Noctuidae (2 page)

She caught the hand’s eyes flicking on and off her, up and down, that blend of lust and slow rage she knew too well from elsewhere. Smoldering anger over her apparent foreignness, at the shape of her eyes, at her presence in their stronghold. For once she was glad of the Glock Ron kept in his pack, preferred not to think how Pete probably packed one too. Pete was the kind of guy saw unpermitted concealed carry as a point of pride, a civic duty.

Ron found Sue-Min’s hand with his, held it, squeezed. Pete strode ahead to wade in, asking, —Hey guys, have we got a prob—? but Ron called him back, took the lead. He released Sue-Min’s hand, strolled out to the pair and spoke. The wind struck up in the leaves overhead so she and Pete heard little more than the general rhythm of the conversation, its ebb and flow. They watched the mismatched sides commence a session of head shaking, hand pointing, the odd nod here and there. At least the two men never brought their guns to bear. That would’ve meant
time to go
. . . unless it meant
too late to go.
How close did things come to going that far south? She wasn’t sure she wanted to know. Pete sidled toward Sue but she stepped away, determined not to bond.

She had confidence in Ron. She’d watched him work his magic before with surly ranchers on caving trips in the GypKap. Gotten them access to sites no one had seen in a generation or more. His first ten years raised just outside Carrizozo had left him with some social skills in southern NM and AZ, the rural version of street smarts. Pete probably would’ve got them shot.

Several minutes into the conversation the younger rancher pointed back the way they’d come then over the ridge to his right, their left. After final nods and even a lifeless half smile by the senior rancher, a flat expression that never reached his eyes, all parties retreated to their vehicles. The men sheathed their shotguns but did not depart.

Ron returned to where his girlfriend and best friend stood waiting. —Here’s how they say it is. Blossom Creek Canyon is over that ridge, and Blossom Creek leads back to the major Blue drainage, only on Forest Service land.
Clear
Forest Service land, not checkerboard, so we can go as far as we like from there. But first we’ve got to drive back and park
outside
their gate. They don’t mind us hiking in so long as we park outside their gate and stay on the east bank of the Blue after we cross. They don’t want us parking on their ranch or driving through it. We’ve got to go round.

Pete questioned the arrangement at once —Whatta they got out here they don’t want us to see?

—
They say
they’re protecting
us
.
They say
a couple of their bulls are prone to ramming unfamiliar vehicles, might do some real damage to your ride with their horns. Or to us. So these ranchers are looking out for us.
So they say.
Us or your truck, whichever. Both. And for their own liability no doubt. Lots of these folks living out the middle of nowhere worry some hunter or hiker or random lost a-hole is going to come on their land, get hurt and sue them into oblivion. And it does happen. Something like that can break an independent rancher.

This was not their original plan. Their map showed the passable road extending through and somewhat past this parcel. Their goal was always to follow the road till it fizzled, park and hike down the valley beyond all roads and habitation, as far as they got till nightfall, camp one night and double back in the morning. But they’d run late. Too much talk and too many Coronas at the lone saloon in Snowflake then sleeping in till nearly noon and not reaching the road’s steep descent into the Blue River’s canyon till close to 2:00. The scenery was every bit as spectacular as Pete promised, those rolling blue-green peaks in the west offset by higher rugged blue and purple ranges, the whole of it cut by narrow side canyons left and right. Still, by the time they reached even their failed trailhead it was nearly 4:00. They all three knew dark would drop down early in this deep north-south valley despite the season. No way now they’d make it far before night fell upon them, sudden, deep and dense. . .

The rancher and his man watched wordless as Pete backed his truck onto the road, followed them to the weedy turnout outside the gate across the road from the sign, kept on watching as the trio locked the truck and strapped on their packs. Geared up, they crossed the scrubby strip before the Blue itself, little more than a damp gravel bed here. Once they were over it the hired hand called after them —That’s it. Keep on straight up that ridge. Canyon’s t’th’other side. You can’t miss it you keep goin’ straight.

Pete and Ron waved thanks but Sue-Min did not turn back, had no wish to see these men ever again. Once across the diminished Blue they continued up the wide flat ramp of the ridge, convincing themselves they’d caught an actual trail as they picked their way between stunted oaks and twisted pines. As the trees were sparse and their ascent kept them close to the western edge of the ridge, they could look back for some time and still see the two men squatting sidesaddle on their little vehicles, though they soon shrunk to no more than off-white blurs beside the smudge of Pete’s old Dodge. Sue-Min missed the moment the ranchers disappeared entire from sight. Their ascent angled, the trees grew too dense, the vehicles and men fell too small from her height. The trio had left behind every contemporary human trace.

The ridge widened while they were unaware so once they reached a level where it grew mostly flat they realized they could no longer scan its full span side to side. The pines were taller here, the low oaks tight in clumps. Postage stamp meadows separated random rock outcrops and jagged bits of ridge. They’d ascended into a patchwork and come sans compass or GPS. Their original plan had been to follow the river, and how could they get lost then? But they’d lost the river, at least for now. Pete thought the canyon must be to their left, as best any of them could remember left. Ron thought they should head back down or at least to the right to relocate the Blue River edge of the ridge. Pete prevailed before either asked Sue-Min’s opinion and they all three began meandering toward a hypothetical directionless port, expecting their way always to open onto a new canyon but coming only into more motley oak and pine after each distinctive bit they traversed, Sue-Min damping her emotions down just short of panic. Ron and Pete? If they were worried, she couldn’t tell. They all three tramped along, the guys offering random inanities
—At least the weather’s good. —I think we’re getting close
. . . But mostly in silence.

They’d just come onto a stretch of bare rock strewn with stones when Sue-Min concluded to call for a retreat, but before she could speak up Pete called out —Look at this! It’s some kind of pattern!

