Children's Books 

It was not as if Evan had chosen to join his father. The last thing he wanted was to spend the summer at some little place in the desert. But his mother had sent him off, when other plans fell through. And now here he was, in the middle of nowhere, unwanted, and with nothing to do. His father still thought of him as a little kid. So he wasn't allowed to help the archeology students who were digging up stuff in a place where Indians lived five thousand years ago. His father was afraid he would do some damage. He wasn't allowed to go hiking in the canyons and draws of desert, either. His father was afraid he would get lost. The summer looked like a complete bust.

But Evan's first appraisal of his situation was wrong. First of all, there was the neighboring rancher and his son. They helped prove that a kid could get along in the desert if he used some common sense. And then there was George, a geology professor, who understood Evan's problem and worked out a way for Evan to do some exploring. But all of that was simply prologue to the day Evan fell down a cliff and into a war of life five thousand years old.

The western desert of yesterday and today, and survival in that desert of yesterday and today, and survival in that desert, yesterday and today, are what make this book fascinating and unique.