TAKING THE OFF-RAMP

Exit Amado for a Food Stop

Need a short stop on your Saturday shopping trip to Nogales? Turn left at Exit 48 off Interstate 19 and follow the waving hands and flags of the boys directing you into the Amado Territory Ranch and the Amado Farmers' Market. You may be in for a surprise. Residents and visitors alike go there to stock up on fresh Arizona produce and homemade baked goods. Artisans and art lovers also stop for a view of local crafts. But the ranch, the creation of a Tucson couple in the 1990s, also includes the Amado Territory Ranch Inn, the Amado Cafe, and Kristofer's, a gourmet deli overseen by a white-hatted chef. The corn outside may be fresh-picked from Sonoita, but the crab cakes inside began their trip in Alaska. Make your own trip to the Amado Farmers' Market on the second and fourth Saturday of the month. The deli, cafe and inn welcome visitors throughout the week. Information: toll-free (888) 398-8684.

Apache Wedding Blessing

Now you will feel no rain

For each of you will be the shelter to the other.

Now you will feel no cold For each of you will be the warmth to the other.

Now there is no more loneliness For each of you will be the companion to the other.

Now you are two bodies But there is only one life before you.

Go now to your dwelling place

To enter into the days of your togetherness

And may your days be good and long upon the Earth.

THE MAKINGS OF A POSSE

An old-time posse rode out of the towns and ranches of 1921 Arizona and headed south. They wanted to join the posses forming to capture the murderers of Frank Pearson, postmaster and storekeeper in Ruby, and his wife, Myrtle. The convicted killers had escaped while being transferred by car to the state penitentiary in Florence. A photograph (above) taken in Nogales shows the men, the only two without hats, following their recapture near the Santa Rita Mountains in southern Arizona. This time they completed that trip to Florence, Placido Silvas (right) to serve a life sentence and Manuel Martinez (left) to be hanged, although he proclaimed his innocence to the end. Silvas, a trustee working at a prison farm, later quietly escaped and was never recaptured.

Tailing the Elegant Trogon

In small campgrounds along Cave Creek Canyon near Portal, in southeastern Arizona's Chiricahua Mountains, you might glimpse a rare bird called the elegant trogon. In late spring through early fall, trogons swoop through the sycamore and cottonwood trees in the canyons calling to each other. To see one, listen for its distinctive call that sounds something like that of a turkey. Guidebooks describe it as four to six low croaks. Sit quietly with binoculars at the ready, and when you hear the call, follow the sound.

The green, parrotlike bird's most distinctive feature is its brilliant scarlet breast. Above the blaze of scarlet, a broad white band separates the scarlet from the green body and the black head. The long tail is white with faint copper-colored stripes. Trogons elsewhere, such as in Texas, have a brown tail. The Arizona bird, initially called the coppery-tailed trogon, appears in up-to-date guides as the elegant trogon.

A Store for Nuts

The mouth waters. Pecan logs, chocolate-covered pecan toffee, hot and spicy pecans they fill the counters of The Pecan Store in Sahuarita, 20 minutes south of Tucson. For those who prefer to create their own treats, bags of unshelled and shelled pecans fill the bins. Nut lovers eat and bake with these pecans, assured of their just-offthe-tree freshness. The store sits in the middle of a massive pecan orchard, 4,400 acres with 106,000 trees. Here the nuts have truly taken over and nobody seems to mind. Information: toll-free, (800) 327-3226.

Faces From a Faraway Land

They look out from the walls of the Arizona Historical Society in Tucson, the faces of China. Many of the photographic portraits from the early 1900s have no names attached, just faces that somehow made it across half a world, from China to Arizona. They came as railroad workers and stayed to farm and then to own the corner grocery stores. Oh, the stories they could tell.

The small collection of photographs and artifacts has told part of its stories in an exhibit titled “Carrillo’s Chinese Gardens—the Chinese of Tucson” at the Arizona Historical Society. More of their photographs can be found in the Buehman Collection in the society’s library. They beguile,

Indoor-Outdoor Prison

Sensitivity didn't rate high on the priority list of any Arizona mining town in the 1930s. Ruby, Arizona, proved no exception. The town near the Mexican border had long attracted the tough men who worked the lead, copper, silver and zinc mines of the area. Then, in 1935, someone suggested a jail might be in order to handle those who needed handling in the area's population of 1,000. But Ruby didn't get in a rush Over the issue, and the jail—one concrete room— wasn't built until a few years later. The town without a jail had developed its own way of dealing with civic problems like drunks. Quoted in one Tucson newspaper, a deputy sheriff explained, “We tie them to trees and let 'em go the next morning.” Too late now to ask those miscreants if they preferred their mornings-after confined behind bars or lashed to a mesquite.

A Phoenix Frybread Fix

In the past, unless you had relatives or good friends who were Indian, you had to wait until the annual Arizona State Fair to get your “frybread fix.” Cecelia Miller recognized the popularity of that Indian specialty and opened The Frybread House. Now she's turning dough into cold cash. Located just minutes from downtown Phoenix, at 4140 Ν. 7th Ave., the restaurant serves lunch and dinner featuring the deep-fried bread. Indian tacos and green or red chili stew are some of the favorite toppings. The versatile bread also can be served warm and drizzled with honey or powdered sugar for dessert.

Cecelia, a member of the Tohono O'odham Nation, runs the business with her husband, Joedd. In October 1992 they opened their first modest four-table restaurant. Although they have expanded the dining area, her son thinks they've already outgrown the location. Lunchtime brings in a mixed crowd of high-rise office workers and a few Indian patrons who long for food that tastes like home. Information: (602) 351-2345.

Question of the Month

Ranching in Arizona usually means cattle, but what other ranching industry was established in the state during the late 1800s?

From its home on the desert range, the gangly ostrich provided plumage for European fashions. Arizona ostrich ranchers now market eggs, leather and meat.

CONTRIBUTORS ANGLING ON THE BLACK