RAINBOW BRIDGE
It was as exciting as a well-fought football game to watch the horses,
when at last they straggled down from Oljeto, to be cajoled and
subsequently roped. Having spent the winter away from humans, they
had forgotten our self-willed ways, and developed wills of their own.
Though bony from a hard winter, they had plenty of fight left in their
mud-caked hides. We all sat on the corral fence and joyfully watched a
Navajo herder tobogganned over rocks and cactus, at the end of a taut
rope, while an old white horse, pink from a bath in the creek, looked
over his shoulder and laughed, as he kept the rope humming. The Navajo
must have thanked fate for his leather chaps, which smoked with the
friction. The horses were a gamble. Our unexpected arrival left no
time for them to be fed and hardened for the trip. We had to take them
as they were. From the fence we made bids for our choice. Our amateur
judgments were received with respectful attention. Toby wanted a little
horse with flat sides and an easy trot. I asked for the biggest horse
they had, knowing from former experience that on a long, hard trip a
big horse is less likely to tire, and a long trot is easier on the
rider. Martha wanted a pony with a lope, but, speechless with disgust,
was given a little white mule called Annie. She broke off a branch of
yucca blossom for a whip, and with this held upright and her demure
look, she reminded us of the popular picture of the Holy Child riding
to Jerusalem.
At about four in the afternoon,--an outrageous hour,--we started across
a long draw and over flat lands, not especially interesting, except for
the wealth of wild flowers beneath us. Our party was imposing, with our
two guides and two helpers. Our five pack horses ambled discontentedly
along as pack animals will do, as if they had a grudge against somebody
and meant when the opportunity came to release it. Our Navajo who
looked after the horses was named Hostein Chee, which is to say, Red
Man. He was not so named for his race, but because, for some mysterious
reason that may or may not have involved Mrs. Hostein Chee in malicious
gossip, like Sally in the cowboy ballad he “had a baby, and the baby
had red hair.”
Hostein Chee rode his horse like a centaur. His riding costume was
moccasins, overalls, an old sack coat, and a mangy fur cap with a band
of quarters and dimes, his most cherished possession. He wore an armlet
of turquoise and mellow carved silver. The Navajos of former days used
these ornaments on their left wrist to steady their arrows as they
aimed them at Utes or Apaches, but those they make today with raised
designs and encrusted gems are only for display.
Once we passed a small camp of Navajos, and at a word from Mr.
Wetherell, Hostein Chee rode off, and a quarter of an hour later
rejoined us with a dressed sheep hanging to his saddle horn. A sharp
knife is slung from the belt of all Navajo shepherdesses, and their
dexterity in handling it is marvellous.
Ahead of us the pack horses jogged reluctantly, as if they knew they
were in for it. The trail we were to make has the reputation of being
difficult if not dangerous in its rough footing, widely separated camps
and lack of water. Yet the beginning was uneventful enough. For a dozen
miles we wound through Marsh Pass, with the typical desert scenery of
hot, burnt plains, rolling hills and low cliffs, and dry river beds.
Then we turned at right angles into Segi, or Lake Canyon, winding east
to west between bright pink sandstone bluffs, outlined in whimsical
shapes against a clear gold sky. The green, grassy valley abounded in
the sweet flowers of the desert, a strange contrast to the bare, stark
and forbidding rocks hemming it in.
We persuaded our horses to a trot, for we still had miles to go. At
twilight, when the heat suddenly changed to a frosty cool, we turned
into a side canyon whose narrow walls rose higher as we progressed. The
horses slipped and tumbled in the dark. Unexpectedly, Toby and I found
ourselves struggling alone up a path which became more precarious every
minute. Our horses finally refused to advance, and dismounting, we saw
that we had mistaken for a trail a blind shelf of the bank high above
the stream. The ledge narrowed till there was scarcely room to turn
around; the horses’ feet slipped among the loose boulders. We could
see little but the blazing stars overhead. We could hear nothing; our
party had ridden far ahead without missing us. At last a faint call
drifted to us, and soon a guide appeared to our rescue. Turning down
the stream-bed we made our way after him to camp, a mile further, where
the others were already dismounted, and the pack unloaded.
Tired and ravenous, we rested on our saddles while the horses strayed
off, munching the fine, sweet grass. If Mr. Wetherell was tired he
showed no sign, though since morning he had been busy. While the other
men unpacked bedding and arranged camp, he dug a deep pit, placing
burning logs within. The pit finished, he buried the mutton that a
few hours ago was a happy sheep, and covered it lightly. Before we
could believe it possible, it was cooked. Steaming and crisp it was
sliced and distributed, and the mutton which had been a sheep became as
rapidly a remnant.
