Interstate 40 East

Passageway East

Along Interstate-40 in Eastern Arizona, mysteries and marvelsawait discovery One of the 30 freight trains that chug through Holbrook daily blows its whistle. Fleetingly, it drowns the noise of the 14,000 cars and trucks that whoosh along Interstate Route 40 each day between Winslow, population 9,150, and the Navajo village of Lupton, population about 200, near the Arizona/New Mexico border.

The phone rings. I drag myself off the plastic motel chair. “This’s Elba,” mumbles the caller, a Winslow resident. Elba’s not his real name. Or rather, it is, but few use it. Old-timers call him Saddlemaker Murphy’s son. The Navajo he grew up with back in the 1940s know this red-cheeked man of mostly European ancestry as Nabashch 'idi’”, “Old Badger.” Like a living oxymoron, he works as a conductor without passengers on the 90-car-long coal trains that feed the Cholla Power Plant

All around here, ancient visitors have pecked messages into the stone.

While Elba and Eduardo study rock art depicting maps, bighorn sheep, water holes, serpents, hands, people, I lie on the warm sandstone. Overhead, the canyon walls seem to change shape steadily, as if they had inspired T.S. Eliot's phrase, "shape without form." Water, wind, rock, and light surround me. Now I know why the ancients believed the four elements formed the world. Much longer in this canyon, and I'll believe that, too.

By the end of the afternoon, Elba has taught me how javelina tracks differ from deer prints: "Javelinas tiptoe between rocks." How prospectors and trappers tested water for potability: "If it didn't dissolve wild honey, they wouldn't drink." How to tell if springs feed a stream: "The water runs clear even after a rain."

He enumerates the treasures he's encountered in 40-some years of tramping this land. Old trade tokens from establishments like Mustang Mary's, a Holbrook bawdy house. Eight-carat garnets. Suspender buttons. A sinkhole, along the Little Colorado, where an entire car a 1925 Oakland once vanished. ("I've often wondered who got stuck, walked for help, came back and found their car gone.") A cap-and-ball pistol. A 20-centime piece from 1850 France. A Spanish colonial piece of eight from which successive owners shaved off bits of silver. And one day south of Lupton historians, take note he found the ruins of what appears to be a Spanish presidio.

Some six hours later, Elba announces, "Guess all that coal dust last night gave me a sore throat." We part, and I am left with the sense that Elba has not simply found his place on Earth. He also embodies it.

Others do, too.

In Holbrook, population 4,686, chamber of commerce Director June Foard says, "I know just the person to give you a feeling for what Holbrook is all about." She leads me down the stairway of the former Navajo County Courthouse, built in 1898. To our right is the Old West Museum. In one room, two bullet holes puncture a painting from the Bucket of Blood Saloon.

Ahead of us, three old coots lounge on the landing. The one in the middle, wearing cowboy boots and a battered beige Stetson, clamps stained brown teeth around a hand-rolled cigarette. I expect to be introduced to someone with a name like Slick.

June beckons to "Slick." "Hey, Joy, come over here."

Yes. Joy. Joy Nevin, 68, a devoted mother and grandmother, used to punch cows back in the 1940s and never stopped dressing the part. She sizes me up slowly and seems to conclude that I look just eccentric enough to be okay. "It can be a real pain in the drain to talk to reporters," she growls in a smoke-graveled voice. "I don't want to end up feeling like a horse's neck."

I confess that I hate feeling like a horse's neck myself.

"We've got something unique in this town that not even Winslow has. But I think it's because Winslow's always been a railroad town, and Holbrook's been a cow town." She pulls a red can of Prince Albert crimp-cut tobacco from her faded plaid shirt, rolls a cigarette, and offers it to me. "You don't smoke? You live at the foot of the Cross.

"The thing is, everybody cares about everybody else here. We're like one big family. I think other parts of the country have lost that. Besides, there's nothing pretentious about Holbrook. Here I can just be who I am. In Rhode Island I'm a skunk at a lawn party."

