Desert Heat

Chapter 1 The Mojave Desert might not be the largest or most remote place on the face of the Planet Earth. There are many deserts just as remote and even larger, but the majority of those are almost totally uninhabitable, while the Mojave teams with a multitude of animal species and an abundance of spectacular plant life. The high desert country of Southern California is startling in its ambiguities. It is first of all, stark and lonely; secondly, and perhaps more importantly, it is mysteriously lovely and enchanting, while frightening to many. The summers in the high desert of the Mojave can reach temperatures of one hundred and ten degrees in the shade, with little shade to be found. In winter, the frigid nights can dip below freezing, and in some winters, even snow falls on this seemingly barren landscape, creating a panorama beautiful beyond description. The Joshua trees alone bring people from all parts of this great country just to stand and stare at their mysterious and majestic configurations. And how they achieve this majesty with a bare minimum of the life giving substance water is almost as miraculous as their existence itself. Wildlife is more plentiful than the average person might imagine. Coyotes, rattle snakes, rabbits, ground squirrels, mice of every kind; the ubiquitous crow, the slow but tenacious desert tortoise and even an occasional burro decorate this landscape. The majority of these creatures are night stalkers and make things in your home that go bump in the night, pale by comparison. Most who visit this untamed land would chalk up their uneasiness at night to imagination, but they would be newcomers to the high desert, because there is something out there that is not so readily explainable. This is the land that Zachary Magary had frequented since early youth, in his relentless search for the golden element listed simply in the periodic table of elements as Au. By his forty-fifth birthday, Zachary had prospected all of California in search of this elusive commodity, but he always seemed to return to the high desert just north and east of Barstow. Something tugged at his very soul, and finding gold was the least of it. He had for years been a successful prospector. He had found gold on both the Russian and the American rivers, and sufficient nuggets on almost every other river and stream in the California, Mother-load Country to sustain him for life. He had worked at many things and had been successful in all of his ventures, but the only thing he truly enjoyed, was the search for gold. For some years now, he had kept a residence in Anaheim, California and spent every other month in the high desert. He had never understood why he was constantly drawn to this arid land, since he had made his fortune much further north in the state, and the gold on his claim just off Coolgardie Road in the desolate region just twenty miles from Barstow, was minimal at best. How he recovered even these small portions of gold was a measure of his tenacity, but the fact that he always returned, yet was continuously frightened out of his scull, was a mystery so fascinating he pondered it for hours at a time. And this while searching the sky and observing hundreds of billions of brightly shining stars that no city boy would ever experience. Something was out their, he thought, but could not for the life of him determine what; it was just a feeling, a bad feeling.