Pow Wow at Fort Duchesne

The Pow Wow grounds sit off just the highway, the main thoroughfare
connecting Salt Lake City to Steamboat Colorado, it is a two laner, a
narrow road that runs through the rez. It has a large Pow Wow ground,
planted in grass this year and large shade arbor forms a semi-circle
around it with an opening on the east side where the flagpole sits. It
is a level area, and scattered around are campsites, where native
people and some visitors from around the world have come to take in
the Pow Wow this year. Just to the south of the Pow Wow circle are the
stew stands, temporary indian cafes set up to serve hamburgers,
lemonade, indian tacos, coffee and lost of fry bread.

On the North side of the Pow Wow arena there are many small shade
covers set up, where under them people have come to sell jewelry,
bones, hides, t-shirts, sandpaintings, pottery, and trinkets of all
sorts. Some camp next to their site with license plates from Montana,
New Mexico, Wyoming, Washington and Oklahoma. They have all their
goods layed out for anyone to come and see.

A young mother, a Ute woman brings her small child to the shade arbor
surrounding the Pow Wow circle. It is July and she has spent some
hours sewing a dance outfit for him. It is a small one, since he is a
year and half old. She never learned to dance herself, her family
never taught her, but she wants her son to know all about so she is
going to have him grow up in the way of Pow Wow traditions so he can
grow up to be a fancy dancer. She sets up the camping chairs in the
second row, and prepares to stay there all day. It is early afternoon,
the grand entry is at 7 tonight, but there will be intertribal dances,
where everyone who comes can get out there and shake a leg.

A drum group, River Cree from Enoch, Alberta, a small place west of
Edmonton in Canada gets here after driving 21 hours straight. They
find an open spot under the arbor to sing for the next four days.
There is room for fifteen drum groups to sing here. Word has spread
the prize money is going to be as high as $30,000 this year, so the
best dancers in Indian land are on the road to compete and dance. They
have to be here by 7 tonight for Grand Entry. The are coming with
names like Blackbird from Macy, Nebraska; Leaf from Standing Rock,
North Dakota, Denny from Rocky Boy, Montana and Largo from Coyote
Canyon. They will join the Windyboys, Sammaripas, Eaglechiefs,
Cesspooches, Blackhairs, and so many others who have come to dance and
see other wearing their new outfits and beadwork made over the long
winter. The River Cree boys go to the North side of the arbor and find
a good spot, they bring their chairs and set them up then they then go
to find an open stew stand to eat some frybread and a cool drink.

An extended cab Chevy truck with a horse trailer is parked next to a
stew stand on the East side, on the side of his shade covering it says
Silvereagle. A Navajo guy in a baseball cap is stepping out of the
horse trailer carrying flour for fry bread. He has an easy smile, his
name is Clinton Jim. He came with his wife, two sons and daughter and
they are serving frybread, mutton sandwiches, Navajo tacos, Navajo
burgers-a hamburger sitting in a piece of frybread served with green
chili. He comes from Eastern Navajo, a place called Crownpoint. This
is how he makes his living, he is headed to Taos next week, and then
to Dulce at Jicarilla Apache, then to Ohio for the Sac and Fox
celebration in the next month. He looks at you with a smile and asks
how you want your food and they make it fresh for you while you stand
there. There is line at his stand full of brown faces waiting for the
frybread.

Mexican Bob comes up and though he is 62, he hasn't gray hair on his
head and he has been hauling shade and setting up arbors for those
coming to camp. He has lived among the Utes for twenty years or more,
his face is golden brown from working a lifetime as a landscaper in
the local area, everyone knows him. He is thin, agile and moves like
someone half his age. His real name is Pete, he says someone named him
Mexican Bob a long time ago and the name stuck. He was born in Los
Angeles a long time ago, moved with his father to a mining town and
met his wife working as a migrant worker, and he came to this place
and now it is his home. He has son who is six years old that follows
him around closely, he wants to be just like his dad when he grows up
he says.

