He drove me in his convertible, the top pulled down and the wind rushing over my ears. We drove north then west to Abique. We passed over a dam by a clear blue lake and onto the side of a barren red pyramid-shaped mountain, a thousand feet tall. The red color of the mountain was so rich and vivid that it seemed to glow in the afternoon desert light.
After passing through fantastical red rock canyons and knife edged mountains we passed into the Bisti badlands where the gray rounded hills and strange contorted black rocks resembled a moonscape. I had never seen such magnificent desolation in all my life.
At Nageezi we headed south on a washboard dirt road. The car shook so badly that it felt like it would fall apart. We traveled deeper and deeper into the vast brown empty rolling desert land. A vast panorama stretched out ahead of us and I began to notice the walls of a canyon on the distant horizon. We passed Navajo Hogans and herds of sheep roaming the wilderness.
We entered Chaco Canyon. The yellow canyon walls looked like they were about two to three hundred feet tall and were spread apart by a few miles. A huge jagged mesa stood behind us to the left towering over the vast yellow desert sandy plain. We followed the narrow asphalt park road through the canyon past Pueblo Bonito whose huge walls stood a silent witness to the ancient ones.
We parked where the road curved back in a circle. We got out our backpacks with the blankets and food and other supplies to help us survive the merciless wilderness. He carried one pack, and I another as we walked silently across the parched land into the wilderness. We followed the ancient Anasazi trail for hours till the sun was low on the horizon. Finally we came to a ruin whose mortar stone brick walls stood on a rise in the desert.
We climbed up into the ruin and as we came over the wall we saw a huge round Kiva, a hole dug out of the earth and lined with stone bricks sticking up above the floor of the ruin. We climbed into the Kiva and spread our blankets on the dusty floor. We were covered in shadows from the ruin walls as the sun went below the horizon. I heard coyotes mournfully howling in the distance.
Soon we were immersed in pitch-black darkness. The stars shone, millions of candles in the velvet black bowl of the night sky. I asked Peter, "Are you afraid?"
He said, "No more than normal."
We undressed and wrapped the wool blankets around us keeping each other warm in the cold desert night with our bodies. Suddenly I heard footsteps and a scraping sound. I stood up and looked over the edge of the Kiva seeing two glowing eyes looking at me perched on the wall of the ruin. I shined my flashlight and saw a majestic mountain lion, muscles rippling in the desert night. She opened her mouth revealing huge sharp ivory incisors in the beam of my flashlight.
We stood there looking at each other for a moment and I felt real fear. I could see the hunger in her eyes and it connected somehow with my hunger. We stared at each other. I saw her eyes glaze. My heart was beating wildly and I froze. The lioness leaped off the wall and I heard her running into the desert roaring. Peter was asleep through all of this and the fire we built was dying down. I blew on the glowing coals trying to get it to start again.
Peter awoke shivering and I told him what I had seen. He said, "They are more afraid of us than we are of them. Don't worry, my love."
He said, "I really must have a fire. You stay here while I look for some twigs to burn."