One fine morning Juan rings the bell to wake me for breakfast. He begins eating and says, "Damn Rosie, you sure had a good idea to move us here. We should move out to the mountains, grow rhubarb and live off the fat of the land."
I say, "There you go dreaming again. I don't have a green thumb. And we're too citified to garden. We'd end up panhandling."
He says, "My grandpa was a sharecropper. It runs in the blood. We can learn farming."
I say, "Honey you're no farmer. But if you want we can grow some herbs on the balcony. That'll be your crop."
"Maybe we can grow some tomatoes too. We can harvest them and make salads."
I say, "Knowing those red juicies were grown by you would make them very delicious."
We are silent for a moment. He breaks the silence and asks, "Let's get out of the city for a while. We need fresh air and quiet."
I say, "We sure do. Everyone has an angle here."
Juan asks me, "What gave you the notion to relocate us out here? I mean don't you miss the greenery back home? This place is beautiful but it takes some getting used to for a southern boy."
"Aw shucks honey I guess I just wanted a change of scenery. I figured it would do us both good. The south was a been there, done that. So I decided that I had to change not only my head, but my geography."
He says, "Was our old clunker stuck in the mud?"
I say, "Aw no honey. I tell you, I was getting kind of batty. My fantasy life was out of control."
He says, "What was running through your head?"
I say, "Sometimes I hate all men for the pain they have caused me. I feel like draining them of their energy and leaving them an empty husk. I want to emasculate them."
He says, "I'm not afraid of you Rosie. I know the light in your heart will overcome the darkness. I see compassion in your eyes. I love you."
"I'm no more feisty than a kitty cat. I may nip at you sometimes but that just makes me sexier."
"I love your dark side. Now what's for dessert?"
"Boy you have a one track mind."
While dining he breaks some news for me. He says, "Rosie, I want to take you out into the deep desert. Maybe we'll see some sandworms like in the Dune books."
I say, "You're so crazy. But truly we could come home and find our balcony egged or draped in toilet paper. The signs ain't good darling."
"Oh come on. The kids here are good eggs. They won't do such things."
"Well OK. But I warned you." I get up, take our dishes, put them in the sink, and wash them.
The next morning, he drives me in his convertible with the top pulled down and the wind rushing over my ears. We drive north then west to Abique. We pass 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 is so rich and vivid that it seems to glow in the afternoon desert light.
After we pass through fantastical red rock canyons and knife edged mountains we pass into the Bisti badlands whose gray rounded hills and strange contorted black rocks resemble a moonscape. I have never seen such magnificent desolation in all my life.
At Nageezi we head south on a washboard dirt road. The car shakes so badly that it feels like it will fall apart. We travel deeper and deeper into the brown empty rolling desert land. A vast panorama stretches out ahead of us and I begin to notice the walls of a canyon on the distant horizon. We pass Navajo Hogans and herds of sheep roaming the wilderness.
We enter Chaco Canyon. The yellow canyon walls look like they are about two to three hundred feet tall and are spread apart by a few miles. A huge jagged mesa stands behind us to the left towering over the yellow desert sandy plain. We follow the narrow asphalt park road through the canyon past Pueblo Bonito whose huge walls stand in silent witness to the ancient ones.
We park where the road curves back in a circle. We get out our backpacks with the blankets, food, and other supplies to help us survive the merciless wilderness. He carries one pack and I another as we walk silently across the parched land into the wilderness. We follow an ancient Anasazi trail for hours till the sun is low on the horizon. Finally we come to a ruin whose brick stone walls stand on a rise in the desert.
We walk through a gap in the wall and into the Kiva. It is a hole dug out of the earth and lined with stone bricks which stick up above the floor of the ruin. We spread our blankets on the dusty floor. We are covered in shadows from the ruin walls as the sun sinks below the horizon. I hear coyotes howl mournfully in the distance.
Soon we are immersed in pitch-black darkness. The stars shine like millions of candles in the velvet black bowl of the night sky. I ask Juan, "Are you afraid?"
