Highways and visions

when the night comes out here in the desert you must be on your toes, it is dangerous out here. there are no lights on the roads out here in the desert. when the sun goes down the roads melt into the night, until your car glides along the surface weightless. you become disoriented and must be aware of your speed at all times, which can climb quickly and deadly. you must also watch the road ahead of you as cars suddenly disoriented ahead of you hav e taken a wrong turn and are bearing at you in your lane thinking they in fact are safe and in the other lane. twice returning home we have swerved at the last second as a car has just missed us, while the road they were supposed to be on lay empty. they are many fatal accidents out here where there are no stop lights, no stop signs and if there were people would only use them as a suggestion. the indians believe there are spirits out here in the desert, not all of them good. they tell the legends of witches called skinwalkers, shapeshifters who change in the night and roam the desert comitting evil acts. one morning at sunrise i was on my way to town, it was that hour between the night and the day when everthing is hazy and your still not awake and uncertain when a large doglike beast came down the road toward me, much bigger than a dog, its tongue lolling out and the eyes shining and something metallic on its sides, strolling at a high speed like it owned the road, i turned to look and it had vanished. to this day i call it my magical beast and you may think i was seeing things, but in all my years in california i ve never seen anything like that. look the indians say look over your left shoulder and youll see the spirits. many times while sitting at my desk reading tne paper over coffee, half looking away i have seen shadows in the junipers moving quickly from one to the other. jgk