The Turquoise Ledge

by Leslie Marmon Silko

  I glanced down the sandy delta where I never found turquoise stones and this time I saw a rock with a tiny bright spot of turquoise in the shape of a cloud.

  A short distance away I found another small turquoise rock in the shape of a half moon. The swirling action of the floodwaters in the arroyo churns the deposits of sand and stones over and over. The delta where there’s only sand and a few pebbles on the surface probably has turquoise pebbles buried six feet below that get churned back up in a flash flood.

  Along the way I picked up two shards of bottle glass. The glass is dense and heavy so I know it is old, from the 1960s or even the 1950s when the glass had some lead or other metals in it. If left for many years in the sun, the clear glass turns bright amethyst.

  Most times I find glass fragments of recent manufacture. The glass is very thin because they’ve mixed in plastic resins to make it lighter-weight, but not stronger. In Tucson the thin glass of bottles of carbonated water often explode in the heat and blast their shrapnel in every direction.

  I see fresh wood dust under the small palo verde killed by vandals a few months ago. I felt very badly when I found it lying in the arroyo because the foothill palo verde grow very slowly and this one must have been thirty years old. But now the insects are eating it and I am reminded the desert has its ways to work out death and life.

  I was walking down the steep hill near the Thunderbird Mine, and I was almost to the bottom, keeping up a good pace while careful not to stumble, when I looked over to the right, and coming at a good pace too was a Gila monster. The big lizard saw me just at the instant I saw him. He flicked his delicate black forked tongue at me, and in my surprise I blurted out “Hello.” Such an ugly sound ruined our introduction. The Gila monster didn’t flee but he turned his back to me and hid his head in a small desert sage brush so he wouldn’t have to see something so large and frightening.

  As I walked along the path, I paid special attention to the ant palaces along the way. I took notice of them when I passed by; each colony did something different—perhaps owing to the unique conditions of their location in the desert. Some went underground at sunrise while others stayed on to work in the heat.

  The perfect rings of bright vermillion caught my eye. They encircled the stone entrance to the ant palace. The ants gathered the fallen blossoms of the ocotillo and intended to move them into their nest after the flowers dried. The brilliant orange red of the tiny flowers was incandescent in the early light.

  The storm came suddenly, and oddly there was not the thunder and lightning that usually accompany hail and rain. The hail was the size of corn kernels. The storm lasted only an hour or so but when it was over, I could see the big arroyo was flooded from bank to bank. The damp air amplified the sounds; I heard the low whir of the floodwater as it crossed the paved road with its slurry of pebbles and rocks.

  The curved beak thrashers sang their rain songs full of trills and arpeggios while the Gila woodpeckers shrieked with joy. The rain makes the desert birds amorous. Even a moderate rain may allow the desert birds and others the sustenance to raise their young successfully.

  Next day’s storm was short but violent—a great deal of rain and hail fell in a short time. The trail was badly eroded; the path the rainwater carved was filled with sizeable rocks and pebbles so I had to pay attention to my footing. The damp earth felt wonderfully moist with an energy that helped my feet spring along.

  As I walked along, a light breeze moved steadily, full of the scents of wet earth and wet bark and leaves. I even smelled wet roots. The tiny gnats the hummingbirds love to eat rose from their damp earth beds under the foliage as a gossamer golden cloud in the morning light.

  I was interested to see what had happened to the ocotillo flowers the ants had out to dry by their palace entrances. With such a strong wind and heavy downpour, I assumed the orange red blossoms would blow away.

  The ants were out working on their entrance when I got there, rearranging the protective barriers of coarse sand grains and tiny pebbles that kept yesterday’s deluge from flooding their palace. Amazingly, the masses of tiny orange and red ocotillo flowers the ants stored outside had not been dislodged by the wind and rain, only slightly shifted.

  How do the ants get the dried flowers to stay put during storms? Glue? Weaving? Magnetism? I took a closer look at one of the tiny dried florets and saw that the anthers and pistils had dried into hooked tendrils that the ants had interlocked to form a blanket of blossoms. The ants attached the tendrils to large grains of ant hill sand where they remained, impervious to wind and rain until they were ready to be taken underground.