A young man, a new dancer makes his way around the arbor to families
setting up their chairs, putting in their water coolers and snacks for
the long day ahead. He is from Reno, and is learning to dance, can
someone help with how to tie a roach on, and he doesn't know how it
stays on top of his head so it doesn't fall off when he is going to
dance. A guy from Lapwai steps up and shows him to run his hair
through the top and to braid his hair to make it tight on his head. He
learns from someone who has been dancing a long time. He tells him
when you are ready come back to us and we will make sure everything on
your outfit is fastened on tight. You lose points for losing part of
your stuff when you dance and it is bad luck.

The announcer for the Pow Wow, the MC steps up to the mike and tells
everyone that Grand Entry is at 7, but that drum groups can gather in
fifteen minutes to sing an intertribal song to warm up their voices.
By the way he says, at the last Pow Wow someone lost their husband and
at the end of the Pow Wow no one claimed him. He says he brought him
along just in case his wife is here. Anyone that wants him can claim
him at Lost & Found. He would like someone to take him home, so he
won't have to take him back to Canada with him.


Let's see it's time to find a spot around this place to sit and watch.
Oh, yes, there is a place right behind the young mother. She is
sitting there in the shade, her son dressed to dance; he wears a
silver concho belt. I know it well since I made it for him. The drum
groups bring in their base drums and the sound of beating drums is
heard around the arena.

The MC sends out word and the drums gather in the center of the Pow
Wow arena, there are eight of them from many different places. They
set up their chairs all together. They are going to sing a song all
together, all eight drums. They sit down and in anticipation of what
is to happen the sound of eagle bone whistles resound throughout the
Pow Wow grounds. Dancers and singers run to the arena and a crowd
gathers to see these drums sing altogether. The arena fills with
dancers, young children, older women in traditional buckskins, young
men with large feather bustles making noise as they walk from their
bells ready to dance. Old men with their traditional outfits, grass
dancers and a lot of others who are not dressed who want to step into
the circle to take part in this beginning.

Just then the song starts and a the wail of the singers of all eight
drums sounds out.

WWWWHHHHAAAAAAAAAYZYYYYUHHHHH!

The song beings and the Fourth of July Pow Wow at Fort Duchesne
begins...

rustywire

Ke' the binding tie

"Shaa alchin e"- means all my children.

It is Thanksgiving and for us also a time of birth. It was a night
unlike this one when I sat up after feeling the movement of something
tiny and small moving against the wall of her stomach. She was from
the mountain country, having lived her life on the high plains with
her people. When I met her I liked the way she laughed and she had
long black hair hanging down to her waist and she could run like the
wind. She was now my wife. She didn't know my land or people, her way
of life was one of being raised on deer meat, pow wows and in her
language they call the circle of life-Noohrahvoop.


I can remember it plainly as it were this evening. We were young, and
had no money, just two rez kids starting out in life. We lived in a
small apartment, we were lying in bed when she said she felt something
in her stomach. it was the touch of a fleet soft flicker of life. I
can remember her eyes twinkled at the feel of this child, my child
moved for the first time inside her.

I looked at her, her hair hung loosely covering her breasts and just
parted over her stomach. I will always remember her sitting halfway up
and resting against the headboard just like that. I reached out and
touched her. She is a shy person and felt awkward that I was trying to
feel the movement and we laughed a little at one another. It was a
cold winter night, and we were alone together, no one but us. I had
never been here before, to know that this small tiny person growing
was reaching out and letting us know he was there and making his
presence known. This was not like any other night, this was our life
growing.

What will the future hold? Where will we be years from now? How will
things be as he gets older? How can such a thing be, a miracle, this
young life growing?

We have to find a horse, I said. She looked at me with large brown
eyes and said, Why? She said the flutter was there again. I sat up and
looked at her squarely. She looked curiously at me. I told her. When
it is time for him to be born, we will have to pack you up and take
you to the mountain, to the forest up there. There was a mountain
outside our window. He will need to born in the old way. She looked at
me as if I were nuts. She said, it will be snowing in November when he
is born, and what makes you think it will be a boy. I said, I always
planned to have my first child being a boy. It is the way it was
always supposed to be. She said. I'm sure. I said, don't you hear it?
What, she said. I looked at her and told her it is in the wind, the
mountain tops are calling his name. The rustle of trees know it. She
just looked at me and said, you're crazy.

