Table of Contents

Epigraph

A Strange Light

Grey’s Secret

The Amaragosa

Copyright Information

Desert Gold

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Epigraph

Like arrows in the hand of a warrior, so are the children of one’s youth.

Psalm 127:4

Chapter One

A Strange Light

Today we are going to rejoin our listening audience, the young siblings Daph and Josh, though not at the usual location beneath the great willow on the lake at Shady Point, the spot where their great grandfather, Jesse, often tells his Sunday stories, but on Jesse’s front porch. You see, it seems that he has met with a little accident of sorts, a breaking of his left leg, which currently prevents him from venturing beyond the front lawn. He is on the mend, however, and in a month or two he should be back at the lake, working in his cabin and dreaming up more stories to tell his beloved great grandchildren. Enough, however, with medical issues. Let’s get to our story.

On this particular Sunday it’s piping hot. It’s about noon and the sun is almost straight up, a flaming disk so bright it’s a miracle the trees in Jesse’s yard don’t catch fire. Thankfully, there’s plenty of ice-cold lemonade to keep our trio from melting into their shoes. The morning glories, which Grace, Jesse’s wife, planted in the spring, keep the porch wrapped in shade and brimming with deep purple flowers and bright green caterpillars.

We shall now fast forward a few moments so we can look back on our story and avoid the troublesome issue of tense. Jesse adjusted his chair, took a long stretch, and began his tale. “Once upon a time, far beyond the distant horizon, in a time before paved roads or electric wires or telephones or roller skates or denim slacks or plastic raincoats, in the center of a desert so hot that metal bends like wax, where powerful winds drive towering dunes of sand like herds of gigantic camels, where you’ll find plants and animals so exotic they appear to be from another planet, there lived a family of five people.

“They lived in no metropolis, no bustling city, no town or village, but in an oasis, miles and miles from the nearest civilization. It was no natural oasis, for until the coming of the husband and wife from which this family originated, the spot where the oasis exists was as dry and barren as the moon.

“On the day they arrived it seemed they hadn’t arrived at all. Everywhere they turned they saw only sand–fiery, dry, powdery, crystalline, orange sand that clung to their hair and clothes, that went up their noses, that crunched between their toes and their teeth, that rattled around in their ears and scratched their eyes.”

“A very yucky place,” interrupted Daph, bouncing up and down in a wicker chair. Daph, if you recall, is the younger sister of Josh. Not yet a teenager, she has the unbounded energy of a locomotive.

“There was a bit of yuck involved,” replied Jesse, “But compared to what these two had already seen in their lives, it was hardly yuck at all. Shall we get to their names?” Naming the characters was always part of the fun.

Daph continued to bounce around in her chair, her blonde hair flying every which way. “The mom’s name is Katherine. We don’t know whether she’s a mom yet.”

Jesse lit up with a broad smile. “Katherine’s a fine name. And yes, we don’t know yet whether she’s a mom. What about you, Josh? Any ideas about the man’s name?”

“Not really.” Unlike Daph, Josh tried to remain on an even keel. He was also not yet a teenager and enjoyed, whenever possible, getting under his sister’s skin.

“It will be George, then,” gushed Daph.

Josh’s head shook back and forth. “It will not be George.”

Daph frowned. “Then who?”

“Anyone but George.”

“Darien?”

“I really don’t think so.”

“Sam?”

Jesse had experienced this bantering many times before. Because his leg ached and itched, he was in no mood to let it go on. “His name is Michael. And when we first hear from him he is staring down at the sand beneath his feet. ‘A little digging and we shall see.’

“Katherine traced an X in the sand with her boot. It looked like every other spot in the desert. ‘Here? Let’s hope you’re right.’

“They were far from unprepared. They’d brought with them an immense caravan–desert horses piled high with olive trees and date palms, with desert willows and citrus shoots and figs, with bushels of seeds of every shape and size and kind imaginable. They’d brought tents and water and wine and goats and sheep and cattle. They’d brought carpets and carvings and books and vases and a vast assortment of cooking utensils, including a teapot and tea cups. They’d brought clothing and fine milled soap and oil and lamps and musical instruments and a thousand other items. Only two things they lacked.”

“One of them was water,” observed Josh.

Daph knocked on her head with her knuckle. “Obviously. They’re in a desert.”

“Hey!” said Josh, flicking a few drops of lemonade at Daph’s face. That’s not nice.”

“Then you start being nice.”

Jesse sat up straight in his chair. “Do you want to hear the story, or not?”

The two young heads nodded yes. So Jesse returned to his story, which, for the benefit of you who are reading it, will not be populated with a gazillion quotation marks indicating that he’s telling it. If Daph and Josh interrupt again, which they surely will, we’ll bring back the quotes, but only then.

