Walker of Time

by Helen Hughes Vick

  “Get the backpack,” Náat whispered, looking toward Walker’s old, canvas backpack sitting on the floor at the end of the bed.

  Walker rose and took the few steps to the pack. Reaching down to pick it up, he realized that he had not seen the old pack in more than a year. Lifting it up, he could tell that something was inside. The pack wasn’t heavy, just awkward.

  “I will open it for you,” Walker said, laying the backpack beside Náat.

  Náat raised his hand a few inches off the bed. “No! Open it at the cave. The bahanas call the canyon Walnut Canyon. They made it a national monument to keep the homes of the old ones safe.” Náat’s glassy eyes stared at Walker. “Go to this canyon. Find the cave. Must be in the cave when sun is highest, on last day of the hunter’s moon.” A series of deep coughs shook Náat’s weathered body. His breath came in short, raspy wheezes. His eyes filled with an intenseness that Walker had never seen before. “In cave . . . open pack . . . Walk time . . . Time very short . . . Walk time, Wayma . . . Do what must be done . . . Come home . . . to Hopi.”

  2

  Walker brushed the long strand of blue-black hair out of his eyes. The breeze that blew up out of the canyon had unseasonably cold fingers that seemed to be pulling at his life’s breath. A chill crawled up his spine and pulled at the hairs on his neck.

  He leaned on the iron railing that encircled the lookout point. The metal felt cold, clammy. Walker’s eyes searched the canyon below. A sea of slate gray clouds filled the six-hundred-foot-deep canyon. Only the first hundred feet of the rocky limestone cliffs were visible above the cloud level. The sky overhead matched the clouds below. The late August air smelled of rain.

  Walker’s hand reached up and touched the eagle-shaped pendant that now hung around his neck on the worn leather thong. An ache deep within his chest worked its way up to his throat. Walker tried to swallow the ache. His hand tightened on the timeworn turquoise pendant.

  Náat, I have come as you wanted. Is your spirit one of the clouds covering the canyon, waiting for me to come down among the ruins? Or is your spirit already at Maski, the house of the dead?

  Another cold breeze from within the canyon seemed to pull at him. He let go of the cold iron railing. The distant sound of thunder rolled off the San Francisco Peaks to the northwest.

  “What must I do here among the ruins of the ancient ones that the bahanas call the Sinagua?” Walker asked the clouds. The only answer he heard was the wind’s song as it rushed through the surrounding pines.

  Walker moved to the paved trail head a few feet away and looked down. The path of cement stairs that led down to the ancient ones’ ruins disappeared into a blanket of dark clouds. A bahana with an expensive camera around his neck and wearing gray running shoes appeared, trotting up the stairs. He was followed by a chunky, blond-haired boy, who was carrying a can of pop and a half-eaten bag of potato chips.

  “I didn’t think I’d ever make it out of there,” huffed the boy, climbing up the last step. He stopped next to Walker to catch his breath. After a few big gulps of air, he said to Walker, “Two hundred and fifty stairs up and down!” Putting a handful of chips into his mouth and munching, he looked back down the path. “It is weird down there,” he said, still chewing. “Going through all those cliff ruins is just like walking back in time hundreds of years.”

  “Come on, son. We’ve got to hurry. Got to make it to the Grand Canyon by five,” the boy’s father said, still hurrying up the path toward the Visitor Center.

  The boy shrugged his shoulders, took a big gulp of his drink and lumbered after his father. “Good luck down there,” he called, looking back at Walker. “Hope you make it out.”

  Walker smiled, adjusted the backpack on his shoulders, and stepped down the first of the two hundred and fifty steps. A bolt of lightning flashed down to the rocky rim across the canyon. The thunder that followed was deafening.

  Walker climbed down the first set of ten stairs onto a narrow paved trail. His eyes scanned the metal Park Service sign standing at the edge of the path. “In Case of Thunderstorms Take Shelter in the Ruins,” it stated.

  Lightning illuminated the darkened sky. Thunder roared in response.

  A few feet further down Walker stopped to read a second sign. “The Sinagua Indians left Walnut Canyon about A.D. 1250. No one knows why they left the area. No one knows where they went.”

