Peyote and Potatoes

The night time temperature in July hovered at 75 degrees, a welcome relief from the sweltering 110 earlier in the day. The humidity was low, making it bearable. Wyatt had left his remote desert home three hours earlier to make his monthly trek into the nearest town for provisions, a Calico Print newspaper and a hot meal from the local diner there. It was 1890, and he had spent his recent days mining for silver in the nearby hills, after heading West to seek his fortune. He was still grieving the loss of his young wife, 20 years his junior. Six months ago, Tess had left him for a prosperous banker in Blythe, PA where they lived. More than anything, he missed her cooking. Her Scottish origins meant that he was treated to a steaming pan of rumbledethumps every Sunday night. It was his favorite meal of the week.

Sitting by the fire in his rustic Mojave desert rock home, he still envisioned it, and it made his mouth water. Canned beans and salt cured meat from the jackrabbits he trapped were anything but tasty. Back in Pennsylvania, he had convinced Tess that they could head West, stake a claim on the plentiful land in CA and build a home and life together with mountains all around them. Despite her hesitation to leave the comforts of the east coast and handful of friends she had made in tiny Blythe, she had seemed to acquiesce. She had been orphaned as a child and raised by a wealthy aunt, educated in Philadelphia and groomed for a life of leisure. Wyatt couldn't believe that at age 19, she had agreed to marry him, as he was a man of average means but big dreams and drop dead good looks. They had literally met on the street when she was walking out of the local dry goods store, and he was walking in. The chemistry was immediate, and they quickly began dating under the watchful eye of Tess's aunt as chaperone.

They were a handsome couple, she with a petite frame, auburn hair and sparkling blue eyes, and Wyatt with his tall, muscular build, thick brown hair and green eyes. The people of Blythe were fond of them, and Tess had started teaching school nearby. Wyatt came from a long line of proud German immigrants who prospered in the Pennsylvania coal mines. It was blue collar work, but lucrative, quite respectable at the time, and Wyatt had set aside quite a nest egg. A year after their marriage, he and everyone in town had been blindsided by Tess's scandalous affair with a local business man who was new to Blythe, and her subsequent request for an annulment. Heartsick, Wyatt had left town without saying goodbye to anyone, refusing to sign the papers that would grant her the freedom she desired.

He booked passage on a rail car, traveling for days by train through Chicago, the Nebraska plains, territories of Wyoming, Utah and Nevada, and finally arriving in Sacramento, California. The Transcontinental Railroad had only been completed a decade earlier, and it had been a dream of Wyatt's to take it across the ever expanding country. He just hadn't anticipated doing it alone. The trip had offered spectacular scenery but had been a blur. He headed further west by stage coach to San Francisco. He found that its bustle, debauchery and prospecting crowds were not to his liking, so he bought a mule and provisions and headed southeast into the desert, escaping his pain with every mile he traveled.

He arrived in the Mojave Desert around Barstow 2 months later, heading into the hills to find the solitude he currently felt he needed. There, he built a crude rock house with fireplace high on a ridge, using the boulders from the wash created by seasonal flooding and rains. He had arrived in spring time, and there were wild flowers and a nice stream nearby. It would disappear in the hotter months but for now, the trickle provided fresh water for drinking and washing. The desert rock formations and canyons were unlike anything he had experienced back east, and he reveled and gradually healed in his remote new environment.

As he reminisced, waited for the sweltering temperatures to drop and felt his stomach growl, he had chewed some peyote given to him by a Chemehuevi tribal elder that he had befriended in the mountains. It soothed his soul and took the edge off before he departed for town. Sometimes when he chewed it, he hallucinated, welcoming the escape from the solitude and loneliness that sometimes overtook him. The desert night descended, and the pinks and purples of the cactus-dotted landscape enveloped him before total blackness set in. The moon began to rise. Stars appeared in the sky and coyotes could be heard in the distance. Big horn sheep settled in on distant rock ledges for the night, eyeing Wyatt as he looked back at them. He knew if he didn't depart soon, he might fall asleep.

