Here's a story by Howard Schneider, who takes my Thursday evening class at Beaumont SUN Community School. His description of an injured man in the desert is enough to make even the most disgruntled Portlander pray for rain.
Rain in the Air
Rare for a mid-summer desert late
afternoon, cool moisture began to wet the air, like an early morning fog
rolling in off the ocean. As welcome as it was, it didn't help. It didn't
quench my unquenchable thirst. A thirst that was so overpowering I didn't think
I would be able to stand it much longer. It was the worst assault my body had
ever experienced. My bleeding split lips, gritty-dry eyes, and dry cracked
skin, as agonizing as they were, were trivial in comparison to my unrelenting
need for water. I could think of nothing else; nothing else mattered. The
sudden jump in humidity made my misery even worse. The hint of precious water
all around me but inaccessible was unbearable. If I could just suck those
invisible droplets out of the heavy air I might survive. But I couldn't. I was
going to die.
It all began three days ago. That's
when late in the afternoon the front left tire of my pickup slammed into a deep
pothole. They were scattered all along the sixty mile stretch of rarely-used
dirt track across the dry desert that lay between Jack's Canyon and the
foothills of Devil's Playground, a barren of rock-strewn mountain range home to
nothing but scorpions, Gila monsters and rattlesnakes. My destination was an
abandoned mine supposedly situated at the base of Indian Hat Peak. I was doing research
for a book I was writing about early gold mining in this remote corner of
southern Arizona. I planned to document this site with photographs. I had
intended to take the photos and hightail it back to the little town of Green
Valley for a late dinner.
The pothole blew my tire and broke
the axle. The truck slammed to the left, crashed over the side of the narrow
road and slid down the steep ten-foot high bank. It ended up at a 45 degree
angle on its side with the left front fender smashed into the bed of the
arroyo. The driver-side door was pinned solid against the rocky ground. By the
date on my watch, when I finally woke it was the next day. I was scrunched up
against the door. The strong morning sun blasting through the window had turned
the cab into a hotbox. The first thing I experienced was pain, and then felt
the sticky laceration spread across the side of my head. Blood was smeared over
the closed window and caked on my shirt. A pulsing headache almost blinded me,
made worse by the bright sunlight reflecting off the chrome trim decorating the
dashboard.
Managing to focus, I realized the
truck was stuck in a deep gulch. I was far from anywhere. It was at least forty
miles back to the county road, then another ten to the state highway. To make
things worse, I was intensely thirsty. My lips were sore and chapped and my
mouth and throat were dry. Groping around on the floorboard I found a bottle of
water that had rolled down to the corner where the door and the floor
intersected. Drinking half of it, I felt better, but still a little dizzy. The
oven-like heat of the cab was overwhelming and quickly convinced me to get out.
I wanted to get up to the road, too. I had to figure out what to do.
While looking for the water I
discovered there was only one other small bottle left. I vaguely remembered
drinking the others the day before. That's when it struck me, I was in serious
trouble. Switching into survival mode, I collected anything useful, the water, the
empty water bottles, my windbreaker, my cell phone, sunglasses and ball cap,
all of which I stuffed into my pack. I was happy to see that there was already
a bunch of energy bars and two apples in it. My next task was to get out.
Still dizzy and weak, I worked hard
to maneuver into a position to push up on the passenger side door. It was
heavy, making it difficult to exert enough force so that it opened far enough
to stay open. That alone took almost half an hour. With the pack looped over my
back, I managed to climb out, using first the steering wheel and then the seat
console to stand on. Finally I pulled myself out, and perched on the edge of
the angled roof. The bank I would have to scale up was directly in front of me,
about five feet high, steeply angled. The small sage bush plants I used as
handholds frequently came loose when I put my weight on them. My footholds
jabbed into the bank also gave way easily. It took repeated tries until I
finally made it up and crawled onto the dirt road from which I had been
catapulted.
I was spent by the energy I had
expended negotiating the steep bank. It was hot and ungodly dry. The position
of the sun told me it was early-afternoon. Fortunately there was a good-sized creosote
bush nearby. I managed to crawl over to it and far enough under to take
advantage of the spotty shade it cast on the hot dirt around its trunk. The
little sip of water I took was nowhere enough to satisfy my thirst, but I had
to conserve what little I had left. I then tried my cell phone. As I suspected,
there was no service.
As I lay there, I began to panic.
The choices I faced became clear: stay put and hope someone realized I was
missing and came to look for me, or try to walk out. It was fifty miles,
intolerably high temperature, strong hot sun, no water, weakened condition: a
recipe for disaster. But if I did have enough water, and if I traveled only at
night, it should be possible. At two miles per hour I could make it in 25
hours. Two nights. But I didn't have the water. So, I reluctantly accepted the
reality that I just had to stay where I was.
By rationing the remaining water I
managed to make it through the next day, even though my rapidly growing
dehydration was taking a heavy toll. But at least I had been able to spread the
jacket over enough of the bush to create a little more shade, allowing me to
avoid serious sunburn. But even without sunburn, by day three I was in much
more serious trouble. What little water I had stretched out was gone. And that
meant only one thing; the end was closer. Accepting my fate, sleep became my solitude,
consuming most of the hot and hellishly dry daytime hours.
But then, as if a miracle had been
cast down into that remote desert by some merciful power, everything changed.
Waking later that day from a languid slumber, I immediately perceived that something
was dramatically different. The air had cooled, even though it was still only
mid-afternoon, usually the hottest part of the southern desert day. Fast-moving
wispy clouds were scurrying westward. Then I felt the luscious humidity,
smelled it too, could even taste it. Or was this some perverse torture the gods
were subjecting me to, I wondered in my dazed state. The wet air swirling
around me was in stark contrast to the horror of my dried-out, desiccated body,
almost sending me over the edge of sanity. But then, maybe an hour or so later,
I heard the unmistakable loud clap of thunder. A moment later I saw streaks of
lightning flashing above the mountain range to the east. Then I heard more
thunder, or was it some cruel hallucination that precedes death? A moment later
the gentle drops of rain sprinkling down onto my upturned face from the dark
clouds flying across the sky gave me the answer. A desert thunder storm was in
the making.
I was overcome with happiness. I
was saved. I knew that soon the arroyo would be awash with water. A regular
desert flash flood, the kind that once or maybe twice a year returned life to
these dry and barren landscapes. I quickly dug a shallow basin in the soft sand
and pressed down my windbreaker to catch the precious rainfall that might be
coming my way. At last, I fantasized, I would be able to drink, to fill my
bottles, to regain my strength, to go home. In my giddiness I even started to look
forward to the walk out. Then, as that first hint of rain turned into a
downpour, I knew I would be okay. In delirious joy, I began to rationalize to
myself that this adventure had actually been a really interesting experience,
although maybe not one that I would want to repeat soon. But then, as I thought
more about the previous three days, it occurred to me that this little
so-called adventure would actually make a great introduction to my book.
Howard Schneider 2/9/15
