An Unforgettably Lucky Arrowhead
September 24, 2016 – Great Basin National Park, Nevada, USA
“Did you know that something like 90% of Nevada is owned by the federal government?” Joe said to the passengers sitting around him in the car.
Kaitlyn, who was in the backseat, replied with, “Who else would want it? Look at this place. There’s nothing alive out here.”
“You promise we’re going to eventually find mountains and trees, right?” asked Jace, who was sitting next to Kaitlyn.
“Yes, trust me,” replied Joe. “It’s going to shock you, and hardly anyone knows about it. And we’re visiting at the best time of the year. The trees will all be changing colors.”
Squeezed into the backseat of the Subaru were Kaitlyn, Jace, and Alexa, best friends and roommates. Up front were brothers Joe and Josh. All of them were students at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. The brothers had suggested the idea of a weekend camping trip as the fall semester was getting started. The three girls agreed it would be fun. Kaitlyn and Jace were in their final year of school and wanted to add to their cache of college memories.
Joe and Josh talked authoritatively like camping experts, so the girls let them pick the destination and the weekend. The brothers thought one of the National Parks would make a good spot, but they wanted a place that would not be overly crowded. Zions and the Grand Canyon were closer to Las Vegas, but Great Basin National Park promised to be almost empty, at least according to Joe.
“Another cool thing about Great Basin is you can pretty much camp wherever you want. No one worries about paying fees or making reservations,” Joe told the group.
“What about bathrooms and showers?” asked Jace.
“You can skip those for one night,” said Josh. “I like really getting back to nature when I go camping.”
Jace considered it for a few seconds and then decided that she wanted to get back to nature too. All of her previous camping experiences had been pretty sanitized and she was willing to trust Joe and Josh to show her something more authentic.
“You know what I’ve always wanted to do?” said Jace, when they were still in the car and two hours from the park entrance. “I’d love to find a real Native American artifact. Like a piece of pottery or maybe an arrowhead. You guys ever found anything like that?”
“No, but there’s a chance in Great Basin,” said Joe. “The trails don’t have so many people picking up everything in sight.”
Three and a half hours after heading north from Las Vegas, the arid scenery began to change. In the distance, mountain peaks rose up from the flat gray-brown landscape. Short, isolated trees appeared, a prelude to what must be growing at higher altitudes.
The only sign of civilization before reaching the entrance to the National Park was a tiny community called Baker. The highlight in Baker was a gas station, which advertised the last chance for refueling before Great Basin.
“We better stop for gas and the bathroom,” said Joe.
He pulled the Subaru up to a gas pump and everyone got out. The three girls wandered into the little convenience store, which was stocked with snacks, drinks, and souvenirs. While Jace was in the bathroom, Kaitlyn and Alexa noticed a box of stone arrowheads for sale. The trinkets were supposed to look like primitive Native American relics, but they had obviously been mass produced using modern tools.
Kaitlyn fished through the box and pulled out a black arrowhead that had an especially nice shape. She smiled at Alexa and said, “How about we help Jace find that arrowhead she’s hoping for?”
Alexa grinned in return. “Okay. Hurry and pay for it before she gets out of the bathroom.”
Kaitlyn quickly handed over some money to the employee behind the check-out counter and slipped the arrowhead into her pocket. Jace emerged from the bathroom, bought a can of soda, and returned to the car. Kaitlyn and Alexa hid their giggles as they followed behind her.
The friends arrived into the park in the early afternoon. As Joe had promised, it appeared to be the perfect time of year to visit. The leaves on the trees had turned into fiery shades of yellows and reds. Las Vegas had been stiflingly hot, but the park’s upper elevations were perfectly pleasant and maybe even called for a light jacket.
The group tackled two different hiking trails that began among groves of trees and then rose up to expansive views of the sharp, spired mountains that reached 13,000 feet. Jace usually followed the others along the trails, deeply breathing in the clean air. Besides her friends, there were no other humans in sight and she felt closer to nature than at any other time in her life.
