I enjoyed the company of other people. We were all members of an exclusive club consisting of people who had the courage to run rivers for a pastime. We shared stories about other river trips, evaluating the pros and cons of running them in canoes. Soon, my imagination would be on other rivers we could explore. But I envied the iceboxes of cold drinks and food that they carried in their rafts. In our canoes we were limited to one small box per canoe and we certainly didn’t have cold drinks. We usually put a few drinks in a net bag and dragged them in the river water as we floated. Lukewarm drinks most of the way down the river but they had soon disappeared anyway and eventually we were left with drinking the melted ice.
When the boys arrived from their hikes they were famished and tired from the walking, which was often in deep sand, to dozens of small ruins. Hidalgo seemed to be intrigued at how artistic the inhabitants had been in constructing their homes. At one time, this must have been a nice place to live.
We had already decided to leave for Clay Hills Crossing the following morning. According to the river runners who walked over to our camp to say hello and bring everyone cold drinks, there were only two reasonable take outs below us and we would arrive at a dirt road on the right which disappears into a forest of Russian olive trees. We were warned that is all there is to it, and if we missed it, we would eventually find ourselves in Lake Powell.
Oljeto Wash was described to us by one fellow as a mysterious canyon. He had hiked up it only a short distance before giving up because of the difficulty. Jim Fulmer explained, “We could have some difficulty just getting into and out of the narrow canyon. On some years the entire landing area is a classic quagmire of deep quicksand and mud that can be miserable, if not impossible to cross. More than one river runner has had to be rescued out of it. But if you can find a dry trail in and no one has beaten you there is a very nice camping spot some distance up the canyon. The danger of course is flash floods occurring miles away. It is a spooky place!” Downriver from there is a beach on river right with some sheepherder mud structures to explore. Then there is a long stretch of flat water with nothing but Russian Olives to see followed by that single road that comes out to the edge of the river. Don’t miss it.”
Early the next day, and with a lot of help, we did the reverse of what we did before in order to get down to the river and loaded our canoes. It took a while, even with all the help, but suddenly we were in a fast current careening down the river.
There was a quagmire of mud at Oljeto Wash but there was also a clear trail all the way up to the camp so we decided to take a look. Entry always depended on what’s going on throughout the watershed that Oljeto commands.
The well-established camp site was several yards up the wash on a small beach of firm soil. Choosing not to stay there because of the unpredictability of the wash with its uncanny ability to transform into a hundred yard quagmire, we beached our canoes and stashed our paddles. Then we packed our valuables into small backpacks that held everything that we didn’t want stolen. Not that we were worried about thievery at this point in the river trip, we were following well established and practiced routines. After tying off the canoes we slipped into our small day packs and began hiking up the narrow slit of rock known as Oljeto Wash. It was to be a short trip, everyone was tired and it was already noon. We just wanted to take just one more walk before the long float to Clay Hills. The first clouds started to gather in the afternoon skies.
The narrow serpentine canyon was a challenging climb. Sometimes there is a way to climb around it but sometimes it is a dead end. Trails like this are always easy at first, and then get harder and harder until it requires technical climbing skills and equipment before reaching the upper mesa. After walking though just a few turns of the very narrow but spectacular canyon, we all sat down on a large rock. We were suddenly struck with a feeling that overwhelmed the three of us. I had felt it before, long ago, while riding a bus in San Jon. An anxiety attack occurred that we have all experienced; that dread one feels when doing something that is utterly wrong and you dread the consequences. The feelings were oppressive, occurring in waves. Perhaps we were just tired from the long ordeal we had been on. Perhaps we just wanted to get off the river for a clean bath and find a cure for a multitude of small pains. Perhaps we were homesick. Perhaps we were ready to return to a comfortable ranch house where there were no demanding responsibilities. We just wanted to turn and leave, to go home.
