Monument Valley is a place of magic, and that's exactly the way it seemed for good friend Nick Nixon when he saw it for the first time. He wrote this essay about his experience, and Cactus Country published it in Volume III this past summer. Sadly, Nick passed away just a few weeks after the book's release. But he got to see his essay in print and it made him happy. You can find Cactus Country as a Kindle on Amazon, and it is soon to be released at your favorite bookstore in a hardcover edition. But here's a glimpse of what kind of stories you'll find between the book's covers.
West
of the Mississippi, west of the Ozarks, and west of the endless prairie flats
of Kansas, there lies the mythical mountain land of imagination where the
legends of my childhood once lived and roamed. Wild Bill Hickok, Wyatt Earp,
Kit Carson, and Billy the Kid were some that traveled there.
Many other legendary
outlaws rode out of the wide open border state of Missouri, both before and
after the Civil War. Folks remember their names, and some say they still ride
today up there in the hilly pines. Every cave in Missouri has been a hideout
for the infamous train robbers Frank and Jesse James. Many of the initials
scratched on their limestone walls are an alias to confuse the wily Pinkertons.
Tell me what kid kept a
dry eye when Johnny Mac Brown rode off into the lonesome sunset. And how many
of us scurried all week finding new ways to make the dime entry fee into the
Saturday matinee to see if the Durango Kid survived the explosion while tied up
deep inside a mountain.
If I could count them,
I’ll bet I yelled “Come back Shane” more times than Tonto said “kee-mo sah-bee.”
As a boy, I wanted to
climb right into the radio, jump aboard a black stallion and ride with the Lone
Ranger through the valley of the Cotton-Wood. Make camp on the creek that runs
down from the snow-capped mountains. Eat a supper of bacon and beans warmed
over a camp fire and go to sleep to the sound of a lone wolf howling mournfully
from a high ridge.
I longed to watch a stag
elk ease down a point on a frosty morning blowing mushrooms of steam from his
nostrils with his huge antlers rolling elegantly along his back.
These thoughts have been
with me throughout my long life, and I’ve been there. I’ve seen the great
forest in all its pride and glory. I’ve seen mountain streams running clear as
the sky after an early snow storm. I’ve seen two Grizzlies play in a high
meadow. Yes, I’ve seen it, but sadly through the years, I’ve seen some of it go
away.
I’ve stood on a rock big
enough to jump an Indian from if one rode by unexpectedly. I’ve been on cliffs
that I could have lain concealed with a spy glass monitoring movements of the
outlaw gang what rustled my paw’s cattle.
But the mountains and
mystic hills of the West with huge boulders, high cliffs and creeks shimmering
with “there for the taking” gold dust, were a hundred times easier for me to
envision through the big picture window of my imagination. The cathedral of
western fable lies in America’s southwest, known as the mystifying Monument
Valley, where every pebble is a souvenir of the greatest of all western heroes,
John Wayne. If you look across the valley long enough you can see “the Duke”
atop a dusty stage coach picking off painted Indians that came too close to his
one-of-a-kind Winchester. You can see him checking the time on his retirement
watch lest we forget she wore a yellow ribbon.
You would think actually
being there and walking on the same hallowed ground as my legendary idols
would’ve dampened my fascination. That’ll be the day.
Somehow it has only
fanned the flames of a long burning passion for the great, but fading American
West. Sometimes my heart sinks when I see a picture of the great rock towers,
and my only hope is that it lasts, at least as long as there’s one young person
as enchanted with its magic as I have been.
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Cactus Country Volume III
