The Blessing Way (1970)

Hard Goods Canyon is a fictional canyon in Tony Hillerman’s first Navajo detective novel THE BLESSING WAY, published in 1970. The canyon is located near Old Woman Gray Rock’s summer brush hogan. According to the text of THE BLESSING WAY, Hard Goods canyon is located nine miles north of Many Ruins Canyon, which is part of Chinle Wash near Dinnehotso in northeastern Arizona.

Greasewood is a small, predominantly Navajo community in northeastern Arizona. The community boasts the Lower Greasewood Chapter House, and the children in Greasewood are served by the schools of the nearby communities of Holbrook, Indian Wells, and Ganado. The name Greasewood likely refers to a bush, also known as creosote, which is known for its astringent odor, especially when wet or burning. For many desert dwellers, the scent of wet creosote bush is a scent associated with the summer monsoons, a welcome perfume that can almost overwhelm the senses on a humid afternoon.

Located in the southern portion of the Navajo Nation Reservation, Window Rock Police Department serves as the headquarters for the Department of Public Safety of the Navajo Nation. Window Rock is located in the Navajo Nation's District 1 and is commanded either by a Police Captain or Lieutenant, who ensures that the district is run properly, including criminal investigations, area patrol, and public services support. Additionally, in Tony Hillerman's Navajo detective series, Window Rock is the station to which Joe Leaphorn is assigned.

Throughout Hillerman's novels, "Window Rock" is used metonymically to refer to the Navajo Nation Police headquarters.

The Colorado Gorge probably refers to the Colorado River Gorge in northeastern Arizona. Geologically created by the Little Colorado River, a tributary of the Colorado River, which forms the Grand Canyon, the Colorado River Gorge is a much narrower and smaller canyon than the Grand Canyon, and it is located southeast from the Grand Canyon National Park.

A fictional location in the vicinity of Cove, Arizona, which is almost dead center in the triangle formed by Teec Nos Pos, Arizona, Ship Rock, New Mexico, and Many Farms Lake, Arizona. In Hillerman's 1970 novel The Blessingway, Hillerman notes that there is a radar station in the vicinity of this location.

In the context in which Tony Hillerman tends to use the word "beauty," it refers to the Navajo concept of hózhǫ́, the state in which all living things are ordered, in balance, and walking in beauty. The opposite of hózhǫ́ is hóchxǫ́ǫ́, which refers to disorder and chaos in one’s life. In Hillerman's work, chaos and imbalance manifest as as physical or mental illness, infections of the body and soul contracted from contact with mainstream U.S. culture.

A large scavenger bird that subsists on the flesh of dead animals, also known as carrion, and occasionally small living mammals it takes down as prey. The most common buzzard in the Southwest is the turkey vulture, which is easily recognized by its long wings, distinctive flight feathers, and bald red head. The wings of all buzzards are set at an angle, known as a dihedral, to its body, which allows buzzards to fly in tight circles high above the ground as they look for food. They have black and brown plumage and a bald red head. As buzzards eat decaying flesh their bald heads protect them from getting covered in putrescent flesh which can have a viscous consistency. Buzzards have specially functioning immune systems that allow them to eat dead flesh and not get sick.

The 31st state to join the Union, California was originally settled by hundreds of small, seminomadic indigenous groups before becoming the part of the Spanish Empire known as Alta, or upper, California. After the war of independence between Mexico and Spain, in 1821 California became a part of Mexico and then a part of the United States of America after the Mexican-American War in 1848. Although the name "California" derives from a 17th-century Spanish romance about an island of gold, in 1848, with the discovery of gold at Sutter’s Mill, California became known as "the golden state" as thousands of people migrated to California by land, over well-established trails, and by boat, thus marking the beginning of the California Gold Rush.

There are a number of iconic landscapes and architectural sites in the state including Yosemite National Park, the Golden Gate Bridge, Disneyland, Redwood National Park, Lake Tahoe, Death Valley, and Hollywood to name but only a few. The state is best known for its connections to the film industry, the wine making business, and its agriculture, which was wrested from the western deserts via huge irrigation projects and the back-breaking labor of often undocumented immigrant farm workers.

Also known as an arroyo seco, gulch, or gully, a wash is a dry stream or river bed that does not hold water most of the time, but that is subject to seasonal flooding. Washes vary greatly in depth, width and length, and can be found all over the world in semiarid and desert areas. They are common throughout New Mexico and Southwestern parts of the U.S., where prolonged droughts keep them dry and heavy rains make them prone to flash flooding.

A single-action pistol whose barrel measures 10 inches or longer. Because the barrel of this pistol far exceeds the normal pistol barrel length of four inches, the velocity of bullets fired from long barrel pistols is lower than from short barrel pistols. This is because gas generated during the percussive explosion needed to expel the projectile from the barrel works as a frictive agent, competing with the projectile to exit the barrel. Therefore, the longer the barrel, the slower the velocity of the shot fired due to the increase in friction that results from the increase in barrel length. Colt Manufacturing Company desgined and manufactured eighteen different models of long barrel pistols. Today, these kinds of gun are more for show than for actual use.

The long barrel pistol is also wrapped in mystery. The exemplar of the long barrel pistol is the Buntline Model or Buntline Special, a 12-inch-long pistol famous for being the weapon of the legendary Deputy Town Marshal of Tombstone, Arizona, Wyatt Earp. As the legend goes, a Western literary novelist, Edward Judson, purchased five long barrel pistols at the 1878 St. Louis Exposition and gave them to five lawmen destined for fame or infamy, depending on the story being told. Wyatt Earp, Neal Brown, Charlie Basset, Bill Tilghman, and Bat Masterson were the rumored recipients of these pistols. Because Judson purchased the weapons under a pseudonym, Ned Buntline, they later acquired the name Buntline Model or Buntline Special. While this legend is a nice tale, there is no evidence that it is true.