+ + +

It looked like the last place on earth you’d find the tiniest drop of this life-giving liquid. Not a single, solitary plant could be seen anywhere. No blade of grass or cactus thorn. No scraggly shrub or slender twig. Neither were there animals. Not a lizard or a fly or a beetle or a snake. Not a gnat or a spider or a desert mite. Nothing could be seen that moved under its own power, nor anything the searing desert wind might move–except the sand.

Michael stooped down, put his finger in the sand, and retraced the X that Katherine had made. “Yes. This is the place. We’ll start digging here. But not before we unpack and set up our home.”

“You’re sure about this?” asked Katherine, who was very beautiful. “I’d hate to have to pack everything again.”

Michael scratched the back of his neck. “Pretty sure.”

The two worked together in silence and in harmony, moving from horse to horse, unloading all they possessed. They transformed folded mounds of cloth into a glorious yellow tent, laid down a floor of woven tapestry carpets, hung walls of shimmering silk drapes, set out plush pillows and low-standing chests of deep-purple teak, filled lamps with oil, and arranged a library of a thousand books. They enclosed the sheep and horses and goats in cordons of hemp suspended from cedar posts.

They did not finish until the sun set and a multitude of gleaming stars filled the desert night. The tent glowed from within, a finely-cut, yellow diamond, casting its light far into the distance, like a searchlight perched upon a rock.

Katherine poured Michael a cup of jasmine tea. “To our honeymoon.”

Michael raised his cup high. “To our honeymoon.”

They were a beautiful couple, so much in love that when their eyes fell upon each other they sparkled more than the desert stars. And so they finished their tea, polished it off with a lasting kiss, and returned to the place in the sand that Katherine had marked.

They toiled through the warm desert night, digging in the sand with their spades, silently, harmoniously, with a singular effort and purpose. For years they’d worked together, sharing danger and hardship, courage and fear, faith and terror, joy and sorrow, hunger and feasting, sickness and health, common experiences that had forged their love for each other into tempered steel.

They met in the tangled jungles of a country far beyond the dark horizon, on the other side of an ocean ruled by ferocious storms. He’d been called to map the territory for its Queen, she to collect medicinal plants. He was a cartographer, a geologist, an explorer, a writer. She was a doctor, a botanist, a musician and a scholar of the literary classics.

Michael rubbed the sand between his fingers and sniffed it with his nose. “We’re almost there.”

“Yes. I believe we are.”

The rays of the rising sun filtered through the dunes, casting a dark shadow into the deep depression the two diggers had created. Therein lay sand of a much darker hue, deep red, like the inside of a blood orange. A scent, sweet, like nectar, filled the morning air.

They dug a bit deeper and waited. Slowly, a small, cool pond of water appeared. A cheer rang out. The two embraced and danced across the desert sand. “Who would have ever thought?” said Katherine.

+

Our explorers dug an oasis and set down roots. The trees flourished, shooting up like flares, ringing the sparkling blue waters, offering shade and shelter from the burning sun. There were palms overflowing with dates and olive trees laden with thousands of purple pearls. There were pistachio trees and orange trees and pomegranate trees and pepper trees, so many different trees that it would take many days to climb them all.

Grasses sprung up on the sandy slopes beyond the trees–lemon grass and apple grass, ostrich grass and alfalfa, sawgrass and fairy grass, grasses of a hundred different sorts, providing excellent food for the horses and goats, for the sheep and the gypsy quail and the squatter’s geese, for the royal scoobies and pygmy ducks and all the other creatures our young, adventurous couple had brought with them.

Desert creatures appeared, seemingly out of nowhere, beasts of the night and of the day, wild-looking things that could smell the scent of water from a thousand miles away. Bees the color of scarlet swarmed about the date palms. Ball hummingbirds circled the honeysuckles and the orchid trees. Emerald spiders spun webs of gold. Twelve-toed lizards clung to the tree-trunks, dining on scorpions and centipedes. The waters of the oasis sprang to life, teeming with rainbow scooties and turquoise gossamers, with desert bass and lacquered crayfish, with silvered minnows and clawless crabs, with rainbow clams and lightning frogs that flashed in the night. The air was alive with croaking sounds and splashing sounds and gurgling sounds and children’s voices.

“Don’t hurt him,” said one of them. It was a girl’s, coming from a date palm that overhung the lake.

The green glow of a tiny lightning frog illuminated a boy’s face. “Never in a thousand years.”

“No one lives a thousand years.”

“You know what I mean.” He tossed the frog into the water. It dove down, its greenish light joining a hundred other lights that darted to and fro, like fairies moving through the trees of a dark forest.

“I wonder how they do that?” wondered a third voice, a boy’s, slightly older than the last.

“Do what?”

“Make that light. If we could catch it and seal it in a glass, we could make lanterns. Then we could explore the desert at night.”

