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✹ For the last several days, I’ve been driving from sunup to sundown, taking in the stunning desert landscapes of the Great Basin. At the end of the third day out of Reno, I’ve worked my way into the heart of the region. Now, with evening coming on, I’m driving like a bat out of hell between Ely and Pioche, Nevada. Somewhere back up the road, a sign declared Pioche 121 miles, and I took it as a mathematical challenge: could I make it there in under an hour and a half? I calculate that I’ll have to average about 85 mph to do it, but the highway is wide open with no traffic in sight. Settling down to a cruising speed of 90, I flick on the radio, hit “seek,” and wait for it to lock onto a station. However, here in “cosmic nowhere,” as a cowboy poet in Elko once called it, the fm tuner sweeps through all the channels without stopping, endlessly searching for a station. The radio’s frenetic hunt for a signal seems to confirm the Great Basin’s reputation as 165,000 square miles of emptiness. But I thrive on the openness of the landscape and the momentary separation from civilization. Rolling at about 90, I’m mesmerized by the whine of the engine, the sound of the tires—and enchanted by the beauty of Cave Valley, which stretches off to the south like a worn groove between the two tall mountain ranges flanking it. Hurtling along the desert highway at more than 130 feet per second—so fast that an occasional cattle guard makes just one sound—“bong,” as opposed to the “bongbong ” at a more respectable speed—I’m as attentive as I ever get. Darkness and Light 2 All that you shall ever need is sealed within my cave. Wolf to Coyote, in a Numu Story on the origin of hunting —michael hittman, A Numu History Did not he who made me in the womb make him? And did not one fashion us in the womb? —job 31:15 20 Francaviglia/1-38 6/9/03 6:36 PM Page 20 darkness and light | 21 After half an hour, I’ve covered almost fifty miles as long shadows work their way up the western slopes and the horizon turns an inky blue. Driving this fast satisfies more than just my natural penchant for speed; it’s a natural reaction for my species, aware of the coming night and wondering where, maybe even if, I’ll find shelter. I’m rolling this fast now because I know that I wouldn’t be able to do so safely after dark. Like other creatures of my species, I’m better able to see in the day than in the darkness. The daytime has always belonged to me, the nighttime to someone—or something —else. I keep up this pace for a long time, slowing only once in ninety miles for the one car that approaches from the opposite direction. With a wave we flash past each other, then resume our maniacal pace toward opposite destinations. My attention is riveted to the road as the shadows fill the valley. I calculate that there are now only about thirty miles, or only about twenty minutes of daylight left. At just this time, I reach the crest of a long grade, and the radio finally locks onto a station. As if out of nowhere, a minister’s voice booms a line about light and darkness, firmament and heaven. This, I recognize instantly, is the stuff out of which creation stories are made. The minister, it turns out, is broadcasting from Newport Beach, California, a good four hundred miles to the southwest, but his voice is clear. How this channel reaches me while the small channels much closer can’t is less a miracle than a carefully calculated mix of initiative, money, and technology . The minister’s station is broadcasting the “word of God” at twenty times more power than the secular stations here in the Great Basin. The minister is expounding on a subject that has captured the attention of people since time immemorial. It’s on my mind, too, as I wonder about how these awesome, darkening, brooding mountains came into existence. Somehow, thoughts of creation seem more comprehensible here, far from distractions. With the distant peaks of the Fortification Range in the east now deep in shadow, and only Mount Wilson and...

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