CHAPTER 5
El Cajon Pass to The Mojave Desert

If BJ thought we were out of the 'Civilizations,' or that our strange lifestyle of wondering in and out of two separate centuries was behind, he was wrong. Ahead was the El Cajon Pass where our trail was crossed by an interstate highway leading to Las Vegas, and the mainline railroads serving Los Angeles.

Notice that I said, "crossed our trail," instead of vice versa, for that was our point of view from the saddle. We were following the historical Horsethief Trail of Walkara and his band, notorious for practicing their trade back in the days when California belonged to Mexico. Or, at least that is what a monument along side the paved road we were forced to travel, claimed.

Fortunately, the traffic was light through this rural community, and I was able to spend a delightful hour or so regressing in my mind exactly what it must have been like to be a horse thief, and what Chief Walkara, wherever his soul may be, thought of being honored by a roadside marker.

Suddenly I was awakened back to the present by the screams of a hundred children. We were passing a school, and it was afternoon recess. Kids tumbled out of every available door and window to run over, en mass, to ask why Colette and Bernadette weren't in school, and, possibly on account of the big event in local history, if we too were horse thieves.
"Yup," I replied, enjoying the appellation, "I'm a horse stealing, goat grabbing, cattle rustling ...KIDNAPPER."

Wow! At least half of the student body wanted to be whisked away on horseback, and held for a king's ransom in tootsie roll pops. About the only one there that didn't think that a splendid idea was a straight-laced schoolmarm. She asked a couple of times what we were really doing; was told; and still had a puzzled look on her face when we left.

An hour later we were passed by a slow moving car, that finally stopped. It was the teacher again. She wanted to invite us up to her ranch for a chat. I was about to decline with an explanation that we had to find a camping spot with grazing before sundown, when she mentioned her driveway was just past the next big alfalfa field, and that she would meet us with a fresh pot of coffee.