The Family at Serpiente

by Raymond Tolman

  “The small dry pinto bean farming community of Estancia, New Mexico has always been a part of my life. I grew up in Albuquerque, but sometimes my summers were not my own. The summer I turned nine years of age I spent living there. I remember spending other long summers there, while my folks tried to make a living doing construction work in Oregon and California.”

  “Those were lonesome days. Being the city kid that was dropped off into an entirely different world than the one I enjoyed in the South Valley. I was distinctly the outsider. I found myself at every sunset walking out to the dirt road that separated the house from one hundred and sixty acres of desolate looking countryside. The only time anyone even went over there was when Bo would carry buckets of Grandpa Wilse’s spit from his chewing tobacco habit across the road out to the soft sand on the other side and buried it. I spent long days there looking up and down the country road hoping to get a glimpse of Alice and Boone’s old Dodge truck coming to rescue me. Rescue me from the boredom that every child feels, especially when feeling deserted, despite the fact that unknowingly they have been lovingly cast into grand adventures.”

  “At one time Wilse Holliday operated a saw mill on the homestead, and the corrals housed a large string of horses which were used to work all matter of machinery. It was a working ranch but then they had more than the hundred and sixty acres of land to work; they had several thousands of acres to work with and unlimited natural resources. The problem was to utilize those resources such as lumber, meat products and dry land farming on the limited capital available to them. Yet they prospered. During the days of the depression rarely did less than twenty or more people sit around the dinner table.”

  “During times of hardship it is often the farmers and ranchers who live the best, while the city folks stop by often just to enjoy a home cooked meal. By the time I arrived in Estancia, the old homestead, like most of the other homesteads in the valley was already in decay and like all old and mysterious houses it contained a wealth of mysterious objects and hideaways. My curiosity was piqued by these objects of antiquity. To my delight I discovered that Wilse and Lizzie Holliday, my grandparents, enjoyed explaining the significance and use of those objects.”

  “Young Sherlock Holmes would have enjoyed the game. Soon, I had several wooden boxes full of small metal objects, which entertained all of us in the discovery of their secret purpose.”

  Richard put his hand on Hidalgo’s shoulders at that moment and said, “Just like you Corey and Penny, I am still playing that childhood game, but on a much grander scale.”

  Immediately he pulled his hand back. “Again, I am the outsider being not only the ‘city’ kid but also the youngest. My days were full of simple activities such as carrying water from the windmill to the house, slopping the hogs, and irrigating the fruit trees. However, when the older folks left the homestead things got serious. That was when older boys took great delight in teasing younger boys. I got my fair share and rarely got the opportunity to repay in kind, but finally I got my chance. That summer we all had BB guns and a great BB gun shoot out was arranged. Bo, my older half-brother, who had grown up on the ranch instead of Albuquerque, simply thought that I was defenseless against him. He was wrong.”

  “The next morning everyone went into town except for me and Bo. Almost immediately the shootout began. Throughout the homestead we went, stealth was my main objective. The longer I stayed unseen the faster rescue would occur. We both traded shots but nothing significant happened until finally Bo made a mistake. Up the windmill tower he went where he figured he had a superior position on me. I nailed him several times as he climbed the ladder then simply secreted myself away into the house where I waited, while eating apple pie, for him to become bored and start back down. Every time he started back down I stepped out and fired a few more shots up at him. Evening and the return of the folks brought Bo down. After this, we had an understanding and at least a minuscule amount of mutual respect.”

  Hidalgo and Corey both laughed at the story, they had both experienced similar situations growing up. Corey asked him, “What are you majoring in at UNM?”

  “Well, actually I’m not sure yet but the classes I’m enjoying the most right now are geology and English. I am miserably behind in my math classes. I only took algebra II and Geometry in high school and frankly, they didn’t prepare me well.”

  Corey who was older said, “I once watched a television show in which a Dr. Kingsfield said to his first year law students that they would need to teach themselves law. All he did was train their minds. Perhaps you shouldn’t depend upon anyone but yourself.” Corey grinned when he said it. He had been homeschooled for most of his young life.

  Richard said, “I’m sure you’re right, but calculus, last semester and statistics, this semester is going to be the death of me. I would, however like to relate to you a few details I learned in geology class. Hidalgo settled into another cup of coffee stirring the sugar with the handle end of a fork, and Corey settled into an easy chair with his feet up on a kitchen chair.

  Lake Estancia

  Hidalgo and Richard sat at the table with arms crossed as Richard continued his conversation, “The Rio Grande River ran into the Estancia basin for millions of years until the Rio Grande Riff along with volcanism from the Jemez Volcano changed its course to its present position, west of the Sandia Mountains.”

  Corey looked up and said, “Now you are talking my language, geology.”

  “Despite its present humble appearance, Lake Estancia has played an impressive role in the history of the earth’s weather patterns, today’s extreme changes in weather exemplified by hurricanes, tornados, droughts, and flooding is tame compared with normal weather, despite what the media and environmental doomsters say. A short look into the not so recent past has uncovered startling data which indicates that our bad weather is actually tame compared to normal climatic weather patterns. Anyway, sometime near the end of the last Ice Age, Lake Estancia slowly dried out.”

