Driving Through Monument Valley

10.01.05 monument valley Between Myth and Mystery

A cowboy guide and a Navajo elder weave the threads of Monument Valley

text and photographs by John Annerino

monument valley

The dark wind cuts like a flint knife, as the silver pickup barrels toward dawn in the early morning darkness. His blue eyes glint in the white hue of the dashboard. Tassels of long gray hair dangle from his sweatstained cowboy hat. The high-heeled boot kisses the brake pedal, and thick hands caress the steering wheel into a turn. We roll to a stop, trailing a red cloud of dust that falls like a phantom over the edge of the rimrock. Through the windshield, two black paws claw out of the landscape and clutch at the sliver of a silver moon. They are 'Álá Tsoh, or Big Hands. We have come to the Big Hogan to greet whispers of dawn in the sacred valley of Tsé Bii Ndzisgaii, or Clearing Among the Rocks. I slide out of the warm saddle of the pickup and walk across the black stones to the edge of the mesa. The world falls away into an abyss, but in the rattle of a horned snake's tail, the delicate brushstrokes of first light blush the skyline pink. I set up the cold metal tripod, take a seat on the hard ground and await the first hint of sunlight that will shroud Tsé Biyi, or Rock Canyon, with long shadows that will herald this new day. In a land where the night chants of the Yé'is still echo off the walls and stones, the voice of a country and Western singer drifts from the open window of the pickup: Cowboys don't cry-aaay, and heroes don't die-aaay. He is my guide. A mixed-blood Arizona native and Oklahoma Osage, Bill Crawley has been a good hand in this rough, beautiful and weather-beaten land for 55 years. His lifelong love affair with Monument Valley and its people began when his daddy first trucked a load of supplies from Flagstaff to the outpost of Kayenta in the heartland of Dinétah, the Navajos' traditional land. Age may have slowed Bill Crawley, but having his chest cracked open by surgeons has not stopped him. He is taking me on a personal journey through "the land where time stands still," as he calls it. He is right about that. I watch amber light dapple the horizon, as songs from his memories sew dreams of a new day: Life is a swee-eet dream that always comes true. If life were the moo-vies, I'd never be blue. I peer through my viewfinder at a yellow prism of light winking over one of the most famous landscapes on Earth. Revered by Navajo medicine men in holy chantways, sacred offerings of corn pollen and ceremonial sand paintings of horned toads and holy people, Monument Valley was discovered by Hollywood at the height of the Great Depression. That's when trading post owner Harry Goulding camped on director John Ford's doorstep at United Artists with a trove of photographs depicting what would soon epitomize the West. After medicine man Hosteen Tso finished shape-shifting the weather for Ford's classic John Wayne movie Stagecoach in 1939, movie producers, television directors and advertising agencies from around the globe queued up to use the Navajos' mythic ancestral ground as their cinematic Western canvas. Bill Crawley guided many through the stunning locations that remain sacred for the Diné. I climb back in the truck, and we whirl through the red sand, piñon and rabbit bush along a narrow track beneath the sandstone monoliths of Rain God Mesa. We stop in front of a mud-covered hogan, and the warm smile of 92-year-old Suzie Yazzie greets us. She has been weaving the dreams of her ancestors with handspun wool as far back as anyone can remember. Her hands are knotted with age, but her long fingers glisten with silver and turquoise as she weaves through my book of ceremonial images I have brought to share with her. She stops at the color photograph of Tarahumaras dancing in breechcloths deep in Mexico's Sierra Madre, and says to our interpreter, "That's how the Navajo used to be." She closes the blue book. I peer through the viewfinder and study a regal woman whose gray hair and delicate composure reminds me of something a friend once told me when he introduced me to the Seri Indians on the Mexican coast of Sonora: "Think about it. . . . Think about the knowledge that is lost every time an elder dies." We roll away from Suzie Yazzie's. The silver pickup grinds through the red sand beneath the cinnamon-brown walls of Spearhead Mesa toward Yei Bichei spires, each sacred to the Navajo and each a cinematic milepost for Bill Crawley. We stop at the foot of a slender finger of towering red stone known as Tsé Ts'óózi, or Slim Rock. I slide out of the pickup. Bill saunters through the deep sand, snake bush and sweet-smelling Irish lavender, his legs bowed from riding herd on a remuda of 20 horses where the Coyote trickster still prowls. I hear the jangle of his spurs. I see a black pot of cowboy coffee boiling on a campfire spitting molten pellets of piñon gum. He looks up at the swaying pedestal of stone, and recalls an afternoon spent with the actress Julie Andrews atop what became famous in Clint Eastwood's alpine thriller The Eiger Sanction as the Totem Pole. The red sun plummets like a blazing comet behind Thunderbird Mesa, igniting Yei Bichei spires. I hear the night chants of black-masked Yé'is dancing around the flames of the yellow fire. I see the fingers of Suzie Yazzie weaving wisps of white clouds across the fading turquoise sky. I hear the voice of a singer crooning from the worn saddle leather, as I watch his phantom ride through the land where time stands still: Here in the real world . . . And tonight on that silver screen, it'll end like it should. I walk back to the silver pickup and stare at a legend that still walks the red earth. His eyes glint with a smile. And I know, here in the real world, our journey together has ended the way it should. All John Annerino's new book, Indian Country: Sacred Ground, Native People, will be published by W.W. Norton in 2007. He lives in Tucson.

► when you go

Location: On the Arizona/Utah border between Kayenta and Mexican Hat. Getting There: From Flagstaff, take U.S. Route 89 north 60 miles to U.S. Route 160 and turn north (left). Take U.S. 160 85 miles to U.S. Route 163 and turn north (left) to Kayenta. From Kayenta, continue on U.S. 163 for 24 miles to the Monument Valley Road. Turn east (right) onto Indian Route 42 and drive 4 miles to the Navajo Tribal Park Visitors Center. Travel Advisory: You can drive the 14-mile selfguiding road through Monument Valley for a $5 entrance fee, or hire a guide. Additional Information: (435) 727-5874/5870 or (435) 727-5875; www.navajonationparks.org/ htm/monumentvalley.htm.