Embudo

Embudo is Spanish for funnel.  It could be because the Rio Grande funnels through the gorge at this point before it breaks free into Velarde.  Or because of a funnel shaped hill that stands somewhat on its own before Rinconada.  Or simply Coronado or one of his guys might have run out of names or had a hallucination.  Who knows?

Embudo used to be one, where now, there are two along the banks of the Rio Embudo.  Embudo and Dixon.  Dixon is probably the only non-spanish named community in Rio Arriba county.  Why is quite a story.

Father Cooper was the parish priest.  It seems he did everything to excess.  But one excess was too much for his flock.  If he had lived with just one woman across the bridge, it would have been excused...but two at once was excessive.

This gave the Presbyterian missionary Dixon his in.  The community polarized between the freewheeling priest and the staid missionary who did not succumb to the weaknesses of the flesh.

Things got so bad that the now converted Presbyterians, or, maybe it was simply his own disillusioned flock gathered together to hang, yes, hang the more than worldly priest.  Excess?  It is the local memory that a "cowboy" with a rifle was riding the Chili line tracks.  He saw the commotion, torches, and heard the yells of derision, rode down the old stage trail and broke up the gathering as if a John Wayne cliché.  Much to the dismay of the party goers.

Even after death, Father Cooper was the talk of town.  Due to certain political concessions, the bishop had excommunicated the priest and he was buried about 100 feet from the old adobe house....just past the outhouse.  His love's petitioned for years to have him rejoined to the communion.

A new bishop, a more ecumenical spirit in the church, their prayers were heard.  They exhumed the poor priest and prepared to move him to hallowed ground.  But once again even in his current state Father Cooper was to raise the communities spirits to fervor.   And as far as the inhabitants of Dixon were concerned, confirm what they already knew.

Students of the interaction between Witch craft and Christianity are cognizant of the theory that certain spirits can't cross water.  An example being the most notable resident of Sleepy Hollow.

A rickety (at best) bridge separated the adobe abode of Father Cooper and his friends from the rest of the community, and one of the most striking cemeteries in the world.

 This cemetery is at the foot of a sandstone jaw, an adobe colored prehistoric jawbone razor sharp with eroded teeth embedded in the gums of the cemetery.  Atop this perfection is an impossibly situated rough gray cross of cedar leaning slightly, the bar  angled to point towards Orion to the left and hell to the right.  All this on a blue so blue background of western sky.  The sun rises on those here and can never set.

As they carried Father Cooper's coffin cross the bridge, something happened.  Did a bearer trip?  Did the Angels, intercede?  Was it the divine law?  The now rather moldy Father Cooper went for a swim in the Rio Grande.

The task of reassembling Father Cooper must have been chilling.   Even in the height of summer the Rio is cold.  Not a river for the faint of heart. 

Father Cooper finally made it back to the church, thank God.