The Canyon's Edge Page 3

  on the desert in seconds.

  I’ve seen flash floods before.

  But I’ve never seen one

  like this.

  The waters

  I have to remind myself

  the water’s not alive;

  it won’t reach up

  with slender, flowing fingers

  and take me,

  pry me,

  snatch me,

  from this wall,

  suck me down

  into its

  violently whirling,

  tirelessly turbulent

  mouth.

  The fear,

  the anxiety,

  controls me,

  is in every part of me,

  as I cling

  to this wall of stone.

  What do you fear, Eleanor?

  Dying.

  Are you likely to die in this situation?

  Yes.

  WAITING

  The water arrived

  like a tsunami,

  but it leaves

  like bathwater

  trickling down

  a hair-clogged drain.

  I hug the wall,

  every muscle

  tense and aching,

  my body

  one big ball

  of pain.

  I wait

  and wait

  and wait

  as the water slowly,

  painfully lowers,

  getting drunk

  by the eternally

  thirsty ground.

  I will it to drink

  faster before I fall.

  I wait for

  seconds,

  minutes,

  hours,

  days,

  months,

  years.

  My muscles shake

  with fatigue.

  My vision blurs

  with tears.

  My heart pounds

  with the full force

  of having to watch

  both my parents

  torn apart.

  SHAME

  Self-condemnation

  from unprocessed guilt and shame

  is never helpful.

  DAD’S HEIGHT

  By the time the canyon is gray,

  the water is finally low enough

  for me to drop onto the outcropping.

  I look down through a curtain of sweaty, damp hair,

  already wishing I hadn’t taken out my ponytail,

  and see the rock, the waters just beneath it

  now flowing at a stroll rather than a sprint.

  It’s about six feet down.

  Dad’s height.

  Because that’s how high he could lift me.

  The pain and pressure in my chest grow

  as if someone is punching my heart.

  I have to climb down,

  but I know before I even begin

  it’s impossible.

  Climbing down is nothing

  like climbing up.

  Plus, I have boots on,

  and the wall below me is wet.

  I don’t have any choice.

  I can’t hang on to this wall another minute,

  and I don’t have the strength to climb up

  out of this canyon.

  My heart pounds hard enough

  to send tremors through my body,

  make my fingers, hands, and arms shudder.

  Lowering one unsteady boot

  for a foothold below me,

  I cry

  because

  I know

  I’m about

  to fall.

  SLIPPING

  My boot slips,

  my fingers, hands, and arms

  too weak to hang on.

  Sliding down the wall,

  slowing my fall with friction,

  sanding skin off my

  palms, forearms, and knees,

  my body so filled with adrenaline,

  I don’t yet feel the pain.

  I hit the outcropping,

  boots first,

  and my feet slip out from under me.

  My right hip, ribs, arm slam

  against the rocky ledge,

  my teeth knocking together,

  biting my tongue.

  I slide into the water,

  frantically grasp at the crack in the rock,

  and stop myself,

  half my body in the water,

  which is trying to pull me from the ledge.

  I drag myself out,

  my mouth filling with blood,

  lie on my side, and pull

  my legs up to my chest.

  And now the pain comes.

  It radiates

  over my torn skin

  like a fire,

  barrels into my battered bones

  like a fighter.

  Blood drips

  from my hands and knees and mouth

  onto the rock.

  It spreads like watercolors

  on the wet stone.

  THE SECOND TIME

  I’ve lost my

  backpack,

  hoodie,

  hair tie,

  helmet,

  harness,

  gloves,

  food,

  water,

  last person in my life.

  I have nothing left.

  Except my life.

  That’s the second time in a single year

  one of my parents put my life

  before theirs.

  SINKING

  The canyon is dimming.

  I need to get moving

  before it gets too dark.

  I need to find Dad.

  It’s risky to walk in the desert

  with no light at all.

  There could be

  snakes, scorpions, spiny cactuses.

  I push myself up,

  my arms shaking with the effort,

  still worn out from clinging to the wall.

