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Galloping across the pages of history and time, the riders of the Hashknife Pony Express personify the wild freedom of the cowboy spirit that continues to be a part of Holbrook’s past, present and future.
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With the 61st annual ride of the Hashknife Pony Express just weeks away, the Navajo County Sheriff’s Hashknife Posse Board made the decision to dedicate the upcoming ride to First Lieutenant Steve Reynolds, a man who helped to carry the letters across the miles continuously for 41 years.
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Over those decades, Reynolds said he has carried letters from East Germany when the Iron Curtain was still intact, from a World War II general to his men and from thousands of school kids and people from around the world as well as locally.
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“Back in the days of the Iron Curtain we would have people collecting stamps, they would smuggle letters from East Berlin into West Berlin where they would mail them to us,” shared Reynolds in a quiet voice that echoed across the years. “The letters would be cancelled and stamped with the Hashknife cachet and carried to Scottsdale before they were mailed back to the West Berlin addresses, then somehow they would get them back across the Iron Curtain.”
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“I remember about 30 years ago, we got 1,100 postcards from a World War II general who mailed a card to every man and their families who had served under him,” continued Reynolds. “It was piles of postcards we had to hand cancel that year.”
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For more than 40 years, Steve Reynolds has been a member and officer with the Navajo County Hashknife Sheriff’s Posse and this year will be his 41st year riding in the Hashknife Pony Express ride on Feb. 6-9. While not listed as a rider, Reynolds along with Blanco, a horse owned by Scott Self, a resident of Holbrook and a rider on the Pony Express, is ready to fill-in as rider if there is a need.
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“I have actually done 46 rides, including this year with the Pony Express,” said Reynolds. The additional five rides included three with the Petrified Forest National Park (PEFO), one to Mexico and one in Canada. The PEFO rides went from the north gate to the south gate on to the historic Navajo County Courthouse in Holbrook, a total of 57 miles.
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Throughout the years and miles of road Reynolds has travelled on horseback, his love of Holbrook and the cowboy lifestyle remains a big part of his life.
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Brought to Holbrook as a youngster, when his father, Art Reynolds, took a job with Stan Owens to build the Stan Owens Federal Building, late in the 1950s, Reynolds along with his three brothers, Carl, Mark and Pat, and their younger sister, Jamie Lee, quickly adapted to the western lifestyle.
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“My dad was a real cowboy, and he was a hell of a builder and carpenter. He always told us boys that if you want to be a real cowboy you had better find other things to do to make money,” Reynolds recounted. “We worked a lot of ranches and outfits, during the season where we would gather and ship cattle. I grew up with horses and in that life.”
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Having left Holbrook to attend high school in Chandler, Reynolds graduated and then joined the Marines completing two tours during the Vietnam War before an explosion riddled his body with holes, leaving him in the hospital for a year.
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Struggling to overcome the massive injuries, Reynolds returned to Holbrook and began working for the city before he went on to become a deputy with Navajo County Sheriff’s Office and a long-standing member of the Posse. His love of law enforcement pushed him to become a certified police officer with the State of Arizona where he became a special investigator for the Arizona Department of Liquor.
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“When we were young kids back in the early 1960s, I remember looking at the older guys and thinking, ‘Wow, they are old’, not realizing that one day that would be me,” said Reynolds with a laugh. “It’s just amazing how many years have gone by. This is not just a ride for Holbrook, it is a ride for all of our people in all of our communities (of) Holbrook, Winslow, Heber-Overgaard, Christopher Creek, Pine, Payson and Scottsdale.”
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Reynolds continued, “Holbrook is our home, but now we are on our fourth generation of people. We have great-grandmothers who when they were little girls were giving us letters. We have this community of people right in the heart of Arizona and when we are in their towns and cities, we are their pony express.”
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One of the greatest stories Reynolds remembered was the time the Pony Express went to the Holbrook Rainbow School for Native American students with disabilities. “My younger brother Pat gets on his horse to go to the school and the horse goes to bucking. Pat finally gets the horse under control and into the line, and we rode up to the school,” shared Reynolds. “But it was evident the whole time that this horse wanted nothing to do with my brother or being in the line.”
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As the horses and riders stood in line, Reynolds looked up and saw a boy pushing a little Navajo girl in a rattling and clinking wheelchair right toward Pat’s skittish horse. “I kind of held my breath as the wheelchair came to a stop in front of this horse and the little blind girl reached up to touch his nose. In that moment, for some reason unknown to us, that horse lowered his head into her lap and she petted him for a little while. We later learned she had never touched a horse before.”
