Palisades Sill, New Mexico and The Gunfighter’s Woman by Kaye Spencer #sweetheartsofthewest #westernromance

Palisades Sill along the Cimarron River

Canyon in northern New Mexico

Every year, I head out on day long road trip that takes me through northern New Mexico or southern Colorado. Both areas are rich with old west history. A few years ago, I took a drive through northern New Mexico to see the spectacular rock cliffs called the Palisades Sill in the Cimarron River Canyon between Cimarron and Taos. It is a lovely, slow drive. If you take an autumnal drive, you will likely see the beautiful colors of the Aspen leaves as they change colors.

I consider Trinidad, Colorado to be the starting point for this drive even though I live two hours to the east. So from Trinidad, head south over Raton Pass then bear to the southwest past the National Rifle Association’s affiliate site, the Wittington Center, and keep going to Cimarron, New Mexico and then head westerly through the mountains to Taos. The narrow, winding, two-lane paved road of 60 miles from Cimarron to Taos roughly follows the Cimarron River through the Cimarron River Canyon, and the drive will take you around an hour and a half.

Kaye at the edge of the Cimarron River

behind her and the Palisades Sill

Cliffs rising out of sight

From Cimarron, you’ll begin the ascent toward Taos through the Cimarron River Canyon. You’ll soon find yourself in Cimarron Canyon State Park and, in just a few miles, you'll come to a breathtaking view of a rough and ragged line of rock cliffs called the Palisades Sill.

Palisades Sill - view from the parking area

These cliffs were cut by the Cimarron River some 40 million years ago during the era of uplifting in the southern Rocky Mountains. The rock is igneous known as sill. Here is a quote from the New Mexico Bureau of Geology and Mineral Resources website -http://geoinfo.nmt.edu/tour/state/cimarron/home.html

Cimarron is Spanish for wild and untamed and originally was used in New Mexico to refer to the wild bighorn sheep, and later to the wild horses and cattle that once roamed throughout the north-central mountains. Today, the sparsely populated Cimarron country in western Colfax County can still be described as wild and untamed with its rugged, timbered mountains (the Cimarron Range), towering cliffs, and the previously unpredictable Cimarron River. The Cimarron River has been tamed somewhat by the Eagle Nest Dam, which controls flooding in the canyon.

Many an outlaw and gold-seeker made their way over the this rough and dangerous mountain trail from Cimarron to Taos. In my book, The Gunfighter’s Woman, I sent former gunfighter Matt Caddock over this route when he left the Stirling Ranch near Trinchera, Colorado as his quickest way to reach Taos, New Mexico. He returned to an old church in Taos where he hoped to find clues that would lead him to gold buried near the Spanish Peaks of southern Colorado.

Here is an excerpt from The Gunfighter’s Woman.

Matt Caddock was a man with a simple plan—find the gold and return to Brenna by the first snow at the ranch. He didn’t have much time. No more than a month, if that. Too bad simple plans weren’t necessarily the easiest.

Riding under a promise of a cool evening, his arrival in Taos turned no heads. He was just a stranger going somewhere, but headed nowhere. Skirting the edge of the quiet adobe town, he circled wide around the ruins of the old San Geronimo Church and graveyards until he reached the back of the Nuestra Señora de Guadalupe parish.

Looping the horse’s reins around a short post, he gave him a pat and a promise he’d return soon, then he walked along the adobe wall to the courtyard gate, his gaze scanning the street, buildings, and passersby.At the church door, he paused, glanced around, then stepped into the cool tranquility inside the church and removed his hat. He lingered at the side of the doorway, letting his eyes adjust to the change in light while getting his bearings. The floor fell away in a gentle slope to the front where candles burned and a shadowed cross hung high on the far wall.

