The ranger stood a bit taller. “These narrow canyons can be truly dangerous. Maybe you should consider doing something other than hiking a flash flood zone at the start of the monsoon season.”
DeNiza flushed red. “No.” Then he warned, “And I know important people who could force you allow me.”
The Ranger laughed, “Look. I’m just trying to keep you from getting killed.”
DeNiza scratched his ear. “You’re right, I’ll find another trail.”
He shrugged his shoulders. “I was foolish to be so persistent.”
O’Neil wished him luck and walked off. When he was out of sight, DeNiza muscled one duffle bag up onto his shoulders again, grabbed the other one, and quickly headed up the trail.
When he was out of sight, I opened my door and stepped out. I was wearing boots, shorts and t-shirt, and a red bandana. In my pack I had stuffed a light-weight sleeping bag, a change of clothes, one heavy shirt, some trail mix, some freeze-dried soup and a bag of apples.
I shouldered my backpack, which also had a one-man tent and a small tarp strapped to the outside.
Before I locked the door, I glanced at the sky, and then reached around and rolled the window up tight.
“Adios, Heyduke,” I said as I shut the door.
The boys were still teasing the raven.
I threw my apple core at one of them, hitting him in the back.
“Ouch!” he yelled. “What’s up with that?”
I ordered, “Leave ‘im alone.”
The kid shrugged. “It’s just a bird.”
I picked up a rock and stared at him, “You want another one?”
His friend yelled over, “Let’s get out of here, Bradshaw.”
He stepped away. “Crazy bitch.”
I raised the rock a little higher and he trudged off with his buddies.
I stared at the old raven.
From my shirt pocket I produced an aged photo of me with my mother and Saan. I was six; my mother was wearing a buckskin dress that was decorated with beads. Everyone was smiling.
Saan was younger in the image, but you could still make out a seriousness behind her smile.
A large raven sat perched on Saan’s shoulder. Its beak was near her ear, as if he was telling her secrets. I stared at the photo for a moment, and then carefully put it away.
* * *
I started down the trail, moving at turtle speed because I didn’t want to catch up with DeNiza. I’d hiked the West Fork many times; at least the first three or four miles before the official trail ends. It’s a casual trail, and the biggest obstacle is crossing the mellow creek a half-dozen times in the first few miles.
While I dawdled, I remembered traveling with my father George to visit Saan when I was fifteen.
My mother had been dead for two years.
George’s old station wagon sounded like it was about to die as we turned off the Interstate, and it continued to cough and sputter until we reached Saan’s neighborhood.
About a block away, he stopped and cut the engine.
I had the distinct feeling that he was going to chicken out.
He no longer drank, but since my mother’s death, he had started dressing like some kind of missionary, and he never went anywhere without a bible.
He looked nervous, and a bit revolted, as he surveyed Saan’s house sitting darkly in the shade of the trees. He constantly fingered a cross hanging from his neck as he talked.
“This was a bad idea. We shouldn’t have come,” said George. “If we leave now we’ll have a good start on Montana.”
I stared hard at him, “You promised mom you’d bring me here.”
George was silent for a minute before he replied. “Your mother is no longer with us. I think we should, at the very least, move on first thing in the morning.”
On the other side of the road, an old woman ambled by. She leaned heavily on a walking stick, and it was only after staring at her for a long moment that I realized it was Saan. I figured she had to be seventy, and she seemed to have aged quite a bit since I’d last seen her, five years ago.
“Here’s your kin,” said George. “Each year she looks more like an old raven.”
Saan looked over and squinted at George.
As she crossed the street, heading in our direction, George turned to me. “I told your mother I’d do this,” he said. “But now I don’t know. I wish I had guidance.”
He started the station wagon and glanced at the rear-view mirror, like he was preparing to pull out into traffic.
I pleaded with him, “Dad, she’s family, and you promised.”
He corrected me. “Her blood may flow through your veins, but not mine.” He met my eyes and added, “And I made that promise to your mother before I’d experienced salvation—before I’d found Jesus …”
Saan interrupted him by banging on the window with her walking stick, and George nearly jumped out of his skin.
George and Saan wasted no time greeting each other after he parked the car. The old woman walked into the house, gestured with her chin at a back bedroom with two twin beds, and exited the house by the back door.
I found her there sitting in a plastic chair looking down at the creek.
She patted an empty chair next to her, and then put a wrinkled hand on my knee. “You can call me Auntie,” she said. “It’s been years since we last met—I’d guess about five. Do you remember me?”
I nodded, meekly.
As I sat down, she added, “And of course I knew your mother very well.”
I stared at the water, watching a few ducks cruise by.
“I can’t believe she’s gone,” I said. “She was so full of life.”
Saan nodded and smiled.
She seemed to drift off, then spoke again, “When she was a young girl she used to run through the woods like a deer. She had an old spirit, that one. We all grieved when she left us, we did.”
I couldn’t seem to find any words, but then I spat it all out at once. “Before my mother died, she made father promise to bring me back here, so I could get to know you again. He said he would, but now he’s changed his mind and wants us to leave in the morning.”
