Mojave is the desert town where Ish prepares to cross two hundred miles of wilderness, a decisive stopping place between the familiar cultivated landscape and a road he must face without anyone coming to his aid. The town offers supplies, but its dwindling water and unoccupied streets make clear that even here the systems of ordinary life are failing.

Setting and Route

After leaving Bakersfield and turning from 99 toward the winding road over Tehachapi Pass, Ish descends toward the desert. The slopes and stands of Coulter pine give way to the open country around Mojave. Its emptiness does not surprise him in the same way as the deserted cities: this has always been sparsely settled country. But the desert crossing ahead sharpens his apprehension. Even before the disaster, travelers carried water across it, and a broken-down car could leave someone a full day’s walk from a roadside stand. Now there is no one to come to Ish’s aid.

Preparations in Town

Ish stops while the sun is still high and searches Mojave for what might make the crossing safer. At a hardware store, he smashes a window with Ish’s hammer to get inside, takes three large canteens, and fills them from a faucet still running weakly. He also collects a gallon jug of red wine from a grocery store, but the supplies do not dispel his dread of the desert.

A black-and-white Highway Patrol motorcycle catches his eye. Even amid the collapse, Ish feels qualms about taking a traffic officer’s vehicle; after a moment, he tests it and finds it workable. In the heavy late-afternoon heat, he uses planks to make a ramp, wheels the motorcycle up, and lashes it to the lowered tailgate of Ish’s Station Wagon. The extra vehicle gives him a possible refuge if the station wagon fails, though he remains so uneasy that he keeps glancing behind him.

That evening Ish eats a cold, unsatisfying meal and gives the beagle a can of dog food. He enters an unopened room at a tourist court and washes as best he can, but only a dribble comes from its faucets. The contrast with the city’s more automatically regulated water supply makes Mojave’s fragile provision tangible: water remains available, yet even this modest service is already impaired.

Delay and Departure

The following morning Ish still flinches at the thought of setting out. He considers turning back or going south toward Los Angeles, but recognizes those plans as excuses to evade the journey he had chosen. He postpones departure until nearly sunset, telling himself that nighttime travel is an ordinary way to avoid desert heat. The delay does not mean the fear has lifted: he spends the day restlessly in Mojave, trying to think of further precautions. As the sun approaches the western hills, he finally starts across the desert with the dog beside him.

Narrative Significance

Mojave functions as a threshold rather than a refuge. Its weak faucet, deserted streets, and scattered supplies offer Ish a last chance to prepare, but none can restore the dependable network of assistance that once made travel safer. The motorcycle is his improvised answer to the possibility of mechanical failure; the canteens answer the distance between water sources. By the time he leaves town, the journey has become more than a drive through empty country: it is an encounter with risks that no institution or passing stranger will manage for him.