Movement, and a barely audible scraping—like a footstep— caught his ear, and he expected a priest or a parishioner to greet him…but no one appeared. Chalking it up to a mouse scurrying about, Matt walked up the narrow aisle to the first pew where he’d sat beside Henry on that long ago day in his seventeen-year-old life. He took the same place on the wooden pew where he’d sat with Henry, and gazed at the serene white figure of the Lady of Guadalupe nestled into her protective alcove carved into the two-foot-thick adobe wall not five feet in front of him.

He had dim recollections of going to church a couple of times a year with his parents, but never again after his ma died. The only other time he’d been in a church was with Henry here.

He was uncomfortable in a church, because he didn’t know what to do. When he’d voiced his misgivings, Henry had explained a church was a place to think. You didn’t have to pray if you didn’t want to. So that’s what he’d done. He’d thought.

He’d wondered about his future as much as he questioned why his parents had died and left him a penniless orphan. There seemed no point to anything in his life with the aimless drifting from job-to-job and town-to-town with Henry. Together, all they owned was a pocket full of nothing. Granted, they had clothes on their backs and food in their bellies, but wasn’t there more out there…somewhere?

Guilt stinging his conscience for those ungrateful thoughts, he’d peeked at Henry. His eyes were closed and his chin rested on his chest.

The Gunfighter's Woman is available on Amazon.com: HERE

Until next time,

Kaye Spencer

Writing through history one romance upon a time

Note: Images are Kaye's personal pictures

My apologies for the weirdness of the different fonts and font sizes in the article. Blogger was not playing nicely when I wrote this. ;-)

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The Four Sacred Peaks of the Dinetah

by Amber Leigh Williams

The Navaho Reservation, better known as Navaho Nation, located in Arizona, New Mexico, and Utah is the largest Indian Reservation in the United States. To the Navaho themselves, this homeland is called the Dinetah and once encompassed much of the American West, from northeastern Arizona to southwestern Colorado, southeastern Utah, and northwestern Mexico. Four sacred mountain peaks mark the Dinetah and the territory the Navaho people once dominated. These peaks became entrenched in Navaho geography with one peak representing one of the four cardinal directions – north, south, east, and west. The mountains also became entrenched in Navaho mythology and, to this day, are considered sacred. The Navaho believed that these four sacred mountains were modeled after mountains of the Fourth World and built by First Man from the soil of that world.

The mountain of the north, Mount Hesperus, is located in the La Plata Mountains of Colorado. A dark, prominent peak, it is the highest summit in the La Plata Mountains at 13,232 feet. Because it is said to be home to the gemstone, jet, and is associated with the color black, it has also been called Obsidian Mountain. To the Navaho, it is Dibé Nitsaa, or “Big Mountain Sheep.”

The Sacred Mountain of the East, Mount Blanca, can be found in San Luis Valley, Colorado, near Alamosa. It is the highest peak of the Sierra Blanca Massif of the Sangre de Cristo Mountains, the eighth highest peak in the United States and the fourth highest in the Rocky Mountains. Like Mount Hesperus, it is a prominent peak that reaches up to 14,345 feet. Mount Blanca is made up of pre-Cambrian granite, which is 1.8 billion years old. The Navaho call it Tsisnaasjini', or “Dawn or White Shell Mountain” because it is associated with the color white. The first recorded summit of Mount Blanca took place in 1874, but when the climbers reached the top they discovered a structure believed to be built by the Ute.

To the south of the Dinetah, you’ll find Mount Taylor, located in northwest New Mexico, the highest point of the San Mateo Mountains as well as the Cibola National Forest. Mount Taylor crests far above the New Mexican desert and is cloaked mostly in forest. It once provided timber for local pueblos and, though currently named for President Zachary Taylor, was known by the Spanish as Cebolleta. However, to the Navaho, it is Tsoodzil, “Blue Bead” or “Turquoise Mountain” because of its blue hue and cone-like shape. According to mythology, Black God, Turquoise Boy, and Turquoise Girl live on Mount Taylor. A popular, religious site for Native American people, it is also worshipped by the Acoma, the Laguna, and the Zuni. Evidence shows that Mount Taylor was once anywhere from 16,000 to 25,000 feet high, but due to volcanic eruptions from 3.3 to 1.5 million years ago similar to Mount Saint Helens, it has dwindled down to a mere 11,305 feet and has been mined for its copious amounts of uranium-vanadium. The mining of Mount Taylor slowed considerably in 2008 when the Navaho, Acoma, Laguna, Zuni and Hopi people cried out in protest. Since, it has been added to the list of America’s Most Endangered Places and is protected by the National Trust for Historic Preservation.

