Up the Mountain

Turned out I bought a cabin in the mountains north of Los Angeles; rustic and rundown, for weekend getaways. Most of Piute Mountain was government land, few people owned property, so I had it quiet when I was there, the way I liked it. Just me and the squirrels and one rouge bear I knew about. He wasn't mean, just curious. I had little to do on the mountain other than work on improvements to the cabin while listening to wind through the pines. I'd say at the time the area avoided development of any kind. Lonesome Al held deed to a goodly chunk of the land, and put sparing little on the market, only when he wanted company.

Four years before I came to Los Angeles and thought to find a mountain cabin within easy driving distance. I searched for property in the Sunday edition of the Los Angeles Times. Didn't have to drive around or talk to a lot of sales people. Maybe three months into Sunday searching I found an add that read, "Ghost town, mountain cabin, gold mine, year round stream, pine trees." After a few months of reading the property sales adds, I finally got a break. I knew when I saw this one: if this wasn't the property I wanted, the guy who placed the add knew where I could find it.

I called and spoke to Lonesome Al, made an appointment to see the mountain property. He gave me the directions, I drove to his cabin on Paiute mountain and met the man. He was short, scruffy and what you'd expect of a mountain guy. I drank a bottle of wine with him, was approved to be his neighbor; he showed me the cabin and ten acres of pine trees, complete with live stream old gold mine and grave yard, we toasted drank to our neighbor-ship it and I bought the place.

Everything about the mountain cabin went well. I worked in Los Angeles during the week and weekends went to the mountain. That's what Al called it with a fleck of reverence in his voice - the Mountain. We were sixty-four hundred feet up and as Lonesome Al's name insinuated, it was lonesome up there.

Friday night, the weekend free, time to head out of Los Angeles and head for the mountain. I drove north out of San Fernando Valley. Nine PM, traffic rolling light and all of it headed the other way, coming into Los Angles. It took about two hours to get to the cabin. I started out with the windows down, in the season of California Wonderful: dry, warm and just right.

On the way I always gassed the truck in the town of Mojave, then made a quick stop for dinner at Wendy's: burgers, fries and a coke or a shake. That was the routine before taking the last leg of the trip to the mountain. I still had almost an hour to go before I got there and unlocked the cabin door.

Beyond Mojave about ten miles, sometime past eleven at night I passed Edwards Air Force base, somewhere out there to the right, turned left onto Jawbone Canyon Road, single lane and paved for a mile, then hard-packed dirt. Call it unfinished, a road, not much used. There was nothing around, desert land. Brush and no buildings.

Soon as I turned I was ghosting...out there with no lights, signs, houses or other vehicles, only decomposed granite, cactus and sky. The road ran straight into Jawbone canyon, about five miles back. As usual, no other cars or trucks were on the road. I heard that weekends during the day bikers rode back there now and then. Definitely a remote spot for off-road motorcycling.

This hard pack dirt road ran straight into the large canyon, about five miles in diameter with high walls. In the canyon the road turned north, ran a few miles, maybe four or so, to the north rim and took me up, over and out. When the road climbed out of the canyon pavement began again. A few more miles, one or two, then took the turnoff leading up Paiute mountain.

It was totally black outside as I drove through the canyon, no buildings, lights or other roads, only faint outlines of cactus, brush and the far away canyon walls visible from the dim light of the stars. Out the window I could see stars above. My truck headlights cut a broad swath before me. The air was dry, warm and still. Nothing out there moved. It was too late for hopping animals, flying birds or animal sounds in the night...only the low murr of the truck's engine and the hum of the tires rolling over hard-packed, decomposed granite and sand. The Butterfield stage cut this route a hundred years before. Never gaining in popularity, The area remains remote to this day.

Once through the canyon, I made the turning, little climb up and crossed the rim out of Jawbone when I saw them in my rear mirror, car lights flashed several hundred yards behind me. A curve in the road and I turned to look. Lights behind me surprised me, seemed odd because I was driving in the middle of nowhere, didn’t see any cars in either direction and saw nothing behind me but sand, sage and cactus when I crossed the out of the canyon, then suddenly...lights.

I slowed to a crawl, turned my head around and still couldn’t tell if it was a car or a truck...but something was back there. In the desert in the middle of the night, only my headlights and the stars...then something following. This was open desert, strange I didn’t see the vehicle until it was relatively close behind me. I don't think I passed a turnoff large enough where a vehicle could have been hidden and waiting, then started after me when I passed.

