The Secret Knowledge of Water: There Are Two Easy Ways to Die in the Desert: Thirst and Drowning

by Craig Childs

  I wanted the water on my body again, to clean the wounds rocks always leave in my flesh. Looking across, I decided there was not enough here. I needed to burrow into the desert floor. I climbed down, walked about eight miles to my truck, and drove three hundred miles north to the Arizona Strip. There a canyon called Kanab carves into a limestone aquifer where an unimaginable circus of water plays down into dark corridors. It was another relative of mine, a canyon I knew.

  I put on a pack and walked for eleven days into this hulking canyon. Water came out of the walls. It poured though soda-straw passageways. It filled deep holes in the backs of side canyons where the sun shines maybe a couple of times a year around the summer solstice, about three minutes each time. I got into these chilled, carved chambers, pools thirty feet deep where boulders stood through the surface like steeples of a drowned village, and I drank, I washed my skin, I doused my head and let water run down my back. A rich, dank breath ran the length of the canyon. It was the cool smell of life and water that got into my clothes and into the curling pages of my notes.

  There was no quiet in the canyon floor. The orchestral tumble of water never ceased. As I walked I lost track of the simplest sounds—scratching the back of my head, swallowing, breathing. I slept in the noise, fitting my sleeping bag onto ledges out of the flood zone, my dreams frenzied and undecipherable. The water poured down the canyon and each day I followed, drugged, taken over.

  All I can confirm from my walking in the desert is that water demands a simple economy of motion. If it cannot have this, if it is driven too quickly, left in a hole, or forced through the underground or through a canyon, it will imprint its surreptitious details into everything around, like shedding ballast to get free. In the desert, where it is provoked from every side, water can do nothing but shed. Its knowledge is left everywhere out here, in the fluctuating shapes of forests along the low desert creeks, and the crazy structural diversity among creatures in water holes, and the way boulders or bodies or trees pile up after a flood.

  I was now reveling in these shapes and disclosures, climbing through water's exposed plumbing, my eyes drenched. No wonder our civilization is draining the aquifers and sucking each creek dry. We reach the desert and we become driven by water. A story came from back near Los Chiches de Cabrillo, slightly to the south around the sand dunes of Algodones: people returned telling of a sixteenth-century sailing ship stranded in the open desert. It is an archetype of ours, our wish for there to be so much water in such a dry place that a ship has been left aground. The ship has been reported numerous times over the past hundred years, some sightings so specific as to be eerie, such as an 1891 report that the vessel appeared to be “about 80 feet in length, 18 feet breadth of beam, and of about 40 tons burden.” The tale ranges from the eastern California boundary of the Sonoran Desert to the backside of the Kofa Mountains in Arizona, sixty miles away. A Tohono O’odham story tells of a tribal member waiting for the wind to blow the sand away, exposing the ship so he could board it and haul off some of its cargo before the sands returned.

  Sonoran desert spires

  This is what becomes of our minds in the desert. Water consumes us. We find abandoned ships out there. The highest human-made water fountain in the world stands in a Phoenix subdivision in the Sonoran Desert, throwing a white, liquid torch 560 feet into the sky, as preposterous a sight as a grounded ship half-buried in sand dunes. We gather and stare because water is so strong here. Never have we seen it like this. The yearning of water shows through us, the same as it does in the architecture of canyons, and in rock art at water holes, and in the swollen lips of the dead scattered across Cabeza Prieta.

  My sharp longing is one of these confessions of water, embedded into me from my life here, and from the desert spring water given to me through my mother's blood. The secret knowledge of water is nothing but desire. It saturates everything in the desert.

  On the eleventh day, I started back for my truck, walking up the canyon floor. Where there had been running water, now there were only dry stones. The world had changed while I was mucking around in the deeper canyon. As I walked upstream of the final springs, the creek vanished entirely where I had ten days ago been climbing on the ledges to stay out of it, shaking my head to clear the sound. Why this had happened, I could not say. A fluctuation in runoff or pressure taken off springs—there was no way to tell. The clockwork of moving water had shifted by a notch. The canyon had gone dry.

  Without the splashing and the garble of deep holes, the place felt strangely vacant and unnerving. I had been abandoned. My footsteps through stranded cobbles sounded like dishes broken one by one in a monastery. As I reached the second mile of no water at the floor of Kanab, I sat to write about this phenomenon in my notebook. The pad molded perfectly to my knee with the memory of each time I wrote, worn hard on the edges. I wrote that it was a difficult silence to suddenly bear, like the space left when a diesel engine shuts down. The engine had been running for eleven days. The cogs and wheels ground to a halt. My breaths were guarded in this new quiet. As I sat on a boulder, pen scratching across paper, wind sounded from up-canyon. I kept writing and waited for the wind to reach me, to push my hair. When it did not arrive I looked up. There was no wind.

