Journal of the Dead

by Jason Kersten

  But they were now about to do something quite different. They were about to hike in the open desert under the sun’s full wrath. Had they known of Adolph’s research—known what happened to his soldiers when, instead of resting, they kept marching through open desert in the heat of the day—Raffi and David almost certainly would have thought twice about heading for the peak. Adolph learned that a man marching in such conditions loses two quarts of water an hour. In other words, he expends his water reserves eight times as quickly.

  The ranch foundation Kodikian mentioned in his journal entry was about three hundred yards south of where they were camped. It’s just a ten by twenty foot square of crumbling cement wall, all that’s left of an old homestead that was once part of a cattle-grazing operation. Weeds and cacti grow inside the square, and nested among them are a few rusty cans and an ornate iron leg of what appears to have been an old Singer sewing machine table. Other than the cairns marking the canyon trail, the foundation is the only sign of civilization in the canyon, a near swallowed ruin, but even that can be comforting when you’re lost.

  Mountain number three, as Kodikian called it, rises about seven hundred feet immediately to the west of the foundation. Although it looks like a mountain from below, with slopes rising to a crest, it is actually part of Rattlesnake Canyon’s southwestern wall, and as the friends stood beneath it and gazed up, they saw cruelly inhospitable terrain. Three ridges, like gnarled fingers, rose to the summit, with the spaces in between them occupied by steep gullies. There were no trails, and both scaling options, ridges or gullies, looked bad. The ridges had gentler slopes, but they were a few feet wide at best, serrated by seemingly impassible limestone promontories and gaps. In between were the gullies, smooth in comparison, but a good fifteen degrees steeper, and shedding so much rubble that from time to time the erosion was audible in ghostly, far-off clicks of stone falling against stone. Worst of all were the minefields of daggerlike agave that peppered the slopes.

  Wading into the sticky tide of creosote bushes that clung to the bottom, they began their ascent. It was slow going. Every few yards they had to veer around an impassible network of cactus, then get back on course. They could only climb in short bursts before tiring out, and each time they stopped they sucked on some cactus fruit. Looking down after they had risen a few hundred feet, they realized that if they slipped there was nothing to break their fall—except the agave. They had little choice but to keep moving forward.

  When they finally reached the upper heights of the slopes, cracked and withered walls of limestone, some as high as twenty feet, blocked further ascent. They worked their way left across the slopes, looking for a more gradual route up. The left face was just as walled off, so they had no choice but to put hand to rock and climb. Each time they scaled a difficult shelf, their spirits fell as they saw another one twenty yards ahead; it was as if there were an invisible giant somewhere up ahead who kept adding steps to his staircase, toying with them. Long after they had given up expecting to see the summit, they tiredly clambered over one more ragged ledge and suddenly saw nothing above them but sky. They were at the top, the place of headlights and hope.

  They saw that there was no road almost instantly.

  Whether it was a plane, a satellite, a star, or the projection of their own hopes that they had seen on Thursday night, it had lured them in the one direction that offered the least possible help at the greatest expense. They were now farther from their car than before, exposed to the sun on barren heights that offered almost no shade. It had taken them about three hours to scale the canyon wall; according to Adolph’s formulas, the trek had cost them more water than they had spent the entire previous day.

  What are we doing up here? We should have stayed in camp. This is stupid, Dave said.

  Let’s move a little farther on, Raffi suggested. He was concerned about the frustration and hopelessness in his friend’s voice. Just south of them was another ridge with a gentle slope. It was barely a climb at all, but it would give them a better view of what lay to their south. They kept moving.

  The expensive climb out had bought them at least one thing: they were now no longer stuck in Rattlesnake Canyon. The terrain was still covered with cactus and loose, unsteady stones, but it was almost completely flat, and the myopic views of slopes and walls had been replaced by miles of perspective. They were standing on the same plateau as the visitor center, which lay on the opposite side of the canyon, about six miles away and a good five hundred feet lower in altitude. They should have even been able to see the square bulge of the cavern’s elevator tower to their left, a small yet distinct speck of human geometry in the distance. Even closer were the twenty-foot-high water tanks that they had passed on the road in. Any of these would have told them the general direction of their car.

