There’s Gotta Be a Ghost Here Somewhere, and It’s Probably Short

A few days ago, when we were finishing up the new irrigation system, I had to dig one last ditch. It was all going smoothly until the final two feet when I hit a batch of large squarish rocks. That’s rare. I dug ditches all last week and aside from a few very small rocks, all I had to dig through was dense clumps of earth. These rocks were conveniently stacked on top of each other, so I resorted to pulling them out by hand and throwing them out of the ditch above me. Danny happened to be passing by and asked me to stop for a minute. He inspected some of the rocks and told me I just discovered a new Anasazi ruin. I asked if he wanted to uncover more of it, but he just shook his head. “No,” he said, “that’s the 17th ruin found on my property so far.”

On our hikes around the canyon, we’ve explored an underground kiva, a solar calendar (not unlike Stone Henge), several food storage caves still covered in bricks and lots of cliffside homes. Broken pieces of pottery are all over the place here, and Danny picked up two complete arrowheads when we were climbing last weekend. They were just lying on top of the ground! Similarly, Hosey’s trailer is full of arrowheads, ancient toy marbles, broken axes and all sorts of other artifacts that he just happened to notice while walking around.


The Anasazi are something of a mystery. They seem to have just disappeared several hundred years ago. The ruins here are believed to be 1000 years old. The most recent theory is that their tribes were integrated with Pueblo tribes and moved to different territories in the Southwest.

My trailer lies at the bottom of the canyon wall, which is about 700 feet tall. About 300 feet up, there’s a small Anasazi cave. I explored it with the Brits my first week here, but that was in the daylight. Last night, at about midnight, I was walking to my trailer and I stopped to admire how bright the canyon looked. It was almost a full moon and the cliff was glowing with a bright pale blue color. That’s when I saw the cave and had what seemed like the most brilliant idea ever.
I threw my sleeping bag, sleeping pad and a lantern into a backpack and started climbing. The lower half of the canyon is the steep part, and after losing my grip and sliding down a few times, I started to question my brilliance—but not enough to stop. It took about half an hour, but I finally made it to the cave. The opening drops straight down the cliff of the canyon, so you have to approach it from the top and carefully lower yourself in. The interior of the cave is an oval area about seven feet wide and five feet deep. At the tallest point, the ceiling is less than four feet high. The entire floor slopes inward in a cone shape. It’s not exactly my cozy trailer, but I thought “Hell, if the Anasazi can sleep here then so can I!”

I had a horrible time finding a way to lie down that wouldn’t cause me to roll into the rocky center. Eventually, I was stable and started to drift off when I heard something loud rustling outside. That woke me up fast. Believe it or not, it wasn’t until that point that I remembered I saw a mountain lion down the road last week. They say mountain lions don’t care for humans much and all you have to do is make yourself look big to scare them away. Looking big in a four foot tall cave, however, can be a bit of a challenge.

I finally just told myself I was being paranoid and managed to fall asleep—curled up in a tiny ball. The ground didn’t feel hard under my sleeping pad and I ended up ditching the sleeping bag because it was too warm for it. I still woke up several times, usually with a strong, insatiable craving to stretch out, but I stuck with it through the night. I refused to admit that this cave was too cramped for me. Besides, it was hard not to enjoy the view from where I was laying; the whole canyon lit up in the moonlight.

Birds woke me up bright and early, chirping at the cave’s entrance. I stayed long enough to watch the sun rise over the vineyard—which alone was worth the late night trip—then climbed back down to my trailer and slept for a couple more hours. I did, after all, need some decent rest for the long work day ahead of me.

During breakfast, I told Danny what I did. He loved it, but pointed out that the Anasazi were only about five feet tall. I’m 6’3”. That explains a few things.