  The sound continued, occupying the canyon from wall to wall. It grew louder. Water, I thought. I tucked my notebook away, lifted my pack, and walked up-canyon toward the sound. I had no fear of a flood. The skies had been clear for my entire trek. I had no fear of the sound either, because I was assured it could not be water, even as I could hear the hiss and shout of voices, as if a crowd was marching toward me. I thought I was dealing with ghosts, was about to turn the corner on a circle of specters.

  As I came around, I saw water bearing down. A flood. Before thinking of safety, my mind flashed onto the maps, the lay of canyons and drainages, seeking where the source might be, where an errant storm might have landed to start a small flood. Or sudden snowmelt in the mountains of southern Utah. Or a rumor sent through underground springs. I found no reason. It was not too dangerous a level, but it was at least three times larger than the creek I had originally known. It rolled over itself, tossing rocks ahead, slapping against boulders, its front line well defined with foam and woody debris. I stood still.

  It was not moving quickly. Instead, it paused into plunge pools, filling them, spouting over the lips to the next pools down. Trapped in a confounded stare, I did not look for an escape route.

  A researcher once took cores from trees along this canyon to read flood history in their rings. What came out was a trend as clear and succinct as tidal patterns, as the regimented drips at a seep. The tree rings, scarred at each large flood back to 1471 A.D., showed that big floods in Kanab Canyon come in swarms. On a larger scale, in the thousands of years, they do the same. As proven through layers of ancient debris piles, floods came across the entire Southwest most often from 4,800 to 3,600 years ago, about 1,000 years ago, 500 years ago, and possibly now. Long, slow inhalations waited between, during which there were no sizable floods at all. Time has been offhandedly kept everywhere water strikes. Today's flood was the pulse where the hands of the clock snapped forward. Ten days of water rushing down every slot. On the eleventh day the upper canyon dried as if in a preparatory breath; then boom, the flood arrived. Time was again marked.

  Pebbles and rocks scratched in the lead of the flood, tumbling over one another. I crouched and dug my hand into the dry bed before me, watching the leap and dive of the approaching water. No moisture showed on my fingertips. The canyon filled with a rising sound. Eddies fell into place, currents taking over as soon as they touched rock, as if they belonged there, as if they knew exactly what they needed to do. There was no pause of indecision. The water knew right away. The creek, the flood, closed toward me. I had been studying water. I had read hundreds of scientific journal articles, taken innumerable pages of notes, produced papers, articles, treatises on the performance of water in the desert. It was all washed blank here. />
  Water bellowed as it neared. Complicated discussions and howls of craving. I did not step away from the flood, even as it smacked into the air ahead of me, driving down. Ever since I began my hunt for water, the scruff of my neck was grabbed and I was shoved face-first into water. The day I began my research into desert water, eight people died in a border flood, and a few days later a passenger train plunged into a flash flood. I stumbled into an empire of water holes one day. I found the route into the underworld through a waterfall. Even when I tried to rest, water came for me.

  The rocks before me were static and silent. They could not be interrupted, motionless as dead faces—gaunt cheekbones and foreheads aimed upward. Suddenly they flashed alert. Water crossed them, buried them, unfurling algebraic webs of currents. I crawled onto a turtle shell of a boulder as the water arrived, encircling me. The roar rose and consumed the air. A spray of foam and mud covered my boots. I just stood there, unable to move as the flood lifted, stranding me on the back of a boulder.

  BIBLIOGRAPHY

  Allen, J. R. L. “Flute Marks and Flow Separation.” Nature 219 (August 10, 1968), pp. 602-604.

  Allen, J. R. L. “Transverse Erosional Marks of Mud and Rock: Their Physical Basis and Geological Significance.” Sedimentary Geology 3, No. 4 ( May, 1971), pp. 167-385.

  Allen, J. R. L. Sedimentary Structures: Their Characteristics and Physical Basis, Volume II. Amsterdam: Elsevier Science Publishers, 1982.

  Anderson, S. A. and Sitar, N. “Analysis of Rainfall-induced Debris Flows.” Journal of Geotechnical Engineering 121, No. 7 (July, 1995), pp. 544-52.

  Bajkov, A. D. “Do Fish Fall From the Sky?” Science 109 (1949), p. 402.

  Batzer, D. P. “Aquatic Macroinvertebrate Response to Short-term Habitat Loss in Experimental Pools in Thailand.” Pan-Pacific Entemologist 71, No. 1 (1995), pp. 61-63.

