Echoes in East Canyon

There are places in Nevada where a man can shout into a canyon and hear his own voice come back to him. Most folks call it an echo and think no more about it.

Scientists will happily explain the matter with discussions of sound waves, rock faces, angles, and other respectable subjects. Science has given us electric lights, automobiles, and the ability to argue with strangers from hundreds of miles away.

Still, after one particular night in a remote canyon, I have become reluctant to dismiss the old Paiute explanation. The story concerns a creature called Teugai, a witch-like being with a talent for imitation.

According to the legend, she stole children by perfectly mimicking their mothers. A child would hear his name called from the darkness and naturally follow the familiar voice.

By the time they realized something was wrong, it was already too late.

Eventually, the villagers discovered her deception and rescued the children she had taken. Furious and desperate, Teugai fled into the wilderness and sought protection from her grandfather, a great rattlesnake named Togoav.

The snake swallowed his family to hide them from their pursuers. When Teugai entered as well, however, Togoav shed his skin and trapped her inside the discarded snakeskin forever.

From within that prison, she screamed and mocked every voice she heard. The echoes that answer from canyons and cliffs, the Paiute said, are Teugai repeating words out of spite. Her descendants still live in snakeskins and continue their endless mockery of humanity.

I had heard the story before, filed it away among the many fascinating legends of the Great Basin, and thought little more about it. That changed during a recent camping trip.

I had spent the day exploring a narrow canyon carved into volcanic rock. The place was isolated even by Nevada standards.

The walls rose hundreds of feet overhead, twisting and narrowing until they blocked most of the sunlight. Strange shadows lingered there long after sunset. By evening, I had pitched a small camp near a dry wash and settled in to enjoy the silence.

At first, the night was perfectly ordinary. A small fire crackled beside me while the last traces of daylight faded from the canyon walls.

The stars overhead appeared only as a thin ribbon between the cliffs. Somewhere in the distance, a coyote announced its presence to the world. Nothing seemed unusual.

Then I heard my name.

The voice belonged to my mother. Now, my mother has been dead for years.

I froze and listened. The voice came again, drifting faintly from farther up the canyon.

It sounded exactly as I remembered it. The same tone and inflection, the same way she always pronounced my name when she wanted my attention.

For several moments, I sat perfectly still, waiting for reason to return. Eventually, I convinced myself that fatigue was responsible.

The human mind is remarkably good at finding patterns where none exist. I poured another cup of coffee and attempted to ignore the matter.

A few minutes later, I heard the voice again. This time it was closer, and the words were clearer.

“Tommy.”

The fire suddenly seemed much smaller than it had a moment before. I stood and aimed my flashlight toward the darkness.

The beam illuminated nothing except stone walls and scattered sagebrush. Yet I could not shake the feeling that something was watching me from just beyond the light.

Then another voice spoke. It belonged to my brother.

Not the voice of my brother as an adult. The voice of Adam when he was a little boy.

The voice came from deeper within the canyon. The sound struck me harder than the first one.

Every instinct told me to follow it. Every memory I possessed urged me to run toward the voice and make sure everything was all right.

Fortunately, another instinct was shouting even louder. Leave.

I remained where I was, and the canyon fell silent again. A few minutes later, laughter drifted down from above.

Not joyful laughter. Mocking laughter.

The kind that children use when they know a joke that adults do not. The kind of predators might use if they possessed a sense of humor.

The sound echoed off the canyon walls, multiplying and shifting direction until it seemed to come from everywhere at once. I fed more wood into the fire and stayed awake.

As midnight approached, the canyon began making sounds. I would hear a pebble fall and receive an echo of a footstep.

The wind would whistle through a crack in the rocks and return as a distant whisper. At one point, I coughed and heard a woman’s laughter in reply.

That was when I seriously considered abandoning my campsite.

Before I could act, something moved along the cliff above me. I caught only a brief glimpse of it.

The figure was tall and impossibly thin. It seemed wrapped in something pale and translucent that fluttered against the rocks.

For a moment, I thought it resembled an old snakeskin hanging from a branch. Then it moved with deliberate purpose.

The shape paused and turned toward me. I saw no face, only darkness where a face should have been.

Then it spoke. “Tommy.”

The words emerged in my own voice, and every hair on my body stood upright. The figure laughed again and disappeared behind a ridge.

For the remainder of the night, I stayed close to the fire and ignored every sound that came from beyond its light. That proved increasingly difficult.

When dawn finally arrived, I packed my gear with remarkable speed and left without breakfast. The morning sunlight transformed the canyon into an ordinary landscape of stone and sagebrush.

Birds sang, lizards darted across warm rocks, and the place looked harmless. Yet as I walked back toward my truck, I noticed something caught between two boulders.

It was a strip of pale, translucent snakeskin.