  The small mesquite lizard in the front yard likes to sun himself on the round stones shaped and smoothed long ago by human hands. The lizard has other good rocks in the sun to choose from but for some reason he prefers the smooth man-made surfaces.

  CHAPTER 29

  It’s the beginning of June but the early mornings are still cool enough for a walk. Today as I was returning from my walk, and still some distance from my driveway, I noticed two piercing laser-bright red lights in the mesquite tree in my front yard. How strange they were! At first I couldn’t imagine what I was seeing, but then I realized it was the early morning angle of the sunlight that caused odd visual effects this time of the year, and what I actually saw were the hummingbird feeders an eighth of a mile away. The sunlight shone through the red sugar water which acted as a lens to focus the light.

  Under the mesquite tree I saw a dozen or more brown ants bringing down a cicada ten times larger than they were. The cicada struggled feebly from the effects of the ant venom, and I noticed the cicada’s second skin was separating for a molt, and part of the old exoskeleton seemed stuck to its wings and tail.

  One hummingbird came to the feeder while I sat on the porch. She is the female with the black line on her tail feathers. I said, “Where were you? I missed you.” The hummingbird darted away. I forgot the human voice out loud sounds ugly to the hummingbirds. I should have whispered. She didn’t go far but I didn’t want to disturb her again to ask her the whereabouts of the other hummingbirds and the bees.

  The sudden rain last week gave the greasewoods enough nourishment for another flowering this spring. I hope the bees and hummingbirds are not missing, only browsing nearby in all the many waxy white saguaro blossoms and sweet yellow greasewood flowers.

  The night-blooming cactus, la reina de la noche in the clay pot, the one I started from a twig, had a single gorgeous perfumed blossom last night and early this morning. Then it was finished.

  The reinas are indigenous to the Sonoran Desert. They frequently grow under jojoba bushes for partial shade but this makes them difficult to locate unless they are in blossom. The bulk of the reina is a tuberous root underground; what appears to be a leafless stick pokes up through the ground and the jojoba branches. In early summer the leafless stick forms a bud and just after sundown a large white blossom emerges. Then their heavenly perfume gives them away. The scent is delicate and haunting, never heavy or cloying, and reminds me of the lovely perfume of the white orchid flowers of the Brassavola nodosa from Central America where it blooms for the autumnal equinox.

  The scent of the brugmansia blossoms were a disappointment—I expected they’d be as fragrant as the purple datura but they were lovely to see. They require a good deal of water and rich soil—both in limited supply here. No wonder they grow best in the Quechua graveyards in the mountains of Peru. In the twilight their pendulous yellow blossoms are ghostly, resembling the dead souls on the branches of the Tree of Life.

  On my walk this morning I picked up a rock the size of my two fingers with speckles and threads of turquoise. The rock is light greenish gray basalt and the turquoise is a light green blue that collected in a triangular crease near the lower middle of the rock. On the far right end, midpoint, there is a raisin of iron ore.

  This morning, instead of coming in to work on the manuscript, I sat in the shade on the front porch and watched the mesquit
e lizard catch the tiny gnats that swarmed around the lower limb of the big mesquite tree. The lizard had lovely patterns of ivory and copper over brown and darker shades that mimicked the bark of a mesquite tree. Suddenly the lizard moved, then turned and bounced up and down on its front legs to assert his dominance over his territory, but why?

  I looked around and about eight feet away on the trunk of the smaller mesquite tree I saw a larger spiny desert lizard I call a “sky lizard” because of its brilliant blue color. Sky lizards like to sit at the top of the stucco walls of my house in camouflage, their blue silhouettes hidden in the blue of the sky.

  The spiny lizard intensified the brightness of his iridescent turquoise blue and he puffed up his spiny neck with its elegant black necklace marking. Fat with all the gnats he ate in the tree, his tail was a luminous pale turquoise blue, the color of the summer sky overhead. His ribs and chest were intense turquoise of the greatest substance and purity, and the blue on his head and his back was the shade of lapis lazuli.

