Journal of the Dead

by Jason Kersten

  Dave pulled out his camera and took a shot of their tent, neatly set up in a New Mexico canyon, so far from where they had started their journey. The friends had come a long way—about twenty-seven hundred miles in only six days. They felt as if they were still racing down the highway whenever they closed their eyes to sleep. All that distance felt like quite an accomplishment. And there was still plenty more country to come. Tomorrow they’d get to see the caves, then head over to the Grand Canyon—wonders of nature they knew they’d remember for the rest of their lives. And there was California, which they’d make by Saturday. But thoughts of seeing the Pacific wore a wistful lace: that would quite literally be the end of the road, and they were old enough not to have many illusions. Their friendship as they had known it for the last few years would almost certainly be radically diluted by distance, time, and life’s new courses. Oh, they’d promise to keep in touch, maybe even talk about taking another trip in the future or seeing each other over Christmas, but odds were that they’d never spend so much time together again.

  As the sky blued into black, they chatted and passed the Gatorade bottle back and forth, finishing it off as the Milky Way pooled bright above them, bridging the gap between the shadowy canyon walls with impossible clarity.

  Morning in Rattlesnake Canyon has its own kind of charm. Mule deer clop over ridges, desert cottontails freeze and scatter in the scrub, kangaroo mice seem to bounce on air as they jump across the canyon floor. When the friends woke up at around eight the following morning, the animals of the desert were preparing for bed, finishing up the night’s foraging before the day’s heat sent them to shade.

  “Leave no trace,” one of the park’s camping guidelines had read. Raffi and David did their best to follow it to the letter as they broke camp. They bagged up all their garbage, patrolled their gear, and as they started back to the car, they were pleasantly satisfied that the little side canyon lay almost exactly as they had found it.

  It was perfect walking weather: seventy-five degrees, with a few clouds low in the sky. As the friends ambled along the canyon floor they took their time and enjoyed the rustle and hum of the desert wildlife. Dave wore his camera around his neck and kept an eye out for potential shots. So far, he’d taken far fewer photos on the trip than he’d expected, and now that he was in the West he was hoping to make up for it.

  After hiking just over a mile, they came to a cairn on the edge of the riverbed. Next to it was a path through a small brush field that appeared to head toward the canyon’s eastern slopes, which they remembered coming down the previous evening. They also remembered thinking that all that easy downhill going would be uphill going the next morning, so now they paused to rest and pulled out their water bottles.

  There wasn’t much left from the last night’s hike and then boiling the hot dogs—about a half pint each. But there was a full bottle of Gatorade waiting for them back at the car, only minutes away. They polished off the remainder to fortify themselves for the climb out.

  Setting off again, they followed the trail into the brush field for about a hundred yards, and were quietly surprised when it took them right back into riverbed. Another fifty or so yards later, they both started to get a funny feeling. None of the surroundings seemed familiar.

  “The trail out must be somewhere back in the field, because this one looks like it just keeps on going down the canyon,” they reasoned.

  They promptly about-faced and paced off the entire path again, this time meticulously scanning the canyon slopes to their left as they searched for more cairns marking the trail out. But all they saw was an unbroken face of cactus, brush, and limestone boulders.

  They stood at the edge of the brush field and thought it out: if they didn’t recognize anything after the field, and there was no junction in the field itself, then the only logical conclusion was that the exit was even farther back, probably no more than a few hundred yards. They left the field and backtracked up the canyon floor, confident that their logic was sound. After reversing a hundred yards or so they saw something that seemed reassuring: several cairns, lying in a wide spot in the bed, a flood wash where a small side canyon joined Rattlesnake’s main channel. They were looking for a junction, and the cairns sitting in this natural convergence seemed to suggest that the exit trail passed through the area as well. Knowing that their car was to the east, they resumed searching the slopes in that direction for more cairns, expecting to see one any second. But once again, they were mystified to see none.

  They pulled out the topographical map Raffi had bought the night before. Published by Trails Illustrated in 1996 and designed in collaboration with the park service, it was a high-quality rendering of the entire park, made of ultrathin, waterproof plastic. On one side were extensive maps of the caverns, while the other offered a detailed topography of the park’s backcountry, complete with trails, roads, springs, riverbeds, and explanatory text. The $7.95 Raffi had shelled out for it the night before had seemed steep, but now they were hoping it would pay off.

  They’d both seen topographical maps before, but neither of them had actually used one, and at first glance it was intimidating. Unfolded, the map was about twelve square feet with intricate, hair-thin contour lines exploding everywhere. But they knew the basic idea: the denser areas represented rapid increases in elevation, the wider lines were more gradual. Each 2 × 2-inch square represented a square mile, and there were more than 130 squares in all. They located the road and the trailhead where the car was parked, then followed the dotted line of the access trail down to the Rattlesnake Canyon trail, which they knew they were standing right on top of. The entire trail fell within four square miles—a mere eight square inches in that vast spread of paper, and they kept squinting among the swirling lines, then looking back at the giant, three-dimensional world surrounding them for points of reference. There were about five peaks nearby, but establishing their relative height was nearly impossible while looking up at them from the constricted confines of the canyon. The map quickly became an exercise in irony: the rendering of Rattlesnake Canyon would have made a lot more sense if they weren’t in the canyon already.

