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Near Monarch Pass is a peak that would be famous if it were only 29 feet higher. The east flank of 13,971-foot Mount Ouray holds a huge cwm that resembles an armchair. Legend has it that the spirit of Chief Ouray abides there, and during troubled times he rises from his great mountain throne.
I scoff at such lore -- the Angel of Shavano, for instance, has several mythic explanations, none of which mentions that the seasonal snowfield looks more like Woody Woodpecker than anything remotely cherubic. The other day, though, I looked west from my back yard and saw something strange.
At first, I thought it was just forest-fire haze interfering with the usually clear view, and that the eerie shimmering was from this dreadful summer heat. But moments later, Ouray the Arrow, chief of the Nuche, was standing before me.
This person's heart is sad,
he began, his words
coming slowly and deliberately. I have come to speak to
a White Eyes who might hear me.
Since I hardly ever get to interview a Ute chief who's
been dead for 109 years, I assured Ouray that I would pay
close attention. Why is your heart sad? Is it because of
what the White Eyes have done to your beloved mountains --
now the very forests are aflame?
Ouray's grunts sounded like laughter. No. You are
quite foolish if you think we cared about forest fires. In
the Shining Times, we used to set fires all the time to
flush out game.
So much for the Noble Red Man as a steward of nature.
For a moment I thought that you might be sad because the
White Eyes do not respect your holy places. But then I
recalled that there are many spiritual development centers
in the mountains.
Ouray laughed again. That should make your heart sad.
There is one above Boulder which claims that, for
centuries, it was a sacred place for the Arapaho.
He
turned and spat before resuming. Those dog-eating scum
lived by the Great Lakes until 1720 and were gone by 1880.
That is not
centuries.
Don't you White Eyes know how to
reckon?
Innumeracy is a problem these days, but I stayed on
course. Is your heart sad because we have forsaken the
traditional ways?
No. Many White Eyes in your town still live very much
in our traditional ways. Men do little but hunt, fish, and
then share pipes as they swap tall tales with their friends
while the women do all the real work.
Then did you come to say that you are angry with us?
Is that why you have caused the most brutally cold winter
in recent memory, followed by the driest, hottest summer on
record?
Ouray rolled his eyes. The weather is beyond my
powers. I am sad because you did not heed my words, and now
you suffer.
I pressed for an explanation.
We did not put our lodges in one place and stay
there. In the summer, we lived up near timberline, where it
is cool. In the winter, we moved to low valleys by
Montrose, where the season is bearable. Hear me, that is
the only way one can survive in Colorado. Stay in one
place, and you will freeze and fry.
I recalled his warnings to pioneer miners -- dig all the
gold you want, but do not build houses. You told them
that because you knew that nobody should try staying year
'round in one place in Colorado?
Ouray nodded. I was always a friend to the White
Eyes, and I told them that for their own good. But they did
not heed me, and now they suffer.
He excused himself.
The heat on the valley floor was getting to him, so it was
time to return to his throne at 13,000 feet.
I know I should have followed him, but I stayed. What else can you expect from a foolish White Eyes who thinks he has work to do?
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