  The mesquite lizard appeared unconcerned about the puffed up spiny lizard and instead watched the Gila woodpecker that flitted around the hummingbird feeder until it managed to find a place for its claw so it could tip the feeder and its contents into its beak.

  I left the house early as the sun was still behind the Catalina Mountains to the east. The air was cool, and I could smell just a hint of the dampness, the last trace of the sudden rainstorm of a few weeks ago. The scent of the greasewood was pervasive because the bushes are covered with tiny waxy yellow flowers. A few orange carmine blossoms remain stored outside the ant palaces but I saw no ants.

  At the ant hill which had been trampled by humans and horses earlier in the month, I found the damage had been repaired by a rainstorm which smoothed away the boot-prints and hoof-prints into a concentric circular pattern. I saw seven or eight ants working on the entrance to arrange the grains of sand the rainstorm brought before it got too hot.

  I heard loud noises of rocks clattering in the nearby arroyo where I had seen the giant rattlesnake. I stopped and stood still and a herd of six or seven large mule deer does stared at me, uncertain whether they should run. I went on my way at once to reassure them I was no threat.

  All the trees and shrubs are bright green and many are blossoming again. Each rainstorm in the Sonoran Desert brings another springtime of wild flowers and cactus blossoms even if it only lasts two weeks.

  In the big arroyo right after the rain I found three pieces of turquoise rock uncovered by the runoff. But since then I’ve not found any; I noticed the floodwater left a layer of dove gray clay on the pebbles and rocks, so the turquoise isn’t as visible. To wash off the clay, a gentle steady rain is needed; then I’ll be able to spot the turquoise rocks again.

  Each time the trail went downhill and across even the smallest arroyo, the cool moist air rushed past my face in the most delicious manner. I felt my skin drink it in. The cool air held subtle perfumes of the catsclaw and mesquite that blossomed following the rain. In the big arroyo the flow of cool air had much more of a woody green herbal scent.

  A short distance past the Gila Monster Mine I caught a flash of turquoise out of the corner of my eye. I picked up a piece of orange quartzite the size of my fist with a streak of turquoise across its face. This was quite a distance from the big arroyo where I imagined the ledge of turquoise to be so it served as a reminder: turquoise may be found anywhere in these hills where there may be more than one turquoise ledge.

  In the arroyo I noticed a small rectangular turquoise cabochon of a very nice sky blue and green. I brought it home but I lost it for a while under papers and notes on my writing desk. When I located it again, I took a closer look at it, and I realized one side resembled the turquoise mask of Tlaloc.

  I picked up the trash I found too—a faded scrap of a Starbucks wrapper, a piece of brittle weathered gray duct tape, a shard of a green bottle and a large shard from a clear glass bottle. I am intrigued to see the items that somehow find their way and travel down the big arroyo.

  A few days later, I set out on my walk on the trail just after six a.m. The previous day’s rain wasn’t as heavy as three weeks earlier when all the erosion occurred on the walking trail and my driveway, but it was just what the new foliage from the last rainfall needed in order to go on blossoming—the mesquites and the catsclaw bushes all are in bloom a second time in just three months. The breeze was cool and smelled faintly of the flowers and the camphor of the greasewood. Some newcomers complain that the desert “has no seasons,” but the desert has many seasons; each time it rains, we have another springtime.

  At the point in the big arroyo where the basalt boulders leave scarcely enough space for a horse and rider to pass, the trail goes up and through the remains of an ancient tumult of stones, pebbles and sand. Stones the size of bread loaves and cantaloupes formed a long narrow ribbon along the sandbars. In the sandbar I found a piece of turquoise rock—the second such since the flood in the big arroyo had moved so much sand and stone.

  A light, brief rain from the previous day had washed off the mud left by the floodwater and exposed the turquoise stone which was about the size of the end of my thumb. I saw it so plainly there on the narrow ribbon of sandbar above the big gray basalt boulders. Its color was so bright and intense in the morning sun and leftover dampness of the night shower; the rain brings out the intense turquoise blue. The writing I saw on the stone was in turquoise threads. As soon as my eyes fell on the markings, my brain registered both “turquoise” and “writing” at the same time.

