The Sirens of Oak Creek
Page 38
The first three or four miles were easy, and I stepped along in the company of dozens of tourists. Tall pines lining vertical cliffs engulfed us, and a determined breeze whispered through their needles.
Three-and-a-half miles in my fellow tourists stopped to stare at the long, flooded section ahead, then turned back to the parking lot.
I waited until I was alone, then took off my boots and waded into the water. Luckily, the monsoon had passed, and not much precipitation had come down since then. At the deepest point, the water didn’t go above my knees.
Back in Santa Fe, I kept in shape through yoga and hiking, but I was fifty-nine now, and deep down I feared this expedition might be slightly beyond my capabilities. My nervousness kept me walking though, and before long I passed through the long tunnel—only a little water there—and eventually reached the confluence of the West Fork and Itzel Canyon.
The way up that canyon was surprisingly easy, like someone had prepared it for me, sweeping everything out of my way. And I found no obstructions in the chute that lead to the canyon, either. I wondered if anyone had stumbled upon it over the years—it seemed easy enough to find.
I paused before ascending, to catch my breath and calm my nerves, and then I once more climbed the chute into the box canyon.
It was as if time stood still in the quiet canyon. The crumbling ruin in the corner was still surrounded by old Sinaguan pots, and the fire ring still held its ash. Propped on a rock, the old Spanish helmet faced the chute—its top covered in bird droppings.
In the cave, water continued to drip randomly. DeNiza’s gear was where I had left it piled in the small recess three decades ago, and the ground was still crisscrossed with his archaeological guide strings.
I tried not to look at the dark tunnel, and instead focused on the mound with the offerings. It was growing dusky outside as the late afternoon sun cast the box canyon in shadow, and I noticed three lichen-covered basalt manos and the metate all glowing at me.
I half-expected to hear my mother’s voice in the cave, but I didn’t. On the mound, behind the bowls of colored powder, I saw the old photo of my mother and Saan. I picked it up and stared through the gloom at the image.
After a moment I sighed and set it back down.
I dug into the mound and immediately came across the bundle of leather. I opened it and looked at the white stone. While I gazed at it, the years flowed around me, and I might have lingered longer had not a foul stench of decay floated toward me out of the tunnel.
Quickly, I stuffed the stone in my daypack and backed out of the cave. And then, with only one fearful glance over my shoulder, I crossed the box canyon and scurried down the chute.
I hurried along the trail. It was growing dark, and even though I carried a flashlight, I didn’t look forward to the long walk back alone.
But now that I was out of the box canyon, the fear was leaving me. I felt safe as I walked along, as if the narrow canyon and lofty pines I walked through supported my endeavor.
As if my mother were alongside me. Protecting me.
Before I even reached the flooded tunnel, I was immersed in darkness, but when I stepped out on the other side I was greeted by a brilliant hunter’s moon.
It escorted me all the way back to my car, where a ravenous hunger overtook me, and only now did I remember that I had a sandwich with me.
It was an unexpected pleasure. I’d anticipated a simple meat and cheese sandwich, but the sweet taste of caramelized onions and peppadew jam, topped with a bite of horseradish, jolted my mouth awake.
“Way to go, Garlands,” I said, licking my lips.
I drove a mile up the road and pulled over north of Cave Springs campground. I settled the white stone snugly in the bottom of my daypack, shouldered it, and began walking upstream. Only as I approached the quiet lagoon did the moon wink goodbye and disappear over the western rim of Oak Creek Canyon.
I sat on the flat rock in the lagoon, my naked feet dangling in the creek. The moon was gone, the night dark. I felt alone. I was exhausted, and my limbs shook. A sadness came over me.
It was so dark you could get lost in it, and I imagined all sorts of things moving in the shadows. I could barely make out the stone pillar with the spiral petroglyph behind me, but at its base, several lichen-covered pieces of basalt glowed softly.
I began to sob as I remembered my mother’s song, and my mission to explain it.
It was a quest that had failed. I had failed. I had found a hidden box canyon, which may have been the one my mother found all those years ago. Or it may have just been a canyon with a dark secret. I never found a direct connection between the cave and her.
And although DeNiza and I did uncover a sinister treasure, it wasn’t what I’d been looking for. Even now, after years of marriage, and bills, and occasional hard times, I never once thought of returning for the treasure. When I went back for the stone, I never considered going through the tunnel again.
It was dark as ink, and there was a chill in the air. I took the white stone out of my pack and held it in my lap. The water was cold and whispered as it ran swiftly among the reeds that lined the shore. I stripped down naked and slid into the lagoon, taking the white stone with me.
I sank under, and in the murky gloom I could see little. It seemed I dove down far deeper than should have been possible. Soon I reached the bottom of the large flat-topped stone I’d been sitting on and felt that under it was an open space.
It glowed slightly, just enough to see by, and I took the stone and placed it as far under the rock as I could reach. I lingered by it for just a moment before ascending.
Back on the flat rock, I lay down and caught my breath. I was shaking from adrenaline as much as from the cold. I dried myself with a sarong and then got dressed again, leaving my shoes off.
