Some fifty miles east of Winnemucca, the little town of Battle Mountain sits just off the freeway like an abandoned colony on a distant planet. It is a quiet and sleepy looking place, isolated by the oceanic expanse of desert surrounding it. East of town, the Shoshone range rises skyward, a smokey purple wall guarding another flat infinity of desert beyond where the Tuscarora and Cortez ranges watch over the communities of Carlin and Elko.
People like Kit Carson and John C. Fremont had blazed the path across this area, and before them, the restless Spaniards in search of wealth and heathen souls to save. Even that venerable mountain man, Jedediah Smith had probably passed close to where I now parked my car in front of a motel with cracked, stained white walls of stucco.
No one came to answer the door when I pushed the buzzer. Moving on to the eastern edge of town I came to another small motel of about six or seven rooms, a few of which were in such a state of disrepair that they were obviously unused. The small office appeared to be long unused as well. The only car in the parking lot was an old black Volvo, covered with dust, all four tires flat, the rubber cracked from the long days of endless sun.
I began to turn away, believing the place to be no longer in operation when I noticed a small scrap of wrinkled paper pinned to the office door. Scrawled in pencil were the words, "Manager at gas station." I walked to the decrepit Chevron station which sat separated from the north end of the motel by a narrow paved alley. A rail-thin Mexican kid in a gray and white checkered shirt got up lazily from his seat in front of the cash register, a questioning look in his large dark eyes.
"Yea, I rent you room, nineteen dollar and ninety nine cents."
"Air conditioning?" I asked, squinting at him.
"Yea, air conditioning."
I pulled a pen from my pocket and filled out the paper he produced, then forked over a twenty in exchange for the room key and bid the boy good evening. He appeared to be about fifteen, but was probably in his twenties.
I found the room to be surprisingly clean and comfortable, but I quickly found that the television did not work and most of the room's lights and electric outlets were out of order. I sighed and walked back to the gas station. Without saying a word, the kid gave me a key for a different room. This time I found everything in working order, but then discovered that the room had no air conditioner. With an angry groan I started for the door to pay another visit to the laconic Mex kid, but stopped myself, realizing that the room did not feel uncomfortably warm. My pocketwatch said six o' clock. The temperature would be unlikely to rise between now and whenever I decided to go to bed. I estimated the current outside temperature to be roughly ninety five degrees. Since Battle Mountain sits at an elevation of 4510 feet, I knew that darkness would bring a swift cooling. I dismissed the question of air conditioning and went back to unpacking my essentials.
When I had finished, a temporary weariness came over me and I stretched out on the bed. I laid there for a time, contemplating silence until the memories came to haunt me again, this time the recollections a long gone brother, a strong, handsome and self reliant veteran of Viet Nam who had come home safely to meet his end years later at the wrong end of an American gun. Along with the momentary sadness that engulfed me, the words of a female country singer drifted through the room from the TV set to blend with the sound of dry winds whistling past the motel eaves with a mournful howl.

"Tumbleweed, you're living a cowboy's dream.
Tumbleweed, freedom is the air you breathe.
But if you don't stop long enough, to let
yourself fall in love.
Tumbleweed, you're gonna end up lonely."

The growling of my stomach pushed aside thoughts of past ironies and irritating sorrows. The reawakened knowledge that I had time, money and a desert to explore helped to push away the sudden sadness that had come over me.
A small supermarket across the street yielded a loaf of dark German bread, some sliced pastrami, a bottle of perrier water, a small roll of hard sausage, an orange and a paperback science fiction novel called Thunder Rift.
After a spare meal, I took a walk in a patch of desert across from the supermarket. It seemed hot and lifeless, with only a few sagebrush lizards darting for cover as I passed them. I had hoped for more exotic sightings. Walking back to my room I took a long shower and shaved. Sunset was fast approaching and I looked forward to exploring the night life of Battle Mountain.
I let the hot shower sluice the alkali dust from my body and shaved that part of my face not shadowed by my wide John L. Sullivan mustache. Refreshed and energized, I took a walk down the time-worn main street of Battle Mountain. I had not eaten much of the simple fare I had picked up at the supermarket and hunger began to gnaw anew. Those few bites had been all that I had eaten since I left Klamath Falls that morning, 300 miles ago, probably closer to 400 by highway.
A simple Mexican quick-food cafe appeared to be one of the more popular places in town, crowded with large, beefy-faced men who sat eating with their big-bottomed wives and dirty children. The reason for the eatery's popularity became immediately apparent. The prices were low and the portions huge. I found myself unable to pronounce most of the selections on the overhead menu placard, so i just pointed to something and the Mexican girl behind the counter jotted it down on her pad, ripping the ticket out to stick it to a set of revolving clips where it was yanked down and scrutinized by a harried looking cook with a chocolate-brown face, long since turned to leather by the desert sun.
My choice turned out to be a poor one, about two pounds of stringy, bright red meat wrapped in a huge soft flower tortilla. I had three bites of the tough, tasteless stuff and lost my appetite.
Outside, a balmy desert sunset had descended upon Battle Mountain. Pastel shades of rose and violet softened the mountains while a warm evenglow lent a passing beauty to even the seediest old buildings. Nighthawks and bats began to flit about in the lengthening shadows while a mourning dove was just audible in between the occasional passing car.