The Turquoise Ledge (18 page)

O
n my walk this early October morning, two horsemen startled me. I didn't realize I walked in such a deep meditative state as I was down the trail to the big arroyo. I really had trouble coming back down to Earth. “Oh you startled me!” I said. Horses are so large I should have heard them or seen them sooner than I did. The riders seemed a little intoxicated by the power the horses gave them. I was reminded of a phrase in my new novella: the Spaniards in the New World had “the advantages of gunpowder, horses and dogs.” I was glad I carried my ultralight five shot .38 revolver that day.

Encounters with wild beings aren't nearly as jarring probably because I am watching for the wild creatures but not expecting humans, like the two horsemen.

Later I met up with them in the hikers' parking lot; I'd managed to walk the same distance in the same amount of time as the horses.

I often think of Geronimo and his ragged band of women and children in their final years of resisting the U.S. troops. Five thousand of them had pursued forty or fifty Apaches, mostly women and children. The troops rode horses, while the Apaches traveled on foot. In the steep rocky terrain the horses were ineffective; they went lame and slowed the troops; if the Apaches got a horse they promptly butchered it and dried the meat. Travel on foot was the fastest way over the steep rocky trails of Sonora and Chihuahua.

Another turquoise rock washed out of the dirt in the back yard. The off-white limestone is about two inches by one half inch with odd deposits of turquoise in the moon-shaped indentations. “The end is broken off creating”—my notes are incomplete; I wonder if I can find this rock and complete the sentence. I turn to my collection of turquoise rocks. No labels, no plastic containers. Just handfuls of turquoise pebbles and rock fragments mixed with dust and paper clips on my desktop. Nothing.

Then to the other tables that I've covered with turquoise rocks; and from the description I wrote, I only had to pick up one other piece of rock before I spied the correct one. It is almost arrowhead-shaped with the point broken off. The off-white limestone appears pockmarked and in the tear-drop indentations in the limestone small spots of turquoise in calcite and metal salts are attached.

So I would end the unfinished sentence like this: “a resemblance to a broken arrow tip.” The white limestone also has turquoise on the other side in a sort of cheesy-crust texture but with no eye-catchers like the pockmarks or moon craters with turquoise spots.

The turquoise is quite hard to scratch with a fingernail and is not chalky. My note continues: “The limestone is some of the whitest I've found to contain turquoise.” Again comes the question—did it occur in the layers of whitish caliche on this hilltop or was it found elsewhere and brought up here by humans? Like the old trade beads I used to find in the back yard, like the other pieces of turquoise I had found in planters and clay pots and around the house while my broken foot healed.

 

On my walk this morning in the big arroyo I was thinking how delicious the cool air was, slightly moist; how when the time comes, I wanted my ashes scattered there and just at that instant I glanced down and there was a small turquoise stone.

 

On the past three walks, I've found no turquoise—pebbles or rocks. This points out how infrequent and how wonderful the discoveries of turquoise stones really are.

On the days I find no turquoise I appreciate how rare the stones are. Could they finally run out, be as exhausted and finite as other minerals have become? The next time I find a turquoise stone it will be in the big arroyo, probably in a place I've passed many times.

A speck of turquoise the size of a rice grain caught my eye; it was the only turquoise on a rock the size of a cantaloupe. I picked up the rock for a closer look at the speck of blue stone then I returned the rock to its resting place in its imprint in the sand.

I stopped to scrutinize the provocative shadows on the high mountain slopes of dark basalt in the shifting light; they might be caves or shafts of lost mines. In the shifting light of the desert, the wonder is that somehow it was visible at that moment but not at another.

The trail changes. Somehow the angles and the earth soften despite the dryness. Horses ridden in the big arroyo churn and crush the stones in the sand and free the turquoise nuggets. Otherwise the weight of the horses breaks the crust of the deep arroyo sand and requires far more effort for me to walk there.

 

My son Caz and I were digging a grave for our old black dog Dolly this late November day when I spied a piece of dark green malachite. It was the only pebble in four or five shovelfuls of dirt. The stone was the size and shape of a dove's heart. Dolly's farewell to me. The ghost dogs came to her for three nights while she was dying, and on the fourth night they took her home. We dug the grave just outside her beloved yard. She's not here anymore, but she's not far away.

The malachite stone is so smooth and polished; it seems out of place in the caliche. I couldn't miss the connection with Dolly because the stone is so far from the arroyo. The green is a sable green, dark but touched with red iron oxide just under the surface as Dolly herself was pure black but with a sable undertone. That was to make it clear the heart came from her, a gift to let me know she is safe and free now with the other ghost dogs, and every night she sleeps in her yard.

