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Echoes on the Wind-A short story about Cave Creek
“Legend says that if you want it badly enough, you can hear the voices, see the footsteps and feel the presence of those who walked before us. So grab a blanket, sit back against the trunk of that old mesquite tree, and let the heat of the sun’s rays, soft as a new-born rabbit, stroke your skin. Close your eyes and block out the backdrop of the abundant foothills, dotted with cacti and trees and a secret or two, shrouded against an azure sky. Feel the light breeze caressing your skin like a cozy blanket on a cold winter night. Open your ears and hear the soft rustling of a pack rat rummaging for food, a bird singing for a mate, and a coyote howling in the distance. Shhh. There. Can you hear it, too? There it is again. Right there. Listen carefully…because sometimes things in the desert are not always what they seem. Or look.”
“Grandpa, can you tell me a story?”
“A story? Isn’t it time for lunch?” Cornelius laughed and glanced down at his three off-spring, nestled under the aging mesquite tree.
“C’mon, Grandpa. Please? I wanna hear the one about the ancient
ones,” Timothy, the youngest one whined.
“And I want to hear about all the children that used to live here,” his sister, Tabitha begged.
“No.” The oldest one, Abigail swooned as she swayed in the slight breeze. “I want to listen to the stories of the miners and the ranchers. It’s so romantic.”
“All that?” Cornelius gazed up and let the warmth of the late morning sun kiss his weather-beaten face. He inhaled the gentle breeze laden with the fragrant smell of spring. A time of renewal. A time of hope. His favorite time of year.
“Yes, yes,” his grandchildren chorused, excitement lacing their high-pitched voices, the sound distinct over the hazy din of traffic snaking along Cave Creek Road.
“Okay.” He smiled and stretched. A cactus wren squawked her disapproval and fluttered away. “It gets to you, the Spirit of the Desert, doesn’t it? The whisper of time marching forward. The echoes of things that remain the same. The memories of eras that have been. Let’s just hope your mother feels the same way and doesn’t ring my neck because you’re late again.”
“C’mon, Grandpa. The story.” Timmy’s bottom lip protruded.
“The story, eh? From the beginning?” Grandpa rubbed his chin, the bristles of his whiskers digging into his fleshy palms. “Well, long ago, prehistoric Hohokam Indians began a network of canals to grow food along the creek over there.” He pointed to the stanchion of trees curving through the valley like a green snake among the boulder strewn desert. “They came long before I was born and my grandfather was born and his grandfather before him. And then they left.”
“Why?”
His gaze settled on the fuchsia blooms of the hedgehog cactus near
him, a grin stretching across his face at the antics of a horny toad lizard scurrying for food. “No one knows why they abandoned their fields, but some speculate a severe drought forced them out. If you search the other side of the creek, you can still see the outlines of the pit houses and remnants of every day life. And if you listen, you can hear mothers calling for children on the faint breeze during sunset.”
“Really? I can’t hear anything but Abigail’s breathing.” Timothy wrinkled his nose and stuck his tongue out at his sister.
“As if it’s my fault I have allergies.” With a humph, Abigail ignored her brother and sniffled.
“Stop it, you guys.” The breeze played with the yellow flower in Tabitha’s hands. “When did the children come again? You know, the Houcks and the Hoskins and the Linvilles?”
“Patience, little one. You wanted to know from the beginning, and like the passing of time, this story can’t be rushed. It needs to be savored and enjoyed like the monsoonal rains that feed the other plants, animals and springs.” Cornelius grumbled at a passing fly, determined to keep the insect from disturbing the peaceful afternoon with his grandchildren. “Well, after the Hohokam left, the Apache Indians drifted in, but it wasn’t until almost 500 hundred years later that the soldiers came and built the first road across the foothills. And that brought in the white man.”
“The miners?” Abigail questioned softly, her eyes misty with adventure and romance. “That must have been such an exciting life.”
“Exciting? Yes. But hard.” He cleared his throat and rested against an old mesquite tree that helped shelter him from the ravages of time and the burning temperatures of summer. “I was barely a man when the first wagon road was built from Phoenix to Cave Creek. I watched the mines with keen eyes, and listened with open ears to the tales of gold, copper and silver that the men had found. Oh, how I wanted to be a miner.”
“Why didn’t you, Grandpa?” Tabitha asked quietly, her attention drawn to the roadrunner poking his head about in a bush looking for a meal. She laughed at the antics and the bird clucked before he ran off.
Cornelius stared at the sky; his mind filling with memories like a jug collects water. A hawk circled lazily above, floating in the invisible currents that stirred the branches beside him. He swore he heard the clatter of mule hooves against the rock, the striking of hammers inside the mine shafts and the whisper of long ago voices calling out to each other in excitement and fear. “I couldn’t be a miner. Life wasn’t easy. Times were tough. My job was to stand guard on this mountain and watch over this growing town and record the heritage of Cave Creek. It still is until I grow too old. And then that job will be yours, Timmy.”
