Navajo Times
Wednesday, July 9, 2025

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Intra-articular horse named Nick

By Nicholas House
Navajo Times

When disaster encroaches, the instinct to protect what we love most can define the shape of our response. For Ela Yazzie-King, a longtime St. Michael’s resident who walks with crutches, that moment of reckoning came not with the sirens or smoke, but with a simple, aching question: What will happen to the horse?

“My first thought was, OK, what did we do about Nick?” she said. “You know, I can drive away. But what about my horse?”

The animal, technically her daughter’s, had become her charge. As the Oak Ridge Fire barreled across parched grasslands southwest of Window Rock, Yazzie-King called a friend, then the Navajo Rangers. Within hours, Nick was safely relocated to the Navajo Nation Fairgrounds. But what began as one woman’s concern for a single horse has since grown into a sweeping effort to support displaced animals across multiple chapters.

“There were a group of them, and I told them my situation,” she recalled. “They then followed me back to the house and they loaded up Nick.”

At the fairgrounds, however, another problem surfaced. “When I came down, the rangers were saying that I had to bring my own hay and food for him,” she said. “Because I’m on crutches, I said, well, I don’t think I can do that.”

They informed her that donations were being accepted. From there, the question of survival turned into an opportunity for coordination and relief.

After briefly speaking with President Buu Nygren, who confirmed the Nation could accept in-kind donations but not monetary support, Yazzie-King reached out to Shelby Garcia, the CEO of Sandstone Housing and a former colleague.

“Ela Yazzie-King is a former board member,” Garcia said. “She called me yesterday, saying that she brought her horse, Nick, over here and asked if we could donate. And so I was like, yes, let’s do it.”

Garcia said she and her team had been monitoring the fire’s spread with concern, given their housing presence across the Navajo Nation.

“We’ve just been watching the news and seeing all the fires,” she said. “Been really concerned because we have a lot of residents out here. And so we wanted to help our furry little residents.”

Garcia delivered a truckload of supplies: 20 bags of horse feed, three bags of pig feed, and two bags of chicken feed.

“Whatever I could carry in my truck without breaking the axle on it,” she said. “So it’s about $700 worth.”

She added that additional shipments are planned throughout the week.

“I’m just, you know, praying and hoping everyone’s OK—especially our little animal friends,” Garcia said.

What started with one horse and one woman’s resourcefulness has begun to ripple outward. Yazzie-King said she’s now coordinating incoming donations from Phoenix and Alaska, and hopes to extend support to Ganado, Klagetoh, and other fire-affected communities.

“I was just thinking … not thinking about the larger area,” she said. “But Ganado is going to be affected, and of course, Klagetoh as well. If I can still be able to help, maybe we can help these other communities as well.”

As of Wednesday, the Oak Ridge Fire has burned more than 10,000 acres and remains uncontained. But in its wake, it has uncovered something else: a quiet network of women stepping up, under crisis and unarmed, with feed bags and phone calls, willing to do whatever they can for the voiceless creatures left behind.

The Navajo Times followed Yazzie-King to the stall where Nick was placed. “Look at what you started,” she said, smiling and petting her horse.

“I take care of him,” Yazzie-King said. “So for now, I’m saying he’s my horse.”

 


About The Author

Nicholas House

Nicholas House is a reporter for the Navajo Times. He is Naakaii Dine’é and born for Tsénahabiłnii. His maternal grandfather is Haltsooí, and his paternal grandfather is Kiyaa’áanii. He is from Prewitt, N.M.

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