CAMELBACK
The Children's Story Of How Camelback Mountain, in the middle of Phoenix, Arizona Got It's Name.
By Ellis Peterson (AKA Ragnar Storyteller)
Here are a few smaple pages from this 50 page book.
"What was that?" Crazy Feather asked Pete, his white brother, as they carefully climbed the north side of Camelback Mountain in the dark.
"What's what?" Peter answered.
"Didn't you feel it? The movement. The mountain moved."
"You've been smoking that loco weed again," Pete laughed. "It was probably just some loose dirt."
They continued on in silence. Crazy Feather led and Pete followed using the finger and toe holds that were pointed out to him.
Pete and Crazy Feather had been friends for five years, ever since Pete's parents moved to Phoenix to start a new life in the beautiful and peaceful Southwest.
Crazy Feather was 13, a year older than Pete. But Pete was by far the bigger of the two boys. What Crazy Feather lacked in size, he more than made up for in speed and agility. The two boys made a perfect team and it was just this synestry of energies between them that made them the best of friends.
Together they dared to do many things that they may not have had the courage to do alone. Like tonight, for instance. Climbing the dangerous northern slope of Camelback Mountain with only the light of the full moon to guide them.
"No," Crazy Feather shouted. "It did move. I just felt it again. Stand perfectly still, Pete, right where you are. We'll wait until the next shake."
Pete knew his friend too long and too intimately to scoff at his suggestion. So he stood perfectly still as he was requested.
For several moments all that the two boys heard was the sound of their own uneven breathing.
"There, there," Crazy Feather shouted and dropped to all fours to place his ear close to the ground.
Pete could not be sure if he felt anything at all. The way his friend was acting was proof enough for him that something indeed had happened.
Pete copied his friend and placed his ear against the ground.
Yes, there was something. A movement? A rumble? A shake? Pete could not actually put his finger on it, but something deep beneath the ground was definitely moving.
"Something is moving. Something deep down within the belly of this mountain," Crazy Feather finally said.
Pete, who did not want to doubt his friend's natural instincts over these things, asked, "How can you be so sure that is something within the mountain. Couldn't it be an earthquake or something natural like that?"
"No, it's some thing," Crazy Feather answered. The way he emphasized the word 'something,' Pete could almost feel that he meant something alive.
Just as Pete was turning over in his mind the seriousness of Crazy Feather's statement, the mountain really shook. It shook enough for a full second and in that second both Peter and Crazy Feather were pushed off their perch. They slid a good 100 feet down the mountain side before Crazy Feather could get hold on a small tree trunk that grew out of the mountain side and stopped himself.
Pete managed to grab onto Crazy Feather's outstretched hand and they both stopped their slide, side by side. Neither was the worse for it, for the dirt on this side of the mountain was soft and pliable.
"I believe you now," Pete said. "That was like nothing I've ever experienced before. Oh yes it was. I remember once when I was little and I was laying on my father's back while he was sleeping in bed. He turned over and I wound up on the floor with a bump on my head."
"Right," Crazy Feather agreed. "It was as if something tried to turn over. Something deep within the mountain."
After that, neither boy waited for a signal from the other. Together they slipped and slid down the mountain side as fast as they could go.
When they reached the bottom, Crazy Feather started to run toward the west.
"When are you going?" Pete yelled as he took up the pursuit.
"To Standing Bear's lodge," Crazy Feather shouted over his shoulder.
"Of course," Pete Thought, "His Grandfather, the head Shaman of the Phoenix Pima Tribe."
It was three and a half mile run to the Pima reservation, which started to the east of the Phoenix city line. The boys were in great shape and the run hardly caused them to be breathing heavy when they stopped in front of the old abandoned above hut that Standing Bear used as his home.
Crazy Feather stopped and took some deep breaths. "It is not good to be anxious in front of Grandfather. To him, all things have their reasons. Event will follow event. So to be anxious, or worried, show a lack of faith in the Laws of the Great Spirit."
Both Peter and his Indian friend calmed themselves as best they could before Crazy Feather approached the wooden door to give the special tribal knock. On the outside they appeared calm and collected. Inside they shook with curious excitement.
