The Turquoise Ledge (11 page)

L
ate June now, and the heat penetrates the highest reaches of the atmosphere, burning away the gases and chemical pollutants above the city. As the heat expands the air molecules they are thinner and less buoyant, no longer able to carry the particles of dust. The heat boils the sky to a deep blue. No traces of clouds, only the deepening blue as the air becomes crystal clear. The angle of the Sun causes the light to have the luminescence of a blue flame. The Sun is seated in the north corner of Time.

The dry heat of the desert is sensuous. There is a perfect exchange between the dry air and the human body's moisture so there is no end or beginning of skin or air.

The endless afternoons of dry heat return—110 in the shade. The last of the yellow blossoms shrivel under the palo verde where the dry petals stir in a swirl of wind.

The tortoise leans his face against the gravel and mud of the arroyo's east bank. He is in his niche and he doesn't want to be seen. He felt the shock waves of the horses' hooves long before we arrived.

 

Here the seasons are rain and no rain. In a drought the desert is in perpetual autumn when things come to the end of growth and what was once alive turns yellow and then more pale.

When the temperature exceeds one hundred twelve degrees Fahrenheit, the air smells of wood and bark just before they burst into flame.

Twice since I came to this place, the ground here has caught fire. Oddly, both times this happened, the weather was cool. The first time it happened, I smelled what I thought were burning weeds. I searched for the source but could see nothing until I reached the old horse corral. There I was amazed to see many small threads of white smoke rising out of the bare, hard packed dry layers of dirt. A fire truck had to come spray the smoldering ground.

The second time, I looked out the living room window and saw curls of white smoke rising out of the bare dirt of the embankment on the west side of the house. I thought maybe a pack rat had carried a lit cigarette butt into its nest. But when we dug into the dirt of the embankment to stop the fire we found no rat nests—only smoldering pieces of scrap wood buried in the dirt. Apparently enzymes and organic compounds in the desert soil had a strange intense chemical reaction which caused the soil to ignite and burn the wood.

 

For the past two mornings a small rattler was coiled by the potted fig tree. Yesterday the little snake was on the shady side of the fig tree, but today it faced East. Not long after I came indoors I heard angry loud rattling that made the dogs bark. I went to see and there was nothing there to harass the snake, nothing to account for the little snake's furious rattling except for the Sun—the snake was rattling angrily at the Sun's heat that only got hotter and hotter as it rattled, until finally the snake fled into the drainpipe that goes underground.

I saved a small rattlesnake from the pit of the old cistern last year, but this time when I saw a small snake down there, I delayed because the weather wasn't hot yet, and I thought maybe the snake wanted to be there where little mice also live. Alas, when I went to check on the snake later, it was stretched out dead. In no time the hungry creatures of the desert happily consumed it.

 

It's July 6 and the wildfires in the Catalina Mountains have filled the entire valley with smoke. On the night of July 4, the flames came over the crest of the mountains and spread down toward the city, dwarfing the fireworks displays there. That was the night the rattlesnakes disappeared underground where six inches of dirt over your head will save you from wildfire.

 

Here are some of the practical measures people can take to safely live side by side with rattlesnakes in the Sonoran Desert. Look first before you reach into a flowerpot—they hold cool dampness and provide shady spaces for rattlesnakes to rest during the day. Always provide a water bowl far away from the dog's water bowl, far from the paths humans and pets take, and keep the water bowl full so the snakes never need to come close to your garden path or doorstep for water. Keep your pathways and walks open and well swept so you have a clear view at all times. Keep paths and steps well lit. Watch where you step—look behind yourself before you step backwards.

I have a sketch for a snake house for the garden made with five rectangular pieces of gray slate from south of Laguna, but any flat stones will do. This gives snakes shady sanctuary so they will feel secure. If you give the snakes a secluded cool area in the summer you will seldom see them elsewhere.

Over time the rattlesnakes will get to know you and your pets. They learn human and dog behavior and seem to understand the timing of our daily routines; they try to avoid encounters with us at all cost. A few times I've been very early or very late with my outdoor chores and I've surprised snakes that didn't expect me at that time of day.

The rattlesnakes that live in your garden or under your house will prevent unfamiliar rattlesnakes from moving too close until they learn how to get along with humans and dogs. Unfamiliar snakes are usually refugees from the real estate developers' bulldozers that scrape the desert bare and kill everything in their path. Understandably these uprooted snakes may be edgy, so back off and give them space; they will learn quickly that you mean no harm.

A
few months ago on a ridge near my house, a bulldozer destroyed the hives of the wild bees to clear a building site. The bees have lost their stores of food in the hive, and now they want me to feed them until their scouts locate a new site for their hive. Swarms of them crowded the hummingbird feeder near my porch so the hummingbirds couldn't get near. So I tried pouring sugar water into shallow saucers for the bees but a number of them had to be rescued from drowning. Then I tried a clean sponge in the sugar water, but the hummingbird feeder still works best to feed the bees.