I find myself this evening remembering what is to wait to hear the
sound of a baby's cry, a small voice sounding out that a new century,
a new life has taken root. My son who was a flicker of life is now
grown. He has just had a new daughter born to him born in the past few
days and my only daughter is just now waiting to hear the sound of her
own child making his way into the world. Where will they go and what
will they be? I am not sure, but looking back I stand with my father,
and his father and his father all the way to the time we began just
like a small voice, a new born held by a woman, our mothers who took
great pains to care for us from then to now. It begins again and
though I have not seen him yet, I know a little about him. I live a
little through him, though he has no name yet, but then he is one of
my children, a part of myself that will go on.

How far we have come, Ke' (family tied together by a mother's womb),
there is no english word for it. It binds us all the way back to when
the forests, valleys, mesas and plains were our only home. Going all
the way back to a time we can not remember, but lives in the stories
and legends of our clans, family and people, of those who were here
first.

My daughter spoke with me a little while yesterday and said she needed
some leather, some buckskin to make the cradleboard fit him. When he
is placed in it, he will be surrounded by zig zag lightning from his
feet to his head, which will be protected by a rainbow and shaded from
the sun. The long boards come from a tree, not too far from where we
have always lived. This young woman, my daughter now grown sat at the
feet of my own father as a child. I remember them talking and he told
her the story of how the cradle board is made and how the child is
wrapped. She was just a kid back then. She learned from her
grandmother that from pain comes life, that in a woven red sash belt
is needed to hold on to that this tie represents much more than just
something to hold on to, and that when all was done, that the child
would be protected and blessed by the Twin Heros, that such is the way
it has been and will always be.

I can see him, my father as he took her small hands and showed her how
it was done when she was just a child. Now she came to me and said
tell me again how it is with such things. We talked a little bit and
now it was my turn to talk about cradleboards. It is the way, Hozhoji,
I could here myself repeat my father's words; just like she knew.

My daughter is no longer a child, but will be a mother, and she will
sing, and dance in the house of her mother, and know the places of her
father. He does not have a name yet, but he carries the stories of
many lives in his blood, my wife's people and those of my own. His cry
will carry to the valley and to mountain top. It will not be loud and
we will wait to roll him in the snow and celebrate his first laugh
with a giveaway. He is the past and future tied together.

Tonight I can find no rest, I took a walk and looked around at the
earth around me and see the stars haven't changed their place, but yet
I know I will go on from this day and so will continue on. How strange
it is to know that for all the struggles, cares and woes that have
come to us, we continue to survive, to go on and to hope for long
summer days, the taste of cool water and to hear the laughter of
children playing not too far off. So I wait to see what the dawn will
bring...

rustywire

Walking the Road Home

Lying on a cot far from home, thinking of days where to just walk from
here to there is something more that just a walk, it is to taste
light, the feel of wind, reaching out and with fingertips feeling the
sage around. Each step, the sound of a familiar path, walking down the
road to home.

Where is it, that place a spot just over the rise. Take me there,
where the sound of my mothers voice laughs on the wind, the sound of
my father at work silently speaks to me of the struggles of his life
and his song to his family. Where are my brothers and sisters, the
sound of their voices come to me and we talk about nothing except what
happened last night, the movie just over there.


Grandfather, tell me the story of who I am and a little about
yourself, how yor path brought you here. Tell me the stories of our
youth of winter tales, the summer afternoons near cool waters. Talk to
me of where we come from, how we came to be. I want to know about my
people, and sing for me just once more the songs of our fathers. Yes I
want to know all these things.


Grandmother, where are you, yes I can see you just over there, your
smiling face and eyes that have seen my world and know the things of
life, the sound of children's laughter and their cries. Tell me about
how you met the old man, and how my mother and father came to know you
and something about just a day when they were small. Tell me about
your first place, the place you lived with and grandfather and let me
taste your biscuits. But most of all let me hear you call my name.


I long to hear the sound of the small stones as I walk the path to
home. That place just over the rise. I can remember its simple lines,
and kitchen table and the taste of my favorite food there. All of
these things I remember, my mind is the path to take me there so far
away and yet so near.


