Cocoposts

They found her broken body on Easter morning, 1949. Like other Sundays, they were hunting rabbits on the mesa after church.

The village of Mesquite is 12 miles south of Las Cruces, New Mexico. The cemetery was remote but familiar to the three boys who spotted her body partially buried in a shallow arroyo.

A couple of reporters are why the story didn’t die. Justice was pursued based largely on their work. Cricket’s killer was never found but coverage uncovered a cover-up.

The efforts Sheriff “Happy” Apodoca made to destroy and ignore evidence and witness testimony was the start. Reporters interviewed witnesses who described what hadn’t made it into the Sheriff’s reports. The boys who found her body described how he appeared to deliberately drive over tire tracks at the scene. A man told the Sheriff he had seen Cricket getting into a car with official state plates and a car matching the description was later found burned. These didn’t make it into the official report either. Cricket’s body was buried without ceremony and when she was exhumed, they found that lime had been used to speed decomposition.

The Sheriff tried to frame a popular college football player who’d been seen with Cricket. When that didn’t work, he tortured a Black veteran to get a confession. That resulted in a ground breaking civil rights case and made the cover of Time.

The involvement of New Mexico sheriffs in illegal gambling had become obvious by 1949. A Grand Jury convened in Dona Ana County hired their own lawyers and got hold of Sheriff Happy Apodaca’s bank records. They found the gambling money. Then they drove down to the gambling joints in their pickup trucks, confiscated illegal slot machines, and dumped them on the Dona Ana courthouse lawn.

The Sheriff went to prison for some, but not all, of his crimes. Sadly he was pardoned by President Truman. He served as a Justice of the Peace until his death in 1981. He and Cricket are buried in the same Las Cruces cemetery.

The Sheriff’s Deputy got the worst deal. He didn’t get a pardon and after serving his full sentence he publically vowed to solve the murder and was shot dead. The official report said it was suicide but the coroner told a reporter the bullet entered the back of the deputy’s head.

Cricket’s death created upheaval but was never solved. People that knew the killer have likely all gone to their graves with that secret. The story is not unique. Secrets protect evil men. Hopeful views say their careless deceit makes them vulnerable, eventually. Until then, we’re cut by sharp sad pieces of a construction, like a wind chime of razor blades.

Rose Henley Hayden Fulton 1881-1968

William Shirley Fulton 1880-1964

Dragoon, Arizona

Exhibits

Upstairs in the back is the room devoted to the Folgers who established all this in 1937. He was crazy about archaeology. She was crazy about Quarter Horses.

Pictures show pastures of foals frolicking between the Texas Canyon boulders. Founding sires stand square and chunky. Their names make me smile. Ben Hur II, Canyon Tom, Texas Tom.

I finger the phone in my pocket, reaching for it as a natural reflex when I see anything I want to remember and record. No photos here though. And so I return again and again, taking the comically tight exit ramp off I-10 and driving the short distance to the old ranch.

This time there are hundreds of people there for a competitive run through the boulders. The museum is empty but for devoted docents. I go back to my favorite exhibits, trying to burn them into my brain: the pots and artifacts, the room built to resemble Paquimé, the Zuni and Diné jewelry, the contemporary art by Native American and Western artists. And the exhibit, “Ma Fulton’s FF Ranch.”

 Scarf up the tender eye of pitiful day

 And with thy bloody and invisible hand

 Cancel and tear to pieces that great bond

 Which keeps me pale. Light thickens, and the crow

 Makes wing to th’ rooky wood.

 Good things of day begin to droop and drowse,

 Whiles nights black agents to their preys do rouse.

 Thou marvel’st at my words, but hold thee still.

 Things bad begun make strong themselves by ill.

Act III Scene II

En route to Tucson, visiting the Luna County Historical Society’s Deming Luna Mimbres Museum in the old Armory building again. Down the long hall past the not-great paintings are the gems and minerals.

I was staring at the “Apache Tears,” like my brother collected in the Jemez in the 1950s, when I heard a loud person. They are everywhere. But this particular guy was enthralled with rocks, moving from case to case, pointing out specimens. He repeatedly compared these to those at “the show.”

“What show?” I finally asked.

“You haven’t been to THE SHOW?! You’re better get out there because it closes in three hours!”

Three hours later I had some serious quartz crystal energy swirling around my motel room.

