The Spirit of Bruja Canyon by Christopher Dow West Texas is a land of huge spaces and big sky, of gunfighters, mystery, and adventure. Billy the Kid spent his only night in jail in a west Texas town, and countless other bandits roamed across the region searching for new crimes to commit or fleeing across the Rio Grande to the safety of Mexico. It was the stamping ground of the legendary Pecos Bill and the notorious Judge Roy Bean and the center of legends of buried gold and lost mines. And no part of West Texas is as spectacular, or as mysterious, as Big Bend. Big Bend, named in 1849 by Lt. William Whiting, is the area of Texas bounded on the south by the large bend in the Rio Grande as it descends from El Paso. It extends from Candelaria on the west to Alpine on the north to Sanderson on the east. In the 1930s, the tip of Big Bend, comprising three-quarters of a million acres, was turned into a national park. But despite the existence of the park service and a few paved roads, the area is as rugged and foreboding as it was when it was first surveyed in 1899. There are hot springs along the river, and the entire western side of the park is the product of volcanism, evident in the jut of rock, domes of hardened volcanic mud and ash, blackened iron-bearing boulders strewn over the ground, and miles of geological dikes scarifying the landscape. My friend Charles Roberts and I loved Big Bend and had made several trips to the park. The rugged terrain and wild history appealed to our sense of adventure. On our earliest trips, we had concentrated on the eastern side of the park and the Chisos Mountains, which lie roughly in the center. On one of those visits, however, we had stayed briefly on the western side of the park, near the mouth of Santa Elena Canyon, where Terlingua Creek empties into the Rio Grande. We had even hiked several miles up the creek to visit the ghost town of Terlingua Abaja, which had been the center of a small farming community. In spring 1978, we decided to more fully explore the western side of the park. In particular, we wanted to get on top of Mesa de Anguilla, through which the Rio Grande cuts Santa Elena Canyon. Then we intended to hike back along the mesa to the river and look down on it from the canyon rim. Studying a U.S. Geological Survey map, we found a likely spot to get onto the mesa: a steep cut that sliced up the mesa wall about a half-day hike west of Terlingua Abaja. We left our car at the ruined town early in the morning, shouldered our packs, and set out. Terlingua Abaja clusters on both banks of Terlingua Creek. As we moved through the barrenness that had been this small town, we reflected on how strange it seemed that this had actually been a farming community. Even as late as the 1920s, the land was arable. But the miners who came to this region to dig cinnabar from the ground and melt the mercury from it had cut almost all the trees for their mining operations, and poor farming techniques rapidly depleted the soil. All the buildings save one are adobe, now mostly fallen and crumbled. The one exception is the church, which was made of rock, although it too is half collapsed. Right next to the church is a small cemetery consisting of about 20 graves of adults and infants. Only the dead inhabited Terlingua Abaja now. As we passed the church, we took a line of sight bearing on the cut we sought. It was visible in the distance, a black scar running up the sheer mesa wall. Walking was rough at first. We were carrying enough supplies and water for four days—one day out, two on the mesa, and one day back—and that much water is heavy. But after a couple of miles we were well into the swing of things, and the packs rode more easily on our backs as the desert world opened before us. Initially, the terrain consisted of dusty flats dotted every few hundred yards with mounded hills one hundred or more feet high. Although we had to climb an occasional ridge, things went smoothly for several hours. Shortly after midday, we had a tense encounter after a baby javelina scurried across our path about forty feet in front of us, it’s mama right on its heels. She stopped, snorted threateningly, and pawed a cloud of dust into the air with her sharp hooves. Just when we were sure she was going to charge, her baby disappeared into the creosote and cactus, and a few moments later, she followed. As we neared the cut, the terrain flattened out considerably, although the ground now was crisscrossed by a network of four- to eight-foot-deep gullies. When we reached the cut, we found that the gullies carried runoff water from the mesa after it had spilled down the cut. But while we were scrambling in and out of them in the desert heat, their purpose seemed to be to give us trouble. Gradually, they shallowed out as we neared the foot of the mesa. At last, we arrived at the bottom of the talus slope, where water had gouged a large crescent out of the side of a hill and smoothed the desert floor with a bed of fine sand. Extending up the talus slope to the base of the cut itself was a fall of boulders, looking almost as if a cataract had solidified. This fall of boulders ran upward almost half a mile before it stopped at the bottom of the dark gash. The sum of the parts formed a small but picturesque canyon. We rested before we attempted to scramble over the fall of boulders, assay the cut, and climb to the top of the mesa. From the bottom it looked as if it would take at least half an hour to haul our packs over the boulders to the base of the cut, and we’d have to be at least that far up before we could even judge whether or not we could climb up the cut itself. After a rest, we began our scramble. The rocks at the bottom were relatively small, from pebble size to several feet in diameter, but as we proceeded, the rocks became boulders of immense size. By the time we reached the top of the talus slope, the boulders were from eight to 20 feet and so tossed that they created caves and passages. As we went the last 100 feet through these passages, we began to hear a strange droning sound. At last we stood at the actual base of the cut and could look up it. A trickle of runoff water seeped down the cut to pool and disappear almost immediately into the sandy earth. At the edges of the tiny pool, literally hundreds of wasps daubed the mud to make their dwellings along the cliff walls. Thousands more were in the air above the pool and in front of their cliff dwellings. These insects were the source of the droning we’d heard. We were standing in a veritable cloud of wasps; yet strangely, they seemed peaceful and nonaggressive. We slowly took off our packs and leaned them against a boulder, then we peered up the cut to see if we could climb it. We could see up it only about 60 feet before it