Asses

Asses are animals encountered by Ish during his journey across the post-disaster landscape and later included in the book’s wider account of ecological readjustment. They embody a return to a life shaped by habitat and animal behavior rather than human use: after serving human purposes, they again move through the desert on their own terms.

The Encounter Near Oatman

Near the old mining town of Oatman, Ish sees two Asses that appear contented. He cannot tell whether they had been near the town when the catastrophe occurred or had already gone wild. When he approaches, they keep their distance and scamper away. He then releases Princess, who rushes toward them; the jack lays back his ears and charges, and Princess retreats to the car and Ish’s protection. The encounter shows the Asses as wary animals capable of defending themselves, not as tame remnants waiting to be reclaimed by people.

Ish judges that the jack could be more than a match for a wolf and might even deter a mountain lion. His assessment places the animals within a landscape where human absence has changed the conditions of survival, but does not make them defenseless. In this brief roadside episode, their response to Princess gives the encounter its own reversal: the dog makes the first rush, but the Asses determine how close she can come.

Return to the Desert

The book’s broader ecological account places the Asses within a long history of independence. They and other working animals lived their own lives across forest, steppe, and desert before people grew powerful enough to use them for other ends. With human control ended, they resume their own ways. The shift is not presented as an instantaneous transformation: animals confined in barns and paddocks perish, while animals on ranges and farms can break free and wander.

For the Asses, that return leads toward desert country. They seek the dry east wind, gallop across dusty lake beds, and move carefully over boulder-strewn hills. Their hard mouths allow them to eat thorny bushes, and they share their range with Sheep. The details distinguish their adaptation from a simple escape from people: the account emphasizes the particular terrain and food through which the Asses can persist.

Ecological and Narrative Significance

Asses are part of the book’s contrast between animals held within human systems and animals able to survive beyond them. People once redirected the lives of the Asses, but after that relationship ends, the animals are not defined only by their former usefulness. Their movement back into the desert gives them a place in the altered ecology in their own right.

The roadside sighting makes that change concrete, while the broader account extends it across time and landscape. Ish observes the Asses as one presence among many in a world no longer organized around people; the narrative then imagines their renewed range and habits. Their story helps make human disappearance legible not only as the loss of civilization, but also as the return of animal lives to patterns that human control had interrupted.