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Guardian of A Ghost World
Waldo Wilcox stayed on his father's Utah homestead in Range Creek for 50 years, even as he married and had four kids, and during that half century, the man performed a truly extraordinary feat.
As soon as the Wilcoxes had moved to 1)Range
Creek in 1951, they built 2)sturdy fences with locked gates at either end of their 3)prime cattle-raising 4)spread. As a grown man, Waldo regularly patrolled his valley with shotgun in hand, rumor has it to keep out 5)trespassers.
Unlike many 6)ranchers in the American West, for whom collecting prehistoric treasure was a customary hobby, Waldo had left virtually every artifact undisturbed. “I won’t lie to you,” Waldo says. “I picked up 7)arrowheads, because if I didn’t, somebody else would. But I never dug anything up. Maybe I’m 8)superstitious, but I figured them Indians wanted the stuff left there.”
In 2001, at the age of 71, he sold his ranch to 9)the Trust for Public Lands. Waldo’s wife had never much liked her remote home, and he had seen no way to divide the ranch fairly among his grown children. With heavy heart, Waldo moved into a boxy little house in nearby Green River.
The next summer, 10)archaeologists got their first look at Range Creek. They were overwhelmed by what they found: arrowheads, 11)potsherds, 12)grinding stones, 13)granaries on high ledges, and the 14)remnants of buried pit houses. All this, the work of the Fremont, farmers and hunter-gatherers who had lived there a thousand years ago and more.
So the archaeologists enlisted Waldo as their guide to the often well-hidden 15)Fremont sites. One spring day last year, as she walked the valley-bottom dirt road in Range Creek, team co-leader Renee Barlow, of the Utah Museum of Natural History, was bursting with pride: “So far we’ve found 280 sites, ranging from ruins and rock art panels to scatters of potsherds and tool making 16)debris. Every one Waldo either told us about, or we found it on the way to a site he told us about. And we’ve only seen 15 percent of the canyon!”
“You haven’t seen 5 percent, 17)kiddo,” Waldo 18)rejoined.
Years ago, at a ruin a good thousand feet above the valley floor, Waldo had found an 19)eroding Fremont skeleton sticking skull-first out of the earth. To protect it, he picked up a nearby 20)metate-or “corn grinder,” as he calls the stone basin the ancients used to 21)pulverize their 22)maize, and laid it over the skull.
The most significant ruins in Range Creek are all high, inaccessible sites, many of them granaries. Greg, an expert mountaineer, Renee Barlow, and I worked our way into ones that even Waldo hadn’t reached, becoming almost certainly the first visitors in at least 700 years.
The most extraordinary of all the sites we explored was 60 feet up an overhanging 150-foot cliff. When we arrived at the base of the cliff, Greg said softly, “My mind is blown.” We could see the route some Fremont 23)daredevil had used to reach a 24)ledge with two granaries. The Fremont climber had leaned a 25-foot-tall 25)Douglas fir trunk against the cliff to 26)shinny up.
Some 50 years ago, Waldo had climbed to the base of this cliff, then stared up in wonder.
In the summer of2005, the tension between Waldo and the scientists who had taken over his 27)erstwhile paradise began to mount. During their four seasons in Range Creek, the teams had plotted the 28)GPS coordinates of every site they’d found and recorded the location of every potsherd, arrowhead, and metate. But they were also gathering up artifacts to take to the Utah Museum of Natural History. Waldo was dismayed. “I think they should leave the stuff where it is,” he said. “The canyon’s the biggest and best museum the Indian stuff could ever be in.”
Waldo has nursed a sense of doom about the canyon he loved. The cattle he ran kept the valley grazed, but today the grass stands thigh-high, creating a 29)tinderbox. It 30)infuriates Waldo that the archaeology team, more than half of whom smoke, won’t institute a site-wide smoking ban.
One May evening, Waldo and I sat on the lawn in front of the cinder block house. The old man seemed in a 31)pensive mood. “I should’ve had my ass kicked for selling it. There’s only one Range Creek in the world, and I let it slip through my fingers.”
But then a certain 32)gleam lit his gaze. “There’s one other place I know of with as much Indian stuff in it as you got here,” he said. “And if they ruin Range Creek, that secret’s going with me to the grave.”
