Red Walls

The draw rose up on either side of him, his face, covered in dust, looked slowly at the red walls as they sloped upward. His mouth was dry, his lips cracked. Far above him, floating silently through the glare of the sun, a bird hung in the air. As he looks upwards he wipes his brow. His hand leaves behind a dirty smudge. His breath comes slow, he can feel his heart and lungs struggle to function in the heat of the midday sun. He closes his eyes and gulps at the air. The red walls around him tower; heat seems to emanate from them and from the dry floor of the canyon. 

The man stumbles forward, his feet catching on the dry scrub brush. Around him, spread across the narrow floor between the red walls, scrub and cactus grow throughout the red sand. The man’s eyes search ahead. Some two hundred feet from where he stands the walls of the canyon begin to narrow. From where he stands they seem to twist back and forth slowly until they end in a sharp westward turn, as he begins to walk on, the sun beating down on his back, the bird high above continues to float, waiting. 

“There is something evil about this heat,” Jack Connely thought to himself as he stumbled along the canyon floor. Something harsh and sharp. He felt it all around him, it seemed to seep into his pores, stifle his breath, leave him gasping for air. His head swam in the heat-waves. Every mirage stole more of his sanity. It hurt to look around him, it hurt to open his eyes, to keep them open. His could feel his lip bleeding again. His tongue felt heavy and dry in his mouth. Every step was a conscious effort now. 

A few minutes, or was it an eternity later, Jack found himself cramped between the walls of the canyon as they towered and bent above him, giving him some shade from the sun. He rested in a hollow beneath a massive boulder that had fallen from the cliff tops above him some eons ago. As he sat, his head hanging back against the ancient boulder behind him, his mind began to clear. Four days ago he had been in the hotel lobby, he could almost feel its airconditioning now, its breath soft and light. He could hear the rumble of the fans as they pumped life through the cast iron grates in his room. He fantasized about a cold water glass, the condensation felt good to his cracked fingers. He lifted the glass to his lips, the cold healing his bloodied lips and right as he knew the cold clear life giving liquid was going to splash into his open mouth, he shook awake into the heat.

The canyon was dark, below him on the floor he saw a narrow streak of sunlight. It lit the edge of his boots, now dusty red and brown from the sand of the canyon floor. He looked around him for the first time. How long he had been daydreaming he did not know, but when he had entered the small hollow in the side of the canyon the sun had been high in the sky, and now it hung low over the canyon walls. It's now orange light threatening to disappear over the lip of the canyon far back from where he had come. 

His breath came easier, he felt his chest raise and lower. As he opened his mouth to inhale, he felt his lips crack again, blood slimy on his lips, metallic salty. He tried to stand, his muscles ached. His legs seemed to shake, his shoulders hunched too tight to stretch. He crawled out of the hollow standing awkwardly he began hobbling like a man twice his age. He had walked only as far as the opposite wall, maybe ten feet when he suddenly felt dizzy. He reached out with one hand steadying himself.

The morning had been so promising. He had woken early, before the sun had risen and dressed quickly in his hotel room, He had pulled his loose fitting cargo pants on quickly, nearly tripping as he hopped on one foot towards the bathroom, that first piss of the day had always felt soo good, the pressure of the bladder slowly dissipated, the shiver up his spine. He had pulled his tshirt over his thick mass of brown hair as the toilet had finished flushing, its reservoir was still filling as he buttoned his overshirt, its long sleeves giving him protection from the sun. His bag had quickly been filled with his GPS, map, energy bars and first aid kit. His camelback bladder had been filled and slipped into the pouch behind the main cargo area of his backpack. Its tube slung over one shoulder. Almost as an afterthought he had filled an old aluminum canteen and slung it over his shoulder. He pulled,uselessly for it did little to control the mass of hair, a baseball cap down over his head. The walk from the hotel to his car had been a hot one, the sun had barely risen and yet he could feel the heat of the desert already. 

He felt the stone of the wall in front of him, the surface seemed almost cool to the touch. He shook his head, attempting to clear his mind. He began to travel farther down the canyon, his progress was slow. Along the ever narrowing floor of the canyon boulders sat in odd places, making his progress slower and slower. Soon he found himself climbing up and down piles of fallen rock.

The sun had long ago disappeared, the canyon was nearly pitch black. For a time he had considered resting, but decided against it. Better to press on during the coolness of the night. Soon there seemed to be an increase in light and looking up between the narrow gap of the canyon above him Jack saw the pocketed face of the moon, it’s grey yellow glow shined down on him without the heat of the sun.

His progress had been nearly stopped by the darkness of the canyon, but as more of the moon appeared above him Jack made better time. In fact the floor had begun to flatten and had turned to soft sand and dirt, the boulder piles now behind him he really began to make good time. The moon's last rays were just disappearing over the canyons wall when he heard a distant rumbling, soft it was and yet straining his ear he heard it again.

