Corey and I, Dr. Douglas and Hidalgo all looked at each other in puzzlement. They did not know what to make of the new arrival. Could they trust him? Did he really know anything that would be helpful?
I asked, “Why do you think there is more to this than just a mine shaft with a little bit of quartz rock?”
Juan Armijo answered, “My uncle told us at one time that he had discovered a way to another world, a place where the Indians came from. Many of the Indian tribes around here have a belief that their ancestors came from holes in the earth leading to a middle earth.
Hidalgo agreed, “That’s true. The Hopi Indians believed that their ancestors came from a hole in the bottom of the Grand Canyon, but no one has ever found such a place.”
Finally Dr. Douglas spoke. “You say you know of another clue to the location of the mine?”
“Yes” replied Juan Armijo, “I have a good clue, you see, my uncle told me stories about Indian trails and ruins he had discovered around here. My clue has to do with that”
We all thought about it for a while commenting on the fact that we were not really looking for gold but rather the adventure in solving a mystery. Money had not been a problem ever since our days at Serpiente. We were all relatively wealthy, but could not resist the chase of another adventure. So we came to an agreement; the gold, if there was any, would be split between them, with most of it going to charity, university studies or in Hidalgos’ case to a trust fund for a college scholarships for Navajos and part would be used to help provide for his family on the Navajo reservation.
Juan Armijo finally shared his secret with them. “You have been searching the canyon rim for a trail down into the bottom. What you really need to do is find the trail from Chaco Canyon that ends on the rim. There you will find a petroglyph of a hummingbird carved into the rock under your feet. The trail, what there is of a trail and if there is still a trail, drops down the canyon from the hummingbird.”
Corey says “Yeah, that makes sense, but we have walked all up and down this rim and not seen any trace of Indian trails or petroglyphs.”
Juan Armijo placed his coffee cup on the table and said, “That’s your challenge, to find an Indian trail leading to a petroglyph, and then who knows how hard it will be to find the original trial down into the canyon.”
We talked about it all until it was starting to get dark and Juan Armijo excused himself, went over to his blue truck where he had a sleeping bag in the bed, climbed in and went to sleep. If it wasn’t for the blue truck sitting there it could have all been a dream. Everyone went to sleep that night thinking about what the new clue meant.
The Anasazi Trail
The next day we drove the Jeep back away from the rim and then started slowly crossing the countryside. There were lots of trails. Cow trails, game trails and even some human trails that took fishermen down into the box canyon, but no Indian trails. It was what everyone expected. Anasazi trails are usually visible only from the air. Like the lines on the plain of Nazca in Peru or the Mojave Maze one could be standing in the middle of one and not realize it. Even though it is flat on top of the Rinconada Mesa it is still a rough and dangerous place to drive across. After a day of this we came back to camp exhausted and low on gas. Thankfully we had an extra Gerry can full of gas waiting for us back in camp.
The next morning while everyone packed up the camp to leave, Corey came up with another plan. Since the trail from Chaco Canyon supposedly ended up at the rim he packed his lunch and hiked along the rim trail again, this time taking a simple broom used to sweep out the floorboards of the jeep with him. He attached a walking stick to it with a piece of wire.
The rim trail was overgrown with brush and local grass but it was also volcanic rock mostly overlain with a thin covering of sand. Since there had been no hummingbird petroglyphs on any of the rocks that sometimes were heaped up along the edge he decided to sweep the loose sand that always accumulated on the rock. Using the other end of the stick he dragged it through the sand leaving a small ditch behind him. It was stop and go, over and over because the hard volcanic rock was crisscrossed by thousands of tiny cracks and each one had to be examined to see if it was natural or man - made. By late afternoon he was exhausted, hot and discouraged but just as he was getting ready to return to camp and declare all was lost he found a crack that was exactly one centimeter wide and one centimeter deep that had a curve in it. In nature all rock cleavages were in straight lines, so he immediately began to sweep it out. Soon everyone noticed his work and joined him in the effort. In a manner of minutes they had uncovered a perfect hummingbird petroglyph. A rock carving that looked machine cut and had been walked over thousands of times by hikers and fishermen all oblivious to the design that someone had carefully cut into the rock under the sand and below their feet.
Within a few feet of the rim, behind some brush that was hiding the entrance; we found the first sign of an ancient trail. Someone had actually carved a six inch wide cut into the side of some hard volcanic rock that would otherwise require some expert climbing to descend. The trouble was, it was late in the day and the trail on their side of the canyon as well as the entire box canyon was deep in shadow from the sinking sun. We covered up the petroglyph with sand to keep others from discovering it and returned to camp. The Armijo mine would have to wait another day but with great enthusiasm and excitement we unpacked the gear and the adventure was on again.
The Passageway
Early the next day the five of us awoke with greater anticipation than we had experienced since the expedition had begun. Eating breakfast in a hurry we gathered up climbing gear and Hidalgo, Corey, Dr. Douglas and I hurried over to the canyon’s edge leaving Juan Armijo in the camp on guard since he begged not to have to climb down the canyon. As they left he said “When you get older, climbing hurts more and more but the view is greater than anything a young person sees.” They also felt like he would know anyone who drove up to the camp and might actually have a better chance of talking thieves into leaving than we would.