  An uneasy feeling started in the pit of Walker’s stomach and traveled up into his chest. His heart pumped the feeling to the rest of his body.

  Walker continued down the winding path through giant limestone boulders and ponderosa pine trees. As he climbed down the third set of stairs, the clouds seemed to swallow him. The air felt thick and clammy. A shudder traversed up his back.

  Holding on to the metal railing, Walker hurried down the next set of stairs. At the base of the stairs the path wound around a huge boulder with a tree growing in the middle of it. The scrawny pinyon pine clung stubbornly to the rock, its branches reaching for the sky.

  “Hohu,” Walker whispered, looking at the tree. “You and I are alike. I, too, exist in a hard place, stuck between the bahana’s world and the old traditional ways of my people.”

  A jet’s engine roared as it raced across the sky above. Walker looked up but couldn’t see the jet, the sky, or the rim of the canyon. The thick, dark clouds wrapped above him like a low ceiling. The wind’s pull was stronger. An ear-shattering roll of thunder drowned the jet’s roar.

  Rubbing the eagle pendant with his fingers, Walker continued his journey down the path of many steps. With each step down, he felt more and more cut off from the world of cars, jets, and computers above him.

  Without warning, Walker came upon the first set of cliff ruins, nestled under a deep, cavelike, limestone overhang. A long rock-and-mud wall stretched the length of the overhang. He could see four separate doorways in the ancient wall.

  The cold August wind whipped at Walker’s face. Its chilled fingers once again seemed to pull at his very being. Tears from the wind’s cold bite filmed over Walker’s eyes. A strange, unnameable feeling swept over him like a wave.

  “You have stood here before,” the feeling stated.

  Walker shook himself, like a dog shaking off water. “No. In all of my fifteen years, I have never been here before,” he whispered to the wind. Thunder filled the air with vibrations as it echoed off the canyon walls.

  Walker stood looking at the four-foot-thick wall. He could tell that much time and great effort had been spent making this wall that had stood for at least eight hundred years. Each flat, limestone rock had been cut, laid, and mortared with great skill. The T-shaped doorway into each dwelling was a mere two feet wide.

  The ancient ones must have been short like the Hopi, Walker realized as he stood in front of the middle door. Judging by the height of the doorway, the ancient ones couldn’t have been any taller than five feet three or four inches. Walker tucked his shoulders down, bent at the waist, and put his hands on the short rock ledges at each side of the door. His palms felt the smooth, well-worn rocks. How many people have placed their hands here to get into this room? Walker wondered, crawling into the dark ruin.

  An acrid smell of age and death filled Walker’s nose as his eyes adjusted to the semidarkness. The strange feeling again swept over him, whispering, “You know this place.”

  Automatically Walker’s hand reached up and clasped the eagle pendant. The whispery feeling slipped away.

  The side walls that separated this room from the others were made of the same stone-and-mud mortar as the front wall. Walker could see that the very low ceiling and the back wall were formed by the limestone overhang. Black soot from ancient fires stained the ceiling in one corner of the ruin. The floor was hard-packed dirt.

  Looking closer at a side wall, Walker realized that it had been plastered with a layer of mud. He moved to the front wall next to the doorway where the light was better. A shiver shook his body. He could see handprints in the primitive mud
plaster. They seemed to be small, like women’s hands.

  “All except this one,” Walker exclaimed, reaching up to a print just above his eye level. “This one’s palm is wide, the fingers long and slim.” Walker slipped his man-sized hand into the misfit print. The fingers of the dateless print were a good inch and a half longer than his.

  The mysterious feeling grasped Walker. This time he let it wash over him. He closed his eyes. The haunting feeling swirled around and through him.

  His nose filled with the smell of ancient smoke. It seemed that smoke curled around his face, drifting toward the air vents at the top of the doorway.

  Memories hidden deep within his being seemed to take over Walker’s mind. He saw the glow of a small fire in the corner. Two people huddled close to the flaming warmth. One rocked back and forth, cradling an infant in her arms. Distantly familiar yet strange-sounding words and rhythm flowed through the air with the ancient smoke. Walker focused on the words, trying to make sense of them.

