Devil's Canyon

DEVIL'S CANYON1

It was late afternoon on Oct. 30 and there were big plans afoot for the “Three Desperados” as Edwin, Roy, and I referred to ourselves. We had a little holiday camp-out planned in Devil's Canyon, a task we had taken on because of a “double-dog dare” some of the other boys in town had laid on us. We were laughing about it as we gathered up the supplies we figured we would need; canteens, a tent, some quilts and pillows, etc., etc. We couldn’t take too much, though, there’s only so much room on three bicycles. But a short trip down Ward Hill to the park later, there we stood at the beginning of the trail to Devil’s Canyon.2

We would have to abandon our bikes at the bottom of the old sand pit that had stood there empty for years; a red sandstone monument to a different time and different circumstances. The floor of the pit was too soft for bike riding, and the bikes would have become useless when rougher country was reached anyway, so we piled our supplies on our backs and covered the bikes with brambles and bushes and struck out on foot. Not one of us owned a “pack”; our packs were toe sacks that had many other uses as well, they often were pressed into service on fishing trips [they held small catfish quite nicely], pig-iron runs, bottle gathering sprees, berry picking afternoons, and so on. Loaded as they were now, they were heavy, but we didn’t mind the weight, secure in the knowledge that all of our stuff would make it with us to wherever we were going, be it the ends of the earth.3

The sand pit was beautiful in the late afternoon sun as we trudged through it, feeling the hot-sand earth thru the soles of our tennis shoes. The rough orange-red of the sandstone hills contrasted with the different hues of green made by the bushes and low scrub trees [mostly mesquite] that dotted them; a low sun slanted across creating long shadows. I often thought back in those days that this was what the surface of Mars must look like, and I still do think that to this day.4

We climbed one of the last of the sandstone hills to get an overview of our surroundings and to better establish our bearings. Just because you had found Devils Canyon once [and we had], did not mean that you could easily find it again; and besides, we had to camp somewhere that night before we made our main thrust toward the canyon in the morning. We knew it would take some exploring and switching back, looking for old land marks we remembered, before we would be able to find the canyon proper. The way some of the old folks in the town told it, the canyon had a life of it’s own, and would stealthily move around to hide it’s location; particularly from young lads out on an adventure. They would also mention the “fact” that the copperheads and owls and buzzards always knew where it was; if you could find them together, you would also find the Canyon.5

We had no reason to doubt them; surely they were right; we knew in our hearts the canyon would not be exactly where it existed in our memory of before. With that thought in mind, and wanting to be fresh in the morning so we would not get lazy in our search, we decided to camp right there on top of the sandstone hill, and get a good night’s sleep. In order to answer the dare, you see, we had to spend the next night; Halloween night; in the canyon. No one had ever seen the canyon at night, at least no one we knew, and certainly not on Halloween night. For, among the other legends about the canyon, it was supposed to be haunted as well…6

Legend had it that two old Lipan Apaches had disappeared there while looking for flint stone in the bottom of the canyon. When they failed to return to their scouting party in the morning, a few of the braves went looking for them. All of the sign the old men had left led toward the canyon, but when the braves got to the bottom, all they found were some remnants of the old brave’s clothes. The clothes were badly torn and bloodstained, and had been placed inside an odd five-pointed symbol drawn in the pebbles in the bottom. The braves were afraid to touch the remnants, or to even cross inside the symbol, so they left them there and returned to their party of scouts. The braves told no one of their findings until the party returned to the village, where they requested an audience with the chief. After listening to their tale, the chief scratched his head, and had the medicine man brought to them. Upon hearing their stories, the medicine man deftly drew a symbol in the sand, and asked the young braves if that was what they had seen. All answered in the affirmative, and the medicine man nodded his head in wisdom. He told them the old braves had stumbled into an evil place, and were removed to another world where they would live in misery forever. He then told the young braves that this should have happened to them also, but the evil god of the canyon must have been asleep; if they had set foot in the symbol, they would surely have awakened him. After making them take some spirits and smoke the pipe, he left; ordering them to never go near the place again. 7