He had parked his jeep at the mouth of the canyon. It had been sweltering by then, the sweat had dripped off the end of his nose as he studied the walls of the canyons. Fremont indians had ranged these canyons long before Jack had been there, the signs of their life were spread across this country sometimes with implausible concentration. Their etched petroglyphs and colored pictographs showed images of their culture. Their pit houses were often found in canyons such as these, and their granaries could be found high above, protected from rain and foraging animals, nestled under the overhanging ledge of some high cliff face. 

He sipped water from the long tube leading to the bladder hanging on his back as he studied the cliff faces. The canyon had once again opened up revealing towering cliffs on either side. High above him, some hundred feet something caught his eye. In the shadow of an overhanging roof something unnatural could be seen. Lifting his binoculars he focused them on the cliff. Sure enough, a granary. It was made of stacked stones, perhaps ten to fifteen feet wide, six feet high. A large one and in remarkable shape. Jack quickly lowered his binoculars looking now along the base of the cliff below the granary. 

If there was a pit house it would be somewhere sheltered, perhaps on a small rise or near a water source. Jack cast his mind back to 1000ad, what would the canyon have looked like back then. The climate would have been cooler, the plant life would have been abundant, a creek would have been following this sandy bed he now walked in. What was now merely a dry path cleared from brush and rock by flash floods would have been a constantly flowing stream. He closed his eyes, imaging its bending path. Opening his eyes he studied the landscape. Below the cliff  was a dune of sand, brush and scrub grew abundantly. Farther up the canyon some two hundred yards the floor rose slowly. Instead of sand and brush large knobs of harder rock stood out, its sandstone weathered smooth. It would have been much more prominent back then, and the creek would have flowed around it leading towards the cliff face. He hiked towards the base of the rocky rise. Leaving the dry creek bed he studied the ground as he walked. He approached the base of the small hill studying the canyon wall for any sign of Fremont dwellings. Nothing.

Jack cursed under his breath, something had to be here, something. He drank again from his bladder, slowly passing the water over his tongue and down his throat. Looking around once more he walked away from the base of the canyon wall, studying the ground as he walked further up the small hill. The soft sand had given way to rockfall, scrub brush struggled to grow from the rocky ground. As he stepped over a larger boulder, using his hands for balance and placing one leg over the rock and stradling it he heard a crunch. Not brush or rock, but something else. He quickly spun his other leg over the boulder and looked at the ground. His foot had crushed what would have been the find of the summer. A medium pot, nearly perfect except for the side broken by his boot sat in the sand. He could see ancient corn kernels in the body of the pot. He cursed himself, maybe it was still worth something, maybe. He slung his bag off his back, careful to sit it on the boulder where he was sitting. Unzipping the main cargo area he removed a canvas bag and delicately placed the unbroken half of the pot into it. He wrapped it with care and placed it on the boulder next to his pack.

It was not until he had finished packing the piece of pottery that he noticed where he was sitting. Around him, starting from the boulder where he sat other similar size boulders. Their locations obviously circular. A pit house, or the remains of one. The brush inside the circle was partly hiding the ground but even from his position the shapes of pottery and other artifacts could easily be seen. Jack's breath caught. Reaching forward he pulled from the sandy floor one of the largest clay figurines he had ever seen. He was quite literally sitting in half a million dollars in Fremont artifacts. 

He quickly opened his pack, removing a digital device resembling a smart phone, only with a much larger antenna. He left the circle of rocks with some hesitation and walked farther from the canyon wall. He glanced at the screen of the device. There was no way he could get it all out today, but he had to be sure he could find his way back. 

The gps coordinates stood out sharply even in the blinding light of the midmorning sun. Jack saved their location with some difficulty as his hand was shaking. He had never heard of someone finding as much as this before. He was going to be rich. The buyers in Moab and Denver would go nuts for this stuff.

He walked back towards the circle of rocks and spent the next two hours choosing artifacts to take back as evidence of his discovery. He had filled his bag quickly and not even  third of the pottery had been taken. He had swung his pack on his back and had just slid over the top of the boulder heading towards the mouth of the canyon when he heard the distinct sound of an engine.

From where he stood, the canyon dipped down below back towards the floor of the valley from where he had come. He quickly pulled his binoculars out of his bag and swung them to his eyes. He found his jeep easily. He had parked it in the dry river bed of the valley floor. To anyone driving up the river it was as obvious as if he had left flashing neon arrows pointing towards it. Its bright cherry red color could be seen easily against the dull red brown of the rock and sand.

    For the second time he cursed. 

The sound of the engine was constant now, and before long the white and green of a ranger’s truck was seen driving slowly down the river bed. It approached the jeep slowly, Jack could see the ranger talking into his radio. The ranger stopped his car. Swinging down from his seat he glanced up the canyon. Jack knew he could not be seen but even so the glance sent adrenaline rocking through his body, he felt the hair raise on the back of his neck, his heart pounded. 

