I don’t have any idea why this story is titled “K,” but that seems to be the correct title.  That is the name that comes to my mind when I think of the event. The name seems to be the unspoken name of the mysterious entity in the desert. I had been following Carlos Castaneda’s adventures as described in his books and thought that I was well along with gathering enough personal “power” to be able to withstand an encounter with “the other side.” Apparently I was wrong about that.

It was during a school break that my wife and I decided it was once again time to take the kids to the desert.  I had been reading Carlos Castaneda’s books, and was hoping for an encounter of another kind.  Both of us were anxious to make sure our children experienced the desert enough for them to learn to love it (or at least, not fear it).  As usual, we went to the Turtle Mountains near the Nevada/California border, south of Needles.  We pulled my father’s small house trailer down there so we could have some of the conveniences of home.  It mainly afforded us a protected place to cook, and a way to get out of the wind if necessary.

On this trip we decided to approach the springs and the petroglyphs from another side of the Turtle Mountains, from the west.  We went to Vidal Junction, and headed west along State Highway 62 for a few miles, paralleling the Colorado River Aqueduct flowing from the Colorado River to Los Angeles.  We found a place where we could cross under the aqueduct, and headed north up the broad Chemehuevi Wash, following a faint jeep trail into the desert.  We bounced along for a few miles and finally decided that it didn’t make any sense to pull the trailer any further, so we unhitched it and continued north toward the petroglyphs in our Jeep Cherokee.  I was navigating by the seat of my pants, but finally managed to get to the edge of the Turtle Mountains where the petroglyphs are located.  We stopped to set up camp in the dry, sandy wash a few hundred feet from the petroglyphs.  I have always felt this area to be a very powerful place, a “power spot” in Carlos Castaneda’s terminology. Its power draws me, and I have a feeling of awe when among the rocks in this area.  Judging from the hundreds of ancient petroglyphs in the small area, it appears that others felt this power too.

After setting up camp we went to explore and look at the mysterious petroglyphs.  The area is strewn with big boulders that my father refers to as volcanic bombs, which I suppose best describes their genesis.  These have been in the desert sun for so many thousands of years that they have turned black on the upper surfaces.  Scientists have found that the black is caused by the growth of an extremely slow growing lichen related organism.  The ancient native inhabitants in the area took advantage of this black covering to use as a kind of black board.  They pecked lines through the layer, exposing the lighter underlying rock.  They could make patterns that have lasted for thousands of years using this technique.  Unfortunately, nobody has figured out how to date these patterns, so we don’t know how many thousands of years it might be. 

There appears to be a wide time span between the oldest and the newest petroglyphs because some have very little new overgrowth of “desert varnish,” as the growth is commonly called.  Others have such a thick varnish that the patterns are almost impossible to distinguish.  The current thinking among archeologists is that the age of the art spans a time of several thousand years, possibly more than ten thousand years.  An archeologist friend who accompanied my family to the area believed these particular petroglyphs were created on the shoreline of a vast ancient lake.  The modern day natives who live in the area usually say that these patterns were not made by their peoples, but rather by “the old people” who used to live in the area. The patterns do not appear to be of anything identifiable. They are geometric patterns, but do not appear to be pictures of things.  The origin, meaning, and age of this type of art in this part of the desert is a mystery. 

One of the rocks in this area has always intrigued me as being somehow very different from the others.  It is shaped something like a bed or an altar.  It is about five feet long, two-and-a-half feet wide and two feet high.  It is almost flat on top, and has a roughly rectangular cross section from above.  The side walls are approximately straight and vertical. It is covered with black desert varnish, except on the top surface.  The top surface of the rock does not have the normal pattern of lines but rather appears to have been beaten over the entire surface.  Every time I see this rock it brings to mind images of an Indian couple making love on top of the rock.  I don’t know why this comes to mind, but the image is very strong.  It feels like a powerful altar to me.

As we were exploring the area, my children did one of those kid things that drive parents crazy. They started banging rocks on top of this “altar.”  I consider it completely unacceptable to deface rock art, therefore I immediately tried to stop them.  However, before I could do that I was amazed at what was happening.  The altar was ringing like a bell as they hit it.  It was quite loud and very clear.  Curious about this, I got down on my hands and knees to inspect under the rock and found that it was sitting on three rocks. The entire underside was suspended about two inches above the ground.  It appeared to have been intentionally placed there.  I think it is a rock that was used as a bell or musical instrument.

We started looking at other rocks in the area and found three more “bell rocks” nearby that were sitting on other rocks holding them off the ground.  These three other rocks also had been hammered on rather than pecked to make lines.  Of course we had to try them out, and found that they all rang like bells when struck (our banging left no obvious marks).  Apparently, we found a whole orchestra of bell rocks.

I had a very strong desire to spend the night by myself among the petroglyphs.  I have always felt that this is an extremely powerful place, and the idea of sitting among them for the night was very attractive.

As evening came I decided to spend the night on the altar rock (the largest of the bell rocks).  It seemed to be the most powerful, drew me to it the most, and looked the most comfortable.  We put the kids to bed in the tent early as usual in the desert.  I went to the petroglyphs to spend the night alone.  As the sun was setting, I was sitting cross legged on the rock, facing the western horizon, and began meditating. 

I don’t know how long I sat there, maybe an hour or so – maybe longer.  The night was moonless, making it difficult to see the desert.  The stars came out and filled the sky as they can only do in the desert.  It was a beautiful sight and I felt relaxed, at ease.  After awhile I began to get a bit fidgety, sitting on that rock was fairly comfortable, but it was getting hard and my legs were starting to hurt.  I tried to relax to let the night go by.

Then I heard a sound off in the distance, toward the north.  It sounded like it was a large animal walking through the field of petroglyphs toward me.  I told myself that it must be a desert sheep; there are no dangerous large animals in that part of the desert so it should be fun to see whatever it was.  As it got closer, I could hear it much better and realized that it could not be a sheep because it was walking on two legs rather than four.  That really puzzled me since I could see the tent a little ways across the wash from me, and my family was in the tent.  They were not out walking around.  We had not seen any other campers (in fact I have never seen any other campers out there), so it seemed highly unlikely that it was someone visiting the place.  I just sat there, getting more nervous; wondering what could possibly be walking toward me in the dark. Whatever it was, it sounded BIG.  I could feel fear starting to tug at my chest.   As it got closer, the hair stood up on the back of my neck.  As I sat, it just kept coming and was getting pretty close when I finally lost my nerve.  I looked toward the sound, but could see nothing.  By that time I was in full panic mode so I jumped up, ran across the desert to the tent where my family was, and crawled in.  I could not bring myself to look back out to see what, if anything was out there.  I told my wife what had happened; she didn’t seem interested in checking it out either.  I don’t normally sleep inside of a tent when camping in the desert, but I did that night. 

I have no idea what was out there, but it felt like whatever it was, it was stalking me.  It felt big, powerful, nasty, and focused on me.  I have not had the desire, or nerve, to attempt a repeat of that particular experiment.  We spent the remainder of the week in the desert, having a wonderful time – but I didn’t try coming face-to-face with whatever powers are there.