Walter Stump

Throughout deserts of the world there are special places on or near a water source where a
traveler may safely rest, meditate and reflect. Desert people call them Oases. There have been many important transactions and battles which have occurred at these places in the sun. Many of these incidents were emblematic, symptomatic or even a microcosm of what has transpired in our nation representing mega changes in the way we think as a people. Even today, there are significant events occurring in Oases.

Josh Covington, former professor and cave explorer, sought to renew his acquaintance with Alice Cambridge who had been his first love. He invited Alice and her lovely daughter Susanne, to spend a week at the Inn located at the initial entrance to the caverns. Josh plans are throated with the early arrival of his friend Michael Gaskill, a famous of theatrical director, and other guests. Among the new additions is Rodney Schmidt, politically correct friend of Susanne’s’, a new age scholar having just completed a book called THE RISE OF THE WO-PERSON. The stage is set for a clash between the old and new value systems. Josh learns that values in the modern age will never be the same no matter how much we want them to be.

Mark O’Bryan, the President of the United States, has returned to a child hood haunt, the Oases of Cave Springs, to await the results of an investigation by the House Congressional Ethics Committee. He is joined by long- time friend and advisor Clarence Ord and his niece Prudence MacIntosh. The President is charged with sexual misconduct by having a prostitute in the Lincoln Bedroom. A cub reporter accidentally saw the President slip into the bedroom and reported the incident speculating the President was in the bedroom with either an intern or a call-girl. The situation is further complicated by the arrival of the chairman of the Ethics Committee, Congresswoman Lesley Daniels who was sent by the committee to get answers. The situation turns dire by the arrival of a desert thunder storm which traps Leslie at the oasis. The rights of the press and the privacy of elected officials and the right of the President to have a personal life are resolved when Leslie and Marc discover that they are in love.

Hanna and Adrian are both highly successful individuals in their own rights. Hannah is CEO of Hannah of London a worldwide cosmetic firm, and Adrian is a renowned cosmetic surgeon located in New York. Through a chain of circumstances they both return Shoshone Valley where they had once been raised. Adrian, to examine a homestead site left to him by a miner and Hannah, returning to a World War II icon, Cactus Charlie’s Saloon, by her son Bo and his wife. They had refurbished the saloon so it would remain a symbol of the workers and people who came so diligently to Shoshoe to participate in the war effort. Learning of the death of one the early prospectors, Hannah decided to check on his grave. Adrian and Hannah set out separately for the oases of Anasazi Canyon. Their unexpected meeting in the middle of the desert produces an unexpected union. They both discover that fame and success are not necessarily gauges of happiness.