“We’re not allowed to,” the girl reminded him. “It’s dangerous. The night dwellers are out.”

“They’d be afraid of the light.”

“That’s for sure,” agreed the younger boy. “And if they come after us, we’ll roast them alive with starlight.”

“Claire, Blake, Grey? Where are you?”

It was their mother, Katherine, standing before the door of the tent. Claire looked over her shoulder toward the dark silhouette and cried out, “In the trees.”

“Five more minutes. Then you must come in.”

+ + +

Daph nudged her grandfather’s arm. Finally, she’d settled down. The wild bouncing had stopped. “Claire’s an ever so beautiful name, Grandpa. How did you think of it?”

“Because that’s her name.”

Josh dunked his finger in his lemonade and spun the ice cubes around. “Blake and Grey are also excellent names.”

“I’m glad you like them,” answered Jesse.

“And everyone seems to fit together very well,” exclaimed Daph.

“Yes, exactly like a family,” added Josh. “Are they young–like we are?”

“By happenstance, yes.”

Josh’s eyes widened. “What’s happenstance?”

“A coincidence. You must pardon me if I use a few odd words. I’ve been reading some English novels lately. Perhaps they’ve colored my speech.”

“I like the word,” answered Daph. “It’s a fine color.”

Josh plucked a purple-red morning glory and rolled it between his fingers. “Like the orange sand when it’s wet.”

“Good,” said Jesse. “Then let us return to our story and to the three arboreal beings for whom the clock is now ticking.”

“They have five minutes,” observed Daph.

He waited a moment to see whether they’d ask him the meaning of “arboreal,” then raised a glass of lemonade to his lips and sipped at it through the floating cubes of ice.

+ + +

“What’s that?” asked Grey.

“What’s what?” responded Blake and Claire from the neighboring palms.

“Over there. On top of the dune.”

Both turned in their perches and peered through the fronds into the darkness.

“I don’t see anything,” said Claire.

“Me either,” said Blake.

“There it is again.”

“I saw it, too,” exclaimed Claire. “A light.”

Blake squinted at the dune. “Where?”

“It seems to be gone now.”

Grey lowered his right leg toward the trunk of the palm, fishing for a foothold. “It’s just beyond the rise. Let’s go investigate.”

The boys quickly descended from the trees. Claire stayed put. “We mustn’t do that at night.”

“It’s not that far,” answered Grey. “We’ll just go to the top of the dune and stop. What harm in that?”

“I don’t think so.”

“Maybe it’s a jar of starlight,” joked Blake.

“You shouldn’t go there.”

Grey answered in a sing-song, “Claire-in-the-air. Head in the clouds, even when no clouds are there.”

Claire gave no reply, but watched as her brothers left the trees of the oasis and ascended the slope of the dune. “Keep them safe,” she said under her breath. “They’re only curious. Boys, you know.”

+ + +

Daph gave Jesse another nudge. “Who’s she talking to?”

“Be patient. We shall see.”

+ + +

In a moment Blake and Grey reappeared and scampered back up their respective palms.

“What was it?” asked Claire.

“You didn’t want to know,” said Grey, settling back into his leafy nest.

“May have been a sand lynx,” suggested Blake. “We found tracks.”

“Making such a light?”

“Could have been the moonlight shining in its eyes.”

Grey tossed a date into the water of the oasis and listened for the splash. “Could have been a wisp.”

“What’s a wisp?” asked Blake.

“A fire that comes out of the hot sand at night.”

Claire tried to imagine what Grey was talking about. “Where did you hear about that?”

“In a book. It–“

“Claire, Blake, Grey, come in now. Dinner’s ready.”

Grey began his descent, then cut it short. “There it is again!”

It was the light, flickering, for just a second. Claire and Blake saw it, too.

“We must ask father about it,” said Claire.

Grey’s reply was sharp. “No we won’t. He’ll see our tracks. Then we’ll be in a fine mess.”

“But we need to know what it is.”

“Children! Inside! This instant.”

Chapter Two

Grey’s Secret

Like hungry birds our three tree-dwellers took wing, flew into the tent, and alighted on plush pillows set around a large mahogany table with no legs. Katherine and Michael sat across from them. Spread out upon the table was a glorious feast of skewered lamb, rice sizzled in olive oil, fresh dates, figs, oranges, pomegranates, goat cheese, and many other delicacies of the desert.

Claire bowed her head slightly and whispered, “Thank you,” after which Blake blurted out, “We saw fire coming out of the sand.” Immediately, he felt Grey’s elbow jab him in the ribs.

“What fire?” asked Michael.

Grey spoke before Blake could respond. “It wasn’t real fire. We were just imagining things–like Blake does when he reads a book.”

Claire rolled her eyes, which only Grey saw, while Katherine, elegant in a gown of blue silk, poured steaming willow tea into an array of brilliant yellow cups. “You weren’t out on the sands, were you?”