The young Lipans were just boys, however, and being much emboldened by the spirits and the pipe, they went to find the canyon again later that afternoon, saying they would spend all day there if they wanted. Strangely enough, however, they were unable to locate it again, even though they were expert trackers and followed their own sign until it seemingly just disappeared at the point they remembered the canyon being. “Ha!”, they said, “the place of evil is afraid of the brave ones”, and turned and went back to the village. Late that night, a storm of unbelievable force descended upon the village, shaking huts and uprooting trees, and delivering unbelievable amounts of rain. The next morning brought bright sunshine, however, and the chief and the medicine man went around the village counting heads. They found one papoose, who had drowned in a puddle of water after the mother had been knocked senseless by a falling tree branch. The chief thought that was understandable, given the violence of the storm, but what was strange was what he didn’t find…there was no trace of the young braves who had found the canyon the previous day. When they asked around the village, an old, venerable squaw said that while she had been peeking out the door of her hut in fear, she had seen the young braves swept away by a powerful gust of wind; a wind that turned round and round and seemed to generate its own light. The chief then asked the medicine man if they should go look for the young ones.8

“No, my chief”, said the medicine man, “we will never see them again”.9

My two companions and I dreamt about the legend of the Lipan braves that night as we fitfully slept; not one of us ever drifted into total rest. When we awoke at sunrise in the morning, we felt as exhausted as we had the afternoon before, as if we had never slept at all. So tired were we, that we would have turned around and gone back home, had we not been on a double-dog dare. We felt we had no choice but to go on, so we gathered up our supplies and took up our search once again. Laughing, we said to each other that we would sleep well that night in Devil’s Canyon. Little did we know what lay in store for us.10

Leaving the sand pit, the landscape changed into a high, grassy plain, dotted with multiple trees of various design. Most plentiful were the low-slung mesquites and springy bois d’arc, with a generous supply of pin oaks, live oaks, cedar, and elms. The grass was near knee high in most places, in spite of the dryness of the country, and was a mixture of wheat, alfalfa, and weed grasses. The wheat and alfalfa had been sown by men long ago, of course, but now grew wild on the prairie, making an excellent habitat for ground feeding birds like quail and pheasant. Underneath it all was a mixture of black land loam and sand, with plenty of stones interspersed. It had been many a year since the ground had been tilled and flattened; it now rose up and down quickly, making the going slow and treacherous. Every once in a while we would come upon a steer, usually a longhorn, and the ever present buzzards circled endlessly in the sky. The low trees and the ground belonged to the varieties of songbirds that abounded there; everything from scissor-tails to cedar waxwings to sparrows and cardinals and blue jays and mockingbirds; one could not count them all. But Edwin and Roy and I didn’t have much time to enjoy nature on this trip into the wild; the compulsion to find Devil’s Canyon once again single-mindedly drove us onward.
Eventually, we came upon a tarpaper shack in a grove of trees that we remembered from before; its door still hanging ajar on one hinge, the opening covered with spider webs, looking very much the same as the last time we had seen it. We knocked the spider webs down and went inside, where we found everything just as we remembered it; from the newspaper on the walls to the empty jars and broken pieces of wooden furniture that had been there before. We knew without anyone telling us that we were the only visitors the shack had seen in a long, long, time.11

“Edwin”, I said, my voice seeming to boom loudly in the small shack, “do you remember that not far from here there’s a small cave in the side of a hill”?12

“I do”, said Edwin, “it was a couple of miles after we found that cave that we found the canyon”.13

“That’s right”, I said, and we turned and walked out of the shack.14

After a little jawing, we agreed on a direction that we thought the cave was in, and headed that way, fanning out about twenty yards apart. The cave was small, and would be hard to spot in the lushness of summer; it had been in the fall of the year when we had discovered it before. After what seemed to be an interminable walk, casting our heads side-to-side, I heard Roy sing out “HERE”, and we turned and ran in his direction. A few paces later, and there it was, an opening in the side of a small red hill, in the shade of a few post oaks. We didn’t see Roy, but Roy was always full of play since he was the youngest; and we found him laughing in a corner of the cave when we stuck our heads inside. The cave only went a few feet into the ground before the opening became too small to crawl through; the part we were crouching in appeared to have been dug out by someone for some unknown purpose. It was just like the tar-paper shack; it was unchanged and exactly as we remembered it. We all felt a little excited as we crawled out of the cave; finding it meant that we were for sure on the right track to Devil’s Canyon. Once again, we decided on a direction, and renewed our exploration.15