I am far from home and miss it so, my friends remember me. You don't
remember my name, but I am here waiting to be free, waiting to be
free.


Speak it, say my name, tell stories about me, how I lived and if by
chance you can take a minute write to me, just a word, to say, Hey
brother, we have not forgotten you. Yes that would be nice just say a
word.


All I wanted for Christmas was to be home, to walk through the door
and to eat a simple meal, a chance to walk down the road just a little
ways from home. Sweet sweet home, so far away but in my mind just a
step away....


(I wanted to say ayeehee'lah' (thank you) to those Indian boys locked
away in South Dakota, Oklahoma, California and Utah who sent me
pictures drawn with pencil of their homes, remembrances of pow wow,
the peyote bird, old girlfriends and pencil drawings of family
gathered around them. We go many different roads, some are more harder
than others, some make mistakes and have been sent away. Even these
men long to be home for the Holidays and they have written to me and
let me know they want to be free even for a few minutes.

what is a wannabe and whowantstobeone

I have met a number of people wanting to be native, Indian or claim to
be some tribe, and I think it is a sound all Indians, Natives or
tribal members hear all the time and you know how it is. I find those
people wanting to know more about a way of life that is diminishing. I
look at myself and see that what I knew is not all that I remember.

I have seen some who are not Native who know more than the Natives
about the Indian culture. I have also seen our youth not wanting to
know these things anymore and with the passing of the elders of our
tribes and peoples we lose ourselves more so into the melting pot of
America. I have seen some both Indians and non-Indians profess to know
more about culture, Indian ways, sings, sweats, pipe ceremonies than
other Indian people and who will and share these practices at a price,
for a buck and I wonder about them.


I had a friend of mine who died not too long ago, he was a Zuni, we
were like brothers. We figured one day we would hit the road when we
reached the age of 55 and become preachers and tell people they were
going to hell and get paid for it, more or less becoming charlatans,
flea bags and deceivers. It was a joke to us as we could see there are
some preachers who go out like this, not all, but there are some that
are that way.


In many ways Indian culture has gone down a similar path and there is
exploitation from every angle. I am not an expert in this field but I
have seen some of what I am talking about.


I have met some fake Indians and at times feel sorry for them and yet
they look on me with pity, maybe they know something I don't. Anyway I
am sitting at a computer and my children are scattered like sand in a
heavy wind. I am a survivor of sorts for my family as many of the
problems of reservation life have taken my aunts, uncles, cousins,
brothers and many other people I knew that were good and kind. I can
see that there is nothing to mark their time, other than they were
Natives just trying to get by and in the way of life did not find a
place to rest and call home.


I think this restlessness is the same with non-Indians looking for
some identity, they will continue to come to us, and to other
indigenouse peoples, it is the way of the world. I don't have any
answers, I still have a lot of questions about life just the same as
you I guess. There are no secrets to life here, just alot of people
trying to find their own way and by no means do native have the corner
on the right way to live your life, I am just trying to by the best I
can with what I have, and by chance was enrolled at birth.

Out On Navajo Mountain

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

Hair Wash

Hair wash
 

as time goes by

it is the way certain things smell

or a scent

that steals you away

and takes you back

i remember

long black hair

a young Indian woman

standing next to me

it was the smell

of a sweet shampoo

hair wash

i remember

she stood close 

so close

i could feel her

take each breath

her hair was long

her skin so soft

like soft down

i had never noticed

this before

and yet

i knew it was so.

when she moved

ever so slightly

i could feel her 

through all of me

electricity

coming off her

the mere touch of her

was like lightning

so close

i felt every part of her

she stood there close

turning her head every so slightly

i was looking into her eyes

slowly

i could see

the lines of her brown tan face

the soft shadows and light

on the gentle slope of her neck

the sunlight and turn of her chin

the shine of her cheekbones

her lips were soft

and tender

a small smile.

who was this Indian girl?

she was for me a gift

sent on a rainbow

a blessing from Mother Earth

a child of many

native women of these lands

she was a child of soft wind

a native of the

land

earth

sky

everything in it

she was in an instant

Changing Woman

and yet

she was just right there

just standing there

a woman

but she was more than that

i stood there next to her.

