Read Online Wild Sorrow by SANDI AULT - Free Book Online Page B

BLM land near the ruin and the abandoned Indian school. Scout, whose family had owned and ranched the land there for five generations, turned out to be a font of wisdom about the locale. Over coffee and some delicious homemade cookies, he told me all about the historic land disputes in that area between the Spanish and the Indians, and later the Anglos—including his ancestors.
    â€œThat ruin out there looks just like a castle from a ways off,” he said. “You can see it from miles around, perched up high on that rim like that.”
    â€œThat’s where the cougar had her den,” I said. “There must not be any human traffic in that area, or she wouldn’t have put the cubs there.”
    â€œI don’t think anyone goes out there,” Scout said. “It’s landlocked on three sides. And if someone had to come in from the west, that’d be pretty tough. It’s a long piece to the nearest road out that way. It would be days of harsh badlands hiking.”
    Lorena, who had been in the middle of baking when I arrived, returned from the kitchen with another plate of cookies fresh from the oven. “I think I’m probably the only person who goes out to that old school,” she said. “I take food and flowers to the graves of the children in the cemetery behind the school every year on the Day of the Dead. But I’ve never seen anyone else coming or going out that way, or any signs that anyone ever has.” She picked up the coffee carafe to pour me another cup and found it empty. “Just a minute,” she said. “I’ve got a fresh pot brewing.” She headed back to the kitchen.
    Scout picked up one of the warm cookies. “Well, come to think of it, someone goes out there every once in a while. I think it’s the Indians. Did you know there’s a stone staircase carved into the cliff wall right there near the ruin?”
    â€œYou mean steps?” I said. “Or hand- and footholds?”
    â€œOh, it’s real crude, just the pecked-out places to put hands and feet, like you said. It’s weathered enough, I don’t think many people know what it is.”
    â€œDoes it go all the way down into the canyon?”
    â€œSure does. I think the Indians from long ago must have carved that staircase into the rock so they could go down to get their water from the river. It has to be. I don’t know how else they’d get water up there if they didn’t.”
    â€œYou said you’d seen signs of people out there?”
    He got up and went to a small secretary and took out a piece of paper and a pen. “Let me draw you a map.” He started sketching as he spoke. “If you go right straight out to the west from the ruin, there is a place where some big rocks sit right on the edge. Most people wouldn’t think much about it but the rocks are blocking a little pathway, and you can’t see it very easily. But if you can slip around those boulders—there’s a pretty steep grade to it—but there’s a narrow little path there that lets you down just twelve feet or so to a shelf just below the brow of the canyon rim. It’s not a wide shelf, maybe six feet at best, and it’s under a lip, so you can’t see it from up on top. But that’s where the stone staircase leads down from. And there’s two small shrines there—just little cairns of rock, but I’ve seen them decorated with offerings from time to time.”
    â€œWhat kind of offerings?”
    â€œOh, you know, the usual things.”
    â€œLike feathers? Prayer bundles?”
    â€œYeah, stuff like that.”
    Lorena came back with the coffee. “Do you have a big dog out in your car?”
    I stood and looked out the window. Mountain was standing up in the back of the Jeep, looking out one side and then the other. “He’s a wolf,” I said. “He’s been in my Jeep most of the morning. Would you