Soon after we left the cave, the landscape began to change again; becoming rockier and with fewer trees around. Without all the trees and their attendant songbirds, it was considerably quieter, and we could easily hear our legs swish as we walked through the high grasses and weeds. The area now had such a sameness to it, that it was hard to find any discernable difference from one spot to the next. I spotted a place where I thought the canyon was, but when we arrived there, all we found was more prairie; Edwin espied a locale and we went there, but the result was the same. It was then we decided we’d best fan out again, for now everything looked both familiar and different at the same time, and looking for landmarks was an exercise of futility. It seemed to me as if, indeed, the canyon had moved…16

I took the right flank, and Edwin the left, with Roy in the middle so we could keep an eye on him, and proceeded. I walked along, sweeping my eyes right and left, and near and far; not wanting to miss anything. I was afraid we might have already passed it by and might never find it; the canyon was small and narrow at the top, and not at all easy to see unless you almost walked up on top of it. The afternoon sun burned hot, and we took sandwiches and canteens out of our toe sacks, eating lightly but drinking heavily. I was about to call it quits and give in on the double-dog dare, when I spotted a low row of bushes on the ground about 100 yards distant. I walked up to them, and as I followed the bushes, they seemed to split into two rows, and then the ground seemed to split between them, and the split in the ground grew wider, and…lo and behold, there was Devil’s Canyon!17

With a loud, but shaky voice I called the others, and soon all three of us were gazing at the white, descending walls of the canyon. Quickly, we began edging our way down; sideways at first in the extremely narrow initial part of the canyon, then turning full front as the walls opened up. Soon, we were over half-way down and immersed in total shade, as no sunlight reached this far into the slender crevasse. The bottom of the canyon was clearly visible now; to this day I can still remember it and the white limestone walls rising from it, almost exactly the same color as the bleached bones of a cow long dead in the desert.18

Devil’s Canyon was by no means large as canyons go; heck, a geologist would probably just call it a crack, or a wrinkle in the ground. But at around ½ of a mile long and over 100 yards deep, it was by-golly a canyon to us boys; we had never seen anything to compare with it. Why it was not featured on local maps of the county was beyond our understanding; we “guessed” that the canyon moved around so much that it couldn’t be mapped. In an odd way, it was both imposing and beautiful as it drew us on toward the bottom.19

Edwin had brought his Kodak “Brownie” camera [we needed pictures for proof of our visit], and began snapping away, knowing that soon it would be too dark in the canyon for effective picture-taking. The little black box [why did they call it a “Brownie”?] would only take black-and-whites, but it was the best technology we had, so we used it. None of the other boys in town had ever seen Devil’s Canyon anyway, and would have to take our word that the pictures were indeed of Devil’s Canyon. There would be doubters, of course, but they would have to take our word for it if we had the pictures; doubt, or no doubt.20

Within minutes, we were on the floor of the canyon. In most places, the floor was about 10 to 15 feet wide, and consisted of worn off pieces of limestone and other more colorful rocks, with an extremely narrow stream bed in the center. The stream bed was at no place wider than three feet, and was dry now, being as it hadn’t rained for a few weeks. I was evident, though, from water marks on the walls that when the rains came, there would be torrents of water in the canyon rushing through on its way somewhere else. There were small holes in the canyon sides where we knew copperheads lived, and there were the scritchy marks in softer soils that we knew were made by tarantulas out for a walk at night. Looking through the opening at the top, we could see buzzards gliding by, waiting for something to die, and we knew that later that night we would hear the mournful hoot of owls, even though we couldn’t see any right then. In short…we knew we were in Devil’s Canyon.21

We set off doing a little exploratory trip from one end of the tiny canyon to the next; remembering things we had seen before. It seemed to us that the canyon was smaller than we remembered it, but our previous trip had been two years ago, and we had grown considerably in the interim; both in stature and in wit. Everything was just as we remembered it, from the appearance of the stream bed to the old cow’s skull laying up on the embankment. As we turned and made yet another trip back through the canyon, we began to giggle; the giggle became choking, held back laughter, and then finally the whooping laugh of the thoroughly amused. The canyon was small, so small, that we couldn’t believe anyone would fear spending the night there. We were laughing at ourselves and the previous fears we had contained while looking for the canyon. Now, our fear seemed the height of foolish worry, and we no longer harbored any dread about the task at hand.22

