And the Winner Is...

PICTURE ROCKS And the Winner Is...

Under a cold desert moon, on Christmas Eve, I took a walk around my desert subdivision in Picture Rocks, 2 miles from Saguaro National Park, 15 minutes' drive from Tucson's western boundary. It was approaching midnight. All the presents had been opened. Most of my neighbors' houses were dark, except those in the decoration contest.

On every side, plaster coyotes arched necks to bay the moon, hanging forever in the night sky; real coyotes yipped-somewhere west-out in the night, chasing who knew what. Not cottontails or jackrabbits; they were in their burrows, I was sure.

Plastic deer muzzles bobbed-driven by invisible motors, powered by secret batteries-on desert acre lots of premium manufactured homes.

On the industry-sculpted eaves, ceramic doves hung suspended by steel wires, amid fragmented aluminum icicles.

And, over all, lights of every size, every description, every color-red pinpoints to blue spotlights were strung on every thorn, every prickly pear cacti spine. No desert form left out.

I hunched down in my coat, wondering what the real coyotes, deer and doves thought of this maelstrom of man-driven competition.

A shadow ghosted over me-a barn owl, judging by the wingspread-hunting a last partygoer mouse.

In the welter of lights and images beating at me, I felt everything blurring into one, creating patterns of lightmeaningless-splashing behind my eyes.

Plaster coyotes arched necks to bay the moon. . . . Plastic deer muzzles bobbed-driven by invisible motors.

It was cold. Late. I should be getting home.

Yet I kept walking, and at the end of one loop of decorated houses I saw rising from the moon haze a three-story cathedral of light-a modern steel-beamed farmhouse Notre Dame with strings of lights strung to outline every door, window and peak of roof. This was it. The sure-fire winner!

I took one more long admiring look at the cathedral of light and started back home.

I reached the end of my street. The moon still hung, a cold eye, above my hat and all the hard, sparkling roofs.

Then I saw something that halted me in my boots.

On an unsold, far-corner lot, a giant saguaro cactus loomed over the desert floor, lifting huge spined arms, casting a benediction of beauty and serenity on all, making the desert animals-coyotes, rabbits, even the ghosting owl, and me-the true winners on this desert Christmas Eve.

Jerry E. Airth still lives in Picture Rocks, and continues to take moonlight walks through his desert neighborhood, even on Christmas Eve, seeking inspiration for poems, stories and essays.

The confluence of the meandering Little Colorado River and the roaring Colorado River. We made our way through the snow to my late maternal Grandmother Jane's hogan, which my family called the "Flying Hogan."

My father checked the chains on the tires for the descent into a deep ravine that entered Sagebrush from the east side. That dirt road was clogged with snowdrifts. Everything was covered in a white blanket, and an eerie silence hung in the air, broken only by the sounds of the truck's engine.

It took all day to reach Sagebrush camp. The next day I learned why my family was late picking me up at the boarding school. They were buried in snow.

Snow powdered every inch of Sagebrush. A thick fog cloaked the camp, and the sheep had not grazed in days.

My parents, my brother Eisenhower and my two cousins had earlier waded 2 miles through hip-deep snow over and down hills to find a clearing to send a distress signal. Through the portable radio, Navajo Chairman Nakai said he would send a bulldozer if the isolated sheepherders would walk to the nearest land clearing or main road, build a fire and use a mirror to signal the moving machine.

But the bulldozer never came and the group returned to Sagebrush. Then a transport plane appeared, looped around the camp, found a clearing and dropped bales of hay. My relatives came out of their homes and watched. For too long, they had watched snow fall out of the sky. This time it was hay.

My Aunt Jeanette and late Grandmother Edith and my father watched as the dry, square alfalfa exploded after hitting the snow. My father, intending to gather the hay in a blanket and deliver it to the flock, began to trek to the clearing.

Suddenly, another aircraft that made loud clapping sounds appeared out of the western arroyo. It startled my father. The downdraft of the helicopter spun him, and the blanket blew away. Grandmother Edith hollered at my father, "Tsi' biyaa' anilyed," or "Run under the rock ledge," as the helicopter circled above the camp. The Sagebrush arroyo had caves and rocks that looked like awnings. Jeanette, now in her 80s, laughed about that memory. The helicopter dropped food rations and canned food in burlap sacks.

Armed with shovels, my father, brothers and cousins scooped a well-defined path up a hill south of our camp and then onto Sagebrush. Sheep and goats were unleashed on the trail days later.

My cousin Rose, then 19, today remembers the cold that followed the storm. It was so cold that when the flock moved away from their resting spot, they left behind tuffs of wool and mohair frozen to the earth.

The elders later marked December 1967 as the winter when hay was delivered from the sky. It's a time and place I will not forget because the arroyo covered by Sagebrush offered a haven for my extended Navajo family, and it remains a place I visit in my dreams.

Betty Reid has been a journalist for many years and writes for The Arizona Republic. She grew up on the western edge of the Navajo Nation, a stone's throw from the Colorado River, and now lives in Phoenix.