This morning while I was out back feeding the military macaws, I heard a squirrel chattering incessantly at the water trough in the back above the old pool, and when I went to see what was happening, there sat a big bobcat nonchalantly lapping up water. He knew I was watching him but he didn’t care. This bobcat lives in the neighborhood and isn’t afraid of humans or dogs. He is the same height as my ninety pound pit bull but the bobcat’s head is twice the size of the dog’s.
Today’s March shower — the first storm since the end of January — was enough to fill the small cisterns carved into the boulders along the arroyo. There was a bright blue turquoise rock in plain view where I walked yesterday. It wasn’t there yesterday. Did the rain bring it? On a previous walk without the rain’s help I found a round nugget of pale blue turquoise on the trail I’d walked dozens of times before. Later when I held this piece of turquoise against my cheek, the stone felt heavier and cooler than the others.
Does Turquoise Man travel with the rain? Well of course. He calls for the rain so the runoff water comes to the arroyos where deposits of copper, aluminum, iron and the calcites drink in the moisture to become turquoise.
I always assumed Mexico and the land to the south had deposits of turquoise. Macaws and macaw feathers were brought north, but I used to wonder what it was those rich Mexican Indians wanted badly enough to walk a thousand miles with live macaws on their backs. It wasn’t until I found a book about the turquoise mosaics at the British Museum that I learned they had jade and jadeite in Mexico, but turquoise was rare and thus the most precious stone, most desired by the deities for their ornaments and ceremonies.
During the classic period of Teotihuacan, the Nahua Empire sent out traders with macaws and feathers north along the turquoise trail to Arizona and New Mexico to bring back the turquoise so highly coveted. The turquoise exchange accounts for the well-traveled trade routes the Spaniards found as they followed their captive Indian guides north.
Turquoise is a favorite color for ka’tsina masks. The paints on the ka’tsina mask are what make the mask alive. When the old paints are scraped off prior to repainting, the paint scrapings from the masks are taken to a ka’tsina shrine for disposal. Otherwise even the paint scrapings have the power to harm someone.
The Long Horn ka’tsina’s turquoise-colored mask has one long horn because he brought long life to the people. His right eye is short so that “witches” or “the two hearts” who pretend to be kind but secretly crave violence and misery, don’t live long. His left eye is long so the people of one heart will live a long time. Turquoise is worn to ward off witches.
Years ago at a Zuni Shalako ceremony, a housetop collapsed with many spectators on it. Apparently they’d failed to place turquoise under the floor of the new room being blessed by the Shalako dancers.
Xiuhtecuhtli, Lord Turquoise, is also the God of Fire. He wears a mask studded with turquoise cabochons for moles on his face. He is also known as Ixcozauhqui, Old God. His turquoise mosaic mask survived the conquistadors and ended up in the British Museum.
Xiuhatla means turquoise water.
Xiuhatl is the turquoise waters of Paradise.
Xiuhcalli is the house of turquoise that belongs to Quetzalcoatl in Tollan.
Xiuhuitl herb is the color of green turquoise; xiuhtoz means “turquoise parrot” and is a fictional name used to designate a ghost warrior.
Xiuhtzoneh is the name of the mountain at Tepozotla where the Toltecs mined a turquoise lode, the only source of turquoise inside Mexico.
CHAPTER 28
It’s early May now but the morning was still cool. I’d gone a good distance up the wash to the sharp turn at the natural cisterns of blue stone in the area of the lost petroglyph. I was thinking about the turquoise stones I’d picked up over the thirty years I’ve lived here. The big ones only had splashes of turquoise or tiny thin threads of turquoise on their surface. The smaller rocks are better — all the thin crumbly surface has worn away in the abrasion of the arroyo, and only the turquoise remains — polished by the tumble in the muddy water, and pebbles.
I glanced down the sandy delta where I never found turquoise stones and this time I saw a rock with a tiny bright spot of turquoise in the shape of a cloud.
A short distance away I found another small turquoise rock in the shape of a half moon. The swirling action of the floodwaters in the arroyo churns the deposits of sand and stones over and over. The delta where there’s only sand and a few pebbles on the surface probably has turquoise pebbles buried six feet below that get churned back up in a flash flood.
Along the way I picked up two shards of bottle glass. The glass is dense and heavy so I know it is old, from the 1960s or even the 1950s when the glass had some lead or other metals in it. If left for many years in the sun, the clear glass turns bright amethyst.
Most times I find glass fragments of recent manufacture. The glass is very thin because they’ve mixed in plastic resins to make it lighter-weight, but not stronger. In Tucson the thin glass of bottles of carbonated water often explode in the heat and blast their shrapnel in every direction.
I see fresh wood dust under the small palo verde killed by vandals a few months ago. I felt very badly when I found it lying in the arroyo because the foothill palo verde grow very slowly and this one must have been thirty years old. But now the insects are eating it and I am reminded the desert has its ways to work out death and life.
I was walking down the steep hill near the Thunderbird Mine, and I was almost to the bottom, keeping up a good pace while careful not to stumble, when I looked over to the right, and coming at a good pace too was a Gila monster. The big lizard saw me just at the instant I saw him. He flicked his delicate black forked tongue at me, and in my surprise I blurted out “Hello.” Such an ugly sound ruined our introduction. The Gila monster didn’t flee but he turned his back to me and hid his head in a small desert sage brush so he wouldn’t have to see something so large and frightening.
As I walked along the path, I paid special attention to the ant palaces along the way. I took notice of them when I passed by; each colony did something different — perhaps owing to the unique conditions of their location in the desert. Some went underground at sunrise while others stayed on to work in the heat.
The perfect rings of bright vermillion caught my eye. They encircled the stone entrance to the ant palace. The ants gathered the fallen blossoms of the ocotillo and intended to move them into their nest after the flowers dried. The brilliant orange red of the tiny flowers was incandescent in the early light.
The storm came suddenly, and oddly there was not the thunder and lightning that usually accompany hail and rain. The hail was the size of corn kernels. The storm lasted only an hour or so but when it was over, I could see the big arroyo was flooded from bank to bank. The damp air amplified the sounds; I heard the low whir of the floodwater as it crossed the paved road with its slurry of pebbles and rocks.
The curved beak thrashers sang their rain songs full of trills and arpeggios while the Gila woodpeckers shrieked with joy. The rain makes the desert birds amorous. Even a moderate rain may allow the desert birds and others the sustenance to raise their young successfully.
Next day’s storm was short but violent — a great deal of rain and hail fell in a short time. The trail was badly eroded; the path the rainwater carved was filled with sizeable rocks and pebbles so I had to pay attention to my footing. The damp earth felt wonderfully moist with an energy that helped my feet spring along.
As I walked along, a light breeze moved steadily, full of the scents of wet earth and wet bark and leaves. I even smelled wet roots. The tiny gnats the hummingbirds love to eat rose from their damp earth beds under the foliage as a gossamer golden cloud in the morning light.