Rock Hound Roundup was full of collectors and characters from everywhere and tables crammed with gems, crystals, sculptures, jewelry, orbs, fossils and things with teeth I’d never seen before. There were even more heaping tables outside. Vendors of gorgeous rocks remarked on the gorgeous weather.

There is a road south from Tucson past the subdivisions where growth slows and the Sonoran emerges. Eyes drawn to the southeast for a view. Like the distant horizontal stretch of gypsum draws eyes toward White Sands, here is the bright vertical of San Xavier’s walls, spires and domes. White Dove of the Desert, Ansel Adams called it.

I’ve been here before. At dawn on a day Halley’s Comet got the closest, February 1986. We were on a long road trip across the West, looking for signs and wonders. We drove all night and parked at the far edge of the giant parking lot to stare at the sky.

There was a cold breeze and it was hazy. Long liminal moments passed as the light grew. Over our shoulders the big fat tall stucco church changed. We turned around and watched the hulking mass became weightless in the light. Looming. Going from glowering gray to angry pink, to glowing opal white.

More like a winged horse than a dove.

That friend is gone and the comet won’t return until 2061.

Mission San Xavier del Bac was established in 1692 by Jesuit Francisco Kino. This Spanish Baroque church was completed in 1797 by Franciscans.

With Mexican independence from Spain, Franciscans were forced out and the church was abandoned for 16 years Then it became part of the very distant Santa Fe Diocese after the Gadsden Purchase. Bishop Lamy ordered repairs and assigned a priest. I’ll bet he visited and saw the place at dawn.

Restoration is ongoing. The tour guide provided a lot of details. He said there’s an angel tally. A kind of contemplative practice. Searching for them dancing and flying around in plaster and paint. The count was 183 but more and more are peeking out from behind old curtains of soot. The current tally is 200.

I feel like I’m cheating on Albuquerque with Tucson when I’m there. The Festival of Books on the pretty University of Arizona campus was great. The venerable Arizona Inn was impeccable. The Sonoran rowhouse in Barrio Viejo, quiet and cool. The microbrews are delicious. 4th Avenue is hip. There’s rail through the great downtown and an art store next to campus, family owned. When you say “botanical gardens” you have to ask “which ones?”

On the other hand, it got to 104 degrees on the first day of Spring and I didn’t hear any coyotes.

Festival Tally – 12 authors, 6 sessions, 7 books bought.

Being surrounded by thousands of readers and writers at the Festival was inspirational and humbling. Notes scribbled in the tiny notebook:

Everyone here reads and writes a lot. ::smiley face::

He’s magnetic. ::Underlined with curliques::

Never sit in a room named for a saint who was into mortification.

Salman Rushdie radiated wisdom and humour. He spoke to a packed ballroom about India and his latest, “The Eleventh Hour – A Quintet of Stories. I got a signed copy and devoured it in a day.

I met John Fugelsang. Well, our eyes met. He’s warm. Hot, even. And so was the tent. I sat in the back behind a bald spot. I shifted around in my captive plastic chair. Finally he looked right at me. Or it could have been at a member of his family in front of me. Whatever. His book is called, “Separation of Church and Hate; A Sane Person’s Guide to Taking Back the Bible From Fundamentalists, Fascists, and Flock-Fleecing Frauds.”

Authors Ana North and Shobha Rao talked about their female characters who hold on to their agency by caring for others – landscapes and people. North described how she enjoyed writing “mythical interludes” in her new book, “Bog Queen” where she gives voice to the moss.

A note on the venue:

The room was hot. The chairs, attached to each other in tight rows of collective bondage. It’s airplane seating without armrests. I got uncomfortable and started fanning myself. I realized I can’t just stand up and stretch which made me even more uncomfortable. I took several deep breaths, inhaling all the hot air of other people, thought about Covid, quit breathing. The women around me figure I’m sighing from boredom. It’s partly true and guilt joins the anxiety party. I try to relax and pretend I’m moss.

Be wary of any room named for the Patroness of Impossible Causes who cut herself. Lastly, Santa Rita and her little sister rooms are flat so it’s impossible to see the presenters. Everyone has to move their heads around as those in the rows in front of you do the same thing. Everyone is rocking back and forth like they’re in different boats. No wonder I was uncomfortable.

The magnetism of writers and thinkers at the Tucson Festival of Books recalibrated my senses, improved my outlook, and made me want to be a better writer and reader. It spun my compass.

They wake me in the morning, keening. Crying and counting themselves. Telling about the territories and where mean humans live. Calls about when and where to cross the highways and probably boasts about their conquests.

