Cabezon is a ghostly ghost town. There it stands, stone and
adobe houses down the full length of its one main street. You
have the eery feeling that its people might suddenly come back
to take up their quiet New Mexico lives. But life in Cabezon end-
ed a long time ago. So complete is the desolation that you
wonder why people ever built house beside house, or
porch-fronted store, or even a church.
You read that the settlement might have been here in 1775 at
the foot of Cabezon Peak and that a century or so later the town
was a stagecoach stop. A school was organized in 1899, but it
closed by the end of the year.
You even wonder why the Navajos could imagine that Cabezon
Peak is the head of the giant who bled out all the lava from Mt.
Taylor when their Twin War Brothers bit off his head. The town is
as quiet as the peak itself. House after house is abandoned;
some are padlocked; in others, doors stand open.
In one is a corner fireplace, broken chairs, an old table. Broken
bedsteads. On the floor empty fruit jars, broken dishes and a few
tumbleweeds that happened to stray in. Walls might be tinted
pink or blue and there are niches for the family santos.
At the end of this ghost street is the little church sitting in its
campo santo. A few people care enough to come back and put
artificial flowers on a grave or two here. Beyond the church and
its tiny cemetery are the open spaces of land that must have
been grazing country when the Spanish owned this part of New
Mexico. And it still is ranchland today.
Before you start out for Cabezon get plenty of gasoline and fix a
lunch and make certain the road is dry. About half way between
Cuba and Bernalillo on State Highway 44 take Ranch Road 279
west, at the Torreon Navajo Mission sign. Nine miles later you are
in the tiny settlement of San Luis. You inquire about the rut-filled
road to Cabezon. Yes, the going is rough and the town is six
miles out in that lonely sweep of country. Cabezon is certainly an
adventure-filled experience and one you won't soon forget.