Canyon de Chelly
The Navajo mounted on his paint pony looked wistfully at the hand and footholds cut a thousand years ago. They snaked precipitously up the steep rock face perhaps some 2,500 feet to the canyon rim and 500 feet vertically. I followed his gaze and added less than solemnly, “Wow, scares me just to look at that! Have you ever climbed that in your life?”
He indicated that he had—many times. Now having been born at night, but not last night, I had both heard and read that the Navajo will sometimes spin tall tales about their special places, provided the recipient is sufficiently gullible.
“Aha!” I thought. I said, “Terrill, why in the world would you risk life and limb to make that climb, where you would always be one misstep from the Promised Land?”
“Well”, he said, “there was a wonderful woman who lived up there. She and I were together for nine years, and she finally agreed to meet me at the altar. Unfortunately she passed away just before we could be married.”
The remarkable beauty, scope and grandeur of Canyon de Chelly can evoke many feelings. At that moment, one of those feelings was a deep melancholy that I believe I shared with my Indian friend.
We had joined the Caza Ladron Hunt from Sante Fe, New Mexico on this remarkable sortie into the Navajo Reservation in northeastern Arizona. Caza Ladron’s equivalent of Indiana Jones, Dr. Richard Patton, MFH, decided that what could be better than a mounted, geographical, archeological, geological, anthropological and visitational opportunity in this magnificent canyon preserved by the National Park Service and the Navajo? Canyon de Chelly is a magical place, reputed to have been first occupied by ancient people some 4,000 years ago.
Thirty-one riders were accompanied by seven Navajo guides. This group—some mounted on different breeds of field hunters and some on Navajo ponies—rode out on this fast warming mid-October morning some eight miles into a National Monument which stretches for fifty miles or more. The natural beauty, the pictographs, the petroglyphs, the ancient Anasazi ruins, and the enormity of the huge rock faces made me too feel like Dr. Jones in the *The Last Crusade.* That portion of the movie filmed in Petra in Jordan had nothing on this, except maybe the old knight, who instructed Indiana to “choose wisely.” This we had already done as evidenced by our presence in the valley.
Lunch was great at the turnaround point, catered by an assemblage of wonderful Navajo residents and cooks. Just when I thought that it couldn’t get any better, I remembered that we would be joined by a group of our mounted Navajo friends on a foxhunt on the reservation the next day.
Moving off to draw the desert
By 0920 the next morning we were ready, some forty of us ranging in age from eight to well-chronologically seasoned. With some seven couple of hounds that wife and whipper-in Phyllis had brought the 300 miles from the kennel near Sante Fe, huntsman Brian Gonzales, MFH blew “Moving Off.” I knew from their expressions and questions that the Indians did not quite know what to expect. Could these pilgrims ride like the wind after that creature, the coyote, who is represented in Navajo lore as both a trickster and powerful being…and across a fixture that might best be compared in size to a small European monarchy? Well, that’s a “You betcha!”
From a good vantage point with magnificent western vistas one cannot adequately describe, I was advised that a quarter-million acres could be seen. The desert was warming rapidly and several lines were run. Hounds would be on line aggressively and then lose as the scent rose rapidly hurried along by a southern wind. Where a coyote had perhaps urinated on his rounds, the hound feathering and checking would be frenetic, the line found, aggressively pursued in full cry and then peter out…to be found again…and again…sometimes slowly and haltingly like the coyote had evaporated and sometimes like he had been there mere seconds before.
From perhaps three quarters of a mile away, the hilltopping group viewed Mr. Coyote for better than a minute. As the hounds, huntsman, staff, and field thundered on line hard to the south, the coyote did a 180-degree turn and one invisible ground fold away (invisible to all but the hilltoppers), moved swiftly to the north. He perfectly paralleled the hounds and field, but in the opposite direction. A point of the hunt cap and *tallyhos* were offered, but the distance obviated those offerings. The hilltoppers were unanimous in agreeing that the guile and resourcefulness attributed to the coyote by the Navajo people is certainly well-earned. After three hours of hell-bent-for-leather riding, I believe a mutual respect for the riding capabilities of both the Indians on their Navajo ponies and us folks in the “funny saddles” was earned.
“Good dogs you have there,” was heard.
Brian Gonzales was able to water hounds in a tank (Arizonian for windmill-fed water holes) along the way, and the 1,000 gallon water trailer brought to our hunt-breakfast-in-the-desert by Navajo host Levi was (as you may imagine), well-received by our canine and equine compatriots.
Thank you Navajo Nation and Caza Ladron Hunt! A bucket-list entry crossed out!
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Posted March 19, 2012