“Absolutely not,” answered Grey.

Michael sipped at his tea. “Meaning you were.”

“Only a step or two,” replied Blake. “Just enough to see where the fire, or light, or whatever it was, was coming from.”

“Then you did see a light?”

Blake shrugged his shoulders. “It looked like a light. Then again, we could have been imagining things.”

Katherine’s blue eyes fell up her daughter. “Claire? Did you see it, too?”

“Yes.”

“It was a sand lynx,” explained Grey. “Their eyes glow in the moonlight.”

“I thought you said you’d imagined it,” said Michael.

“The fire, not the sand lynx. I knew it was a sand lynx all along. I was just playing games with Blake and Claire.”

“I see,” said Michael. The tone of his voice told Grey he wasn’t fooled in the least.

When dinner was over, the children helped Katherine clean up while Michael took a lantern and walked outside the tent. It was a windless night. From the interior of the oasis came the songs of tree frogs and birds and insects, the splashing of fish and the rustling of leaves, familiar sounds, sounds of reassurance and harmony. Michael listened to this symphony as he circled the oasis, looking for tracks in the surrounding dunes, which glowed brightly in the light of the full moon. But nothing was there. Save for the tracks of Blake and Grey, the sand was as smooth as a baby’s skin.

He sat down beneath a date palm and watched the moving shadows of his wife and children play upon the glowing yellow walls of the tent. How much joy his family brought him, a joy beyond comprehension. His mind carried him back to a day soon after he’d married Katherine. They were breakfasting on some unnameable dish, deep within a jungle of towering trees.

“But what about your love of adventure?” she asked. “To be in one place, not to search for what lies over the horizon–it would drive you mad.”

“I’m already mad.”

“What do you mean?”

“Mad for you.”

She leaned toward him and kissed him tenderly. “You know what I mean.”

“I do. Yes.”

“And our children–if we’re so blessed?”

“Mad for them, too.”

“We’ll be in the middle of nowhere. Won’t that drive you even madder?”

“No place is without it’s faults. Besides, it’s a lovely place for a honeymoon. Not so many bugs.”

“But more lethal.”

“God’s creatures, nonetheless.”

They were speaking of the future, of quitting the Queen they worked for and returning to a vast desert they’d once explored. It was a legendary land of orange sands, a graveyard of countless souls. Some attempted to cross it for lands beyond, but most came in search of treasure, some out of greed, some out of curiosity, some out of desperation, some out of boredom, some out of depression, some out of fear. So vast was their number that the sand was said to be filled with countless fragments of their bones, ground into fine, white grains by the incessant pounding of the desert winds.

“It would be a fabulous place to set up a way station with a small hospital,” said Katherine.

“I agree.”

“Except for the problem of water.”

“Yes, that is a problem. But if I’m right–”

He withdrew a large, weatherworn paper from his bag and spread it across the ground. It was a map, hand-drawn, one he’d produced during his explorations. He tapped it with his finger. “You see, here?”

“The river?”

“Yes. Follow it to where it bleeds into the swamps, then move along this tiny tributary.”

“What tributary? I don’t see anything.”

“I haven’t drawn it in yet. But trust me, when the monsoons hit, it’s there. Then it disappears here.”

“The lava beds?”

“Precisely. It descends into the lava tubes and winds its way under the earth northward into the desert. Geology dictates that it comes nearest the surface at this point.”

“And if geology is mistaken?”

“Only one way to know.”

Two months later, after bidding the Queen farewell, they assembled a large caravan and set off on their journey. Along the way they met few souls. Those they did addressed them with the same greeting, “Go back. Save yourselves. Nothing is there.”

“Seems we’re on the right track,” was Michael’s response.

“Your last great adventure,” mused Katherine.

“Not at all. The first of the new.”

+

After their evening chores were finished, the children retired to their rooms. With floors decked in woven palm fronds and thick, bright carpets of intricate design, with beds of white lambs’ fleeces and large fluffy pillows upholstered in red and orange silk, and with oil lanterns for light, they were perfect places in which to do literature homework. Though each of the children had a great deal of reading to finish before bedtime, this did not keep them from communicating through the thin walls of hanging silk that separated their rooms.

His book at his side, Grey lay on his back upon his bed, fumbling with a small glass vial that he was holding up to his eyes. “Father never says a word about the gold.”

“Because it’s a myth,” Blake answered.

“If it’s a myth, why would he write a book about it?”

“What book?”

“The one I saw it in his study.”

Claire was shocked. “You’re not to be poking about in there.”

“I wasn’t poking, I was looking for something to read, something to increase my knowledge of the world, something which you, Claire-in-the-air, don’t seem to care about.”

Claire felt a stab of pain in her heart. “How can you say such a thing?”