  But they weren’t discouraged, or even especially worried. One thing they were able to glean from the map was that they were in a small area, no bigger than four square miles. The trail had to be there because they had come down it the night before, and it couldn’t be too far off because if they backtracked much more they’d be in the vicinity of the campsite they’d just left.

  They formed a search area of about a quarter mile along the riverbed and canyon slopes and began their most careful hunt yet. At first they walked it off quickly, expecting to see the magic cairn any minute; when that failed, they tried walking fifty feet or so, stopping, and having a good look around. Occasionally they’d split up, each man pursuing an area he thought might be promising. Sometimes they’d search close to the slopes; other times they’d fall back across the riverbed for a wider view. Every new location seemed as if it had to hold the key, and when the path failed to turn up, it was almost something to laugh about. What kind of half-assed camping area is this, was the joke, but as morning burned toward afternoon they grew quieter. Rattlesnake Canyon was beginning to change.

  By eleven A.M., the sun had risen above the canyon walls, and the temperature, now in the high eighties, was climbing at a rate of about three degrees an hour. Sweating, their skin hot, they retreated into the shade of a shrub bank, telling themselves that they’d look again in a few minutes, but once they had nestled into the relative coolness of the bushes, they felt no hurry to return to the hot brightness beyond. They reclined in dazed silence and tried to comprehend what had happened. It seemed incredible that only three hours earlier they hadn’t had a care in the world.

  Around noon a cloud cover rolled in, bringing relief from the sun, and something else that was far more valuable, for it was the rainy season. As fat summer drops began falling over the desert, they moved out from beneath the bush, letting the
downpour cool their skin. They had already felt the first, driving pangs of thirst, and cursed the fact that they had nothing ready to collect the water. But when they noticed it was rolling off some of the larger rocks and pooling beneath them, Raffi and David quickly went into action. Kneeling down over the small puddles, they slurped up mouthfuls of gritty water, then spit it back into the empty bottles. By the time it stopped raining, they had managed to collect about three-quarters of a pint each. They took only small sips from the bottles, opting for a strategy of rationing.

  Enlivened by the clouds and the rain, the friends resumed the search for the exit trail. They couldn’t tell if they had gone too far down the canyon or not far enough, but both of them felt that the trail wasn’t far off. Rather than risking getting more lost than they already were, they resolved to stay in the general area in hopes that rangers would soon come looking for them. Their camping permit was for only one day, and they had told the young ranger that they were planning on returning that morning.

  Hunger was also becoming a factor now. All morning long they had been passing clumps of prickly pear cactus, and they couldn’t help noticing the alluring, fuschia-colored fruit bells on the ends of the pads. Coughlin suggested they try eating some, and they were pleased to find that the fruit was not only succulent and rich with water, but deliciously sweet. Using their Swiss Army and folding knives, they cut more for later.

  As the weariness of late afternoon set in, it became apparent that they weren’t going to find the trail that day. While Kodikian set up camp on the edge of the flood wash, Coughlin made a final, perfunctory search for the trail on a nearby hill, then returned, dejected. They lay back on their sleeping pads, exhausted and bewildered.

  Now facing their second night in Rattlesnake Canyon, they found little solace in the intensifying colors of the desert dusk, but it did bring cooler temperatures, which luckily didn’t drop below the low seventies. They sat outside the tent, now and again chewing on the cactus fruit while they discussed their situation.

  It wasn’t good; they were lost in a desert with very little water. But as they saw it they had a very big card in their favor: the camping permit. Along with their car, it was tangible evidence of their presence in the canyon, a 4 × 6-inch piece of paper that was now becoming, in their minds, nothing less than a kind of contract—a receipt that entitled them to a rescue. Why else had they needed to state so much information on it, the length of their stay, their license plate number, their ages? Immediately they began to wonder about how the ranger had handled it. What if he had misplaced it? Trying to keep their spirits up, they forced themselves not to think about this possibility. They were still in pretty good shape, bolstered by the rain and the discovery of the cactus fruit.

  That night, they saw something else that gave them hope.

  In the near distance, immediately in front of their camp, were three successive slopes of the canyon wall. From their close perspective they looked like three mountains rising into summits, and toward midnight, they saw what appeared to be car headlights on the far mountain. The lights shone for only a few moments, but it was long enough to convince them that, if they hiked in that direction, they should find a road. The next morning, they did just that. Before leaving, Kodikian wrote the first journal entry the pair would make during their ordeal in the park. It was a note for the rangers, in case they arrived while they were gone:

  HELP HELP

  We filled out a backcountry card on Wed afternoon/evening & headed down. Camped Wed, started back on Thursday morning but couldn’t find the entrance to the trail leading to the car. Looked all day Thursday, slept here Thurs night, & saw headlights along mtn #3 around midnight. We’re headed for that peak. (See “map” on previous page.)