When our laughter finally subsided, Edwin snapped a few more pictures; mostly of me and Roy standing atop a limestone boulder, our arms around each other and smiling as we held a piece of cardboard we had scribbled “Devil’s Canyon” on. Then Roy and I switched places and I took pictures of them, and then Roy of Edwin and me; all of us replete with idiotic grins on our faces. If I had ever seen more than the one picture I later found, I’m sure it would have looked for all the world like we were attending a church outing somewhere; young boys on a lark, having a ball.23

However, the picture taking stopped soon; it was getting late and the impending gloom told us it was time to gather some firewood, and make our camp for the night. There was precious little wood in the bottom of the canyon, but there was plenty on the surface, so we scrambled up an embankment and began throwing dry branches and limbs down to the bottom. For a good hour, we worked tediously at this; experienced campers that we were, we knew that firewood was quickly consumed, and it was better to have too much than too little. When we deemed we had enough firewood, we went back to the canyon bottom, which was quite dusky by now, and quickly found a large flat boulder, that not only would keep us off the ground for the night, but had a depression in the center to hold the coals from our fire. We made quick work of some of the wood with our knives and hatchets, and before long had a pleasant fire going, as all semblance of daylight dissolved; leaving the rest of the canyon in inky blackness. Seemingly, all the tiredness of the early part of the day had left us, and we cheerfully sat around our fire; roasting marshmallows and eating jerky and hard biscuits, and swapping lies about our conquests and adventures, as young boys [and old ones too] are wont to do. It wasn’t long, though, that the length and the effort of the day caught up with us, and we stopped talking and reclined on our bed-rolls.24

I remember lying on my back that night, and peering up through the narrow crack that was the top of the canyon. Even as small as the crevice was, it seemed I could see a million stars through the opening; hanging lantern pinpoints in a sky so deeply, darkly blue that it seemed almost black. There was a gentle wind blowing down through the canyon, keeping us cool and blowing the column of smoke from our fire away from us. There was no evidence of the moon to be seen; I knew that a thin sliver of it was residing somewhere in the sky, but not where we could see it. Listening, I could hear the chittering sound of crickets, and the low drip, drip, drip of water somewhere, God knows where. And yes, there in the distance somewhere I heard the hoo-hoo-hooing of Mr. Owl, who had come out to pay homage to the unseen moon. And things; I could hear things rustling in the brush at the canyon crest, and skittering along the ground in the stream bed beside us. But I was not afraid, nor were the other two desperadoes. We felt like we were part of this wild country, and it was part of us, inseparable, joined in the soul and mind. The last thing I heard was the gentle snoring of Edwin and Roy, and before long…I was asleep too.25

What began as a gentle sleep and a pleasant dream, soon turned raw, however; I was a pirate cast adrift in a cold, wet sea, the waves tossing their heads like angry dragons, menacing me with the fire of lightning, and…BOOM!!, I was awakened by an earth-shaking thunderclap; cold rain stinging my face. Looking up through the canyon top, the stars were no longer visible; lightning streaks and roiling clouds taking their place.26

“Rain?”, I thought, the panic rising within me, “It can’t be, it hasn’t rained for weeks”!27

But raining it was, and looking down beside me I could see that the stream bed was already full, and the water was still rising. I sprung onto my feet to rouse Edwin and Roy, but they weren’t there!28

“Roy! Edwin!”, I cried out, but my cries were drowned by the deafening downpour, and I scarce could hear myself screaming. 29

“Where are you”? No answer.30

“Roy, Edwin”? No answer.31

I could feel the icy grip of fear rising within me as I spun on my heels, looking for my companions. But everywhere I looked was naught but black and white; the black of the stormy night and the white of the limestone canyon walls. I stumbled off the shelf of rock we had slept on, bewildered, wanting to find my friends, but not knowing where to look. The water in the stream now reached my knees, rushing hard, and inched toward the canyon walls; straining to go higher, higher.32

“ROY! EDWIN!”? No answer.33

The rain began to come down harder and harder, huge droplets that actually hurt when they hit; causing me to quake and wince. Looking through the gap at the top, I see that the clouds had taken on a pulsing, orange color; and appeared to be flinging lightning bolts down into the ground near the canyon, causing ear-splitting thunder claps. The bolts came closer and closer, and I wondered: were the clouds trying to hit me? All at once, a bolt split the middle of the canyon, striking the ground not fifty paces away from me; in its aftermath crackling electricity climbed the walls of the walls of the canyon, leaving the smell of burned ozone in the air.34