But just taking that first step turned out to be an ordeal. All three of us could not leave our ledge of rock, breathing hard despite the fact that we had traveled only a few dozen yards. The experience was like diabetics feel when their blood sugar bottoms out. I tried to fight it. In my mind I would will a muscle to move but nothing happened. We were listless with no energy, we were paralyzed. We found ourselves lying back on the ledge and leaning on our small packs. Sitting there had been far too strenuous. It was sudden and drastic, a fear that left us all confused, paralyzed, and defenseless.
The next wave that overwhelmed us was a feeling of extreme panic followed by hallucinations. I could see rattlesnakes everywhere, I was terrified despite the fact that I had long ago gotten over my fear of snakes. Several of the snakes struck me. I could feel deep puncture wounds where the venom was being pumped into my body, in small waves. I was sure that I was bleeding from a multitude of bites. I felt no immediate effect from the rattlesnake bites other than the pain one feels when being bitten. Hidalgo looked over at me and tried to say something but no sound came out. Realizing he wasn’t actually saying anything, he jerked his head up and starred at the canyon rims. Corey halfheartedly swung at an invisible opponent that only he could see. We were all experiencing extreme fear and every few minutes our hallucinations changed. We sat there for several minutes experiencing that sensation one has while awaking from a nightmare. Before the conscience brain connects to the body; you gain consciousness yet are unable to move. In your mind during what seems like an eternity, you somehow manage to make your arm drop off your chest or focus all your efforts just to move, to move anything, just enough movement for deliverance from the paralysis. Only that evening, that strategy didn’t work. Within a few moments, the only thing we could move was our eyes. Eye contact was suddenly very important. We were paralyzed, each experiencing our own nightmare.
I was the first who could say anything. “Canoes, we need to return to the canoes.” It took every morsel of energy I could muster to say each word. Both Corey and Hidalgo were suddenly angry; then I started to cry, loudly like a small child, and then realized what I was doing and immediately stopped.
Corey broke the trance again by uttering, “Do you guys realize this isn’t happening? I should be dead by now.” I jerked my chin up and looked up at him. Then we both looked at Hidalgo who appeared to be catatonic. Corey and I grabbed Hidalgo by the arms, but we couldn’t move him. We did manage to roll him over on his stomach which seemed to slowly revive him. After a period of time had elapsed, just how long, I have no way of knowing, we began crawling, slowly on our knees down the complicated trail we had just casually walked up. After crawling around a meander of the canyon we discovered that we could stand. We wanted to walk down the wash. For the most part, we couldn’t. It would take many minutes before we could keep Hidalgo on his feet. Wobbly, he started to drop back down but instead we jerked him into motion. Taking that first step seemed to take a herculean effort.
Only a few precious steps and the trail out seemed to be covered with scorpions. They were waiting there for us, thousands of them covering every possible escape route. Corey says again, “They are not real.” They seemed to vanish into every crevasse as we followed Hidalgo, who suddenly took off walking through them. I was thankful that only two more turns and we should be out.
We were still having trouble doing even the simplest of movements; I had to think through every agonizing step. We sat down again, hoping that we could clear our minds. I made the mistake of closing my eyes. Instantly I was in an every
changing geometric world that had images of serpents swimming through them. I would see flashes of scenes with Native Americans who were talking to me. I could not understand what they were saying or doing. Then I remember hiking on a long curving trail, I was visiting their homes that all turned into ruins before my eyes. Feeling more confident this time, I may have stayed there with my eyes closed for some time. I was reliving feelings I had felt before. I do not know how long I stayed in those worlds. Evidently, we were all catatonic for a while.
Sometime later, we all seemed to open our eyes at the same time. After asking each other if they were all right, we stood up to continue our exit. Taking only a couple of steps Corey was the first to suddenly stop and turn around to face where we had come. He then dropped his pants and pointed his butt up the canyon. He pulled his pants back up and started laughing while he pointed back up the canyon. Hidalgo started laughing then I started to see the humor in it all. Suddenly we all felt like we were on a sugar high; giggly and humorous. Our chortling and laughter bounced off the walls of the canyon.
Jumping back and retrieving Corey, Hidalgo says to him, “You know that they can control our emotions; we have to get away from here.”