Climbing down a canyon is like climbing a mountain in reverse. When climbing down any steep trail momentum tends to carry you and it is easy to find yourself sliding on some loose gravel and praying you will stop before you plunge off a precipice. The return is safer, but by then, you are already tired, hot, and usually dying of thirst.
The trail ran out about a hundred feet from the rim where a rockslide had occurred, but by then the detectives had already spotted a tiny island of green earth a hundred yards below them. It was not unlike many other small islands easily visible but Dr. Douglas pointed out one simple fact; some of the bushes that grew there required a constant supply of water, a basic prerequisite for the solution to one of the clues.
Returning to the top we decided upon another approach to the island. Old man Armijo had actually discovered the island on a return trip from the canyon so they decided to find the nearest fisherman’s trail that would allow descent into the canyon. Three hundred yards north of them they found it. An older trail that was now seldom used because of the loose rocks and gravel next to sheer drop offs that would take your breath away. Easier to ascend than to descend, the trail curved slowly toward the island through a series of sharp switchbacks. The group slowly and carefully followed it down until they were even with the island. There they ran into a problem. The same problem that Armijo had run into, getting over to the island. The side of the canyon composed of angular chunks of black volcanic rock the size of small houses would be impossible to transverse. Searching up and down the main trail we discovered that at some time in the past a switchback had been shortened by about twenty yards or so. Following the older section of the trail it immediately became obvious why, about ten feet of it had caved off leaving nowhere to gain a foothold. Now it was time for the climbing gear.
Corey led the way tethered to Hidalgo. Hidalgo would let the rope out while Corey made a running leap to get to the other side of the trail. He made it, barely. From there they looped the r
ope around secure rocks on both sides of the drop off so everyone could clip a carabineer onto the rope and slide over to the other side. With Corey pulling a safety rope it was easy to cross but then the trail switched back ending again, below where the upper trail had broken away. Tired but elated we thought we could hear the tiniest trickle of water dropping over rocks, just as Armijo had years ago. We knew we were close but we still had a house size block of lava to get over.
Corey again led the way. Doing a classic chimney technique he worked his way to the top of the rock where he found an old galvanized pipe that had been driven into a crack in the rock. Tying a rope to the pipe offered easy access for the rest of the party. Walking across the block of rock at a forty degree slope into oblivion we made our way across, then we easily dropped down into a small island of land, and there trickling over the solid rock was a tiny stream of water, only inches wide, that flowed under and through a pile of rocks disappearing from view again through the rocks.
We refreshed ourselves with the water then began a serious examination of our surroundings. Looking into the stream we could not find a trace of gold as it had been long ago picked clean by Armijo. We followed it only a short distance where it disappeared into the side of the rocks just like Armijo had said it would.
The work then began. The three men cleared the brush away from the rocks in search of a cave while I explored the rest of the island discovering only a pile of rusted cans that Armijo had left behind on his trips to the cave. Suddenly Corey yelled, “We found it.”
The timbers were still there, wedged in a rather small opening. Again, they were so old that they looked unnatural, but after we examined them the wood appeared worked as if with a human hand, but now there were only rotting fragments of wood. Again, the possibility of a rattlesnake came to mind, but they knew that rattlesnakes would only be found at the entrance; once we got into the cave they would cease to be a problem.
We entered the cave after taking out flashlights from of one of the small backpacks we were carrying. Immediately the cave split with the tiny stream coming from one direction and a dry floor going another. We knew the wet cave didn’t allow a passage so we began our exploration of the much larger dry cave. Again, we explored only a short distance when we found ourselves balancing on the brink of a deep hole in the floor. With the flashlights we could see that we were standing on a thin edge of rock overlooking a deep pit with a large pile of rocks in the center of a large room under us.
That is when Hidalgo spotted the petroglyph on the wall of the cave far below them. Much like the petroglyph they discovered on the rim, this one was also very different from the thousands of other Indian markings found all over the southwest. It was of a much finer workmanship, more Mayan than Anasazi looking, but definitely American Indian, with a classical descending rattlesnake meandering down in wavy lines past the hummingbird. The rattlesnake stair steps were usually understood to be the route to a river or water, the hummingbird in Mayan mythology was thought to represent warriors. Without sunlight to fade the colors there were still vibrant red colors in the grooves that formed the glyph. Dr. Douglas and Hidalgo studied it in detail trying to decipher its meaning.
Up till now, he had not said much but now Dr. Douglas began taking. “I have seen many examples of lava caves; they are fairly common in volcanic areas such as this. They are formed by liquid magma, cooling on the outside yet still flowing on the inside forming gigantic hollow tubes of rock making a labyrinth of passageways into the once molten and fluid rock. I wonder whether the original cave entrance caved in, blocking the once obvious route. Or perhaps it was caved in and hidden like many ancient mines during the Pueblo revolt. One thing is for sure, there has to be a route to the floor down there.”
Corey said, “Well we certainly can just repel down.”
Dr. Douglas answered with, “Yeah but is there another way?”
