GHOSTS

Do Not Disturb!

by Madeleine Rodack

N THE year 1540 theburning sun of westernPapagueria blazeddown upon the helmetsand breastplates of acavalcade of Spanish

soldiers plodding wearily across thewastes of sand and rock. Coronado, stillfilled with disappointment at findingonly poor drab Indian villages in placeof seven golden cities, had sent CaptainMelchior Diaz to lead an expedition ofexploration toward the West. And so itwas that on a hot September day the firstwhite men traveled the route of Caminodel Diablo. Thanks to their Indianguides who knew the water holes, theyreached the Colorado River. The ruggedtrail they blazed remained for futuretravelers to follow—Father Kino, FatherGarces, Juan Bautista de Anza, goldseekers and early settlers, one of whomwas named Nameer. Tales of the hard-ships they endured gave the "Devil'sRoad" its forbidding name.

Tracks in the desert do not disappeareasily.

April, 1968 / Desert Magazine / 23

The Camino del Diablo is still theretoday.

My husband, Juel, and I had longwanted to find out to what extent themodern world had intruded upon thisancient route. Inspired by the writings offormer travelers—Father Kino's memoirsand his companion Manje's records; CarlLumholtz, who followed the road in1910; Godfrey Sykes, who drove it inthe 1920s; later Harold Weight (DES-ERT, Sept. 1949) and Randall Hender-son (DESERT, April 1940 and Jan.

1951)—we set out to explore it our-selves.

The Old Yuma Trail, as it was some-times called, now lies within the juris-diction not only of the Cabeza PrietaGame Refuge, but also of the Luke AirForce Bombing and Gunnery Range.They both gave us permisison to enter,although they wouldn't guarantee thatour Volkswagen bus would get through,even accompanied by a friendly jeep.

Coming in from Ajo through the backdoor of Organ Pipe Cactus National

Above: Grave of the mysterious Nameer in the Pinacate lava flow. These stones haveremained undisturbed for almost 100 years. Circle below lies near base of Tordillo

Mountain and marks the grave of eight persons.

Monument, we found ourselves in wild-erness before actually reaching the routeof the Camino, which came up from be-low the border. We made Papago Wellby lunch time and found there a modernpump bringing water into a tank com-plete with faucet. There was an old cor-ral and the ruins of a building. An an-cient rusty sign out on the desert facingnorth indicates U.S. customs on theright. The place was once used as a cus-toms house and border crossing point.To our surprise, we found a Californiafamily camped there and enjoying thedesert roads in a sand buggy towed be-hind their camper truck.

Though not yet on the old Camino, wesoon came upon the first relic of thedrama and tragedy of the desert. Abouttwo miles beyond Papago Well we founda pile of stones to the right of the roadmarked by a cross made of two strips ofiron. On the back was written "DavidL. O'Neil." At this point our map show-ed the O'Neil Hills and O'Neil Passand we wondered who this man had beenwho left his name so markedly on thearea. We later learned he was a prospec-tor who died there of exhaustion about1916. When his burro wandered intoPapago Well, his body was found andburied on the spot where he died.

Beyond the low pass, we came downinto a sandy playa which we traversed,with our fingers crossed, until we reach-ed the safety of a rocky mesa that spilledacross the border from the Pinacate lavaflow. Our map informed us that thisroad now was following the actual routeof the Camino del Diablo. On the lavaflow, we noticed a pattern of rocks laid

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24 / Desert Magazine / April, 1968

out which spelled the name "Nameer"and the date 1871. Beside them was apile of stones in the shape of a cross.Who was Nameer? One man, or a fam-ily? And who placed these stones wherethey had lain for 97 years marking thegrave? In the same area, embedded inthe ground, were also rows of stonesforming parts of squares and rectangu-lar shapes, possibly bits of letters thatmight have marked other graves. Haddisaster struck here in 1871, or werethese the graves of lone travelers broughtto die by strange coincidence in the samespot?

Crossing another sandy playa wepaused to admire the glowing pinkishgranite range of the Sierra Pinta and,ahead, forbidding Sierra de la CabezaPrieta. As we approached the moun-

Some of the tanks hold a generous supply of water.

tains, several branches of the Caminowound into low passes. We picked themost northerly, which looked like thebest, and came upon another pile ofstones, apparently a grave.

