I fell in love with the desert long ago for its lack of people. I like people, but I got so tired of all the noise, the traffic, my marriage was on the rocks, and I didn’t want to put a suit on for my 9 to 5 finance job anymore. So, I left that all behind to roam the desert as a prospector. Being a modern day prospector isn’t glamorous like it was back in the 1800s or maybe it never was. I suppose the notion of a middle aged man roaming the desert looking for gold isn’t socially acceptable.

But here I am. I’ve been doing this for several years now. My metal detector, pan, and my backpack of food and water being my only possessions. I’m not getting rich doing this. I make just enough to fund my next journey into the desert. Hand to mouth, the way man lived for eons before all our modern encumbrances weighed us down and made us forget what living is about.

For this story to make any sense, I need to tell you about where I am currently prospecting and a little folklore from the desert. My latest expeditions have taken me to the region south of the infamous Death Valley. It’s a xeric landscape, typical of the Basin and Range, a long valley bounded on both sides by towering, impassible, mountains. This arid and desolate landscape was the most imposing section of the Old Spanish Trail. It was 45 miles between the depressingly named Bitter and Salt Springs, whose alkali waters did little to slake the thirst of the travelers and their stock. It was a full 80 miles between the Mojave River and the cool flowing waters of Resting Springs near the dreary town of Tecopa, California. This section of the desert is the southern entrance of Death Valley. In Pioneer days, travelers reported the trail being littered with the bodies of white settlers, Mormon traders, Native Americans, Mexicans, horses, and cattle - the desert doesn’t care about your skin color, religion, or species - she feeds on all that challenge her. The Spanish called this section of the trail jornada del muerto, the journey of death. 

I was having a beer in the Crowbar Saloon in Shoshone and an old timer told me this story about the jornada del muerto. In the mid-1800s a young Mexican prospector and his pregnant wife were traveling north along the Old Spanish Trail through the long desolate section north of the perpetually dry Silver Lake. They were well apportioned for the trip, on horseback with several pack burros in tow carrying sufficient water and food to carry them through to Resting Spring and the onward to Mount Potosi where they intended to find the legendary Lost Mormon Mine where, as the legend tells, the gold was so thick you could cut it out with a pocket knife. 

As they plodded along the dusty trail the young prospector saw a familiar glint in the mountains to the east. In the early days of the west, there was still so much unclaimed gold that you could see the veins from miles away. The husband and wife turned east into the Silurian Hills. The wide desert slowly narrowed into a sandy wash and then constricted into a narrow canyon. The husband felt an unease come over him and started to turn their burros back when he was confronted by three heavily armed bandits on the ridge above the wash. These bandits were also prospecting but, unlike the young prospector and his wife, had failed to provision themselves for the long walk across the jornada del muerto. The young prospector had his trusty pistol, but he was heavily outgunned and the bandits had the high ground on him. He asked the bandits what they wanted and with rifles trained on him and his wife, they told them to turn around and leave their burros carrying the life giving water. He pleaded with bandits that this was a death sentence, while his wife cried, but in the harsh desert landscape survival removes any traces of humanity man might have. 

The young prospector and wife slowly trod away headed back towards the trail where they prayed they would encounter other travelers that might help them. As the vast desert expanse opened before them they saw only the glimmering of heat emanating from the hot sand plain. There was no dust to indicate the approach of horse or carriage in any direction. The sun beat down on them, draining the life from them. They slowly turned northward towards Salt Spring and rested that night along the trail when the horses refused to carry them further. In the morning the young prospector awoke to find the horses were dead. He scanned the horizon but all he saw was sand and distant mountains. Not even a soft breeze blew that day. 

He didn’t know when he started losing consciousness but he suddenly awoke as the sun was burning its way to the western horizon. He looked over at his beautiful young wife, her face was red and her lips blue. Her chest was still. He sat there in his grief and thirst and wrote in his journal. He cursed the three bandits for their evil actions and swore that when he was dead and gone that his immortal soul would come back to this desert and confine those three bandits. They would then roam the jornada del muerto collecting the souls of the lost travelers into a great army that would cleanse the desert of evil. With that, he put his pistol to his temple and the legend of los vigilantes nocturnos - the night watchers - was born.

