Desert Essence
On a warm and windy afternoon ANTie Patti rode through the painted desert
of Arizona. The wind blew through
her long golden brown hair as she rode high in the saddle of a beautiful wild
mustang she named "Ponderosa." Wild
poppies grew everywhere with their bountiful colors on the desert floor and
waved gently in the breeze. The
saguaro cacti were a spectacular sight to see and reminded her of Cowboys and
Indians waving as they grazed the desert with their endless beauty.
The golden orange glow in the distance was a dust devil starting to form
with its' unforgiving fury as it picked up everything in it's path and spun it
around like the crack of a whip.
As ANTie Patti and Ponderosa headed for the San Francisco Peaks, thorny
tumbleweeds rolled past them almost like children running through the desert.
They hurled themselves about and came from everywhere suddenly going one
direction with the wind and without warning changing their direction.
They stumbled upon a Joshua Tree Farm out in the middle of the desert
quite by accident and met up with "Joshua The Coyote."
He howled as they passed by him to let them know he was there.
"Jerome The Lizard" was playing hide and seek in the desert
sand and eventually crawled into the shade of a nearby sage bush.
Ponderosa was getting thirsty at this point in the heat of the sun all
day so they searched for a desert oasis. Within
minutes they found palm trees reaching high up into the sky for the warmth of
the sun and low and behold their first desolate ghost town.
ANTie Patti led Ponderosa over to the water trough by the saloon on a
street called Whiskey Row and kicked the dust off her boots.
Nearby she could see an abandoned silver mine and decided to take a
closer look. Suddenly right in
front of her appeared "Yucca The Roadrunner" bobbing his head as he
quickly darted past her with such agility and speed.
She only had a moment to spare when behind a rock appeared
"Tumbleweed The Rabbit" and lickity split he disappeared too.
Something told her not to venture into that old silver mine but curiosity
got the best of her as usual. "Frederico
The Spider" was hanging around in his finely spun web at the front of the
mine with plenty of bugs to take care of. She
kept hearing a rattling sound from inside the old dark mine but shrugged it off
and took a quick peek inside anyway. Behind
her she heard the scuffling sounds of "Aloe The Antelope" running
along the edge of the mine. Something
may have startled her as she jumped and ran off in such a frenzy.
Then suddenly ANTie Patti knew why!
The rattling sound she heard earlier was "Copper The
Rattlesnake" and he wasn't very happy that she disturbed his rest in the
comforts of the cool dark mine. He
coiled himself up and just as he was about to strike "Yucca The
Roadrunner" distracted him and he slithered off under some rocks.
Nighttime was quickly falling and the stars and Milky Way were so visible
now. You could almost reach out and
touch them. "Joshua The Coyote" decided it was time to howl and
"Sedona The Cricket" played his repetitive charming songs.
Ponderosa and ANTie Patti were ready to head back to camp to get some
rest and cross the San Francisco Peaks another day, and maybe even the
Superstition Mountains too if they had time.
They paused to let "Silver The Scorpion" cross their path as
they started out of the ghost town and on to camp.
With her old knife in hand she stopped to slice open the nearest aloe
plant and put it on her blisters that she had from the sweltering Arizona sun
and wind. The coolness from the plant offered immediate relief and she
stuck the rest in her saddlebag for later.
She knew the desert was unforgiving at times, but at other times a real
blessing. ANTie Patti stared up at
the millions of twinkling stars in the dark blue sky and gave thanks for the
colorful Painted Desert!
Copyright
1997 by Author Patti Tricoli
