Yell Yell Canyon and the Skinwalkers

There's this huge ranch over to the west of us that contains over eleven sections of grassland; that's over 7000 acres. A long time ago, before I came out here to live, its owner got permission from the County to block off the five section line roads that ran across it . Since then no one I know has ever seen more than a couple of hundred yards past the fence, and no one has ever seen the people who presumably live there.

Because of the blocked section lines, if we want to go west from where I live we have to drive 5 or 6 miles out of our way to get around the damned place. There are signs all along the barbed wire fence that read "No Trespassing - Survivors Will Be Prosecuted". That is a not-so-veiled threat and it makes people angry; it also implies that we don't know any better than to go on private property without permission.

The original owner of the ranch, someone named Garth, died a long time ago and no one seems to know who operates the place nowadays, not even Oral Crookshank, the local bank president. Someone must run cows on the place because the fences are all kept in good repair. There's a big steel gate at the south-east corner with an Oklahoma Cattleman's Association sign and a no-trespassing sign, but no mailbox. Now and then I see loaded cattle trucks passing my place coming from that direction. They have to be from that ranch because there's no other cattle operation over in that way.

One time back in August five or six of those trucks came by and after they had passed I noticed that the last one in line had pulled over onto the side of the road about a mile up to the northeast. He sat there for so long that I figured he had engine trouble or a flat so I drove over to ask him if he needed any help. When I got there the truck cab was empty but the motor was idling. The cows crowded in back were hot and without water and wouldn't have lasted that way for long. I looked all around for the driver, including in back of the truck and under it, but he was not around. Other than me and a big crow perched on a fence post down a ways, there wasn't a living thing within miles in any direction. This is dead flat country without a tree or bush or even a rock to hide behind so I figured someone had to have picked him up while I wasn't looking. I drove back to the house to call the sheriff to help rescue the cows, but when I pulled up at my gate I looked back and the truck was gone, and so was the crow.

The center of the ranch lies about 4 miles straight west of my place and on still summer evenings I can sometimes hear faint laughter coming from that direction. Or perhaps its just the sound of coyotes packed up; coyotes will bunch up after the sun goes down and have a pow-wow. They don't always howl, sometimes they sort of sing and yip-yip and the sound they make can sound a lot like laughter. Evening sounds are hard to pin down so I can't say for sure these were coming from that ranch, but they have often sounded like they were.

Cattle rustling is not unheard of around here, so we rural types are very curious as to who drives along our section lines, but in thirty years I have never seen a truck or car that I could say for sure belonged to that ranch. Whoever those people are, they must fly off the place to go to Dallas or Oklahoma City when they need something because, as I said, no one in town knows them either. Bruce says they wouldn't need an airplane because they are probably skinwalkers. A skinwalker, he says, is a Navajo witch who can change into a crow, an owl or an eagle and fly anywhere he wants to. He says skinwalkers can also turn into bears, wolves, or cougars, but their favorite shape of all is the coyote.

Bruce won't go any closer to the mysterious ranch than my house and he'll only come here in the daytime. I am tempted to kid him about it, but I have to remind myself that Navajos take their skinwalkers seriously. As a matter of fact, Navaho tribal law, under the heading of wearing apparel, dictates that no Navajo alive may wear a bear, wolf, cougar or coyote skin; only sheepskin or buckskin.

I bought a very detailed U.S. Geological Survey map—1 to 24,000 scale—that includes the mystery ranch. These maps are marvelous; they show every little draw, road, trail, dry gulch, creek, pond and lake. Mine shows a tiny black dot for my house and a crooked line for the road that leads from the section line to it, but it shows no structures or roads at all within the boundaries of that ranch. What it does show at about the center of it is Yell Yell Canyon. Bruce says he has heard from the Old People that if you stand off and yell into Yell Yell Canyon in the daytime nothing happens, but if you do it just after the sun drops below the horizon, the canyon will yell back. They also say that if you drop a rock from the top of the cliff overlooking it you'll never hear it hit bottom. I mentioned to him that there would be a full moon tonight and said why don't we climb through the fence and go see if the stories are true. He just looked at me and turned pale, and for a Navajo isn't easy. I should have admitted to him I was kidding and that I wouldn't go there on a bet, but the truth is that I am curious about the place and am not certain I wouldn't go...not dead certain anyway.

West of Ahloso, May 8, 2007 (rev. 11/11/08)

Alex Coyle