fall 11 / 24:3 - Grand Canyon River Guides

The Ancient Ones Of Grand CanyonFine, powder dust. My running shoes land likeimploding meteors with each footstep, sinkingan inch into confection-sugar earth. A millionyears of desiccated desert, blown in by the randomdust-devil through the subway tunnel-sized caveopening.Poof. Poof.We breathe hard, not from the dizzying speedclimbup through the Redwall Limestone verticality,hearts and spirits leaning towards this. No, we’reyoung and fit. Heroes in our world of guiding.“Bronzed River Gods”, as they say: half naked in shortsand torn t-shirts, floppy sunhats, mirrored sunglassesand runners. Daypacks half-full: a liter water bottle,headlamp, high-carb snacks, a band aid. Nothing else.Nothing else is necessary. If we peel, we die. Twistour ankle, we wait for our pards to jog back for help,or limping slowly, cling to each razor-sharp handholdand stumble down in the dark. Or not. Like in a firefightor class five rapid—your comrade will absolutelyhave your back. It is, however, dumber than snot to killyourself whilst also failing miserably to save your pard,like in those bad news clips. You’re on your own in thefinal assessment to get your ass there and back again.Or not.What do we seek? What indeed. Might as well askthe meaning of reality. Well, we’re going to the mountaincave, for real.Hans told me not to tell, all those years ago. Notanyone. Secret.Promise.But he told me. Probably others as well?I promise.And Wesley. He’s going to die young. Wants it, infact. A wounded spirit, killing himself with liquor tobe crouching back through the jungles of Vietnam,sensing the tripwires for comrades who no longerneed that. I cannot give this man much, he who givesall, like a Shaman demanding nothing but your acceptanceof his mischief and understanding for hisfailures. I try not to enable, but like most, cannot helpit. Tripwires.So, I cannot help but show him this. The “AncientOnes” left the “split twiggers” here in this chilly darknessfive thousand years ago. Shrine? Probably. Magic.Definitely. They didn’t like caves, it is said. Scary. Wherethe dreadful flying mice hang upside-down. Dark.Wesley says of these things: “They’re trying to showyou something. Trying to give it to you. Take it. It’s ok.”He hangs with the local natives, smokes their pipes,sweats, sings. Nothing pretentious. He just needs thatcamaraderie. The deeper kind he had back there. Whyhe’s with us, as well.Along with us there’s this other river guide. One Itrust less. We work together, have shared whitewaterand whiskey and adventure. I cannot show Wesley andnot show her. You just don’t do that. So I exact a promiseI myself have already broken: do not share this.Especially with a mutual friend who couldn’t keepa secret in his child-like, irrepressible soul if his life dependedon it. One who moved a basket once to keep itfrom being “collected” by Park archeologists, promptlyforgetting where he put it. (I told him there were toomany rocks in this land of rocks.) He accused me ofstealing it myself, then found it again, then gave it upfor the dead museum up there on the swarming SouthRim. What else did he give up?Don’t tell anyone, I pleaded. Especially that one.Made her promise, spine tingling, sensing a wrongstroke. Into the rocks.I do not have many regrets in my life. Life is tooshort, too full, too demanding. Like Crystal Rapids Isuppose, you shouldn’t make a move that you will laterregret mightily. We all do it, though. Fragile, just likeour crafts.We three feel the power, here and now. My heartthumps my chest, though I’ve been here before. Noone speaks. I’ve been there, before, too. Thunderingriver in the desert oasis amidst sand and rock. Cliffsblazing in the hot desert sun, everything ashimmer.Food. Life. What can you possibly say?Split-twig figurines. You take a willow stem, riverfedand green and pliable as only youth can be. Tear itright up the middle, but not the whole way, like beingborn. Then weave life into it, forming a sheep, a deer.Food. Life. Maybe stick a sliver of jasper or obsidianthrough its heart like a spear. Will the hunt bringmeat? Will my children survive another winter? Myclan? Will I?Where to leave it? Out there in the sun, most likelygone in a few years at best, eaten by mice for the saltor dried and blown like an old man’s bones. Under arock? Hard to find in such a land of rocks. Constellationsof them, forever shifting with the wind andwater. Kinda like us boatmen.No wind. Sacred silence. Most fear to tread here,page 24grand canyon river guides