The trail changes. Somehow the angles and the earth soften despite the dryness. Horses ridden in the big arroyo churn and crush the stones in the sand and free the turquoise nuggets. Otherwise the weight of the horses breaks the crust of the deep arroyo sand and requires far more effort for me to walk there.
My son Caz and I were digging a grave for our old black dog Dolly this late November day when I spied a piece of dark green malachite. It was the only pebble in four or five shovelfuls of dirt. The stone was the size and shape of a dove’s heart. Dolly’s farewell to me. The ghost dogs came to her for three nights while she was dying, and on the fourth night they took her home. We dug the grave just outside her beloved yard. She’s not here anymore, but she’s not far away.
The malachite stone is so smooth and polished; it seems out of place in the caliche. I couldn’t miss the connection with Dolly because the stone is so far from the arroyo. The green is a sable green, dark but touched with red iron oxide just under the surface as Dolly herself was pure black but with a sable undertone. That was to make it clear the heart came from her, a gift to let me know she is safe and free now with the other ghost dogs, and every night she sleeps in her yard.
Spirits inhabit the same spaces, only they fit into dust motes so we can’t see them and we think they aren’t there, but of course they are, just in a different sort of space, not gone or destroyed.
For the past weeks that I did not work on the mural of Turquoise Man, I didn’t find any turquoise rocks on my walks. Then the morning after I worked on the mural of Turquoise Man with special attention to many small turquoise cabochons on his bracelets and necklace, I found a fine oval nugget of turquoise chalcedony with a bit of iron, nestled in the sand between the arroyo rocks by the path in plain view — again was the turquoise nugget lying there all these weeks and I didn’t see it or did it arrive overnight?
It all depends on how the light shines off the sand and the rocks in the arroyo, I decided. During the time of no turquoise I did see turquoise — a big rock which I left in the arroyo with five tiny turquoise bits the size of grains of sand — proof my eyes did detect even small bits of turquoise during that time.
I found a hand tool of gray basalt that fits in my palm with a groove pecked out — what for? A cradle where pebbles could be rolled and shaped into beads? A stone to shape arrow shafts? Maybe a stone to crush and mix paint — all traces of the mineral paint long ago washed away.
Yesterday I left on my walk later than usual, in the early afternoon. For the past two days clouds had filled the sky; they moved too high and too fast for rain, but kept the Sun covered and increased the humidity. I thought it was the afternoon light that made all the gray blue rocks appear more intensely blue but this morning I noticed that the turquoise rocks on my writing table absorbed the moisture from the clouds and their blue color intensified.
The turquoise only forms because water interacts with the calcite and the copper and aluminum. Raw turquoise and chrysocolla never stop absorbing moisture. The heavier, harder chrysocolla-impregnated chalcedony does not absorb moisture so dramatically.
I found a nice cabochon of turquoise today just after I realized that Turquoise Man and the mosaic turquoise mask at the British Museum are one and the same. I found another cabochon — malachite green, red iron and yellow with the small blue stone dotting the top of the malachite. I found a rough stony turquoise rock with a lovely mountain scene in all shades of blue green — lichen green mountain slopes, and a sunset sky of pale orange limestone.
As I age, I appreciate how the old women in my family felt about their run-down houses: let it stay with its leaks and holes until I’m gone and then they may tear it down. Years ago my friend Mei-Mei told me about an old man who owned thirty-five acres in the middle of downtown Scottsdale, most of it planted in grapefruit trees. In the winter he sold the grapefruit in front of his driveway. The roof in his big old hacienda style house leaked terribly, so he bought rolls of clear plastic sheeting at the lumber store and nailed drapes of plastic across the ceiling over his bed.
“8:3 °Coyote” shows up twice a day, usually twelve hours apart, to tease the big dogs. The mastiffs bark madly but the coyote saunters to the water pan; Coyote has a lovely tail, wide and full, glossy and thick, though it is only of average size or even a bit smaller. A yearling female perhaps, but such a nice coat — usually yearlings struggle their first year.
In the big arroyo near a natural stone step that makes a sort of cradle for the finest sand I found a tiny nugget of turquoise that stood out in the grayish white wash sand. In its journey down the big arroyo, the mother rock that bore the turquoise nugget got worn away or crushed down into pieces and finally the last piece of mother stone broke away and the tiny but solid nugget of turquoise continued the journey alone, polished by the fine sand in the rushing water.
The turquoise diggings near Cerillos, New Mexico are called Mount Chalchihuitl. “Chalchihuitl” is the Nahua word for jade. Chalchihuitl supplied most of the turquoise used in the famous Mixtec and Nahua turquoise mosaics.
This turquoise may explain the huge pueblo located just west of the diggings, on the flat grassy plateau not far from Santa Fe. With eighty kivas and eighty plazas, this pueblo’s size is comparable to Aztec and Maya cities. Turquoise financed the great pueblo that lies undisturbed under the sand.
The mine at Chalchihuitl did not require earth-moving machines or destruction to obtain the turquoise. The ancient people used to pour water into the rock that held the turquoise and overnight the water would freeze and shatter the rock holding the turquoise. People picked it up from the ground. The ledge at Chalchihuitl still yields turquoise after nearly a thousand years.
Such a large pre-Columbian city near Santa Fe helps solidify the Nahua claim to the four corner states of Arizona, New Mexico, Utah and Colorado. A barrio in Santa Fe is named Tlalacan — supposedly for the Tlalacans who came with the Spaniards. But suppose there were Tlalacans already in the Santa Fe area long before the Spaniards because of the turquoise trade?
Here where the turquoise exposes itself, and can be found on the surface, the small bits don’t matter because the mosaic makers must break the turquoise into small pieces anyway.
When I was a child, people at Laguna and people in the Spanish-speaking villages nearby used to paint the doors and window frames of their houses bright turquoise blue to keep away witches. The Spanish-speaking people used to save the bright blue stamps that sealed the Bull Durham tobacco bags, and whenever they had headaches they wore the bright blue stamps on their foreheads to stop the pain.
PART FOUR Turquoise
CHAPTER 36
The steep slope of the basalt ridge below the old Thunderbird Mine shaft showed me an amazing bobcat years ago as I rode my horse, but also the Gila monster, and only recently the maroon red horned lizard. Why might I notice more wonderful beings here than other spots?
Maybe the steep slope slowed the horses I rode and I had time to observe my surroundings more closely; now when I walk, the slope slows me down so it is possible to see more of what is alive in the world.
On the hillside, some distance from the big arroyo, near the ant palace, I found a piece of turquoise rock. Does this mean there is a turquoise ledge up here somewhere too?