Paul Rizzo

Priestess In A Desert Night Paul Rizzo

Priestess in a Desert Night is a drama that begins on a desert night, when Sam and Justin pull into a roadside tavern In El Paso, Texas. Sam decides to go for a walk in the immediate surroundings of the tavern. The moonlight gives Sam enough light to stroll about and eye the desert floor and its dwellers. Justin, Sam's buddy, heads into the tavern to get a table. The foreshadowing is on display as Sam eyes a desert owl large in stature. The owl waits for its evening prey to slither along. The owl eventually is attacked by hawks, and Sam encounters the owl's demise. The owl's final resting place is, in part, a foreshadowing of a present danger. The desert is the soul and stage of this story. The priestess is an old story of a Navajo woman, presented to Sam by Becky, a lady he meets by chance in the tavern. The story of the Navajo priestess runs concurrently with this drama. The tale of the Navajo priestess is the crux or bridge of this story. The priestess of days gone by has fatalistic importance to this novel. She, the early priestess, was captured by Spanish soldiers; and she, White Sun, escaped and returned to her tribe. The elders had dismissed her. She had to go into the desert for days, and if she survived, she could rejoin her people. What happens to White Sun in her trial has bearing hundreds of years later to the fate of Sam and Becky and an American hero, Virginia, a Navajo descendant, who is instrumental in this drama concerning Sam, Becky, Justin, Connie, and Uncle Jack--ordinary Americans fighting to keep their farms.