Spirits inhabit the same spaces, only they fit into dust motes so we can't see them and we think they aren't there, but of course they are, just in a different sort of space, not gone or destroyed.

 

For the past weeks that I did not work on the mural of Turquoise Man, I didn't find any turquoise rocks on my walks. Then the morning after I worked on the mural of Turquoise Man with special attention to many small turquoise cabochons on his bracelets and necklace, I found a fine oval nugget of turquoise chalcedony with a bit of iron, nestled in the sand between the arroyo rocks by the path in plain view—again was the turquoise nugget lying there all these weeks and I didn't see it or did it arrive overnight?

It all depends on how the light shines off the sand and the rocks in the arroyo, I decided. During the time of no turquoise I did see turquoise—a big rock which I left in the arroyo with five tiny turquoise bits the size of grains of sand—proof my eyes did detect even small bits of turquoise during that time.

I found a hand tool of gray basalt that fits in my palm with a groove pecked out—what for? A cradle where pebbles could be rolled and shaped into beads? A stone to shape arrow shafts? Maybe a stone to crush and mix paint—all traces of the mineral paint long ago washed away.

Yesterday I left on my walk later than usual, in the early afternoon. For the past two days clouds had filled the sky; they moved too high and too fast for rain, but kept the Sun covered and increased the humidity. I thought it was the afternoon light that made all the gray blue rocks appear more intensely blue but this morning I noticed that the turquoise rocks on my writing table absorbed the moisture from the clouds and their blue color intensified.

The turquoise only forms because water interacts with the calcite and the copper and aluminum. Raw turquoise and chrysocolla never stop absorbing moisture. The heavier, harder chrysocolla-impregnated chalcedony does not absorb moisture so dramatically.

I found a nice cabochon of turquoise today just after I realized that Turquoise Man and the mosaic turquoise mask at the British Museum are one and the same. I found another cabochon—malachite green, red iron and yellow with the small blue stone dotting the top of the malachite. I found a rough stony turquoise rock with a lovely mountain scene in all shades of blue green—lichen green mountain slopes, and a sunset sky of pale orange limestone.

 

As I age, I appreciate how the old women in my family felt about their run-down houses: let it stay with its leaks and holes until I'm gone and then they may tear it down. Years ago my friend Mei-Mei told me about an old man who owned thirty-five acres in the middle of downtown Scottsdale, most of it planted in grapefruit trees. In the winter he sold the grapefruit in front of his driveway. The roof in his big old hacienda style house leaked terribly, so he bought rolls of clear plastic sheeting at the lumber store and nailed drapes of plastic across the ceiling over his bed.

 

“8:30 Coyote” shows up twice a day, usually twelve hours apart, to tease the big dogs. The mastiffs bark madly but the coyote saunters to the water pan; Coyote has a lovely tail, wide and full, glossy and thick, though it is only of average size or even a bit smaller. A yearling female perhaps, but such a nice coat—usually yearlings struggle their first year.

In the big arroyo near a natural stone step that makes a sort of cradle for the finest sand I found a tiny nugget of turquoise that stood out in the grayish white wash sand. In its journey down the big arroyo, the mother rock that bore the turquoise nugget got worn away or crushed down into pieces and finally the last piece of mother stone broke away and the tiny but solid nugget of turquoise continued the journey alone, polished by the fine sand in the rushing water.

The turquoise diggings near Cerillos, New Mexico are called Mount Chalchihuitl. “Chalchihuitl” is the Nahua word for jade. Chalchihuitl supplied most of the turquoise used in the famous Mixtec and Nahua turquoise mosaics.

This turquoise may explain the huge pueblo located just west of the diggings, on the flat grassy plateau not far from Santa Fe. With eighty kivas and eighty plazas, this pueblo's size is comparable to Aztec and Maya cities. Turquoise financed the great pueblo that lies undisturbed under the sand.

The mine at Chalchihuitl did not require earth-moving machines or destruction to obtain the turquoise. The ancient people used to pour water into the rock that held the turquoise and overnight the water would freeze and shatter the rock holding the turquoise. People picked it up from the ground. The ledge at Chalchihuitl still yields turquoise after nearly a thousand years.

Such a large pre-Columbian city near Santa Fe helps solidify the Nahua claim to the four corner states of Arizona, New Mexico, Utah and Colorado. A barrio in Santa Fe is named Tlalacan—supposedly for the Tlalacans who came with the Spaniards. But suppose there were Tlalacans already in the Santa Fe area long before the Spaniards because of the turquoise trade?

