Curly Tail Panther and White Shaman, Two Stunning Rock Art Sites in the Lower Pecos Canyonlands

Two new mini-clip videos from the Rock Art Foundation's annual Rock Art Rendezvous at the White Shaman Preserve which is near confluence of the Pecos and the Rio Grande, a short drive west from Comstock, Texas. 

CURLY TAIL PANTHER

WHITE SHAMAN

> Listen in anytime to Marfa Mondays #15 "Gifts of the Ancient Ones: Greg Williams on the Rock Art of the Lower Pecos Canyonlands"

Two new podcasts, one an interview with Raymond Caballero about the murder of Mexican revolutionary general Pascual Orozco in the Van Horn Mountains, and the other about the Seminole Scouts, are in-progress. There will be more until there are 24. The latest is #19 Pitmaster Israel Campos in Pecos.

"Over Burro Mesa and into Apache Canyon" in CENIZO JOURNAL

I am in deepest Mexico for the moment and so haven't yet put my paws on the new issue of the Far West Texas' always-lovely Cenizo Journal, but my on-the-spot informers tell me it is out and it does contain my essay, "Over Burro Mesa." Herewith:

OVER BURRO MESA 

AND INTO 

APACHE CANYON

By C.M. Mayo

I had ghosts on my mind—not in a spooky way, just stray thoughts about long-gone people on a bright, hot morning in the Big Bend National Park. In the foothills of the Chisos, I parked on the road-side. My aim was to hike over Burro Mesa west into Apache Canyon, to a corral where Apaches stashed stolen horses, and to explore an arrow quarry. 

The week before in this canyon, two Italian women fended off a mountain lion. Apparently it was a young lion and their screams caused it to scramble off—but that wasn't the kind of adventure I was looking for. I figured my guide, Charlie Angell, could handle any critters better than I could. 

Sun blasted down. The only clouds were wisps, as if from a paintbrush dipped in milk. Thorns snagged my jeans. The trail became so faint, I surely would have lost it on my own. Just when the hill dipped, then came another trudge up another rise through whips of ocotillo, lechugilla, biznaga, beargrass, stunted soap trees... Many had been incinerated, probably from lightning strikes. 

No sign of burros on Burro Mesa. In two hours in this merciless landscape, we had seen no animal tracks, no scat; one lizard; one butterfly; two ravens.

It began to seem we were hiking not so much to a place but into the past, for this was a soundscape deeply strange to me. I live in Mexico City, one of the biggest in the world, where the thrum of traffic surges and fades, but never ceases. On myriad saint days, firecrackers pop like popcorn; weekends, the thump-a-thump-a of parties. Helicopters roar; dogs bark. 

Less than two centuries ago, Burro Mesa and Apache Canyon, indeed, the whole of the Big Bend, were Mexican territory—Mexico City the capital. But notionally. Maps of the period tell the truer story, a blank space with a name that was a shrug of ignorance or, for those who had heard the stories of kidnappings and scalpings, a drum-beat of horror: LA APACHERIA.

Finally, not that there was anyplace to sit, we sat down. 

"Drink up," Charlie insisted, handing me another bottle of water.

And this was when, suddenly as that mountain lion must have appeared, a lone figure carrying a pole taller than he was, loomed above us. A Texan in expensive-looking drab olive gear. He'd been hiking for several days, he said brightly—yesterday, the Mesa de Anguila. Mighty surprised to see us. We were the first hikers he'd encountered in the past three days.

And the pole?

For scaring mountain lions. But it didn't weigh much; it was bamboo. After twenty years, its bottom was starting to split-he lifted it to reveal a mass of duct tape. From his flask, he drank water, but he did not sit down. In a moment, he and his fabulous pole had disappeared down the hill.

We found the dry stone corral tucked against the mountain, blanketed in shade. It was filled with rubble and brush. Beyond a waist-high forest of creosote, the arrow quarry would have been easy to miss. It was not a hole in the ground, but a cliff of flaky-looking dark rock. Broken arrowheads lay all about: bone white, pink, orange, some tinged lavender. Before I put it back, I held one in my hand. Who knew how old it was, a hundred, five hundred years? 

I tried to conjure an image of the hands that had chipped, so expertly, until this triangle, a form at once unfathomably ancient, life-giving, and deadly, emerged. It was probably a man, probably older than most in his tribe— let's say he had an arthritic knee. A claw strung onto his necklace.

# # #

Listen in to "Over Burro Mesa" (plus "The Kickapoo Ambassadors") in Marfa Mondays #14

Watch my mini-clip video of Apache Canyon:




Big Bend National Park: This Video Could Save Your Life!

Listen in to (or read the transcript of) my interview with founding editor of Cenizo Journal, Dallas Baxter: "This Precious Place." 

Listen in to (or read the transcript of) my interview with the immensely talented and daredevil photographer Paul V. Chaplo, author of Marfa Flights, "On Finding Composition in the Landscape"

Listen in to the whole enchilada! Nineteen podcasts so far.

