Education Of a Wandering Man (1990) (25 page)

During the years that followed, I went often to visit cliff dwellings or other Anasazi ruins. I came to see, to learn, and to disturb nothing. Let the archaeologists who know what they are doing handle that. A pot or a broken fragment removed from its discovery site has lost much of its value. Slowly, with a discovery here and one there, the history of the Southwest is put together, but it is painstaking work, and the pot someone carries away to keep or to sell may be the key piece that would reveal much to the trained eye. Once on someone's shelf and away from where it was found, the piece has lost most of its value.

Long ago, I had hiked up the floor of Mancos Canyon. Now I wished to stand at about the middle and get an overlook from the rim.

With my family and an archaeologist who was working for the Utes on their reservation, we started to drive out to the rim and were overtaken by a police car.

Did we have a permit? We did not.

Frank, the archaeologist, identified himself.

The Ute police officer was cool. "I know who you are, and"--he indicated me--"I know who he is. I read his books. But if you don't have a permit, you can't go."

We did not attempt to argue the case. This was their reservation, their home, and we obeyed the rules. He followed us back to headquarters to make sure we did.

A short time later, accompanied by three archaeologists and a Ute Indian, my family and I spent a night in a cliff dwelling on the Ute Reservation. The archaeologists arranged the affair and we drove out in four-wheel-drive vehicles to arrive just before sundown.

The cliff dwelling was in a deep canyon filled with trees, some of which had been lightning-struck. It was in a remote area and we climbed down into the canyon to find our places. There had been no cleanup there. The place was as time had left it: a few scattered human bones, some of the tiny corncobs, a few shards of broken pottery.

Kathy and I chose a kiva (ceremonial center) in which to spread our sleeping bags, and shortly after we arrived, there was a thunderstorm.

Nature seemed to have deliberately planned our entertainment, for there was rolling thunder, unusually loud because of the narrow canyon, and many flashes of brilliant lightning, but only a few scattered drops of rain fell.

Nature put on a grand show for upward of an hour. Then the sky cleared, the moon came out, and we had a truly magnificent night.

Art Cuthair, the Ute who was with us, may well have been the first Indian to spend a night in a cliff dwelling since the Anasazi abandoned them. Many Indians are uncomfortable at disturbing the spirits of the former inhabitants.

(art has been involved in stabilizing some ruins and in laying out trails for the guided tours the Utes give for visitors wishing to see the dwellings as they were found.)

We settled in for the night, each in his or her own way. I was determined to remain awake and enjoy every moment of the experience to the utmost.

Often we heard eerie sounds, whisperings and movements. The wind? The leaves? Small animals or birds? Or something else?

Something from the past, perhaps, something from the forgotten years?

The moon was bright, and soon coyotes were singing their plaintive songs. Other Indians had stopped by to see us but would not stay the night.

They went to sleep out of the canyon, away from the cliff houses.

Some of us slept; some remained awake with me. None of us talked. It was a time for listening. Once, faint and far-off, there seemed to be the sound of a flute or some wind instrument.

It is sometimes said that few archaeologists have ever spent a night in a cliff dwelling, and that no archaeologist has spent two nights.

However, I regretted the coming of day, although ready enough for breakfast.

... I am become a name;

For always roaming with a hungry heart Much have I seen and known; cities of men And manners, climates, councils, governments, Myself not least, but honour'd of them all;

--Alfred, Lord Tennyson from "Ulysses"

My study of Africa began some years ago when I wrote a review for Carter G.

Woodson's The African Background Outlined. Shortly after that, I reviewed Black Folk: Then and Now by W. E. B. Du Bois. Until then, my knowledge of Africa largely stemmed from adventure stories or Burton's books on Central Africa when he was searching for the sources of the Nile, although back in my Jamestown days, I had read Stanley,'s search for Dr.

Livingstone, called How I Found Livingstone, as well as its sequel, Through the Dark Continent.

Of North Africa, the Sahara Desert, Libya, Morocco, and Algiers, I knew quite a bit. Those areas were largely inhabited by Berbers, a white people, and by Arabs--the two often lumped together simply as Moors.

Long ago, Greeks had settled along the coast and later the Phoenicians had established themselves at Carthage, to become a dominant power until destroyed by Rome. The influence of all these peoples was felt along both the Mediterranean and Atlantic coasts of Africa.

My first knowledge of the great black empires of the Niger region had come from reading the travels of Ibn Battutah, however, so when I first came upon Woodson's book, I was prepared for what he had to say, regretting the limited space in which he had to say it.

In the following years I read nearly two dozen books on some phase of Africa and its history, finding many that merely scratched the surface.

Later, when time permitted, I returned to Africa in Travels in Ethiopia by David Buxton, The Mountains of Rasseles by Thomas Pakenham, A Short History of South Africa by Leopold Marquard, South Africa by Brian Fagan, The Ancient Kingdoms of the Nile by Walter Fairservis, and that gem The Search For the Tassili Frescoes by Henry Lhote.

During the time I worked in mines, I had been fortunate to meet a number of old miners who had worked in Virginia City, Nevada, during its boom days and after. At the Katherine Mine it was the custom, as in others as well, for the miners to gather at the station to await the cage that would take them to the top when the shift was over.

There they would wait and listen for their shots to go off from the fuses lighted before coming out. It was imperative to count the shots and be sure all the holes fired; otherwise one might, the following morning, drill into a missed hole, detonating the unexploded powder. This could mean death or serious injury to the miner and anyone close by.