Everyone began searching for a route that had obviously been covered up, probably the last time by Armijo. They began to move many manageable stones. It was a dangerous job, easy to crush one’s fingers or drop one on a toe and if one removed the wrong rock the massive stones might come down on you.
But after removing several oddly shield shaped and very thin sections of rock they found what appeared to be a tiny slit in the wall just big enough to allow a small person to pass. After some work we all managed to squeeze through and entered a long narrow passageway shaped like a crescent moon, always curving over to the right at the top, but more importantly, dropping downward. Immediately the walls opened wide enough to allow passage with a cumbersome bent over stoop to match the shape of the passageway. It was an extra shell, a sister lava tube that slowly curved to the right just like the main cave, somewhat like the turn of a giant seashell.
The Volcanic Cavern
Dr. Douglas stopped in his tracks, “Look at this,” he said, and he pointed down to the floor. The floor of the cave had a perfectly level path. Brushing away the sand they discovered the floor had a delicately inlaid rock footpath, not unlike the walls in ruins found throughout the Anasazi world, but laid flat. They were mystified, as to where the bright yellow sandstone came from, contrasting so much with the much darker gray and black volcanic rock that was everywhere else. Anasazi and Chacoan in appearance, the trail disappeared under sand and out of the lamps light, but it returned within only a few steps.
In a few minutes we found themselves slipping past one last tight squeeze and looking back at the light filtering down from the entrance. They were at the bottom of the large room where the petroglyph was on the wall. Again the petroglyph appeared to be machine cut. We walked back and examined it closer while looking for other exits from the room. In the center of the room was a large pile of rocks that had caved off the ceiling and it took only a short time to decide that the only logical way to go was to return the way they had come.
After maybe a quarter of a mile the roof apparently collapsed into the outer cave, but someone had chiseled a passage through the rock. We then came to an entryway of a familiar pattern, the ‘T’ doorway seen in many southwestern Indian ruins. We had to lean over, exposing the back of the head, like an oriental exposing the back of the neck, to allow passage into the inner caverns. But after just a few yards of uncomfortable walking, the trail stair stepped down to a much larger volcanic cavern.
There, we found ourselves slowly wandering down a long lava tube on an obvious trail. Even the tiniest bits of rock had been removed in the footpath, making it perfectly smooth, but after a while the trail came to an abrupt end, with a shear drop appearing in the floor. The cave had been fractured after its creation. A vertical crack in the floor dropped and descended as far as they could see. Across the void in the floor the floor of the cave continued for a short distance, but was littered with rocks, unused and obviously not traveled. On both sides of the pit were two circular cuts in the rock, where long ago a wooden beam, now gone, supported something. Possibly it had been a large pulley, a block and tackle, or just a place to tie a rope. Someone had gone to a lot of trouble, but the obvious questions kept popping up in everyone’s minds. Where would the wood come from, and how did they get it past the narrow parts of the trail? Were there other ways into this place?
We sat perplexed as to what to do. The only way down was into a steep narrow chasm. Hidalgo dropped small pebbles down the precipice, but the sounds were foreign, far off, as if not really striking bottom. We would have to return again to this place; in fact we might have to return many times to safely get to the bottom.
I then said, “Hey you guys look at this.” On the wall was the name Armijo, crudely scratched into the rock. This may have been as far as he had got and it was as far as we would get until they came back better prepared. It was time to return to the camp.
The Vertical Drop
It took us two hours to return to the rim where they found Juan Armijo under the cedar tree sound asleep in an aluminum lawn chair he had brought in the back of his old blue truck. Ev
eryone shared the news with him which brought about looks of astonishment followed by contentment. He had wondered all his life about his uncle and just what it was he had discovered and what had eventually happened to him, although the general consensus was that he had died in the fire that consumed his shack. He was particularly interested in the name that Penny had discovered scratched into the volcanic rock.
That evening we traveled back to Chimayo with Juan Armijo with them to find a two inch pipe that they could wedge into the chasm opening so we could repel down the crack. It would be hard work, and then there was the problem of getting back up the deep crack when they were through exploring. We found ourselves having to drive all the way into Santa Fe to find extra rope and while there bought all manner of foodstuffs which we put into coolers to keep cold. We arrived back at the camp after 11:00 pm and immediately went to sleep.
Early the next day after a breakfast that included fresh cantaloupes and milk for our cereal we loaded all our ropes, caving gear, and a lunch into backpacks and started back down the trail. Two hours later we had arrived again at the opening to the cave. The outside temperature was already in the nineties making every motion an effort, but as soon we stepped inside the cave the air was cool, and very tolerable. After retracing our steps through the crescent shaped corridor and finally into the long tunnel we arrived back at the pit. This is the point that most people would turn around. It was not a place for anyone with acrophobia or claustrophobia. The drop appeared to be straight down. Corey and Hidalgo set the pipe into the grooves that someone had provided for them and attached the ropes. After considerable preparation Corey eased himself over the ledge that covered the pit and after dropping down only a couple of feet he immediately discovered perfectly cut, hand and foot holes carved into the hard volcanic rock. They all felt a little foolish for not discovering them before.
The Family at Serpiente Page 25
