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Bisbee,
Arizona news, reviews, art, events, history, business and entertainment
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From the editor
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Early in May 1947, my father took delivery of a brand new car, a Studebaker Champion...after a 16 month waiting period. Dad said we could break in "The Champ" by taking a trip to Tuba City, Arizona to visit his friend Conrad, who taught school there. "This sky-blue automobile is as fast as the wind," I thought, as we cruised the paved road from Gallup to Flagstaff. We spent the night at Flagstaff and rose early the next morning to tackle the dirt road from Flag to Tuba City. We skirted the San Francisco Mountains just as the sun flashed a smile on the white face of Humphrey's Peak. Even the low mountains were still wearing their winter coats out in the snow...it was May, but it was cold! We crossed the old wooden bridge over the red waters of the Little Colorado. It seemed I could almost see Tuba Butte far off ahead of us. Dad was telling me about the dinosaur tracks that had been discovered nearby. We missed the turnoff to Tuba City and were headed off towards a place the Navajos call The Gap. Dad was quick to notice we were almost on top of Tuba Butte. We turned around and headed south. Then left (east) onto the road to Tuba City. Tuba City is another one of those Western towns named by someone who couldn't (or wouldn't) learn how to pronounce the name of the local Chief. The Hopi Chief's name was Tsuvi. This was corrupted to tuba. Mormons built the original town on top of a spring...there were about forty of them within a ten mile radius of the town. There are no tubas in Tuba City and it certainly isn't a city...but there was hot chocolate at the trading post! At Tuba City we found out that my father's friend had been called to Kayenta. Seems someone had taken sick and since Conrad was the low man on the teachers totem pole, he became the traveling teacher. Dad said: "let's run up to Kayenta and surprise Conrad. It's not too far...three, maybe four hours...if the weather holds." We arrived at Kayenta just in time to help the trader, Mr. Colville, light the kerosene lamps scattered throughout the trading post. He threw down some beautiful Navajo blankets just behind the wooden counter that ran the full length of the store. He said sleeping on three or four of these blankets was better than sleeping outside on a soft rock. Then Mr. Colville, brought out four large bowls of steaming hot mutton stew laced with red chile salsa. I was so hungry it seemed I inhaled mine! Dad, Conrad and Mr. Colville were catching up on the news. I slipped outside to visit with Conrad's students, who were gathered on the wooden porch in front of the trading post. I had played grade school basketball against two of the boys, Pete and Sam. The other three mumbled their hello's from somewhere deep in their throats and looked off across the porch to their horses tied at the rail. They had been talking about a special place on the Navajo Reservation. A place where just a handful of white men have ever been...a place they called the Turquoise Shrine. Sam said: "If we can get some ropes, we can get to the top of the mountain and see what's inside." A tall boy, John, said: "Yeah, and we can slip from the ropes and break our butts at the base of the mountain." Sam laughed at these words and said: "I forgot that your arms are like little sticks...you're right, you'll probably fall off this porch and break them. Anyway, I want to go to the mountain tomorrow with Tin Man. He's supposed to go for a load of wood in the big truck. We can sneak on and hide under the tarp. When he gets close to the shrine, we'll jump off and spend the day there. Tin Man has to return on the same road, so we can jump back on the truck and ride home with our treasures." Pete's shining, smiling, black eyes told me he agreed with this plan. I wanted to go, but I had not been invited. Then I thought of something....If I could offer them some ropes for their climb, maybe they would take me along! When I mentioned ropes to Sam, he agreed to include me in their plans. Pete and the other boys gasped! They knew that the shrine was sacred and, more importantly, a secret place. Right there on that porch, I solemnly swore that I would never reveal the location of the Turquoise Shrine. The other boys backed off our plan, but Pete, Sam and I agreed to meet at sunrise the next morning. I ran inside and asked my father if I could help my friends gather piñon wood tomorrow. When I said the Tin Man was to be the truck driver, Conrad said: "Tin Man is our local junk dealer and wood-gatherer; he's a good man and he's strict with the boys. Let David go with them." (See how easy it is to get one's Self into trouble?) "Dad, can I borrow some ropes from Mr. Colville? Sam said we need ropes to tie the wood down on the truck." Mr. Colville said there were plenty of ropes out in the tack room and I could certainly take some. That night, I crawled between those beautiful new Navajo wool blankets and discovered that sunrise never hurries for those who wait. We three stowaways peeked out from under the tarp as the old Ford stake truck chugged its way up the place called Big Hill. Tin Man shifted down into a compound fracture of a gear and we bailed out. I had two long ropes slung over my shoulder. A coil caught on a broken board on the bed of the truck. I landed flat on my back in the middle of the road. The coil of rope around my shoulder began to tighten. I leapt to my feet and ran along behind the truck. I managed to free the loop, save my arm and fall flat on my face in the blink of an eye! We set off for the shrine on a run. The sun was 3 inches out of the earth's belly. It seemed to me we ran for an