Sarah Black
Lost in Canyonlands
I
I was lost and out of water. The wind whistled and moaned up the cliffs and around the fins and turrets of sandstone, red and white rocks striped like freakish candy canes. I was in The Maze, that part of Canyonlands National Park you were not supposed to enter without a compass. I had a compass, a nice one, olive green. I stuck it back into my pocket. Something about the North Star? I thought it would come with directions.
The compass had seemed like a reasonable thing to bring to Canyonlands. A second bottle of water might have been more reasonable.
II
Where was the path? Earlier I had seen the tiny, hollowed entrance to a cave, high up. Now, nothing. The color of the sandstone was relentless, red, red, red, pressing against my eyes like a fist. The ledge was narrowing, the switchback getting steeper. I looked closely at the dust under my feet. Was that the hoof print of a mountain goat, or one of those sheep with the curly horns? Mountain goats didn't have big butts, that much was certain. I feared the size of my rear end would overbalance me on the narrow path, and I would tumble head over heels, down, down, down, smash against the rocks, another red smudge in the red canyons below. It was true, I thought, pressing my hands against the warm sandstone at my back, obesity was killing more and more Americans every day.
III
It was so desolate, nothing green, nothing growing for as far as I could see. Well, that wasn't strictly true. There was sage and blackbrush, juniper and the bright green of Mormon tea. Those poor Mormons, the stuff was pure ephedra. These could not be called life-sustaining greens. Would my bones lie here undisturbed? A few nocturnal animals would come along and lick them clean of salt. So this is how it would go. I would lean up against one of these weirdly ghost-like rocks. Hoodoos, they were called. I could believe that thing about Lot's wife, looking at hoodoos in Canyonlands. My soul would slip away in the wind, and this sere land would suck away my blood and tears. A few kangaroo rats would come out in the moonlight and nibble on my fingers and toes. My bones would bleach white under the harsh, native sun. Then, thirty or forty years from now, some eco-tourists in a souped-up Jeep would illegally carry my skull home and pop it on a fence post to remind them of their vacation.
IV
I laid still, waited for the restless wind to blow me away. I was draped in a coat made of winter, had been pulling it closer and closer around me the last few months, until everything felt clammy and gray. I was like one of Macbeth's witches, dressed in gray rags and tatters, my hair gray, skin gray, eyes gray, soul gray. But this place had too much color. This incessant red was burning me up. The heat, the desolation, the improbable and ridiculous redness of it all -- Abandon Hope, All Who Enter The Maze Without a Compass. My eyes were yearning for stands of green firs, a cool and placid blue lake where I could sink gracefully to the bottom. I had come here, I confess, with some idea of the sun burning off my depression. But Canyonlands was really too much for a softened mind to deal with.
V
Depressed women shouldn't wander in Canyonlands unsupervised, that much was certain. The thing with depression was a person couldn't think, couldn't concentrate enough not to wander off inadequately equipped and become lost etc. etc.
So this is how it would go. My friends, at the Memorial Service, would whisper, "I didn't realize she was in such a bad way! I should have made her go see a doctor!" It cheered me a little to believe no one would say, "I didn't think she was that stupid to get lost in Canyonlands National Park with no water! I mean, they have signs everywhere!"
VI
One memory to carry with me. What should it be, the first kiss? What was that boy's name? He had looked so startled, had jumped back and stared at me from across the porch. How could I forget his name?
Oh, I had a memory now, a good one, and I remembered his name. Champion, Jim Champion. We had been on a weekend course together, and he was engaged to a young teacher. One dance, he said, and I agreed. One dance only was appropriate with a man who was engaged to a young teacher. We had been eating escargot in garlic and butter, a first for both of us. It felt very daring to eat in a French restaurant at twenty-two, very exciting to dance afterward, to French kiss a man who had been eating escargot with garlic and butter.
VII
Water dripping through sandstone made hollows in the cliffs. The cave I was looking for was somewhere else, not here. It was well hidden, I hoped, from pathetic and misguided touristas such as myself, who couldn't even use a compass. I had heard that the ceiling was painted with malign, savage creatures, half animal and half human. I had heard the paint was flaking off, that water was washing the monsters away. I wanted to see them because I knew about monsters. I believed in them, and I knew they were real. Is that all it would take to wash them away, water dripping through sandstone?
VIII
I wasn't going to make it out of The Maze alive. Monsters, monsters. They come, they go. I was developing a sense of perspective at the end.
Canyonlands was a good place for monsters. Nature was like some insane artist carving wings and fins and arches out of rock, wind and water flying from her fingertips like thunder. The small living things had to hide, bury themselves in the sand, huddle away from the sun under outcroppings of rock. But the canyons and arroyos and rivers were so gut-wrenchingly beautiful it nearly broke your heart to look at them. That's why this was a good place for monsters.
IX
The wind was changing. I could almost taste dampness, salt and juniper, like the wind was collecting tears. Rain was coming. I would lay down in this sandstone hollow with my head out on the goat path. I would let the rain touch my face like holy water. My life was developing symmetry here at the end, its trajectory as round and smooth as an egg.
The rain would wash across the Canyonlands like a rush of amniotic fluid, or tears, and the paint made of earth and rock and blood would dissolve. Ancient monsters washed back into the earth.
X
I slid my useless compass out of my pocket and left it on the narrow path. Maybe a group of scouts would come this way and someone would find it and use it. I would move off the path, though. The scouts might be scared by my bones.
A shadow passed in front of me and I opened my eyes. Someone was blocking the sun.
"I found your compass," he said, helping me hold a bottle of water to my mouth. "It pointed me straight to you." He reached a hand for mine and helped me up. "Come on. I think it's about to rain."
©2006 by Sarah Black