“Because it’s true. You’re always looking up, while everyone else is looking around.”

Claire held her book close to her eyes and forced herself to read. She wanted to drive away the thoughts that might make her say something she’d regret.

“Was father’s name on the cover?” asked Blake.

“Not exactly.”

“Then how do you know he wrote it?”

“Some things you just know.”

Blake was dying of curiosity. “What was in the book?”

“I didn’t get a chance to look inside it.”

“Then how do you know what it’s about?”

“The title was enough.”

“What was it?”

Grey shook the vial, his eyes fixed on the tiny dancing grains within it. “Go see for yourself. Then you’ll know what I’m talking about.”

“It’s not surprising Father would write about it,” said Claire, trying not to mope. “You know how much he likes to make up stories.”

“This one’s not made up,” answered Grey.

“How do you know?” asked Blake. “You haven’t read it.”

Grey gave the vial another shake. “Why do you think so many people risk their lives looking for gold in this desert?”

“That’s obvious. They want to get rich.”

“We should store up our treasures in heaven,” said Claire.

“Store up yours wherever you’d like,” snapped Grey. “I’m storing mine in sacks. Then I’ll use it to go on a great adventure.”

“Where would you go?” asked Blake.

“Places no one’s ever been before, places you won’t find on father’s maps.”

Claire was curious. “Then what?”

“I’ll build a palace. I’ll have servants and a pantry the size of the moon. I’ll have ten thousand horses and a library of a million books. I’ll have my face on a gold coin. I’ll have it on ten thousand gold coins.”

Blake tried to imagine his brother’s face on a gold coin. Somehow it didn’t fit. “You’ll have to be a king for that to happen. That requires a kingdom.”

“I’ll start a kingdom.”

“Out of thin air?”

“I’ll think of some way.”

“What will you do if you’re a king?” asked Claire.

“I shall do lots of things. I shall go on adventures and plant orchards. I shall go on long walks and have big breakfasts and fill the gardens with snow.”

“What about your subjects?”

“My subjects?”

“Yes, you’ll have lots of responsibilities. People will depend on you.”

Grey hadn’t thought much about this aspect of kingship. “Then I shall take care of them.”

“How? The way mother and father take care of us?”

“Much better. I’ll not give them any chores to do. I’ll not make them study lots of boring subjects or take care of people who do stupid things.”

Claire flipped over on her stomach, cupped her head in her hands and stared at Grey’s shadow on the fabric that separated his room from hers. “Like look for treasure?”

“Enough, Claire! I’m finished with your questions.”

“Then you want to be like Solomon.”

“I said, no more questions.”

“That was a statement.”

“Okay, like your Solomon, who, I might point out, didn’t store up his treasures in the clouds.”

“But it didn’t make him happy.”

“Says who?”

“He said so himself.”

The children’s arguing stopped as quickly as it had begun. Their parents had returned to the tent.

+

As the last stars faded with the brightening of the cloudless eastern sky, Katherine awakened her children. Michael had already left on his horse and was out and about, checking the dunes for signs of travelers in distress.

After a scrumptious breakfast of steamed dates and goat’s milk, the children began their morning chores. Claire released the sheep, goats and cattle from their pens and led them to the willow grass which flourished on the far side of the oasis. The animals loved this grass, which was sweet and tender and grew as fast as an icicle on a cold day. She brushed the horses and set them to munching on the leaves of the emerald trees, which tasted like chocolate, but with none of undesirable side effects. She swished a pole through the tree branches, bringing down dates and pistachios and olives for the pheasant and quail.

When she was finished, she joined her mother in the hospital tent. She opened the tent’s window flaps to let in the morning light and some wonderfully fresh air. She dusted off the cots, blankets and sheets, changed the liquid in the disinfectant jars, inspected the medical instruments–of which there were many–and saw to it that no medicines were in short supply. She shooed away the rainbow snakes–there were always a few that slithered in at night–and escorted any bugs that had made their homes beneath the cots to their proper place in the oasis.

Meanwhile, Grey and Blake filled the water pots with fresh water, inspected the tents and tent supports, mended ropes, cleaned saddles and boots, harvested olives, dates, cucumbers, eggplants, tomatoes, scallions and dozens of other delectables from the plants that grew on the periphery of the oasis, searched the oasis for unwanted visitors–such as the brilliantine skink, the twelve-toed spider and the horsetailed viper, deadly-poisonous creatures with foul dispositions–pruned the multitude of trees, added their branches to the firewood pile–making sure that no snakes were dwelling beneath–and cleared weeds and fallen leaves from the paths of the oasis.

It was while they were deep within the oasis that Grey confided in Blake. He began by showing him the glass vial he had taken from his pocket. “Have a look at this.”

“What is it?”

“Hold it up to the light.”