I rolled onto my side, intending to only rest a moment, but sleep quickly stole me away. And I lay there unmoving. Not cold. Not scared. Just sleeping like the dead until a soft dream sprang up.
And in this dream, I listened to my mother’s song, and her love washed over me like a warm summer breeze.
I woke with the sun streaming down on my face and found in daylight, the place was a bit of a letdown. In the bright light of day, the lagoon didn’t seem as big, or as ancient. The water still trickled by melodically, and in the first hours after the sunrise the sky was pink, birds twittered about, and small critters scurried in the brush—but it was different.
Well-worn paths suggested it now saw a lot of traffic.
I hoped it was possibly the onslaught of fall that I sensed.
A large tree must have died, leaving a gaping hole in the canopy, for sunlight streamed directly on to the flat rock I sat on. I remembered this rock had once been covered with moss, but in the harsh sunlight the moss was unable to survive.
The patinated rock with the spiral petroglyph had also been sun-bleached, and the moss that had once grown on the rock´s bottom had died and was falling away.
I remembered the new state campground that now flanked the lagoon, and knew before long tourists would be showing up.
I moved to the edge of the flat rock and let my feet hang in the water again. With the moss now gone, I noticed several round depressions in the rock where long ago, people must have ground food or medicine. My fingers traced their outlines.
A heron swooped down on the other side of the lagoon and watched me.
I heard a few shouts from the camping area as people began to stir. I sat silently, feeling I was closer to the mystery, but still shy of an answer. Having heard the song recently—in my dream—the loss of it hurt me even more.
When the sun rose higher, I looked at the spiral petroglyph again. And then below it I noticed two partially obscured pictographs. They must have been hidden under the moss all these years.
I stood and hopped from rock to rock until I was crouching before the pillar. Gently, I rubbed at what was left of the moss covering the ancient designs, and it crumbled to my touch
.
Underneath it, a circular image was revealed. It had been cut through the middle by a crack in the rock. On one side of the crack, a bear print appeared with what looked like a bear claw necklace suspended above it, on the other side, a woman in childbirth squatted over several lines that seemed to represent water.
I knew deep in my gut that somehow this was connected to the story of the cave in the box canyon. But how?
I gazed at the three stones lying at the base of the pillar and remembered how they had glowed the night before—just like the basalt manos by the metate on the mound.
In the vision I’d had under the influence of the Aztec mushrooms, I’d seen women grinding them, harvesting the lichen—a lichen I now knew was a strong hallucinogen.
I glanced at the depressions on the flat rock in the lagoon. I stared at the three basalt stones. “You were brought here,” I said.
I picked up one of the stones and carried it back to the flat rock. I knelt down and ground the stone into the depression. When I lifted it again, a smattering of orange powder covered the indentation.
I wet my finger, touched the powder, and stuck it in my mouth.
And then I sat and faced the water, letting my feet soak, wiggling my toes. And after a few timeless moments, my perception began to alter.
Suddenly, the trees seemed to expand and grow, as did the clearing. Suddenly, the place felt ancient again, and with a shocking shift, I sensed the trees and plants were all watching me.
It was just as when I’d heard my mother’s song, all those years ago in the sinkhole.
My breath quickened as I glanced around me. I closed my eyes and time seemed to stretch and I slid to my side.
I sat up groggily when I heard several tourists chatting. I glanced around and noted there were at least a dozen people here, some taking in the quiet glade, others hiking through. By the base of a large sycamore, a young couple in their late teens was having a picnic, and an older girl of around twenty was setting up a slack line across the creek.
Closer to me, an older couple with a young daughter were skipping rocks across the lagoon. The dad looked about fifty, with a white streak in his hair—probably, I thought, from stressing out at some east coast job. And the wife, pretty, early forties, smiled as she took in the peaceful setting.
Their young girl was engaged in a cartwheel contest along the shore, counting off each one. “Forty-four, forty-five…”
The dad said, “I’d really like to hike that West Fork trail today.”
The mom shrugged, “Well, don’t forget my treatment at Uptown Massage at three-thirty.”
The girl crumbled to the ground. “Forty-six!”
Soon the parents drifted downstream, slowly following the shore. But their daughter, a girl of nine or ten, was now hopping along the rocks in the creek, and with a quick glance to her parents jumped to my rock and sat next to me.
“Hi,” she said, not shy at all.
I smiled back, and the brightness in her eyes reminded me of myself when I was young. In fact, she was about the same age as I’d been when my mother took me to the sinkhole and let me hear the song.
And I let my mind linger on that memory, remembering my mother and how she sang for me that night. Her song swept over me, and as the trees around me watched and waited, I steadied my nerves, and then I began to sing.
The young girl looked at me strangely, and then she began staring at the trees around us. My heart skipped a beat as I realized my song was making her see the forest differently—just as I had when my mother sang it.
We smiled at each other and continued to gawk at the sycamores and cottonwoods swaying around us. They were sentient, ancient and peaceful.