“This really is beautiful you guys,” Jace said to the group. “I can’t believe there aren’t more people here.”
“The best way to keep people away from something is put it out in the middle of nowhere,” replied Joe. “Are you keeping your eyes on the ground? Have you found anything that looks old yet?”
Kaitlyn and Alexa had secretly told the brothers about the plan to help Jace find an arrowhead. While stopping for breaks, they had already tried three times to plant the purchased arrowhead on the side of the trail. So far, Jace had looked in all the wrong directions and the arrowhead had gone undiscovered.
“I’m not so sure you could find anything Native out here,” Jace said in answer to Joe’s question. “Aren’t these trails new? Who’s to say we’re walking in the same places as the Native American’s used to?”
“You never know,” said Joe encouragingly. “Maybe these trails actually follow the old ones. Why would the park service have cut a new route if one already existed?”
“Yeah, maybe,” replied Jace.
“I’d keep looking,” said Joe.
A fourth and fifth attempt at planting the arrowhead were unsuccessful and then the sun began to fade and the group needed to find a spot to camp. As Joe had promised, they simply drove onto one of the dirt side roads that intersected the main paved road through the park. The Subaru stopped in a secluded meadow surrounded by protective pine trees. The boys put up a couple of tents and then everyone laid on their backs under the bright stars and told the scariest stories they could remember.
Jace discovered she was not a big fan of impromptu camping at around 3:00 in the morning. The pleasant daytime temperatures disguised the frigid air that arrived during the night. Jace shivered in her sleeping bag and wished she was wearing more than a light coat. She crawled out of her tent at dawn, feeling stiff and achy.
“You gotta get moving to warm up,” said Josh, running in place and doing jumping jacks.
“I don’t want to do jumping jacks. Let’s get in the car and turn on the heater,” said Kaitlyn.
Joe and Josh quickly gathered up all the gear and shoved it into the back of the car. Everyone got inside, drove slowly toward the main road, and blasted the heater.
“And can I please request we find a bathroom?” said Kaitlyn.
A bathroom stop at one of the official park campgrounds made everyone feel better. They ate a breakfast of yogurt and granola and then headed toward a picturesque lake that Joe promised would be the highlight of their visit.
The lake was definitely beautiful. Its clear water was surrounded by a natural amphitheater of rock cliffs. The green moss and blue water perfectly complimented the yellows and reds in the trees. Jace returned to feeling close to nature.
The group hiked to a spot where a shallow stream fed into the lake. Light colored pebbles and boulders sat at the bottom of the stream and the brothers made a signal to Kaitlyn that she should try planting the arrowhead again.
To provide a distraction, Joe pointed out toward the cliffs overlooking the lake. “How tall do you think those are? I wonder how long it would take to free climb.”
“No way you could go straight up,” replied Josh. “You’d have to work your way up from the side.”
While the boys pretended to argue about the best climbing route, Kaitlyn placed the black arrowhead on a pale rock sticking out of the water. She stood up trying to look innocent and contain a smile. The boys turned their attention from the cliffs to the stream and poked at various rocks with a stick. This caused Kaitlyn, Alexa, and Jace to also look down. It took almost half a minute, but Jace finally noticed something interesting.
“Hey, is that an arrowhead?” she called out.
“Where? Where are you looking?” asked Kaitlyn.
Jace bent over and picked up the arrowhead. “Right here. Do you think this is real?” She held it between her thumb and index finger.
“Oh yeah, that’s totally real!” cried Joe.
“No doubt,” agreed Josh.
“It was just sitting on that rock,” said Jace. “How come no one else has found it?”
“Maybe the water just barely uncovered it,” said Kaitlyn. “You’re lucky you saw it first.”
Jace smiled and continued to admire the arrowhead. The rest of the group smiled, too, for multiple reasons. As they walked back to the car, Jace talked about how she loved the black rock from which the arrowhead was made. And she noticed that whoever had made it was obviously skilled and experienced. She questioned how old it could be and the odds that it had found her.
At some point, Jace’s affection for the arrowhead made her start questioning whether it might be too good to be true. In the car, on the way toward the park exit, she remembered the gas station.