It was late evening when we finally got back to within sight of the canoes, but we couldn’t account for several hours of missing time. We looked up at the crest of the sheer walls outlined by the darkening clouds and focused upon a single raven. It stared down at us. Then it started making a loud cawing sound, over and over in a humiliating cant. It was taunting us.
Again we had to drop down on our hands and knees, glancing back and watching the raven. It continued to taunt us for some time then flew up the walls of the canyon and over the top and out of sight. Suddenly we were able to walk again, instead we ran. All the previous strange feelings disappeared. We went directly to the canoes, only taking time to tie our small packs into the floor of the canoes, and launched downriver without saying a word.
We floated in the gathering darkness downstream to find a camping spot. Between us we never said a word. Then along river right we spotted the small ruined rock structures. We unloaded our boats and even tied them off but we were all so exhausted all we wanted to do was sleep. Wrapping up in sleeping bags under a tarp, we all feel fast asleep. The three of us didn’t want to talk to anyone or eat anything, we needed time to heal. Unfortunately, all three of us had experienced the worst nightmares of our lives leaving us dog tired the following day.
The next day after coffee but no breakfast, we sat off downriver in search of Clay Hills Crossing where after arriving, Hidalgo managed to catch a ride with a fellow Navajo who was working the shuttle services. Four hours later he returned with two different fellows who were dropping off someone’s car. The news was that Ken and June would be there sometime late the next day.
The mosquitoes which we hadn’t noticed since the early days on the Animas River well above Farmington were terrible and we now found ourselves being eaten alive. Setting up tents well away from the brush that grew along the river and well up the on the take out road helped but we still found ourselves hiding inside our tents in the stifling heat to avoid the pesky little creatures.
Ken and June showed up late in the afternoon the following day. Ken immediately figured out that something was wrong. He found himself making suggestions to us and we would do as he asked. After loading the canoes and equipment, we all settled into the seats of our car, it had been so long that they seemed strange and new to us. As we headed back toward Mexican Hat down the long and monotonous dirt road which intersected the blacktop, we kept nodding off. We were absolutely drained of any energy, physical as well as psychological. Ken and June were worried; they knew when something was terribly wrong. They knew we were hiding a great secret.
After a few miles of road, Ken casually asked us if we would consider camping out one more day. “There is a place down the road called Muley Point. There is a turn off there where this road goes down a thousand feet of rock escarpment, by way of sharp switchbacks. Let’s drive out to the point which is on our way home, I think you will find it to be an interesting place, and besides June and I have not been camping out at all, we brought things to cook for dinner and we are tired of driving.” The point was well taken, normally we would have been excited about the prospect of spending the evening at a new place, but all we could do was doze off while they talked to us.
I opened my bloodshot eyes and said to them, “You are rescuing us, we place our lives in your hands,” and then I fell fast asleep.
Muley Point is an unregulated camping area that overlooks the San Juan River with panoramic views of Monument Valley. Looking down from the edge of camp, far below, the San Juan River was cutting a deep serpentine course across a vast valley. It truly did look like a huge serpentine creature far below us. It was already very dark down there with nothing but the uppermost edges of the canyon still in sunlight. It was a spooky feeling knowing that just a few days ago we were floating down that river, now enveloped in a shroud of darkness; a surrealistic looking terrain. That evening we enjoyed ice cold drinks and fresh food that Ken and June had brought with them for the occasion. After setting up tents under the local cedar trees we took camp chairs and sleeping pads out to the edge of the rock precipice overlooking monument valley to watch the sunset occur over one of the most spectacular views the southwest has to offer. For hours, we sat and relived the last few weeks to Ken and June, who seemed fascinated, particularly about the apparitions that we had experienced. They wanted to hear every detail. For us, three river runners, this was a very soothing experience. We had not shared our impressions among ourselves and were curious about what Corey was punching at or what had produced a state of catatonic shock to Hidalgo. Was I the only one seeing rattlesnakes all around us? We were feeling stronger and as our minds returned to us we became more talkative. Having an ice cooler full of cold drinks and snacks that only civilization can offer helped to prompt a wealth of conversation as the evening skies were slowly turning dark in a cloudless sky. We were secure, experiencing again, those feelings that can only be shared together in a close family.
