Your True Tales
April 2008 - Page 23

The Canyon Boys
by Rodney R.

In 1966 I lived in Black Canyon City, which is a small rural community north of Phoenix, Arizona, but back then it was little more than a highway stop with a few trailers and a gas station. My parents had to drive many miles every day to get me back and forth to school, as there were no school buses running back then. We had recently moved from Belvidere, Illinois to the area and lived north of town in a doublewide trailer.

We were surrounded by wilderness, so I did a lot of exploring in and around the area. One Saturday, I was out poking about exploring the foothills, arroyos and the enormous canyon that the city is famous for. I wandered into an area I had not seen before with a small stream and beautiful tall, yellow grass. I was marveling at the beauty of the area, when I heard something rustle in the grass behind me. Ever wary of rattlesnakes and javelinas (and there were a lot of rattlesnakes and javelinas in that area), I spun around quickly and there were no dangerous critters, just two young boys about my age standing about 20 yards away.

We all stood there staring at each other for a while, when one of them finally said, "Hi, I'm Bobby and this is Phil." Bobby was a skinny, blond-haired kid with freckles, and Phil was also skinny, but not quite as much as Bobby. He had these bright, cold, blue eyes that looked right through you, and a big gap-toothed smile. I sensed he was the leader. I introduced myself and Phil said, "Hey, wanna see our underground fort?" I thought that sounded pretty neat, so off we went on a narrow, twisting trail alternating through the yellow grass and thick chaparral.

Finally, Phil said, "Well, here we are!"

Bobby said, "Close your eyes and keep them closed."

Being an obedient kid of the 1960s, I did so, and one of them (I think it was Bobby) grabbed my arm and told me to start walking. I did so, and I felt like I was walking into quicksand. I felt pressure over my entire body - my entire being, in fact - and had trouble breathing and even thinking. I almost opened my eyes, but there were two of them - two kids I didn't know, and I figured I'd better not open them, or they might beat me up. (Back then, I beat up a lot of kids, and got beat up a lot myself).

After a minute or so, one of them told me to open my eyes. I did so and I found myself in a candle-lit underground grotto. "C'mon, this way," Phil said, and we wound around through a series of small, barely lit tunnels, sometimes crawling, sometimes standing. There were "rooms" here and there dug out of the earth on either side of the path, but I couldn't see into them. I wondered what was in there, but I didn't really want to go in and find out.

We finally got to a wide, dimly lit area where there was food, drinks, blankets, playing cards and some old books. Phil spread out a blanket and told me to sit down, then handed me a Coke and box of animal crackers, believe it or not. The animal crackers tasted like the ones I used to eat when I was about five when the manufacturer still used real butter, but the box looked very strange. It looked old, really old, like something from the 1920s. At first I didn't recognize the Coke because it was in tall, elongated bottles, but when I tasted it I recognized it immediately, though there was something different, something better about it. It was also ice cold. I thought it funny that the Coke was so cold, as I didn't see any cooler or ice (and I was pretty certain they didn't have a refrigerator).

I soon felt very energetic and found that I was talking a lot and about nothing in particular. Bobby and Phil were quiet the whole time. Finally Phil said, "Get him out of here now." Bobby grabbed me by the arm and we walked (and crawled) back to the "entrance" where there was nothing but dirt walls, but once again they told me to close my eyes. I did so, and in a few seconds I was back up above ground, breathing fresh air, which was a relief especially after again going through that cloying "quicksand".

Bobby and Phil said, "See you later." So I left, as they were starting to act kind of funny, and like I said before, I didn't know these kids and really didn't want to get beat up.

A couple of days later I was in school, and I mentioned Bobby and Phil to my new friend, Paul. Paul said, "Oh, I see you've met the Canyon Boys. They're ghosts, you know." I asked what the heck he was talking about, and he said, "Oh they were a couple of boys who were killed in an cave-in about 50 or 60 years ago. A lot of people have seen them."

I felt my knees go weak and my heart started pounding like a trip hammer. I told Paul that he was nuts, and that he was making stuff up just to mess with the new kid, but he just shrugged and said, "Ok, don't believe me then." I told Paul I could go right back and find Bobby and Phil and the underground fort and prove that they were just regular kids. Paul casually told me that I could go and look, but that I would never find them or the underground fort. I told Paul to go to hell and he just laughed at me. I stormed away, mad as a wet hornet, and planned my next visit to the place of the tall grass.

Early the next Saturday, I packed a lunch with some of my mom's leftover (but always delicious) fried chicken and filled my canteen with cold water and set off to find Bobby, Phil and the underground fort. I found the tall yellow grass and stream, yet somehow the area looked different. I couldn't put my finger on it, yet somehow it had changed, and I couldn't pinpoint where it was that I first saw Bobby and Phil. I looked around for a couple of hours trying to find them or the entrance to the underground fort. Having no luck, I finally headed home.

I tried to find the same spot the next weekend as well, but had no luck. Of course Paul smugly pointed that out to me with a rousing, "I told you so!" I never did find the spot where I first saw Bobby and Phil, nor did I ever see them or the underground fort again. I never told anyone else besides Paul about this, except for my parents who berated me for going into an underground fort, and informed me that I'd get a whipping if I went in one ever again.

Years later, when I was a young man, I was in Sedona, Arizona in an antique shop looking at all the old stuff when I spied an ancient, yellowed animal cracker box. It looked a lot like the one I ate animal crackers from when I was in Bobby and Phil's underground fort! I wondered if the guy who ran the place had any old Coke bottles from the same era, and he said he did. He went in the back and came out with the exact type of Coke bottle that I drank out of in the underground fort!

I asked the old man what he would take for them, and told him I had seen similar items years ago under unusual circumstances, so I would really like to have them. The old man said, "Sure, I'll take twenty bucks for the two, but let me tell you about them. The animal cracker box is from 1910, and the Coke bottle is from the same era back when they still put a touch of cocaine in the soda, hence the name "Coca-Cola". Not many people are aware of that, you know."

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