HUMOR

The two women climb to the Ninth Street manhole cover... Terrified voices speed down the storm below her, becoming more distant... Finally the cries are gone. Water gulps and slaps below the manhole chute. It seals them in.

manhole chute. It seals them in.

Celebrated environmental writer Craig Childs submerges you in the sudden tumult of desert flash floods. See how a desert's peace turns into instant terror, and meet those the survivors and the lost-who faced this violence. As Childs writes: "The water rose around us as we swam ... the stream picked up speed, turning dark, shoving at us."

"If the Colorado River itself were to flood, it would rise slowly from mountain snowmelt.... If Havasu Canyon floods, there will be a compressed maelstrom bursting into this corridor like an angry giant unleashed, pounding from wall to wall."

"No one plans on dying this way, so suddenly. They run, but downcanyon holds no escape for them. . . . The water is rising."

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152 pages. 6" x 7½", softcover, black and white illustrations. #AFDS2 $14.95 ISBN 1-893860-64-7

getaway W SEEKING an Elusive Lily, Touring the Town Attic and Visiting the Plaza in BEAUTIFUL DOWNTOWN AJO

MANY PEOPLE THINK OF THE OLD MINING community of Ajo in southern Arizona as a convenient place to fill up the gas tank and ice chest for a trip to Mexico. I wanted to dig into the town's history and see its namesake wildflower, the Ajo lily.

The finicky flower, as independent as the pioneers who first started digging for copper here, reaches its peak bloom in April-if the weather's not been too dry, or wet. Or too hot, or cool. Wildflower books show a white trumpet-shaped blossom atop a spindly stem, its thin rays of green leaves ruffling across the sandy soil of desert washes.

Despite persistent legend, Ajo was not named for the tasty bulb of the Ajo lily. O'odham Indians in the area used copper to make body paint. Aau'auho, their word for "paint," was transposed into Spanish as ajo, which means "garlic." The naming of the flower, whose bulb reportedly tastes more like onion than garlic, came later.

After a two-hour drive from Tucson, I see the smooth hills that surround the town of 3,500 people, today a destination for retirees and winter visitors. Past dark mounds of earth to the right of the road and stark white piles of mine tailings on the left lies a pretty little community. The soft hues and curves of Spanish-style architecture around downtown's tree-lined plaza and the colorful cottages in the historic area come as a surprise in the midst of the desert and mining rubble.

At the office of the Ajo Copper News, Kate Garmise, who as "Cactus Kate" authors a weekly column about the desert, agrees to meet me later to search for the lily and shows me a full-page portrait of the elusive flower on the front page of the newspaper.

"Where did you find this one?" I ask, expecting an exotic locale.

"In somebody's back yard," comes the disappointing answer.

Crossing the town plaza, I pick up a topo map and a scenic loop-drive map at the shop called Si Como No. Clothes, gifts, books and other temptations fill the store.

Later, on the porch of the homey Guest House Inn in the historic district, I bone up on