“Did you guys see a box of arrowheads for sale in there?” asked Jace. “They looked a lot like this one. I wonder if somebody might have bought it and lost it. Or maybe they left it there on purpose.”
“I don’t remember a box like that,” Joe quickly replied.
“Me neither,” said Kaitlyn. “Maybe you’re thinking of somewhere else.”
“Let’s stop in on our way back,” said Jace. “So I can make sure.”
When the Subaru pulled into the gas station, Kaitlyn jumped out and hurried inside, claiming to need the bathroom. Meanwhile, Josh, who had been talking about tire pressure, asked Jace to help him check the tires with a gauge he had pulled from the glovebox. Jace’s naturally helpful personality led her to assisting Josh without questioning why he could not do the job himself.
As Jace unscrewed the caps on the tire stems, Kaitlyn rushed through an appeal to the stringy-haired employee standing behind the counter inside the gas station.
“We planted one of your arrowheads in the park and we need to convince our friend its real. If she comes in asking about your box of arrowheads, can you tell her you don’t have any for sale?”
At first, the gas station clerk gave Kaitlyn a confused stare, but then he seemed to catch on. Helping with a prank would undoubtedly be the most exciting part of his day.
“We should probably hide the box then,” said the gas station guy.
Kaitlyn grabbed the box of arrowheads and handed it to him. He stuck it on a shelf below the counter, out of sight. Kaitlyn giggled and thanked him repeatedly. She pretended to be deciding on a snack when Jace walked in.
Jace examined the counter near the cash register. Then she walked around the store before returning and stopping in front of the sleepy-eyed clerk.
“Do you guys sell rock arrowheads?” Jace asked. “I thought I saw a box of them when we were in here before.”
“Nah, we don’t have anything like that,” the gas station man replied.
Jace pulled the black arrowhead from her pocket and held it up. “Kind of like this one?”
Kaitlyn held her breath from near the snack aisle.
The man behind the counter examined the arrowhead closely. Without missing a beat, he said, “You know, we used to find ones like this when I was a kid. The Shoshoni Indians who lived around here made them.”
“Really? It’s Shoshoni?” cried Jace with excitement.
“Oh, for sure,” said the gas station man. “I’d know a Shoshoni arrowhead anywhere.”
“That’s amazing! Thank you! Thank you!” gushed Jace, as she looked at the arrowhead with even greater reverence.
After the long ride home, Jace went to a craft store near her apartment and found some cotton thread and leather straps that complimented the color of the black arrowhead. Using the thread as a wrap, she attached the arrowhead to the leather to create a necklace. It became a permanent accessory around her neck and she loved telling anyone who asked that it was genuine Shoshoni and something of a good luck charm she had found in nature.
Kaitlyn had intended to tell Jace it was all a hoax, but that was before Jace made the necklace. At that point, Kaitlyn decided it was a secret better left unrevealed. But Kaitlyn’s anxiety about the arrowhead increased as she and Jace got closer to graduation. Jace accepted a job at a hotshot Silicon Valley company and Kaitlyn worried that one of her new coworkers would spot the difference between a fake and real arrowhead, and Jace would feel humiliated. As they were saying their final goodbyes, Kaitlyn tried to find the courage to confess.
“You’ve been the best part of college for me,” Jace said to her friend, as they embraced. “No matter how tough things got, I knew I could always count on you. I could always trust you.”
Kaitlyn gulped, but before she could say anything in reply, Jace removed the arrowhead necklace from around her neck. “This is pretty much the favorite thing I own,” said Jace. “But I want you to have it to remember me.”
“I can’t take something you love that much,” said Kaitlyn in surprise.
“It’s okay. I want you to have it and promise me you’ll wear it and think of me.”
Kaitlyn paused, searching for the right words. She remained uncomfortably quiet as her mind churned through possible responses. She started to say, “I should . . .” but she stopped herself. Finally, she grasped the necklace with both hands and put on a sweet smile. “Okay. For you, I promise.”
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