hour, but thinking back and remembering my promise made so many years ago, maybe we ran for an hour, maybe three, over there. When we arrived at the base of the mountain, I looked up towards the top. It was way up there, mixing in with the sky. I figured it was at least five hundred feet, straight up the red sandstone sides. Sam was running around the base of the mountain, looking for small pieces of turquoise. He let out a whoop and came running up with a small statue. A black rock shaped like a little bear cub. Pete and I decided we would circle the mountain. I guess I'll never know whose God it was that told me to take the ropes with me. Around on the north side of the rock, there was an 8 inch wide cold weather fracture running all the way to the top of the mountain. Pete and I examined the crack in the sandstone. Way back in the shadows of the crack, maybe 5 inches in, there were small footholds in the rock, on both sides, 18 inches apart. Someone had carved them into the rock with hard stone axes, I figured. They were not visible from a distance. Without saying a word, Pete began climbing up the rock, using those ancient foot and hand holds. I threw down the ropes and started up behind Pete. Six or seven feet off the ground I stopped and looked back down at the ropes. Something forced me to jump off the side of the rock and land right in the center of the coiled ropes. I selected the longest rope and tied one end around my waist, taking advantage of some Boy Scout training to tie a bowline knot. (Indians never joined the Boy Scouts, they already were both!) I recoiled the rope and threw it over my right shoulder and under my left arm, leaving my hands and arms free for the climb up to the top. Pete was a third of the way up the mountain. He stopped and rested until I caught up with him. Then he went on and I used his resting spot for myself. I ate a lot of fine sandstone powder that his boots were kicking out of the climbing holes. It took quite a while, but we finally made it to the top. We sat on the rim of the mountain, looking out across the countryside. It felt like we were at the top of the world! I looked way down into the middle of a saucer-shaped inverted cone. There was a hole in the middle of the saucer and water was boiling up from the middle of the hole, foaming and frothing. There was about an 8 inch broken lip around the edge of this hole. This lip held hundreds of small pieces of turquoise, red coral and black jet. The lip, where it was not broken off, kept the treasure from falling back into the hole in the rock. The water rose and fell, as if the rock was breathing. Some water gushed up over the lip, tossing some loose turquoise up nearly to our feet. We looked out over the countryside. Way off in the distance, we saw some smoke. Pete spotted the Tin Man's truck....miles away. Sunlight was flashing off the back window, throwing warning signals to two very tired, silly boys. Down below us, we could hear Sam, using some pretty salty Navajo language. He thought we were playing hide and seek with him. Pete held on to my hand and reached down to get some turquoise beads to throw at Sam. He let go of my hand and grabbed my leg. There! He could scoot down just far enough to grab some rock to throw. He pulled himself up to the rim and let go with a handful of thousand-year-old beadwork. Sam was peppered with antiquity! I laughed...then stopped. There was a voice in the wind...a voice that said "Since the crack in the rock extends clear up and into the saucer, uncoil your rope and make a big knot in the end of it. Then wedge that knot into the crack in the rock. No, stupid, not here in the saucer...lean way down and wedge it into the crack outside the saucer, say, maybe a foot down." I wedged this knot into the crack down on the outer side of the mountain.
Pete and I both heard and felt a rumble...the whole mountain was moving! We looked down at the hole in the rock just in time to see a spout of white water gush out and nearly fill the saucer we were sitting in. Pete reached down to grab a handful of pretty rocks and began sliding down towards the black hole in the center of the rock. He grabbed my ankle and tried to pull himself up. The leather soles of his boots just didn't want to offer him a bit of traction on the wet sandstone. He began to slip backwards...pulling me with him! I felt my grip on the upper rim begin to slip...we began sliding towards the hole in the middle of the rock...the hole that probably went right down into the center of the earth! Help! As my hands slipped from the upper rim all I could think of was the safety rope I had rigged. Would it hold both of us? Or, would the figure-eight knot just rip right out of the crack in the rock and leave us to fall into the center of the shrine? I never found out because I slid right down on top of Pete, who had hung up some 15 feet below me on the lower rim of the shrine. Pete still had a death grip on my ankle! The water slid down the inside of the saucer-shaped mountain and dropped back into the hole with a roar. We were both crying and absolutely scared to death! I remember seeing just hundreds of brightly colored turquoise and coral beads rolling by us, back into the hole in the center of the rock. There were hundreds more that caught in the same raised ridge that had blocked Pete's fall. I looked up to the upper ridge and saw our rope hanging over the outer edge of the upper rim. What if the knot had worked loose from the crack in the rock? I asked Pete to let go of my ankle and move to one side. He did, slowly pulling himself to a standing position beside me. We rested there for a few minutes. We could hear the roar of the water as it dropped back down inside the mountain. We both began yelling "Sam" as loudly as we could. But Sam was 500 feet below us and probably couldn't even hear our