Finally, the western boundary of the Dinetah is the San Francisco Peaks in the Coconino National Forest near Flagstaff, Arizona. The highest summit of the San Francisco Peaks is Humphreys Peak at 12,633 feet, the tallest site in the state of Arizona. It is popular for skiers due to the location of the Arizona Snowbowl on Humphreys’ western slope, a subject of controversy amongst Native Americans and environmentalists. Like Mount Taylor, it was once an active volcano site – an eroded stratovolcano – and a religious site for various Native American tribes including the Navaho, the Havasupai, the Hopi, and the Zuni. It is said to contain abalone and is known to the Navaho as Doko'oosliid, or “Abalone Shell Mountain.”

Though some have been tampered by controversy, these four sacred peaks were once the four points of the Navaho’s traditional homeland. They mapped what the Navaho believed was the land the Creator placed their people on. To this day, they are part of the belief system of the Navaho people (and a number of other Native American tribes), and create the harmony between nature and a higher power so central to the Navaho Nation. Their beauty and majesty have been preserved as well as eroded by time, but the people still believe in their mystical energy to this day.

The "Message Board" of the American West

The high desert of western New Mexico isn't the kind of place you would expect to come across an oasis...or what is known today as "sky island"...or, for that matter, a veritable message board for the American West. Yet if you happen to be traveling there and come across the El Morro National Monument, you would find all of the above.
Soft, flat El Morro Mesa has been a landmark for centuries. Thousands of years before people began carving their names in El Morro Mesa, Paleo and Archaic hunters gathered there, probably because even then it was a desert oasis. The ruins of a 13th century pueblo can still be found on top of the mesa and are known as the village of Atsinna. The people who lived there built the pueblos on top of the hard-to-reach mesa as a defensible position during a period of drought and famine.

The runoff from the mesa feeds the spring and gives it constant, reliable flow. It was a camping ground for Anasazi/Zuni traders, Spanish Conquistadors, the U.S. Army, and American pioneers. In fact, all of the above have carved their names into Inscription Rock at El Morro Mesa. The first translatable and dated message dates back to the 17th century when Adelantado Don Juan de Onate carved the following...

"Passed by here, the Adelantado Don Juan de Onate, from the discovery of the Sea of the South, the 16th day of April, 1605."

In the inscriptions of El Morro Mesa, history is written in many ways. For example, though they eventually lost control of New Mexico to the Mexicans (who in turn lost the colony to the United States), the Spanish ruled there for two centuries before the Pueblo Rebellion of 1680. They then reigned again for twelve years, after a victory against the Pueblo during which another a Spanish general carved the following....

"Here was the General Don Diego de Vargas, who conquered for our Holy Faith and for the Royal Crown all of New Mexico at his own expense, year of 1692."

The first American inscription at El Morro Mesa appeared in 1849 and was made by "Lt. Simpson" of the U.S. Army. In 1906, the state of New Mexico decided to recognize El Morro Mesa and Inscription Rock's historical value by incorporating both into El Morro National Monument. For the same reason, carvings are no longer permitted at Inscription Rock, but it remains a favorite camping spot for many modern explorers of the American West who don't mind going a bit off the beaten track to see a bit of history carved into desert stone.

Amber Leigh Williams

"Williams has brought the romantic back to romance!" ~ LASR

www.amberleighwilliams.com