An additional warning that certainly applies to AZ reservations, and most likely all reservations, is that having a hunting permit does not allow one to pick up artifacts, rocks, or other found objects such as may be common on other land. While hunting San Carlos in the mid nineties we stumbled onto a turquoise deposit that had been lightly worked. Beautiful veins with webs and some with a slender vein of gold running through it. The guy with me had never been on the rez before and was filling his pockets with the stuff as I came walking up. I stopped him and told him didn't he recognize the material. He said "yes, it's the most beautiful turquoise I've ever seen." I quickly corrected him, telling him no, he was mistaken. "No, that fools many people, but it's actually Leverite." I said. He said " I've never heard of Leverite, is it valuable?" I replied " nah so just Leverite there or your walking home."
On another occasion I was hunting with an older friend who sadly passed away some time back. We were hunting down singles from a huge covey of Scalies.(scaled Quail). My 3 bird dogs had found the covey of well over 100 birds high up on a hillside. Now those who hunt Scalies will recognize that any covey over ten is huge. He had gone higher up to check a dog on point near a group of large boulders. I was mid hill following to catch up to one dog pointing and one backing. As I glanced up to be sure of his position I heard him whoop. I couldn't see him because he was behind the boulders. I figured it was a buzzworm, which we frequently saw or maybe even a mountain lion which we would occasionally jump out of similar bouldered areas. I stopped to see if he would respond to a shout and saw him coming down the hill rapidly with something in his hand besides his shotgun, hollering all the way down. He had found a model 76 Winchester, I should say, the remains of one, laying partially uncovered behind the boulders. There was no wood left on the rifle. The rust was very bad but we could read the serial number. The lever was fully extended to the eject position, naturally it was frozen. However in the chamber was a 45.75 round with the primer indented, also frozen. Well there was no telling him to leave it or walk home, he was driving. It was a nervous trip out of the rez that day. He found that the records were stored at the Cody museum. He sent a letter with the serial number and an amount of money (can't remember now what it cost) and they replied with the information of the store in NYC who sold it in 1877 as a special order and the customer name. He mounted the gun and letter in a display case on his den wall. For a number of years before his passing we sat by the fire with some good sippin whiskey and discussed various versions of how it came to be behind those boulders so many years ago. Most likely the last cartridge jammed fighting off wild Apaches. Now I highly recommend that no one try such a dumb stunt and whatever you may find...Leverite there, I'm just sayin.