“They can live almost anywhere; they can eat almost anything. Poison them, shoot them, trap them – coyotes come back. It is their super power.”

Just finished the 2024 book, Coyotes Among Us: Secrets of the City’s Top Predator. Authors Stanley Gehrig and Kerry Luft describe their groundbreaking twenty-years of coyote research in the Chicago area.

They found that coyotes avoid people and human attacks are very rare. Conflicts are almost entirely limited to cases where humans feed coyotes and encouraged boldness. They are well equipped to survive with or without us, as they have survived centuries of persecution.

They are monogamous, unlike the wolf. They rarely fight each other, unlike the wolf.

Their howling indicates individual personalities and communication bonds. The researchers speculate that they can assess the health and location of others.

As if coyotes can count.

Generally they can be hard for us to see. Two are very good at appearing as one. A ghost presence, their shadowing partner, often sees you first.

What I can see is what they eat. Unlike felines, they’re very proud of their scat. There is little or no fur in the piles they leave in paths. They eat everything and they’ve wiped out the native foxes and outdoor cats. Undoubtedly they brag about that in their song too.

I didn’t like that they began to routinely harass the visiting cranes on my pasture.

So I got a slingshot and a bag of little clay balls and began wielding it, practicing on a target and shooting at them a couple times. Hindsight suggests I was far more threatening chasing them in by bathrobe waving a walking stick.

Whatever. It worked. They’re wary of me now and that’s healthier for them. They see me and trot a little faster, a little further away. I expect the word is out about me and that it’s tinged with mockery.

.

I love the cottonwood tree. Everything about it, including the nuisances of cotton and pollen (not the same thing,) the soft wood that’s not great for stoves and fireplaces, the tendency to “self prune” and drop heavy branches onto cars, roofs, and fences.

I still love it because “they aren’t making trees like that anymore.” We’re losing 80 foot tall trees and what goes with them. I’ll miss their shade the most.

Where I live, in the Middle Rio Grande valley, the trees are relative newcomers. I understand much of the bosque (forest) was cut down long ago. Somehow this is supposed to comfort me about their loss now. It doesn’t. Attempting to describe their deaths as a natural part of forest aging and decline ignores temperature extremes that stress the trees, among other living things.

The particular species I admire and love, is the Rio Grande Cottonwood, specifically Populus Deltoides wislizeni. It can grow 80 feet tall and is distinguished from Populus fremontii by ten “teeth” on each side of the leaf.

This subspecies was named for a German American doctor, botanist and explorer, Frederick Adolf Wislizenus. He must have been quite a character, not unlike the tree. He fled Germany after his involvement with an attempt to overthrow the German monarchy and ended up in St. Louis, bored. For amusement and without much preparation he joined the Rocky Mountain Fur Company on a journey to the Northwest in 1839. When the fur traders turned back, he joined a band of Native Americans and went on to cross the Rocky Mountains with them. He wrote an account of his travels that was published in German in 1840.

Back in St Louis he continued his medical practice and worked with George Engelmann, for whom the spruce tree was later named, at the Western Academy of Natural Sciences. But apparently he got bored again and joined a merchant expedition to Santa Fe in 1846.

Despite the onset of the Mexican-American War he traveled south into Chihuahua and was taken prisoner. He spent months in the country studying and collecting plants. After he was freed and returned to St Louis he published another report, Memoir of a Tour to Northern Mexico 1847-1848. In it he describes 180 plants, many previously “unknown.”

Engelmann studied the plants he collected and as thanks, named some species for Wislizenus, including our tree, a shrub, and the long-nosed leopard lizard, Gambelia wislizenii.

The great New Mexico writer and historian, Marc Simmons (1937-2023) noted that soldiers regularly mangled unfamiliar words and names. They changed “frijoles” to “freeholders” and they called the German doctor “Whistling Jesus.”

Is it really camping if you haven’t forgotten something important or yelled obscenities at a tent pole?

The big loop around southeast New Mexico took three days. The first night was at Valley of Fires and the second, Dog Canyon, or Oliver Lee. On my final night I stayed in Truth or Consequences for a mineral bath.

I’ve taken up camping again and I’ve learned or relearned a couple of things. I have a tent, of course, (several) and a cute little wood stove, and padding, but still, it’s sleeping on the ground in winter. To close a trip at hot springs is more necessity than luxury.

