Navajo Rez

As a long-time visitor to this site, I enjoy reading all the stories and experiences that everybody has had. I would like to share a few experiences of my own. As half Navajo and Hopi I've had my share of experiences on and off the Navajo and Hopi "rez." I hope that I won't get any ridicule from any other Native Americans for posting these experiences.

One experience that I would like to share happened when I was 14 years old (I'm now 29). This is an experience that I have only shared with a small number of people and am now writing down for the very first time. My brother who is a hardened soldier is still scared about what happened to us this particular evening. On with the story.

As a teenager, I would visit my grandma at her home on the Navajo rez for several weeks every summer. I loved to spend time with her, eat her delicious frybread, and hear her tell us stories. Every so often my grandma would hire a worker (the harmless town drunk) to do odd jobs around her house and property. One evening right before the sun went down, I was asked by my grandma to take him home, which was about four miles out of the valley where she lived. I was more than happy to, seeing that I was only 14 years old and was asked to drive a truck! Mind you that on the rez, nobody cares that you're only 14 years old and driving around. Hell, there's hardly anybody around to see you anyway! So my 9 year old brother jumped in the truck cab with me while this worker and my dog shared the tailgate of the truck and we were off.

After I dropped the worker off at the shack that he and his brothers called a house, we headed back down the road to grandmas. As I mentioned before, it was evening and the sky was a deep red as the sun began to set behind us. We were leaving a nice dust trail from the dirt road and the radio was playing music from the only radio station that could be picked up from the nearest town of Holbrook, Arizona. There was nothing unusual, nothing weird. It was at this time that my eye caught movement of something in the bushes a little up the road to the right of us. I remember slowing down thinking that it was one of the many free roaming sheep in the area that would dart out in front of the truck. As I passed where I thought I saw it, I sped up thinking nothing else of it. Then out of nowhere I just felt this dark feeling of fear and dread. I had no idea why I was feeling this way but I definitely felt that something was wrong. As I play this memory back in my mind, there are only a few clear memories that I have of that evening. I clearly remember looking in my rearview mirror and seeing the dark silhouette of something very tall and very skinny that seemed to be covered with some kind of hair or fur running behind the truck after us! I remember my brother crying and my dog barking ferociously at whatever was chasing us. I remember speeding very fast and shaking violently as the truck bounced on the washboard dirt road. I distinctly remember that this thing was only getting closer as my brother cried, "It's coming up on your side!" I remember being as scared as hell and thinking that I didn't want to die. At the moment that I thought would be our last, I remember speeding around a bend in the road and seeing a car coming towards us in the opposite direction. At that moment I felt instant relief and felt that whatever was following us was gone.

Shaken up but alive, we made it to grandma's house wondering what the hell had just happened. As we told my grandma about our experience, she didn't seem too surprised which surprised us. She continued by repeating stories that we had already heard at one point or another about black magic, witches, and something that the Navajos call Yee Nadlooshii or Skinwalkers. Without going too deep into explanation, I'll just say that they are evil men and spirits that use black magic for evil doing. I tell you that as farfetched as it may sound, they are real! I believe that if God and his greatness are real, the devil is equally as real and also has his ways of showing himself.

This may not sound very scary to some readers and may be because of my lack of writing skills. But what happened that evening really did happen and scared the living crap out of me. I look forward to sharing other experiences.