The White Heart of Mojave: An Adventure with the Outdoors of the Desert

by Edna Brush Perkins

During the day the storm increased. The wind arose and blew in gusts seemingly from every direction. Fortunately the trees afforded plenty of big wood, so we were able to keep a roaring fire, though the heavily-falling, wet snow sometimes threatened to put it out. It snowed so fast that we were shut in by white walls not more than twenty feet away. We pitched our tent with the opening toward the fire and tried to get some shelter in it while the Worrier hunted the horses. The tent was the only serious mistake in the outfit. It was a light, waterproof silk tent with a pole up the middle. We had expected to use it as a shelter from the wind and had tried once before at Emigrant Springs. On that occasion its light-weight material had flapped and rattled in the blast until we were glad to creep outside and sleep under the edge of a rock. Before morning it blew down. The only practical tent for the desert is a very low one, like a pup-tent, made of heavy canvas, with extra long pegs that must be driven deep and buried in the sand. During the eternity of snowstorm in which Charlotte and I waited for Molly and Bill, we alternated between holding up the pole in the gusts of wind and rushing out between them to drive in the pegs with the ax. This, and the necessity of constantly building up the fire, kept us wet and cold all day, for the snow was not the dry, whirling snow of really cold climates, but was as wet as a heavy rain. It clung so we could not shake it off and melted on our clothes. The Worrier did not retrieve Molly and Bill until four o'clock. It was late to move, but the storm showed no sign of abatement and we remembered with growing affection the shack at the entrance to the canyon. Hastily packing in the white downpour that hissed through the air, we left Camp-in-the-Cedars.

As soon as we had descended a little way into the basin the snow ceased, but a white cloud continued to hang over the place where our charming camp had been. During the remainder of the day and throughout the night heavy clouds veiled all the mountains, occasionally dropping flurries of snow around us. An icy wind rushed down the canyon. When we reached the shack it seemed palatial. We cleared out the rubbish by throwing it down the hill in front of the door, the approved way of cleaning up on the desert. When there are too many cans you throw them behind the bushes, and we had learned to do it with great vigor and accuracy of aim. Much to the Worrier's amusement we scrubbed the table and tried to wipe off the cracked, rusty stove set up on three empty gasoline tins. That stove was a marvel in the art of consuming much fuel without emitting any heat. We took turns huddling close to it. The walls sheltered us from the wind, but as far as the stove was concerned we might almost as well have been outdoors.

After supper we had to reckon with the dungeon that was the bedroom. The Worrier recommended it highly, but we viewed it with a certain awful apprehension. We had a devil's choice between that and the frigid outdoors that kept beating on the shack with gusts of wind. We made the mistake of choosing the dungeon. When the candle was blown out fear crouched in the blackness. All the tales we had ever read of prisoners in damp cellars assailed us—horrors, tortures, black holes. The terrors of these man-made fears in this shut-in, man-made place were far worse than the wild outdoors. Presently little scratchings and gnawings apprised us that we were not alone. Unbearable then was the walled darkness. We gathered up the bed and went outside, stepping carefully over the Worrier who, forever faithful, was sleeping across the door.

The clean outdoors! Let it snow, let it hail, let the water run down the mountain and seep through the bed, let the wind tear at the ponchos! It was nothing compared to being shut up in a dark place. About midnight we were suddenly struck awake by a terrific din. After the first tense moment we recognized it as coyotes howling in the canyon. That was nothing either compared to vague little scratchings and gnawings in an eight-by-ten shack.

Next day the storm continued, with clear intervals during which we rushed out to spread our clothes and blankets in the sun that thirstily drank up the snow at the bases of the mountains. "Scotty" beguiled the hours and the weird tales of Lord Dunsany, read aloud beside the cracked stove, never had a more appropriate setting. All around the mountains were white except where some insistently black rock heaved out. Clouds hurried across the sky like Indians galloping on the war-path, the wind screaming around the rocks was their war-whoop. In the moments of peace between their raids huge giants of cloud shook their fists at us over the walls. The silence of Mojave was torn to tatters. Yet, somehow, we still felt it. Just as the wild tales we read intimated a stillness behind, so the tumult was a ripple on indomitable peace. You have seen a little whirlwind plow a furrow through the water of some glassy lake, making quite a bit of a tumult, but leaving undisturbed the tranquillity of the surface beyond its narrow path. Though between the walls of the canyon where we camped we could not see the still surfaces, we sensed them. The storm was an incident. Mojave took it and made a strong song.

Wild Rose Canyon was the furthest point of our journey; from the old shack the going home began. The sun rose brilliantly on the following morning and deceived us into starting back to Emigrant Springs. As soon as we had left the narrow canyon and could once more see the expanse of the sky, we knew that the storm was by no means over. We even debated returning to our palace, cracked stove, black hole, and all; but when you have broken camp, found the horses, packed up, and started, a two-hour-long process, you will risk almost anything rather than turn back. There were compensations, too, even for the wind which shortly came to life again and thrust its knife to our hearts. The sky was a magnificent spectacle. It was not gray, nor overcast, nor brooding, but full of torn-up, piled-up, tumultuous clouds, a fitting canopy for the country beneath it. The top of Emigrant Pass is a big mesa surrounded by all kinds of mountains from the broken, battered buttresses and steep snow-peaks of the Panamints to smooth, bare, rounded hills folded over each other and dimpled like upholstered sofas. In bursts of sunshine the shadows of the clouds raced over them all, snatching at each other and getting mixed up in the canyons. Sometimes a cloud spilled out its contents and for a while obliterated one of them. Toward noon the clouds made a concerted attack on the sun, calling up new cohorts until at last they succeeded in covering him entirely and keeping him covered. Then a great change fell upon Mojave. She became forlorn, her bright colors faded into gray. The brush shivered in the wind and made a cold, crackling sound. A few immense Joshua palms scattered over the mesa waved their grotesque arms like monsters in pain. The wind whistled through their stiff, spiky leaves. They were in bloom with a heavy mass of waxy white flowers on the end of each branch. The sun had polished the flowers, tipping every branch with a silver ball; now they stuck up into the lead-colored sky, dull, lead-colored things.

All the familiar places that had been drenched with sunshine, brilliant with color, almost as magical sometimes as the burning sands themselves, now appeared in this sad, gray mood. After leaving the top of the pass we crossed a large, high plateau known as the Harrisburg Flat. On the way over to Wild Rose it had been still and hot, the openings between the mountains had hinted at the illusions of Death Valley behind them; now a cloud full of wind and snow rolled up out of the narrow opening of Emigrant Canyon. Storms were all around us, but until that moment we had hoped that we might escape. There was no escape. The Harrisburg Flat became a white, whirling fury. The wind that smote us was like a solid, moving wall. The cloud was not made of snow, but of ice, a fine hail that cut our faces. It was so dense that we could not see ten feet in front of the wagon. We had some difficulty in making Molly and Bill face it, but it was necessary to go on. All day the icy wind had been pressing upon us, now it was so cold that we felt we could not withstand it long. Fortunately the sheltering walls of the canyon were not far, but the half hour during which we struggled toward them seemed an eternity. The Worrier shouted at the laboring horses and for the first time when he knew that we could hear him, he cursed.

By the time we reached the canyon the hail had stopped but the terrible wind continued. It seemed as though it would rip the bushes out of the ground. In place of the ice, fine particles of sand assailed us—had the wash not been thoroughly wet we would have had more of it. It must have rained violently in the canyon, or else in the dusk we missed the particular route among the rocks by which we had come up, for the way was so washed out that the Worrier could hardly pilot the load.