  “May you live many years.

  May you have good crops of corn.

  May you have good health . . .”

  A clap of thunder shook the darkened walls. Walker drew his hand out of the strange mud print and opened his eyes to the empty ruin.

  3

  Using the stone door ledges, Walker crawled out of the ancient ruin. The cold, humid air cleared his head. Goose bumps rose on his sweaty skin. Clutching the eagle pendant, he drew in a deep breath of cold air, then another and another. His knees felt like jelly.

  “What magic is this?” Walker whispered to the wind. “Why am I here? What must I do?”

  Walker looked at his digital watch. Eleven fifteen. He had forty-five minutes to find the cave. Why in the last minutes of Náat’s life had time become so important to him? wondered Walker. Náat had never been concerned about the white man’s concept of time before. How many times had he said, “The Hopi’s way is not concerned with hours, days, or years. The Hopi way is concerned only with living with peace within ourselves and with those around us. Think happy thoughts, good thoughts; time will take care of itself.”

  Lightning flashed in the cloud-darkened sky. Thunder shook the air around Walker, bringing his mind back to the present. He wiped away the tears that clouded his eyes.

  Think happy thoughts, good thoughts, as Náat taught, Walker told himself. He started up the paved path past the ancient one’s home. He chuckled. Maybe I won’t get back to Hopi in time to start school next week!

  Walker stopped in front of a large ruin containing eight good-sized rooms. He let his eyes search the trees and bushes below the paved trail. Within seconds, he saw a narrow, unused path that led down the side of the canyon and disappeared into a large stand of juniper pines. Walker smiled, remembering how helpful the Park Ranger at the Visitor Center had been earlier that day.

  “Yes, there is a cave in the canyon,” the red-haired ranger had said, looking at him with sudden interest. “Not many people know about it since it’s not on the paved trail that goes around the ruins. It’s about here,” he said, pointing to a park map hanging on the wall behind him. “The trail to it starts just below the largest group of ruins.” He leaned a few inches toward Walker. “No one is allowed in that area. It is restricted. You must stay on the paved trail,” the ranger stated, looking Walker straight in the eye.

  Now Walker quickly checked the paved trail for tourists. Only the wind traveled the blacktop path, rushing in and out of the rock ruins.

  “Well I am no one,” Walker told the wind. He left the bahana’s paved trail and climbed down to the unused path below.

  The steep, narrow path was worn deep into the hard earth. “Many traveled the path long ago . . .” Náat’s words echoed in Walker’s memory. Thunder rolled off the rim into the canyon.

  Walker followed the path eastward through pine trees, sagebrush, cactus, skunk bush, and limestone boulders down the side of the rocky canyon. After about ten minutes of climbing downward, Walker felt that he should be getting close to the floor of the canyon. Within a minute he came to a fork in the path. Wiping his brow, he stopped and studied the two paths. The main path probably continued down to the stream of water in the bottom of the canyon. The smaller path that branched off to the west must go to the cave, Walker figured, shifting his backpack on his shoulders. A long roll of thunder seemed to confirm his thoughts.

  Walker checked his digital watch. Thirty-three minutes left. He started up the rocky path. He hummed an age-old song that Náat had always sung while working in his corn fields. “Music lightens the heart and body,” Náat had told him many times. “Songs are prayers, too.”

  The rocky path led up the side of the canyon for a hundred feet. Continuing, it traversed the side of the rugged canyon along a limestone ledge for another mile, then climbed sharply upward.

  The wind beat against Walker’s face. Thunder rolled off one canyon wall and echoed off the opposite wall. Walker checked his watch. Ten minutes to twelve. How much farther? His legs ached from the hard climbing; his stomach growled from hunger. He kept his strong, short legs moving.

  Without warning, the path came to an abrupt end. Walker stood at the edge of the sheer drop-off and looked down. He could see no way down the cliff’s steep face. He looked above him. The limestone rose straight up a good hundred feet. Climbing up seemed impossible.

