Fallen WallsnI studied the weather for four days beforenmaking a break for the south, shppingnbetween the winter storms along icepackednroads wreathed with snowsnakesnacross sun-glazed plains in the directionnof the Salt Lake Valley, where much ofnthe snow had evaporated, under a stiffnnorthwesterly wind and horses and cattlenat American Fork grazed the still-greenngrass. In the Wasatch Mountains SoldiernSummit lay under several feet of windsweptnsnow, but soft sunshine pervadednthe town of Price, Utah. Frosted anglesnin the Book Cliffs tilted in lavender andnrose hued shadow against the orange andnred walls; south of Moab the pinyonnand cedar forests of the upland desert,nthe sandstone domes, and the slickrocknbuttes sheltered patches of snow. AtnMonticello where the turned pinto beannfields lay brown and undulant in thenblue shadow of the Abajo Mountains thensuffering December sun fell abruptly,nand I was accompanied on to Cortez,nColorado, by darkness and the smell ofncedar smoke issuing from the semi-darkenednhouses beside the road.nIn pickup trucks coming north fromnShiprock, New Mexico, the next morningnonly the foreheads and eyes of thendrivers, surmounted by wide black hats,nshowed above the steering wheels. AtnShiprock I turned away from the blockynsilhouette of the Chuska Mountains innArizona toward Farmington on tlie fourlanenroad across which Indians staggernfrom the bars to the footbridges over thenSan Juan River and where fatalities arennearly a nightly occurrence. Named fornthe homesteader who discovered thenarcheological site in the 1870’s and protectednit against looters before the federalngovernment relieved him of the responsibility,nthe Salmon Ruins arensituated at the city’s eastern edge. Theynare the remains of an Anasazi village,nwhose three foot-thick walls faced insidenand out with brick and filled with stonenrubble were built 22 years after Williamnthe Conqueror invaded England: a warrennof kivas, store rooms, and sleepingnquarters abandoned a couple of cen­nThe Hundredth Meridiannby Chilton Williamson, Jr.nturies later in the mysterious generalncatastrophe that overtook all the Anasazincommunities of the American Southwest.n”The Southwest,” Harvey Fergusson,nthe late New Mexican author, wrotenin his book Rio Grande, “is a land of fallennwalls, littered with ruins of all agesnand in all stages of decay. Tribes, cultures,nclasses have lived and died here,nleaving their shells to crumble slowly innthe dry preservative air.”nDustdevils levitating paper bags andntumbleweed raced and spun in thenstreets of Bloomfield, and the wind blewnhard over fields watered by the Navajo IrrigationnProject on the mesa south of thenSan Juan. Past the dirt turnoff to ChaconCanyon the sagebrush plain gave way tonthe rougher canyon country of the JicarillonApache Reservation, and the longnbulk of the Nacimiento Mountains rosenslowly to form a barrier in the east behindnthe dusty Indian town of Cuba.nMore striking as you progress south thannthe darkening skins, the adobe houses,nthe soft bright vowels of the Spanishntongue, the greasy-green creosote bush,nand the crooked cholla is the ubiquitousntrash. Brown paper bags and plasticnones, paper cups with the straws pokingnthrough the plastic tops, fertilizer sacks,ncardboard boxes, and torn burlap blowingnover fields and across highways,nhanging up on the derelict auto bodiesnand rusting farm equipment, the evictednwringer washing machines and coil refrigerators:nthese constitute the dyingnwavelets of a flood originating in thenMexican interior which, smashing acrossnthe international boundary, submergesnthe border towns and cities and rollsnnorthward as far as southern Utah andnColorado. Between Cuba and the hamletnof San Ysidro volcanic necks support­nnned by triangular pedestals appeared innhazy profile distantly out of the pale refractednlight through drifting clouds ofndust. Brown leaves clung in bunches tonthe great riverine cottonwoods and thinnyellow ones jittered in the aspen trees besidenthe highway; across the tremendousnlandscape bursts and sprays of light camenand went in a confused and windsweptnsky. East of Bernalillo beyond the RionCrande the Sandia Mountains caughtnthe golden sun of late afternoon andnfolded it away in shadow as if to preservenit through the winter, but the river itselfnremained concealed by the desert bluffsnfor many miles after the glittering linesnof traffic on the interstate running parallelnto it were visible.nWhile the Rio Grande is the greatnpump rising near Pole Creek Mountainn(elevation 13,716) immediately east ofnthe Continental Divide and the town ofnSilverton, Colorado, to drain the watershednof the San Juan Mountains and irrigatenthe southern floodplain farmed bynagriculturalists for almost a thousandnyears, the valley in which it flows hasnfunctioned since the 16th century as thentrunk of a great proliferating tree drawingnthe Spanish and Mexican influences upwardnfrom a root system embeddedndeeply in Mexico. With its large and territoriallynextensive Indian population,nNew Mexico would be the least “American”nof the Southwestern states evennwithout the Spanish presence, which—nmore than that of the ghostly Anasazi—nis responsible for a sense of mystery thatndeepens as you approach Mexico. Thensecret of the Southwest is, to paraphrasenEdward Abbey, that it belongs to everyone,nand to no one; a region that so oftennappears to be disintegrating, culturallynand politically, has in fact never been integrated.nAs the Navajos arriving fromnAlaska displaced the Anasazi, the Spanishnexpropriated the Navajo and thenPueblo, and the Americans supersedednthe Spanish, the Mexicans may wellnoverrun the Americans in the next century—ornsooner. Unlike the historicallynnaive and complacent “Anglos,” thenproud descendants of the conquistadoresnin the valley of the Rio scorn and despisenthe Mexican wetbacks and migrantsnMARCH 1995/49n