“Roy? Edwin?”, I ventured tremulously. No answer.35

The raging water of the stream was now on the walls and striking me mid-thigh, trying mightily to pull me downstream. Screaming, I pulled myself from the stream and pressed against the canyon wall, and began inching my way toward the end of the canyon, hopefully to escape. The canyon that had seemed so small that I had laughed about it before, now seemed agonizingly long and its walls perilously steep. If I could reach the end, there would be vegetation there; small shrubs that I could use to extract myself from the canyon against the driving rain. As if sensing what I planned, it began to rain even harder, and the wind picked up as well, trying to force me back. Achingly, I raised my head to look at the end of the canyon, and that was when I saw him! There, about half-way up the slope stood Edwin, motioning to me to come on. Although he looked strangely different, I yelped with joy, and redoubled my efforts.36

“Edwin! Edwin!”, I said, and scrabbled along against the wall.37

At last, I reached the end of the canyon, and almost sang with joy as my hand closed around the branch of a cedar shrub protruding from the side of the canyon wall. I could see Edwin more clearly now as he motioned me onward, the agitation and urgency in his movements evident. I wondered why he didn’t reach down to extend a hand to me, but his face was the color of the limestone walls, and small trickles of blood hung from the corners of his mouth. Straining with all my might, I rose from the canyon floor and drew closer to Edwin; but still, he did not reach out for me. At last, I was almost abreast with him, and reached and got a handful of his shirt. ‘Nooooooooooooooooo’, I could see the soundless word form on his lips, and then there was a brilliant flash of white and the world seemed to swirl around me, sucking me into a black, inky, abyss…38

I dreamed I was at a carnival on a bright summer’s day, perched at the very top of a Ferris wheel as it took on more riders. Looking down at the ground, I could see Edwin and Roy, smiling and waving up at me.39

“Roy, Edwin”, I said. No answer.40

I awoke lying in deep grass on the prairie, with my friends names on my lips. Instantly, I sat bolt upright; looking around in all directions. The sun was shining brightly in a clear blue sky, and there was no sign of any rainfall. Spider webs still hung in the low trees, and birds flitted to and fro, from one tree to the next. Slowly I stood erect, my joints hurting from sleeping on the hard ground; my muscles temporarily unaccustomed to the weight of my body.41

The canyon; where was the canyon, I thought? I remembered being in Devil’s Canyon, with Edwin and Roy, laughing and making camp.42

“ROY! EDWIN?”, I called out. No answer.43

I felt something in my hand, and looked down. I discovered I was holding a piece of Edwin’s shirt; it was blood-stained and charred on the ends, as if it had been burned off. It was then I remembered the terrible rainstorm, and Edwin standing up on the rise, looking every bit like a ghost. And I remembered reaching out for Edwin…and then, I remembered no more.44

The canyon. Where was the canyon? I shambled around on the prairie, looking for the canyon, but it was nowhere to be found. Finally giving up, I decided to retrace our steps back to the sand pit. As I was leaving, I spied a black box on the ground, and picked it up. It was Edwin’s camera, the Brownie [why do they call it that], and as I turned it around in my hand, water poured from it, disappearing into the dry earth below. 45

“Water-logged”, I thought disgustedly. “That means the film is probably no good either”, realizing this and the piece of shirt were the only ties I had to the events of the day before.46

I decided to keep them, and stuffed the shirt in one of my pockets while holding the camera in my hand; I had no idea where my toe sack might be. Thus loaded, I began my trip back to the sand pits.47

I stumbled along dazedly, with only half my mind on my journey. The other half of my thoughts wondered about what had happened, and about where my companions could be. I had made it out; surely they had too, but out of what? There was no canyon to be found, and even more perplexing, there was no sign of the terrible storm I remembered. The ground was hard and dry; the hardness and dryness of ground that had gone waterless for weeks on end. But yet, I had an old camera that was full of water; how could that be?48