  Doubts clouded Walker’s mind. He must have taken the wrong path. Maybe there’s more than one cave. What was he doing here, anyway? What could he possibly do in an old cave? Why, Ndat? Why here, of all places? Walker stood looking at the cliff as the minutes flew by. He closed his eyes and took a deep breath, trying to calm his thoughts. A desperate feeling began to seep into his heart.

  “Taawa, my creator, help me find my way,” pleaded Walker, looking into the dark clouds overhead.

  Lightning raced out of the clouds, almost striking the top of a single pine tree growing on a rocky ledge a good ten feet above and to the right of Walker’s head. In the bright flash, he saw a dark opening in the limestone wall almost directly behind the tree.

  Walker’s heart raced. He searched the limestone for a crack or crevice that he could use as a handhold. His fingertips found a grooved hole in the cliff’s face. As he pulled himself up, he spotted another worn groove just above his eye level. His foot slipped into a small toe-notch. The ancient ones had carved a path up to the cave! With care, he started to scale the sheer limestone wall to the narrow ledge above.

  With a final heave, Walker pulled himself up and onto the six-foot-deep ledge. Huge drops of rain washed his face. Lightning licked the sky like a snake’s long, forked tongue. Thunder rolled like great, endless waves in the air.

  “Taawa, thank you,” Walker shouted over the thunder.

  The large pine tree stood about a foot and a half in front of the cave. The mouth of the cave was only three or four inches taller than Walker and only a few feet wide. Cold, moist air met Walker’s nose as he entered the darkened cave. It took only a few seconds for his eyes to adjust. The cave’s back wall was just a few feet from the entrance. Standing in the middle of the cave, he could almost touch the side walls. From the amount of light in the cave now, Walker realized that on a good day sunlight would flood the cave.

  Hearing a hollow, dripping sound, Walker pulled his pencil-sized flashlight from the back pocket of his blue jeans. He shined the flashlight’s strong beam toward the back of the cave and quickly spotted the source of the sound. From a crack in the limestone ceiling, drops of water fell into a small pool below. Walker moved to the pool and knelt down. He could see that from years of the water dripping, a natural basin had been formed in the limestone. Green moss edged the rim of the basin.

  Walker dipped his cupped hands into the pool. The water was ice cold. Lifting his hands to his mouth, he took a big sip. The haunting feeling washed over him.

  “You have drunk here before,” it whispered.

  A flash of lightning lit the cave. Looking up, Walker saw
the shrine. It was on a natural rock ledge two feet above and to the right of the small pool of water. A cold chill shook his body.

  Walker aimed his light up onto the rock shrine. He had seen many similar shrines around his village, and each year he had helped his uncle neatly stack rocks to form such a shrine in their cornfield. On these shrines he had placed pahos, the holy prayer feathers, and fine cornmeal as offerings to the supernatural powers. Each year rains were sent to the field.

  Walker stood up for a closer look at the shrine. It was almost identical to a Hopi shrine, yet different. The exact placement and slant of each rock were not the same as in the Hopi way. Studying the shrine, he realized that after hundreds of years it was barren; there were no offerings.

  “Open the backpack in the cave,” Náat’s words exploded in Walker’s memory.

  Kneeling down, Walker took off his backpack and placed it in front of him. Thunder shook the walls of the cave. He unbuckled the top of the pack and pulled back the top flap. Inside was an object about eight inches long, wrapped in a piece of white buckskin. Walker lifted it out and unwrapped the soft skin.

  His racing heart tightened as he looked at the paho lying in his trembling hands. The two distinctively carved pieces of wood were tied together with a thread-thin strand of leather. Each piece of wood had a carved face: the left a male, the right a female. White eagle feathers surrounded the images. The paho looked Hopi; yet like the shrine it was not Hopi.

  It was centuries old, Walker realized, gently turning the paho over in his hands to inspect it. The wood felt as fragile as fine glass that would crumble under even the slightest pressure. The feathers, though intact, looked as if one breath of air would disintegrate them.

  “So, Náat, this is why you sent me here,” Walker said in a low voice. “Years ago you took this paho from the shrine.” Walker shook his head. He couldn’t imagine why his uncle had removed the sacred prayer stick from its rightful place.