Here where the turquoise exposes itself, and can be found on the surface, the small bits don't matter because the mosaic makers must break the turquoise into small pieces anyway.

When I was a child, people at Laguna and people in the Spanish-speaking villages nearby used to paint the doors and window frames of their houses bright turquoise blue to keep away witches. The Spanish-speaking people used to save the bright blue stamps that sealed the Bull Durham tobacco bags, and whenever they had headaches they wore the bright blue stamps on their foreheads to stop the pain.

T
he steep slope of the basalt ridge below the old Thunderbird Mine shaft showed me an amazing bobcat years ago as I rode my horse, but also the Gila monster, and only recently the maroon red horned lizard. Why might I notice more wonderful beings here than other spots?

Maybe the steep slope slowed the horses I rode and I had time to observe my surroundings more closely; now when I walk, the slope slows me down so it is possible to see more of what is alive in the world.

On the hillside, some distance from the big arroyo, near the ant palace, I found a piece of turquoise rock. Does this mean there is a turquoise ledge up here somewhere too?

It's mid-November and the bees are back. The wild Sonoran honeybees migrate with the hummingbirds. The bees' return coincided with the return of my long-time friend, the male white-eared hummingbird. During the hot weather months, the bees and hummingbirds migrate to the mountains. At least a dozen varieties of hummingbirds may be seen at Ramsey Canyon in the mountains near Sierra Vista in the summer months. Now that the weather here has cooled off, they are back.

The wild bees also flock to my garden of flowerpots under the big mesquite tree next to my front porch. The bees are hungry and thirsty; they frantically swarm over the hummingbird feeders. Wherever there is shade and water a great many desert creatures come to find comfort so I'm careful to keep the ceramic water pots away from the paths because they attract rattlesnakes.

The bees and I have known one another for a long time. We first met when I used to have water hyacinths in the rainwater pool. I never harm them intentionally and they never sting me intentionally though of course accidents occur from time to time, but we harbor no hard feelings.

I wasn't thinking of the wild bees when I filled the pots with water. I was thinking of the rattlesnakes that look for water; I hoped the rattlers would water out in the yard, and not at the dogs' water bucket next to the front door. The bees came and began to swarm around the water bowls. The bees were unfamiliar with the water bowls and a great many fell into the water and buzzed like speed boats on the surface until they reached the side or drowned. I rescued them with twigs and leaves.

The black plastic lotus tub I keep for my old pit bull to cool herself in exerts a magnetic attraction and many bees drown. I look at the other bees for their reactions to the plights of their fellow workers. They seem unconcerned about the bees in trouble in the water. The drowning bees pile on top of one another to create a staircase out of the bodies of their comrades. I saved bees only to watch them fly and land in the water again, but others seem to learn caution and to be tentative at water's edge. The commotion warns the other bees to be careful.

Later I hung out the hummingbird feeders so now the wild bees know me best as the one who brings sugar water. The wild bees vie with the woodpeckers and hummingbirds for a turn at the sugar water.

The wild bees sometimes fly in front of my face, intently but without hostility; recently I read that animal intelligence researchers had determined that domesticated bees learn to recognize the faces of those who bring them sugar water. Now I feel no apprehension when the bees fly near my face because I know they are only trying to identify me.

In Chiapas, Mexico the wild honeybees are docile and at ease around people. In the market in San Cristobol de las Casas the bees landed and crawled over the trays of creamy sugar candies and the candy sellers made no move to shoo them until a customer bought a piece of candy.

Around the world recently the keepers of domestic bees report empty hives. No dead bees are found, yet they are gone. After these reports, I worried the wild bees here might also disappear, so I began to pay more attention to them.

First came the sound. A faint hum that rapidly became louder. I knew what to look for: a great swarm of bees because once before I'd heard the sound and saw a great swarm of bumblebees flying very fast. I estimated their speed at forty or fifty miles per hour. This morning the swarm was honey bees, only half the size of the bumblebees but they flew even faster. Both swarms of bees I saw flew from north to south.

Around the time of the first rains in April, the wild bees stopped visiting the hummingbird feeders; I hoped they were merely harvesting the mesquite and catsclaw in bloom then.

After rain the hummingbirds and even the Gila woodpeckers quit drinking the sugar water I offer because the desert pollens and tiny insects hatched by the rain are far more tasty and nutritious than sugar water.

