Memories of the Desert... in a Shoebox?

Memories of the Desert... in a Shoebox?

He missed the smell of the desert, so we found a way to bring it back to him.

Barbara Clouse, Saddlebag Dispatches Research Director

GOLD IN THE SUN, WRITTEN by Dusty Richards, is one of my favorite western novels. Every scene and venture across the Arizona desert reminded me of the places in the Valley of the Sun where I grew up. Dusty and I shared that love of this contrasting but beautiful environment that ended up in most of his stories.

Many times during conferences and seminars, Dusty would sit in the foyer or lounge areas of the convention lobby to relax. Before long, writers would join him and start a conversation. Dusty engaged everyone in sharing of ideas and topics of interest. On one of these occasions, we discussed the appeal in westerns to place the characters in challenging situations in the harsh climate of Arizona’s dry landscape and rugged mountains.

Since he’d also grown up there, during his college days of ranching, rodeoing, and exploring, Dusty knew the magic of the desert in all seasons of the year. In the early 1990’s at one of these coffee table discussions, someone asked him if he ever missed the Arizona climate of his younger years. He expounded on all the places he’d been but said he liked his place east of Springdale, Arkansas. Dusty did admit that he enjoyed his days in the Phoenix area, and he missed the smell of the desert.

Usually a quiet listener in groups like this, I spoke up and told him that I could send him the smells of the desert. I shared with the crowd that half of my family still lived in the small, agricultural community of Coolidge, Arizona, where I graduated high school. I traveled to see them at least once a year, and I had already planned my next vacation to see my mother and siblings. Everyone thought it was a great idea.

October is always a good time of year to visit the Valley of the Sun, admire the Superstition Mountains, tour the Casa Grande Ruins, touch base with my friends at the University of Arizona in Tucson, and enjoy the cooler desert air. It was a great time to hike through the dry riverbed of the Gila River north of town, hunting for the smells of the desert.

My mother had a small shoe box, so my sister helped me locate some smooth rocks in the riverbed, a handful of sand, a small piece of dried cactus skeleton, and a tiny chunk of driftwood. We walked away from the riverbank to find an old mesquite tree, so some twigs and leaves went in the box. Small pieces of desert sage, dried ocotillo cactus, and bark from a palo verde tree were added. A few leaves from an old creosote bush and some broken spines from a barrel cactus concluded our stash. There were many other favorites nearby, like saguaro, cholla, and prickly pear cactus, but we ran out of room in the small package. I mailed the box to Dusty, hoping that the small container’s contents would evoke some memories for him. In later years, he and Pat traveled all over the country for meetings and book signings, while his list of published western novels continued to grow. He thanked me many times, for that “desert in a box,”, as he shared more stories of his Arizona adventures.

—Barbara Clouse is retired from the Department of Justice in 2009 after 20 years spent working in the Office of United States Attorney. She lives on a farm south of Muskogee with her husband Jerry, where she enjoys gardening, growing gourds for art projects, genealogy, and entertaining their grandchildren.