1951年，威尔科克斯一家一迁入牧溪峡谷，当即在大牧场最好的放牧地周围建起了坚固的围栏，并在两端安上了带锁的门。沃尔多作为家里的成年男子会手持猎枪定期在山谷里巡逻，谣言说是为了防止外人擅自进入。
美国西部的许多牧场主都养成了收集史前宝藏的习惯，但沃尔多却不同，他基本上不触动任何史前物件。“我不会对你撒谎，”沃尔多说，“我曾捡过箭头，那是因为如果我不捡的话，别人也会捡的。但我从来不会去挖什么。可能是因为我迷信吧，我觉得印第安人想让那些东西留在原地。”
2001年，71岁的沃尔多把他的牧场卖给了公共土地托管会。沃尔多的妻子一向都不怎么喜欢这个偏僻的家，而他也发现无法公平地把牧场分给早已长大成人的儿女们。于是，沃尔多怀着沉重的心情，搬到格林河附近一幢方方正正的小房子里去了。
第二年夏天，考古学家们首次对牧溪峡谷进行考察。他们被出土的东西惊呆了：箭头、陶器碎片、石磨、高高岩脊上的粮仓，还有被埋在地下的洞穴房的残留部分。所有这些都是弗里蒙特印第安人留下来的，他们是一千多年前住在那里的耕作者、采集者兼猎人。
于是，考古学家征募沃尔多作向导，寻找弗里蒙特印第安人那些隐蔽的遗址。去年春日的一天，犹他州自然历史博物馆考古队的负责人之一薇内·巴罗行走在牧溪峡谷谷底的土路上。她按捺不住内心的得意，说道：“到目前为止，我们已经找到了280处遗址，从废墟和岩板艺术，到零星散布的陶器碎片和制造工具后剩下的碎片，应有尽有。这些遗址要不是沃尔多告诉我们的，要不就是在他告诉我们去遗址的路上发现的。而我们才走了这个峡谷15%的地方！”
“你们看到的还不足5%呢，孩子。”沃尔多反驳道。
好多年以前，沃尔多在离谷底一千多英尺高（1000英尺约等于305米）的一个废墟找到了一副正在遭受侵蚀的弗里蒙特印第安人骷髅，头骨已露出了地面。为了保护它，他在附近找了一个石磨盘——他称之为“玉米石磨”，那是古人用来研磨玉米的石磨的底盘——放在骷髅头上。
在牧溪峡谷，最有价值的遗址都在很高、常人难以接近的地方，它们当中许多是粮仓。我和一名登山专家格雷格，以及薇内·巴罗一起奋力攀上了许多连沃尔多也不曾踏足的地方。几乎可以肯定，我们是至少七百年来的首批到访者。
在我们勘探的所有遗址中，最非同一般的是一个离地60英尺（约18米），位于长150英尺（约46米）的悬崖上。那天我们来到崖脚，格雷格轻声说道：“这太让我震惊了。”我们可以看到过去一些弗里蒙特印第安勇士爬上建有两个粮仓的岩脊时留下的路。那些勇士把一棵25英尺（约8米）高的花旗松树干靠在崖壁，攀缘而上。
五十多年前，沃尔多曾爬到崖脚，好奇地盯着上方。
沃尔多视这片遗址为远古的天堂，然而在2005年的夏天，沃尔多与接管遗址的科学家之间的紧张关系开始恶化。考古队在考察牧溪峡谷的一年里，使用了全球定位系统，记下了他们找到的每一块陶器碎片、箭头和磨盘的位置，而且他们还把这些东西收集带走，要拿到犹他州的自然历史博物馆去。沃尔多对此很不乐意，他说：“我觉得他们应该把东西留在原来的地方，这个峡谷拥有大量的印第安人遗物，本身就是最大最好的印第安人博物馆。”
沃尔多对他热爱的这片山谷逐渐有了一种不祥的感觉。他饲养的牲畜一度让山谷里的草生长有序；而今，草长到了大腿深，使这里成了一个火灾易发区。看到考古队—他们当中过半人是烟民—并没有在遗址周围实行禁烟，沃尔多义愤填膺。
在一个五月的晚上，我和沃尔多坐在一座煤渣砖房前的草地上。老人看起来忧心忡忡。“我应该为卖了这块地而受到惩罚。这世上只有一个牧溪峡谷，而我却让它在我手中消失了。”
然而，他眼里随即闪过一丝亮光。“我还知道另外一个地方，那里的印第安人遗迹与你们在这里找到的一样多，”他说道，“如果他们毁坏了牧溪峡谷，那么我就会把这个秘密一起带进坟墓。”
Guardian of A Ghost World
Waldo Wilcox stayed on his father's Utah homestead in Range Creek for 50 years, even as he married and had four kids, and during that half century, the man performed a truly extraordinary feat.