“Roy? Edwin?”, I said. No answer.49

Half by young-boy expertise, and half by luck; I soon reached the sand pits. I could see the sandstone hill we had camped on two nights before, and every thing looked the same as it had then. The water, though, where was the water? After a thunderstorm the magnitude of the one I had gone through, the sand pit should be half full of water; yet it was as dry as the rest of the country side. On a whim, I visited the site of our initial camp; finding the remnants of a long dead campfire and other signs of our temporary habitation; everything was as it should be. Everything, that is, except that I was now by myself.50

“Roy? Edwin?” No answer.51

Feeling both disgusted and apprehensive, I went back down the hill and easily found our bikes where we had hidden them. A sharp pang of dread cast a shadow over my mind; all three bikes were there, causing me to wonder once again about my two companions. Surely they would have gotten their bikes if they had made it here before me, unless they were playing some sort of elaborate trick on me. Sure, that’s it, I thought [hoped]. They were probably sitting at home watching TV right now, laughing about me wandering around the sand pit, looking for them. Since I was the oldest, they knew I felt a certain amount of responsibility for them, and would be pulling my hair out by now with worry. I’m going to whoop them good when I catch up with them, I snorted.52

“Roy? Edwin?” No answer.53

It was then I heard the voice of Deputy Taylor. Unnoticed by me, he was standing at the top of the ridge, looking down.54

“Yeah, Roy and Edwin, where are they?”, he said.55

Befuddled, I gazed up at him, and said the only thing I could say.56

“I don’t know, Deputy”.57

“You don’t know?”, said Taylor disgustedly. “We been out here for two days scouring this God-forsaken country for ya’ll, and you tell me you don’t know”?58

“Two days? This ain’t the day after Halloween”?59

“Naw”, said the Deputy. “This here is Nov. 3rd, don’t you know that, boy”?60

I shook my head, and looked around.61

“Roy? Edwin?”, I said. No answer.62

Taylor looked at me disgustedly, and then said, “We been lookin’ fer you damn kids fer it seems like forever now; ever since yore momma’s reported ya’ll missing. Now let’s try again: where in sam hill is yore buddies”?63

I looked at the Deputy, and once again told him the truth, the plain, simple truth: “I don’t know”, I said.64

The days that followed seemed like a whirlwind, and now, 50 years later, are just a blur in my head. The police whisked me around everywhere; I showed them where the cave was, and where Devil’s Canyon had been. I recounted the events of our trip as best I could, and they finally took me home, because I was twelve and there was little else they could do with me. Once my mother quit breathing sighs of relief and stopped crying, they questioned me hard as well, and we went over to Edwin and Roy’s house to see their parents; where I had to face more of the same grilling. Their parents were panic stricken, and kept asking me over and over where their sons were; and over and over I had to keep telling them that I didn’t know.65

The sun set and then rose again, and the Sheriff called the FBI, who said they would send a team of specialists “right away”. Another day later and the specialists showed up, and busily set about going over all the ground again. They took me with them, and I showed them all the same stuff I had shown the Sheriff’s men before, while they murmured things like “mm-hmmm” and “ah-hah” and wrote in their notebooks. They put out an APB on Edwin and Roy [the sheriff had already done this, but the new one was tagged “FBI”], and scribbled more in their notebooks. They asked me questions endlessly, and when I didn’t come up with the right answers, they took me to a doctor in the big city called a “therapist”, who asked me the same questions the others had been asking me; plus a few things I didn’t understand; like how did I get along with my parents, and what did I dream about, and how close were Edwin and Roy and I, and so on…66

The therapist eventually sent me home too, and told the FBI that I had experienced some sort of “traumatic event” and that my mind had “blocked” any recollection of the happening.67

“He may some day remember what happened”, said the therapist, “or he may never remember; the memory may be locked away forever somewhere in the far reaches of his mind”.68

Still, they continued the search, of course, but now hoped to find their bodies instead; every one had pretty much given up the idea of finding them alive, even their parents. Repeated ground searches did turn up a few scraps of blood-stained clothing that I identified as possibly being theirs, but in this age before DNA testing, positive identification was not an option. Time passed, and feelings healed, and acceptance finally lent peace to those involved. But, Roy and Edwin’s family were never good friends with my family or me again…69

I left the town as soon as I graduated from high school; there was nothing there for me anymore but bad memories and questioning looks. I was hoping a change in scenery might make me happier, and maybe make the recurring dreams go away. Every night I was tossed about in a rowboat on a tempestuous sea, calling out for Roy and Edwin over and over. They, of course, never answered. 70

