Paradise of Outlaws
"[Phoenix] was no longer the legendary city of 1849--a city of banditti, assassins, and incendiaries, who had flocked hither in crowds in pursuit of plunder; a paradise of outlaws, where they gambled with gold-dust, a revolver in one hand and a bowie-knife in the other: it was now a great commercial emporium."
Sometimes people say the west is no longer wild. Road, rail, barbed wired, these innovations conquered the west in short order, paving the way for the sprawling metropolis here today. Canals were dug to turn the hard scrabble desert town into a lush oasis, well known for its golf venues. Those people don't get out much. Maybe they haven't crawled across desert sand after the water ran out hours ago, counting the chances, as their mouth became uncomfortably, then painfully dry. Or maybe they haven't turned the corner in a steep sided canyon only to hear the faint sounds of floodwaters crashing towards them. Or maybe they never climbed a mountain only to find, near the summit, a doorway, slightly ajar, just begging you to step into the fathomless inky black tunnels beyond. Maybe they never heard the siren's call of lost gold from just beyond the peaks of impenetrable mountain ranges. But when I drove into Phoenix for the first time, I did hear that call and it drove me to explore this place at every opportunity. At night when I climbed in the city's mountain parks and saw the lights of Phoenix's much maligned sprawl stretched in every direction, nearly as far as the eye could see, I felt a wild hum fill the air. Out there were still the crowds of banditti, assassins, and incendiaries, and Team Crowbar had found a place among them in the paradise of outlaws.
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