took a turn. Noting that the wasps, for some reason, weren’t in the crevasse itself, I decided to step across the pool, climb up to the bend, and survey the cut further. I lifted my foot to step across the pool and instantly the peaceful drone of the wasps took on an angry tone, and a number of them flew menacingly at me, although none of them tried to sting me. I lowered my foot and stepped back, and the wasps grew peaceful. I tried to step forward again, and again they became angry, flying at my face, keeping me back. As soon as I stepped away, peaceful drones replaced the angry sounds, and all was well. There seemed to be nothing we could do. We both tried several more times to climb into the cut, but the wasps just wouldn’t let us pass. I guess the strange thing was that, despite their sheer numbers and the fact that we angered them much of the hour we spent in their company, the wasps never stung either of us. At last, frustrated in our attempt to climb the cut, we started back down the fall of boulders, skirting a rattlesnake that lay in our path about halfway down. Finally, we reached the crescent gouged out of the hill at the bottom of the canyon. By this time, the sun had disappeared behind the mesa. We were tired, so we set up camp. We finished our meal about dusk and lay down on our sleeping bags to relax and chat. With the water gouge at our backs and a patch of soft sand under us, we were quite comfortable. As night fell, a nearly full moon rose, illuminating the mesa wall and desert floor clearly in its light. Sometime between 8:00 and 8:30, I glimpsed a movement out of the corner of my left eye. I had been lying on my right side, propped up on my elbow, facing Charles. He was lying on his sleeping bag, talking about legendary holy men from the Far East. When I saw the movement over my left shoulder, I thought it was a tall piece of grass right next to me, waving in the slight breeze. I turned to look but saw nothing of the sort. I turned back to Charles, and we continued our conversation, but out of the corner of my eye I could still see something moving slightly. I looked again but saw only the familiar desert. About the only thing I noticed in the right direction was a scrubby bush about 50 feet away. Still, when my attention was directed at Charles, something moved in the corner of my vision. I tried turning my head slowly, watching straight ahead but paying attention to what my peripheral vision brought to me. As my head turned, I was astounded to see a man standing where I had seen the bush! I turned sharply in that direction but now only the scrubby-looking bush was visible. Thinking I had been imagining the man, I looked back at Charles, who was still talking about holy men. There was that movement again! Again I turned slowly and again could see the man standing where the bush had been. For several minutes, I experimented, discovering that if I looked directly at the man, he appeared to be the bush, but if I watched using my peripheral vision, I could see him quite clearly. He was fairly short and slightly stocky. He could have been Mexican or Indian. He was dressed like a Mexican peasant, in khaki pants and a serape. A sombrero hung over his back. His face was grizzled, his hair was white, and his eyes were like deep black pools. I realized I also could feel his presence. For some reason, I wasn’t alarmed, although I though he’d be scary to approach. At one point, I thought about getting up and going over to him, but something told that me he wouldn’t be there when I arrived. I sensed that he radiated a great power that was frightening, but I also sensed that he wouldn’t direct that power against us, which was reassuring. I continued to observe the watcher as best as I could, marveling at the discrepancy between direct and peripheral vision and seeing him in turn as a man and a bush. Then, about half an hour to 40 minutes after I’d first noticed movement, I realized the man was gone. At first I felt his absence; then, looking, I no longer saw him. During the whole episode, I said nothing to Charles about the man, at first because I didn’t want to address the subject in the man’s presence, then later because I didn’t want Charles to think I was spooked. Half an hour later, we turned in for the night. In the morning, we struck camp. The night before, we had discussed hiking farther down the mesa wall to try to find another way to the top, but instead, without really talking about it, we returned to the car at Terlingua Abaja. We arrived about mid-afternoon, and as we were loading our packs into the car, Charles asked if I has seen someone the day before. I said no, but that during the night I saw someone watching us. He replied that he too had seen a man watching our camp, but that he couldn’t see the fellow directly, only out of the edges of his sight. I asked for a description, and Charles’s matched mine exactly, even to the sensation of dangerous but nonmalevolent power coming from the man. He’d also seen the man for a little over half an hour, but in addition, he had spotted him several times as we approached the canyon. These sighting had been in the form of passing glimpses, but when Charles would turn to look, he couldn’t see anyone. We discussed the possibility of returning to the area but decided to spend the night at a campground in the park to ready our gear and clean up. The following day we would return. It would be the night of the full moon. The next morning, we got into the car to drive back to the area of the canyon. I turned the key in the ignition and nothing happened. I tried again and still nothing, not even a click. The car wouldn’t start, although it had given no sign of problems until now. In fact, I had overhauled it prior to our trip to the park. Feeling as if we were being told not to return to the canyon, we got a jump start and left the park. During the 14-hour drive back to Houston, we stopped only for gas. It may have been my imagination, but the entire way, I felt we were being pursued. When we got back to Houston, the car worked fine. Two years later, Charles and I returned to the canyon with a friend, Michael Reyes. While we didn’t see anyone unusual this time, we did discover the name of the canyon when Michael asked a ranger if the place had a name. The ranger said it was called Bruja Canyon. Bruja is Spanish for witch. A final weird note was that of the many photographs we took of the area during our two visits (nearly three rolls of film were used to photograph the canyon and its approach), not a single one came out, although other pictures on the same rolls developed just fine. From the forthcoming Book of Curiosities, by Christopher Dow. A version of this article was published in Fate, January 1985, Vol. 38, No. 1, Issue 418.