  They saw none of them.

  They continued picking their way across the plateau, until Kodikian’s strength began to falter. He lay down in the paltry shade of a shrub, while Coughlin continued to survey their surroundings. He had noticed that an entirely new landscape had opened up to the south.

  They were now on one of the highest points on the plateau. Immediately in front of them was another small ridge, but beyond that Dave could see the desert plains below, beckoningly flat and even patchily greened by the summer rains. If he had been stranded on an island, his position now was akin to standing on cliffs above the shore, scanning the sea for signs of a sail. And right in front of him, about four miles straight out on the plains, was all the water he could ever want: Rattlesnake Springs.

  Once a favorite watering hole of the Mescalero Apache, then later the U.S. Calvary, Rattlesnake Springs is a classic Chihuahuan oasis, a limestone spring surrounded by a cottonwood grove. The park annexed the spring in 1931 to serve as its water supply, and over the years it has been teased into an irrigated network of ponds and troughs almost a mile in length. From where Coughlin stood, the oasis was the darkest spot on the horizon, with the main spring pond visible as a metallic blemish within a black nest of cotton-woods. If he looked closely, he could have seen several buildings belonging to the national park and an adjacent camp for diabetic and mentally handicapped children. Running water, telephones, and cool linoleum kitchens, just three miles away. He picked his way back through the cactus to tell Raffi the good news.

  If we can make it out onto those plains, there’s gotta be a road out there, he reported excitedly.

  Raffi listened but made no move to get up. Exhaustion had immobilized him like a lead blanket the moment he had lain down.

  If you think you can make it, go, Kodikian told him. Send back help.

  Coughlin thought it over. I’m not gonna just leave you here, he finally said. And I don’t want to wander out into that by myself.

  He crawled under the bush and lay down next to his friend. The temperature was now breaking into the nineties, and for the moment they seemed to have given up all thoughts of escaping onto the plains. When it cooled, perhaps they’d give it another try.

  They holed up on the plateau all day Friday and clung to whatever shade they could find. Ants began to bite them as they lay on the ground, and eventually they got up and moved to the biggest bush around, most likely a mesquite shrub that lives up there like a lonely old hermit. They hung their shirts in the branches to win a little more shade, but it couldn’t stop the heat. By three P.M. it was approaching one hundred degrees.

  8

  A vulture, black and silent, soared over and began spinning above them, riding the canyon’s thermals.

  Soon more came, forming a desert carousel. Vultures are highly social creatures, and they often stay close to hikers and one another out of sheer curiosity. But Raffi and David didn’t know that. All they knew was that they were stranded in the desert, and now the vultures were circling. It was like the script from some old movie. The vultures hover, then drop down and perch a few feet away. They wait, cruel in their patience, until you’re too weak to resist. Then they move in and pick you
apart—alive—one bloody string at a time.

  There’s no way we’re going to let that happen to us, they agreed. We’ll kill ourselves first. “We will not let the buzzards get us alive. God forgive us…” Raffi later wrote in the journal.

  The environment seemed to attack them even when they were lying still, the ants, the sharp rocks, the birds, the burrs in their socks, the wind that constantly blew their shirts off the branches, forcing them to rise and reposition them. Sometime in late afternoon, Dave finally turned to Raffi.

  I gotta get out of here or I’m gonna go nuts, he said.

  Raffi had also had enough of the plateau, and so after expending invaluable amounts of water climbing out of Rattlesnake Canyon, they rose from the languishment of the bush, wearily put their shirts back on, and prepared to walk back into the trap they had toiled to escape.

