Howling and the Moon (15)

The Coachella Valley Preserve usually closes at 5pm, but today we have special dispensation, can ignore the warnings posted in the parking lot. Already on my drive in I am lit up by the desert, driving the curving road to the preserve, watching the desert spread out in all directions, mountains near, the last light of the sun sending golds and oranges and long shadows stretching across its expanse. We gather near the visitor center, an eclectic group, some longtime locals and some visitors, mostly older but sporting a thirty-something or two and a not-yet-adolescent boy with a walking stick who knows much more than I do about the desert and its critters. Mark is here--he is co-leading the walk--and he introduces me to his companion, James. Ginny, the woman who runs the preserve, embarrasses him in a happy way with her glowing introduction. ("He knows a lot.") She gathers us under the fan palms and begins talking about where we are. I am struck by her vigor and her firmness of spirit. (Later I tell Mark she strikes me as someone who is really clear about what she likes and doesn't like. I envy that in people. So little strikes me as clear cut.) She is wearing a short-sleeved blouse and these very cool removable sleeves on her arms. She explains the oasis is caused by the water in the ground butting up against the San Andreas fault which runs directly through the grove we are standing in. She points out the call of a cactus wren coming from one of the palms. I am happy, thinking of the one we saw last time I was here, my first sighting. Then we spy two nearby, bathing in the dust in the middle of the trail. The sun has set but there is still enough light for me to watch them with my binoculars. It is serious business, ridding themselves of mites and the like, but it looks like play to me. I am watching, charmed, while Ginny goes back to talking, and I spot a quail crossing the trail. Then it is the whole covey, and I burst into her talk to tell everyone, but I am embarrassed. The covey crosses the trail two or three times, a treat to see them all together and on the move. Perhaps they spark our own departure.

We head north through the shrouded weaving bridges and I cringe at the thought of having to return this way in the dark. I am afraid of what lies unseen. I send up my prayers for the 19 of us and all the desert creatures. May we all be safe one from another. After the bridges, the trail is sandy and my new fun Mary Jane trekkers do not keep it out. Still, I am glad my toes are covered. We walk north, and I check the eastern horizon again and again as the dusk deepens. I am looking for the moon. Later someone spots the glow where it is about to rise, and we all stop to watch. It is otherworldly. We see it all from the first bright glimmering sickle to the big round orange globe balanced just above the edge of our world. It happens in moments and yet the intensity of it is like a film in slow motion, or a news feed coming from another planet, with pauses in between, room for awe. It is extraordinary. I forget to breathe.

We go on, past Barney and Angelica's place, and I am pleased to hear Ginny say they are good neighbors, as though this rubs off on me in some way because I know them. Venus is brilliant in the west, hanging just above the western ridge. We get to the pond, and I am relieved when we head to the west of it instead of looping around to the right. I am afraid to be among all the growth and hanging things in the dark. Ginny has an odd little light and shines it along the trail edges, hunting for something. She finds it and gathers us around. It is a black light she holds, and her find is phosphorescent beneath it, like the little creepy crawly glow-in-the-dark creatures I made when I was six with my Thing Maker. It is a scorpion. People take pictures of it. I refrain. We move on and Ginny continues to hunt, finds two or maybe three more for our perusal. I lose track of how many scorpions she shows us because it is wigging me out. They are everywhere. She leads us off the trail into the sand dunes, something we can only do because she is with us. I never veer off the trail in the daylight, am battling my fear hard now, shrubbery everywhere, people tripping over bushes or clumps of dried twigs. "This isn't my cup of tea," I say, make jokes about turning around now. I am fighting fear but there is truth in my teasing. Now Ginny shows us tracks in the even softer sand of the dunes. There are big, pronged raven tracks. I like seeing those. There are some for a snake that mostly swims under the sand. I find a space for myself between bushes and look at the desert spread out below us, lit by the moon. I am glad I came. Later, there are the tracks of a sidewinder. Ah. I am relieved to return to the trail.

The moon is high in the sky now, almost white again, and the trail is wide and open and lighted. My breath is easier. The mountains are grooved and the moon casts deep shadows along their flanks. It is truly like another world, this desert moonscape. I feel the soft sand give beneath each step. My legs are getting tired, and my trekkers are swimming in sand, but I am not uncomfortable. I drink water, try to take a picture of the moon. I am in no hurry for our time out here to be over, but we are heading back now. We hear coyotes calling from the other side of the wash, a long stone's throw from us. I am glad I am not alone. I know every sound, every shadow would become a coyote. But I am not afraid, not with everyone chatting around me in the moonlit dark. I love coyotes. I stand still and relish their calls. They are the finishing touch to our visit to this other land, their voices familiar and eerie, a discovered species--we are the aliens here. They fall silent, and our long line wends its way toward our beginning. The moon and the stars and the coyotes study us as we make our way back along the trail. Soon the shining desert night will be wholly theirs.