From Beaver to Yellowhorse, Ep 11
- juliemorrisonwrite
- Apr 8
- 2 min read
Julie takes us to a memory at Hawley Lake of wildlife, and then Lisa to another memory near Cameron Trading Post.
Mug: Santa Fe Railroad
From Arizona Highways
by Lisa Schnebly Heidinger
The next time I went to visit the Chief, I took my father, and they discovered that of only a few people alive today, they shared memories of living near the New Mexico border, around Lupton. They remembered Miller’s Cave, now called Yellow Horse Cave since the Chief purchased it, and the year the schoolhouse burned and classes were held in a boxcar donated by the railroad. They both thought a girl named Betty was pretty good-looking.
Delighted with the shared past, the Chief and my father exchanged a light correspondence, until two years ago, when my father’s Christmas card generated a telephone call from the Chief’s son Scott, with the news his father had passed away in October.
“He used to say, ‘Put your helmet on,’ when we started to work,” remembers the chief’s assistant and now Scott’s, Joe Cody. “Like we were going into battle.”
It was all part of a campaign the Chief tremendously enjoyed waging, chatting with tourists who still come through asking for him. Scott says gravely, “No one can fill his shoes.”
But I’m not as sure of that. My daughter walks up with three cards brightly printed with information about tribes and America. Four dollars a card seems like a lot of money to her.
Scott smiles and begins to barter.
It’s what his father would have done.
I know they buried the Chief near Yellow Horse Cave. But I look up, wishing I could see Juan Yellow Horse watching his son and my daughter bargain. I believe he can, and that he is enjoying it as much as I am.
Friendly Indians behind you, Scott Yellow Horse.
Copyright Arizona Highways, Used with Permission
A Prayer for the Eager and Busy
by Julie Morrison
Oh Lord, let me:
Swim as the tip of a V,
so that others may draft
by my design,
Chew on supply - choosing
the pliant for work,
the established for re-seeding,
Fall, and fell, no more than needed
to fill a gap— just enough
to pool food —
skimming, not stopping flows
toward downstream needs,
Pile the work of days
into months of enough,
Lodge where entrance and escape
converse without interrupting
each other,
(Merely) Slap a flat surface
when threat intrudes
on my private quiet,
Dive toward safe stillness,
depth without the exposure
of current churn,
Furr until fluffed,
effectively pelting cold
with a dry warmth,
Float the in-between times
as though life’s architecture
is ever a rough draft—
subject to life’s changes—
where nothing is ever built out
so much as building.
Copyright 2025 Julie Morrison, All rights reserved
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