So I was prospecting up a narrow canyon, very close to where the young Mexican and his wife met their sad fate when I saw clouds building on the eastern horizon, a sure sign of an impending monsoonal thunderstorm. These storms appear during the heat of the summer and drench the parched landscape giving the cacti and the bugs and the lizards a rare opportunity to survive another day. As fast as these storms come, they’re gone, and the desert returns to its previous inhospitable self. I decided that I’d rather not spend the night drenched so I headed up canyon to where I knew of an old miner’s cabin, a remnant of the last gold rush that happened here in 1906. Rounding a bend in the canyon the cabin sat there, no worse for wear considering its centenarian age. I sat my pack down and pulled out some jerky for supper. Looking through the glassless window I watched the storm climbing over the mountains above me. 

The sun was below the horizon now and the storm cast a black pall over the canyon. I was enjoying my supper when a flash of lightning caught my attention. I could have sworn I saw the silhouette of a person on the ridge above me. I laughed at my silliness, it was very obviously a Joshua tree. Their gnarled arms make all sorts of monsters for the lone desert traveler once the sun goes down. 

The next flash of lightning was when my hair stood on end and I felt my heart start beating faster. This time, I know what I saw. In the illuminated rain shaft, like a curtain opening on the mountain before me, I clearly saw four figures on horseback standing on the ridge. My mind was racing as it would be suicide to be in such an exposed position during a thunderstorm. I called out to the four horsemen, a decision I now recognize was poorly thought out. 

I’m an atheist and I don’t think of myself as a bad person. Sure I’ve jumped a few claims on my prospecting trips and I shoplifted as a kid. I wasn’t the best husband and some people could argue that my job in venture capital was doing none too much for society. I stopped my mind, surprised I was thinking silly thoughts about an old folk tale. 

The rain was coming down hard now. Rivulets of water pouring down the hillside joining together in the wash. If this cloudburst continued, soon a mighty river would briefly fill the  canyon bottom. Another flash of lightning. This time, I could no longer deny what I was seeing. Illuminated on the ridge line were a hundred or more mounted riders and they were charging down the mountain towards the cabin.

It was then that I had the presence of mind to think “I should run”. So I turned on my headlamp and leapt out the door running as fast as I could down the narrow burro path that led down the canyon. The small rivulets had turned into full on waterfalls. Below me in the wash a black concretion of mud and rocks and felled cactus flowed by me taking everything before it. I heard a sound behind me. At first I thought it was stones rolling but then I realized it was the very distinct sound of hooves clacking against stone. The sound was growing louder and I heard  what can only be described as the yipping of dogs.

I ran as fast as I could through the blinding rain. The sound of the hooves was booming off the canyon walls now. The yipping had turned into a continuous scream being carried down canyon on a hurricane force wind. 

Suddenly it stopped.  

The rain slackened and eventually came to an end. The desert was silent. The clouds parted several hours later revealing a moonless sky and a billion stars twinkling above. I sat on a rock, soaked through. 

I waited until the predawn twilight and started the hike back to the cabin. The sun peeked over the mountains as I turned the corner that hid the old cabin. I stood for several minutes, confused by the scene. In place of the cabin stood nothing. The cloudburst had scoured the canyon wall down to the bedrock and not a single splinter of the cabin remained. 

That was yesterday. Today I am sitting under the shade of a boulder. Based on the cloudless sky and that burning orb of hate overhead, the temperatures will hit 110 today. And tomorrow and the day after. That won’t matter to me though since when I took off running I neglected to grab my pack from the cabin. The cabin that is obliterated and gone. The pack that held my water. 

Like I said at the beginning of this story, the jornada del muerta has no water and I’m a three day walk from the nearest road. 

Last night I heard the sound of distant hooves clacking on stone. I think they’ll be back for me after sunset. 

FOOTNOTE: The above was the final journal entry of a journal found in a jacket near the Silurian Hills south of Death Valley. Despite an extensive search by the Sheriff and volunteers, no remains were ever found and the identity of the author has never been established.