As a teenager, I’d travel to my grandma’s home on the Navajo reserve during the summertime. I was asked by my grandma to drive a worker home, which was approximately four miles out of the valley. I thought being 14 and driving sounded like fun, so my then 9 year old brother climbed up in the truck cab with me while this “worker” and my dog shared the truck bed. I dropped the worker off , then we steered back up the road to grandmas. It was getting dark as the sky was a deep red as the sun started to set behind us. We were leaving a nice dust trail from road and the radio was playing music from the only radio station that tuned in was from the closest town of Holbrook.

Everything seemed fine. It was at this time that my eye noticed movement of something in the bushes a little up the road on the right. I slowed down thinking that it was a roaming sheep and I wanted to be sure it didn’t jump in front of the truck. Once clear I sped up but then out of nowhere I just felt this dark feeling of fear and dread. I had no idea why I was feeling this way but I definitely felt that something was wrong.

I am tearing up just writing about this as this is something that really happened. I checked my rear view mirror and saw a dark silhouette of something very tall and very thin. I slowed down a little to get a better look, I could see that whatever it was, was covered with some kind of hair or fur. It then started charging after us! I accelerated, from what I had seen it wasn’t a normal human or human at all. As I write I can still hear my brother and my dog barking ferociously at whatever was chasing us, as if it just happened. I started speeding and shaking violently as the truck bounced on the washboard dirt road, my poor dog got knocked around. My brother cried “it’s coming up on your side!” I remember being as scared as hell and thinking that I didn’t want to die. I remember speeding faster even though there was a bend in the road. I could see a car coming towards us in the opposite direction. At that moment I felt instant relief and felt that whatever was chasing us was gone.

Shaken up but alive, we arrived to grandma’s house wondering what just happened. We ran inside hoping that whatever was chasing us hadn’t followed us. We told grandma what happened but she didn’t seem too surprised, which surprised us. She told us of the legend about black magic, witches, and something that the Navajos call “Yee Naaldlooshii” or Skinwalkers. Needless to say, I didn’t even want to look out any of the windows in the least the rest of that night. As a matter of fact, I never drove on the reservation at night until I was 21 years old.