  Before leaving the plateau they sucked on more cactus fruit, but given the heat—still near one hundred by five P.M.—it didn’t help much. Sweat covered them as they made their descent back into the canyon, once again struggling for footholds on the upper slopes. By the time they were halfway back to the ranch foundation, they were thirsty beyond desperation. They decided it was time to employ the oldest trick in the book: they would drink their own urine.

  Drinking urine is also the biggest myth in the book, perpetuated by people who mistakenly attribute their survival to the fact that they did it. Although there are small amounts of water in urine, most of it consists of toxins, salts that the kidneys filter out because they’re harmful in the first place. The urine of a dehydrated person is especially toxic and concentrated, and drinking it forces the kidneys to draw water from the blood to dilute it; in other words, urine takes more water to digest than it actually supplies.

  Kodikian took off his baseball cap. They’d brought along the empty water bottles in the hopes that it might rain again. He turned the cap over, positioned it over one of the bottles, and peed. His urine was nearly as dark and concentrated as a Guinness.

  He put the bottle to his lips and sipped. The acrid taste of ammonia overwhelmed him. He tried to swallow but immediately began to gag.

  There’s no way we’re gonna be able to drink this, he said.

  Dave saw the look on his face and took his word for it.

  They continued on toward the canyon floor. As they got closer, Coughlin caught a glint of something they could drink sitting on the walls of the ranch foundation.

  Are those what I think they are?

  What? Kodikian said.

  They look like water bottles, on the foundation. See ’em?

  Kodikian squinted toward the ruin. Suddenly he, too, saw them: several plastic bottles, exactly the kind they’d bought at the visitor center, waiting right there on the ruined wall. At long last, they both realized, the rangers must have come and seen the note they’d left back at the campsite: “We’re heading towards the ranch foundation…,” it had said. They must have left the bottles in case Raffi and David came back.

  Their relief was instant. For two days, they had turned fantasizing about water into an art. How good it would feel, sliding down their throats and settling in their stomachs like subterranean ponds. Bathtubs full of cold water, motel ice machines, swimming pools, every sprinkler they’d ever run through as kids, the Pacific.

  Bottles of water, sparkling on the edge of a ruin.

  Dave had been getting weak in the legs, having difficulty bracing himself against the downhill slope, so he told Raffi to go on ahead for the water, he’d catch up. Kodikian was drained himself, but he worked his way through the scratchy maze of brush near the bottom without stopping. When he finally emerged into the open space of the riverbed, he made a beeline straight for the foundation.

  The water was not there.

  It had to be a trick, Raffi thought. He looked around, expecting to see someone. A twisted hiker, or a ranger with a seriously sick sense of humor who’d suddenly jump out from behind a bush and shout, “Gotcha!” Even when he realized he was alone he didn’t quite believe the bottles hadn’t been there.

  He sat down on the wall and waited for Dave. He could hear him snapping through the brush, knocking rocks around. He didn’t have the heart to yell to him that it was yet another false lead. Better that he had something to look forward to.

  When Dave finally staggered over and saw that there was no water he barely had the energy to damn the mirage. His legs were seizing up on him, and he immediately collapsed against the old stone wall.

  I feel dizzy, he said. Faint.

  They sat awhile on the foundation’s ledge, waiting for Dave to catch his breath. Two years earlier, his father had had a heart attack, and seeing his dad’s brush with death had made him wonder if he’d suffer the same fate when he hit sixty; now he was worried his weakened condition might somehow speed up the genetic fuse.

  There was no question where they’d go now. Back to camp was their only option, at least until they got some rest. Dave rose to his legs, which shook like a newborn fawn’s. Raffi gave him a shoulder to steady himself on. They crept back toward the tent like that, limping along like the wounded comrades in arms they were. It was about a quarter mile but it seemed to take an hour. The last Stretch over the wide, stony flood wash was the worst; slow, aimed steps to make sure Dave didn’t step on the wrong rock and bring them both down.

