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——--————————————————— Cover Story The sun’s golden rays fight to break through slate-gray clouds on an early Febru ary morning in a desolate area of northern Ari- zona's vista-ridden Mogollon Plateau. Suddenly, spectacularly, Robert Perry and his 19-year-old Arabian horse burst over the crest of a hill a half mile away at a full gallop. As they near a highway mile marker, another rider on horseback prepares to take off. With the smoothness of a handshake. Perry extends a canvas and leather bag to the departing rider as plumes of dust kick high in the air behind the horses. The U.S. Mail is en route from Holbrook to Scottsdale, Ariz., via a most unlikely modern-day letter carrier—the Pony Express. As a member of the Hashknife Pony Express, Perry, 31, is part of the nation’s oldest continu ous Pony Express affiliated with the U.S. Postal Service. In a few weeks (Jan. 31-Feb. 2, 2007), he and his fellow riders, most of them mem bers of the Navajo County Sheriff s Posse Search and Rescue Unit, will set out again on the annual mail run —their 49th straight. During this three-day journey covering 230 miles, 20,000 special hand-stamped letters from around the world will be hauled ' by some 33 riders, all of whom are RKJ sworn in as official mail carriers by the U.S. Post Office in Holbrook -> ,^l Nathan Perkins grabs a mailbag from his uncle Gayle Perkins during the annual Hashknife Pony Express. V", Ac wtk 111 , Mark Reynolds departs the Holbrook (Ariz.) Post Office. The letters are placed into nearly 24 different mailbags, each weighing from 10 to 25 pounds, and are passed from rider to rider along the route. Horsemen relay at every mile marker along the route that winds through the scenic Mogollon Rim country, through little towas and hamlets such as Heber, Christopher W” Creek and Payson, before ending with a ride en masse to the Scottsdale Post Office, where the mail re-enters the conventional postal ffreTtfafc delivery system. In all, each rider will take jjTftU “jHjk two to three rides per day, using trucks their next assigned mile marker. The riding is the easy part,” acknowledges Hashknife Pony Express yc*' l k' WBA \ ,Jwk jhb . HratHat Wj| » captain Mark Reynolds, 50, a deputy commander of the Navajo County Sheriffs Office, which orga nizes the annual event. "This ride costs around $30,000 to $35,000 to put on,” says Reynolds, noting that money is raised through fund-raisers and business sponsorships. “It's paying for all the motel rooms, all the food, all the dinners. It's quite an expense. The pilot cars, the riders—each rider is different, each horse is different, each hand-off is different; different towns, different city councils. Some people have fast horses, some people have slower horses. It just builds the history of this thing: Everybody’s got a story.” Route remembrances Tales along the trail abound from the youngest riders to some of the oldest. Kelland Webb, 51, an actual U.S. Postal Service mail carrier on the Scottsdale-Kachina rural route, has ridden with the Hashknife Pony Express gang for 24 years. He remembers a pristine picture-postcard setting accompanying one of his rides. “It was right along this stretch of road, with snow about a foot deep,” recounts Webb, standing next to his trailer parked along State Route 377. "Twenty wild horses covered in snow are running right along side me! I look up to my left and there’s 20 of 'em chasing me on that side of the fence. Wow!” £ c cr o Page 6 •ww'w. americanprofile.com m m w Jpff hoe * i