During this time of sitting around the station, stories would be told, and I learned much that later served well in creating the background for my book Comstock Lode.

Virginia City in its heyday was certainly one of the most remarkable of the many remarkable boom camps that flared to brief glory in the West and then settled down to the day-to-day job of getting the ore out. The so-called Comstock Lode was one of the richest mineral discoveries ever made and the life there was rich and colorful, creating several millionaires, one of whom was John Mackay.

John Mackay walked into Virginia City broke and when he left he was worth $200 million. He made it through a shrewd appreciation of the lay of the land, the probabilities of what must have happened when the great rift was created that was the source of the silver, followed by quiet purchase of seemingly played-out claims.

John Mackay not only made his millions in Virginia City, he knew how to spend them, and when Jay Gould's transatlantic cable system charged him too much for cables to his wife, Mackay built his own cable.

There was much written material available on Virginia City and the mines, but the miners I had met talked of the personalities of those involved, so their names and quality were generally known to me before I began my study. This, again, was a product of simply listening. Young men are inclined to be full of themselves--their desires, goals, and ambitions--yet often they are talking when they should be listening, and I know that at times that included me.

My own work in the mines and doing assessment work on mining claims also helped to provide background. I had actually worked with a single-jack and hand drill, although during my time most mining was done with machines. On assessment work, no such machines were available and when we got into hard rock it was necessary to drill by hand.

By the time I came along, the boom years in Virginia City were long gone, but many of the older miners had worked that period as young men. It had been an exciting time, and they forgot very little of it.

During my mining days I had participated in the last gold rush, if such it could be called, in the Rocky Mountain West. There were to be other discoveries, but this was the last boom, the last rush for claims. At the time I was employed at the Katherine Mine on the Colorado, and four of us took time off and drove to Weepah, Nevada, not far from Tonopah, another famous mining boom town.

The rush to Weepah was made largely by car --Fords, Chevys, and a car briefly popular, the Star. Others rode horseback or drove in buckboards or wagons. By the time we arrived to stake our claims, much good land was gone but each of us found a spot, and I chanced on one that had been overlooked.

By the time my ground was staked, I had little confidence in Weepah as a "great discovery," so when a man came along with a fat roll of bills and no judgment I promptly sold my claim. I was the only one of the four of us who even made expenses on that trip.

I sold out for $50, as I recall.

Down in the center of "town," there were the usual gamblers, several tents in which ladies were entertaining gentlemen, and several bars selling moonshine whiskey. The miners with whom I had made the rush were canny when it came to ore, and they were not pleased with what they saw, so after a few days we went back to work at the Katherine.

That was also the year, I believe, that I fought fire in the mining town of Chloride, Arizona, north of Kingman. We had come over, thinking of trying for a job at the Tennessee Mine, but the town caught fire and I found myself sloshing water over some very hot roofs. The water was passed up to me from below, and taken from barrels kept for the purpose along the streets. There weren't enough barrels and we lost a good fight. Also, if I am not mistaken, we lost a good miner, cowboy, and occasional streetfighter called One-Thumb Tom. A good man whom I did not know, he breathed fire into his lungs, or so I heard. In any such case, everybody helps, and we all tried. Unhappily, much of Chloride was burned on that day.

Often I am sad that our interests have turned away from the short story, for so many beautiful and great stories have been written and are now on the back shelf of the world's literature. The writing of a really fine short story is like the carving of a gem. I have written many but none of the quality to which I aspire. Over the years I have collected many which I have enjoyed, and still enjoy.

Looking back over my years of reading, I am amazed at how much really wonderful stuff there is out there, and it is a pity that anyone should deprive himself of the chance to read it, yet many do.

Ours is not a leisurely time, and our readers prefer pageturners, stories or other books that lead one eagerly from page to page.

It is also important, to those for whom reading is difficult, to have books that demand one read on, and on.

Yet many of the great books of the past were written for a more leisurely time, when people could sit and read by the fire, or comfortably in some great country house or cottage. Despite the fact that they were written for a different time and different audience, they have much to offer: great stories, brilliant characterizations, interesting ideas. Someone has said that one has no right to read the new books unless one has read the old. I do not agree, yet one should read the old books also.

Anatole France wrote, "A good critic is one who relates the adventures of his soul among masterpieces."

Unfortunately we have too few of those today, and too little appreciation of just how much good writing there is out there.

It is a pity, too, that in the continuing process of publishing books, so many of the old books have been lost to sight. I think, for example, of William Lecky's History of European Morals or, of a later vintage, Oswald Spengler's The Decline of the West. They are read, but by too few, and I haven't heard Lecky referred to but once or twice in many years.

Long ago I sat one day in a library where I had come upon the three volumes of E.

A. Westermarck's The History of Human Marriage. Browsing through its pages, I kept chuckling and I know some other denizens of the library must have thought me off my rocker to be finding something at which to laugh in what was a dusty tome. Yet there is nothing more amusing than man and his customs, and in that case it was some studies of marriage by capture.

Knowing nothing, presumably, about gene pools, early men did still realize that intermarriage between relatives was not good, so when it came time for a young man to seek a wife, he would take with him one of the best fighters in his tribal group and set off to capture a bride. The other man, the "best man" of today's marriages, was to fight off the girl's relatives while he escaped with the bride.

In later years, when this was no longer necessary, it was often customary for the bride to suddenly leap on a horse and take off, pursued by the groom in a simulated "marriage by capture."

As I know of no case where the bride got away, I assume it was important that she choose a slow horse, or one she could control, while seeming to be trying to escape.