cries for help. I began taking in slack on the long rope....slowly. The last large loop slid over the upper rim and all of that slack fell back down to us. The knot held...for now. I slowly began to put some pressure on the rope....I pulled as hard as my two little arms could pull...and the knot held! "Pete, I'm going to try to walk up the rim, using the safety rope. When I get to the top, I'll untie the rope and throw it back down for you. You tie it around your waist and see if you can pull yourself to the top." I carefully stood up, using the rope to help pull me into a standing position. Then I took a cautious first step. Then a second. I no longer had the rim for protection. It was me and the rope. Slowly, I pulled myself up. Eight steps and I reached the upper rim. I sat down, shaking with fear. I was too tired to look over the edge. I could hear Sam's faint calls...from somewhere far below us. Below us! This reminded me that we would have to climb back down off this mountain! I untied the rope from around my waist and let it drop down for Pete. I remember trying to tell Pete how to tie a bowline, but he was to frightened to understand and I was too scared to give him intelligent instructions. "Just wrap the rope around your waist three or four times, then tie a knot in it. Now, start rope-walking up here." He walked and pulled himself up and in a couple of minutes, he was sitting beside me. We both were crying and we were very tired. I looked over the rim, down towards the ground. I yelled at Sam...I could see him looking up at us... He was yelling at us, but I couldn't understand him. Pete and I rested on that rim for at least an hour. After a half hour or so, we stopped shaking. Our clothes began to dry in the warm sunlight. We made plans to climb back down off the mountain. I thought about using the rope again for a safety line, but remembered that it was far too short to use. I coiled the rope and put it over my shoulder. We began our descent off the top of the Turquoise Shrine. There were three places where we could stop and rest...places wide enough to lean into the crack in the rock and take a breather. I went first. After a hundred or so steps, I came to the resting spot. Pete called down from above: "Are you O.K.?" "Tired" was my one word response. I rested for some time and started down to the second resting spot, while Pete began climbing down to the spot I had just occupied. About halfway down towards the second resting spot, I could hear Sam yelling at us from below: "There's turquoise all over the ground," he cried. I reached the second rest spot and looked down at Sam. He was still quite far away. "Hurry up and get down here and help me gather all this rock," he yelled. I could see him running around, picking up the small pieces of beadwork. I looked up at Pete. He had reached the first rest stop and seemed to be o.k. Twenty minutes later, both of us were standing at the base of the Turquoise Shrine. Sam was right...there were little beads strewn all over the ground. But neither Pete or I wanted to pick them up. Sam came running up to thank us for throwing down all those beads. Pete and I were trying to explain that we hadn't thrown them down, but Sam was having none of that. He laughed and said: "Sure, I suppose the Gods threw them down here." Sam kept running around picking up the tiny beads. Pete and I just sat and watched him. "Sam," I said, "When we get back with all these beads, everyone's going to know we weren't helping the Tin Man load the truck with wood from his winter stockpile. They'll know we were here at the shrine. How can we explain ourselves?" Sam didn't want to admit it, but he knew I was right. We finally decided to take just a few beads for each of us. We began walking back towards the road. Maybe a mile away from the Shrine, we came upon a spring. Around the edges of the spring were more pieces of beadwork. It never dawned on me that the spring here and the one inside the mountain were probably connected. We arrived at the roadside and hid in the gully where Tin Man would have to change gears to pull the truck up the other side. We could tell by the tire tracks that he hadn't passed yet. We heard his old truck chugging along the road. When he dropped down into the arroyo, we were waiting to jump on the back of the truck and hide under the canvas covering the wood. When we arrived back at the trading post, we were met by Conrad and my father. Dad asked the Tin Man if he wanted some help unloading the wood. Dad also thanked the Tin Man for taking me and the boys along with him. The Tin Man looked at us...a little wisp of a smile crossed his face. He turned to my father and said: "That's O.K. They were a big help to me. They said they would unload half the wood here and I'll take the rest down to our village." We three boys unloaded the wood and stacked it against the wall of the trading post near the door by the stove. "Do you think he saw us?" whispered Sam. That night, as we drove back towards Flagstaff, I was awakened from my nap in the back seat of the car just in time to hear the radio announcer tell about a minor earthquake that had been felt up in Northern Arizona on the Navajo Reservation. I wondered...was that what caused the Shrine to do what it did, or were the Keepers of the Shrine mad at Sam, Pete and Me? Later that same year, in November, we, the three treasure hunters, met at a basketball tournament in Gallup. We huddled just off center court for a few moments before the tip-off. Each of us was worried that we had somehow shown disrespect to the Turquoise Shrine. Turns out that I emptied my pockets on the way down, at the first rest stop. Pete had left his few beads at the base of the Shrine and Sam left his at the spring. The Game? We lost... © 2003, Arizona Cactus
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