Chapter 1: Dangerous Hobby

The tranquil, quiet sounds of the desert canyon seemed to sooth Caleb Connor's soul, as he slowly limped down the canyon floor. It had been a long day, and he had twisted his ankle on a loose rock. Caleb could feel the peace of the desert leach away the frustration of his day job. The light breeze ruffled the creosote and sage brush, sending a slight tang into the air. A quail called a warning, ahead of him, as he carefully pushed his way past a dried tumble-weed resting against the canyon wall. He could hear the birds, and other small animals, scrambling through the brush to escape the intruder.

It was Thanksgiving Day: the first full day of his long weekend. Many Americans try to identify things they should be thankful for on this day. Caleb was thankful for the much needed break. He had driven from Phoenix the night before, and set up at his usual camping spot in the Kofa National Wildlife Refuge. He was about half way between Yuma and Quartzsite, Arizona, and his camping spot was nearly five miles east of US highway ninety-five. He had spent the day in the canyons bordering the broad flood plain of the Colorado River, far downstream from the Grand Canyon. He had been immersing himself in his boyhood hobby of geology.

Most Americans thought they should spend the Thanksgiving holiday with family. Caleb didn't have anyone with whom to celebrate. If he had stayed in town, he would have had to make up excuses to well-meaning friends, who would insist he eat dinner with them. Any invitation accepted would include meeting a female guest that 'just happened' to be single and available. For some reason, too many wives, and some husbands, thought that a single male was a crime against nature. At forty-two years old, Caleb no longer appreciated match-makers. He didn't think that a permanent female companion would provide the much needed peace and solitude that he needed, to calm down and recharge from his job.

Caleb worked as an investigator for the Arizona State Department of Economic Security: better known as DES. The job didn't match his degree in Electronic Engineering, but many things in life don't work out quite the way they are planned. He had swallowed that bitter pill several times in his life, and he refused to cry over it.

Working for DES was a good job, really. Any job was a good job in the shambles of the current US economy. The pay wasn't too terrible, honest, but it sure didn't measure up to what he had expected to make when he graduated from college. There was an advantage to working fifty and sixty hours a week with low pay. He didn't have a lot of time to spend money that he didn't have. Caleb softly snorted to himself, as he attempted to justify where his life had taken him.

Working for the government was something Caleb had sworn he wouldn't do again. He was bitter about his time in the Army, despite his successes. Caleb had been proud of serving his country. In a twisted kind of way, he felt like he was still fighting for his country by finding fraudulent welfare applicants, and freeing abuse victims. He wasn't against people getting welfare when they needed it. However, the thieves that drained hundreds of thousands of dollars from the system, while buying boats, and cabins in the mountains, needed to be caught. Unfortunately, there were too many of them. They needed to be in prison, and he was the man to put them there. As for the abuse victims, their abusers were usually anxious to be in state custody rather than where Caleb could reach them.

State employment did have the advantage of providing a lot of time off. Every time a politician passed gas, Caleb and his fellow state workers got another paid day off.

The state retirement system also took his years in the Army into consideration in their retirement calculations. Some bizarre computation, used by the state, meant that he could retire in another five years. Caleb wasn't going to argue. Maybe then he could move to an isolated place in the desert, and not be bothered by people again.

Though his job had some advantages, it had some major disadvantages, too. He had to work with politicians and government bureaucrats. Working with politicians made him feel like he needed to take an extra shower at night. Working with the bureaucrats that ran the state could try the patience of a saint. Caleb Alain Connor was not a saint, and he had very little patience.

Caleb understood that he was also a government employee, and he often wondered if that fact was an indication of a serious mental deficiency in himself. There were some very smart people working for the government, but smart did not always equate with common sense. Some of them made the proverbial 'box of rocks' look like a superstar. That was why he needed to seek the solitude of the desert canyons. The alternative was to start breaking people, literally. His boss agreed with Caleb that frequent trips to the desert was the better solution.

His thoughts, and the silence, were interrupted by a flight of CH-47 helicopters roaring overhead. He gritted his teeth when he stopped and watched as a flight of more than a dozen of the dual rotor choppers flew in the direction of the Army Proving Grounds located north of Yuma, Arizona.

"Probably some gung-ho officer bucking for promotion," Caleb muttered angrily to himself. "They're working on a holiday, so maybe some other gung-ho officer will give it to him. Either that, or something really bad is going on."

Caleb shook his head, dismissing his bitter thoughts of the Army, as the sound of the helicopters faded in the distance. He grimaced at the silence around him. The bugs, birds, and animals had gone silent at the disturbance of the aircraft.