Blake found a sunny spot. Inside the vial were a few golden grains, far less than a pinch. “Where’d you get this?”

“Sifted it out of the sand.”

“How much sand?”

“I don’t know. It took me all summer to get that much.”

“What do you think it is?”

“What do you think it is?”

“I doubt that it’s gold.”

“What could it be, then?”

“I don’t know. Something that looks like gold. Fool’s gold, perhaps.”

“Suppose it’s real gold. What would that mean?”

Blake, who was good at math, quickly figured it out. “It means you can make more growing radishes than sifting gold out of the sand.”

“That’s not my point. The point is–”

Claire emerged from behind an olive tree. Immediately, Grey stuffed the vial back into his pocket.

“Spying on us again, as usual.”

“Wrong again, as usual. Mother sent me to get you. It’s time for school.”

+

School took place every day–except Sunday–after the morning chores were completed and the heat of the day became intolerable. Katherine taught medical science, general biology, literature, history and music. Michael taught mathematics, chemistry, writing, geography, and languages. Both taught wisdom, archery, fencing, horseback riding, navigation, astronomy, marksmanship, and survival. As resources they used their experiences in medicine and exploration, the vast number of books they had brought with them, the desert environment, and the patients they treated at the hospital.

Claire gravitated to poetry, wisdom, and the Bible, while Blake took a liking to medicine, writing and literature. Grey’s favorites were geography, history and science. He especially liked chemistry and daydreaming, though this last subject was not part of the curriculum. All loved riding, marksmanship, navigation and survival. None liked grammar.

Katherine and Michael stressed the vital importance of mastering all subjects. Not knowing how to properly treat a patient’s wound might result in infection and death. An arrow off its mark might allow a viper to deliver its bite. A mistake in navigation might lead to a plunge off a cliff. A word misused in another language might cause a battle. The neglect of literature might lessen the ability to communicate wisely with others. Not knowing the Bible would make it difficult to communicate with God.

All knowledge and wisdom were presented in the context of a harsh and dangerous world, though it might seem to some, such as anyone who may be listening to this story while sipping on cold lemonade, that the world of Michael, Katherine and the three children was a paradise.

+ + +

Jesse shifted his position to remain in the shade of the morning glories. Using a chair for a footrest, he kept his broken leg elevated in order to relieve the swelling in his foot and ankle. Though the pain was considerable, he did not mention it to his great grandchildren, for he did not want to take them out of the story.

Daph, who was resting her chin on her knees, smiled at Jesse. “I think it’s quite wonderful that they go to school, even though they don’t have a school.”

“That’s beside the point,” said Josh, plucking another blossom from the morning glory vine. “The story has nothing to do with going to school.”

“It has everything to do with it,” Daph fired back. “They are learning about things that could be harshly dangerous so they can stay out of trouble.”

“I don’t think that will happen. There’s always trouble in Grandpa’s stories.”

Jesse nodded and reached for a large clay jug. “As there is in life. More lemonade?” He poured the icy elixir into the two waiting glasses. Water from the damp summer air immediately condensed on the outside of the glasses and ran downward in sparkling rivulets. “I shouldn’t fail to mention that they also had lemonade, though getting ice in the desert was a problem.”

Chapter Three

The Amaragosa

Allow me to dwell a bit more on the characters of our three young siblings, with a sharper focus on Grey, with whom we know all is not well. A certain restlessness always ran through his life, evident from the days when he first began to look at his parents’ picture books. He was drawn to the images of palaces and of castles, of crown jewels and of carved ivory thrones, of stallions and of golden carriages, of great estates surrounded by manicured gardens and of gorgeous seaside villas, of marinas overflowing with enormous yachts and of people in fine clothes waited upon by hoards of servants.

One day he asked his mother, “Must we always live in a tent and do chores?”

He was very young at the time, so Michael and Katherine thought nothing of his question. But over the years the thought remained in his head, and he refused to let it go away.

“Someday I shall have all these things,” he informed Blake and Claire. He was showing them one of his favorite picture books, which triggered a conversation similar to the one we heard a short while ago.

“And how do you intend to get them?” challenged Claire.

“Somehow.”

Blake piped in with his objection, which was something to think about. “I wouldn’t want a lot of nosy servants poking around me all day.”

“I’ll not allow them to be nosy.”

“You can’t not allow that,” observed Claire.

“Of course I can.”

Blake stuck to his guns. “You can say it. But that won’t keep them from knowing everything about you.”

“Who cares. I don’t have any secrets.”

Which was not entirely true. Grey was not only dreaming about another life, one much larger than two tents on an oasis, but was also searching for ways to achieve it. These ways were not to be found in any of the books he’d read in his parents’ library. No wonder, therefore, that he longed to know what was inside the mysterious book he’d seen in his father’s study.