Another thing is that camping takes practice. To do it right – to cook fresh food outdoors – requires a mobile Brigade de Cuisine. Organizing menus, food, and equipment into some manner and combination of bins, boxes, grills, fuel and coolers. Then loading and unloading all this. And doing it all in the dark.

There’s also putting up the tent (don’t get me started) and arranging sleeping stuff. Or more accurately, arranging an area where you can get horizontal and hope to, but probably not, sleep. Practice, I repeat to myself as I roll over again and again.

From Albuquerque’s fair “Far North Valley” I headed deosil, or clockwise up and around the east edge of town on Tramway Boulevard. Subdivisions now extend to the edge of Sandia Pueblo and Forest Service lands. This was Bighorn Sheep habitat in my lifetime. My father bow hunted deer in “High Desert.” Part of me suggests I not dwell on the past. I need this reminder a lot, this trip especially.

Tramway eventually hits Tijeras Canyon, the tangle of I-40 ramps, Central Avenue, and the old Route 66 eastward through the canyon. I took this slow route eastward all the way to Moriarity. Indeed, the traffic does generally slow the further you get from the city’s commuter-shed. There are glaring exceptions, of course.

Old Route 66 is appreciated by “Mother Road” enthusiasts but this isn’t reflected in the general appearance of many properties along this section east of Albuquerque. The predominant land use is whatever you want. Most noticeable and glaring is outdoor storage. Even where there are zoning restrictions, which probably isn’t out here by the look of it, this category is open season, anything goes, or just sits and sits and sits.

Another visually impactive practice is bulldozing native vegetation. It doesn’t look like there’s any hydrologic purpose. On the contrary, they’re just scraping the soil of anything holding it down. Oh, and billboards. LOTS of bulldozers and billboards. Nothing seems to impede them.

Turned southward at Moriarity after a breakfast burrito at Blakes. Headed through Estancia as the day warmed up. Briefly visited the Gran Quivera ruins, the southernmost unit of the Salina’s Pueblo Mission Monument. Remote doesn’t adequately describe this place. It was once a busy stop on the “salt trail,” for burdened people and animals carrying loads of salt from the lakes east of Estancia. Today I am alone and the visitor center is closed and locked. They’ve built a wheelchair ramp up directly to the remains of the church that is – noticeable. It was windy. I drove on.

“The Plains! Boss, the Plains!”

Highway 55 south. I picture buffalo and see a herd of antelope. The road moves down and across the plain. It turns left and right 90 degrees at smoothed out curves. It follows edges of an arbitrary 19th century grid that blankets land inhabited for millennia. It was probably surveyed in a week.

Claunch, New Mexico still has a post office. This was a pinto bean hot spot in the twenties. Both Gran Quivera and Claunch were on a NMSU road trip I took with 8 geography classmates and Professor Richard Helbock around 1978. The trip continued on into Arizona exploring old and new built places; Globe, Suncity, Arcosanti. We kept a journal. I lost mine. Undoubtedly I wrote about the visual evidence of hubris. I probably mentioned how short-term profit motives can have long term impacts that devalue places for centuries.

Sitting in my tent waiting for the full moon to rise as the temperature drops. The black rock looms over my tent site in the Valley of Fires campground. The lava is so young it looks like it could begin flowing again tonight. Birds sing in the dark on the edge of the campfire. Otherwise it’s quiet until a freight train roars through Carrizozo.

It is February 1, 2026, 130 years to the day since Albert Fountain and his son were murdered. Disappeared. Never found. Tomorrow I go the the State Park named for the man who was brought to trial for his murder but acquitted.

Carrizozo sits at the intersection of two US highways and the railroad. And at the northern end of a closed geologic basin. The town was originally called Carrizo – after a type of grass that was prolific in the basin before cows. It is also the name of a Spring and Mountain. There wasn’t much there until the railroad came through in 1899. Even then, the town wasn’t platted until 1907. It’s known for things near there, like the lava flow, the Trinity site, White Sands, military stuff galore, and ranches of some notorious people – like Albert Bacon Fall of Teapot Dome fame involving oil lease bribery – a scandal that looks comparatively minor today.

Second night: Dog Canyon – I like the sound of it and it’s another nice, well managed campground. But, as usual, I wonder what those who came before called it. They sure as hell didn’t call it Oliver Lee.

