The Family at Serpiente

by Raymond Tolman

  Later, Corey and I watched while the perky ranger showed up to inspect the young ladies’ camping gear, the ones who had been playing the Neil Young song. Hiding, we watched as the rangers gave them their inspection. Without realizing that the girls were in kayaks, the problem of fire pans came up again. One of the girls stepped away, disappearing behind tents, and reappeared holding a large metallic object; the proverbial fire pan that just happened to be a lid from a BLM trash can. At this point she was told that kayaks do not require a fire pan if unsupported by a raft.

  Turning around and seeing the lid, one of the rangers politely asked, “And how are you going to carry that fire pan?” After a little stumbling at the realization of the obvious lie, the young girl sheepishly returned the lid to the trash can.

  Hidalgo soon had a problem on his hands. A sixteen-year-old blond, a ‘hottie’, who would be more appropriate talking to one of her classmates, asked Hidalgo if he had floated the San Juan before.

  “No,” he answered her, but before he could step away she asked another question.

  “Are you an Indian or something?”

  “Yes I am...”

  She cut him off with, “Would you help me with my life jacket?” Hidalgo looked helpless at this point. “Would you help me by spreading some sunscreen on my body? Are you going to rescue me if I fall in, are you going to give me mouth to mouth resuscitation?”

  Hidalgo just walked away. He said to me, “I needed to be rescued by her mother.”

  A middle school teacher from California befriended us. He and his 14-year-old adopted Korean son arrived with a canoe duck taped, right side up on top of his car. He seemed eternally grateful for our advice offering us sodas, paperback books and constant entertainment by telling horror stories about teaching. The real questions that was never asked was,” What would the paint on the car look like when the duct tape was peeled away or what happens if the canoe fills with rain water?”

  One fellow who was obviously experienced about this river came over to the camp and struck up a conversation. He had been down the river many times and offered advice; “Late fall, winter, or early spring canoe trips take you back to what the canyon was like before it was discovered by thousands of new river runners and their families. The contrast of showing up at a completely deserted Sand Island in order to run a river where you know that you will meet no other people can feel terribly spooky and a sad thing to do, but on those trips the runner relishes the companionship of the few fellow humans also in a canyon that looms much larger.”

  “Winter canoe trips require careful preplanning and teamwork to avoid death from hypothermia. Don’t try it unless you are with a very professional team and have time to layover, but the rewards can be momentous. That time of year is a paradise for the photographer intent upon capturing those special moments created though the chemistry of light and weather.”

  He was an artist with words as well as with oils and brushes. “The contrast of white snow on the many layers of brilliant red rocks or camping near the base of waterfalls that cascade thousands of feet down into the river after late fall rains create magical and very special moments.”

  We liked him. He was the only person there that didn’t need something, want someone, was just plain nosy, or had a bunch of loud children running around playing though other peoples’ camps. He continued, “During summertime canoe trips finding a camping spot can be a difficult matter. The side canyons that offer excellent hiking opportunities are the most popular and scenic spots, and the demand for these few spots far exceed the number of actual campsites that exist at any given time. People have gotten into gunfights over the right to camp at prearranged sites. Sometimes it is smarter, if you are not in a big hurry to wait until other campers simply move from a site and then move into it.”

  “Even at odd months of the year you still see some interesting people. Look hard enough and you can usually see someone making a fool out of him or herself. Take for example what happened one late summer day when I was haunting the campsites at Slickrock.

  After setting up tents as far away from the other tents as possible, I went for a walk up the gulch. The sun was out, no wind, everything warming up, and the entire trail was strewn with clear pools with young coeds from the University of Utah. Being Mormon country, I didn’t really expect much, but you never know. They were all young college students, mostly girls, acting like they were in a different world. Walking alone, I totally surprised most of them. They turned out to be pleasant but extremely shy. Maybe the sight of an older fellow dressed in survival gear covered in dirt and sweat tended to throw them off; I can’t imagine why.”

  “Several pools, waterfalls, and startled young maidens later, I was amazed to have one of them actually walk up to me and initiate a conversation. She was a tall blond goddess with green eyes and large voluptuous breast just barely being held in place by bandanas.”

  “Where did you come from” she asked, as I stood there slack jawed, in amazement.”

  Stammering to speak at that critical moment, I said, “Boulder, Colorado. Now don’t get me wrong. I’m not a womanizer, but my wife would wonder if I didn’t look. As she says; ‘Look, but don’t touch, and if you do, I’ll...’Well you get the picture.”

  “Are you from the university river trip?” I asked her while trying to look as much like a worldly, philosophical sage as possible.

  “No,” she answered, “I am with a private party.” It was small talk. I guess my luck changed when I crossed my arms and leg and leaned against the rock wall. That’s when the can of soda in the fanny pack went Phossh! There I was, with foam running down my crotch and pants leg; a great way to impress a girl. “Don’t know who laughed the hardest; the young girl, or my wife when I told the story.”