(Links go to my main blog, Madam Mayo)

12 Tips for Summer Hiking in the Desert

(How to Stay Cool, Avoid Actinic Keratosis, Blood, and Killer Bees)

La Chora Interminable Goes to Marfa

Top 10 Books Read in 2014

Two New Mini-Clips: "Scenes from the West of the Pecos Rodeo" and "Calera, Texas: A Ghost Town's Chapel"

Some very fun podcasts are in-progress. Meanwhile, here are two recent "mini-clips"-- that's what I call my brief, edited videos that are intended to accompany a text.


Scenes from the West of the Pecos Rodeo
(To accompany Marfa Mondays #17: Lisa Fernandes, Barrel Racer at the Pecos Rodeo)

Calera, Texas: A Ghost Town's Chapel
(To accompany a piece about Far West Texas' ghost towns-- in-progress.)

The next podcast, #20, will be an interview with Raymond Caballero about his fascinating new book that uncovers a more than a century-old conspiracy: Lynching Pascual Orozco. 

>>You can listen in to all the Marfa Mondays podcasts anytime right here.

Marfa Mondays #19: Pitmaster Israel Campos in Pecos

Just posted: #19, an interview with Israel Campos, the award-winning pitmaster and owner of Pody's BBQ in Pecos.  Yes, Pecos is an hour and forty minutes' drive from Marfa. Never mind, go there, grab a plate of brisket at Pody's BBQ, and you will ring the bell!

>>Listen in to this podcast anytime<<

>> Read the transcript <<


(Wondering where to eat in Marfa? I can recommend breakfast at Squeeze Marfa, lunch at The Food Shark, and --if you still have both the room and the clams-- dinner at Cochineal. If there is a good BBQ in Marfa that I have overlooked, I ask your indulgence; I am writing a literary travel memoir, not a guide book. That said, please send me your recommendations, because, like Arnold, I'll be back.)

Check out the maps of this surprisingly little-known region here. (P.S. there are two typos on the maps... if you can find more and let me know, I shall be eternally grateful.)



> Your comments are always welcome. 

Marfa Mondays #18 Lisa Fernandes, Barrel Racer at the Pecos Rodeo

Just posted: Podcast #18, Lisa Fernandes, Barrel Racer the West of Pecos Rodeo, as part of my Marfa Mondays Podcasting Project: Exploring Marfa, Texas and Environs in 24 Podcasts.  

> Listen in anytime to my interview with barrel racer Lisa Fernandes.

> Or, get it from iTunes (also free)

> Read the transcript

> Listen in to all the previous Marfa Mondays podcasts.

Links from my main blog, "Madam Mayo:"

Guest-blogger Heidi M. Thomas: A Roundup of 5 Things to Know 

About Old-Time Rodeo Cowgirls

Desert America: Boom and Bust in the New Old West by Rubén Martínez

Lone Star Nation: How Texas Will Transform America by Richard Parker

Two New Podcast Transcripts: #2 "Charles Angell in the Big Bend" and #3 "Mary Bones on the Lost Colony"

You can listen in to all my podcasts anytime, but I know some of you read at a faster clip than you can listen, so I've been posting the transcripts bit by bit. As of last night, new on the website are two more transcripts of Marfa Mondays podcast interviews, both of which provide excellent introduction to the topic at hand, adventure in the Big Bend and the "lost colony"-- of artists who came to this spectacularly scenic region well before Donald Judd.

Marfa Mondays #2 Charles Angell in the Big Bend

"I just love to be in the river. It's like the best seat in the house for the Big Bend, I think. You can see canyon walls. You see desert. You see riparian zones. There's more wildlife there than anywhere else, and even if it's a really, really hot summer day, you can stay cool." [READ MORE]

Listen now




Marfa Mondays #3 Mary Bones on the Lost Art Colony

"Julius Woeltz is my favorite... He was really known as a fine muralist. I think he painted well over 30 murals in his lifetime. He very much was influenced by Rivera and Orozco. He and his very good friend, Xavier González, spent many summers down in Mexico and Mexico City looking at the muralists..." [READ MORE]

Listen now


There will be more Marfa Mondays podcasts until there are 24. The latest, #17, is Under Sleeping Lion: Lonn Taylor in Fort Davis

Your comments are always welcome.

Indian Head Rock Art Site in Terlingua

If you've been following this blog and/or the Marfa Mondays podcasts you know I'm a nut for rock art sites. Indian Head, which I visited back in February of 2013, is one of my favorites. It's only a short drive behind Terlingua's main gas station, but it feels as far away as Mars (and it's that quiet, too).

Here's my 2 minute "mini clip" video, starring my expert guide, Charles Angell (who, by the way, I highly recommend for any adventures on and along the Rio Grande and around the Big Bend).

The soundtrack is courtesy of the phabulous Phizmiz, Ergo, that is.





> Marfa Mondays Podcast #2, "Charlie Angell in the Big Bend"

> Marfa Mondays Podcast #15, "Gifts of the Ancient Ones: Greg Williams, Executive Director of the Rock Art Foundation, on the Rock Art of the Lower Pecos Canyonlands"

> More of my mini-clip rock art and other Far West Texas videos
(What's a "mini clip"? It's my term for a very short, edited video-- basically, a pirouette up from a GIF. They're intended to be watchable accompaniments to a text and/or podcast.)

Your comments are always welcome.