Both campgrounds were very well maintained. Sites are reserved easily online and campground hosts and staff are friendly. Everything is clean and someone even rakes the gravel tent pads like a zen master. This surface is now about the first thing I notice. I arrive at the mouth of dramatic Dog Canyon, at the foot of the Sacramento Mountains, overlooking miles and miles of Chihuahuan desert, at close to sunset. But it’s all I can do not to stare at the sharp little boulders because, as I have noted, I’ll have to sleep on them.

I walked up the canyon a little bit and went in the museum. I was told that there are plenty of Oliver Lee’s descendants still around here which could explain the glowing description of the man as a cattle rancher and business booster. At worst he’s described as “controversial” and as a “gunfighter.” The story of the disappearance of Albert Fountain and his son is available in lots of places. But not here at this park. Like Cricket Coogler’s murder about 50 years later, it remains unsolved. There was no justice served for these murders but Oliver Lee is remembered with a nice state park.

Two nights camping is perfect. Everything can be organized before leaving and after the first night. After the second night, the charm and necessity of washing dishes in a bucket wears off. I can’t get the tent folded properly, there’s soot on everything, and it all smells like smoke. I dispense with careful packing and throw all of it in the car. Things don’t fit right. What started out covered, strapped and secure, is now a ungainly pile of crap rolling around on turns and stops. It’s a “Grapes of Wrath” load rattling up the freeway. I’m grateful for tinted windows. But you can’t hide from stuff that falls out when you open your door at the gas station.

Last stop: Blackstone Hotsprings Lodging and Baths. Star Trek room with a soaking tub! Delightful closure!

The church was locked up tight. We drove around the vast parking lot, acutely aware of what’s under the tires – probably a plaza and multi-story pueblo. 

We came to see the interior of Socorro’s San Miguel Mission. Our associate Chan Graham was involved in a renovation in the 1970s and considered it one of his favorite projects. A man watering rose bushes in the churchyard told us that since “covida” they keep the church locked up except for services. Mass was at Five. Jerry asked him about the church and grounds and I admired the new expandable hose he was using. But our charm didn’t work. He didn’t have keys and we were a long way from mass. 

The church is celebrated for being among the first Missions established by Franciscans in the 1620s. Oñate led explorers and a couple of priests here, or near here, in 1598. In their relief at finding friendly native Piro villagers, the place was later named  ‘Our Lady of Perpetual Help’ or Nuestra Señora de Perpetuo Socorro. 

They weren’t the first Spanish explorers by a long shot. Multiple Piro villages sat along on the route to and from Mexico and at the northern end of the notorious Journada del Muerto, a near waterless segment of the Camino Real. 

According to Spanish chroniclers the place name for the area south of Tiguex was Tutahaco. The individual village names in the Piro “kingdom” are probably Spanish versions of the original place names They are intriguing; Seelocu, Pilabo, Teipana, Senecu or Tzenoque, and Qualcu.  The overwhelming majority of these sites have been partially or totally destroyed through neglect or flooding or both. 

There’s Always a Treasure. I think it’s usually a metaphor.

The Pueblo Revolt in 1680 forced long term abandonment of Socorro. According to the church website, a priest buried church silver, including a solid silver communion rail. The silver was never found. Or no one ever admitted to finding it. 

The church was renamed San Miguel after Apache raiders were purportedly scared off by a sighting of the Saint brandishing his sword. It was substantially rebuilt after raids were subdued in the mid 19th century. 

Bishop Lamy tried to bring six nuns to the New Mexico in 1852 but only four managed to survive the journey. They went on to establish 10 schools including the school in Socorro in 1879. The school – Our Lady of Mount Carmel operated continuously until closure in 1998.

Lucerne sounds nicer

It was a nice day with no smoke or wind, unlike the day before and the day after. We got off the freeway at San Acacia, south of Albuquerque. We tried to take the older roads that hug the side of the valley and canals past old adobes, mobile homes and fields of alfalfa. 

Alfalfa was introduced to what is now New Mexico by the Spanish in the 16th century to feed livestock. Cultivation began long long before that in ancient Iran.

It gets a bad rap for using too much water. That’s largely because it’s watered to produce multiple cuttings a year. It will grow without it too and for a long time. A 4th century Greek author notes these critical properties: one sowing can last over a decade and it can be cut 4 to 6 times a year. It also increases soil nitrogen and its deep roots sustain it through drought.

Jerry reminds me alfalfa was once called lucerne. We agree that sounds much nicer. More descriptive.

We stop at the cemeteries and search for the oldest graves, knowing the oldest are often unmarked or buried next to or under the churches.