  The artist fellow who never actually introduced himself, but continued talking anyway finally said, “Most people get into trouble on this river for not taking the simplest of precautions. Last summer a young man in a raft came up to my camp obviously in distress. This fellow’s girl friend had passed out; too much sun. Leaving Sand Island they were in great spirits but by the time they had gotten to my camp down around eight foot rapids she had literally cooked. The only clothing she had brought was bikinis.”

  “I stay completely covered up when I’m on the river. I even take off the river during the hottest part of the day and stay in the shade. Anyway, I carried her over into the shade of the bluff, propped her legs up, and then took a beach towel I usually keep wet over my cooler to save the ice. I soaked it in the river and draped it over her. She immediately came to but then I had to give her my extra change of clothing just to get her down the river. I’ll tell you what, I bet that if she ever took another river trip, she brought along a shirt with long sleeves and a pair of long pants.”

  Kids ran around the campsites until late in the evening. Music was filling the air until after midnight keeping all but the most exhausted awake. Hidalgo, Corey and I decided after that first night that we were glad to be leaving Sand Island.

  A Visit from the Bruja

  We hung around Sand Island the next morning just long enough to eat breakfast and then submit ourselves to another inspection by a different ranger. This time the ranger was polite, not in such a hurry, and certainly didn’t have the arrogance of the previous ranger, in fact he was extremely polite. The discrepancy in the launch date didn’t really seem to matter to him.

  “How interesting, you say you floated in from Durango?”

  “Yes,” I answered.

  “Hidalgo here,” I pointed at Hidalgo, “Is researching a book on petroglyphs.”

  “Well,” replied the ranger while looking at Hidalgo. “As a Native American, he should know more about them than anyone else around here.”

  There was a pause in the conversation then Hidalgo casually answered, “Well, the people who lived here were as different from my people as your people are from the Greeks. How well do you read Greek?”

  “See your point;”
said the young Ranger then he abruptly changed the subject, “The purpose of the inspections and permits is designed to make river trips more enjoyable to the public. Too many people on the river at one time cause problems because there are only so many camping spots. Besides, the fee makes it possible to make improvements here. We want you to have a good time”

  “What about rock carvings, petroglyphs, asked Hidalgo?

  “There are rock carvings, in all the side canyons, all the way down to the Mexican Hat Anticline. I don’t know what’s below that, but there’s probably some at Mexican Hat and of course there are many down in Grand Gulch,” answered the Ranger, “You folks enjoy yourselves.”

  We finally launched, after what was now five weeks on the river, we were finally on a section that was considered beautiful by anyone’s standards. The problem was, now we were not alone and we felt like we were experiencing culture shock. For the last five weeks we had usually been completely alone, particularly while floating from Shiprock, now we were tying up on tiny beaches where a huge raft party had already tied off. There was always another party of canoes or rafts coming down the river, again it was a three ring circus.

  Stopping at the Kachina panels as well as several other Paleolithic sites, Hidalgo was enjoying himself. The tourists that we ran across were perplexed; they couldn’t understand the ambiguity of why an Indian would be interested in Indians. Hidalgo would try and explain it by asking them, “You spend years in school studying American history, why should this seem so different?” But of course, it was different, but then Hidalgo was different by anyone’s standards.

  That evening we camped under a large cottonwood at the trail head at the foot of Combs Wash. At one time a thousand years ago, it was the focal point for many families. Hidalgo, Corey and I spent much of the following day climbing up the ridge following an ancient trail that went to other sites such as Butler wash many miles away, until we had a bird’s eye view of the magnificent countryside.

  We had just started to return to camp when a most peculiar thing happened. I spotted it first. The slight breeze carried a few scattered clouds that day from west to east as it does almost every day, but on the horizon a very dark and angry looking cloud formed in the east and moved across the sky in the opposite direction. Appearing to boil from the inside out, it made no sound but looked ominous with what appeared to be small lightning bolts flying from it. The three of us just stood there and watched it spell bound for several minutes until it disappeared over the Mexican Hat anticline.

  “What in the world was that,” I asked?

  Corey answered, “It sure doesn’t look like what Richard described over in Gallina Canyon on that deer hunting trip.”

  Hidalgo answered the inquiry with, “I have relatives who live south of here that say they have seen such occurrences many times, they would say that we are looking at a witch cross the sky on the way to make trouble somewhere.”

  I observed, “That didn’t look like any witch I have ever seen. Witches are supposed to be old ladies with moles on their noses who ride on brooms.”

  Hidalgo answered my point with, “Witches are in the eye of the beholder. Native Indians have never encountered the kind of witch you are talking about, but based upon what I have learned about your culture those people are actually Wiccan’s, people who use natural herbs and conduct rituals. Those are the same rituals used in early forms of the religion that became Christianity. Anyone who is different such as those who used herbal medicine was considered a heretic to Christians. Your history is full of people who were burned at the stake or persecuted because they looked different, talked differently or even believed differently. Your religion does not allow anyone to be an individual, someone who thinks for himself. You even call our spiritual leaders witchdoctors which does far more to demonstrate your ignorance of our cultures than it does to elevate yours.”