looked into her eyes

they were bright

full of life

yet dreamy

in a way as if she

stood away on a distant hill

looking far off

as if trying

to see

into my eyes

and further

into my soul.

she said nothing

but her eyes

spoke to me

i looked into them

she was asking me

are you the one

from my dream

the one

to take me away

and yet

let me be all that I am

and want to be

is it so

that you will care for me

today

tomorrow

and forever

touching me now

like this

all the rest of my life

i could see

the light dance

in the depths of her eyes

and there was

a glimpse of her heart

and beyond

that of her soul

she was saying without making a sound

if I should stumble and fall

will you help me

will you be there to support me and

if i should not be all that I am today

will you still care for me

when this softness is gone?

someday if i become lame

would you still stand beside me

in the good and bad 

as there will be times

when things get hard...

will you stay with me still

in the darkest hours before dawn

when I find myself

abandoned and alone

will you find me

as we are tied to one another

with a bond so delicate

woven in the depths of our hearts

made of the sunlit fields and flowers

winter storms and lightning

will this tie

bear the strain of slow days and dark nights

when we cannot find one another

yet bound

we reign it in and

find ourselves again.

standing there with her

I could see all these things

in her eyes

and

slowly

silently

put my lips to hers

with that gentle touch

let her know

yes, i am the one

let it be me

and would say

come and stay with me a while

until there is no more tomorrow..

yes

when we are withered

and beaten

by life’s battles

and the storms

have left us spent

i will still be here with you

and that is all there is

and nothing more

come with me

my young maiden

rest here with me

all I have to offer

is this gift of

life

heart

and soul

i offer you

myself

and hope

that would be enough…

standing so close

and in touching

one

another

we

touch

infinity

there is

today

tomorrow

forever

it is but a little while

as we taste life

this bond has no end

all this comes

from just one

sweet smell

a faint scent of

hair wash

rustywire

they run for us...

Running Wild and Free

 Long ago the natives here were all wild and free, going anywhere they wanted and did so with Spanish horses that became a part if each tribe’s life. Those days of wandering came to an end as each tribe and peoples were slowly put on reservations one by one until those days of freedom were gone. The spirit of defiance lives on and desire to roam free is often spoken about in the legends and stories of our peoples. In some ways the eagles flight and the wildness of the wolf are a part of our culture as much as the bear and mountain lion as well as any wild animal that goes about our lands and their right to exist wild and free is much a part of the story of native America.

It was a few years ago now, it was Spring. The Bureau of Land Management had set up a wild horse roundup in Eastern Utah. I was doing some work on the boundaries of Indian lands in the heart of an old reservation that was part of a tribe’s jurisdictional land and in federal court between the tribe, state and in dispute over land, water and it’s resources.

I was doing some work in the field with the cadastral survey crew of the BLM looking at reservation boundary lines and title search work which was chasing paper here and there. It was during this time in the field that I found myself one morning riding out with the wranglers who would be catching and rounding up the wild horses and mustangs for their adoption program. There has been much made of these horses, some believe that these wild horses needed to be removed from the land because of overgrazing and inbreeding. Others believe that they should stay where they are and run free. I am not sure about the debate but I guess someone should ask the horses I heard one person say.

 I found myself riding out with Chuck, he was pleasant sort of guy and we headed to a place known as Moon Water Point, way out in the middle of nowhere with undulating hills that dropped into the valleys and canyons surrounding the Green River some fifty miles north of Green River, Utah on the Uintah and Ouray Reservation. The wranglers were private contractors, and some were employees with the BLM, the rest were from the Ute Tribe Fish & Game Department, they were easy to tell because they were Indians. Everyone was anticipating the round up. I had heard that a helicopter was out early that morning gathering the horses.

 We had been on the road for about 21/2 hours over a long windy dirt road when we got to Moon Water Point. The trucks and trailers used by the wranglers were off the hill out of sighe and we parked there in the brush and walked up the hill to the top of the bench. On top there was a brush line setup in a V to funnel the horses into a make shift corral that had three sides dropping of the bench like a cliff dropping off steeply and the brush hid a portable fence set up to hold the horses.