It is mid-July now and the bees come for water and swarm above the bowls. The bees are attracted to sweat or wet clothing or wet hair, so I try to take care not to accidentally squeeze or crush them.

Bees understand kindness. They never try to sting me while I try to save one of them from drowning. I extend a leaf or twig and leave them to recover in a safe place. My dog Dolly eats the poor bees if I am not careful where I put them.

The wild bees know me after all these years. I remind them that I am a friend each year when they return. In the hardest part of the summer, the wild Sonora honeybees eat the green algae that grow around and on top of desert ponds. Years ago when I kept water hyacinths in the rainwater cistern pool, the wild bees ate the outer layer of the plants during the hottest and driest part of that summer. If you are lost and need water, follow the honeybees and they will take you to water or at least to damp earth.

For years the pack rats chewed on the 2×4 and 2×6 lumber in the kitchen floor and walls of this old ranch house. The pack rats found holes left by inept, careless remodelers and gnawed their way up through the floor into the kitchen cabinets, next to the electric range.

I patched the holes with squares of wood but the rats made short work of that; I even tried metal roof flashing but they chewed it like aluminum kitchen foil. Hardware cloth worked, so I was vigilant where I saw incursions by the rats. What I could not see, behind the electric range, was the wall with the opening down to the crawl space under my old ranch house.

 

Charlie was away a great deal of the time, and while he was gone, the pack rats gnawed through the old floor under the cabinets. Charlie offered to pay for the kitchen remodeling. No, I told him, I didn't want the disruption while I was working on the novel. I bought a stainless steel bread box to keep fresh fruit and other goodies safe from the rats.

The following winter the reddish-colored rattlesnake that lived under the house found its way through the holes and came hunting for rats in my kitchen. No one was home at the time so the snake went into the dining room and crawled under the red chaise longue. The snake waited until the house was dark and quiet and in the middle of the night it roamed around though it was always careful to return to its place under the chaise longue before daylight.

I sat on the chaise a time or two and thought I heard a faint rustle of sorts, but I wouldn't call it a “rattle.”

I left the mastiffs alone indoors in the middle of the day and the rattlesnake came out from the red chaise longue and got into an altercation with them. When I got back from town, the mastiffs were nursing minor snakebites, and the red rattlesnake was hiding under a shelf on the kitchen floor. I put the dogs outside and the red rattler came out from its hiding place, ready to return to its place under the red chaise longue, but I opened the side door and encouraged it to go outside where it could get under the ranch house for the winter, not under the chaise longue.

A couple of pack rats soon took over the front room too—they were able to get indoors because the pit bull needed the front door left open. The dog was a great rat killer back then and she became so excited and obsessed with reaching the rat hiding behind it that she nearly chewed off one entire corner of a big wooden bookcase. Finally to save the other bookcases and furnishings in the front room from the frenzy of the pit bull, my son Robert shot the rat with a .22 target pistol.

The pack rats nested in the big copier machine I used to print my Flood Plain Press books in the front room. They chewed off all the plastic coating on the electrical wiring. Later Charlie dismantled the dead copier and chopped it into six inch pieces for easy disposal.

The pack rats are intelligent beings and are held in great esteem by the Tohono O'Odom and other desert tribes who depended on the creatures in times of drought and famine. The people used to loot the rats' nests for seeds and dried fruit and roots and for the baby rats as well. I once trapped a large female pack rat that had great presence as if she were the Great Mother Pack Rat. Charlie wanted to kill her but I set her free.

I carried her down the hill to release her in the hikers' parking lot; she scampered away to a shady bush. A few moments later, as I walked back to the house, right at my gate I looked down and saw a perfect arrowhead of gray basalt, elegant and refined, made by the ancient ones. I knew it was a gift for sparing old Pack Rat's life.

The pack rats in the attic know how to spring the traps we set for them by using scraps of wood. The sprung traps gave me an appreciation for their cleverness.

I call the big female pack rat that lives in my front yard “Ratty” after the character in
The Wind in the Willows
. I never bother her big rat complex in the middle of the front yard because it would disturb the rattlesnakes that live under the aloes and greasewood with Ratty.

 

In late August I returned from a visit to my sister in Wyoming to find the large rattlesnake that lived under the feed shed had been killed earlier that day. A roadrunner or owl tore her into three pieces, but then was interrupted and abandoned the big snake's remains.

The big snake had lived under the shed for fifteen years or more; she did have the odd habit of climbing small bushes and trees which left her vulnerable to birds of prey. A few hours later I went out to bury her and the three pieces of her were gone, taken for a meal by some creature, maybe her killer or a passing scavenger.