As the sun dropped low, we bouncedinto a small valley dominated by a wind-mill and two small buildings of corru-gated iron. One is a cabin for GameRefuge personnel who stop here occa-sionally; the other is a neat little out-house. Under the water tank of the wind-mill an enclosure contains a very prac-tical, through primitive shower. This isTule Well. Civilization had reached theCamino after all! A nearby hill is

The giant ironwood tree is still a landmark on the Camino. The Tinajas Altas loomin the background.

said only three miles to Tule Tank, itwas not at that spot. A couple of roadsto the right seemed possible, but whiletrying one of them we stuck in the deepsand of a long arroyo. After much dig-ging, jacking-up and roadbuilding, weturned back and finally found a littletrack between the two roads that led toa narrow canyon a few hundred yardsoff the road. There a sign told us wewere at Tule Tank.

A short walk up the drainage took usto a pleasant spot among the rocks, sur-rounded by vegetation and edged by asandy beach. We recognized it as TuleTank from the photograph in Lumholtz'sNew Trails in Mexico, but now therewas no water. By digging about a footdown we managed to create enough ofa pool to have bolstered the life of aparched traveler, though hardly enoughto fill his water bottles. Up the canyonwe did find a little water in a smalltank, but quite inaccessible to a wearywayfarer.

There is some controversy as to whe-ther Tule Tank is the one Kino calls theTinaja de la Luna. Many feel that theTinaja de la Luna is the Heart Tank inthe Sierra Pinta, but the Game Refugeidentifies it with Tule. Considering thatKino had to build a trail of rocks up tothe tank for his mules to reach the water,it would seem that this is not the place,as it looks reasonably accessible to ani-mals. Because of this, our vote went toHeart Tank.

To assist future travelers, we stopped

crowned by a monument commemora-ting the dedication of the Game Refuge,including plaques from various BoyScout troops. An old custom's house signidentified Tule Well as another formerborder crossing point.

We camped in a clump of trees in themiddle of the clearing and enjoyed asumptuous dinner cooked over a camp-fire while a brilliant moon illuminatedour first night on the Old Yuma Trail.

Resisting the temptation to tackle aroad to the north that led, according toa U.S. Geological Survey sign, to theCabeza Prieta Tanks and uncertainwater, we continued east. Though a sign

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back at the road and made a sign ofrocks on the ground at the turn-off. Wehope it will be durable enough to be ofhelp.

In the Tule Tank area we found our-selves in a region of spectacular moun-tain formations where sharp white gran-ite ranges contrast with neighboringpeaks, like chocolate sundaes. It is thewhite rock at the base, capped by darkbrown volcanic flows splashing downthe sides in irregular streaks, that giveit the name of Cabeza Prieta, or "DarkHead." Most spectacular along our routewas Tordillo Mountain, a towering steepmesa with chocolate dripping down itssides. In the lava beds near this moun-tain there are interesting fields for rockhunters and we spotted a beautiful clus-ter of garnets on a large boulder in anearby canyon.

The old road has disappeared into thedesert somewhere past Tule Tank, but wefound it again near the base of TordilloMountain. At an intersection we cameupon another piece of history—a largecircle of rocks with a straight line ofsmaller ones inside it, and another clusterthat looked like a broken figure 8. Here,again, legend has taken over, whateverthe true facts may be. Lumholtz recountsa story told by his Mexican guides ofsome prosepctors killed here by mauraud-ing Indians and buried at this spot.Weight tells a colorful tale of this beingthe grave of a Mexican pioneer familywho died of thirst because their waterjug had broken. In any case, a grave itis and whatever its origin ,it is part ofthe tragic history of the Camino delDiablo.

From here the old road looked asthough it hadn't been traveled for years,although it was visible. Less than threemiles to the west we came upon a hugeironwood tree at the edge of an arroyo.Here we made our second night's camp.

