Slot Canyon

He had set his alarm for 5:00 a.m. His high school buddies would be incredibly amused to see him now. Some were in the state penitentiary, while others were still drinking the night away. When Liza gave birth to Annie, something had snapped in her. She didn’t have the emotional strength to care for a baby and couldn’t begin to think about creating a home. But he’d melted immediately at the touch of that peachy soft skin and the sight of those high dimples. His grandparents and parents were all nearby. They’d help him care for her, and Liza could take some time to put herself back together. Having them around had certainly helped to straighten his path. Of course, he hadn’t realized that Liza would never be ready to mother Annie. She was in the picture and everyone got along fine, but she didn’t seem interested in being a parent.

The alarm kept ringing even after he pressed snooze. That was fortunate. He wouldn’t want to disappoint Lance or himself. He put up his coffee, stuck his head in the shower, and dragged Annie out of bed. “Daddy, please…a little longer…” That was the beginning, and then there would be whining about her outfit for the day. Gosh, she was in first grade. What would she be like in fifth? He wasn’t prepared for a preteen. He still liked to visualize himself as a surfer dude, dreaming about that ten-hour drive to California.

Page provided him with a good way of life. The tourists always remarked about the peacefulness. He’d swept floors and flipped burgers, but Lance whom he’d met by chance at a GMC rally, had come up with this brilliant business plan. He’d invest in a Hummer and use Clint as his first driver. Clint knew this terrain well. He’d three-wheeled with his Dad, and then graduated to trucks with his friends. In Arizona, it was important to befriend the Navajo family and gain their respect. They were private and reserved people. It helped that he wasn’t a newcomer. It took a few years for him to win their trust, but eventually they agreed to let Clint drive groups of from two to six people over their land. The fees were good for the Navajo, and such low use wouldn’t pillage their property. At the prices that Lance and Clint were charging, they were drawing customers from fancy resorts. You could rely on these folks not to carve their initials into the petrified sandstone.

“Daddy, I want to wear the orange dot tights!” Clint helped her pull on her tights, and grabbed her backpack. Thank God for subsidized school lunches. Making her a lunch at this hour would be another project. Vera had kindly offered to take Annie on these early mornings. She could have a little breakfast, and wait for the bus with her kids who were older and reliable. Vera was a nice kind of neighbor, a single parent too so she understood about tying up the loose ends. Sometimes if she had a night shift, he’d keep an eye on things. He’d make sure her kids did their homework and got to bed without zoning out on TV. He’d noticed her shapely butt, but he wasn’t stupid. He wasn’t sure he wanted to mess with a good friendship.

On this Thursday, he was picking up a husband and wife at a newly finished hotel just over the Arizona border in Big Water, Utah. The activities manager had told him that the guy was seriously into photography. He had a sick set of cameras and lenses. It made sense to pick them up early so they could hike through the canyon just as the stunning morning light was coming up. There was nothing better than seeing this scenery through the eyes of two people who weren’t used to it. They wondered about the rock formations standing sentinel over the desert or sometimes forming drip castles. The husband pointed out hoodoos that looked like collections of old men chatting or even three women carefully carrying baskets on top of their heads. The wife commented: “I can see why the Navajo find spirituality in this land.” Clint liked the way she described it: “The tranquility is broken only by the gentle wind, a scuttling lizard or a piece of dry juniper stuck on my boot.”

Clint still chuckled to himself when he thought about the many times he and his dad had explored this territory. Later he had wandered here with his friends. It wasn’t until he was eighteen that Mitch showed him Slot Canyon. He couldn’t believe how often he’d been by it and never noticed the opening. A bit of a loner, Mitch had roamed by himself and uncovered all sorts of things that nobody else had seen. But this one ranked in the very special category. Eons of wind and rain had created a secret passageway through the red rock. Grateful to him, Clint had tried to involve Mitch in the tour plan with Lance. If they grew, they could certainly use another driver who was well acquainted with the area. But Mitch quietly said he didn’t want to get involved. It wasn’t easy to figure him out.

Now ten years after that unusual discovery, Clint was feeling like he was in charge of his universe. He was hanging out with plenty of elite types. The cameraman for the Vogue shoot was all kinds of fun. Clint had driven him out just the day before. Because he insisted that he wanted to go fast, Clint got to let the Hummer do everything it could do. It was good that he had no idea about the value of the thousands of dollars of equipment on the back seat. He wouldn’t have had nearly as good a time. The model was certainly attractive as she leaned and preened against the terracotta stone, but she wasn’t knock out gorgeous. Maybe he should think again about Vera. She was pretty, smart and truly a great person. His own grandmother said: “Clint, honey, you’re crazy not to take her to the Primrose Café for dinner.”

He felt guilty that he had been a little late picking up the photographer guy and his wife. He prided himself on taking his job seriously. Annie had been so slow and then the bridge by the Glen Canyon Dam had held him up. After that he’d gotten distracted on the way to Slot Canyon. The wife started asking him questions about the plant life: “Do you know the name of all those low golden bushes?” He knew about prince’s plume with its yellow flowers, but he had no idea about the name of the low golden bushes. Wouldn’t you know she’d ask about the one thing that was not on the tip of his brain? He liked to be on his game. He explained: “I’ll get you to the canyon, walk you through, highlight a few items of interest and then you can be on your own for two hours.” They loved this. They couldn’t believe they’d have so much time with no agenda. In the middle of what Clint described as the giant tongue, the husband set up his tripod and the wife found a comfortable, flat rock so she could sit and pull out her pen and notebook.

