The Secret Knowledge of Water: Discovering the Essence of the American Desert
“To say that the desert has no water is a tantalizing misstatement. It is believable. But to look over this raven land and know the truth—that there is immeasurable water tucked and hidden and cared for by bowls of rock, by sudden storms, by artwork chiseled hundreds and thousands of years ago—is by far a greater pleasure and mystery than to think of it as dry and senseless as wadded newspaper. It is not only drought that makes this a desert; it is all the water that cannot be seen.”
“Every move this small flood made was original. Every stone came as news. But what impressed me was that it took up residence without deliberation. It immediately knew how to turn behind a boulder, how to run straight down a chute and then wind like a stirred pot below, as if it had been here for a thousand years. It read the world as quickly as it could move.”
Childs takes readers on a journey throughout the deserts and cactus forests of the American Southwest—from the Grand Canyon to the Sonoran Desert and more—in search of that element deserts are seemingly defined in the negative against: water. He seeks in out in the form of creeks, springs, waterholes, thunderstorms, and flash floods, recounting his adventures with insight gleaned from anthropologists, environmental scientists, ranchers, Native American stories, and previous desert explorers and immigrants.