Memorial Day

Bears Ears XVII

2024-05-27

It is Memorial Day Monday, the end of the long festive getaway weekend. People are packing up, for their return to working lives. They are savoring the last walks, final drives, the moments before leaving their good time playgrounds. It is quieter, a calm is returning, passersby are much less frequent.  

Memorial Day, I begin to think about my dad, the soldier, sadly, but proud and respectful.

By dinner’s end, we are feeling less impinged. The softer light permeates. Heat is turning progressively down to perfect warmth. Everything seems to mark the close of the holiday.

There is a sense of expanding freedom. We can relax easier in our nudity and stretch out of our hiding boundaries, safe to walk and wander.

There is in my guidebook, a reference to some ruins. They are somewhere on down the road that leads from our camping area, here where the creek empties out into the valley at the base of Arch Canyon. There is an old trail, a dotted line, probably another 4×4 route, leading up the stone surface. It is probably a good long hike on a less busy day, an ancient route, now marked by rubber skids and rubble.

There is “the old Perkin’s Ranch” a landmark. There is the symbol mark for ruins. As best as I can cipher, it is at the top of what is referred to as a nipple. I suspect it may be at the peak of an attention grabbing hill that I have spent time looking at, even curiously searching its nature with binoculars for details. It looks like a short walk. I’d like to see if I got it right.

We walk down the orange road, looking for places that don’t produce clinging clouds of dust with every footstep. We can walk around the mud where the creek ponds in the middle of this road, through a line of trees like an arched gate through a wall and then into another world. After about 30 minutes, there is a fork in the road, perhaps that more ancient conveyance, that dotted line, is attached to this. Soon enough, there is some elevation gain, a dead-end circle in the tall brush. I can see some cattle pens downhill. That must be the old ruined Perkin’s Ranch.

Now, according to the crude map, the ruins must be up this hill, probably somewhere around the peak, the “nipple” on this large naked breast of barren stone.

It is a climb similar to Hotel Rock’s, more than our idea of a short evening’s walk, but here we are and in the mood. Turning around to take an elevated survey also delivers a clear message. We are the last ones, for as far as we can see, nobody is here but us. We don’t need clothing. We don’t want clothing. We can experience life in a most fully aware and immediate form.

The climb is pretty direct, straight up the hill, a consistent climb. We find nothing human up near the top in the hard surfaces. Finally, in a groove filled with rain wash sand and some vegetation, there are a few footprints.

The nipple is a huge piece of stone, the last remnants of an eroded layer of geology. Nothing is seen, so we begin circumnavigating at the same level, looking for whatever is here.

After nearly encircling the mass of stone in the evening shadow, to the point of wondering if this is “it”, there is an opening into the bright colorful sunlight. Petroglyphs!

We get closer. The illumination, which decorates the natural wall is accenting figures of ancient art. This art is a bit different.

As we sit to rest and gaze, we notice a low mudded rock wall, a foundation. What was once taller, is scattered about, broken down with someone’s demolition.

DF discovers a flat rock.

A collection of chards are displayed there.

Someone built a home here, long ago, a citadel, up here amongst a tower. A place where every happening in the valley below could be stealthfully watched.

We have admired the distant views, the comb, the verdant valley, the trail of water, glistening in sunset’s light. This is a watchtower, it could signal with fire, or smoke for many miles. I read how in a more recent period, the native people’s came to these valleys of the ancients in refuge. They could hide back in these canyons, living in freedom, traditionally, away from the abuses of the “Indian” reservations.

The figures depicted a variety of animals, elk, deer and bighorn sheep.

There is also an obvious buffalo. Were bison roaming this far west, or I did this person travel to the Great Plains. There are figures riding four legged creatures, shooting bows and arrows at figures with long sticks.

Figures with ponytails and spikes out of their heads like feathers.

This is both hunting and warfare.

Groups are hunting herds. There is a coiled sun symbol and a larger decorated shield.

A warrior lived here. I’m imaging youths being taught traditions here, by a wise warrior, an elder, or a mentor/teacher. Perhaps preparation for adulthood took place here. Perhaps these figures were used as an illustrated text book.

Would someone travel to the plains and hunt? I wonder if some of this came from the persecutions and wars with the new European intruders. Could this be the story of the tribulations and adventures of one warrior, a biography, or the story of a people, perhaps the Ute.

All over this world have been wars, battles. People continue to take risks and die for beliefs, love and passions. For some, it is survival, and very often as pawns in someone’s game. I’ve always wondered if and how, our human race might grow out of that.  

Memorial Day touches me and my thoughts. A member of my family tree participated in every major war from the French and Indian Wars, to Vietnam. They came to a new world as Quakers and subsequent generations found different rules. In the 1830’s, on the Great Plains, my family traded bread for native hunter’s meat. Herds of bison walked by for days on end and wildfire traveled faster than a horse could run. My great, great, great, great, great grandpa was a Lokota medicine chief. His daughter’s marriage fusing two families and peoples. Among these thoughts, in my mind, out of nowhere, I hear something from my childhood when growing up on a military base, a bugle playing Taps.

I occasionally mark my dad’s grave with a small flag and my respect.  I’m disturbed in remembrance of Wounded Knee. I feel genuinely rooted as an American.  All over the world, people die in armies, or bands, defending groups, or tribes. Warriors accomplish their spirited goals and emanate as heroes. How synchronistic to find this monument with my feelings on Memorial Day.

The sun continues to highlight the grandeur of this region as shadow creeps over it. The rock retains heat and it radiates up. An occasional breeze shifts with cooler air. We are very aware, in touch with the subtle nuances, grounding. Feelings from inside intertwine with sensations from without. Life is a wondrous thing.

Far below, that pond in the road glows orange, a gem set in a chain of verdant foliage. We are free and safe here.

In a clearing at the base of the hill, I see a small sign that I failed to notice when we passed through earlier.  It signals that there is a patch of reservation here. The sign has been generally ignored.

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