Clint also had two hours with no agenda. He could do his push ups, and catch up on his calls and his e-mails if he hiked to the top of the mesa. He squinted at the way the mesa undulated against the deep blue sky. He’d remember to show the wife the striations of sage and turquoise colors etched in the layers of sandstone. One of the hotel guides had told him that these colors appeared when there was an absence of iron ore. Otherwise you wound up with the basic shades of orange, red and rose.

Maybe he’d text Vera and invite her out for dinner. Although she was getting ready to give flu shots at the clinic, she texted him back. Yes, she liked the Primrose idea and Friday night would be perfect. He decided to send her an e-mail photo of those bushes in question. Sure enough, she knew it was broom snakeweed that turns golden in the fall to brighten up the dry desert. She added: “…snakeweed has medicinal purposes for the Navajo…it helps with stomach distress, headaches and heals cuts and insect bites.”

He climbed down from the mesa and strode through the secret passageway. Were the husband and wife actually pressed up against each other? In the shadows, they almost blended into the wall. They hadn’t heard him, so he backed away and waited outside. He thought about the Great Horned Owl’s nest spilling over the alcove right above them. One night, he and Lance had been lucky enough to catch the owl awake. When she took off, her wingspan reached almost four feet. On their way down the access road, Clint proudly explained about the snakeweed. The wife mulled over his information, but definitely worried: “Why didn’t you lock the fence behind us on our way in?” Clint explained: “Lance and I are for sure the only two people who’ll be around.” The husband mentioned that the canyon could be a magically secluded camping spot. Clint shared his ideas about sunset hikes and evening expeditions guided by lanterns or tiki torches.

Clint stressed about what to wear for his date. The Primrose was casual, but he was tempted to step up his board shorts, his long-sleeved tee shirt and his flip-flops. When Vera met him out front, he was glad he had cleaned up his act. Her reddish brown hair was caught up in a clip, her eyes had a touch of mascara and her white shirt was unbuttoned just a bit from the top down. Her blue Levi jeans were tucked inside her high leather boots. She wasn’t too tall, but she looked better than any Vogue model. Over marguerites, he talked to her about Slot Canyon and how it seemed to be a sanctuary of sorts for the people who got to go there. In addition to the many photographers and writers, Clint had taken musicians. Strumming a guitar or playing a flute could sound dazzling with the acoustics inside. One woman had arrived with an easel, brushes and a box of paints. Her swirling layers of oil color reminded him of the poster Vera had tacked up in her kitchen.

Vera recalled her trip to Santa Fe and her visit to Georgia O’Keefe country. There was something very sensual about the painter’s images. The i-photos that Clint showed her of the interior shapes in Slot Canyon made her think of a Georgia O’Keefe painting. Clint continued to surprise her. He was an extremely nice, stand up kind of a guy but there was a gentle and contemplative side to him that he didn’t always show. He wore those enormous Oakley reflective wraparounds and too much product in his hair, but those outward signs were only the beginning of his story. After all, she trusted him with her son and her daughter. Yet she had never been certain that she could get romantically involved with him. But then, he had texted her and she figured, why not? His question about the snakeweed was particularly endearing. He had revealed that he could be vulnerable. He didn’t want to appear uninformed to his client, and Vera had bailed him out.

She had to admit that she was so intrigued with his stories that she had to see the canyon for herself. The Hummer ride sounded like a complete adventure all by itself. Clint would motor her over slick rock outcroppings and around pieces of narrow ledge where other vehicles rarely gambled. They talked about venturing there on the following Saturday night. Late in the day, Vera’s ex would be taking her kids and Annie could have a sleepover at Gram’s. Clint’s mind was already in overdrive. He’d find a California chardonnay that he’d noticed she kept in her house, some chips and cheeses, some sandwich fixings and whatever else caught his eye at the market. He’d bring a blanket to spread out in a picnic spot partway through the canyon.

He waited for her on her front stoop. She had on her sheepskin jacket, wool gloves, and a scarf wrapped double around her neck as she asked: “Will it get chilly once the sun goes down and very cold inside the canyon?” He hoped it wouldn’t be that freezing as he had plans. He had brought the Hummer home from the office, so they could set out immediately. Vera was awed by the landscape so close to her home that was all of a sudden accessible and easy to touch: “I can’t believe the sandstone doesn’t crumble in my hands.” Clint pointed out that it had very effectively stood the test of time.

He had brought two lanterns with candles inside them that he illuminated for the light and the atmosphere. Vera all of a sudden got excited and felt like she was in a prehistoric cave. She skipped along the sandy bottom, all the while calling to Clint and letting her voice bounce back and echo against the walls. “I wonder if there could be petri glyphs chiseled into the stone.” She looked closely and rubbed her fingers along the surface. “Once over the border in Canyon Point, I saw deer and sheep carvings near the ‘Broken Arrow’ movie set.”

He spread out his blanket and poured two glasses of wine. She downed hers quickly and pulled out the tortilla chips and dips. He shook his head, not quite believing that he was there with her. “Vera, before we settle in, there’s one thing I want to show you.” He pulled her to her feet and took her by the hand toward the enormous hanging tongue. She smiled gleefully as he backed her into the wall and pressed his body the full length of hers. Had he heard a bird rustling? He looked above him at the owl’s nest and saw the two eyes staring just as Vera leaned in to his neck. As he gazed into the owl’s eyes, he realized that unmistakably, he was looking into the dark almond eyes of Mitch.