Took 20 years of using one of the respected travel guides to discover the publisher charges the restaurants and lodgings to be listed in the book. Listings, I was slow to learn, were mighty scarce in towns where innkeepers balked at paying a fee, or the better hamburger and chili joints preferred tacking a sign on a fencepost to spending a fancy price for a slot in a travel book.

My copy showed if we didn't book a room at the one motel in Chinle, Arizona, our next stop from Colorado, the only other choice might be a hogan on the surrounding Navaho Reservation. The afternoon before in Mesa Verde, a busy signal was the closest connection I reached to the Park Service headquarters. The rangers preside over 84,000 acres of the Canyon de Chelly Monument lying within the Navajo nation. Operating in such a big way, I figured the "stiff brims" would know the lodges. But after dialing 32 digits a try, I decided instead of chancing living among the Indians, it'd be best to brave the universal perfumed soap of all motels that make the bath towels and wash cloths smell the way Aunt Tillie's sachets used to flavor her cedar chest.

On the way, we played the Tony Hillerman book tapes based on and around the reservation. Mr. Hillerman's tales portray fearless desert-raised Navajo policemen stalking mean and malicious criminals in backgrounds haunted by witch lore and spirited conflicts between white-eye officials and the locals. In an interview, Mr. Hillerman admitted the Navajos laugh at his versions of their legends. Nevertheless, tearing across the endless miles of desert, his fiction and fancy, plus the familiar landmarks of his stories, add human drama to a vast empty land.

And drama continued into Chinle. After the first intersection in the center of town, highway-savvy red cattle grazed on the right side of the street. Two dark-skinned cowboy looking fellows crossed in front of us, headed toward the cows as oblivious to the racing park and school traffic as the black ravens swooping down among the cows. The cows and the ravens remained alert. Before traffic permitted turning into the motel, however, the two men collapsed against a rock ledge to share a gallon jug in a brown sack. "So much" is the only phrase to apply for federal law prohibiting alcoholic beverages on the reservation. Worst of all, "so much" also fits the over a century old antiquated Indian policy.

First thing after unpacking, I hung the towels and pillowcases on the balcony to air in the strong sunlight. Keep in mind conditions differ for outdoor airings. In the South, the perfume attracts the small fierce black and yellow wasps. In grizzly bear country, the bruins bristle from the scent, mistaking the odor for a sweet gum bedding used to control fleas in sled dog and hound dog kennels. And at Mertzon, the perfume revives a nostalgia for the "Stirrup and Spur" after shave lotion aroma men used to give off after they were lathered up in sweat at barn dances.

Only way to enter the Canyon de Chelly is with a registered Navajo guide. The three options are hiring a guide and his jeep, hiring a guide and using your own four-wheel rig, or riding on wooden backed seats in the rear of a bobtail truck among, say, 20 other visitors. We chose the truck for a half-day trip and made the two drives on the east and west rims of the canyon in our own car.

In our case, sunsets, field glasses and prolonged viewing stationed on the overlooks of the drive around the rim worked better than the guided tour in the floor of the canyon. He showed us the ruins, yet so late in the busy season, he was tired of guiding tourists. We saw paintings, but had to rely on our books for identification. Perception of the 1000-foot cliffs, of course, was different from floor level. To my disappointment, all the horses and most of the cattle and sheep had disappeared. The tribe's summer houses looked abandoned. The tour ended underneath a stand of cottonwoods shading a big collection of Indian women selling jewelry and such like. We spent the time getting as close as possible to the nearby adobe ruins and wall paints linked to the Anasazis.

On the return trip, the light changed the coloring of the walls from a clay beige rust to deeper reds and brown outcrops, making a perfect setting to teach an art class surrounded in all the shapes and crevices erosion cuts in rock formations. Back at the motel, I napped in sun-freshened linens. Dreamed of images of Navajos before the white eyes put them to walking across roads and trails of gravel and tar…

November 8, 2001