by Corwin, Jeff
Gabe nodded and smiled as they approached the river. Then he pointed suddenly. “Look! I see fish in the water!” He wasn’t afraid this time—just amazed.
The river was as clear as a swimming pool and, now that Gabe had pointed it out, Benjamin could see that it was thick with fish. “Wow!” he breathed. He didn’t know what kind they were, but he’d never seen so many fish together in one place, even when his family was watching salmon spawning in Alaska.
He flipped through his guidebook until he got to the section about the Gila River. “I think they’re trout!” he called to Lucy and Gabe. The trout looked coppery, with irregular black spots on their sides—they might even be the famous Gila trout! These trout were being crowded out of the river by other, nonnative trout, Benjamin read, but scientists were trying to make sure the population of Gila trout could continue to grow.
“Benjamin, come on,” Lucy prodded, walking ahead with Gabe.
“But there could be more animals around here.” He continued to skim through the guidebook. “Did you know that some frogs live close to the desert?”
He glanced up and could hardly believe his eyes.
“Hey, look!” Benjamin pointed. A frog was right there, watching him!
“Is that a frog?” Gabe asked, turning around and looking where Benjamin was pointing.
Benjamin scanned the book to see if he could identify it. “Actually . . . no. It’s not a frog at all! It’s a red-spotted toad!”
Lucy and Gabe hurried over to him. “How do you know?” Gabe asked.
“They’re about two inches long, and olive green in color, like this one,” Benjamin said. “But the giveaway is the red warts all over its skin! See them? They’re small and bright, and almost the same color as the rocks!”
Before they could take a closer look, the toad hopped away in several giant leaps.
The kids scrambled a little closer to see where it’d gone, but it was too fast for them. And just then they heard their parents’ voices filtering through the walkie-talkie, calling them back. It was time to begin their first hike of the trip.
Mr. Baxter led the way down a path to the Gila Visitor Center. “It’s the only one in the whole park, and our campsite happens to be near it,” he said. “It will be a good place to get our bearings and find out more about the park.”
As soon as the two families entered the center, a man in a brown uniform approached them. “Can I help you?” he asked. “I’m a ranger at this station.”
Mrs. Baxter said, “We’re looking for some trail maps, if you have them.”
“No problem,” said the ranger. He showed the grown-ups a rack with dozens of maps. Then he turned to the kids. “So, are any of you interested in signing up for our Junior Ranger Program?”
He happened to be looking right at Gabe, who didn’t know what to say. “M-maybe,” Gabe stammered. “But what does a ranger do?”
The forest ranger smiled. “Well, we do two important things. We help visitors while they’re here, giving them directions and safety tips and other important information to make sure everyone enjoys the park. And, at the same time, we protect the forest from the visitors! Rangers teach people how they can visit without harming the environment around them and how they can help preserve it for visitors in the future.”
“So they’re the experts,” Lucy clarified. “They’re scientists, tour guides, guards, and teachers all at the same time.”
“And we can become rangers, too?” Gabe asked, sounding confused. “Scientists, tour guides, and all that? I’m not sure I really know enough—”
“Well, you’d be junior rangers,” said the ranger, chuckling. “And you don’t need to know anything to start! The point of the program is that you learn while you are here.” He took out a booklet and explained, “In this guide booklet, there are activities and games to do as you explore the park. They’ll help you learn about what you’re seeing here—the wildlife, the plants, the rock formations, and more. When you’ve worked your way through them, you bring the booklet back here and have it checked. If you’ve done a good job, you’ll be sworn in as a junior ranger. You’ll get a certificate and even a badge!”
“Well,” said Gabe. “I’ve learned a lot already . . . I’d like to make it official!” Benjamin and Lucy nodded in agreement.
“Here you go,” the ranger said, handing each of the kids a booklet. “Hope to see you back here soon—ready to join the ranger team!”
The kids tucked their booklets into their backpacks as the families prepared for their hike.