  We’ve got minimal water & have been eating cactus fruit. We need help. We headed towards what appeared to be the ranch foundation to begin. If & when we reach the car we will go to visitor’s center then attempt to come back for gear—carefully.

  On the facing page, Kodikian drew a rough map of the three peaks, numbering each one, and noted their time of departure, seven-thirty A.M., in the margin. They left the journal lying in front of the tent, opened to the note, and began hiking in the direction they had seen the headlights.

  It was now Friday, August 6, the day they were supposed to arrive in California.

  7

  In 1942, the U.S. Office of Scientific Research hired Edward F. Adolph, a professor from the University of Rochester, to study exactly what happened to soldiers when they went without water in the desert. At the time, Adolph was at the head of the emerging field of environmental physiology, and with the Allies campaigning against Rommel in North Africa, the reason for the study was practical enough: the army wanted to know how far young men could be pushed before they would break under the Saharan sun.

  Using hundreds of soldiers stationed in the Mojave Desert as his test subjects, Adolph, a rough-jawed army veteran himself, deprived them of water, then put them through a range of activities. He marched them, measured them, made them sit in sun and shade, stuck them in hot truck cabs and stifling armored vehicles—generally, he made them utterly miserable before giving them a drink. Some of the GIs, all of whom were volunteers, later wondered if they would have been better off fighting the Desert Fox, but the wealth of knowledge that quite literally came from the sweat of their brows is hard to understate. Adolph later published his findings from the study in a paper, “Physiology of Man in the Desert,” and to this day it is the pillar of what we know about what happens to people—particularly fit young men—when they’re stuck in the precise conditions Kodikian and Coughlin faced.

  The reason we can survive at all in temperatures above ninety-two degrees Fahrenheit is because water—in the form of sweat—allows us to dissipate heat from our bodies and maintain a stable core temperature. It seeps out of about 2 million glands on the surface of our skin, where it cools the blood immediately beneath. Since it also evaporates quickly in the hot desert air, sweat must be continually drawn from our bodies. Depending on size and weight, 40 to 60 percent of the human body is actually water; in a person weighing 150 pounds, it amounts to about ten gallons. The hotter the air and the more strenuous our activity, the more water our system loses; and if we can’t renew it, we immediately enter a downward spiral that Adolph divided into three stages.

  Nearly everyone has experienced the first stage, or “mild dehydration”; it occurs when we lose between 1 and 5 percent of our water, and it often happens because people have a tendency to drink less water than they need to replace what they sweat out—a phenomenon known as “voluntary dehydration.” The first symptom is usually, but not always, thirst, and we typically become dehydrated for short periods of time without ever even knowing it. As stage one progresses, however, more serious symptoms generally appear: we start to feel a vague discomfort, accompanied by sluggishness, nausea, and a loss of appetite. Psychologically, we feel impatient, irritable, partly because our hearts are beating faster in an attempt to get more blood to the skin to fight a rising core temperature. First stage dehydration is almost never fatal. Get out of the sun and drink some water, and recovery usually comes within an hour.

  Second stage, or “moderate dehydration,” occurs when we lose between 6 and 10 percent of our water. The blood actually begins to thicken and lose volume in this stage (unchecked, it will eventually reach a consistency almost identical to that of maple syrup). Moving viscously through our arteries, it can no longer deliver oxygen efficiently. Breathing becomes shorter and heavier, and exhaustion sets in. In the brain, second stage dehydration often translates into a banging headache and dizziness, while other neurological symptoms may include slurred speech (which can be exacerbated by low saliva levels) and tingling limbs. As the 10 percent mark nears, the oxygen problem can get bad enough to cause the lips and extremities to turn blue.

  Had Adolph pushed his soldiers much beyond 10 percent dehydration (he did not), some of them probably would have
died. Death can come at any time during third stage, or “severe,” dehydration. Most of what we know about it comes from lucky survivors. The neurological effects are profound: deafness, hallucinations, and failing vision are typical. Potassium, which triggers muscle contractions, can reach such concentrated levels that bitingly painful spasms ensue. The tongue swells to twice its size and may actually turn black, while the eyes are so depleted of lubricant that blinking lids have the abrading effect of sandpaper. For the elderly, death is usually caused by heatstroke, but for the young and fit it often comes more slowly. Once the water levels in the blood fall low enough, the body then begins to draw it from its own cell tissue—in a sense, drinking off of itself—until a major organ fails. Usually it’s the highly water-dependent kidneys.

  Every indication is that Kodikian and Coughlin were still somewhere in the first stage when they set off to climb the peak on Friday morning after a day and two nights in the desert. They had scavenged water from the rain and the cactus fruit; even more importantly, they had rested out of the sun during the height of the previous day’s heat. According to Adolph’s research, a man resting in shade in one-hundred-degree temperatures loses only about a cup of water an hour—the slowest rate of water loss possible in such heat. By sheltering themselves in the brush, the friends had unknowingly taken the precise course of action that the professor himself would have advised.