Chapter One

Nothing touched Driftwood, Arizona. 

On a maps (if there were maps of Driftwood) highways appeared to be broken strings winding in and out, but connecting to nothing.  There were no nearby cities.  Strangers and residents alike could scarcely pinpoint its location.  They only knew its elevation reached thousands of feet.  Its heights left behind the raw desert landscape characteristic of the rest of Arizona.  Instead of cactus, stunted-looking trees & sand, the town of Driftwood was filled with evergreens and aspens that scraped the sky, rising like ladders to the clouds & stars. 

The weather also set it apart from the rest of Arizona.  The sun was kinder here.  The wind did not blow hot.  It was often, but not consistently, pleasant. Locals would often tell strangers, “If you don’t like the weather in Driftwood, wait 10 minutes.” The sky was usually a pure, piercing shade of blue, but clouds moved in quickly.  Sometimes the clouds were heavy with rain.  Sometimes they surged with lightning or grumbled with thunder.  It was not rare for the sunny mornings to darken to stormy afternoons.  Likewise, though, it was not unusual for storms to dissolve into clear and brilliant sunsets.

Driftwood’s only connection to the outside world seemed to be the train.  It rocked the town as it rolled noisily through.  Its movements were so violent at times that stars would occasionally drop from the sky into one of the three dormant volcanoes that sat on the horizon.  The fallen stars sizzled as they made contact with the ash-laden ground.  The volcanoes threatened to wake.

On one dark Tuesday, when grey clouds hid the blueness of the sky, a murder of crows seeming to enjoy the dismal weather, decided to perch on the rusted letters of a sign that read, “Wayward Inn.”  The sign hovered above the city.  It could be read clearly, without squinting, from the top of Mars Mountain and from that vantage point, it seemed to mark the center of the town.

Driftwood, Arizona was no one’s destination.  It was always either a connecting point or accidental, but it trapped travelers.  Passers-through who meant to stay for a night stayed for a month or several months or years.  When the city was done with you, it rejected you; when it wanted you, it embraced you and would not let you go. If it embraced you once, it would embrace you again and again. It didn’t smother, but it held tight.