  Corey looked at Hidalgo and said, “I wonder what science would have to say about that thing that crossed the sky?”

  I answered the question with, “Science doesn’t say anything about things like that. Science is a tool not a thing or a person; it is a systematic way of discovering the truth about things, the search for facts and information. It is what people do with that information that sometimes has little logic. People do not want to change because it requires the effort to look and learn, and most people are lazy.”

  Corey added, “That’s called politics. Usually if enough people believe something then it is considered truth.”

  Hidalgo countered this argument with, “Thousands of years ago your people thought the earth was the center of the universe. Then, slowly you began to realize that the sun was the center of this solar system. Now we know that the sun is only one star among billions in this galaxy and there are billions of galaxies out there that make up the universe. Our bubble of galaxies may be just one more bubble in a maze of bubbles, each a universe in itself. In your Christian bible doesn’t it say there are many kingdoms in the heavens?”

  Not receiving an answer, only curious looks, he continued, “Only a short time ago your culture would see a comet cross the sky and they just knew that God was warning them of certain doom. It would be time to repent your sins or find a scapegoat who had caused the trouble in the first place. Science on the other hand, has increased our understanding of the world but it has done little to cultivate our understanding and interpretation of those facts. Science may be able to describe, even offer an explanation, as to what is was that we saw but that doesn’t mean that people actually understand it at all. Who is to say that what we saw wasn’t actually the manifestation of a skin walker on its way to do someone harm or even to correct a wrong? Maybe it was like the comet that appears in the sky as a warning, a precursor of things to come. Maybe the ancient people who lived here thousands of years ago were right all along.”

  Staring into the horizon and hoping something else would happen, I continued my point about science; “Science is not a highly specialized and refined laboratory technique, but rather, general methods which can be used by all people as a tool to cope with problems in an ever-changing world. Living in a democratic society requires that individuals have the ability to make group decisions based upon examining and weighing alternatives and thinking through choices.

  “Here we go again. Once you get Penny talking about something like science it is hard to stop her,” Corey sighed.

  “Therefore, before the civil action and decisions are undertaken, an understanding of the geological processes that determine the physical environment, and therefore the variables for making responsible democratic decisions, is required. Once an understanding of these variables is obtained, the process of scientific problem solving can be used with reflective exploratory thought to resolve issues and make responsible decisions. These decisions must be based upon the scientific method, which is the asking of questions that direct one’s observations in such a way as to answer the questions clearly, to test one’s beliefs, or assumptions, and to change or revise them accordingly”

  I realized that no one was listening to my scientific preaching, in fact they were ignoring me so I reached out and placed my hand on Hidalgo’s shoulder and said, “I don’t know but I do know one thing for sure; it’s getting late and I would like to see what other people down at the river say about what we saw. Let’s head back to the camp, besides you promised us catfish for dinner.” With that we trudged our way back down the trail stopping every few minutes to look for other aerial occurrences but nothing happened.

  The Thief

  The next morning we slept in late, eating a late breakfast prepared by Hidalgo that included catfish cleaned and cooked and hush puppies made from corn meal. Then we slowly packed our tents and dry bags after letting everything dry out. We only had a few hundred yards to go as we planned on camping on river left where Chinle Wash emptied hematite red slurries of water into the main channel. We intended to stay there a couple of days while exploring the side canyon which was li
ned with cavernous sandstone bluffs with ruins in them.

  However as the river channel brought them past the camping area on river right they noticed a large crowd of people gathering. People were pushing each other around and screaming at each other. Thinking that they had also seen the apparition in the sky we skimmed along the edge of the river to see what was going on and to talk to them. But evidentially no one had noticed the apparition that we had seen from atop Coombs Ridge. Nobody had time to discuss the issue. This was a mystery in itself as it would have seemed impossible for them not to have seen it. We soon discovered that the crowd was consumed by the tumult of a criminal investigation.

  We pulled off the river, secured our canoes, and walked over to the crowd that had grown to about forty people including kids and barking dogs. There, several men stood guard over two young boys who were sitting on the ground. They were both bleeding from numerous scrapes and cuts, as well as one of them had a broken nose. They were accused of stealing things in the camps.

  I asked a young lady, who was hanging onto two small children, what the problem was. “Well, you know people come and go here all the time. For a long time nobody noticed what was going on. People would simply discover that their personal things were missing. Wallets with money, possible bags with car keys and guns along with credit cards, personal identifications and cameras are missing from tents all over the area. You can imagine what it is like when we realized that our money is missing. Our only take out is Mexican Hat. If we travel on down to Clay Hills Crossing we are facing a 60 mile walk back to a phone. We can’t even use our cars unless we have hidden a key somewhere; and how do we buy gas?”

  It was true; the two young boys had been little peeping Toms. They had enjoyed themselves the last week by going from campground to campground and seeing what people were doing. A normal activity of bored young people growing up, but they were caught in the act of doing something at a most inconvenient time. They had caught a young couple doing something that is normally restricted to the privacy of married couples.