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In a totally cowboy ending to the story, as soon as the riders turned to leave, Pat’s horse went back to his original agenda, as he tried to dump Pat again on the way back to the trailers.
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In a more recent time, Reynolds shared about a young boy from a school in Scottsdale, who had a burning question that had to be answered. “We had done the presentation,” said Reynolds, “And this little guy was in the back of the room, jumping up and down with his hand in the air. I finally called on him, and his first words were, ‘You guys ride horse, right?’ I said yes. ‘You ride on the highway through the reservation, right?’ To which I said yes. ‘They got wild horses on the reservation, don’t they?’ Yes sir, they do. ‘Do you let your horses mess around with those wild horses’, came the final question,” said Reynolds with a chuckle. “I told that boy with a very serious face that we have a no messing around rule with our horses when they are working on the Pony Express.”
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Then there was the time when the Pony Express riders were doing a photo shoot in front of the mural near the corner of Navajo Blvd. and Hopi Drive in Holbrook. While sitting on the back of his horse that day, Reynolds said he remembered a time in Vietnam, when a new Marine came into his squad claiming he knew where Holbrook was.
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“I had asked him to describe Holbrook for me. We all got quiet as he described Hopi Drive and the Roxy Theater,” said Reynolds. “For that moment, he was describing our home towns and giving us a reason to keep going. I asked him what movie he had seen at the Roxy and he said ‘Psycho’ with Anthony Perkins. I saw that same movie in that same theater as well.
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“I realized during that photo shoot that America turned here at that intersection and I also realized that I had been in some pretty hellish places during my life and there were times I would have given my eye teeth just to stand on this spot, to be a part of Holbrook,” Reynolds said quietly.
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“It is an honor to be a volunteer, to be a part of the Posse and the Pony Express,” continued Reynolds. “We are who we are and doing what we do. Whether it’s cooking in the chuck wagon, digging a hole, rescuing a person or recovering a body, it’s about being of service. We have gone to great lengths to build a reputation of men that represent the community the best we can.”
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Started in 1957 with the establishment of the Navajo County Sheriff’s Hashknife Gang, which later was renamed to the Navajo County Sheriff’s Hashknife Posse, most of the original riders of the Pony Express are gone. With another generation getting older, it will be up to the younger guys to carry this legacy forward.
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The Posse has 60 plus active members and is one of the oldest organized mounted posses left in the United States. As Reynolds said, “We have worked with floods, forest fires, found people and recovered bodies. We do a lot of community services and the Pony Express is one of our biggest fund raisers to keep the Posse alive.”
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“As non-profits and community service organizations go, all of us are struggling to maintain and there are a whole bunch of mounted sheriff’s posses that don’t exist anymore as it is cost prohibitive for many,” said Reynolds. “One of the unique things about the Posse and the Hashknife Pony Express Ride is that we have people from all walks of life. We have had schoolteachers, principals, livestock inspectors and even guys that were electricians and mechanics. The irony is that they all fit in. I am really proud of the group we have now.”
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Members are always welcome, but in order to maintain the historic nature of the organization, it is open only to men who are 21 years of age or older and can pass a background check.
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“We used to have a requirement that you owned a horse,” noted Reynolds. “But now we have an ATV division for those that can no longer ride.”
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Every year there is up to 40 hours of training that includes CPR, first aid, medical, blood pathogens and regular search and rescue training as well as Homeland Security certification.
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“We do mock searches which are separate from the classes,” said Reynolds. “They are pretty intense. The guys who set them are wise to the real clues people tend to leave.”
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In 1992, Reynolds, who had three kids, met up with his high school sweetheart, Holly, who had three children as well. “We were like kids back in high school,” shared Reynolds, “Our first date was at drive through.”
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They married and had another child. Ten years ago, Holly was diagnosed with cancer, dying 24 days later, one of the Downwinders, those affected by the radiation fallout from nuclear testing.
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Today, Reynolds, who lives in Prescott, spends his time being a grandpa to “a series of grandbabies” from his four daughters and three sons as well as working with the Posse and advocating for veteran’s benefits.
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As he concluded his story, Reynolds stopped; and quiet filled the room before he spoke again, “This will be our 61st ride. When you go from 50 rides to 61, it feels like a blink of an eye. We have a tremendous responsibility to what that is because we are no longer making history, we are history.”
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