The day had been sultry, but we were glad now of the roaring fire. It
sent a glare on the face of the red cliffs on the opposite bank, not
unlike El Capitan of Yosemite in contour. We looked and forgot them
again, to look again and be surprised to see them in place of the
sky. Not till we threw our heads far back could we see their edge.
The pleasant sound of the little stream came incessantly from below.
His silver glittering in the firelight, Hostein Chee sat smoking a
cigarette, like a Buddha breathing incense. I went to him, and tried to
bargain my Ingersoll wrist-watch for his armlet. I let him hear it tick.
“Wah-Wah-Tay-See, Little Firefly,” I said, in the Indian language of
the poet, pointing out the radium hands. “Light me with your little
candle. I give you this?”
Hostein Chee accepted it with a child-like smile.
“And you give me this?” I said, touching his armlet.
“No good,” said Hostein Chee, drawing back in alarm. But I had
difficulty in getting my watch back. Each night of the trip thereafter,
we went through the same game, the Red Man accepting my watch with
gratification, but showing the same surprised obstinacy when I tried
to take the armlet, and polite regret at having to return my watch. In
the end, he lost the name bestowed on him by a derisive community, and
became Wah-Wah-Tay-See for the rest of the trip.
Sleep that night was more romantically staged than under ordinary
circumstances. The cold, glacial tang of high altitude nipped us
pleasantly. The cliffs shut us in, not forbiddingly but protectingly.
The firelight was cozy and homelike. We made a little oasis of human
companionship in this wide primeval solitude, but our spirits were
high enough not to feel our isolation. Rather, we had an increased
elation and sense of freedom. What myriads of people, jostling each
other every day, never get more than a few feet away from their kind!
We had a sense of courage toward life new to us all. The mere fact of
our remoteness helped us shake off layers and layers of other people’s
personality, which we had falsely regarded as our own and showed us new
selves undreamed of. We laugh, at the movies, at the frequency with
which the hero goes “out there, away from all this” to “find himself.”
Yet I think everyone should, once in a while, leave routine and safety
behind, with water that runs from faucets, beds under roofs, and food
coming daily from baker and grocer, and policemen on every corner. Too
much security stales the best in us.
It seemed the middle of the night when we were wakened by the sound of
galloping hoofs. From our tent window, we saw the morning sky painting
an orange band against the cliffs, and Hostein Chee driving the outfit
up the ravine. On his pony’s saddle hung the carcass of a second
sheep, for from today we were to leave fresh meat behind us. Even the
Navajos and Piutes seldom wander far into this hinterland of nowhere.
We snatched a few minutes more of sleep, guiltily, while through our
door came sounds of preparation for breakfast. We shivered and piled on
more coats. At last the crackle of the fire promised warmth; we crawled
out, washed in the stream, and found breakfast ready and the packers
impatiently waiting for tents and gunnysacks.
“Look,” said somebody, pointing. Mr. Wetherell smiled. To our right,
sheltering us with its six hundred feet of red wall rose a cliff,
curved half-way up like an inverted bowl, and blackened with streaks
where water had once run. The same water had carved the bowl, and had
it worked awhile longer it would have bored through the cliff and made
a natural bridge. As it was, it formed a simple but perfect shelter for
a large cliff city, so completely the color of the cliff that but for
the black window holes, we should never have found them for ourselves.
With all the joy of discoverers we speedily climbed the precipitous
bank to the narrow shelf on which the ancient city was built. Strung
together on their precarious ledge like beads on a necklace were rows
of rooms, compared to which a kitchenette in a New York apartment would
be spacious. Above them were second and third stories, the ceilings
long ago fallen, and only a few decayed piñon _vegas_ to show where
they had been. On one building the tumbled masonry exposed a framework
of willow wattles. A thousand years before, perhaps, some Indian had
cut the saplings fresh from the brook where we had just bathed. The
great stone slabs of the altars and the cedar beams must have been
dragged up from below,--a stupendous work of patient human ants. In
the fine, crumbly floor dust, we found innumerable bits of pottery,
painted in the early red, black and white, and fragments of the still
earlier thumb-nail. Toby tirelessly collected armfuls of them, and tied
them in bandana handkerchiefs. The place had hardly been excavated.
We pawed the dust, each believing we might discover some souvenir the
Smithsonian would envy us, and ethnologists refer to wistfully in their
reports, yet somehow, we did not. But many interesting things came to
light, feathers twisted together into ropes, obsidian arrow-heads,
sticks notched by a stone adze, grinding stones such as the Hopis use
today, and the altar stones found in each apartment. No wonder their
builders worshipped, living so near Heaven.
These ruins, called Beta-Takin, or “Hillside House” were well named.