Rhode Island? Yes, well, Joy may sleep outdoors year-round and own only one piece of jewelry - a necklace of stained mule's teeth but she grew up in an old New England family and attended finishing school with Gloria Vanderbilt before heading west in the mid-1940s.

The Puerco River, like other rivers here, flows with a different volume of water every day.

Holbrook called itself the Hub City then. Cowboys rode in off the ranches. Hopi, Apache, and Navajo drove their wagons into town. Tourists stopped as they traveled along Route 66. Now, laments Joy, "People take off like a big bird and don't stop between Flagstaff and Gallup."

That's partly because cars go faster and burn less gas. But there's also little surface glamour along this stretch of road. Between Winslow and the Pinta Road exit, 65 miles east, there aren't even any trees. Like a codgy old couple who hide their virtues so well that few suspect they exist, the area saves its mysteries and marvels for those who seek them. I would never have found them myself if it hadn't been that every time we drove through here, Eduardo said, "Someday we've got to take time for this place."

Now, finally, we do. One day, Eduardo and I zigzag away from the interstate toward the Puerco River, which flows south of the highway.

It is hot, and the noon sun shines flatly across the prairie. A few horses graze. The air, completely motionless, smells of dust.

When the pavement turns to dirt, and the dirt to two deep ruts, we set out walking. The river is just a line of reflected sunlight, resembling fluid metal more than water.

Then as we reach the banks, we understand why. The Puerco River, like other rivers here, flows with a different volume of water every day. Today it isn't a river of water at all but a flood of viscous mud, moving in jerky waves that release a dusty perfume.

Another time, we stop at Allentown Road, Exit 351, to investigate one of the gift shops, euphemistically labeled trading posts, that mark the interstate almost as regularly as mileposts. Chee's Indian Store catches our attention because the sign boasts: Indian Owned and Operated.

Inside, a customer reads The Navajo

Nation Today and chuckles at the exploits of Muttonman, a mild-mannered Navajo comic-strip character who transforms into a caped avenger and flies through the skies above Navajoland. Meanwhile, a Navajo grandmother moves her long full skirts past the shelves of the food section. She and others who live nearby may have to drive into Sanders to buy lamb innards, but they can pick up juice and bread right here. On the other side of the store, tourists from Kansas study sand paintings, silver jewelry, and handmade Navajo dolls. In the back room, geodes, agates, and petrified woodawait rock hounds. "My grandma started this store back on old Route 66," says Karen Chee Schell, 34, a heart-faced Navajo woman. "She set up one of those rug stands along the road." Karen herself used to run up and down Route 66 as a child, charging tourists a dime to take her picture.

Today Karen lives in a cluster of family homes behind the store and watches the daily interplay between American customs and traditional Navajo life. Her grandmother speaks no English but reads one book — the Bible — in Navajo. Although the old woman prefers hogans, she and her husband occupy a rectangular house. They push furniture against walls and keep possessions in boxes instead of cupboards because "that's the hogan way." Even Karen's mother doesn't know what month or year she was born, andmother and daughter see time in different ways.

WHEN YOU GO Tourists from Kansas study sand paintings, silver jewelry, and Navajo dolls. In the back room, geodes, agates, and petrified woodawait rock hounds.

"When are you going to town, Mom?" Karen asks.

"Maybe sooner. Maybe later." "Just tell me when. Fifteen minutes? Half an hour?"

Her mother, firmly now: "Maybe later. Not sooner."

Still, Karen, who studied in California before returning to her roots, says, as she counts out change in Navajo to an elderly man, "We don't have much money. But this is where I want to be. This is my destiny."

Back on the interstate, Eduardo and I approach the sandstone hills of Lupton and pause to watch the wind ruffle the fleece of a flock of goats. It comes to me then that someday artists, poets, and tour promoters will discover these blue skies, mesas, hills, and plains, and all this will change.

