Category: The Applegate Trail

Follow the Applegate Trail

Them Bones, part 1

Those bones could be anybody’s, Shaherazade,” I said. “Do you want hot chocolate? Or tea?”  “I want a double shot hazelnut latte, 16 oz. That’s what I told Mama, but she is so sure it’s Uncle Charlie.”  I was about to ask Ezra Sweet what happened to his job in Redmond, but he was already steaming the milk and seemed so fixed on the process that I didn’t want to interrupt him. I heard a woman’s voice behind me strong enough to be clear above the sound of the espresso machine.  “They’re Charlie’s bones. No doubt in my mind.”  Shaherazade and I turned at the same time, like well-trained marionettes. The woman’s face, framed with gray chin-length hair, was vaguely familiar. She sat very straight and there was a stillness about her. She was looking at me with just about the same amount of concentration I was giving her. At…

Another Mystery Deepens

dragged myself out of bed at the ungodly hour of nine A.M. The sun was shining as it has been for the past few days, the temperature miserably cold. Yesterday, someone had posted a notice about a free clinic at EcoSurvival Village this morning. I decided on the spot that it was time to visit the good doctor, something I had planned to do months ago, but I never found the right excuse.  The road up to ESV was dry, the short drive beautiful. I was already feeling better by the time I entered the meadow at the edge of the forest and saw the rough-hewn buildings that make up the core of the Village. Astonished is the only word I can use to explain my reaction to the progress which has taken place there. The three or four buildings that stood there this summer had become a dozen. Most…

Susie’s Back

haherazade has been arriving at my front door two or three times a week, bubbling with enthusiasm. She has been great for my spirit, which has been in the dumps the past few months. Hence, the horrible neglect to my journaling. I’m not sure what that’s all about. I could blame it on the weather, which has been gray and wet. Autumn rain does very little good on the desert. The clouds just block the sunlight. Or maybe it’s that existential loneliness magnified by life in the expanse of unlimited horizons. Or a yearning which comes over me occasionally to be back among a coterie of like-minded journalists in some warm California clime. Then, Shaherazade comes in with a story about her family or school or something she’s read, and leaves with me smiling. I have decided to give her permission to write to this blog after the first of…

Shaherazade Becomes My Assistant

onday’s knock came at 5 pm, just as my apartment approached the temperature necessary to roast a suckling pig. Not the best time for a guest. And I have to say, young Shaherazade’s sweet face and bright eyes were about the last thing I expected to see when I opened my door, her grin, large and genuine, beaming up at me, belied by the worry lines etched like an old woman’s in her twelve-year-old forehead. “Welcome, welcome,” I said, motioning her inside.  She hesitated for a long moment. I could see the synapses firing behind those intelligent eyes, trying to judge an awkward situation.  “Would you like some of my homemade iced tea?” I coaxed. “It’s sweet, and I put fresh mint in it.”  “She nodded and stepped in, wiping her brow with the back of her hand, and looking curiously around my apartment. “I would like that. Thank you…