The stars came out in the crystal clear evening. By the time we had finished talking about our adventures on the river it was dark, with no moon out. Sitting there in the warm desert air, Ken was the first to notice a light that was moving. Undoubtedly they all thought, just another airplane. But as they watched the plane began a huge sweep across the valley making a crescent toward them. As the first plane came closer another airplane appeared on the distant horizon every few seconds. We were watching the planes making a parabola, flying just a few thousand feet over the valley surface. As our eyes focused it was obvious that there were many tiny dots behind them.
As the jet turned back toward Arizona we could make out that it was a classic B-52, painted black with only a single light on it. It passed in front of us and in a few moments two more jets passed. Two F-18s, again painted black with one light on them. Then something very different appeared before us, jets crossed the sky in front of us that were shaped like triangles, they looked like diamonds flying, making no noise. We all watched in amazement and became very quiet.
Within a few minutes we noticed points of light that looked like the star that Corey had spotted in White Rock Canyon. They appeared somewhat in pursuit of the other mysterious planes. They zipped along without a sound. The question that everyone was thinking about was; are they ours, or someone else’s planes. The dots appeared to dart around, somewhat like butterflies, stopping to hover then darting to another spot in the sky but apparently in pursuit of the stealthy jets just observed. Just as mysteriously as they had arrived they left, heading west to an unknown destination.
“There is one more piece of unfinished business that has to be taken care of that I have not had a chance to take care of,” responded Corey,” I have gone for a month and a half with Hidalgo watching us, along with tourist, rangers, thieves and skin walkers.” At that point he leaned
over to me, wrapped his arms around me and asked, “Do you have any idea how much I love you?” He then proceeded to kiss me, a long and impassioned kiss; the kind of kiss of someone who is hopelessly in love gives. I looked over at Ken and June who were grinning from ear to ear.
Hidalgo finally broke the silence with, “A kiss like that means the beginning of something really special, next time a decision is made to run a river, maybe, just you two should go alone, I blush easily.
Ken then pulled out a small box from his jacket pocket. “I realized that you had left this behind and it bothered me for some reason. I thought you might appreciate getting it back.”
I placed the owl amulet over my head and that evening both Corey and Hidalgo slept with their heads very close to me.
Evil Intent
The owl offered us protection. We arose early the next morning in great spirits, after the first night of sound sleep without nightmares or even dreams. We hung around the camp about an hour the next day and Ken and June rustled us up a great breakfast. We took turns driving the roads all the way back to the ranch house in Serpiente. The road trip was quiet and uneventful. Upon arrival at the ranch everyone was exhausted and there were a lot of chores that needed to be caught up. After cleaning and storing all the gear, including the canoes in a shed, we had nothing but more work to look forward to. We were still exhausted because of all the muscle energy expended while fighting the hallucinations. But we found solace in our ranch work even though we were more tired than usual. It gave us time to process what we had learned. We could not get the apparitions out of our minds; they created too many unanswered questions. In the evenings after the daily ranch chores were done, we sat around trying to come up with a logical answer to those questions, but it would take time.
We had no real answer to the very purpose for our river trip. Why was the apparition that Richard had seen and described at Gallena so different than the apparitions we had seen? The only hypothesis that we could come up with was that the previous culture that existed in Gallena was very different from the Chacoan culture that surrounded them. In fact, according to archeological studies they absolutely avoided each other. Why? There was not a shred of archeological evidence that there was any trade between them yet there are natural trails which connect them. Perhaps the skin walkers that existed in Chaco Canyon found no value in being active with a different culture or maybe, the Gallena culture avoided all contact with the Chacoan culture because of the Skin Walkers and the witchcraft that comes with them. We felt that the apparition that Richard had seen was not a supernatural apparition at all. Perhaps it was a natural physical phenomenon, a plasma ball created by the grinding of subterranean forces that move whole, entire mountains ranges.
The Family at Serpiente Page 39