“When did they discover the gold?” Abigail changed the subject, while she wove a crown of orange globe mallow stalks together to place on her head. “That must have been the most exciting thing.”
He knew all this talk of his aging upset his granddaughter, but the passages of time marched forward like the progress of the town at their feet. Already Cornelius could feel the blackness. The disease that would eventually spread through his body, turning his once fleshy limbs into a quivering mass of mush that would choke out life until he fell apart, his flesh falling away in chunks until nothing but a skeleton remained.
That was life. And death. New replaced the old. He had replaced his grandfather as his grandchildren would replace him. But as long as the story was told, he would remain in spirit with his friends.
“It was exciting, little one. William Rowe made the first significant discovery over there at Gold Hill.” He pointed toward the thumb shaped butte that jutted just to the northeast of their location near the Desert Mountain community. His eyes twinkled and his tone grew merry. “Pretty soon, as the rumors of his find spread, this place was crawling with miners. Young and old, White and Mexican. It didn’t matter. All of them had visions of gold dancing in their minds. Around each corner awaited a claim to be staked and a vein to be developed.”
“So what became of the miners?”
“They drifted in, they drifted out, always holding on to the dream that their claim would make them rich.”
“And did it?”
“Some were more successful than others. But there was enough activity to start Cave Creek Station.”
“The Hoskins.” Tabitha dropped her flower and curled her fingers together in glee. “The old buildings are near Rancho Maņana, aren’t they?”
“Just down the road near the creek. The old buildings at the golf course belonged to a dude ranch in the 1950’s, but that’s a whole different story.” A foraging rat dislodged a small, gray rock near Cornelius’ base. The dusty piece of shale from his friend the mountain had withstood the tests of time, and so must the stories, because in order to look into the future, one had to look at the past. “But the Hoskins weren’t the original settlers there. The Woods came first, but they left when the Golden Star Mine closed and there was no further need for his post office.”
“No mail?” Abigail gasped. “How did they communicate?”
“Not through e-mail or cell phones, that’s for sure.” This time Tabitha stuck her tongue out at her oldest sister. She swayed gently to the side when Abigail tried to retaliate.
Cornelius flattened his lips into a straight line. “Children, please. Quit antagonizing each other or story time is over.”
The children settled into an uneasy truce as a rabbit hopped into their midst and paused by the creosote bush. Cornelius motioned for them to be still as the small, furry creature stood on his haunches and nibbled at a lower branch, his body quivering in either fear or anticipation. Tabitha giggled, the sound carrying like the water flowing in Cave Creek Wash after a monsoon. The rabbit bounded away.
“Now see what you’ve done?”
“Well, excuse me.” Tabitha drew out the two syllable word into four.
“Oh, you are so incorrigible.”
“And you are such a Miss Prissy and a goody-two-shoes.”
Grandpa ignored the bickering that reminded him of his youth and the arguments with his own brother, who had succumbed to the disease a decade earlier. Time and the desert spirit had a way of softening the quibbles by compartmentalizing them into nothing but a memory from which to learn.
Timothy drew circular patterns in the pebble strewn dirt with the end of a thin branch. “When did the ranchers come, Grandpa?”
“The ranchers turned up when the federal government passed the Desert Land Act in 1877. That was when the population in Cave Creek started to grow with more permanent residents.”
“And that was when the Linvilles came?”
Cornelius winked at Abigail. “And then the Linvilles came with four pretty daughters.” “That made local bachelors happy. You should have seen the action out there with the constant flow of suitors. Why if I’d been younger…”
“Ewww. The story, Grandpa.”
“Yeah, like where did the children go to school? What did they do for fun?” Timothy continued to draw in the sand, much to the chagrin of the forager ant trying to cross in front of him.
“Well, they certainly didn’t have the large campuses they have today. Let me think. They started out with a one room schoolhouse in 1886 built near the Hoskin’s home.”
“Why the Hoskin’s, Grandpa?”
“Because they had most of the children that attended. But the people also used that building for community gatherings and church.”
“And that’s when Cave Creek became a real town?” Abigail wrung her hands together while dopey grin settled across her pretty features.
Cornelius swiped away the bead of moisture that had dripped down his cheek as fluffy white clouds started to parade across the mid-afternoon sky. “Not exactly, little one, but when they reopened the post office, Mr. Hoskin started a stage route to Phoenix to bring out mail, people and goods close to the end of that century. Things were good until the mines dried up and the droughts came.”
