Woodside, Utah
Woodside, Utah never meant much to them because they weren’t churchgoers. Hadn’t sat in a pew since back in Havre, Montana. Seven days and seven nights they could have stood on the west bank of the Price River. Had they not been chasing more earthly pursuits they...
Sunnyside, Utah
Sunnyside, Utah struck her as a contender, possibly a good place to lie low. Early one morning when she was still in Los Angeles, when it was still early and creamy light fell on her poolside cabana at the Bel-Air, she studied the map. But only briefly. Word gets out...
Tehachapi, California
Tehachapi, California shook like a bedsheet rippling on a clothesline. Those Southern Pacific freight trains made the land feel like it was rolling over on itself. In bed at night the little girl would always wake up when an eastbound freight rumbled through. Her...
Hotel Bel-Air
Hotel Bel-Air guests like her were as commonplace as its hydrangeas and gardenias. Statuesque, reserved and apparently preoccupied with matters more worthy than those of anyone else. She had been in her suite for a week. She gauged the extent of her boredom as...
Carlsbad, New Mexico
Carlsbad New Mexico lies along the Pecos River a few miles east from where Jim White rode his horse right up to the edge of a mystery. Jim first saw it back in 1901. A swirling mystery, unfolding every summer evening at dusk since the dawn of time. Off in the...
Helena Flats, Montana
Helena Flats, Montana felt as if it had fallen out of tune. After being away a few years, the changes in town seemed inescapable. New construction, heavier traffic and all the other predictable accompaniments of growth. And something else, unpredictable and...
Palm Springs, California
Palm Springs, California stirred as little as possible. Another afternoon of hot wind washed over the town and scrubbed it clean. After the white-hot sky burnt itself out and turned purple, the two of them walked through violet twilight to the little French...
Baker, Nevada
Baker, Nevada was where he heard the news. Standing in a phone booth rattling in the gray wind, just off Nevada State Route 50 near the Utah state line, he couldn’t stop shivering. They thought she would make it. That last postcard they sent, the one with the picture...
Hermiston, Oregon
Hermiston, Oregon didn’t even exist back then. First they had to dig out the canal, 26 miles long, down from the Columbia River to the new Cold Springs Reservoir. They built a dam and from there laid in a web of smaller canals and outlet pipes for water to reach the...
Dayville, Oregon
Dayville, Oregon draped its storefronts with bright bunting, as dazzling a display of red, white and blue as could be found anywhere in America. She thought about this stirring show of patriotism and without intending to, returned to questioning every truth. All she...
Fernley, Nevada
Fernley, Nevada was where a raft of changes swept in. She was heading to her father’s funeral in Laguna Beach, California and figured being alone she would roll through a few recollections of him. But very few memories appeared and this surprised her. So did the...
Fredonia, Arizona
Fredonia, Arizona did a decent job living down what some may have considered an indecent reputation. He didn’t care about those polygamous sects. Whether or not they were still around, which he figured they probably were, wasn’t his concern. There were bigger fish...
Towaoc, Colorado
Towaoc, Colorado disappeared then reappeared, faded in and out of focus and finally stabilized. He scraped a thin layer of frost off the inside of the window and looked out at the Ute Mountain Casino RV park. He was still half asleep, still shivering. Off across the...
Lusk, Wyoming
Lusk, Wyoming distinguishes itself as the county seat of the least populated county in the least populated state in the whole country. This entitles you to a one-way ticket out of town. That’s how he saw it. They painted him as a hell raiser. He could have been a...
Havre, Montana
Havre, Montana waited for spring. The town always seemed to be waiting for spring. That’s what the desk clerk at the Quality Inn where the seminar was held told her when she checked in. She sat in the back row. Silently cursed her sister for encouraging her to...
Ivins, Utah
Ivins, Utah roasted under a gnarled sky. Early summer and the red land roasted. Stripes of red and white sandstone crackled. Up in Snow Canyon State Park, she stared out across the chasms and wondered why her overtures were rebuffed, why her olive branches dried up...
Fish Camp, California
Fish Camp, California always lured him back to that old photo, the one Carleton Watkins took in 1861. Driving through town was all it took for that picture of the Yosemite Valley to reappear. It was gorgeous, as stirring a photograph as they came. But he knew it...
Spokane, Washington
Spokane, Washington turned him around. Not the blaze of light turnaround that resurrects and revives. It was more as if he was shown how to walk into an inner sanctum of truths. He didn’t figure there was anything mystical about this. No born-again visions. Nothing...