  I recalled reading that the Chinese got their written language from sacred stones from a mountain somewhere. The “writings” or natural marks on the stones gave the Chinese the idea of a system of marks and drawings that would send messages. I imagined them poring over the stones with the markings or “writings,” certain these were messages from the supernatural world, interpreting each mark, each figure before they copied the marks and kept the stones themselves as a reference once the message of the stone was deciphered. The turquoise stone I found read thus: a flying bird, a rain cloud over Africa.

  CHAPTER 30

  I keep other rocks I find on my walks, not just the turquoise. On my writing desk today, I have a piece of quartz crystal with smooth faces that reflect sunlight. I like to keep favorite rocks near me when I’m writing although they barely leave me any space to work. They catch dust and spiders’ webs.

  The small spiders in my studio leave tiny fluffy white web strings and balls all over the faces and chests of the Star Being portraits. I don’t like to disturb the spiders by dusting the portraits. It is possible to use a lamb’s wool duster to remove the spiders’ webs and eggs without harm but the spiders are forced to relocate.

  Good news. The wild bees that water at the small tank by the cistern pool have returned in their usual numbers. I was afraid they might have lost their home to the real estate developers as the others had.

  I ran outdoors as soon as I heard the mastiffs barking excitedly as they do when they have some poor creature cornered. Slow moving tortoises, Gila monsters and toads are at a disadvantage with the mastiffs. A big Gila monster had bitten Lyon on the mouth, and his lip was swelling and bloody; it had to bite and hang onto the the mastiff’s lip to grind in the poison because the lizards don’t inject with fangs like rattlers do. The coral pink and shiny black lizard lay motionless and I saw blood so I thought it was dead. How could it survive the jaws of a mastiff? I felt very badly about the beautiful lizard.

  I took the mastiffs indoors and immediately came back out to bury the remains of the lizard, but when I got back to the site, the Gila monster was gone. I walked around and searched carefully under bushes in case it had crawled away to die but I found no trace of the creature in the dogs’ yard. I felt much better knowing it had escaped. I don’t know if it lived or died later but at least it was able to escape on its own.

  I found an immature Gila monster in the front yard some years ago; I ho
pe this wasn’t the one that got mauled this morning. I feel badly that I didn’t get out there faster to help the lizard escape.

  Dogs have evolved with loose skin on their heads and necks to help them survive snakebites. The snake fangs catch in the loose skin and inject the venom under the skin but not in the muscle where greater harm is likely to occur. If a dog weighs thirty-five pounds or more and is in good health, a snakebite to the head or neck will usually not kill it.

  Gila monster venom affects dogs much differently than rattlesnake venom. It acts as a sedative, and a bitten dog will seem to have little pain. The rattlesnake venom is so painful that the dog will pant and pace restlessly. Gila monster venom is prescribed in small amounts and injected to control diabetes that can’t be controlled otherwise.

  Lyon is a seven year old purebred English mastiff. Over the years he appears to have developed a partial immunity to rattlesnake venom from frequent warning bites on his head and snout. He’s already been bitten twice by rattlers in 2007.

  I kept a little blue notebook I titled “Rain 2007.” I have a number of notebooks titled “Rain” and a year; but open them and they are blank except for one or two pages with writing. Sometimes this is because it only rained once or twice in six months and I lost interest and lost track of the notebook.

  Maybe the weather is about to change. The rattlesnakes sense subtle shifts in barometric pressure so they move and change locations days before a storm arrives in Tucson.

  This is why I can’t travel anymore: well-meaning house-sitters removed the rattlesnakes that customarily lounged in the coolness of my front porch by the pots of geraniums and datura. One of the twin rattlers was removed and relocated—not far, I hope. A tenth of a mile is still within a snake’s range. That was the distance the firemen took the big brown rattler last year when the other house-sitter called them.