I was fourteen years old the morning Grandpa had the heart attack. We were all together that morning: my younger sisters, my parents, and Grandma Lillie. I was the only one of them who knew mouth to mouth resuscitation; in the early 1960s, Laguna Pueblo had no ambulance or emergency room. The U.S. Indian Health Service doctor lived a half hour away. I did my best, but Grandpa’s jaws were clenched shut and I could not open them; I think he was already gone.
After the doctor got there, he pounded on Grandpa’s chest so hard I heard ribs break. Grandpa was only sixty-nine, and had never been sick or had any symptoms or bad habits other than he smoked two packs of Camels a day. He’d never been inside a hospital in his life, so it was just as well he left the way he did that morning. His death ended the happiness of my childhood; the family slowly unraveled after that.
CHAPTER 38
The portraits of the Star Beings gave way to what I call star maps, but maybe these are just group portraits of the Star Beings. There are billions of galaxies so I figure somewhere in the Universe there is a galaxy that matches the star map I’ve just painted.
The portrait of Lord Chapulin turned out very well. Could he be an associate of the Star Beings?
The first two pieces of turquoise stone I found on my next walk were scarcely streaked with turquoise but that meant my eye for turquoise hadn’t lost its accuracy during my lay-off. The third piece I found is the size of a sparrow egg, though not so egg shaped as seed shaped.
Before the last storm I worried the buds on the jojoba might freeze but it was a warm rain with no frost. Now I see purple ajo flowers on tall slender stems across the hillsides; on the ground tiny red and white flowers form lacy mats that are fringed with tiny green leaves.
In the big arroyo I found a small piece of light gray feldspar the size of a quarter with a turquoise spot in the shape of a soaring condor.
The breeze is cool despite the sunshine of this lovely day in February. Purple blue lily-shaped flowers of the ajo, the wild garlic, are the first to push up through the soil. The hungry creatures depend on tasty little bulbs. The yellow gold desert poppy flowers are the size of hen’s eggs this year but they aren’t as numerous as in 1978, my first year in Tucson.
Once in a hundred years you might see the hills solid blue with desert lupines, solid gold yellow with desert poppies as they were in 1978. I had moved to Tucson only a few months before, so I had no prior experience with which to compare the lush abundance of blossoms of all kinds. Over the years I realized how singular the wild-flower bloom in 1978 was.
On the long steep hill below the Thunderbird Mine something darted off the trail to my left. A lizard. But when I reached him I saw it was a special lizard, a horned lizard the size of a half dollar, no larger, but it was the most amazing color I’ve ever seen for a horned lizard — an intense iridescent red orange and magenta red orange — the same red orange as the streak of iron in the limestone and clay on the hillside where the trail passes. When I moved closer to get a better look it became frightened and hurried under a gray leaf burr sage. I immediately regretted the move; next time I’ll remain motionless.
I spent two days assembling the new cage for Sandino, the one-legged macaw. I covered the wooden perches with soft old towels to protect his remaining foot before I moved him into the cage. He’s got a red spot on his heel. The vet warned me about sores on the remaining foot and toes. I hope it’s just the new cage and new perches and not something I failed to notice sooner.
Later I walked and in the big arroyo I found a rock streaked with turquoise where I’ve walked many times before; only today the light made the turquoise rock visible. It’s a slender outcrop of reddish brown limestone about four inches long and the strands of green blue and blue are a half inch wide. I stacked up three flat rocks on the side of the arroyo to mark the place. Was this part of a turquoise ledge?
On my walk in the big arroyo the next day I found three turquoise stones — a green blue stone, triangular and the size of a parrot egg, and two others more blue turquoise, one on a rust orange stone the size of a sunflower seed that is speckled with turquoise, and the other a tiny sliver of pure blue turquoise no larger than a grain of rice.
Here are the turquoise ledges I’ve located so far:
Right at the front gate to my house there is a gray basalt rock with a trace of lime or calcium carbonate with four tiny scattered deposits of turquoise. My earlier suspicions of a ledge here when I found stones in the back yard in July and August were confirmed. A week or two ago, below the house, on the steep west slope I found small pieces of bright blue calcium carbonate cabochons on a wafer thin ledge of calcite.
In the old round corral last December I found a ledge with a bit of turquoise made visible after years of rain eroded the ground broken by horses in steel shoes. So I’ve learned that I’m surrounded by turquoise ledges. The water in the big arroyo means the ledges there may be larger.
The really huge fat red diamondback appeared this morning, the last day of February. “Dove Eater” I call it. The snake was on the move, and later, from the Weather Channel I learned a late winter storm was moving in from the north.
The desert is green and brushy from all the rain this year. The curved beak thrashers and the cactus wrens are whistling deliriously with joy; so many seeds will follow these blossoms that bud overnight in the gentle warm rain.
It rained before dawn so this morning the telephone doesn’t work because the wire to the house is old and gets wet. The satellite Internet is out because of the thick clouds between the relay tower on the mountain ridge and the satellite. When it rains one should hang out wool rugs and wool clothing for a wash. I brought out both of my Guatemalan woven palm leaf sombreros which require rainwater twice a summer at least or the crowns of the hats will crumble.
I was thinking about my birthday that comes in three days, on March 5. I looked at a star map to see what stars and constellations were overhead when I was born: the planet Venus was spectacularly high in the west horizon. Also present:
Sirius, the Dog Star forty times brighter than the Sun, Hydra the Snake constellation with Alphard the solitary star halfway up the snake’s neck; blue Regulus brighter and hotter than the Sun; and Pollux and Castor, bright eyes of a great serpent.
Sirius is one of the Star Beings who peeps in the west windows on long winter nights after big Venus is finished spying.
The wild flowers are more numerous than they’ve been in years. The gold yellow desert poppies are pools of color in the emerald and jade green of the desert. The white six-pointed Mojave desert stars blossom first on the purple blue outcropping of rocks and form great constellations on the dark stone. Desert chicory send up big white ruffled flowers amid the jojoba leaves that shade them. Yellow fiddle necks, taller larger purple frills, and the twin blue violet lily-like flowers of the ajo are also in bloom.
Lupines lupines lupines purple red blue — even taller than the orange poppies. Tiny yellow flowers of the goldenrod fill the air with the scent of honey. White desert zinnias bloom early and so does the rattlesnake weed with its small blankets of tiny calico red and white flowers.
Everywhere I see the tall stalks of white penstemons that cover the rocky hillsides — the pink and purple penstemons only bloom in sandy moist arroyos.
I found a small piece of white glass, polished smooth by years of tumbling down the arroyo over the sharp edges of rocks and sand until it almost looks like quartz crystal. I found a piece of reddish gray basalt with white calcite crystals in its center like an eye. I spied a bright bit of turquoise in the center of a bean-size reddish pebble.