For the past few days one of the ranch dogs was missing; didn’t show up at my house or run with the other dogs. I drove along a few miles of road and walked a few loops around the ranch; all futile but we were looking. By last night the entire pack was stressed and the old dogs demanded to sleep in the house. We all expected the worst. This morning in the gray before sunrise, I awoke to see ‘Hook’ looking in the west door, and so did the dogs. We all went outside, dancing and romping in the chill of sunrise; a few rounds of biscuits made the celebration complete. Hook was home: tired and hungry, but back with the pack.

Appears to be a slow-moving season as the grama grass seed ripens in the sun. The lush green of just two weeks ago during the frequent rains has begun to change to yellow-brown. Early morning air contains just a hint of the coming autumn but afternoon still feels like summer. The monsoon rains have subsided or maybe gone away until next year. The warmth, rain, and summer growth have brought out an amazing assortment of bugs. Some are annoying; some are interesting, at the least. A colony of minute ants are harvesting the dead flies on one of my southern windowsills, using a variety of stones & rocks for cover. I’m leaving that spot alone, kind of like a little, tiny nature preserve.

Early in the week I needed to purchase a few necessities from the market in Zuni, but ended up driving out several dirt roads in the back-country. Incredible area, but does not quite match the maps. I made some personal discoveries and made it to the end of two roads; one at a cattle-tank and the other at an old ranch house, inhabited by an old native American and his cattle-dog. We waved to each other; as I drove slowly away I wondered how long he had lived there? His whole life? Or maybe longer through his ancestors? Was he a descendant of the elusive Mogollan people. I like to believe such things; fun but makes absolutely no difference, except to me. We waved across the corral, and maybe across time; that’s a fun thought.

Coming back through town, I stopped at the market. Of course, fried chicken and red chili went home with me; supplies from the Pueblo of Zuni. The old fur trappers based out of Taos in the 1830s and 40s would always try to trek to the Pueblo of Zuni for last supplies on their westward hunt for fur in the southwest. Sometimes the past just doesn’t seem that far away. A good place to stop, whatever your century. I wonder if old Bill Williams ever enjoyed red chili at the Zuni Pueblo; that’s a fun thought.

Down in the hills south of Zuni, above the ancient Zuni Wash, I could see Mt. Baldy at the edge of the Apache National Forest. The Zuni Wash connects into the Little Colorado that begins away up on Baldy. It is a direct route from the White Mountains of Arizona, through the homeland of the prehistoric Mogollan people, to the canyons of the Zuni. For the trappers, the natural route would take them to the headwaters of the Little Colorado, the San Francisco, the Salt River and the Gila. When I lived in Arizona, I spent much time in those mountains, especially in the wilderness of Baldy. Way up high, 10,000 feet or so, summer is much different than the Zuni lands. For awhile, as the sun set over the lands of Zuni and Navajo, I thought of, and missed, those high mountains down in Arizona. And I wondered if any of those long-gone Mogollans that migrated to the canyons of the Zunis ever looked back from where they came.