Now the hospital had two kinds of patients–those who were trying to cross the desert to get to a destination on the other side, and those who were treasure seekers. It was the treasure seekers who captured Grey’s attention. When he was alone with these poor souls, he peppered them with questions.

“Is there really gold buried in the desert? Is there a city to the north, one with servants and large houses? Can you get across the desert by foot, or must you have a horse? Is it possible to join a caravan?”

So overheated was his imagination that he hardly noticed the terrible physical condition of the treasure seekers. Some had arms and legs that needed to be cut off. Venomous creatures had bitten them, turning their flesh black. Some suffered from badly infected knife and arrow wounds, the result of fights with fellow treasure seekers. Some had lost their teeth, some were starved to the bone, some were so delirious they imagined the desert to be a tropical island. All had various stories to tell, none of which were known to be true. One was of a huge treasure hidden beneath the shifting sands, buried there by a great king who had lost his empire. He had packed it onto ten thousand horses and fled into the desert. So vast was his wealth that it could hardly be imagined–gold, diamonds, rubies, silver, emeralds, sapphires–a treasure so enormous that if it was piled in a heap it would reach to the stars.

One day, while Grey was going about his duties in the hospital tent, a seeker he was tending to pulled a bleached bone from his bag. “See here, my boy. You know what this is?”

“Yes.”

“No you don’t. How could you?”

“I’ve seen plenty of them.”

“Then what is it?”

Grey had learned anatomy from his mother, plenty of it. “It’s the vertebra of a horse.”

The seeker’s eyebrows shot up. “Very good. Very good. What breed of horse?”

“I wouldn’t know.”

The seeker laughed. “Of course you wouldn’t. It’s that of an Amaragosa, a lost breed.”

“So?”

“Use your imagination, boy.” The seeker hefted the bone in his hand. “See the size of this thing?”

“It is rather large for a vertebra.”

“Large? Large, you say? It’s enormous. A horse with a bone this size would stand forty hands high. That’s taller than an elephant. He could carry a ton and pull twenty times as much. That’s tremendous strength.”

Grey’s jaw dropped. “That’s a lot.”

“You bet it is. Now why, my boy, would someone breed a horse like that?”

“To carry things?”

The seeker sat up in his cot, stared at Grey with bulging yellow eyes. “Yes, but what things?”

“I don’t know. Heavy things?”

“Use your imagination, boy. What kind of heavy things?”

“Knights in armor?”

“Ridiculous. To this horse they’d be like a fly on its rump.”

“Treasure?”

“There you have it! And who would breed such a horse?”

Grey searched his mind for an answer. “Someone who’d have need of it?”

The seeker lay back down, signaled with a sunburnt hand for Grey to come closer. “Yes. Like a king. Now don’t whisper this to a soul, boy. This is between you and me.”

There were many other stories, stories which Grey kept buried in his heart, stories which turned his eyes toward the restless dunes rather than toward the heavens above.

As for Claire and Blake, their passions lay elsewhere, Claire’s with the unseen, the miraculous, the workings of God, Blake’s with the imagination, with worlds created by the mind of man, with literature, with art.

“I should like to speak to God one day,” Claire told her mother. She was very young, not up to her father’s waist.

“You may speak to him whenever you’d like,” Katherine explained. “That’s why you’ve been placed on this earth.”

“That I may speak to him?”

“Yes. And that you may be his friend.”

Soon thereafter the conversation began. Claire was walking through the orchards of the oasis, thinking she was alone with her thoughts. “I should like to thank you for all of this. And for my mother and my father, and even my brothers.”

She was suddenly startled by Blake’s voice, which came from above. “Who are you talking to?” He was in a tree, straining to read a book in the fading evening light.

“God.”

“Oh?”

“Mother said I could talk to him.”

“Be careful. I saw an emerald viper slithering about.”

Claire’s eyes shot to the ground. She searched among the blades of grass that protruded from the sand.

“Which way did he go?”

“Toward the olive tree.”

Claire steered clear of it. The emerald viper was a nasty creature with the disposition of a cornered cat. “Mother says that all God’s creatures have a purpose.”

“His purpose is to kill.” This time the voice was Grey’s. He was in another tree, daydreaming.

“That’s not true. It has a good purpose.”

“When you find out what it is, let me know.”

“I will certainly do that.”

Blake turned a page in his book. “Yes, do let us know. I’m sure you’ll find one and I should like to know it, too.”

As Claire receded into the trees, Blake re-immersed himself in his reading. Like a moth to a flame, he was drawn to imaginary worlds, places where valiant warriors defended the helpless from heartless monsters, where men in armor rescued maidens in distress, where gigantic catapults sent voyagers to the stars, where hearts yearned for other hearts, where galleons circled the world in search of new lands, where those who unraveled evil schemes fought against those who conceived them. He had a lively spirit, the heart of a warrior, the tenderness and sensitivity of a poet, and a fierceness that would fade the color of an emerald viper.