  This new development with Dave’s legs was a bad turn, Raffi knew. If they didn’t thaw out, there was no way they’d walk out of there together. How long would it be, he wondered, before his own legs gave out? He tried not to think about it, and instead focused on the ground in front of him, the swinging and planting of each step, watching Dave’s feet, bracing himself for each slip. It was almost a relief that somebody required his strength. He barely looked up until they neared the campsite. When he did, wouldn’t you know it, he saw a cairn that he hadn’t seen before.

  You remember that one? he asked Dave.

  Coughlin studied it. No, that wasn’t there, he said.

  It was near the flood wash, the same area they had passed through half a dozen times the day before. How could they have missed it?

  Like it had been with the phantom water bottles, they found themselves wondering irrationally if the rangers had placed it there while they were off hiking—a strategy to cover their fault for marking the trail so poorly to begin with. They could almost hear them snickering just out of sight, shadows in wide brimmed hats that melted into the cactus whenever they turned their heads to see them. They knew it was crazy, but if the camping permit had only been for one day, why hadn’t the rangers come? What had been the whole point of filling out the piece of paper and paying their $7 to begin with? Was it just to identify their bodies?

  The scene with the young ranger at the desk played through their heads again and again, his arms fumbling in the shelves, his confused eyes on the paperwork, his casual apology for ignorance. Now they saw that it was true, he really hadn’t known what he was doing, and they had been foolish to trust him. The copy of their camping permit—the very receipt for their lives—was now buried beneath a stack of National Park Service paperwork. The no-show rangers. They hated them, yet there was no one they more wanted to see.

  Despite their cynicism, the new cairn gave them hope. After all the false leads they’d followed, it was finally time for something to work. They made a new plan to rest that evening, then get out in the morning. If Dave couldn’t make it, Raffi would go by himself. They were grateful to be off the sizzling plateau, back on the relative comfort of their sleeping pads and tent. They jazzed themselves up for the next day’s escape; how good that bottle of Gatorade would taste! They saw it clearly sitting in the backseat of their car, an ambrosia, the calming, electric green distillation of their hope. If there were a Gatorade God, they would have promised him that if they could just get to the bottle, they’d drink the stuff religiously for the rest of their lives.

  9

  Raffi had a vision that night, an “awake
dream” he would later call it. As he lay in the tent, his eyes opening and closing restlessly, he saw people in the canyon. They were out there in the grayness of the riverbed, busily constructing machines, devices that would transport them out of the canyon. Anxiety swept over him as he realized that he and Dave didn’t have the proper tools to build their own machine. They would be left behind, like men on a sinking ship after all the lifeboats were filled.

  He didn’t tell Dave about the dream when they got up Saturday morning. Coughlin was feeling better. He stood up outside the tent, stretched his legs tentatively, and told Raffi he thought he still had enough strength for another try. He didn’t want to be left there alone, and Raffi was grateful that he wouldn’t have to face the hike back to the car by himself.

  They didn’t bother bringing anything with them this time. Carrying their own bodies out of the canyon would be work enough.

  It took them a while to find the cairn they’d seen on Friday. They walked right past it, then had to double back before Coughlin finally spotted it again. Standing next to the marker, they took a deep breath and tried to focus on the task at hand.

  If they were going to make it, everything depended on their being able to spot another cairn they hadn’t seen before, then maybe one or two more. The trail would be easier to see once they were certain they were finally on it, and it would also be angled upward instead of hiding somewhere in the brush and stone-ridden flats of the canyon floor.

  Slowly they turned their heads in a circle, their dehydrated brains attempting to parse the visual information, separating cactus from rock, rock from rock pile, and dirt from trail like they were staring at some gigantic stereogram. Other cairns—the same old islands that had already failed to point the way out—were nearby. Somehow they had to fit them into a pattern, a line, and they strained to integrate them into a big picture. Minutes passed. They were boys in a geometry class, staring at their final exam problem without lifting a pencil, willing it to make sense, their isolation and anger mounting as the period ticked away.