More Kayenta Stories

Mack Waite and I was driving west from Kayenta in an old red `38 Ford pickup. We's making a big dust at about 50 MPH, trying to hit just the tops of them rough corrugated bumps. All of a sudden that Red-Beasty veers off the road to the right and sails out through the sparse brush at a rapid rate. It's flat sandy ground and I know if I stop we'll get stuck, so I romp on the gas and circle it back toward the road. When we re-track we hadn't lost much momentum. Ol' Mack, exclaims: "What the heck'd you do that for?" "Just chasing that long-tailed lizard." (Really, though, a loose tie rod end and that rough road had done it).

AND

Another time I'm headed toward the Tuba City Trading Post in my flat bed Chevy pickup when out of the brush ahead steps a Big Buck and waves me down. When I get stopped, a Squaw shows up with a whole passel of younguns. The Buck gets in, then the Squaw and all them kids pile in the cab. We's all in there like sardines and I'm squeezed over against the door and can hardly work the gear shift. While I'm still trying to get `er moving a whole tribe of Lamanites come out from the underbrush and load up. Now it's dead-X on the back end and the hood's pointing up till the front wheels barely touch the ground. Lucky though, when we get to the trading post they all disembark. I'm sort of peeved and put out with that Buck. Least he could a done was to let his Squaw, with all them pretty colored skirts sit next to me in that crowded cab. It wasn't no fun a' tall setting by him!