Out On Navajo Mountain

Old Man Bedonie from Navajo Mountain stood there. He was an older man with a square chin and a speckled gray beard. His hair was still as black as coal and he looked North toward Utah and thought of his grandchildren.

His son had married one of those Beligana girls from Salt Lake and his son had said they were going to be married forever. They had five kids and of all his children he never had to worry about him. they always seemed be doing well. The kids came to spend time on Navajo Mountain with them when they were small, running around the place, chasing after the sheep finding out what a summer sing was and having to have to cut and haul wood. They learned to grow corn through dry farming and then one day his son called.

He told his father that his wife had run away with his best friend; after a little while more he called and said she took the kids and house too so he was all alone now. That was years ago. Those kids never came back after that.

Old Man Bedonie looked at the screen door and it was silent now. It used to bang open and shut as those kids ran in and out and now those little ones were lost to them. They were being raised as Beliganas (White People). He sat down and thought of all their names and remembered the names given them each one named after a sheep. He thought about how they used to run and play. He held each one when they were small and he thought will they remember this old beat up place or try to forget they ever came here.

He sometimes thought of them from time to time. They liked to ride the horses and he had to hide the bridles and halters to keep them off the horses sometimes riding but barely hanging on by the tail. The black and the painted one;.one slow horse and the other fast. They used to like to ride them all the time.

Now the horses were old and had not been ridden in a long time. They just kind of stood around now and slept and ate moving slowly. Ii guess just kind of like him. That was maybe ten or twelve years ago since those kids had been around the place.

Bedonie went about his work around the house looking north every once in a while as if he could see them way up there but they were not there.

His son from Teec Nos Pos (Place with a Circle of Trees) came with his children and they stayed a few days and brought life back to the place; fixing up the corral and hauling hay from Cortez.
It was getting on toward evening and as he was sitting at the table having a cup of Navajo Tea and then he heard the screen door open and then it closed slowly. He turned around and saw a young woman maybe 20 years old dahtsi (maybe) and she said, Hi Grandpa

Before he could say anything else the other children had heard her voice, her long lost cousins came in and saw her from the other room and grabbed her and took her in there. He didn't get a chance to talk to her. Her cousins, her brothers and sisters in the Navajo Way of speaking took her in as if she had just gone since yesterday and he could hear the talk and the laughter as they sat and spent time with each her.

The old man just sat down and remembered a little girl with light brown hair. He remembered she wrestled a goat to the ground long ago.trying to ride him and he kept throwing her down and now after all these years she had made her way back here to this place far from anywhere and she was home.

The old man just sat there and laughed and smiled to himself and went to the door and threw out his tea and looked at the stars. Bedonie thought it is good to have my grandchildren home together. They will go on and we will continue on and with that he sat outside and with he could see the corral that even the old horses had a lively step to their gait and he thought I guess I am not the only who missed her.....rustywire