“Are you ready to see some caves?” Mrs. Baxter asked excitedly. They’d be heading along a winding trail, taking the long way to the Gila Cliff Dwellings, some spectacular caves at the bottom of a cliff where the Mogollon people had made their home about seven hundred years ago. “I know you kids are interested in seeing animals,” said their mom, “but trust me—you will be amazed by these caves.”
Benjamin’s parents led the rest of the family down a path so narrow they could only go single file. He knew to stay close to the group, but Benjamin hung back at the end of the line on purpose.
He fished his junior ranger booklet out of his bag and opened it. One of the first activities was to draw a “sound map,” or a picture of one place based only on the sounds you could hear instead of the things you could see. Benjamin waited for somebody to stop ahead of him, and when he saw Uncle Peter rummaging through his bag, he took advantage of the moment. While everybody else was waiting, Benjamin closed his eyes and began to listen.
Of course he could picture what was around him—he’d been taking it all in as they walked. A twisting river, a steep canyon carved into red stone, some kind of pine trees dotting the hills. He knew the area around him was teeming with life, too, but he couldn’t hear very much. The stillness around him was almost startling. It was hard to imagine how he’d draw anything with only sound to guide him.
Just as he was about to close his booklet, he heard what sounded like a chirp, or like fingernails against a blackboard. He opened his eyes, looked only at his booklet, and drew a small bird in a pine tree. When he finally looked up, he was shocked to discover that he’d been listening to a magnificent golden eagle, perched on a red cliff above him!
Benjamin stared at its sleek dark body, noticing the shiny golden feathers near its head. It was one of North America’s biggest birds of prey, watching and waiting for its next meal, looking every bit as intimidating as the bald eagles he’d seen in Alaska. Benjamin would have said the sound came from an ordinary sparrow, yet it came from a bird almost as big as a condor! It was like his dad was always saying: Nature is full of surprises.
“C’mon, Benjamin. Stop holding up the hike,” Lucy shouted.
Benjamin quickly closed his booklet and ran to catch up with everyone. Nature may be full of surprises, he thought, and so was their trip to the Gila National Forest.
Chapter Three
The temperature had risen steadily in the hour since they’d left the visitor center, and the sun blazed down as everyone made their way over a rickety wooden bridge. “Hang on,” said Uncle Peter, pausing when they reached the other side. “I need some more water.”
Benjamin was happy to have a break. He was getting hot, too. But he was pretty sure the cliff dwellings were coming up, so he reached for the map in his back pocket to make sure. That was when Lucy clutched his arm and pointed to a shady spot under a nearby pile of rocks. “What’s that?” she asked. Benjamin looked and saw something smooth and shiny lying there, all coiled up.
“A snake!” Benjamin replied. He’d wanted to see one on this trip, but he hadn’t expected to find one so soon!
From where Benjamin was standing, he could see the brown-and-black diamond pattern on the snake’s skin. When he pulled out his binoculars and focused in, he noticed that the snake was coiled in such a way that he could just see the rattle at the end of its tail, looking like a line of plastic beads. He could also see its hooded black eyes—looking r
ight at him!
“Is it, uh, poisonous?” Gabe asked, concerned.
Benjamin looked at Gabe and said, “We need to ask my mom.”
Gabe was frozen to the spot. “Mom,” Benjamin said as calmly as he could manage. “I think I see a rattlesnake.” He pointed out its hiding place to her.
Uncle Peter dropped his water bottle. “What?” he said, looking around. “Right here?”
“It’s a good twenty feet away,” Mrs. Baxter assured him, never taking her eyes off it.
“I read in my guidebook that most rattlers are about four feet long,” Benjamin chimed in. “And they can strike only at a distance about half the length of their bodies, so we’re not in the danger zone.”
“But if there’s one, there could be another one nearby,” Gabe pointed out.
