooling. Native rocks peered out from the earthen walls and darkened, recessed windows gave a bunker-like feel to the place, making it look like a frontier rebel hideout. I saw the house shotgun and instinctively picked up as we walked around exploring the property. I looked at Anne to see her reaction and I reckon she was speechless. The desolation of a place like this can only be understood when it's staring right at you. Yet it was beautiful in a detached, silent, mystical sort of way. Even if Anne was looking to live closer to the rez, we couldn't help but conclude it was a little too isolated… Over the fence from nowhere, actually. The only sound now was the humming of the solar panels and a faint breeze. The sun was getting hotter; it was noontime. Water is everything in a place like this and a faint dripping sound became audible as we approached the well, a sizable open water tank sporting a few strands of moss, a couple of catfish and a family of guppies. Hopefully this wasn't the drinking supply. I thought about diving in despite myself. We stayed a while longer and then headed off to
our next destination, Hopi mesa.
We drove an hour down the two-lane highway through the Navajo Rez; every ten minutes or so we'd pass a car. The scenery was stunning, just wide-open grassland with beauiful red cliffs and rock steeples everywhere. Soon we were on Hopi land and parked below the First Mesa, traditional Hopi territory and a long-standing sacred center where the elders hold prayer vigils and conduct ceremony for days and days on end. Of all the tribes in North America, the Hopi have a particularly unique way. It is thought they migrated from South America to settle in their current home in Northern Arizona 1,000 years ago. Here they crafted a culture unique to the Southwest and their new homeland helped inspire an oral history strongly drawing from the three mesas where we walked. The very deep past of the Hopis is carried on through oral tradition by the elders, woven with meaning and prophecy and centered around The Hopi Declaration of Peace. It is said that at the beginning of the cycle of life, the Hopis were brought together with the creator, Massau'u, and representatives of the three other races… The red, white, yellow and black. Each was given a stone tablet with the Creator's instructions to leave in peace on the planet. All four are said to be safely stored away. Eventually it is said, these four races will be united again and the return of the tablets will herald an age of brotherhood unlike any other time. I could see the reason they have been entranced with this area for so long - it is mystical and intricate country. Giant cubes of rock -- violet, red and brown -- burst forth from the cliffsides and scatter below like open books. Those still standing upright watch from the cliffs with weathered, noble Indian faces, and create a protective wall around the ancient village. We soon found ourselves on top of the mesa looking out upon vast, beautiful plains that spread out for hundreds of miles before us. The light green of the prairie grass looked thick like carpet. Distant buttes and scattered red vertical rock faces jut up to the sky. Around us were ancient cliff dwellings that still had residents. In fact, there was a whole community up here the likes of which I'd never seen. One thing's for sure: outsiders did not come to this neighborhood often. It was FAR from tourist/RV country! Some homes had semi-modernized structures built
around them and over them and the color of red adobe was everywhere: every
house's walls, their rooftops, and the dirt below. STORY TO BE CONTINUED... |