Above was only the deep blue sky, framed in the smooth red arch that
roofed these swallows’ nests. Below were steep slopes of crumbling
sandstone, the glowing flowers near the river, and beyond, castellated
peaks of bold outline. I climbed with caution to the furthest tip of
the crescent town, and my traitor knees began to crumple like paper. I
had suddenly begun to wonder, at the wrong moment, whether any cliff
dwelling babies had ever fallen over that edge.
Hostein Chee was finishing his last diamond hitch when we returned to
camp. Our horses were changed; some who yesterday had been mere pack
animals were promoted to the rank of saddle horses. The Golfer had
drawn a powerful black mule, and had mounted him jauntily. The Golfer
was new to horses, but anyone could ride a mule. Just then, as he bent
to adjust a stirrup, the familiar jingle of the departing pack and
the music of Hostein Chee’s alien profanity came to those long ears.
Forgetting his recent rise in station, the mule leaped eagerly forward
to join his mates. Briar and bush did not stop the pair; they tore
downhill over boulders and through thickets. Young alders slapped the
Golfer in the face, but he hung on until the mule, in despair at seeing
demure Annie trot out of his vision, took the stream at a leap. At that
moment, those who were ahead say that the black mule caught up with
Annie.
The Golfer had lost interest in the amorous pursuit, and was sitting up
picking the cactus thorns out of himself when we arrived.
“What happened?” we asked, in the way people will ask questions.
“I’d thought I’d get off,” answered the Golfer.
But thereafter, he and the black mule became firm, if not fast
companions.
The gorge we had passed through in the dark we retraced to find full
of color. Great aspens bordered the heights, while the river bed was
full of flowers. As we came to the opening the canyon broadened, and
the reddish cliffs became higher and took on strange shapes of beasts
and humans. A whole herd of elephants carved in the sandstone seemed
guarding the entrance into Segi canyon, meticulously complete, even to
white tusks, wrinkled trunks and little eyes, as if these had been the
freehand plans the Creator of elephants had sketched on the wall before
he began to work them out according to blue-print.
We worked through and across Segi canyon until we stood on a ledge of
rock, and looked over miles of rose, purple and stormy blue, toward
corrugated walls high enough to fence in the world. And then began a
descent of two hours, while the sun blazed up in this shadeless waste
of rocks. We scrambled over boulders bigger than our horses, dragging
the reluctant animals after us on the rein, ready to dodge quickly if
they slipped. A few lizards glided under cover as we advanced, the only
living creatures in sight, though from the heights came occasionally
the melancholy story of a ring-dove or a hoot-owl. The trail clung to
sheer walls, its switchbacks rougher and at times far steeper than the
Grand Canyon trails. Since its discovery ten years ago, little has been
done to improve it, necessarily, because of its extreme length and the
fact that it is not situated in a national park. For these reasons, it
will probably never lose its primitive wildness.
We lunched under a few spreading junipers, where water in muddy rock
basins was to be found. The sun was low when we started again, for
in that country it does not pay to ride through the heat of mid-day.
The region, broken no longer by gigantic canyons, softened to a dull
monotony of sage and rolling hills. Camp was already made, when at
evening we rode into a small, semi-enclosed valley at a short distance
from a second cliff-town, under an arched recess of rock high above us.
While the men unpacked, Martha, Toby and I found a tiny pool yielding
a basin full of water, but ice-cold, it soothed our weary bodies
wonderfully. About all we need for our physical selves in this world is
a bath after dust and heat, food after hunger, sleep after weariness,
warmth after cold, and freedom from worry,--and camp life completely
satisfies for a time, because these simple desires are both intensely
stimulated and gratified. Our campfire warmed the chill night air, and
gave us an hour’s relaxation and gayety. But sleep could not be held
off long, and at nine, we all retired to our tents under a thicket of
junipers.
[Illustration: NAVAJO MOUNTAIN FROM THE MOUTH OF SEGI CANYON. A herd of
elephants carved in sandstone guarded the entrance to Segi Canyon.]
These cliff dwellings yielded Toby magnificent specimens. Behind camp
lay a small hill mostly of pottery fragments. She attacked it and
single handed soon reduced it to a hummock. The bandana would hold no
more, and her sweater and pea jacket bulged at the pockets, and when I
opened our pack I found crumbled pottery mingling with our toothbrushes.
The next day brought us into more dramatic scenery. Once more we toiled
up and up through an unimaginably vast and lonely country, whose
barrenness of rock and sage was softened by a wilderness of flowers,
of new and strange varieties. The cactus blossoms, most brilliant
and fragile of desert flowers, with the texture of the poppy and the
outline of the wild rose, ranged from the most subtle tones of golden
brown, tea rose color and faded reds to flaming, uncompromising rainbow
hues. We passed a bush with white waxen flowers like apple blossoms,
called Fendler’s Rod, and another with mahogany branches, smooth to
feel, with fragrant yellow bloom; blue larkspur in profusion, the
Indian paintbrush in every shade from scarlet through pink and cerise
to orange and yellow. Wild hyacinths began to appear in the cooler,
tenderer shades of early spring, and a new flower, very lovely, called
penstaces, in pink and purple. The mariposa lily of southern Arizona
appeared here as waxy cream and twice as large as we had ever seen it.
