Blood, and its substitute, wine, and in this area, beer, has been believed by nearly every society to settle the restless hungers of the dead. Comanche women slashed their bodies with shards of glass, with knives or fingernails, and kept the wounds flowing blood for months, to the same end. Ajo couldn't be prettier, so pretty that it's hard to believe it's a company town built by Phelps-Dodge. I find it easy to picture the arcaded plaza as it must have looked in the 1920s when copper flowed like water and the world was blessedly far away. Lovely palms surround the grassy square today.
Old men occupy the post office lobby and snowbirds meet at the grocery.
A domed church across from the plaza is white and clean and perfect. I buy frozen yogurt at what was once an elegant soda fountain, then walk the quiet streets. This morning as I was exiting the cemetery gate, an L.L. Bean duo warmed by plaid jackets and khaki slacks walked past. On spotting my camera the man declared him self to be a fellow photographer, then quickly conveyed his irritation at a recent event. An Anglo who had retired to Tubac just three years earlier, and who had died recently, was permitted burial in the cemetery by the locals.