 

This morning the sunlight caught a piece of glass near the place the javelina have their celebrations after the rain, not far from the Gila Monster Mine. I picked up the glass and it was a five inch clear piece sharp as a dagger. I carried it in my pocket for a while but later lost it in the big arroyo. I found a wonderful nearly round malachite blue stone the size of a quail's egg.

According to Nahua tradition, there are four Tlaloc or Lords of the Rain who control the precipitation. The Tlaloc reside on mountaintops and in caves. They brew rain or hail and snow in great vats on the mountaintops at night. The Tlaloc also reside in Tlalocan, the Watery Flowery Heaven where only a few are on the list to join them there: warriors, women who died in childbirth, people with stunted growth, the handicapped, those with leprosy or dropsy or gout and those who drowned or were struck by lightning went to Tlalocan. It was said that those who hoarded turquoise died by lightning or drowning. I wonder if I'm hoarding turquoise by keeping the stones and pebbles I find on my walks? I prefer to think that writing about the stones is a way to share the turquoise.

On my walk early this morning the air was so invigorating and the desert plants so lush, and the green blue light so beautiful with the sun behind the mountain that I made up a song as I walked down the long steep hill below the Thunderbird Mine:

 

beauty beauty

beauty beauty

beauty beauty

as I go oooooooh.

Heyah! Heyah Heyah Heyah ah ah!

 

I can spot the grains of turquoise on a rock the size of a bread loaf even when there's only one or two grains the size of a particle of sand. I picked up the rock to look then I replaced it so it would continue to make grains of turquoise.

 

I'd been cleaning the parrot patio and had left the front gate unlocked because I intended to do some more sweeping and removal of debris. I knew the gate was unlocked when I let the two blue and gold macaws loose in the patio enclosure with the caged cockatoos, but the macaws had not opened it for months because I kept it chained and locked. I thought they'd given up testing the gate. I looped the chain through the gate loosely.

When Bill and I returned from town with groceries around three-thirty p.m. the macaws had worked loose the chain and the patio gate was open. Brittney was clinging to the gate but her long-time companion, Rudy Scruffy, was gone.

I ran around the house and checked all the trees in the yards for the macaw, but no luck. The sun had already dropped behind the foothills west of the house.

First I walked north and east to the vacant property suddenly abandoned this last spring. I walked toward the tallest trees in the area because macaw keepers will tell you the macaws fly to the highest point when they escape.

The lost macaw is turquoise blue and bright yellow. I walked around the empty house and called the macaw's name. A heavy silence pervaded the place. The house belonged to ghosts. It is too old and too small. The new buyers will demolish it. I checked the tall mesquites and palo verdes near the house but saw no macaw. I began to walk rapidly back up the hill to the house.

I checked on Brittney, the remaining blue and gold macaw. She wasn't eating because she was upset her companion was gone. I saw a dead dove in the macaw cage and surmised that after the macaws opened the outer gate to the aviary, wild doves went inside to eat the scattered seed and the old pit bull trapped a dove in the macaw cage and killed it. The ruckus of the dog after the dove would have caused the macaws to screech so loudly the dog would have had to retreat, in the process dropping the dove.

I almost didn't dispose of the dead dove because the sun was down and it would be dark before long. I regretted so much my carelessness with the chain and lock on the gate. I felt sorry for the lone bird; I didn't want to leave the dead dove in the cage overnight.

I removed it and thought about tossing it down the hillside just outside the yard where scavengers would find it. But I didn't want to attract scavengers near the house at night because that would cause the dogs to bark and howl in the middle of the night. So I took the dead dove down the hill to the area a little north of the corrals and I left it for the hungry scavengers.

I don't know why I had the impulse to continue walking past the corrals into the palo verde. A better use of my time would have been to go back into the house and begin to make lost parrot posters to hang in the neighborhood. The sun was behind the mountains now and everything was in heavy shadow. I didn't think she'd gone down below the house but I searched there anyway. I found nothing near the water trough or on the roofs of the outbuildings. I walked farther behind the west side of the old corral into the palo verde trees toward the fence and hikers' parking lot although I didn't think she'd be there.

Then straight ahead of me on a lower branch of a big palo verde tree I saw her. It was as if the macaw brought me directly to her. All these months of training my peripheral, unfocused vision to note turquoise in all its shades had helped me spot the lost turquoise and yellow macaw despite the approaching darkness. She had chosen a palo verde tree and a low branch so the hawks and owls could not see her, but I might. She had remained close to the parking lot for the hikers where the cars and human activity would keep the predators away until night fell. She was very anxious to climb onto my arm and held on firmly. She did not try to fly away even when Bill drove up the driveway behind us.