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National Geographic : 1982 Jul
Contents
here in 1912, but now the canyon is dry dammed off for a city reservoir. After bathing, Thea climbed to an Indian cave, "a nest in a high cliff, full of sun" and basked in the hot dry air. She watched "arrow-shaped birds," swallows that "never dared to rise out of the shadow of the canyon walls," and thought of her own incomplete career. The ancient Indians revered water: Stupid women carried water for most of their lives; the cleverer ones made the vessels to hold it. Thea and Willa both knew which role to pursue. Without water, cottonwoods and insects have declined in Walnut Canyon. Tryntje Seymour, a young New Yorker now living in Arizona, has helped me follow this trail and understands Thea's decision. "Up on Second Mesa I have seen Hopi dances where men become spirits urging the clouds to bring rain. The men are artists; their power touches something central and strong." For all her attraction to the West, Willa Cather preferred to live in New York City. Her Bank Street apartment was an island of quiet security; she eventually rented the flat above to keep it empty. Here, in a room filled with cut flowers, she wrote each morn ing for several hours. Her working garb was often a sailor's blouse and dark tie, with a plain duck skirt. Planning a summer trip to Colorado, she bought khaki pants, a jacket, and a wide-brimmed hat to ward off the sun. H ER TRIP in 1915 was to Mesa Verde, a new national park reached by horse-drawn wagons. She camped in tents on Chapin Mesa and explored its Indian ruins, set high in the cliffs of a vast canyon system. Down in the canyons she separated from her guide for several hours, then had to climb a dangerous trail by moon light. Ten years later she used this experi ence in The Professor'sHouse (1925), a novel that reflected her search for lasting ideals. On a summer morning at Mesa Verde, I retrace Willa Cather's trail with my son, Jeff, and Linda Martin, a park ranger. Jeff is 10-going on 40-a small and serious hiker. Linda, a Nebraskan, has firm opinions: "Nebraska's two best writers were women, Willa Cather and Mari Sandoz." Linda also sets a mean pace; soon we are treading the soft white dust of Soda Canyon. In The Professor'sHouse, Cather took her experiences and those of two 1888 cowboys at Mesa Verde, Richard Wetherill and Charlie Mason, and created one hero, Tom Outland. The explorers came here in De cember, as Willa's Tom did, but he followed her trail through Soda Canyon. At the junction with Cliff Canyon, Willa had waited hours for her guide. We come to this place now and pause to share her vigil. As she sat here, shadows folded down the cliff walls. The air was still, and silence held through the long summer dusk. At last a full moon rose above the canyon rim: The arc of sky over the canyon was silvery blue, with its pale yellow moon, and presently stars shivered into it, like crystals dropped into perfectly clearwater.Finally guides arrived; by moonlight the party began to hike along Cliff Canyon, a mass of jagged boulders and sagebrush. OWN ON THE CANYON FLOOR we stand where Tom Outland made his great discovery: I wish I could tell you what I saw there, just as I saw it, on thatfirst morning, through a veil of light lyfallingsnow. Farupabove me, a thousand feet or so, set in a great cavern in theface of the cliff, I saw a little city of stone, asleep. A moving description, but Wetherill and Mason first saw the ruins of Cliff Palace from above, looking down. No one could look up and see Cliff Palace; it lies within too deep a cave. What, then, did Tom-or Willa-see? Jeff paces south, scanning the cliff walls. High on the canyon's east side, he spies a thin line of ruins, lit by the setting sun. At 2 a.m., the hour Willa Cather passed by, a full moon would flood that cliff with light. Linda consults her map: "Its name is Swal low's Nest." Just so: It resembles the cliff in The Song of the Lark that Thea Kronborg saw, from her pool deep in Walnut Canyon. Cather completed the novel just before her trip here. Late one hot afternoon the superinten dent of Mesa Verde, Robert Heyder, leads my wife, Bonnie, and me to Cliff Palace, the city that Tom found: pale little houses of stone nestling close to one another, perched on top of each other, with flat roofs, narrow windows, straight walls, and NationalGeographic, July 1982
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