Once out of Piute Canyon, we camped at the Tanks, a series of
waterholes worn in a dry river bed of solid rock. A group of piñons
sheltered our camp, but before the tents were fairly up a downpour of
rain drove us wet and uncomfortable to huddle together in one tent.
The horses slanted into the driving storm with drooping heads and limp
haunches. Saddles and provisions were hastily covered with Navajo rugs.
Through it all Hostein Chee in overalls and drenched sack coat moved
about his business with neither joy nor sorrow. He showed no animation
until over the great roaring fire our supper was cooked, and he could
once more, with bland and innocent smile shake the bag of sugar into
his coffee, murmuring “Sooga.”
The sheep killed by the Navajos had not died in vain. Again it formed
the staple of our meal. With each appearance it seemed to lose some
of its resiliency. Mutton, most unimaginative of meats, with the rain
drizzling on it was less inviting than ever. Nor was it improved by
being set down on the ground, where a shower of sand was unwittingly
shaken into it by each person who went to the fire to fill his tin
plate. Still we chewed on, and in the end besides the exercise, got a
little nourishment. We did not care; we wanted to eat, and get back to
our tents out of the downpour. It was one of those days all campers
know and enjoy--afterward.
I woke toward morning and peered through the tent window to see dawn
banding the windy sky. Against its dramatic light, stood Hostein
Chee, the Red Man, beside a campfire blazing shoulder high. His body
slanting back, his face frozen to exalted calm, he gazed fixedly at the
glory of the sky. His inscrutable nature seemed touched and wakened. I
called softly to Toby.
“Look--he is saying a prayer to the dawn!”
We looked reverently. The white men were sleeping, but the Indian kept
his vigil. He raised both arms above his head, removed his hat,--and
scratched vigorously. This done, he repeated the process wherever he
felt the need. Toby’s awed interest turned to mirth, mainly at my
expense. Yet even engaged in so primitive a gesture as scratching,
Wah-Wah invested it with the stately grace we noticed in his every
move. Though I knew I should not, I watched him make his toilet,
fascinated. He removed the trousers he slept in, and in which we
daily saw him accoutred, revealing (I had turned away in the interim)
an under pair, similarly tailored, of a large black and red checked
flannel. He scratched thoroughly, took off his vest, scratched, and
then dressed. Then he blew his nose as Adam and Eve must have, and
shouted “De-jiss-je!”
That, as nearly as I can spell it, is the only Navajo any of us managed
to learn. Mr. Wetherell so frequently addressed Hostein this way that
we thought it was his name, and called him by it, even after we learned
that it meant “Light a fire.” The little jest always brought a silent
smile to the face of the Navajo, and he would mimic our mimicry. We
christened an unnamed canyon for him De-jiss-je Boco, where we lunched
at noon, and cached part of the pack till the return trip. Here was a
delicious stream, running between sandstone rocks, into which horses
and all put our heads and drank. The sun steamed upon the land of
rocks until the heat made us droop, and our horses, poor beasts, were
rapidly wearing down from the trail. Only piñons, with hardy roots
gripping the red wastes of rock, and thorny cactus, grew in this vast
echo-land. Rocks! I could not have believed there were so many in
the universe. It looked like the Pit out of which the gods had taken
material to build the world, or the abyss where they threw the remnants
afterward.
For the first time we saw purple sage, whose scent is indescribably
sweet. This rare variety is found only in this region. Its leaf is dark
green and differently shaped from ordinary sage. We were nearing great
Navajo, whose bare stark head topped all other hills from Mt. Henry in
Utah to the San Francisco peaks in the south. Soon we were in the lee
of it, climbing beside it, but closer and closer to its heights.
De-jiss-je looked at the cloudless sky, and suggested it might rain.
To my surprise the others agreed. The sky was velvet blue and the air
as dry and sparkling as ever. Yet we had hardly rounded the shoulder
of Navajo when thick, broken clouds shrouded it in terrible grandeur,
and the wind swirled them against that rocky mass. The storm broke
immediately in wildest fury, and we saw the giant in its proper
surroundings, storm wrapped and terrible. I never saw a more majestic
storm in more titanic setting. Low waves of prairie, stretching for
miles, were broken here and there into strange monoliths and grotesque
needles, around which the lightning played sharp and short as a whip
snapping,--rose-colored, deep green. The sky turned purple-blue, cut
and slashed by gashes of blinding white. Grayed by sheets of rain,
the red rocks took on a sulphurous look. Far off to our right a rainbow
canyon opened, almost as vast and quite as brilliant as the Grand
Canyon of Colorado, reaching to the horizon.
