Dear Readers: It’s time to return to serial stories. I have some new ones that should take us up to the coming New Year. Some of the locations featured were visited in August.

Camilla walked out into the late afternoon sun and shadows, her head down. She scanned the crowded parking lot for her rental car. The casino was busy as usual, but this cluster of cars was for the event she’d just left. By rights, she should still be in there, laughing and dancing and singing along to Coldplay. Her happiness should have been fierce and satisfied.

The Cortez High School Class of 2010 was having its 5-year reunion. The organizing committee had hired a rental hall at the Ute Mountain Casino in Towaoc. If she lifted her head, Camilla could see the huge outline of Sleeping Ute Mountain, the guardian of her youth. Now, she thought, brushing an incipient tear away, it was no wonder that the Utes and Navajos used to be enemies. Utes made poor allies, indeed, as her grandparents used to say.

Or maybe it was all her fault for imagining life as she wanted it. She’d worked hard these last five years, traveling east to the prestigious college that had given her a scholarship. She’d won acceptance and friendships there despite being one of only three students who were Native American. Her courses were tough, she’d worked hard, and there’d been little money to come home for visits.

But Dan had insisted she do this, that she had a responsibility to her family and herself. Parting from him after high school graduation had been hard. He also had schooling ahead and an athletic scholarship to UC at Boulder. They e-mailed and texted frequently over the first three years. Then Dan Ochee got his big break — linebacker for the Denver Broncos. They’d celebrated when he flew to Boston and enjoyed a long weekend in the city. But getting together had been tougher after that; it was hard for Dan to get away. They had one reunion, again in Boston, in 2014 and then their communication had lessened as he pursued his career and she had taken the one-year fellowship for clinical certification in Toronto.

When Wendy Callee, her old friend from Aneth, had contacted her about the reunion, Camilla became excited. She had an interview at Diné College for the next day; the teaching job would bring her back to her homeland, as any good Navajo would want. Back within the protective arms of the four sacred peaks. But, most of all, she’d gotten a hasty text message from Dan that he’d be attending the reunion. She hadn’t seen him in almost a year. There’d been one opportunity when it looked like he could come to Toronto but something else had intervened.

Camilla had loved Toronto for its urban flair and the friends she’d made during her program. She felt this year had made her grow up. She styled her hair differently, wore makeup and clothes that were flattering, and thought she’d gained a veneer of sophistication that suited her. Dan could only be pleased.

She pulled out of the parking lot and consulted the e-mail directions she’d received. In the distance Shiprock was a tiny plume, but the road aimed for this landmark like a trusty arrow. Staring at the map, Camilla realized that she’d be traveling through the Chuska mountains on a small pass; she’d never taken this road before. As a kid, her family hadn’t moved around the reservation much. Both of her parents had been born locally. She’d gone as far west as Bluff and usually east to Cortez, Farmington, and occasionally all the way to Albuquerque, before boarding a plane and moving temporarily to the East Coast.

(continued next week…)