In New Mexico: Visions Along the Amtrak Line

By Lenny Schulman

Along a railroad track in a ravine in Canyoncito, N. Mex., just north of the Lamy train station, there have been occasional sightings of curious apparitions. On this gloomy Sunday, passengers on the Southwest Chief have & been warned to keep their eyes open. Their train will be passing through Canyoncito between 2 and 3 in the afternoon.

Canyoncito is on wild, beautiful land 15 miles southeast of Santa Fe. The landscape is dotted with adobe ranch houses and corrals. Chamizas with yellow flowers, delicate violet asters, sage, pinons and cacti grow everywhere.

In the ravine the sky is overcast, and rain appears imminent. Two women emerge from a red Datsun pickup parked under the railroad trestle. A golden retriever stands guard by their side. Victoria Cross, 36, pulls on a long, flowing green-velvet mask that is sewn to a wrangler's hat. The mask has many gourds hanging from it. Sherie Hartle, 35, is putting on a white mask that resembles a death's-head. The masks are frightening; they are right out of a peyote dream.

Vicki and Sherie are in the process of transforming themselves into the "curious apparitions" that passengers on the Southwest Chief have been warned about. The performance that is about to begin is part of a project called "Apparitions and Amtrak," funded in part by a grant from the New Mexico Arts Division and the National Endowment for the Arts.

Vicki, who moved to Santa Fe 14 years ago, makes almost all of the masks and costumes used in the performance. She describes her favorite apparitions this way: "The Jester is a bedspread, some socks and curtains, beads and bells. Buttonface is pajamas, a favorite shirt, lots of buttons, a vegetable steamer, socks and an old cloth flag I used to fly in Arroyo Hondo. The apparitions are gentle reminders to the Amtrak passengers that dreams are important aspects of our lives."

Today Vicki is the Mexican Hat. Sherie, a massage therapist when she is not performing, will be the Winter One. Vicki's trunk, overflowing with costumes and masks, stands in the ravine about ten feet from the Galisteo creek. Sherie, doing a little dance in her robe and mask, suddenly slips on a flat, wet rock and falls hard on her back. "I'm O.K.! I'm O.K.!" she shouts through her mask, and she gets back up. Suddenly an old Subaru cuts down into the ravine, and Ifan Evans, 47, who is driving, brings the car to a sharp halt just a few feet from the creek. Four people all seem to exit the car at the same time, and there is much hugging and kissing. But there is little time to waste.

"What time is the train due?" Dianne Porter, 40, an "environmental visionary" who works in the Marcy Street Card Shop, asks Vicki. "In about 15 minutes. We have to hurry."

Dianne chooses a costume for herself and her daughter Bridey, 9. Dianne will be Spiral Head, and Bridey will be the Summer Bird. Vicki chooses the Baby Raven for Veva Burns, Bridey's friend, who is also nine.

Dianne adjusts Bridey's costume, and then she and Bridey and Veva go under the trestle and climb a steep incline that is strewn with boulders. The footing is slippery; they go cautiously and emerge on a concrete platform that is five feet from the railroad tracks.

Meanwhile, Ifan Evans, the Jester, puts on a Pinocchio mask, says goodbye to Vicki and Sherie and walks away down a path. Ifan carries a tall staff with a long, flowing pink pennant attached to it. On the way, he meets Thor Sigstedt, who is with his children Dylan, 5, and Tara, 7.

Thor, 34, owns the land here, about 40 acres of it. He has long, sandy hair and a kind, weathered face. "We're not going to take part today, but we'll watch from up there." Thor points to a spot farther up the hill by two tall ponderosa pines. Behind these hills are the Sangre de Cristo mountains.

They say goodbye, and Ifan continues his walk down the path until he comes to a barbed-wire corral. There, a tan pony and a gray mule stand quietly. A heavenly silence seems to enfold the land. Ifan walks the corral, and the mule comes over to better observe this strange man. They stare at each other for several minutes, and then Ifan nods to the mule and walks on. Ifan, today, will be a solitary apparition in the dreamscape.

Ifan says of his performing, "It's a reminder of who I am inside. When I climb under one of these masks, sound changes -- I'm different. It reminds me that I'm more than just a squash player, more than an escapee from New York. It's telling me of something I should do, or used to do."

Vicki is the first to hear the train whistle blow. "The train! The train is coming!" she shouts.

"How do you know?" Veva calls down to her.

"I heard it. I heard the whistle."

Vicki starts to perform a mad Apache war dance, spinning and turning in small, violent circles. Twenty feet in front of Vicki, high on the concrete platform, Bridey, Veva and Dianne are shrieking with excitement. As the train comes into view, they begin to spin and dance as if possessed. Bridey calls out to her mother as the train pulls onto the trestle, "Stop! Stop! You'll make it rain! You'll make it rain!"

It's all over in a minute. The engineer waves. These are friendly / apparitions; they wave back. Several passengers sight the dancers and flash broad smiles. As the last car crosses the trestle, the sun comes out for the first time all day, and at the same time, it begins to rain. "You made it rain! You made it rain!" Bridey shouts. "You made lightning!"

Vicki, who has been dancing as if in a hallucinatory trance the whole time the train was passing, is now screaming at the top of her lungs, "Where's Sandino? Where's my dog? Is he still alive?"

Time stands still in Canyoncito for a few precious seconds until Bridey calls down to Vicki, "He's O.K., he's O.K. I see him. He's coming back -- he ran after the train." Enter Sandino, performance star. He comes zooming down from an overpass, jumps a steep embankment, caroms mightily through the creek, stutter-steps around some sage and leaps onto Vicki. Vicki hugs her dog. The train is gone; the land is quiet again.