Saan seemed incredulous. “But we are your people. You come from here, and I’ve been looking forward to your visit for some time now.”
I nodded while a tear rolled off my chin.
“I know,” I stammered. “My mother loved you all so much, and she wanted me to come back here.”
The old woman seemed to take this all rather hard. It took her a minute to compose herself.
She finally said, “My child, you are all we have left of her.”
George was still in the house, so I steeled my nerves and asked the question that had been burning in my mind.
“Auntie Saan,” I said, “my mother spoke of bringing me to a special place—someplace sacred, she said. Do you know where this place might be?
Saan eyed me for a minute, like a raven would, detached and distant. The coldness surprised me, and I didn’t believe her when she said, “No, I have no idea.”
I asked, “How do you know these stories are true, Auntie?”
Saan laughed. “Oh, they’re true all right. You wouldn’t question them if you’d been raised here, like your mother.”
I nodded. “My dad’s found Jesus. Do you believe in Jesus?”
She laughed again, it was almost a cackle. “I wish I could tell you it was all the same—Great Spirit or Jesus—but the truth is, I don’t know about the white people. I don’t know who they are, or where they come from.”
She reached for a bag by her feet, opened it and pulled out a handful of cracked corn, and tossed it on the bank for the ducks.
After a minute Saan continued. “All I know is this is where your people come from—right here.”
I remembered the creation myth she’d recounted. In it, the young woman had gone on to live in a hidden canyon and eventually been impregnated when a drop of water from the ceiling of a ca
ve had dropped on her.
I pleaded with her, “But how could it be so? How can people be created from sun and water?”
Saan smiled and said, “It was not just sun and water, child. After First Woman floated to safety in the log she was very lonely, so she climbed up the mountain to see the sun.”
The old woman peered into my eyes. “But it frightened her, so she ran to the cave where the water always drips and hid there.” She hesitated as she stirred the coals in the fire, and then added, “When the water dripped on her, that’s when she got pregnant.”
I was confused, “But it doesn’t make sense.”
This answer amused Saan as well,” It doesn’t have to child. We don’t always understand why things happen.”
I insisted. “But where did this take place? Has anyone ever found this cave? Could it be the same place my mother talked about?”
Saan gave me a sly look, “Some may know, but they are quiet. For most the cave remains hidden.”
Saan shrugged her shoulders, “Maybe it was never meant to be found. Where there is light, there is darkness. Could be the elders had a reason to keep it hidden.”
Then she laughed. “It must’ve been well hid if nobody ever found it.”
I was crestfallen. At fifteen, the only thing that had gotten me through my mother’s death was the hope that I could find the secret place she’d spoken of. I’d clung to it like to a life vest. Saan could see it in my eyes, it seemed. She watched me for a long time before speaking.
Finally, she said, “What I am about to tell you I have been sworn never to repeat.”
The somber look on her face scared me.
Saan patted my shoulder and nodded. “Once, when your mother was young, she disappeared for several days,” she began her story. “We weren’t worried, because she was a child of the forest and from time to time she wandered, she did.”
The ducks had eaten all the corn, and now crowded around her feet, hungry for more. She tossed another handful on the bank.
“But when she returned that time she was different,” continued Saan. “She seemed to have grown wiser, and she didn’t waste words—seemed to me that she had become a woman out there.”
I was anxious to hear more. “What happened? Where had she been?”
Saan smiled. “Your mother had found a hidden box canyon, and in the back of it was a cave where water dripped. She said she had stayed there overnight.”
“I knew it!” I yelled. “Did she tell you where it was?”
Saan shook her head. “No, she wouldn’t. She made me swear I would never tell another soul. In all these years you are the only one I’ve told.”
“Do you think it was the cave?” I asked.
“Who could say,” stated Saan.
I felt defeated once more. My heart sank. “So, it’s lost again. Nobody knows where it is except my mother, and she’s gone. And now my dad is going to take me away.”
She put a hand on my shoulder and smiled sadly. Her wise eyes warmed me as she said, “All is not lost. The past is a well-worn trail that is always in use. Our ancestors walk alongside us every day. And even if all you have are scattered footprints, you can still reconstruct the truth from that if you are patient.”
“But how?” I asked.
She sighed. “By not losing yourself. When you walk a trail, always do so with smoothness, resilience and steadiness.”
“How will that help me?” I asked, growing desperate. I was fighting back tears. “Tell me one thing that is real!”
Saan’s expression turned serious again, “I will tell you the name of the girl that lived in the cave.”
“From your old stories?” I asked.
She nodded, and then she leaned forward and whispered something into my ear. I heard the word and repeated it to myself.
It was the last time I saw her.
Chapter Fifty-eight
Carlos DeNiza had set off at a fast pace, for about a quarter mile, until he’d convinced himself Ranger O’Neil was well behind him.
Then he started to slow down, stumbling.