“True,” said Mrs. Baxter. “But rattle-snakes won’t attack unless they are provoked. Like all snakes, they detect predators by sensing vibrations in the ground, and their first instinct is always to hide.”
“What about when they are hunting? They don’t hide then, do they?” Gabe asked.
“They don’t hunt people!” said Benjamin. He knew this from his reading, too. “They hunt mostly rodents, and they have an awesome built-in detection system. They locate prey by flicking their tongues in and out, sort of tasting the air. They can also detect heat from warm-blooded animals, which allows them to hunt in the dark. They’re not going to mistake us for mice, I promise!” He smiled.
He hoped he was reassuring his cousin. He didn’t want the Sullivans’ first camping trip to be their last!
“If you respect them, they will respect you,” Benjamin’s mom said. “But we don’t want them to mistake us for predators, either. There could be more snakes in the brush as we approach the caves, so let’s all be careful where we step.”
They continued walking, and in just a couple more minutes the group turned a corner and spotted the first of the caves they’d come to see. As the families climbed higher, they could see a string of them, hollowed out in the base of a gray-white cliff. “These are amazing,” Lucy said.
“Aren’t they?” a female voice replied.
Lucy turned around to see a ranger smiling at them. “Hundreds of years ago—before Europeans came to North America—these caves were home to the Mogollon people, a group of Native Americans.”
The ranger led the Baxters and the Sullivans through the caves and along the narrow catwalks that connected them. “We believe that these caves were homes to forty to sixty people,” she said, “sometime in the 1200s. Around the year 1290, though, we think a drought forced the Mogollons to abandon them and look for new homes north and east of here. Experts aren’t certain, though, since the Mogollons left no written records.”
The largest cave was divided into several “rooms” by stone walls, and there was even an upstairs!
“Look!” Gabe said to Benjamin. “Here’s where they made their fires for cooking.” He was looking at a pit in the cave’s rock floor.
Benjamin’s eyes traveled upward, to the blackened ceiling above it. “And look! There’s where the soot gathered,” he said, pointing.
The ranger showed them where the Mogollons had conducted their traditional ceremonies. Then they climbed a rickety ladder to the upper level of the cave, where the Mogollons slept and stored things. Benjamin wondered what it must have felt like to live here. He loved camping out, but he wasn’t sure this was quite the same. What would it be like on a cold night? he wondered. Or in a thunderstorm?
The ranger reminded the group that the Mogollons didn’t have much in the way of conveniences. “Where would you get things if you had no stores?” the ranger asked. “You’d have to make everything by hand. And you would need to use the materials around you: the plants, rocks, and animals right outside your door.”
Gabe looked around. “But what could you use a bunch of rocks and leaves for?”
“Well, the yucca plant, for instance, was used in many different ways. The roots were baked and eaten, and the fibers in the leaves were woven into baskets and mats.”
Benjamin liked the sound of that, the way the people relied on nature to meet their needs. Whatever they made was organic, recyclable, and sustainable, long before anyone even used those words!
Before their tour was over, Lucy poked him in the ribs. “Look!” she said, pointing to the side of the cave. Benjamin and Gabe walked up to the wall to get a closer look. Somebody long ago had carved a picture into the wall: a snake!
“That is called a petroglyph,” the ranger told them. “We don’t know exactly how it was made, or when, or by who. But rock art like that can show us what daily life was like for the people who lived in these caves.”
“So snakes were a part of their daily life?” Gabe asked. “Maybe something they were worried about?”
“Possibly,” the ranger said, smiling.
“I know exactly how they felt,” Gabe said wryly. “Some things never change!”
In the afternoon, the families decided to break for lunch, and the kids pulled out their junior ranger booklets. “What do we need to do next?” Lucy asked.
“The next activity is to find some yucca plants,” Gabe said. Benjamin looked around and right away spotted the long, spiky leaves with short stems that the booklet described growing close to the ground. Benjamin did a quick sketch of one in his booklet— they reminded him of the palm leaves he’d seen around his home back in Florida. “In the springtime, they grow purple blossoms, then bear fruit,” his dad said.
