ALL WHO WANDER

Fools and Thunder Stone goblins and reckless writers dance in the lightning flash

YOU GOT YOUR FOOLS. You got your darn fools. Then you got your writers. Arms akimbo astraddle a Chiricahua rock outcrop, I squint at the approaching monsoon thunderstorm. Never hike among the lightning bolts, said my sainted mother. But I be a writer. Surely it will not rain on me. Besides, I long for the storm. So off I go, setting myself up. I have but this one day to play hooky from my life. I can go down or turn around, so down I go for an afternoon on Witch Mountain, among the stone goblins waiting in the thunder gloom-acolytes of the apocalypse. But the goblins know deep secrets, so I'm listening, listening, listening-understanding nothing, wanting everything. I have read all the books, studied all the pictures. I am a-shiver with catastrophe. Here's what they would have us believe: Once upon a time, the Earth went crazy. They say it was 27 million years ago, but this number means nothing to me. They say that two crustal plates get into a ruckus: The Pacific Plate goes down under the North American Plate. Maybe it is mad. Maybe it is weary. Why does a plate descend? Down, down, down it goes, into the radium and the mantle and the magma. Rock melts. Mountains rise. Basins drop. You got your Rocky Mountains. You got your Colorado Plateau. You got your Chiricahua Mountains. Way, way, way down, the magma rises up, desperate to escape. It rises relentlessly along fractures, oozing up, up, up until it meets the water coming down, until it finds the layers of ancient seafloor mud pregnant with carbon dioxide. Then in a demented delirium of steam and chemistry, the pressurized magma expands 50-fold. Superheated clouds of ash and pumice explode through the last thin layer of crust, blasting out a gigantic crater and a 100-mph slurry of ash. The crater spews 100 cubic miles of debris. An absurd number: Enough to bury Phoenix and Tucson and everything in between under a mile of rock. A mushroom cloud of ash rises, spreads and darkens the whole planet, exterminating untold species. The bigger bits fall to Earth and blanket 1,200 square miles. The crater empties and collapses, leaving a 12-mile-wide, 5,000-foot-deep hole. Once the Earth has fallen silent, abashed and jagged, the endlessly patient wind and rain and ice rise like woodwinds after the cymbal clash. Weathering and chemical deterioration sculpt the stone spires of the Chiricahua National Monument where I now wander. The trail descends, my amazement grows, the clouds lower. Miles later, I come to the Heart of Rocks, the magical center of the carnage. I am fascinated and foolish in my shirtsleeves, like a marveling sunbather watching the water withdraw to join the oncoming tsunami. The lightning flashes, startling me. The thunder rumbles, rattling me. The fat drops fall, spattering me. I am miles from the Jeep and alone with the goblins. The lightning flashes in the same instant as the thunderclap, which deafens me. My heart flashes like a moth landing on a spotlight. I can smell the ozone. The storm comes after me. The goblins dance crazily in the lightning strobe, furious and terrible. I cower and tremble. Be careful what you wish for, even if you are a writer and foolish. The rain comes in a deluge. Soaked to the skin, I wait for the storm to drop the electric heater into my bathtub. Abruptly, the storm loses interest in me. Maybe it never noticed me. Maybe it just stretched in its sleep-like the Pacific Plate bumping against the North American Plate. To my amazement, the clouds shred and scatter. Sunlight lances through, a different school of magic. All around me, waterfalls spring from the rocks, teasing the goblins. The water glitters and sings. Still the goblins dance, now in sounding joy. I see everything, understand nothing. The war with the Apaches took place here among the goblins. Sometimes a white man foolish enough to come here alone could escape by acting crazy, for the Apaches considered insane people potentially holy. Maybe storms do, too. And so take pity on fools and writers.