  Belk, G. D. “Observations on the Clam Shrimps of Arizona.” Journal of the Arizona-Nevada Academy of Science 26, No. 2 (1992), pp. 132-38.

  Benson, M. A. “Factors Affecting the Occurrence of Floods in the Southwest.” Geological Survey Water-Supply Paper 1580-D. Washington D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1964.

  Blaustein, L. and Margalit, J. “Priority Effects in Temporary Pools: Nature and Outcome of Mosquito Larvae-toad Tadpole Interactions Depend on Order of Entrance.” Journal of Animal Ecology 65 (1996), pp. 77-84.

  Blaustein, L., Kolter, B. P., and Ward, D. “Direct and Indirect Effects of a Predatory Backswimmer (Notonecta maculata) on Community Structure of Desert Pools.” Ecological Entemology 20 (1995), pp. 311-18.

  Boileau, M. G. and Taylor, B. E. “Chance Events, Habitat Age, and the Genetic Structure of Pond Populations.” Archive of Hydrobiology 132, No. 2, (December, 1994), pp. 191-202.

  Bolton, H. E. Rim of Christendom: A Biography of Eusebio Francisco Kino, Pacific Coast Pioneer. New York: The Macmillan Company, 1936.

  Bolton, H. E. Kino's Historical Memoir of Pimería Alta: A Contemporary Account of the Beginnings of California, Sonora, and Arizona, by Father Eusebio Francisco Kino, S. J., Pioneer, Missionary, Explorer, Cartographer, and Ranchman, 1683-1711. Cleveland, OH: The Arthur H. Clark Company, 1919.

  Boulton, A. J. and Stanley, E. H. “Hyporheic Processes During Flooding and Drying in a Sonoran Desert Stream.” Archive of Hydrobiology 134 (July, 1995), pp. 27-52.

  Brown, B. T and Johnson, R. R. “The Distribution of Bedrock Depressions (Tinajas) as Sources of Surface Water in Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument, Arizona.” Journal of the Arizona-Nevada Academy of Science 18 (1983), pp. 61-68.

  Brown, L. R. and Carpelan, L. H. “Egg Hatching and Life History of a Fairy Shrimp Branchinecta mackini Dexter (Crustacea: Anostraca) in a Mohave Desert Playa (Rabbit Dry Lake).” Ecology 52, No. 1 (1971), pp. 41-54.

  Brown, L. R. Regulation of Egg Hatching of a Fairy Shrimp Branchinecta Mackini Dexter (Crustacea: Branchiopoda: Anostraca) in Astiatic Desert Ponds. Ph.D. Dissertation, University of California, Riverside, 1968.

  Broyles, B. “Desert Wildlife Water Developments: Questioning Use in the Southwest.” Wildlife Society Bulletin 23, No. 4 (1995), pp. 663-75.

  Bryan, K. “ Routes to Desert Watering Places in the Papago Country, Arizona.” Geological Survey Water-Supply Paper 490-D. Washington D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1922.

  Bryan, K. “The Papago Country, Arizona: A Geographic, Geologic, and Hydro-logic Reconnaissance with a Guide to Desert Watering Places.” Geological Survey Water-Supply Paper 499. Washington D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1925.

  Chew, J. Storms Above the Desert. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1987.

  Clegg, J. S. “Do Dried Cryptobiotes have a Metabolism?” In Anhydrobiosis, edited by J. H. Crowe and J. S. Clegg. Stroudsburg, PA: Dowden, Hutchison&Ross, 1973.

  Clegg, J. S. “Hydration-dependent Metabolic Transitions and the State of Cellular Water in Artemia Cysts.” In Dry Biological Systems, edited by J. H. Crowe and J. S. Clegg. New York: Academic Press, 1978.

  Clinton, S. M., Grimm, N. B., and Fisher, S. G. “Response of a Hyporheic Invertebrate Assemblage to Drying Disturbance in a Desert Stream.” Journal of the North American Benthological Society 15, No. 4 (1996), pp. 700-12.

  Coleman, S. E. and Melville, B. W “Initiation of Bed Forms on a Flat Sand Bed.” Journal of Hydraulic Engineering 122, No. 6 (June, 1996), pp. 301-10.

  Collins, J. P., Young, C, Howell, J., and Minckley, W L. “Impact of Flooding in a Sonoran Desert Stream, Including Elimination of an Endangered Fish Population (Poeciliopsis occidentalis, Poeciliidae).” The Southwestern Naturalist 26, No. 4 (November, 1981), pp. 415-23.

  Cooke, R. U. and Warren, A. Geomorphology in Deserts. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1973.

  Crawford, C. S. Biology of Desert Invertebrates. Berlin: Springer-Verlag, 1981.