  I lean over and look down

  at the ground a few feet below,

  puddles everywhere but no longer

  enough water to flow.

  I drag my legs around

  and shove myself off the rock.

  My boots sink deep into the dark

  sludge like quicksand.

  Too deep.

  I’m stuck.

  Stuck in this muck,

  my muscles too fatigued

  to pull out my boot.

  I grasp my leg with both hands

  and pull with all my strength.

  My boot finally breaks free

  with a loud sucking sound,

  completely soaked in sludge.

  I won’t be walking anywhere tonight,

  so I climb back up on the rock.

  Maybe Dad didn’t go too far.

  I cry out for him,

  hoping he’ll hear,

  hoping he’ll call back.

  I listen.

  Nothing.

  I’ll have to wait here

  on this rock for now.

  Just for now until Dad returns.

  WHY?

  I lie back on the rock

  and watch as the silver sliver of sky

  above me turns to black,

  taking all light in the canyon with it.

  There’s nothing to do

  except let my mind wander

  to places I don’t want to visit.

  It’s always the same places.

  Even here and now.

  Why, why, why?

  There has to be a reason why a person

  would walk into a restaurant

  and     just     start     shooting.

  I need to know the reason so desperately

  that Dad sent me to Mary.

  But Mary still hasn’t told me why.

  And if there’s no why,

  then I’m just small and powerless,

  a single drop of water />
  in a raging river,

  a single grain of sand

  in a suffocating dust storm,

  a single speck of palo verde pollen

  floating on the dry desert breeze.

  Unanchored.

  Untethered.

  Unpredictable.

  Unable to see

  what the future holds.

  Unable to see

  where I’ll land.

  ONE RAGING RIVER

  I badly need to know why right now. But no one is here to tell

  me why, so I imagine it for myself. I remember those dark

  mountains to the west. I picture rain running down the

  sides of the mountains in hundreds of small streams,

  which become tens of brooks, which become

  a few creeks, which become one raging

  river in a previously dry riverbed

  that gradually deepens into

  a narrow slot canyon.

  One raging river

  that washes

  my father

  away.

  WHAT IF?

  As though my mind

  is made of metal,

  it’s pulled by a magnet

  to another place,

  an unhelpful, unhealthy place.

  It’s the place of what-ifs.

  What if

  I’d picked another restaurant?

  What if

  we’d sat at a different table?

  What if

  we’d gone for lunch instead of dinner?

  What if

  it wasn’t my birthday?

  Then Mom would still be here.

  Dad would still be here.

  And I wouldn’t be here

  alone

  at the bottom of a dark canyon.

  BREATHING

  And so I am sitting on this

  cold, wet rock in the dark

  alone with my thoughts,

  with the whys

  and the  what-ifs.

  And I feel myself

  falling deeper and deeper

  into my anger, which spirals

  like the brightening stars above me.

  It’s a tornado turning,

  a choppy sea churning,

  a bone-dry desert burning

  evermore out of control.

  My heart pounds.

  I want to scream.

  Remember your breathing, Eleanor.

  I cry out for Dad again,

  funneling my anger, my breath,

  into my voice.

  My cries echo over and over

  against the tall canyon walls,

  following the path of the flood.

  The path to Dad.

  BUT

  Dad’s a great swimmer,

  but his leg.

  Dad’s strong,

  but those floodwaters

  may be stronger.

  Dad has his backpack,

  but all that debris,

  the water so filled

  with sticks and stones

  and sludge,

  could tear it from

  his body.

  Dad knows how

  to survive in the desert,

  but he’s never

  faced anything like this.

  I know he’s out there

  somewhere in the dark

  of this canyon,

  but is he still alive?

  Yes.

  He’s alive and he

  knows where I am.

  He’ll find me,

  but I know he can’t

  find me tonight

  in the dark and the mud.

  I lie back on the cold rock,

  a trill floating back to me

  from somewhere

  down the canyon.

  DAD!

  TRILL

  I sit up.

  Listen.

  It sounds like a whistle.

  Dad is whistling for me.

