Fort Apache and buying antlers

The town of Fort Apache, a place the U.S. Army built when they were trying to capture Geronimo, sits forlorn and mostly abandoned in a valley between two scrub-covered plateaus overlooking the White River. The wind whistles through the canyon, stirring the trees.

In the parking lot of the White Mountain Apache Motel, where I am staying, are men with pickups and horse trailers with signs on the side reading “I Buy Antlers.” While I sip my coffee, a muddy Toyota 4WD pickup pulls up. In the back are four children and a load of antlers three feet high. A large man in a 10-gallon hat, like Hoss Cartwright used to wear on Bonanza, weighs the antlers for which he pays $7.50 a pound.

I wander over to Hoss and ask him what he does with the antlers and he says he buys them for a guy in Oregon who turns them into furniture and chandeliers. The really beat up ones he grinds up and sends to Korea to be sold as an aphrodisiac.

“Them Koreans think damn near everything is an aphrodisiac. Me, I always figured the best thing for that was liquor.”

All afternoon pickup trucks pull into the parking lot of the White Mountain Apache Motel loaded with antlers. Late in the afternoon Hoss pulls away from the hotel with his overloaded horse trailer. I sit outside my room, looking out at this land of plateaus and buttes and junipers and scrub oaks, listening to the wind as it blows around the plastic bags and fast food wrappers in the parking lot, until it gets dark and I can no longer see anything.