  Crowe, J. H. and Crowe, M. C. “Preservation of Membranes in Anhydrobiotic Organisms: The Role of Trehalose.” Science 233 (February 17,1984), pp. 701-03.

  Crowe, J. H. and Madin, K. A. C. “Anhydrobiosis in Nematodes: Evaporative Water Loss and Survival.” Journal of Experimental Zoology 193 (1975), pp. 323-34.

  Crowe, J. H., Hoekstra, F A., and Crowe, L. M. “Anhydrobiosis.” Annual Review of Physiology 54 (1992), pp. 579-99.

  Crump, M. L. “Opportunistic Cannibalism by Amphibian Larvae in Temporary Aquatic Environments.” American Naturalist 121 (1983), pp. 281-87.

  Crump, M. L. “Effect of Habitat Drying on Developmental Time and Size at Metamorphosis in Hyla pseudopuma.” Copeia 3 (1989), pp. 794-97.

  De Walsche, C, Munuswamy, N, and Dumont, H. J. “Structural Differences Between the Cyst Walls of Streptocephalus dichotomus (Baird), S. torvicornis (Waga), and Thamnocephalus platyurus (Packard) (Crustacea: Anostraca), and a Comparison with Other Genera and Species.” Hydrobiologia 212 (1991), pp. 195-202.

  DeMarais, B. D. and Minckley, W L. “Genetics and Morphology of Yaqui Chub Gila purpurea, an Endangered Cyprinid Fish Subject to Recovery Efforts.” Biological Conservation 66 (1993), pp. 195-206.

  Dimentman, C. and Margalit, J. “Rainpools as Breeding and Dispersal Sites of Mosquitoes and other Aquatic Insects in the Central Negev Desert.” Journal of Arid Environments 4 (1981), pp. 123-29.

  Dodson, S. I. “Animal Assemblages in Temporary Desert Rock Pools: Aspects of the Ecology of Dasyhelea sublettei (Diptera: Ceratopogonidae).” Journal of the North American Benthological Society 6, No.1 (1987), pp. 65-71.

  Dove, F. H. Groundwater in the Navajo Sandstone : A Subset of “Simulation of the Effects of Coal-fired Power Developments in the Four Corners Region.” Ph.D. Dissertation, University of Arizona, 1973.

  Duckson, D. W. Jr., and Duckson, L. J. “Morphology of Bedrock Step Pool Systems.” Water Resources Bulletin 31, No. 1 (February,1995), pp. 43-51.

  Dudley, W. D. The Ecology of Temporary Waters. Portland, OR: Timber Press, 1987.

  Ebert, T. A. and Balko, M. L. “Temporary Pools as Islands in Space and in Time: The Biota of Vernal Pools in San Di
ego, Southern California, U. S. A.” Archive of Hydrobiology 110, No. 1 (July, 1987), pp. 101-23.

  Ely, L. L., Enzel, Y., Baker, V. R., and Cayan, D. R. “A 5000-Year Record of Extreme Floods and Climate Change in the Southwestern United States.” Science 262 (October 15, 1993), pp. 410-12.

  Evans, D. D. and Thames, J. L. Water in Desert Ecosystems. Stroudsburg, PA: Dowden, Hutchison&Ross, 1981.

  Fisher, S. G. and Minckley, W. L. “Chemical Characteristics of a Desert Stream in Flash Flood.” Journal of Arid Environments 1 (1978), pp. 25-33.

  Fisher, Stuart G. Hydrologic and Bimnologic Features of Quitobaquito Pond and Springs, Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument. Cooperative National Park Resource Studies Unit Technical Report, No. 22. Tucson: University of Arizona, 1989.

  Fry, L. L. and Mulla, M. S. “Effect of Drying Period and Soil Moisture on Egg Hatch of the Tadpole Shrimp (Notostraca: Triopsidae).” Journal of Economic Entomology 85, No. 1 (1992), pp. 65-69.

  Garrett, J. M. and Gellenbeck, D. J. “Basin Characteristics and Streamflow Statistics in Arizona as of 1989.” U.S. Geological Survey Water Resources Investigations Report 91-4041 (1989).

  Gerson, R. “Sediment Transport for Desert Watersheds in Erodible Materials.” Earth Surface Processes and Landforms 2 (1977), pp. 342-61.

  Glennon, R. J and Maddock, T., III. “In Search of Subflow: Arizona's Futile Effort to Separate Groundwater From Surface Water.” Arizona Law Review 36, No. 567 (1994), pp. 567-610.

  Godwin, H. “Evidence for Longevity of Seeds.” In Anhydrobiosis, edited by J. H. Crowe and J. S. Clegg. Stroudsburg, PA: Dowden, Hutchison&Ross, 1973.