For nine months I was pretty much taken out of commission by an unpredictable twist of fate. I mention it only because this accident had a direct effect on the outcome of my stay in Tucson, as well as the lives of many other people. Another of those things I didn’t want to do that I did anyway.
To help a friend of my beautiful girlfriend, we took her friend’s three children camping along with my girlfriend’s daughter. We got an overnight permit from the Aravaipa Canyon Ranger Station, which only allows twenty-five persons to camp per night in a very large expanse of natural, semi-desert territory where first some of the Mogollon and then the Salado Indians used to roam, and later the Aravaipa Apache. We parked at the base of the canyon and walked up the river for hours until darkness fell.
It was a gorgeous place dotted with ash, cottonwood, willows, and towering sycamores, originally inhabited by cougars, wolfs, deer and coyotes, of which we didn’t see any. Unbeknownst to me at the time, we were close to the area where one of the worse Indian massacres took place years back, perpetuated by a mix of vigilantes from our town of Tucson in April 30, 1871. The raid was led by William S. Oury and Jesus Elias with a mixture of whites, Mexicans, and Papagos who descended by stealth upon a village of Aravaipa Apaches, led by chief Eskiminzin. The small group of the Apache tribe were protected by one of the most benevolent American military officer, Lieutenant Royal Whitman from Camp Grant, and the mob killed from 120 to 145 woman and children while they were sleeping and their men were hunting elsewhere.
“I have the feeling that something bad is going to happen,” my girlfriend said along the way.
I pay close attention to such premonitions, although they are usually as clear as mud. We were on high alert and saw a large rattle snake. Where there is one, there may be two. Thinking our alertness had led us to foresee the danger, we moved to the other side of the river, set up camp, and went to sleep.
The spot was perfect, the murmur of the running water below, a grassy incline uphill, and then a flat area covered with short green grass and soft leaves, nicely nestled before the ground took a sharp uphill swing and disappeared among the bushes of desert vegetation that hid the rest of the top from view. Unlike most rivers in Arizona, the basin held water all year long. Early next morning, the kids went up exploring the surrounding hills.
I don’t remember a clean linear projection of events at that point, only scattered sequences.
While on top of the sleeping bags, I hazily remember hearing a strange rumble and looking up the hill. I remember sharply the sudden appearance of a large dark menacing boulder bouncing through the bushes straight at us. I remember my only words, “Oh, shit!” I leaped to my feet and swept my girlfriend off the ground, while having an intuitive impression, not a thought, of: “…have to get out of here…”
When I took the first step, the rock hit where her head had just been and bounced up to pick me up and her from under my leg. I blurrily recall a confusing rotation in the air and over the ridge. I don’t remember the impact of landing in the river twenty feet away, only the relief of sitting down on indulgent water, when hitherto we had been higher up in dry land a fraction of a second before. We landed exactly the way we had left, with her on top of my lap. We could have landed on our heads, but didn’t.
I felt okay and asked her how she was. She got up, walked around, and said somewhat confused “fine.” I asked again. “Are you hurt?” “No.”