As soon as the Wilcoxes had moved to 1)Range
Creek in 1951, they built 2)sturdy fences with locked gates at either end of their 3)prime cattle-raising 4)spread. As a grown man, Waldo regularly patrolled his valley with shotgun in hand, rumor has it to keep out 5)trespassers.
Unlike many 6)ranchers in the American West, for whom collecting prehistoric treasure was a customary hobby, Waldo had left virtually every artifact undisturbed. “I won’t lie to you,” Waldo says. “I picked up 7)arrowheads, because if I didn’t, somebody else would. But I never dug anything up. Maybe I’m 8)superstitious, but I figured them Indians wanted the stuff left there.”
In 2001, at the age of 71, he sold his ranch to 9)the Trust for Public Lands. Waldo’s wife had never much liked her remote home, and he had seen no way to divide the ranch fairly among his grown children. With heavy heart, Waldo moved into a boxy little house in nearby Green River.
The next summer, 10)archaeologists got their first look at Range Creek. They were overwhelmed by what they found: arrowheads, 11)potsherds, 12)grinding stones, 13)granaries on high ledges, and the 14)remnants of buried pit houses. All this, the work of the Fremont, farmers and hunter-gatherers who had lived there a thousand years ago and more.
So the archaeologists enlisted Waldo as their guide to the often well-hidden 15)Fremont sites. One spring day last year, as she walked the valley-bottom dirt road in Range Creek, team co-leader Renee Barlow, of the Utah Museum of Natural History, was bursting with pride: “So far we’ve found 280 sites, ranging from ruins and rock art panels to scatters of potsherds and tool making 16)debris. Every one Waldo either told us about, or we found it on the way to a site he told us about. And we’ve only seen 15 percent of the canyon!”
“You haven’t seen 5 percent, 17)kiddo,” Waldo 18)rejoined.
Years ago, at a ruin a good thousand feet above the valley floor, Waldo had found an 19)eroding Fremont skeleton sticking skull-first out of the earth. To protect it, he picked up a nearby 20)metate-or “corn grinder,” as he calls the stone basin the ancients used to 21)pulverize their 22)maize, and laid it over the skull.
The most significant ruins in Range Creek are all high, inaccessible sites, many of them granaries. Greg, an expert mountaineer, Renee Barlow, and I worked our way into ones that even Waldo hadn’t reached, becoming almost certainly the first visitors in at least 700 years.
The most extraordinary of all the sites we explored was 60 feet up an overhanging 150-foot cliff. When we arrived at the base of the cliff, Greg said softly, “My mind is blown.” We could see the route some Fremont 23)daredevil had used to reach a 24)ledge with two granaries. The Fremont climber had leaned a 25-foot-tall 25)Douglas fir trunk against the cliff to 26)shinny up.
Some 50 years ago, Waldo had climbed to the base of this cliff, then stared up in wonder.
In the summer of2005, the tension between Waldo and the scientists who had taken over his 27)erstwhile paradise began to mount. During their four seasons in Range Creek, the teams had plotted the 28)GPS coordinates of every site they’d found and recorded the location of every potsherd, arrowhead, and metate. But they were also gathering up artifacts to take to the Utah Museum of Natural History. Waldo was dismayed. “I think they should leave the stuff where it is,” he said. “The canyon’s the biggest and best museum the Indian stuff could ever be in.”
Waldo has nursed a sense of doom about the canyon he loved. The cattle he ran kept the valley grazed, but today the grass stands thigh-high, creating a 29)tinderbox. It 30)infuriates Waldo that the archaeology team, more than half of whom smoke, won’t institute a site-wide smoking ban.
One May evening, Waldo and I sat on the lawn in front of the cinder block house. The old man seemed in a 31)pensive mood. “I should’ve had my ass kicked for selling it. There’s only one Range Creek in the world, and I let it slip through my fingers.”
But then a certain 32)gleam lit his gaze. “There’s one other place I know of with as much Indian stuff in it as you got here,” he said. “And if they ruin Range Creek, that secret’s going with me to the grave.”