As I was about to board the bus that was taking me away, I saw Mose Thompson, the old, black caretaker of the local cemetery. Without me saying a word to him, he looked at me and smiled, with the wisdom and visage in his face that only the truly old have.71

“You’ll find’em someday, son”, he said, and turned and walked away.72

The anonymity of life in the big city turned out to be of little help. The questioning looks were gone, but the dreams were not, and whenever there was bad weather in the forecast, I would hide in an interior closet and call out for my mother until it was over with. I was able to find meaningful work, though, that paid the bills and bought me TV’s and computers. I was never able to get married, however, or even go out very much, for fear of sharing my dark secret with someone. I fell into the habit of frequenting bars and drinking too much, finding that if I drank myself into semi-consciousness the dreams would not come, at least for that one night. It was an existence, I guess…73

One day when I was changing apartments again [I tended to move a lot], I found Edwin’s old Brownie camera in a plastic bag that seemed to always go with me from place to place, as if waiting for me to do something with it. I decided I would take the film in and see what I had; most likely nothing, after all that time and the original flooding. However, it couldn’t hurt to find out, so the following weekend I managed to pry the camera open and get the old film out. I had to find an independent photographer to develop it; it seems that the major retail outlets just “didn’t do” that kind of work anymore. It took almost a month, but I eventually found a guy who appeared to be almost as lonely as me; he worked by himself out of his own apartment, mostly developing pictures of his own design. He took my film for free, saying that “it was probably more interesting than the ones he had taken of a pole-dancer the weekend before”.74

But when the deed was done, he only came up with one usable photo. It was one I had taken of Edwin and Roy down in the canyon, holding the sign.75

“Look here”, said the developer, “what is this? There appears to be something behind your friends”.76

There behind Edwin and Roy was an apparition, seemingly formless but appearing to have features as well, like eyes, and perhaps a mouth.77

“Do you think it’s just a smudge on the film?”, I asked.78

“Naw”, said the photographer, “that piece of film was clean. Anyway, make of it what you will; there it is”.
I thanked the man and left, clutching the picture. Yes…there it was; whatever it was. The image seemed to jog some long dead memory cells in my brain, as if I had seen it before, but forgotten about it.79

I sat all night and drank, the picture never leaving my hand. The apparition had the appearance of a spirit about to devour my friends, and the longer I looked at it, the more convinced I became that’s what it was. 80

“I am looking”, I thought, “at the eternally damned soul of the canyon itself”! And I made up my mind what I must do…81

In the morning, I called my work and made arrangements to take a couple of weeks of leave, citing personal problems. When they asked me where I was going, I said “anywhere but here”, and left the matter hanging at that. I was busy for the next couple of days, and, for once, sober. I went to various hardware stores buying things I thought I might need; some rope, a hatchet, a Bowie knife, a canteen. From the office supply I bought a digital camera, a notepad and a pen. From the grocers, potted meat product and Vienna sausages. From my apartment, I got a pillow and a blanket; and from a cotton warehouse on the edge of town, a couple of toe sacks. Then, I loaded up my car, and I left.82

Later, I found myself standing on the edge of the sand pit; even after 50 years, it still looked the same. I loaded the stuff I brought into the toe sacks, and struck out walking, retracing those steps of oh, so many years ago. I skipped the cave entirely, for I now know what I would see if I looked inside. There would be two skeletons there, facing each other with arms around shoulders, grinning as only skulls can grin. It is Edwin and Roy of course, or at least; their physical remains. But it is their spiritual remains that I seek, and…my own as well, for I realize now that my life has not been my own since that original, fateful night in the canyon. I am seeking an end to my misery; whether my body lives on or not is of small consequence. If I die, I will do so knowing the truth, with the mystery unraveled.83

There was no stumbling around this time, I reached the edge of the canyon quickly. Only silence greeted me, there are no birds, no sighing winds. In the distance, I see the sky turning dark blue on the horizon; a storm is already building. I am ready, and the canyon is ready also; may God give us both solace.84

I took my new rope out, and tied it around a low, but sturdy, tree; the rope will be my way out, I hope, as I tie the other end around my waist. Then, as the sky darkened, I began my descent into the canyon.85

“Roy? Edwin?”, I said.86

No answer.87

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