 

I found a turquoise bead on the lawn chair in the front yard under the mesquite tree. I saw the turquoise bead as a gift, a sign of the loving presences or energies always nearby and helping me. Later I realized it came off a piece of art I had made many years before, a gourd doll with a turquoise bead around her neck which I hung in the mesquite tree. Still it was a wonderful occurrence that the single turquoise bead should fall at that time from the gourd doll onto the center of my chair.

 

All day and all night, a heavy silvery blue mist enveloped the jade green desert, along with a gentle hurricane rain, warm and blue through the early morning light.

B
efore I walked the hills, I rode over them on horseback. In the 1960s, the National Park Service ruled the Tucson Mountain mustangs were an “alien species” and a threat to the Saguaro National Park, despite the hundreds of years the wild horses had lived here. The park rangers managed to remove the stallion and most of the mares, but a few escaped.

By 1978 when I moved here, only three wild horses remained in the Tucson Mountains. They were nearly identical bay mares with white markings that covered their faces entirely and reminded me of clouds. They followed the same trails the deer and javelina used.

By the mid-1980s, there were only two wild mares left and they were showing age. After one died the other did not last long.

 

The Tucson Mountains are terribly rough going for horses but manageable for mules. In 1980 my quarter horse mare fell with me on the high steep trail near the top of Wasson Peak. I jumped off her as she fell but her hind hoof (steel shod of course) clipped me in the side of the head. Her hoof smashed into my straw cowboy hat which absorbed the blow and saved me.

As it was, I lost consciousness for an instant, and my head was bleeding. When I stood up, I saw the mare had fallen and rolled twenty feet down the mountainside and lay on her side, motionless. My heart sank. We were miles from help, miles from even a jeep trail. If the mare had broken her leg, she would have to lie for hours to suffer before we'd be able to do anything for her.

But when I reached her and examined her legs, I saw that except for one deep laceration, she had no broken bones. She was just frightened by the steep terrain and precarious footing, and felt safer lying flat on the ground. I reassured her she was o.k. and encouraged her to stand up. I walked her most of the way home, and by then she had recovered nicely while I had a pounding headache; so I rode the rest of the way.

Months later I returned to the site of the accident to retrieve my hat. I ended up keeping the hat for a long time. The stiffness of the straw made the blow glance off and probably saved my life or at least my brain. The whole side of the straw hat was caved in and there were bloodstains. I should have saved it forever but I threw it away in one of my rare house-cleaning frenzies.

Years later my good Arabian gelding Hudson Bay lost his footing on the Wasson Peak trail and began to fall. I jumped clear of him and watched in horror as he tumbled end over end. But he jumped up nimble as a cat without a scratch on him.

It's St. Patrick's Day, 2004. The saint drove all the snakes out of Ireland; for “snakes” read “the indigenous religions of the British Isles” which held the snake to be sacred. I have ancestors among the Scots in the Leslie clan. “From the dark rock tower” is one translation I have seen for the name “Leslie.”

While I was working on my novel
Gardens in the Dunes
, Bettina Munch, my German translator, gave me a book about the archeology of the “Old European” period, five thousand years ago, and the Paleolithic cultures of Macedonia, Hungary and Latvia. The Old Europeans left behind a number of ceramic and other archeological artifacts with snakes as the dominant figures. The Old Europeans regarded the serpent as a sacred Earth being. There is even a horned serpent figure on a ceramic bowl. Well into the twentieth century the rural people of Eastern Europe kept black snakes under their floors because they regarded them as family guardians as well as good luck charms.

 

The first snakes to come out from hibernation in the spring of 2005 were down by the old corrals—the big dark gray rattler that lives under the old saddle shed and the smaller lighter reddish snake that stays under the fallen saguaro behind the corrals. I wasn't expecting to see the reddish snake so I blurted out something as a greeting as I might to a person I met suddenly on the trail. The ugly sound of my human voice upset and frightened the reddish snake. The wild beings prefer silent communication with humans.

Around the middle of June I watched as the big reddish snake that lives under the house hugged the perimeter of the house to find its way from the west side of the ranch house. Tigger the old pit bull dog barked excitedly at the snake as it crossed the front yard. I called for her to come to me, and I brought her indoors. Meanwhile the snake then ran into the mastiffs on the east side of the house so I called them and all six came running. I locked them indoors with me to give the red rattlesnake time to move out of their area.

Snakes remember unpleasant encounters with humans and other predators and will try to avoid further encounters if at all possible.

Then I found a three and a half foot black masked rattler was inside Sandino and Bolee's aviary. The snake remained motionless until I turned my back to get the macaw feed, and then it was gone.

Later as I was watering the datura plants in the clay pots under the mesquite tree, I splashed a two and a half foot long brown diamondback that I hadn't noticed at rest in the shade under the tree. The snake moved away but didn't rattle because it is one of the regulars in the front yard.