As I sang I felt loved, and like I was sharing love.
I looked down at the young child and thought, “I could teach this—I could share it.”
A rush ran through me as I thought of how differently people might treat each other if everyone could look at life through this perspective. It could change the world.
And then the young girl’s parents called for her, and came closer again, and as they heard my song, they also began to look around, peering closely at the ferns and shrubs along the creek. They too were suddenly looking at life differently.
The young couple having a picnic held hands, and each placed their free hand on the trunk of an old sycamore. The young man glanced at me, and then whispered to his girlfriend, and she nodded back.
Further downstream, the young woman on the slackline had paused in a graceful split over the water—suspended in a stillness that even the great heron would admire. She appeared to hold her pose effortlessly as she swayed with the wind and the murmuring creek.
I wondered if placing the white stone under the rock had changed things. Whether it was because of the location, or the melody—or maybe the orange powder that had my mind tingling—I didn’t know, but I knew it was my mother’s song, and I was singing it.
And the people around me were feeling it.
I didn’t know what the lady was doing on the rock. It looked like a nice spot, and when my parents moved along the creek, I snuck out beside her.
She looked like an Indian, although I didn’t know, having never met one before. But I liked how she smiled at me.
And when she began to sing the whole forest woke up. I’d never seen anything like it. The tall trees, the flowers, and even the moss-covered rocks seemed aware of me now.
And I was aware of them.
A yellow butterfly drifted by my face, caressing me with its wings. In the water, I spied trout looking up at me too.
And as her song washed over me, I felt overflowing with happiness and joy.
I stuck my feet in the water next to her, and then I also began to sing.
Postscript
2020
(November)
Ruins revealed by Arizona's Slide fire tell story of early settlers, and now a greater mystery. November 21, 2020.
The 2014 Slide fire burned 21,000 acres between Flagstaff and Sedona, opening an unobstructed door to remote corners of the world's largest Ponderosa pine forest. The blaze also uncovered the ruins of a cabin at least a century old.
Local historians speculate the cabin might have belonged to an early settler, named Bear Howard. Howard had built a cabin at the front of the 13-mile long West Fork, so it seems likely that he would have built a cabin at the other end. The remnants of this cabin were sparse, with only the corner of one wall still standing.
Subsequent archaeological work at the site has unearthed the remains of a wooden bucket, buried under the cabin, that contained a small hoard of gold coins and a Mayan dagger. To complicate the mystery, the coins are highly radioactive.
Resident geologist Jeff Goebel noted that the gravel surrounding the coins in the bucket was local, and next month the forest service will begin an extensive survey of the area. “With a little luck, we might just find a mine, or cave, where these incredible items came from.”
Pioneer Lineage
Jesse Jefferson “Bear” Howard (1817-1921) & Nancy Cline (1839-61)
Their children:
1856 – Jesse Jackson Howard
1858 – Martha “Mattie” Howard
Stephen Purtymun (1855-1929) & Mattie Howard (1858-1947)
Their children:
1876 – Emory Purtymun
1879 – Jess Purtymun
1881 – Albert Purtymun
John James Thompson (1842-17)
& Margaret James Thompson (1864-1936)
Their children (eventually they had 10):
1881 – Frank Thompson
1884 – Margaret “Lizzie” Thompson
Abraham James (1823-82) & Elizabeth James (1828-1900)
Their children:
1847 – Louisa
1849 – William
1851 – Augustus
1854 – Mary Jane
1861 – James
1864 – Margaret
1868 – David
<
br /> Sirens
Kayah (age 40) – Sinaguan – 800 A.D.
** Her name means: Elder Sister.
Totsi (age 10) – Sinaguan – 800 A.D.
** Her name means: Moccasin.
Cocheta (age 16) – Apache – 1395
** Her name means: The Unknown.
Imala (age 18) – Apache – 1521
** Her name means: The Enforcer.
Kamala (age 20) – Apache – 1705
** We don’t know her name.
Margaret Thompson (age 15) – Pioneer – 1876.
Martha Howard (age 27) – Pioneer – 1885.
** Nickname: Mattie.
Amber (age 28 & 59) – Apache/white/Hopi – 1987 & 2019.
** Nickname: Am Bear.
Little Girl (age 10) – A new generation learns the song.
A note from Martin Gray
Millennia before the development of organized religions, humans sought insights regarding the mysteries of life through a variety of shamanic methods. These methods included the ritual use of specific places (caves, springs, forest groves), mind-altering plant substances (cannabis, psilocybin, amanita), and music (rhythmic drumming and chanting). Each of these practices - particularly when used together - produced heightened states of spiritual awareness, precognitive visions, miraculous healings, and the revelatory perception of the natural world as being remarkably conscious.
Certain individuals, whether through innate capacities or because of long training, possessed the ability to function as shamans, guides or healers for other people. A primary way this shamanic ability was exercised was through ceremonial chanting, singing and drumming, wherein participants, the pilgrims, were guided into a hypnotic state in which the shaman’s insights and healing powers were conveyed to and upon them.