He had way too much gear, it was heavy, and he was suddenly realizing that he was not in the great physical shape he’d believed. The Arizona heat was so dry that the sweat evaporated off him before it could cool him, and the pounding at the back of his head screamed that he was dehydrated.
He dropped the duffle bags, set his pack down, blurry-eyed, and leaned against the shaded, cool side of a massive slab of sandstone. When his vision cleared, he stumbled to the creek and splashed water on his face.
He took in the pleasant riparian smells of the creek, more of a mellow brook here. The tall pines were shading the trail ahead, and the wind whispered through them like a lullaby. If this wasn´t such hard work, he thought, it would actually be a beautiful place.
He would have organized a porter, but there was no one he trusted. What if he simply couldn’t carry his supplies all the way? He had planned to set up his first camp about six miles in, but now he was having trouble making the first mile. He rubbed his sore shoulders, hefted up the bags, and then continued down the trail.
Three hours later he reached the end of the marked trail. He pulled out his map and saw with a sinking heart that he was only halfway.
Ahead of him, the walls of the canyon closed in to a narrow gorge only thirty feet apart, and the flat sandstone floor was filled with water. There had been a few other hikers at the beginning of the trail, but now there was no one.
He moaned as he lifted his heavy gear up onto his shoulders and waded through the cool water, soaking his new leather boots. Luckily, the summer heat had burned away much of the water, and even in the deepest sections, he wasn’t in above his thighs.
A quarter mile further into the canyon, the water dried up and he could once again walk on the corrugated sandstone.
It was here, as he squished along in his wet boots, that he had a thought: Tourists have no reason to venture this deep into the canyon. Perhaps he should stash one of the bags and return later.
He paused, listening, just to make sure he was alone.
For a second, he heard splashing, but then it stopped.
He shouted, “Hello!” and it echoed through the canyon.
He smiled at his jumpy nerves and said, “Echoes.”
But then, after he’d walked about five minutes, he heard footsteps again, this time sounding off the high walls.
He froze and sank down. As the footsteps got closer he turned pale and sat, sweating profusely.
Then they stopped.
Eventually DeNiza could wait no longer and continued, slowly, constantly looking behind him.
The situation began to anger him, and after another five minutes he finally summoned up the courage to wait and face his pursuer.
I didn’t want to catch up with DeNiza as I hiked up the West Fork, so I took my time, strolling really, and thought of some of the legends I’d learned over the years. These tales stretched back to the dim antiquity of the ancestors of this place—not just the Sinagua and Apache, but other visitors too, like Mayans before them, or the pioneers that came after.
I often wished life was as simple as depicted in these old tales.
It´s not the stories of forgotten mines and buried treasure that spike my curiosity. Gold doesn’t motivate me much—I’ve never striven for riches and doubt I ever will have any.
But stories of lost or unrequited love, or lost places, always drew me in.
One of my favorites is the Weeping Woman, or La Llorona. They speak of a woman who cries for her lost children, or maybe it’s a lost love, along a river. I’ve talked to people who claim to have seen her on Oak Creek, but I never have.
And the warnings in these fables are clear and simple, too. A young child is cautioned not to take a shortcut and is told of a boy who didn’t listen and was never found. From then on, whenever the child even thinks about the shortcut, he or she is reminded of the story.
I thought of Martin Gray´
s lecture on sacred sites, and realized he was right: In these stories, the characters are reduced to archetypes, but the lessons stay highly relevant, and the setting is often specific. “Right there, on the top of that mountain, a young man died one night…” a typical story might begin.
Another reason I like the legends is they reinforce the belief that trails exist in both the physical world, and the world of spirits: two different landscapes that to many indigenous cultures were inseparably entwined.
I walked along, happy with the thought that my mother may be walking alongside me.
Suddenly the day seemed gentler, and I felt my step lighten.
I inhaled deeply and smiled at the blue sky, high above me, reduced to a long narrow strip between the high walls of the canyon. I was drifting along, when out of nowhere a man jumped out from behind a rock.
I leapt back, lifted one leg in mid-air, and kicked the charging man in the ribs.
He staggered backwards, red-faced and angry, and came at me again, gasping.
I retreated a half-step into a defensive pose, and only after I’d prepared myself did I realize it was DeNiza.
Recognition also lit up his face.
He shook his clenched fist at me and screamed, “You? How dare you follow me?”
I held up a hand. “Keep away from me.”
He stopped, looking like a caged animal. His eyes seemed to dance around in his head as he contemplated how this would affect his plans.
Finally, he sat down heavily on his backpack.
“I should have known you were after my treasure,” he hissed. “I should have seen it.”
I pointed a finger at him and said, “I don’t care about your stupid treasure.”
He snorted in disbelief, “Then please, tell me why you are here?”
I turned away. “It’s none of your business.”
DeNiza looked at me incredulously. He said, “Of all the unmitigated gall—I could have you arrested.”
I laughed, but he added, “I could have you thrown in jail.”
I stopped. “Like it or not, Mr. DeNiza, this is a free country, and this is a public trail.”
The Sirens of Oak Creek Page 31