In the meantime, if you see a long string of coal cars, followed by a tatty caboose, honk and wave at Saddlemaker Murphy's son for me. Or if you come across Joy Nevin, scraping paint off the woodwork in the Old West Museum, tell her I'm going to really feel like a horse's neck if I don't see her soon.

And if you stop at Chee's Indian Store, tell the smiling Navajo women that I'll be back.

Sooner. Not later.

Getting there: Interstate Route 40 crosses north-central Arizona from west to east. For side trips, inquire locally about road conditions before traveling dirt roads.

Where to stay: Contact chambers of commerce in Winslow and Holbrook (see below) for accommodations listings. East of Holbrook, try the Best Western Chieftain Motel at Chambers, (602) 688-2754.

What to see and do: Winslow's Old Trails Museum and Holbrook's Old West Museum display the past. Shops From Winslow to Lupton look funky or kitschy, but they offer great bargains, from tin replicas of conquistador armor to handmade cedar cradleboards. For views of Castle Butte and Five Buttes, detour through Dilkon and Indian Wells (State Route 87 to Navajo Route 60 to Navajo 15 to Navajo 6). Other attractions include Homolovi Ruins State Park, Little Painted Desert County Park, Petrified Forest National Park, and the Pinta petroglyphs.

For more information: Winslow Chamber of Commerce, P.O. Box 460, Winslow, AZ

86047; (602) 289-2434. Holbrook

Chamber of Commerce, 100 E. Arizona, Holbrook, AZ 86025; (602) 524-6558.

The Friends of Arizona Highways offers Photo Workshops among the state's scenic wonders for picture takers of all skill levels. Our premier photographers lead the workshops and are assisted by experts from Nikon and Hasselblad. Scenic Tours also are available.

PHOTO WORKSHOPS

Prescott Rodeo; July 2-5 Focus on cowboy contests in the arena. Photographer: Ken Akers.

Grand Canyon North Rim; August 1-4 If the summer monsoon arrives, watch for dramatic cloud formations. Photographers: Willard and Cathy Clay.

Hannagan Meadow; August 18-21 Enjoy the verdant scenery and cooler temperatures of the high country. Photographer: Edward McCain.

Arizona's Old West; September 3-6 Highlights include Old Tucson movie studio, Bisbee and the Copper Queen Mine, Tombstone, Cochise Stronghold, and Apache Pass. Photographer: P.K. Weis.

Painted Desert/Petrified Forest; September 22-26 See colored dunes, petrified trees, and ancient petroglyphs. Photographer: Dale Schicketanz.

Canyon de Chelly; October 6-9 Navajo guides take you deep into remote

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and scenic canyons in the national monument. Photographer: Jerry Jacka.

Canyon de Chelly; October 27-30

Search out the mysterious canyons and secrets of the vanished Anasazi Indians. Photographer: Jay Dusard.

Sedona/Oak Creek Canyon; October 28-31 Nature's paintbrush adds even more color to the red rock country. Photographers: Bob and Suzanne Clemenz.

Monument Valley; November 3-6 Experience the drama and majesty of the valley deep in Navajoland. Photographer: Gary Ladd.

Aravaipa Canyon Wilderness Hike; November 17-20 Backpack through a wonderland of waterfalls, autumn color, and wildlife. Photographer: Jack W. Dykinga.

FRIENDS SCENIC TOURS

Canyonland Tour; October 7-10 Visit the Grand Canyon, Oak Creek Canyon, Walnut Canyon.

SCENIC TOURS WITH RAY MANLEY

Led by a premier Arizona Highways contributing photographer, these trips are organized primarily for mature adults.

Canyon de Chelly/Monument Valley; October 25-29 See otherworldly rock formations and prehistoric dwellings in Navajo country. For information on these and other tours, telephone the Friends' Travel Desk, (602) 271-5904.

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