Then there entered into the lab another person who commanded the entire attention of the experts. It was as if he was their medicine man, or the Great One who gave meaning to their work.
I melted into the huddle around him and listened. He was Sven Lilliablad and he knew things like I knew them. It was instinctive knowledge supported by some pre-existent memory as if the ancient peoples he studied were somehow personal friends. This little white-haired man was intense but spoke softly, and ideas flowed from his experiences like a vision. He gently touched artifacts on the table and explained their intent and function as if he had made them himself.
When I left the lab and walked to where my Dad was waiting for me, I carried, tucked under my coat, Julian Steward’s book and a paper manuscript that Sven, my friend, had given me.
I had learned the difference between those who were academic professionals and those who also knew about the breezes. I knew then that I was not the only dreamer of Anasazi dreams who walked in the 20th century. It helped a lot to know this, and after that, when kids at school called me “Chief Oogie,” I only smiled and let them compliment me to their hearts content.
Miss Romain wanted my eyes on the blackboard. But out the window and westward across the desert lay the cave, and my eyes saw only the treasure in its deep floor. That day I formed in my mind an expedition to reach the cave. My two best friends were invited along, but they didn’t want to miss the Saturday matinee. I determined to go it alone.
On Tuesday I started making a new pair of high-top moccasins from an old pair of field boots. I cut off the soles, turned the boots inside out and started sewing on soles of cowhide leather.
On Wednesday I rolled up a blanket pack, sharpened my pocket knife and a small hunting knife and made a long “possibles” bag from the leg of an old pair of Levis. I filled it with survival supplies: fishhooks and line, bandages, matches, a notebook, pencils, two muskrat traps, a roll of waxed linen string, three apples, one large onion, three potatoes, three carrots, a poke of salt, a small canteen of water, three dry biscuits and one Hershey bar (in case of emergency).
By midnight I had the soles stitched on my moccasins and a long piece of clothesline rope tied onto my blanket roll. I was ready.
My mother had watched my preparations carefully and had suggested enough additional gear to fill a covered wagon. I told her I wasn’t going clear to Oregon. “Besides,” I said confidently, “you’re lucky I’m taking even this stuff. If I really went whole-hog Paiute, I’d have to go naked, ‘cept for my moccasins, cause they’re the only things I have that’re real Indian.” Actually, the field boot moccasins were only part Indian; the part where I did the stitching myself.
Momma sort of nodded a vague understanding of my plans. She understood my need to go, and skipping school for important projects like this wasn’t totally against her personal plans for my success in life. Daddy wasn’t too concerned about my schooling either, but he had plenty to say about me going into the desert alone. After two days of stern warning on everything from mosquitos to rattle snakes, he ran out of advice. On Thursday morning he drove me to the west desert and left me there. I later learned that he followed me for the first mile just to see if I was really serious.
My trail led down a steep gully for the first two miles. From that point I climbed up a long side wash to the bluff above. The desert stretched flat to the horizon. In the distance there appeared a thin dark line which I took to be No Name Creek canyon. I headed for it, with a sure expectation of a powerful adventure.
This was my first solo expedition. I had absorbed a great deal of interesting facts about Paiutes, Anasazi and the flora and fauna of the Great Plateau deserts of Idaho. As yet, this potfull of facts had been tested only in my mind, aided by the breezes. I was counting on my instincts to bring me success. My father truly did not know just how far I planned to hike. Actually, I hadn’t realized it myself, and I wondered right off if I could get there and back to the drop point by Saturday evening.
I had previously spent parts of days alone working on my Uncle Bill’s farm, and had spent several, one-night campouts in the desert by myself. As I hiked along the flat, three days seemed like quite a big chunk of time in this unknown, roadless place. But the land felt good under my new moccasin soles, and each step brought me more and more in touch with the breezes. I walked and tossed between a tiny grip of fear and a peaceful blending with the desert.
Sagebrush grew skimpy and short. Scattered on the flats were countless red ant mounds, each surrounded by circles of bare earth where the ants had stripped the land around their little pyramids. As I walked along observing each ant mound, a general pattern began to emerge.
The ants had constructed their rounded mounds with one side a bit steeper than the others. This steep slope was almost always facing south-southeast. At the base of the steep side was found their entrance holes. I noted in my journal that the few exceptions were always due to some natural obstruction on the south side of a mound, like a tall brush or rock that shaded the mound. From this observation I concluded that the ants depended on the sun to warm their lives each day, especially in the winter when the sun swung low along the southern horizon and the ants were deep below the frost line.
The steep exposure sucked up heat which reduced the grip of winter cold on the mound. I knew that ants remained active all winter. They stored food all summer in anticipation of the cold times; now I had discovered that they also built heat-efficient housing. I wondered what else these little tribes of desert dwellers could teach me. I thought about the story of the Ant and the Grasshopper, and I thought about my parents and our grocery store and the Prophet who taught Mormons to store food and fuel for two years ahead.
Somehow, I couldn’t relate the ants to Miss Romain’s class at school. I wondered whether ants found it necessary to hold classes of instruction for all upcoming “antlets” in order to maintain their organized and busy mound building society. Red ants seemed ever-ready for a fierce fight though, so maybe they did have a school of sorts after all.
Finally it struck me: the ants could serve me, as well as teach me. No longer were those little creatures mere teachers of philosophy, social organization and architecture. They could also be my professional guides as I hiked. It was so very simple. At any time of the year, whether cloudy or in blizzards, the little mounds, averaged together, faced south. I knew then that I would never lose my way in the land of red ants.
Red ants were also troublesome. The flat stretched on and on, and despite my many new thoughts and discoveries, the desert heat began to press down upon me. I had to move faster toward the still thin rim of No Name Canyon.
The stitching of my moccasin broke slowly at first. Then, stubbing against a rock, the whole toe end tore loose and started flopping. My once-pleasant walking on the new soles of my moccasins suddenly became agony as my right foot scooped up sand and stickers. Worst of all were the red ants. I hobbled on each step. Then the big toe on my let foot poked through and I tripped along in double plop in the middle of nowhere.
My feet were fairly tough, and the sand didn’t bother me too much, but the stickers and red ants soon found the tender spots between my toes. finally I stopped, sat on my blanket roll and pondered my dirty feet with little red pricks and bites all over them. They looked wholly unsuited for this terrain. In only four miles or so of hiking, my Paiute stitching had failed me.