The desert here is wide and flat andthe Tinajas Altas range crosses the west-ern horizon. Vegetation is mostly lowgreasewood, though some palo verdehas sprung up. The ironwood tree,described and photographed by Lum-holtz in 1910, is a landmark. Hender-son mentioned it in DESERT in 1950and photographed it to see if it hadgrown since Humholtz's day. We fol-lowed suit and added our photographsto the record. It has grown some, but

its shape and pattern of branches areclearly the same. Lumhoits relates thestory of a family of 14 who were eitherkilled by Indians or died of thirst buriednear this tree, but we were unable tolocate any sign of their graves. Sevenmiles further, however, we came uponan immense figure 14 laid out in largestones. Could this have been where thefamily died? If so, how could Lum-holtz have confused it with the area ofthe ironwood tree? Another mystery ofdesert and legend. Near the 14 are acouple of piles of stones, one in theshape of a cross, the other a small circle.Straight ahead is the steep shallowcanyon where the Tinajas Altas tumblelike irregular steps down the mountain-side.

Deep grain storage holes are evidence ofearly Indian habitation.

The Tinajas Altas appeared to Lum-holtz as a rather depressing place. Per-haps the gruesome history of travelersdying at the foot of the rocks, unable toreach the water in the upper tanks whenthe lower one was dry, gave it a tinge offoreboding. In his time, too, the ridgeopposite the mountain, closing in the endof the canyon from the east, still showedthe graves of those who had died there,marked by stones and crosses. He countednearly 60. Now the ridge has been level-ed off on top and during the 1940s acamp was maintained there as a controlpost for checking hoof and mouth diseaseof cattle. The graves disappeared, thoughthose buried in them may not all havebeen disturbed. The ruins of the campconsist of old chicken wire, crackingcement floors, and a few ancient boardsand corrugated iron sheets. Rusty tincans are everywhere and the place isquite a mess.

26 / Desert Magazine / April, 1968

The Tanks themselves are impressive.There are nine of them. The lowest isreached by a short hike up a rocky trail.Its sides are steep, but the water in itwas high. The second tank requires awalk up the face of a sharply slopingrock. This requires some effort and tra-velers weakened by thirst might havehad difficulty making it. We climbedup as far as the fourth tank, but wentno further as the cliffs become steep anddangerous to cling to. The third andfourth tanks held good quantities ofwater, but they were difficult to reach.

Giving up this route, we headed up adraw to the right of the ridge north ofthe tanks. This took us up over a higherridge, where we came out far above theupper tanks and had to drop down intothe valley below. Lumholtz was told ofcaves with petroglyphs to the south ofthis valley. We failed to find them,but this upper canyon is well worth fur-ther exploration.

Looking down from above we couldsee several of the highest tanks. Thetop one was dry. We managed to getdown to the next one which held water,but the three middle ones we could onlyadmire from afar, as they seemed asinaccessible from above as from below.So we climbed back over the ridge anddescended to camp.

Below the tanks, we discovered evi-dence of Indian habitation. Many flatrocks are covered with grinding holes—one rock contained 128 of them, somea foot or more deep. Here and therebroken manos turned up and some meta-tes lay among the stones of a formercamper's fireplace. High in the cliffs tothe right we came upon a cave decoratedwith several interesting petroglyphs.

For our third and final night in thedesert, we camped on a small ridge atthe base of the mountain. Moonlight didstrange things to these weird mountainsthat stood out in a sharp, silver white.It was easy to imagine Indian ghosts for-ever grinding their corn on the flatstones, or thirsty travelers clutching atthe smooth rock surfaces in an attemptto reach precious water. This is a placeof ghosts, of history and memory, and ofawesome beauty.

Returning to civilization the next dayby a straight, though rough, road up theLechugilla Desert to Wellton, we leftall this behind. There is a movement tomake this area into a National Park. If

this should happen, we can only hopethat the Park Service will preserve theunusual feature of this one—the feelingthat time has not moved on, that nothinghas changed, that the days of the oldCamino are still here, and that FatherKino on muleback, a Mexican settler'soxcart or the pioneer wagon that mayhave been named Nameer's will be com-ing down the moonlit trail any moment.We hope it will respect this sense oftimelessness and not disturb the ghostswho live here, for it is they and the harddusty road they traveled that make thisland something special to visit. •

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