ALONG THE WAY

Satisfying Serendipity Coincidence favors the prepared mind on the Navajo Indian Reservation

I WANT TO DESCRIBE AN EXTRAORDINARY COINCIDENCE that brought me face-to-face with a legendary Indian trader on a lousy excuse for a road in a forgotten corner of the Navajo Nation.

Originally, I had called his summer home in Colorado to learn some history on the Mexican Water Trading Post. As a writer, I make cold calls almost daily and never know what to expect. But this was pure delight-and the foundation of a slowly built coincidence.

For 45 minutes, I heard a marvelous story about a young man, barely out of his teens, who came to the “Big Rez” in 1948 to make a home for himself. Elijah Blair did that successfully, and went on to become a highly respected trader and friendin the true sense of the word-to the Navajo people.

Jewell and Roscoe McGee had hired Elijah, then 20, to manage their trading post at Mexican Water. Newly married, Elijah and his wife, Claudia, working side-by-side, were paid a whopping $50 per week by the McGees.

Almost immediately, the Blairs began learning the Navajo ways, and just as quickly, Elijah acquired the nickname that follows him to this day.

It started with a wagon parked outside the post the day of his arrival. Elijah assumed it was the post's wagon. But an old Navajo man kept talking and gesturing, as if he wanted to haul the wagon away. Elijah insisted he pay for it first.

This running skit-with neither fellow able to understand the other's pantomime-lasted three days, the old man spending nights in a hogan behind the post. Finally, Elijah figured it out: The man had bought the wagon from the previous manager and had already paid for it.

With the matter resolved, the Navajo man, who'd been goodnatured throughout the negotiation, pointed to Elijah's ears and said, in Navajo, “Nothing goes in!” Elijah has been known by his nickname—“Jai Yazhi,” or “little ears”-ever since.

Partly because of that episode, Elijah tackled the monumental task of learning the Navajo language, which paid huge dividends in adjusting to life there, as has the couple's sense of humor.

I asked what Elijah did for entertainment in such a remote place. Laughing, he responded, “I never missed the bright lights because, growing up in rural eastern Kentucky, I didn't know what the bright lights were.” Claudia, then 19, said that when her initial homesickness wore off, she adapted well to life in the Navajo wide open. “Iactually came up in the world moving to the reservation,” she says. “We had an indoor toilet, and that was new to me.” The Blairs left Mexican Water after five years, having bought their own post at Aneth, Utah. They've since owned stores in Dinnebito and Kayenta, as well as Kayenta's Wetherill Inn, and they currently own Blair's Trading Post in Page.

“Because I worked so many different places, lots of Navajos still know me, and they come into Blair's to sell their rugs or just say hello,” says Elijah. “It's a little like the way things were back at Mexican Water. Boy, I sure get a kick out of talking to my customers.” Two weeks after that conversation, as I drove northeast of Kayenta on U.S. Route 160, I spotted a sign pointing down a dirt road toward the Mexican Water Chapter House. Knowing that the old stone trading post stood near it, and hearing Elijah's stories in my head, I jammed the brakes and decided to make the turn to have a look.

The condition of that dirt road? Well, think of a burro's rear end-hairy and a little steep. But I made it down okay, only to find the post gone, torn down. Disappointed, I started up that limestone shelf-road and noticed a camper heading toward me.

Maybe it was the cowboy hat and turquoise jewelry that tipped me off, but I knew immediately it was Elijah. For some reason, he knew right away who I was, too. Knowing he hadn't been to the place in years, I asked why he'd come. With a grin plastered over his face, he said, “You made me curious!” “You made me curious!” I countered, and followed Elijah, 79, down to the post site, now a scatter of debris.

We spent hours that afternoon talking over what it was like there in 1948, and the stories were something to hear. I'm partial to the one about the tornado tearing off the post roof, leaving pawned saddles and jewelry scattered across the desert.

Several locals joined us, and it became like a neighborhood reunion. Even though much of the conversation was in Navajo, I had a blast. It made me think of how lucky I am in the work I do, getting to meet gentlemen like Elijah Blair while prowling Arizona's backcountry. You never know what amazing coincidences might happen along the way.

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