  “The lake at one time covered several million acres of land and reached a depth of one hundred and fifty feet. Lake Estancia was and is the most complete climate record anywhere in the west for the study of Ice Age changes according to geologist such as Roger Anderson of the University of New Mexico. The lake, in effect, documents seven thousand years of harsh Ice Age weather that swept moisture from the Pacific Ocean over New Mexico. Those storms poured an impressive amount of water into Lake Estancia.”

  “Indeed, climate history may tell us that relatively stable climate is unusual in the Earth’s history. Other climate researchers have found from ice layers in Greenland that the last ten thousand years have been the only stable period out of the last two hundred and fifty thousand years of climate history. In other words, dramatic and even violent changes in weather are the historical norm for the Earth.”

  “Our experience of relative stability could be short lived, at least on a geological time scale. It is rather a geological mystery as to why our climate has been so stable during the last few thousand years.” Corey and Hidalgo listened carefully as Richard continued.

  “Paleo-Indians, probably the same Native Americans who left artifacts at Folsom, Clovis, Sandia and probably a thousand other undiscovered sites in the Southwest, undoubtedly hunted mastodons in the Estancia Basin. Since the wind blew from the southwest just as it does now in this area, kill sites were located in the eastern fringes of the lake.”

  “Later, modern Native American Indians would leave artifacts in the form of obsidian arrowheads and skin scrappers at kill sites on the eastern edges of the playas which formed as Lake Estancia dried up. Much, much later the Salinas Indians of the area got their name from utilizing the salt deposits found there. They used the salt for barter.”

  “As New Mexico continued to dry out it seems quite mysterious as to how these ancients survived. Even at relatively late settlements such as Gran Quivera, where Spanish churches were built, only small pockets of water can be found some seven miles from
the ruins which leaves archeologist pondering how such a large population survived. The water was all deep underground, just as it is today.”

  Giants

  “What about caves under the Estancia basin?” Corey asked.

  Richard answered,” Well, it doesn’t seem too likely. If there are caves there they would all be under water. Ground water is what attracted people there in the first place. The only place there could be real caves is along the edges of the basin. A lot could have happened during the millions of years the ancestral Rio Grande River flowed though there. There is bound to have been caves there on and off over the eons, the entire area is underlain with limestone rock. With a long record of rivers running through the area there is every reason to suppose there are large networks of caves. It is well known that south of there, exist many long north and south running caves.”

  “Any chance a person could find fossils or bones in those caves?” asked Hidalgo.

  “Caves are repositories for all ancient life. Everyone and everything wanted to get out of the wind. Think about it,” retorted Richard, “caves are where most fossils and artifacts are found by scientists. Ancient people were attracted to caves for shelter and anthropologists sift through the floor dirt for clues.”

  For a brief moment everyone was quiet. Corey was proud of the answers he was getting and Richard was proud just to be of help. “Let me tell you another story, said Richard, who was obviously enjoying himself. “Three summers ago, Mom, Dad, and I all took a road trip down to visit Carlsbad Caverns. Naturally Mom,” he turned to Hidalgo and said, “Alice likes to talk, and us kids went down there to talk to friends and relatives. You know how Alice is,” he said, looking at Corey. “She can nurse a cup of coffee for hours if she has good company.” Hidalgo reached over for the coffee pot and poured himself another cup.

  “At one of the houses we visited, we mentioned that we were driving down to Carlsbad Caverns, Mrs. Moore reached up on the shelf and grabbed a book about Jim White, the discoverer of Carlsbad Caverns.

  He stopped talking then slowly continued, “You remember it was Mrs. Moore that brought Butch with her to deer hunt in Gallinas Canyon. It was with her son, Butch, that we experienced a Gallinas Canyon mystery.”

  Getting back on subject, Richard said, “Jim White was an itenerate cowboy who found himself on guano patrol at the ranch where he was employed. Every day he and another worker would drive a team of horses and a wagon up to the entrance of the cavern. Then they would scramble down a well-worn trail and haul bat guano out of the bat cave for fertilizer. It was the best fertilizer available, better than manure, valuable stuff to anyone that wanted to grow vegetables. There was real money to be made from the guano but it wouldn’t be them, it would be the people who actually sold the fertilizer in stores who made the real money.”

  “After spending many days there digging the black crud out of the top cave, his curiosity began to wander and he thought about the labyrinth of passages he could see dropping off into the earth. What was down there? As far as he knew, no one had ever actually explored past the bat cave. No one knew what was inside the caverns.”

  “During the next month each time he made a haul of guano out of the bat cave he would leave things he had assembled to explore down into the cave. Finally after he had gathered enough equipment in the way of ropes, candles and kerosene lamps, he started making short trips into the cave. In time he had explored and memorized all the regular cave passages that millions of tourist, now explore.”