[Illustration: RAINBOW BRIDGE TRAIL. Near Navajo Mountain, whose bare,
stark head topped all other hills.]
Though the storm cracked above our heads, it was too beautiful and
too awful to fear. We whipped on our slickers. In a second they were
drenched, and streams were running to our saddles and soaking us. Toby,
protecting her camera with one hand, and her person from the banging
of a bag of pottery, wearing the slicker the cow had chewed short, was
quickly drenched, and rode in dejected silence. Ahead, the helper,
whose thin shirt streamed rivers, shouted in glee, and drove on the
stumbling pack-beasts with variegated profanity. The guides took the
onslaught of the storm unmoved, dripping like male Naiads. Sometimes
the thunder smashed so near it seemed as if our horses had been struck,
sometimes it cracked on the cliffs beside us.
The scenery became increasingly dramatic. We were out of the piñon, and
riding through nothing but granite and sandstone. An hour passed, while
we huddled uncomfortably, fearing to move lest a rivulet find a new and
hitherto unwet channel on our bodies. Then as suddenly as it began the
storm ceased, and just in time, for we were nearing the crux of the
trail,--Bald Rock. Even Roosevelt described this pass as dangerous.
The storm had increased the danger. Five minutes more of rain, and the
rocks would have been too slippery to cross; as it was, we barely kept
our footing.
Bald Rock is a huge dome of solid granite, bordering a precipice
several hundred feet deep, overlooking tangled and twisted crags.
Crossing it was like crossing the surface of an inverted bowl. Worn
smooth by erosion, the only semblance of foothold it offered was a seam
a few inches wide near the edge. With the dome polished by rain, it
was not easy to keep both footing and nerve. Our tendency was to move
cautiously, when the safest way was at a jog trot, though the mental
hazard of the drop at the edge made the latter course hard. Even the
bronchos shared our caution. We naturally had dismounted, though the
intrepid Hostein Chee rode his horse part way across. The horses dug
their hoofs in hard, and even then they slipped and scrambled about
helplessly. One balked, and another fell several feet. For a moment
it looked as if his bones would be left to whiten in the chasm below,
but goaded by the Navajo he regained his feet, and, trembling, crossed
safely.
Beyond came a still worse spot,--a narrow ledge, with cliffs on one
side shouldering one toward the edge. Here the horses were halted until
blankets and armfuls of grass could be placed along the slanting ledge.
In all, we were half an hour passing Bald Rock. Though this is the
worst bit of trail on the way to the Bridge, and enough to give one a
little thrill, there is nothing to dread under ordinary conditions.
Nevertheless, I should not like to cross Bald Rock after dark.
[Illustration: CROSSING BALD ROCK, ON RAINBOW BRIDGE TRAIL. The worst
bit of trail on the way to the bridge.]
To our left, beyond masses of smooth, marvelously contorted sandstone
rose white cliffs, seared and ghostly, and beyond them, far reaches
of mountain, with Navajo king of all. Clouds and mist encircled its
slopes, but the peak rose clear above them into a thunderous sky. We
kept the grand old mountain in sight for several miles, then dipped
into a small and lovely valley, full of flowers and watered by a
winding stream. This was Surprise Valley, famous in the movies as
the scene of a thrilling tale of a man and woman walled in for years by
one boulder pushed to block the only entrance. It is a pity to spoil
the thrill, but I could not see how any one boulder, however large,
could block all exit from this valley. Nevertheless its seclusion and
unexpectedness make it a delight. The inevitable cliffs surround it in
a red circle, and once within, a stranger could look for hours for the
trail out.
Thus far, the trail had been not only beautiful, but climacteric,
and from this point to the great arch it was entirely outside one’s
experience. We had to recreate our sense of proportions to fit the
gigantic land. I felt as if I had been shipwrecked on the moon. We who
started feeling fairly important and self-satisfied and had become
daily more insignificant, were mere specks in a landscape carved out
by giants,--a landscape of sculptors, done by some Rodin of the gods,
who had massed and hurled mountains of rock about, twisted them in a
thousand fantastic figures, as if they had been mere handfuls of clay.
Against the prodigious canyons down which our tired beasts slowly
carried us, we were too small to be seen. Nonnezoche Boco,--“Rainbow
Canyon,” in the Navajo,--brought us into an ever narrowing pass
with terra-cotta walls rising thousands of feet on every side, and
a turbulent stream, much interrupted by boulders, at the bottom.