His words still in her ears, she saw it too, gray stones around softball size set in wandering arcs and arabesques on the granite ground. Several closed cells remained intact though the arms of their neighbors disintegrated at inconsistent lengths. Ron shook his head. —Somebody built this—but who?

Pete’s reply struck Sue-Min as ridiculous, asinine —Maybe it was the rancher’s kids.

Ron swept three stones over soccer style with the side of his foot, bent to inspect them. —No lichen on their undersides, only above. They’ve been here a long, long time.

Pete’s next reply seemed even more out of whack than his first —Maybe it was a Pueblo.

Sue-Min wanted so bad to get up in his face and yell
These aren’t walls! Where’s the rest of the stone then? If this is a dissipated site where is the rest of the stone?
Yes, Ancestral Puebloans, Mimbres, or some backwoods branch of the Mogollon had inhabited this canyon, though not right here, not like this. Walter Hough had marked and mapped sites up and down the Blue back before World War I, and Steve Swanson had revisited the area almost a hundred years later. She knew as much, had met Swanson more than once, could share that information, but she had no desire to engage the creeper, let alone antagonize him. Nor to drag things out. She had his number and was maintaining the wall of chill.
Measured, measured. Weighed.
She spoke as little as she could, kept interaction at the barest min.

He must’ve read something in her gaze though, fixed his own eyes on her expectantly and tilted his head an inch to the left, and after long enough she’d said nothing, gave the least of shrugs, staring at her still. For once Ron came to her aid.

—Hey, look, there’s a gap ahead. He pointed beyond their present patch of patterned mystery stones, between the scrub oaks and scraggly pines. Sue-Min and Pete aligned their eyes to his extended finger’s course, saw through the dregs of forest to what seemed an empty span. At least a place with no visible trees, little scrub, no upthrust rocks. . . A shadowed background. Either a seriously major meadow ahead, or Blossom Creek Canyon.
Some
damn canyon anyway. . .

If it
was
Blossom Creek Canyon then by dropping into it and following its route they should come around and out again onto the Blue—south of the ranch and the ends of all roads, bypass the former altogether.

They funneled together through the gap, Ron taking the lead and never turning back. Once past the pines and onto a stretch of scattered scrub and grass they saw the gash in the earth from some way off. The canyon. A canyon at least. Pete shot forward toward that abyss and almost at once fell hard on his forearms with a rough pained grunt, his foot hooked on some snag invisible in the high grass. He swore without imagination as Ron shuffled up, paying extra attention to his own footing beneath the desiccated thin blades. Pete pushed awkwardly to hands and knees and waved Ron off, palms out —I’m okay, I’m okay. . .

Sue-Min saw smears of blood on both his palms.

Ron offered a similar gesture in response, though with palms angled down and presumably unbloodied. —Okay, okay, just checkin’ bro.

Pete turned and staggered into the treeless span. Ron followed after a backward look and a shrug toward Sue-Min. She hitched her pack back up and followed.

A few minutes later they clumped together to a halt at the edge of a canyon.
Blossom Creek Canyon
they hoped. If the ranchers spoke true, this route would take them back to the main trunk of the Blue and its trackless and uninhabited middle stretch. Pete and Ron high-fived without a glance at Sue-Min who stood just a step behind.

Pete sauntered to the edge and the others followed, Sue-Min squeezing between Ron on her left and the branches of a thick twisted fir on her right. Dirt cliffed at the top here, some eighty meters deep and at least that wide a span. Away to their left the canyon boxed off, but not so far ahead it jogged to the right and out of sight. Looked like the east wall rose there and some stone began to show through the slopes of soil. The bottom was a cleft too tight to see.

Descending the dirt wall before them held zero appeal. They saw no paths, no ramps, no natural stairs in the crumbling unstable face, no hand or footholds. Just pink grainy soil, scattered bleached protruding stones, random precarious cacti. Attempting any route down here without rope seemed likely suicide. Even on rope the descent would be sketchy. But a rock face would be different if one were ahead.

Onward then.

Now they at least had a feature to follow. So they followed. They were not lost.
Probably
not anyway. Probably not
yet
anyway. Sue-Min’s incipient panic faded some. Pete took the lead again and they picked their way along the ridge, working around standing trees and fallen snags, retreating from the indented edges of scalloped collapse.

The sun where they could see it hovered just above the western slate range in the haze. They held no discussion on the subject, but she knew they all understood they’d have to make plans for night soon. They wouldn’t be going much further than this, not today.

They came to the canyon’s bend, rounded it. Ahead two changes leapt out at once. From here on, the walls on both sides were stone, steep scoured pink tuff ribbed with dubious holds. In addition their ridge dropped away, grew lower, just as the opposite wall ascended.

They quickened their pace, worked their way down to a less elevated section of the west wall, an almost level grassy area studded with the dark forms of juniper and pines. Across the narrow canyon almost close enough to throw a stone, the east wall—or was it south now?—rose near three hundred meters overhead. The steep stone face was more of the same, scoured and striated and pink, pyroclastic tuff of some sort, ash deposited in strata over how many millennia from what volcano or volcanoes, super or just giant, then cut through by slow eons of flash flood and flow. . .

That was when they saw the cave. Sue-Min was certain she spotted it first, but she only stared in silence so it was Ron who got to point it out and proclaim its presence. Maybe two thirds of the way up the wall and a hundred meters down canyon, a black horizontal oval in the rugged salmon scarp. Ahead of her Pete and Ron conferred close, heads bent together, low excited tones.

—Let’s make for that cave.
Ron.

—Yeah bro, we can camp there. We’re gonna need to camp for the night soon anyway.
Pete.