The ranger was looking through the jeep, and within a few minutes was back in his truck again talking on his radio. He watched through binoculars as the ranger sat the radio back on the dashboard. He reached for something in the seat beside him. A canteen, the ranger lifted it to his lips and tilted his head back. Jack watched as his throat bunched and bulged swallowing huge mouthful after mouthful. 

It was time to make a decision. If he was caught with the pottery in his pack he was screwed. He could stash it somewhere, save its gps coords and come back for it later. If he did stash it he could walk straight out the canyon and act like he was just a tourist, some hiker in search of a desert adventure.

Fuck, he cursed for a third time. There was no way he was going to have time to come back. He was already two weeks late and his buyers weren't going to wait forever. He needed to get them proof this week that he had found something. The black market economy for Fremont artifacts was not exactly huge, it had taken him six months to even locate one buyer and another year to gain their trust. He had two buyers now and could not afford to not prove he was worth their investment. The truth was time was running out, he had to get something to them.

He knew that the canyon curved slowly westward, and that it led up towards the east lip of the valley where the ranger now say. If he could get to the lip of that valley there was a chance he could make it to highway. He wasn’t that far from it anyway. Maybe ten fifteen miles. From there he could hitch a ride back to the hotel and get to Moab within a day. He turned his back on the ranger the truck and his jeep and started back up the canyon towards the circle of rocks. 

Once he got back to the pithouse he sat on a boulder and ate an energy bar. He needed to move fast, he needed to get out of here as fast as he could. His pack was going to slow him down, and if he needed to climb out of the canyon he would need more freedom then he would have with it. The buyer wouldn't need that much proof, even something small would do. 

Jack removed the pack and placed it on the boulder. He sucked the bladder dry, there wasn't much left, he sure had gone through a lot of water and it wasn’t even midday. He dug through the pack pushing his hand through canvas bags full of pottery until he found what he was looking for. The large clay figurine. He pulled it out slowly and placed it in his large cargo pocket. He also took out energy bars and filled his pants. He removed the GPS last and slide that into his hip pocket. Lastly he slung his canteen over his shoulder. It sloshed reassuringly. 

It was easy to hide his pack nearby the pithouse. He dug a hollow of sand from under a boulder and slid the pack in, packing the loose sand on top completely hid it from view. He took one more look around the canyon and started out up, his back resolutely facing the valley now farther and farther below.

The rumbling was distant. At first he thought it was an earthquake, but his tired mind couldn't not place exactly what it was. He continued up the canyon, the walls now closer than ever. Every few minutes he had to squeeze through a narrow crack in between the two walls. He had been going for so long, there had to be an end to this. Finally and with a sigh of relief the walls began to widen once again.

Ahead of him the canyon turned sharply as he approached the turn his legs felt heavier and heavier. He glanced down, saw something dark collected in irregular bumps on his boots.

MUD

Jack hurried around the corner, salvation. The canyon ahead of him led to large face of rock a blockage raising the floor of the canyon suddenly by  five maybe six feet high. Down the face of this blockage dripped water. At the base of this ledge over time had collected a pool of water. Jack sprawled forwards, cupping the liquid into his hands and sucking it through his dry cracked lips. It hit his tongue first, it felt almost foreign, and it weirdly started to trickle down his throat. Before long he was swallowing palmfuls of it, and within minutes laying on his back staring up towards the sky. He had done it. A quick scramble up the six foot face and he would be on his way, perhaps one or two more miles and he would be at the mouth of the canyon, on the valley rim. From there it would be a snap to get a ride into town. Who wouldn't help a dirty tired man in the desert? Jack sighed contentedly and as he lay there in the mud, the coolness of it like a salve to his tired muscles his eyes slowly closed.

It felt like rain, his eyes opened slowly, the sun wasn't high enough to shine clearly into the bottom of the canyon yet, but he could see the hints of it above him on the canyon wall. There it was again, like rain on his head. He sat up slowly and turned towards the pool of water. The trickle had become much larger, and the increased volume of water had caused it to splatter droplets towards him. He rubbed his eyes, maybe he just had seen it wrong last night. He opened his eyes again and studied the falling water. It was bigger still. He rubbed his eyes once more shaking the sleep from his head, his body felt sore and heavy, opening again he looked at the now waterfall. The water wasn't clear anymore it was dirty and brown. 

With horror it came to him, rushing into his mind like a blast of cold water. The rumbling the night before, the trickle of water in a dry slot canyon. He looked up the canyon, backing up slowly so as to see over the steep wall. A hundred feet above him he saw movement, a dark brown wall of mud sticks boulders and water was rushing towards him.

Fuck, he swore for the fifth time.