What he did not say, he wrote. From the time he could speak he played with words the way a musician plays with notes. He loved their harmonies, their upbeats and downbeats, the ting and tang and swish and swoosh of consonants set ringing within the hollowness of vowels, the way the music of the words played across the mind, giving rise to sights and sounds and smells and tastes, to people galloping on horseback, to laughter, to sadness, to tears raining down a saddened face.

Even at an early age he was recording his thoughts in pencil and ink, first with jibs and jabs that hardly looked like words, then with swirls and flourishes that sprung up into thoughts, and finally with a steady hand that held the pen like a music conductor holds his baton, directing the words into a symphony of meaning.

“I should like to sail upon the open seas,” he wrote, “take a square-rigger to the ends of the earth and walk upon fields warmed by a new sun.”

It was not his dream, but that of a character in one of his stories. He had many stories, stories peopled with boys and girls, with men and women, with the feeble and the strong, with the good and the bad, with every kind of person his imagination could conceive. As he wrote he delved into their thoughts, uncovering their motivations and their fears, their likes and their dislikes, their strengths and their weaknesses. His yardsticks were the books he read, the patients he overheard babbling away in their delirium of thirst and pain, the wisdom his parents imparted to him, and his observations of the myriad plants and creatures that populated the oasis, both the deadly and the nice.

+ + +

Jesse paused his story. Several of the neighborhood kids, friends of Daph and Josh, had stopped by to listen. The grandchildren took the opportunity to fill them in on what they’d missed. Ray, a rather tall girl, with brown eyes and long, dark hair, seemed to be taking a special interest in Blake. Anders, a smallish boy who could throw a football fifty yards, found his ears perking up when the story of the hidden treasure was told. They both liked the part about how the family had come to live in the middle of nowhere.

“It’s kind of romantic,” said Ray, who was sitting backwards in her chair.

Josh stood up and stretched his legs. “Not for long. I can guarantee you that.”

“Whatever happens, it can still be romantic,” insisted Daph, taking Ray’s side.

Josh looked to Anders for support. “What do you think?”

“I think I’d like to hear the rest of the story.”

And so Jesse continued.

+ + +

Not long after the seeker had shown Grey the vertebra of the Amaragosa, Grey told the story to Blake and Claire. It was evening and they were enjoying the beauty of the oasis.

“It’s too fabulous to be true,” concluded Blake. “It’s a good story, though. I like it.”

“But the vertebra I saw–what about that?”

“You can’t believe everything you see,” said Claire. “A mirage looks like water, but it isn’t.”

“But I held it in my hand. I felt it. I looked at it up close.”

“That doesn’t make the story true,” answered Blake. “He could have gotten it anywhere.”

“Then you agree there could be such a horse?”

“Could be. Somewhere. But where?”

Claire’s eyes danced with excitement. “Let’s ask father. He would know.”

Grey stiffened. “No! Don’t you dare!”

“Why not?”

“Because it’s none of his business.” A few more words were exchanged, but Grey was adamant. “I promised the man not to tell.”

Claire let out a sigh of frustration. “You shouldn’t make promises to strangers.”

“Says who?”

Claire didn’t answer.

“Says who?”

Claire retreated into the trees and hid herself among the honeysuckles. “Why does he have to be like this? He’s not kind to me. I don’t understand.” The tears rained down her cheeks, cooling them as they dried in the hot desert air.

“Don’t cry,” came a voice. “You’ll make the water salty and kill the fish.”

Claire froze. “Blake? Is that you?”

“It could be him,” said the voice, which was clearly Blake’s. “Or it could be someone else. You never know.”

“How did you get here? I didn’t see you.”

“I’m working at being stealthy.”

Claire peered through the tangled branches of the honeysuckle, but saw no one. “Blake, come out of there. You’re scaring me.” She heard a splash in the water beside her. Immediately, she ran down the path. Blake sprang from the bushes. Her heart turned somersaults. “What are you doing?”

“I’m working out one of my stories, while helping you not to feel sorry for yourself.”

“I’m not feeling sorry for myself. I just wish Grey wouldn’t be so mean to me.”

“He’ll grow out of it. And if he doesn’t, you’ll grow out of it.”

A smile spread across Claire’s face. She was glad she had brothers, even though one of them was unbearable.

I hope you enjoyed reading your free sample of Desert Gold, the third book in the Tales Of Hope series. Start reading the whole series today.

The Ruby Float-Book 1

Theodora’s Children-Book 2

Desert Gold-Book 3

Copyright Information

Desert Gold: A Tale Of Hope

Copyright © 2019 by Rick Nau

Published by Dancing Pen Books

www.dancingpenbooks.com

Cover: Design by Insight

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of the author, except as provided by USA copyright law.

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