A Political Thriller Set in the Central Oregon Desert, a guest post by H.L. Wegley
For the past six summers, my wife, Babe, and I have spent a week or more each summer near Crooked River Ranch, Oregon. In this post, I’m sharing with you some of our first reactions to the beauty of this Central Oregon setting which I was blessed to be able to use for my political thriller (with romance), Voice in the Wilderness.
As we approached the ranch for the first time, I could see that the road descending the 200-foot high escarpment down to Crooked River Ranch had been blasted out of rock. Below us, in the brilliant June sunshine, the golf course created a bright green oasis in the desert, extending more than a mile to the north. On the east edge of the golf course, the canyon plunged out of sight, a six-hundred-foot drop to Crooked River.
We drove down the escarpment to ranch level, turned in at the RV park, and stopped by a big Juniper tree beside the basketball court, windows down, inhaling the Juniper’s pungent, herbaceous fragrance. This was the place where two kids would bury a jar containing a slip of paper with priceless information penciled on it.
We got out and looked to the east. From the far side of the Crooked River Canyon, a mammoth promontory dwarfed us, an unscalable rock cliff reaching upward nearly a thousand feet above ranch level until it intersected the royal blue of an Oregon summer sky.
One hundred yards ahead, a lookout overhung the six-hundred-foot-deep canyon, a canyon almost invisible until a person reached its edge. When we approached the canyon, the earth seemed to drop into nothingness, leaving me feeling exposed. The depths of the canyon pulled on me, as if drawing me downward to my death, yet leaving me awestruck by the beauty of the rocks, the trees, and the ribbon of blue water flowing through the canyon, far below.
The Old Hollywood Road, cut out of the rock face of Crooked River Canyon, was created for filming the 1967 western, The Way West, a story about one of the first wagon trains taking settlers to Oregon in 1843. The cast read like a who’s who in Hollywood, circa 1967—Kirk Douglas, Robert Mitchum, Richard Widmark, Jack Elam and many more. Sally Field played her first movie role in this film. The whole cast, including wagons and oxen, was taken down that road. While the old road has deteriorated over the past 50 years, it still provides a great trail for hiking down into this miniature version of the Grand Canyon. My thoughts—what a great hiding place for two people on the run from a runaway president who sends Special Forces in a black operation to kill them.
Later, we drove a short distance to the west, to the Steelhead Falls trailhead. Nearly thirty feet below the parking area, the clear blue water of the Deschutes River flowed through a dark pool to a rock-infested rapids where blue turned to white. We walked a few hundred yards down the trail to the falls. I would have to turn this beautiful scene into a battlefield. It seemed wrong, but that’s what made it right, the irony of the contrasts—the beauty of God’s creation contrasted with the ugliness of man’s creation, war.
Seriously, a political thriller set in the Central Oregon desert? Could that possibly work? Yes, it works … beautifully!
About the Author
H.L. Wegley served as an Air Force Intelligence Analyst and a Weather Officer. In civilian life, he worked as a research scientist, publishing in the scientific literature, then developed Boeing computing systems for 20 years before retiring near Seattle. He is a multi-published author with a 4-book inspirational thriller series, 2 nonfiction books, and 4 more novels on the way.
About the Voice in the Wilderness
What if your blog could save the nation, but posting to it might cost your life?
Two extraordinary people …
As catastrophes drive the US into martial law, all eyes are on America, waiting to see what emerges. KC Banning, network specialist, discovers President Hannan’s tyrannical plans and is branded a terrorist, sending her fleeing the Beltway to find her childhood soulmate and protector, Brock Daniels. Brock, a writer and man of faith, gives CPR to a dying nation through his blog, which is read by military members still loyal to the Constitution. But starting a grassroots insurgency while reconciling KC’s and Brock’s broken relationship proves difficult. When Hannan sends Special Forces to kill Brock and KC, starting a war in the Central Oregon desert, reconciliation, like staying alive, might be impossible.
born for a time such as this.
Set in Washington DC and near Crooked River Ranch in the Central Oregon desert, Voice in the Wilderness, Book 1 of the Against All Enemies Series, is a political thriller, with romance, about two people who must decide if they’re willing to sacrifice their lives to prevent the USA from becoming the Dystopian States of America.
Web links:
Author web site: http://www.hlwegley.com
Blog: http://www.hlwegley.com/category/blog
Facebook author’s page: https://www.facebook.com/HLWegley
Facebook profile: https://www.facebook.com/harry.wegley.1
Twitter: https://twitter.com/hlwegley
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