Sometimes we threaded the valley floor, and sometimes mounted to a
shelf along the edge. Finally, when it seemed impossible for Nature
to reserve any climax for us, we looked to the left,--and saw an
anticlimax. We had been straining our eyes straight ahead, each eager
for the first sight of the Bridge, the mammoth bridge, highest in the
world. As we crossed the canyon, looking down its length we saw a toy
arch nestled among the smooth cliffs, like a mouse among elephants.
Not till we had wound down the trail overlooking the river and leading
under the bridge, not till we dismounted under the buttresses of the
arch, and saw that they themselves were young hills did we get an idea
of its majesty. Our Navajo walked around it, for no good Navajo will
pass under the sacred arch unless he knows the prayer suitable to this
occasion. We followed Hostein Chee, and camped on a slope on the other
side. From this angle the bridge appeared stupendous, towering above
cliffs really much higher, but seeming less by the perspective. Unlike
so many of Nature’s freaks, it required no imagination to make it look
like an arch. Symmetrical and rhythmic of outline, with its massive
buttresses in beautiful proportion to the rest, it spans the San Juan,
which, cutting through the narrow canyon, curves about to form deep
pools into which we lost no time in plunging, after our hot and nearly
bathless journey.
Whoever called it a bridge misnamed it, for it bridges nothing. Before
seeing it we had ambitions to climb to the top, and walk across, and
while I daresay we should all have gone if any one of us had insisted
on attempting it, we may have been secretly relieved that nobody
insisted too hard. It means a stiff climb negotiated with ropes, up an
adjacent cliff. From the level top of this cliff one works around to a
monument rock near the southwest end of the arch where a single piñon
grows from a niche. A rope is swung from the cliff above, fastened in
the piñon, and over a twenty-foot gap, at a height of three hundred
feet and more above the rock-strewn river, one jumps to the shelving
arch of the bridge. Returning is even worse than going--I believe only
eight people have ever mounted the bridge.
[Illustration: RAINBOW BRIDGE, UTAH. Symmetrical and rhythmic of
outline, it spans the San Juan.]
The Golfer meanwhile had reached the tee of his ambitions, with two
dozen balls and his trusty brassie. We came on him at the edge of
the tumbled river, casting a doubtful eye up the rough slopes and
crag-strewn course.
“Bunkered, by gosh,” we heard him say.
“If you don’t mind a little climb,” said the guide, “I think we can fix
you all right.”
Accordingly we stuffed our pockets with golf-balls, while the Golfer
tied the remainder to his waist, and began to climb one of the smooth
cliffs to the right of the arch, with the understanding that whoever
had good courage might go on to the top of the bridge. The last lap
of the climb brought us to a ledge which went sheer in the air for
about twenty feet (it seemed like two hundred), without visible means
of support. But nothing daunts an Old-Timer. Ours twirled his rope,
lassoed an overhanging shrub at the top of the ledge, and shinnied
up like a cat, twisted it twice about the shrubs and then around his
wrists, and one by one, each according to his nature,--but not like a
cat,--we followed.
Toby, who is a reincarnated mountain goat, scrambled up with careless
abandon. Murray took it without comment. Martha, suddenly stricken with
horizontal fever, was yanked up bodily. When it came to my turn, I got
halfway up without trouble, but there the thought struck me that Mr.
Wetherell was a dreadfully peaked man to be the only thing between me
and the San Juan river. I wished that he had sat still in his youth
long enough to fatten up a bit. I called to him to sit heavy, and
he called back to straighten my knees and keep away from the cliff.
My knees, however, will not straighten on high; instead they vibrate
excitably. As for throwing my body voluntarily out from that friendly
cliff,--the only bit of mother earth, though at a peculiar angle,
within several hundred feet,--it hardly seemed sensible. I did not wait
to reach the top to decide that it was too hot to climb to the bridge,
and I think the others went through a similar mental process, for when
I thankfully was pulled over the edge, I heard several people say,
“Awfully hot, isn’t it? Pretty hot to go much further?”
The Golfer was the last and heaviest to come up the rope. Halfway up,
his arms shot out wildly, and I heard a gasp of horror, and far below,
plop, plop, saw one hard rubber ball after another leap as the chamois
from crag to crag, and join the river below. He had tied the box of
balls insecurely, it seemed. For the moment we could hardly have felt
worse if it had been the Golfer himself. A baker’s dozen went where no
caddy could find them. From our pockets we collected eleven balls, with
which to perform the deed which had brought us toilfully through these
perils.
We could see only the keystone of the Bridge from the summit of our
cliff, but its surface offered a good approach. Murray took the first
drive. His ball made a magnificent arc, grazed the top of the Bridge,
seemed to hesitate a moment, then fell on the near side. Then came
the Golfer’s turn. He approached it several times, but something
seemed wrong. He cast a look in our direction. We had been frivolously
talking. He drove, but the ball glanced to one side and disappeared.