He adjusted his pack, as he sourly wondered about his own sanity. There had to be something wrong with a forty-two year old man, that spent Thanksgiving weekend in the desert, alone, looking at rocks. His pack was full of rocks that he had found during the day. He briefly considered that box of rocks again, and wondered how he compared. He shrugged the thought away, and readjusted his pack, again. He just didn't give a damn.

Caleb was an amateur geologist. He had considered geology as a career, once upon a time, about thirty years ago. He began walking again, as he reminisced. It wasn't a pleasant walk down memory lane, but it did take his mind off his sore ankle as he walked. He wanted to reach his camp at the mouth of the canyon, before full dark.

'Women have been making men do stupid things since the dawn of time, ' is a phrase Caleb often repeated to himself. A breakup with a girlfriend, on his twentieth birthday, had caused him to do something stupid. He dropped out of college and joined the Army. Ten years later, he was shot during a recon mission in Iraq. Weeks later, US forces reached the site of the chemical production facility his team had found, but the facility and the chemical dump had already been moved to Syria. Caleb was declared medically fit a year later, and was discharged after refusing to reenlist. Less than a year after that, his wife of nine years divorced him.

Caleb couldn't blame Gina for divorcing him, but it still hurt. They had been madly like most newlyweds, when they got married. The Army moved them four times in the following nine years, and they had actually been together less than thirty-six months, total, of their entire marriage. The moving and separations were hard on the marriage. He went back to college after he was discharged. The two of them being together during college, after his discharge, was like living with a stranger. Six months after the divorce, Caleb was notified that Gina had been killed in a car wreck. That hurt worse than the divorce! Caleb continued college, and finally earned his degree in Electrical Engineering.

He stopped to rest his ankle for a moment. He lied to himself, and tried to make himself believe that he just wanted to look at an eighty foot rampart, that looked like the earth's crust had tilted sideways. These types of geologic structures were why Caleb liked to explore the area along the Colorado River. And, if he were in better physical shape, he would probably enjoy them more. Maybe he was getting too old for these types of forays.

The top of the earthwork caught the last of the setting sun. He still had about a quarter of a mile to walk before reaching his camp. Caleb watched the last streak of sunlight disappear from the top of the wall, and knew that he had less than twenty minutes before full dark. Twilight didn't last long in the dry air of the desert. He had a flashlight, but he didn't like walking in the desert after dark. Snakes came out to hunt in the dark, and Caleb was wary of the big rattlers that frequented these hills. He adjusted his pack again, and started walking, as he tried to set a faster pace.

Caleb struggled with a side pocket in his pack, trying to extract a bottle of water as he walked. Mumbling at his inability to get the water bottle out of the pouch, he swung his pack off his shoulders, and continued to walk. The draw string holding the water bottle was stuck, so Caleb fumbled with the catch to release it in the fading light.

Suddenly, Caleb was illuminated by a bright light, as a large object thundered down from the sky, shining like a newly risen sun. The ground bucked as the object crashed into the desert, not far ahead of him. Caleb was lifted from his feet, and thrown back up the canyon, by the concussion. He hit one of the many soft sand pockets deposited by flash floods on the canyon floor, and slid on his back through the sand. He plowed a deep trench in the flour-fine powdered sand, and the sand mounded around him, nearly burying him, as he slid to a stop.

Caleb's breath was knocked from him by the force of being slammed into the ground. He struggled to breathe. He was stunned. His mind fumbled with what had just happened, unable to grasp what had happened. He was gasping, still unable to breathe, when a searing flash of hot air blasted up the canyon. The roar of the passing wave of scorching air was nearly as deafening as the initial concussion of sound. Fortunately, it passed over the slight dust bowl into which the first concussion had tossed him.

It seemed like hours later that Caleb was able to force his lungs to work again. His gasping breath burned in his throat. The acrid smoke from burning creosote bushes made his eyes water, and made breathing harder.

'What in the hell happened?' Caleb wondered, unable to utter a sound yet, but with his wits beginning to function. He lay there, ears ringing, but numb otherwise. He could smell singed hair. He reached up and gently touched his face and winced. It was very tender. He tried to tell if he had any broken bones by flexing his muscles. Everything seemed to be intact, so he tried to raise himself onto his elbows to look around. It worked, but damn, he hurt!

Slowly he looked around the canyon floor. There had been scrub brush along the bottom of the little canyon earlier. Now there were only the burnt stubs of the brown plants. The depression he had created in the dusty sand bowl had let most of the heat pass safely over him.