I bounced on the uneven road and still couldn’t tell if the light behind me was a car or a truck, one vehicle or two - one after another. There were lights behind me, as the road curved I could get glimpses of the lights. We were in a remote desert, only my headlights, then I saw lights a hundred yards behind me, or closer. Something was following.

I rode over several miles of familiar open area desert, an up and down rolling, turning road. Odd though, I didn’t see the vehicle behind me until it appeared not far, a few turns and dips in the road off my tail. When I ride the canyon at night I keep aware of what's around, because in the middle of nowhere, it's prudent to pay attention. I've seen nothing strange since I began going through the canyon. There is only desert, plants and the stars above. Maybe the vehicle was off the road somewhere when I passed it, parked somewhere, and I drove by before it had lights on. It could have started up after I went by. I don't know. So although it seemed unusual...not impossible.

I climbed a final hill, the rim on the north side, that takes me out of Jawbone Canyon. When I crossed the high part of the rim and could see farther ahead, a half-mile or so...on the small hill to my right, more lights. As I drove farther, then turned on winding loops of road I saw in the hills ahead to the right what looked like a large, irregular, box-shaped factory, somewhere at the top of the small mountain about a half of a mile ahead, about that high above this road I'm on. I couldn't see the whole thing but it seemed to be one building made of different, irregular sections...with two smokestacks attached on the side. I later remembered three stacks, but thought again, there were only two. I know I'd never seen that building before. It could have been there and under construction, just never had lights so I wouldn't have noticed. The view was obscured by my position, the roll of the land and the brush. I kept trying to get a better look and stay on the road.

I clearly saw the stacks on the building had large open flames on top of them. After few more minutes and more turns in the road I was right below the plant and saw the very large flames on the stacks going up and down. I think what I saw were the stacks themselves raising and lowering with the flames coming out the tops. One went up, the other went down. I remember I thought it looked like some kind of giant musical instrument out of a carnival. I don’t know why, but that’s how I thought of it ... as a musical instrument. I remembered a lot of color, red and yellow lights, going up and down, not in unison. The flames were definitely moving. I slowed down and could hear the flames...I thought the stacks were going up and down, it was just the flames that were moving. The flames looked like they were a dozen feet across and twenty feet tall. For sure it was the weirdest factory I’d ever seen. I thought that maybe it was some type of oil or gas refinery. I had driven this road many times, and was very familiar with the area, it was the same road I took every week, mos always at night. Now, anything was possible, but it was odd I had never noticed it before and wondered if it had been under construction and just opened.

Another half mile or so with turns and dips I lost sight of the vehicle behind us, and was beyond the hill with the factory. Now all was dark behind and above me. I turned at the road that took me across the stream and up the mountain to my cabin. I kept checking back but didn't see any more of the car lights. The factory was somewhere behind me, also out of sight. I kept looking back and thinking about it all the way up the mountain and made it to the cabin with nothing else unusual.

The next day we drove over to see the Adelberry’s, Russ and his wife Ray, the only full time residents on the mountain. They were solid people. Seeing them was something I rarely did. Mountain people kept to themselves. I'd might have had some kind of business with them, more likely I wanted to talk to them about what I saw. They had lived on the mountain for twenty years and new the area well. I only saw them every few months, generally when we crossed on the road and stopped to chat. There were only a few people living on the mountain and for the most part we kept to ourselves.

As soon as I got there and exchanged greetings, Russ invited me to get out of the truck and visit a while. He knew I'd been off the mountain for a few days. He can see the mountain road from his house so with so little traffic he has a good idea of who comes and goes. I said that I came up last night and told them about the lights I'd seen, those behind me, then I asked Russ in particular about the factory, "that one over there", I pointed East, "On the hill on the other side of the road coming in from Jawbone." Ray was sitting on the porch and tuned into our conversation now.
"I’d never noticed it before. Maybe because I usually came that way during the day." I described the location well to both of them. Russ knew exactly where I was talking about.
“There’s no factory there. No houses, no buildings, nothing. There’s nothing on that hill.”
"Maybe they just built it." He shook his head and repeated, "There's nothing on that hill."

There is nothing more to tell, nothing more to add. I saw the factory and Russ said it isn't there. As an end to the story I can say I drove up and down at night several times after and never saw the factory again.