“Better luck,” he said, passing the club to Murray. But Murray had no
better luck, and the two alternated until it seemed as if the San Juan
must be choked with golf balls.
“It’s an easy drive. Any duffer could do it,” said the Golfer
impatiently. Apparently there was something about the drive more
difficult than it looked. Perspective was lost in the clear air, and
the jumble of rocks before us seemed closer than they were. With only
two balls remaining, the Golfer again took his turn, after several
brilliant failures on both sides. Once more he turned a majestic glance
toward us. A bee had crawled down my back, and Martha was removing
it, but after that glance we let the bee stay where he was. A hushed
silence fell on our little group at this historic moment. Since Adam
and Eve, we were the first group of people ever gathered together in
this lonely, inaccessible spot for the purpose of driving a golf-ball
over the Rainbow Bridge. No cheers came from the assemblage as the
Golfer addressed the ball innumerable times, and at last raised his
brassie and drove.
“Keep your eye on the ball,” said someone. We did so, and our several
eyes soared toward the arch, struck the rock towering beside the
bridge, and ricochetted over the far side. Technically, though by a
fluke, we had the ball over. I say we, because we all worked as hard as
the Golfer and Murray. Murray refused the last ball, and just because
he didn’t have to, the Golfer drove this easily and surely over. We had
achieved our purpose. We were the first to put a golf ball over Rainbow
Bridge, not a great contribution to history or science, but giving us
a certain hilarious satisfaction. It is not so easy to be first at
anything in these days, when everything has been tried already. Toby
who once stigmatized the ambition as “cheap,” crossed her fingers as
the Golfer launched his last ball, and photographed him in the act for
the benefit of posterity. Our Old-Timer, another scoffer, later spent
an hour hunting the triumphal ball, and on retrieving it from the river
bank, begged it for a souvenir. Anyone who doubts the authenticity of
our feat may see the ball at Kayenta today. And even Hostein Chee,
alias Wah-Wah, alias De-jiss-je, salvaged a half-dozen of the lost
balls, and was seen patiently hacking away at them with the Golfer’s
best brassie. And he was remarkably good at it, too.
The campfire, built that night under the sweeping black arch, seemed
like home amid the looming cliffs and monoliths. The air was full of
that strangest, most arresting odor in the desert,--the smell of fresh,
running water.
I lay awake for hours, watching the stars wheel over the curve of
the arch. It was not surprising that the Navajos held this spot in
superstitious reverence, as the haunt of gods. We were all, I think, in
a state of suspended attention, waiting for something to happen which
never did happen. Soon the moon, startlingly brilliant in the high air,
circled over to the wall topping the southwest side of the bridge, and
upon this lofty screen the arch was reproduced in silhouette. Why this
should have seemed the last touch to the strange beauty of the place I
do not know, but when I waked Toby to watch it, we lay there, almost
holding our breath, until the shadow had made its arc down the side of
the cliff and disappeared.
After a week’s travel to reach the Bridge, to turn homeward instantly
seemed ridiculous. The first day took us a weary twenty-five miles back
to De-jiss-je Camp, prodding our exhausted animals every step of the
way, till we too were exhausted. We intended to circle back through
Utah, crossing Piute and Nakis Canyons at the upper end and touching
the lower edge of the Monument country. Always a wearing trip, ours to
the Bridge and back was more than usually so, because our unexpected
arrival at Kayenta had given no chance to get the horses in condition.
Tired animals mean forced camps, irregular and scanty meals, and
consequently less sleep and more fatigue,--a vicious circle.
We ate the last of the mutton that night. Tough and sandy and gristly
it proved, but the stew from it was fairly delicious. When the meal
ended, Wah-Wah borrowed a needle and thread, and smilingly announced to
our circle that he intended to mend his outer garments. Without further
ceremony, he pulled his shirt and trousers off, leaving only his
checkerboard underdrawers. Pleased at the concentration of interest,
which he attributed to his skill at sewing, he beamed upon us all.
“Disgusting old heathen,” said Martha.
But Hostein Chee was not without friends. Next morning with a show of
great enthusiasm an old Navajo rode up, greeted him, and thereafter,
either lured by Red Man’s companionship or hope of a free lunch thrice
daily made himself just useful enough to be permitted to follow our
camp. Fat and venerable, with flowing shirt and gray hair tied in a
chignon, and hung with jewelry he looked so like an old woman that we
dubbed him Aunt Mary. His manners were no better than poor Hostein
Chee’s, but his manner was superb. Under his outer trousers, which
flapped loose, he wore bed ticking, which served him for napkin,
handkerchief, and towel, with princely dignity employed. Between the
two Navajos our stock of sugar ran very low. He did us a good turn,
however, by riding off to a nearby Ute camp and obtaining fresh horses.