  Wait.

  Did Dad bring a whistle?

  The trill rings

  through the canyon

  again and again.

  And then something

  is trilling very close to me.

  And then several somethings

  are trilling all around me

  like a screeching chorus.

  Folding my legs up,

  I press my forehead into my knees,

  push my hands back through my hair,

  and squeeze it tightly at my scalp.

  It’s not Dad.

  It’s the red-spotted toads,

  digging themselves out

  from under the soaked ground.

  I lie down on my side

  and clamp my hands over my ears

  to try to block them out.

  WIND

  I know it must be at least midnight

  because the toads finally quiet back down.

  I lift my hands from my ears

  and rub them over my chilled arms.

  I remember camping with Mom and Dad

  at the bottom of Canyon de Chelly,

  how the winds blew at night.

  I can still hear them

  groaning against our tent walls.

  The sound, almost deafening,

  frightened me.

  I thought it was monsters.

  It’s just the wind, Nora,

  Dad assured me, hugging me to him.

  When the canyon walls cool at night

  it causes the air to blow hard.

  Don’t worry, sweetheart.

  Nothing can hurt us down here.

  The next morning our Diné guide told us,

  The winds are part of the way

  the canyon expresses siihasin,

  harmony.

  But all I feel right now is

  disharmony.

  Our Diné guide told us,

  The canyon gives much to those

  who would receive it.

  That may be true of Canyon de Chelly,

  but I don’t think this canyon

  has anything to give me.

  This canyon only takes away.

  BURNING

  The canyon winds pick up

  and slice over me like an icicle.

  My body starts

  to shake uncontrollably.

  My clothes are still damp,

  and the wind is like winter.

  For the 366th night in a row,

  I wish my mom were here

  to take me in her arms

  and comfort me

  and sing the song

  she used to sing.

  But she’s not.

  So my mind goes back

  to the last time

  I saw her alive,

  how she wished me

  Happy birthday, sweetheart,

  and the guitarist played a song

  while I ate fried ice cream

  with a bright blue candle

  burning.

  FLAME

  Another mom was there.

  Sofía Moreno,

  just a regular mom,

  sitting in the booth next to ours.

  I remember how she and her two little boys

  had clapped when the server

  brought out their fajitas,

  how she’d pulled her kids to her

  to keep them from touching

  the flame.

  And so my thoughts keep

  circling back to

  fire.

  DRIFTING

  With nothing but

  whys and what-ifs

  and burning memories

  and freezing winds

  to keep me company,

  my eyes start to feel as heavy

  as the boulders the flood

  washed away like pebbles.

  How

  can I

  possibly sleep

  when I’m so cold?

  How

  can I

  possibly sleep?

&nb
sp; How

  can I?

  How…

  NIGHTMARE

  First come the tremendous

  booms.

  My mother, singing to me seconds ago,

  is shoving me under the table

  so frantically, so desperately,

  that I bash my head on the edge

  and her fingers leave bruises on my body.

  What   is   happening?

  Then more

  booms

  and Mom is covered in

  blood.

  Dad is screaming, screaming, screaming,

  and there are more

  booms

  and more

  blood.

  I squeeze my eyes shut

  as I press my cheek to Mom’s knee,

  then I force my eyes open

  and turn my head, smearing her blood

  across my face.

  I see his lower half

  from under the table:

  enormous camouflaged

  legs and boots.

  I see the tip of his weapon and then him,

  slowly, gradually, deliberately

  bending over to find me

  under the table.

  I am frozen,

  can’t move,

  can’t scream,

  can’t breathe,

  can’t think anything but

  I   am   going   to   die.

  This time he’ll get to me

  before the

  blur of brown legs.

  Sofía Moreno’s legs.

  When she did what she did.

  REBUILD

  The yipping of coyotes above

  startles me awake on this hard rock,

  my body filled with tremors,

  every nerve shooting pain.

  I know I shouldn’t.

  I know I’m not supposed to,

  but I won’t let him near me.

  So I build my wall,

  and I lay

     my shame

     and brick