WINTER: MONUMENT VALLEY

Editor’s Note: History, not pundits or preachers, will be the arbiter of 2020. Was it worse than 1918, 1941, 1968 or 2001? And what if you turn the page to the 19th century? How does it rank then? For the Navajos, it’s hard to imagine a year more devastating than 1864, when the U.S. Army drove them from their homeland in Arizona to the edge of the Pecos River in New Mexico, more than 300 miles away. Ultimately, thousands of lives were lost. At press time, about 500 Navajos have died from complications of COVID-19. “This virus didn’t originate on the Navajo Nation,” says Jonathan Nez, the president of the Navajo Nation. “But we got hit pretty hard.” Indeed. At one point this summer, the per capita infection rate in Navajoland was the highest in the country. And the death rate was overwhelming. Among the casualties was a man named Clyde Whiskers. You might remember him from a story we published in May about the San Juan Southern Paiute Tribe, which is the only federally recognized tribe in Arizona without a homeland. At one time, they did have a place of their own, but now the Southern Paiutes live among the Navajos. The Hopi Tribe, a sovereign people, also live within the circumference of the Navajo Nation — because it’s inappropriate in Hopi culture to talk about death, we couldn’t confirm any numbers related to Tu’yah (“the virus”). It’s been a sobering year in so many ways, especially for those who live in and around Monument Valley. Words cannot erase the anguish, but on behalf of everyone at Arizona Highways, I offer our condolences to the friends and family of Mr. Whiskers and all of the other good people we lost in 2020. The following essay, an essay about the power of nature, is dedicated to their memory. May they rest in peace.
 

The storm came in over the mountains from the north, over the high Rockies of Utah, over the Wasatches, the Uintas, and the dreamy Henrys. It covered the mountain peaks with deep snow as it moved southward, pushed by the wind, toward Monument Valley, the desert plateau of golden sand and red cliffs on the Arizona-Utah border. The dark sky turned to gray in the afternoon. The wind that had hurled sand against the hogans of the Navajos all day long died down. Then the snow began to fall silently in the night. The darkness of the night that closed in over Monument Valley was broken only by the cheery light that came from windows in the trading post. Those lights went out, then there was darkness and the snow falling in the night. The isolated hogans of the Navajos were black, conical shapes in the night, the only sign of life within being the faint glow from the fires showing through the smoke holes.

Daybreak came crisp, clear, cold. The storm had spent itself in the night, or gone thumping off like Thor to other places, taking the wind with it. Snow covered the valley floor, hiding the golden sand that wore the marks of the wind. The monuments were dressed in mantles of snow, which accentuated the color in the steep walls, making them look like debonair patriarchs wearing their cloaks with a swish. Where the cliffs were less steep, the snow drooled down, looking like unkempt beards on untidy old men. The sparse vegetation was bent by the snow. Twisted and beaten old junipers, inured to the moods of the weather, looked like tired shoppers staggering about with white bundles under their arms.

The first rays of the sun turned the snow into sparkling gems. Heavy blankets that sealed night out of the hogans were pushed aside. A Navajo, rubbing sleep from his eyes, came out, stretched, and looked over the white, bright world, seeing in the snow promises of more grass for the sheep. Little Navajo children darted out of the hogan and seized handsful of snow to throw at each other, their laughter music in the clear morning air. The blankets they wore were splotches of gay color on the white landscape. Navajo children do not see too much snow and they make the most of it. Smoke came from the hogan, bespeaking a stirred-up fire and breakfast a’cooking. Not far away were the sheep, impatient for pasture after being penned up all night. They were released by the children, who tended them, and as they moved forward they sniffed suspiciously at the snow that hid the meager grass. The sheep dog ran ahead barking, acting as if the storm might have brought with it a rabbit or two. The sun, warming up to the day’s work, began feebly to melt the snow. Winter had come to Monument Valley.