After a 3 hour hike, Wyatt finally reached the edge of civilization. A raucous saloon, brothel, boarding house and his favorite all night diner shown brightly in the distance. The little town of Calico was very much alive on this night, and it was late, with the brilliant moon illuminating the Canyon Grill from above. The diner was open 24 hours a day, usually filled with miners who sought comfort after days of back breaking work. In a few years when the mines became barren, Calico would become a ghost town, but no one there that night would ever have imagined its demise. Although surrounded by activity, the diner was surprisingly quiet on this night, and the smell of coffee and home cooking wafted through his nostrils as he took a seat at his favorite table in the corner. The peyote had definitely calmed his nerves while at the same time, adding surreal effects to everything he saw. The cheesy Scottish rumbledethumps he craved, a baked mix of potatoes, cabbage and onions, was not on the menu.

Hannah greeted him with her usual effervescence, saying that she had missed him since his last visit in June. She was Amish, blonde and blue eyed, wearing a simple, long sleeved dress and apron that accentuated her solid but sensual physique. Her husband had died five years earlier as they crossed the country in a wagon train, and she had ended up in Calico somehow, using her noteworthy cooking skills to obtain work in the diner. On their first meeting, Wyatt had expressed his longing for the Scottish dish that reminded him of Tess. Hannah hadn't heard of rumbledethumps, so he described its ingredients and a grin crossed her beautiful young face. She asked if he had a half hour to spare, and he assured her that he did. She kept his coffee topped off and then returned with an Amish potato casserole that left him speechless. He devoured it and asked for some to take with him on his return journey back to the desert the next day. It quickly became a staple on the diner's menu, and silver miners and prospectors from far and wide made the trek to rural Calico to order it.

Wyatt couldn't have been more pleased, and after 4 months in CA, he eagerly anticipated his monthly trips into town. His dark moods and depression began to subside, and he even caught himself imagining a life with Hannah. She had a young son, still fatherless, who helped around the Canyon Grill pouring coffee, sweeping and washing dishes. Buck was the spitting image of his mother and took to Wyatt instantly. On this visit to town, Wyatt had contemplated asking Hannah if Buck could return with him to the desert for a month before school started to learn about hunting, mining and trapping. The crude one room school house in town provided basic math and reading skills to about 15 children, and Buck thrived there. The young teacher had recently succumbed to cholera, and the town was eagerly looking for a replacement for her. Buck missed his father but had grown accustomed to his new life with his mother in Calico. At the same time, the life and family that Wyatt had envisioned back east with Tess was finally becoming a distant memory.

As he sipped his coffee and waited for a hot plate of Hannah's mouth watering potato casserole, Wyatt noticed that Buck was not in the diner. Despite the late hour, he could usually be found helping out until at least midnight, when he headed off to bed at the adjacent boarding house to wait for Hannah to finish her shift. Wyatt inquired as to his whereabouts, and Hannah said there was a stage coach headed into town with some travelers from back east. It was rare for one to arrive so late, and Buck had been commandeered to meet the stage coach and bring the travelers to the boarding house for the night. As it turned out, there was just one traveler on the coach, and she had paid a pretty penny for the days long journey from San Francisco.

Wyatt relaxed into his seat and began eating, realizing that the peyote he had consumed in the desert earlier was still affecting him sporadically. He briefly imagined himself sitting on a train, hearing the clickety clack and rhythm of the tracks underneath. He looked around the diner and his vision briefly blurred. This peyote was unpredictable, and sometimes it scared him. Other times, like now, its effects came and went and provided him relief and a respite from his pain. As he finished his coffee, he heard the bell on the front door make its familiar tinkling noise, indicating arriving customers. It was now midnight. Buck bounded through the door greeting his mother and then running to join Wyatt at his table. Not far behind him, an exhausted woman with auburn hair and blue eyes walked into the diner with a small travel bag, looking around before her face registered shock. In an instant, she fainted and collapsed to the floor. Wyatt blurted out a single word, “Tess.”