 The guys there had been there for a few days gathering the horses and were set to catch them there. I spoke with the Ute cowboys there and they were a hardy stock, rough and ready. I have heard they pride themselves as horseman, those Utes, I did not hear anyone say it, but they seemed to know the animals and this area was their land. In speaking with them some did not agree with the roundup of these horses. These were the last remaining part of them, their people that represented their former life as the People of the Shining Mountains who were born on horses and roamed all over these lands from Denver to Salt Lake. I could sense their feeling but they were there to do a job and so they were waiting for the horses to get there.

Everyone mounted up and headed out moving off the bench to the North and in the distance you could hear the herd of wild horses coming this way. You could see them off in the distance, kicking up the dust and running through the sagebrush, they were running in groups of 2 and 3 with others of 4 and 5 running alongside. You see they travel and live in small groups to be able to forage the high and low areas for food. 

There were groups of 4 and 5-year-old stallions eager to make a place with the herd but they cannot live together and so they break off in small groups, each having his own band. The helicopter was chasing them from behind and they were all running together. They were assorted colors, magnificent, their legs flying and moving with a grace of years of running rough sagebrush and these lands. This was their place and we were the interlopers. Their nostrils were flaring, their manes and tails blowing in the wind. There must have been 35 to 40 of them coming.

 They came and ran up by us onto the bench at full speed, galloping past with a beauty and grace that took me back a hundred years and then we were in the chase, behind them. The horses we were on got caught up as kindred spirits, losing their domestication to go with the herd their roots, to be wild and free.' The horses went into the V, the funnel. The lead stallion was black, a large horse, beautiful in his long strong strides, he led them in. The group was going full tilt, all of them went in. The guys hiding in the brush gate quickly closed the gate behind them, the horses were corralled. There was a quarter mile of room in there for them to settle down.

 The lead horse didn't slow down and we all watched as he continued to run to the edge of the point to where the land dropped off. All of the horses were running behind him at a full gallop. What was he doing, he was going to fall off, straight to his death and take some of the others with him. The enclosure was opened and the wranglers took off after him to rope and cut him from the main group. We were watching and could not believe it when he jumped off, one by one the whole group went over the edge. A sick feeling came over as I saw this, it would be a sad day this day tosee all of them lying at the bottom of the drop. There was a 35 to 40 foot drop to the bottom. I could see horses with broken legs and all sorts of things went through my mind.

 When we rode up the edge and looked below the last of the group was bounding over the cliff, leaping to a large rock standing apart a ways from the drop and it was to here they had jumped using the rock as a way to jump halfway down and then bouncing off it as it were to drop to the valley below without breaking stride. There was no pause and they were running not a one injured or hurt, all had made it. I stood there with those Ute wranglers.

The guys from BLM were all cussing those horses and talking about the craziness of them. The Indians to a man stood there apart quietly watching them. All of us looking and without saying a word our hearts were running along with them as they escaped into the canyons below. They were running wild and free.

 It is not all of the story there is this...

 One of the native cowboys there, a Ute I have known for many years since high school as he came to Toadlena as a Mormon Missionary, it was the last area of his mission and he was young then. I got to know him way back in the sixties. He liked to play basketball and was a jokester but was also a rough and ready sort of guy. He had served a two year mission and was headed back to Fort Duchesne. I remember him because when he was going home he put his clothes in the back of a pickup truck, his black suit up on top and as the truck was headed north toward Shiprock the zippered suit bag flew out the back and was gone.

He just laughed and said, my time is up and so are my days of wearing suits, he was a native cowboy. I have known him for years and visited with him many times. It was him years later who said to me, we are doing a horse roundup you should join us. We spent some time together in the camp just sitting down before a fire and talking about things, some about his mission and also about the changes we had seen but I felt privileged to sit with him and other Indians there around the fire as they sang some of their Indian songs.

 I heard that he was in poor health and was put in the nursing home and on my way to a place further North I went to see him. He was still an ornery guy gruff in his ways but that was his exterior. We sat for a little while and we talked about the small things that men often do when they get together and we also remembered this time and spoke about it. We sat there and remembered how the horses went off the cliff and ran away into the canyons and he said to me....you know those horses are still out there, they run for us....

rustywire