June 15, 1985. John and Maria had not driven on this trail for three years. It appeared no one else had either. The last time, they found a vein of blue turquoise which ended at a rock slide. It would be a four hour trip in their pickup over rough terrain to the slide. Cash was running low. If they found more turquoise as half as good as the last time, they could live well for six months.

The economy was bad. There had been no calls for handymen in the past month. The cafe Maria worked in for the past fifteen years dried up like the grass. The owners blew out of town during the last sand storm. They paid Maria and gave her a letter of permission to use anything in the building. The electricity was cut off which shut the water well down. There was enough propane in the tank to operate the generator for the refrigerator. John and Maria had been living off the restaurant supplies for the past two weeks.

The need for the Dry Wash crossroad was eliminated when the freeway was constructed two years ago. The talc mine closed last year. Most of the ranchers sold or moved their cattle because of the drought. The railroad wasn't making enough money to keep the siding open. PETA interference and harassment rang the death knell on exotic game hunting. Every salt dome had been tested at least three times. Not one drop of oil or whiff of natural gas had been found.

The weather report said it was going to be hotter and drier for the next seven days. There was a ten percent chance of rain as far south as Sierra Blanca, over the weekend. Sierra Blanca was 150 miles northwest.

Besides John and Maria, old widow Wilson was the only other person residing in Dry Wash. Mrs. Wilson and her late husband owned the motel and filling station. The widow's son was coming Monday to move her to Austin. The Border Patrol doesn't stop anymore because the cafe, motel and filling station were shuttered. A Deputy Sheriff makes a weekly visit on Wednesdays. John and Maria would be back in Dry Wash before the deputy returned.

John's parents were deceased. He has a sister but they have been out of touch for twenty years. Maria has no idea if her parents are alive.

Maria's parents were Braceros (legal farm workers) from Durango, Mexico. When Maria turned eleven, her parents found an older lady in El Paso, Judge Johnson's widow, who could use Maria to assist her. There were too many instances of children being sexually abused while their parents were working in distant fields.

Mrs. Johnson treated Maria as if she were her own child. Maria attended public school in El Paso. When Maria turned sixteen, her parents didn't return to El Paso as expected. Mrs. Johnson went to the Mexican Consulate. There had been a fire at an Oregon migrant worker's camp. Several workers perished. Maria's parents were not among the workers identified.

Maria, with Mrs. Johnson's influence, became a Naturalized Citizen when she turned twenty-one. Mrs. Johnson's children wanted her to move to San Francisco to be near them. Friends of Mrs. Johnson, the owners of the cafe in Dry Wash, hired Maria to work in the cafe.

In 1976, John saw the sign, Handyman Wanted, in the cafe window. The work at the cafe kept him busy two days a week. He began to pick up other jobs around the County. There was enough income from his work as a handyman, that John bought a two-room, one-bathroom unused school house from the County. John added a kitchen, shower and pole barn workshop to the property.

Taking most of his meals at the cafe, John became acquainted with Maria. After a year of dating, Maria moved in with him. John bought a ring at a pawn shop in San Angelo. The name Mary was engraved on the inside the ring. Maria thought that was close enough. The County Judge made John's and Maria's union legal.

The District Engineer for the State Highway Department was catching a lot of flak from the County Judge over bad drainage, when the freeway was constructed. A dirt diversion dam reduced the drainage problem temporarily. The water was backed up enough that seepage was destroying the dam.

The State and County Engineers worked out a plan which allowed the water to flow through the original natural arroyo, the dry wash which gave the crossroad its name. The gates would be opened very early in the morning on June 18. There were no structures in or near the dry wash between the dam and the Pecos River.

That afternoon, on June 15, John recognized the slide area. They made camp above it, out of the dry wash. That night John and Maria went over what they planned to do, depending on the value of what they found.

They wanted to open a restaurant. El Paso was out, because there were too many good ones. Midland and Odessa were too boom or bust dependent on oil. Carlsbad had the Lake and Caverns going for it. There was enough oil-patch business, when there was a boom, they could take advantage of it. A bust wouldn't hurt as bad in Carlsbad as it would in Roswell or Midland and Odessa.

Carlsbad was their first choice if they made a big or a just so-so find. If they found nothing they would look for jobs in Carlsbad first and El Paso second.

On the sixteenth, they couldn't find any color in the rock. They moved a couple of large rocks with explosives. That afternoon, after everything settled down, they began searching. There was a blue rock, about fist sized with some smaller pieces around it. At dusk, they decided to widen the hole with more explosives. A part of the hill shifted down into the arroyo.

After sun-up, June 17th, John began searching at the top and Maria at the bottom of the slide. The sun had barely risen when Maria, all excited, yelled at John in Spanish, "Vete, Vete. Aqui esta!" "Come, Come. Here it is!"

It looked like the mother lode. John drove the pickup into the wash, because the rock would be easier to load. By late afternoon, the best pieces had been loaded into the truck. The remaining colored rock was buried. Tired and exhausted, John and Maria loaded their equipment on the truck and decided to leave in the morning.

On the afternoon of 18 June, the Aerial Surveyor reported. The water was flowing smoothly through the dry wash and it had reached the Pecos River. There was one anomaly, a hill collapsed ten miles downstream. There appeared to be no significant damage.