Benjamin was putting the finishing touches on his drawing when he heard Lucy suddenly gasp. He turned his head and saw exactly what had surprised her. “Hey, Dad, look at this,” he said in a loud whisper. Basking on a rock, in the bright sun, was a Gila monster! It wasn’t moving, but its bright colors made it hard to miss.
It wasn’t really a monster, but a large, scaly lizard that Benjamin had never seen anywhere but in a book. He moved a little closer—but not too close. The creature was big—longer than a phone book and almost as fat as a can of soda. It had a black body and beaded scales in a colorful pink-and-orange pattern. It was definitely not trying to camouflage itself!
Mr. Baxter quickly looked away from his map and in the direction that Lucy and Benjamin were pointing. “Wow!” he said. Benjamin knew his father was as excited as he was. They all put their fingers to their lips at the same time, as if it were a secret for just the three of them to share.
“They usually live underground,” said Mr. Baxter softly. “They come out only to eat—which they do about six times a year—and to take in the sun, which is what this one is doing. This allows them to store up heat.”
This is amazing,” Lucy said, as she pulled out her camera and started taking pictures. Benjamin could hardly wait to show the creature to his cousin. But first he had to know one thing. “Aren’t they dangerous?” he asked his dad.
“Yes and no,” his dad replied. “Their bites are poisonous and painful—unlike snakes, they latch onto their victims, and it can be difficult to release their grip. But they bite only when provoked or when killing prey. And they move very slowly, so anybody who saw one coming would have plenty of time to get out of the way.”
Benjamin looked over at Gabe and wondered what to do. His cousin seemed to like exploring, but he had been a little freaked out by the scorpion and the rattlesnake, and this would be the third venomous animal they’d seen in two days.
But how could he keep a Gila monster to himself?
Chapter Four
Making up his mind, Benjamin called, “Gabe!” and his cousin’s head snapped up from his junior ranger packet.
“What is that?” Gabe asked as he eyes focused in on the lizard.
“I never thought I’d see one of these face-to-face,” Lucy said excitedly as she put down her camera.
“It’s a Gila monster,” Benjamin told his cousin, showing him. He left out the part about the poison venom—Gabe didn’t really need to know that
.
Gabe looked at him for a minute. “Wait a minute. Aren’t those the ones that hiss?”
Benjamin had left out that part, too. Gabe knew more than Benjamin had expected! He had to admit it was true, though. The Gila was famous for opening its mouth as wide as it could and hissing at creatures that tried to corner it.
Gabe watched the Gila monster for a moment, as if he was trying to make up his mind about it. “Wow,” he said eventually, shaking his head. “That is totally awesome!”
They spent the rest of the afternoon hiking and, after they stopped for a snack, finally made their way back to the campsite. Benjamin noticed that Gabe was looking around at the plants, insects, and animals on their walk back. Benjamin felt pretty sure his cousin was impressed by their first full day of exploring the Gila National Forest. He couldn’t wait to branch out into other parts of the park!
That night, though, a heavy rain soaked their campsite. “Just our luck to get trapped here during a storm,” Lucy grumbled inside the tent. They moved their sleeping bags to the center of the tent to avoid the rain that was dripping in from the sides. “It hardly ever rains here.”
The kids played card games by flashlight until bedtime. “What if it’s raining tomorrow?” Gabe whispered after lights-out.
“We put on our rain gear and carry on,” Benjamin whispered back. “My parents always say we can’t let a little bad weather ruin a trip.” But just then, thunder started rumbling. Benjamin knew that while rain didn’t bother his parents, lightning did. They always said that there was no safe place to be outdoors during a thunderstorm. Sure enough, a few moments after lights-out, all four grown-ups were at the tent opening just as a jagged bolt flashed across the sky. “Come on, kids,” said Aunt Lily. “Everyone into the van.”