  “There is some humor in this book too, according to Mrs. Moore, referring to the time old Jim White took off his boots in order to cool off his feet. He stepped into a small pond of water that he thought was only a few inches deep. He stepped right into it only to discover that it was eight feet deep. In caves I guess your eyes play tricks on you.”

  “What really challenged Jim was keeping a light source; more than once his kerosene lamp went out and he found himself panicking. After he took off a couple of times, managing to smack his head on some of those stalactites he decided to take his time.”

  “His curiosity brought him to wander about the lower chambers where he was sure no one had ever been before. It required him to drop down a vertical drop that no one knew how deep it was. It would take a rope ladder to get out and it would take Jim White several more weeks before he could manage a homemade rope ladder. When the time came he discovered that the lower caverns were actually deeper and larger than he thought. At least as big as the upper caverns, this was truly a huge cave system.”

  “While exploring the lower chambers of the caverns, Jim White did make one historical discovery that few are aware of; he discovered a human skeleton.”

  Hidalgo said, “That is nothing new, Native Indians have always explored caves. In Mammoth Cave in Kentucky they found the mummy of a trapped Indian. They think he was digging crystals out of the cave.”

  “That’s true,” answered Richard, “But this wasn’t an ordinary Indian. First of all, can you imagine someone exploring that far into a cave without any modern light sources? How did he get down the vertical drop? How did he plan on getting back up? He was found there all alone next to a seep spring. He probably starved to death in that spot.”

  Hidalgo said, “That must have been one very brave Indian.”

  Richard then said, “The Indian was an unusual Indian. The skeleton was old with the cranium tumbled down into the body cavity. They estimated the length of the skeleton as best they could and it measured over 11 feet in length. Considering the position of the bones when they found it, he may have stood almost 12 feet tall, and that without cowboy boots,” he added for emphasis.

  “Is the skeleton still down there,” asked Corey?

  “According to that book the skull was removed and donated to a doctor in the town that is now called White city, named after Jim White. Since then, the skull has disappeared along with all information about the skeleton.”

  Corey said, “I don’t understand. In the bible there are passages about giants on earth in those days, but now it is understood that they were not real giants but rather unusual peoples among other people. In fact, many people as well as scholars think they were talking about aliens.”

  “Aliens?” asked Richard.

  Hidalgo said, “We spent a lot of time on this subject back on the San Juan River. Then looking at Richard he said, “All Indian’s belief systems talk about giants. Not big people but rather star people, beings who came to earth in antiquity for their own reasons. There have been several theories as to why they came, usually something about improving the natural stock of creatures that we refer to as Homo sapiens. Considering how violent humans are, they didn’t do a very good job.”

  Hidalgo continued with a question, “What if there was another cave, say in the Estancia basin, that had human remains in it, possibly like the one found in Carlsbad Caverns?”

  Richard answered, “That might become the scientific discovery of the century, at least as far as anthropologist are concerned. It might turn the entire scientific world up-side down.”

  “Actually,” said Hidalgo, “I have seen many reports of giants here in North America. One of the most fascinating cases of giants in recent history was the Smithsonian Giants. During the genocidal conquest of the indigenous peoples of North America, the United States Calvary and many hired mercenaries encountered giants living out among the tribes, and engaged in direct combat with these giants. The mindset used to justify the wholesale slaughter of most, and the forced relocation of the rest of these tribes was that they were sub-human; their living with other darker skinned humans being a key to this gross misconception. The giants they encountered and killed were Caucasian looking with light colored skin. Fearing a backlash from the American people for killing whites, giants or not, the government ordered that all bodies of these giants be retrieved and shipped to the Smithsonian Institute, to hide the damaging evidence.”

  Corey looks at Richard and says thoughtfully, “P
erhaps this is what we are dealing with in Estancia.”

  “Perhaps,” answered Richard.

  The Incident at the Mexican Restaurant

  After leaving the Holliday house they drove west on Valley road then turned left at Alice’s Food Market, a tiny family owned store, then turning right again they drove Blake road out to Coors. From there they headed back to West Central where they hoped they could find a decent restaurant before heading back to Serpiente. Because of the snow many places were closed but they did find one small café. Once there, they slid into one of the tall backed booths that provided some degree of privacy.

  Alone, except for three other men who were having an animated discussion several booths down from them. Conversations returned to the mysterious assignment they were engaged in.

  In academic circles, stories had gotten around of their exploits as historical detectives, the label that several university professors had given them. The perception of the academics was that they were a trio of detectives who specialized in solving historical mysteries.

  We saw ourselves as three friends who were intoxicated by the thrill of adventure. However they had been tremendously lucky in solving several mysteries that few even knew existed. They had concluded that good luck occurs due to hard work.

  The plates of food arrived with an extra plate piled high with sopapillas and honey bottles. Two more men walked into the café and joined the other two in that animated conversation. The argument or discussion was in Spanish, a language that Hidalgo knew but Corey had no idea what they were saying. Soon, a small boy about fourteen years old came through the door and walked over to the booth where the men were. He had obviously been beat up, with two black eyes and numerous bandages covering cuts on his face.