Timothy’s eyes grew round. “Did a lot of people leave then?”
“Some. But when James Houck bought the Cave Creek Station and brought in
sheep, things sure did turn around.”
“Sheep?” The three children chorused.
A smiled tugged at his lips as the memories wove together like the twigs of a dove’s nest. “Yes. Sheep. Mr. Houck opened a sheep shearing station and during the winter months this was one busy place. Imagine a dust devil of activity at the store between the sheep, wagons full of wool and stagecoaches. He also opened the first store in town.”
“But the stagecoaches didn’t bring in people to see the sheep, did they?” The incredulous tone in Timothy’s voice amused Cornelius further.
“They did. But they also brought out vacationers to camp along the creek. And when they invented that loud thing called the automobile decades later, city people from the East came to stay at the guest ranches, which were once area cattle ranches.”
“How romantic. I bet people met and fell in love—”
“Quit swooning, Abigail. Is that all you can think about?” Tabitha raised her eyebrows until they almost touched the crown of white flowers gracing her head.
“Just you wait a few decades. Then you’ll see.”
“Why did the cattle people leave, Grandpa?”
“Lack of water.”
His grandchildren remained quiet for a second, which surprised him, but they also knew first hand the seriousness of drought conditions. A tear crested in his eye and dripped down his wizened, old face. “The sad thing about all the ranchers and miners leaving was that it decreased the population and the school closed for several years. There just weren’t enough kids. Oh, how I missed the laughter, the recitals, and the parties most of all.”
“When did regular people move here, Grandpa. It wasn’t always just miners and ranchers, was it?”
Cornelius stretched his arms into the sky, his head growing weary with all the memories. “They opened the land south of us in the 1928. Homesteaders came, mostly old soldiers with tuberculosis. Many survived. Some didn’t. If I listen long enough in the stillness of the night, I can still hear their cries on the wind.” He shivered. “More people came in the mid-thirties to the early forties when they built the two dams northeast of here. And then there were the rich folk, who built their winter homes here. Things really picked up once electricity and phones came in the mid-forties and they paved the road from Phoenix in 1952.”
“Do any of the old buildings still exist?”
Taking his time to think, Cornelius sighed, bringing some hazy shadows to the forefront. “Let’s see. The Houck’s old store is now a house along the creek, there’s
a TB cabin on the property of the museum, and part of the Rancho Maņana Dude Ranch buildings are now office space at the golf course.”
“That must have been so exciting to see all these changes, Grandpa. I wish I’d been around as long as you.” Timothy broke the branch in his hands and threw the pieces on the ground in disgust.
Inhaling a breath of air filled with the scent of Green Paloverdes and sunshine, Cornelius understood the anxiety. With his failing health, like so many others who’d come to Cave Creek because of the weather, he’d been living on borrowed time. It wasn’t tuberculosis that ravaged his body, but the end result remained the same.
“But you will see new changes that I can only dream about, Timothy. Look around and notice all the new buildings cropping up and people who make this small community their home now. What started out with a lure of wealth as a mining camp has evolved into a thriving place full of opportunity and growth. It’s a brand new era for change. Why I’ve heard whispers of flying cars in the future—”
“Flying cars?”
“Among other things.”
The burnt, yellow sun dipped behind the distant mountain range he’d gazed upon for years, but had never managed to visit. Some day soon, when his soul was freed from his body, he’d journey along beside his friends and see the outer reaches of this vast Sonoran Desert. Traces of orange, then red, and then purple etched across the sky like fingers reaching out to grab a piece and hold on to what was, what is. Black Mountain descended into a golden bath as a lone man hiked down from the summit.
“Time to go home now. I hear your mother calling you.”
“But we want to hear more.”
“There’s always tomorrow, Tabitha. Now run along before your mother comes looking for you and tans my hide in the process.”
Just like the day, his story was done. Done, but not done, because with the dawning of the morrow, another story would reveal itself, waiting to be told. Cornelius closed his eyes and let the darkness cover him like a comfortable blanket. His friend’s whispering presence lulled him into a peaceful sleep.
“Listen wisely to the echoes on the wind. Feel the comfort of the sun wrapping around you. Smell the renewal of life with each cleansing rain. Taste the magic unfurling around you, bringing hope and peace, and open your eyes to beauty in each and every rock, plant, and living creature that makes up this harsh, yet lush and unique habitat. Because I am all around you. Stop, look, listen, and dream. Because without hope and dreams, I would disappear and my Saguaro friend, Cornelius, and his grandchildren on the mountain would have no tales to tell, no stories to teach, and no history to record for our future generations. Who am I? I am the spirit of the desert and the spirit of this town. I am the spirit of things that have been, the spirit of the things that are, and the spirit of things yet to come.”
The End.
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