All those we had started with had succumbed. Not only Martha, but all
of us were glad to exchange mounts for the tough little mules which had
carried the packs in and were now willing to carry us out of Nonnezoche
Boco. Toby bestrode Annie, who from being despised and rejected of all
was now the prize. She never wandered, kept at an even pace, and never
missed the trail. Annie is one of the few people in the world who could
find her way to the bridge and back without a guide.
Another day brought us to the borders of Utah and Arizona. The Rainbow
Bridge belongs to Utah, a day over the line. Piute Canyon crosses
both states. We had passed it in Arizona and were now to cross it in
Utah. But both states claim the glory of owning the most magnificent
territory in the Union. If the Grand Canyon were more tremendous than
any one thing we saw in these three days’ march, still it has not the
cumulative effect of grandeur piled upon grandeur. Since the discovery
of the Bridge in 1909 its discoverers and an increasing number of
people who have seen this country have advocated making it a National
Park. It is certain no park we now have could rival its stupendous
uniqueness.
Canyon after canyon opened before us, painted in the distance with
every hue imaginable. Piute Canyon was buff and pink; Copper canyon,
following soon after, a gorgeous blaze of rich red and deep blue
tones. Then came a succession of three smaller canyons each turned a
different hue by the sun, the distance and the substance of the rock.
We ascended and descended in the blazing heat, until it seemed as if
all life had been a going up and a coming down. Toward sunset on the
ninth day, a trail overlooking a long narrow valley ended abruptly in
a pass cut through solid boulders which we could barely ride through.
Beyond, unexpectedly, a broad vista of the Monument country spread like
a vision of the promised land. Isolated cliffs pointed the valley, in
every grotesque form. Rocks as high as Cleopatra’s Needle and the arch
of Napoleon, and similarly shaped; new world sphinxes, organ rocks,
trumpeting angels, shapes of beasts and men had been carved here in
past ages by the freaks of wind and water. One of the busiest corners
of the earth ages ago and now the loneliest and most desolate, its
beauty was like a woman’s who had survived every passion, and lives in
retrospect.
El Capitan, rising alone from the yellow sands, sailed before us like
a full-rigged ship from sunset to the next morning, when we rode our
last eighteen miles to Kayenta. The sight of it, and the orange dunes
beyond spurred us all. Spontaneously we broke into a twelve mile
canter. The little white mule Annie who had finally fallen to me, kept
her freshness and speed and general pluckiness. She out-distanced them
all by a length. We made a ludicrous picture as we came flying over
the rocks and dunes and desert, shouting and galloping. Even the pack
beasts, worn to bone since they departed from the corral, smelled
Kayenta, and there was no stopping them. Navajos rode out to join
us, leaving their herd of a thousand sheep to cross our path at their
peril. We arrived not half an hour after the Indian messenger, sent
ahead to tell of our coming.
How civilized the remote little trading post seemed! How ultra-æsthetic
to eat at a table with napkins and table linen, food passed by a neat
Navajo maid! What throngs of people inhabited Kayenta,--more than we
had met altogether in ten days! We bathed who had not seen water, we
feasted and relaxed, and bought Navajo necklaces in the store. To our
surprise the same old women we had left behind us were still alive and
scarcely grayer or more toothless; we had not been away for years, as
had seemed from our isolation in the still canyons where all sense of
time disappeared and we lived in eternity along with the rocks and sky.
That evening, as we sat on wool bags heaped high near the post, a
group of young Navajos came and announced they wished to welcome our
return with a serenade. They grouped in a circle, very bashful at our
applause, and while one held a lantern, began to sing their ancient
tribal songs. I shall never forget the weird setting of rolling hills
of orange sand, and moonlighted red cliffs behind the circle of their
dark figures. Lightly swaying to the music, they began a savage
chanting, with rhythmically placed falsetto yelps and guttural shouts.
Their voices had real beauty, and the music suited their surroundings.
They started with a mild song of hunting or love, but soon they were
singing war songs. Our blood stirred to an echo of something we knew
many lives ago. The lantern light made a wilder, wider arc; the shouts
became more fierce; the group swayed faster and swung into a wide
ellipse. Worked upon by the hypnotism of their war-music, they locked
arms about each other in tight grip; for the moment they were ages away
from Carlisle. The blackness, the orange hills, the swinging light, the
shouts, the listening stillness of the desert,--that will always be
Kayenta for me.
[Illustration: MONUMENT COUNTRY, RAINBOW TRAIL. Isolated cliffs pointed
the valley in every grotesque form.]
[Illustration: RAINBOW BRIDGE TRAIL.]