1951年，威尔科克斯一家一迁入牧溪峡谷，当即在大牧场最好的放牧地周围建起了坚固的围栏，并在两端安上了带锁的门。沃尔多作为家里的成年男子会手持猎枪定期在山谷里巡逻，谣言说是为了防止外人擅自进入。
美国西部的许多牧场主都养成了收集史前宝藏的习惯，但沃尔多却不同，他基本上不触动任何史前物件。“我不会对你撒谎，”沃尔多说，“我曾捡过箭头，那是因为如果我不捡的话，别人也会捡的。但我从来不会去挖什么。可能是因为我迷信吧，我觉得印第安人想让那些东西留在原地。”
2001年，71岁的沃尔多把他的牧场卖给了公共土地托管会。沃尔多的妻子一向都不怎么喜欢这个偏僻的家，而他也发现无法公平地把牧场分给早已长大成人的儿女们。于是，沃尔多怀着沉重的心情，搬到格林河附近一幢方方正正的小房子里去了。
第二年夏天，考古学家们首次对牧溪峡谷进行考察。他们被出土的东西惊呆了：箭头、陶器碎片、石磨、高高岩脊上的粮仓，还有被埋在地下的洞穴房的残留部分。所有这些都是弗里蒙特印第安人留下来的，他们是一千多年前住在那里的耕作者、采集者兼猎人。
于是，考古学家征募沃尔多作向导，寻找弗里蒙特印第安人那些隐蔽的遗址。去年春日的一天，犹他州自然历史博物馆考古队的负责人之一薇内·巴罗行走在牧溪峡谷谷底的土路上。她按捺不住内心的得意，说道：“到目前为止，我们已经找到了280处遗址，从废墟和岩板艺术，到零星散布的陶器碎片和制造工具后剩下的碎片，应有尽有。这些遗址要不是沃尔多告诉我们的，要不就是在他告诉我们去遗址的路上发现的。而我们才走了这个峡谷15%的地方！”
“你们看到的还不足5%呢，孩子。”沃尔多反驳道。
好多年以前，沃尔多在离谷底一千多英尺高（1000英尺约等于305米）的一个废墟找到了一副正在遭受侵蚀的弗里蒙特印第安人骷髅，头骨已露出了地面。为了保护它，他在附近找了一个石磨盘——他称之为“玉米石磨”，那是古人用来研磨玉米的石磨的底盘——放在骷髅头上。
在牧溪峡谷，最有价值的遗址都在很高、常人难以接近的地方，它们当中许多是粮仓。我和一名登山专家格雷格，以及薇内·巴罗一起奋力攀上了许多连沃尔多也不曾踏足的地方。几乎可以肯定，我们是至少七百年来的首批到访者。
在我们勘探的所有遗址中，最非同一般的是一个离地60英尺（约18米），位于长150英尺（约46米）的悬崖上。那天我们来到崖脚，格雷格轻声说道：“这太让我震惊了。”我们可以看到过去一些弗里蒙特印第安勇士爬上建有两个粮仓的岩脊时留下的路。那些勇士把一棵25英尺（约8米）高的花旗松树干靠在崖壁，攀缘而上。
五十多年前，沃尔多曾爬到崖脚，好奇地盯着上方。
沃尔多视这片遗址为远古的天堂，然而在2005年的夏天，沃尔多与接管遗址的科学家之间的紧张关系开始恶化。考古队在考察牧溪峡谷的一年里，使用了全球定位系统，记下了他们找到的每一块陶器碎片、箭头和磨盘的位置，而且他们还把这些东西收集带走，要拿到犹他州的自然历史博物馆去。沃尔多对此很不乐意，他说：“我觉得他们应该把东西留在原来的地方，这个峡谷拥有大量的印第安人遗物，本身就是最大最好的印第安人博物馆。”
沃尔多对他热爱的这片山谷逐渐有了一种不祥的感觉。他饲养的牲畜一度让山谷里的草生长有序；而今，草长到了大腿深，使这里成了一个火灾易发区。看到考古队—他们当中过半人是烟民—并没有在遗址周围实行禁烟，沃尔多义愤填膺。
在一个五月的晚上，我和沃尔多坐在一座煤渣砖房前的草地上。老人看起来忧心忡忡。“我应该为卖了这块地而受到惩罚。这世上只有一个牧溪峡谷，而我却让它在我手中消失了。”
然而，他眼里随即闪过一丝亮光。“我还知道另外一个地方，那里的印第安人遗迹与你们在这里找到的一样多，”他说道，“如果他们毁坏了牧溪峡谷，那么我就会把这个秘密一起带进坟墓。”