Live From Joshua Tree is a spoken word event produced by Cheryl Montelle before a wonderful live audience at the Joshua Tree Retreat Center. This show is a fundraiser for Mil-Tree, an organization that works to bring the Joshua Tree community and local military members together through the arts.
This year’s event took place on January 25, 2025. It was a lot of fun.
I Was a Roadrunner Grandmother
My first year in the desert was a beautiful mirage: endless fall days with meteor shower nights, a gentle winter of psychedelic sunsets, and a wildflower spring straight out of an outdoor adventure catalog.
But in June, the mirage didn’t just vanish—as they’re supposed to do—it punched me in the face with 112 degrees when I opened my door one day—laughing at me while it dissipated.
Now I understood why half the restaurants in town were closed and why “See you in September!” was the new Post Office goodbye.
The bone-penetrating heat explained why every UPS driver or tradesperson had a half-full bottle of Gatorade rolling around in their truck. The orange flavor was particularly nasty—like a sticky trucker bomb sitting there on the passenger seat.
I figured this was some desert guy thing, but as the hot air sucked the electrolytes out of me like a rocketship re-entering the atmosphere, I realized Gatorade isn’t a beverage—it’s life support.
One scorching July afternoon—redundant, I know—I took my tiny bag of trash out to the giant Burrtec bin at the end of my driveway and I spotted a roadrunner—twerking. With its long, iridescent tail feathers, it had some fine junk in the trunk—and knew how to use it.
The audience for this birdie burlesque? A Mojave Green, stretched out on the ground, rattling, mesmerized.
This avian Jezebel worked its exaggerated “Hey sailor, buy a girl a drink?” slutting it up for the rattlesnake.
As the reptile lunged at the bird, a second—hidden—roadrunner grabbed the rattling tail in its beak.
Like a pair of Times Square pickpockets, these two had worked a con as old as crime itself.
This feathered Hulk Hogan slammed the snake side to side like a pro wrestler snarling, “I’m gonna W—W—F you up!”
When the wriggling stopped, the pair devoured the snake like Marines at an all-you-can-eat buffet.
Rather than being grossed-out by this live Nature documentary, I was impressed.
CrossFit battling ropes—with snakes—wasn’t featured in those old Warner Brothers cartoons. Wile E. Coyote’s roadrunner nemesis pretty much just said “meep meep” and ran away. Now I understood that these cute little birds were actually vicious predators.
But they were friendly vicious predators.
This duo took up residence at my place, sleeping on the fence in my garden shed. They became my buddies—like pets you don’t have to feed or take to the vet.
Seasons came and went, and so did the roadrunners.
Then, one spring, I noticed them flying in and out of the big yucca outside my bedroom window.
They had a nest!
I don’t feed wildlife, but a desert friend assured me it was okay to run a short-term WIC program for the babies. So, for about a week, I put out scrambled eggs to supplement their yummy lizard diet.
Not to anthropomorphize wild animals or anything, but as I delivered these plates to the base of the tree, I was happy to be a roadrunner grandmother!
When they were old enough to leave the nest, the parents brought their fuzzy-headed, wide-eyed little ones to my sliding glass door to say hello. I fell in love immediately.
The kids stayed behind when their parents moved on.
One was chatty and followed me everywhere. The other was quiet and watched me at my desk from the windowsill.
The friendly one slept on the fence, where its parents had. But unlike the previous generation, this kid was in bed by sunset and slept late—just like a teenager.
This “garden shed”—really two walls and a corrugated plastic roof—had become the favorite mourning dove nesting spot.
The male dove picks the location for the nest and flaunts his real estate holdings in the courtship ritual.
Like, “Hey girl… I own Pioneertown.”
Tragically, something was killing the nesting doves at night.
This horny wannabe dad distastefully reused the nest after each murder, ultimately luring three brides to their doom. Each time, two abandoned eggs and a pile of feathers were left behind.
By dead wife number three, Romeo got the message and moved the next lady elsewhere.
I suspected my roadrunner grandkids, but an old-timer said: “Nope. Cat.”
My security cameras once picked up a young mountain lion on my porch at 3 am, so a cat was possible.
When I found a pile of roadrunner feathers in the same spot, the grandkids were exonerated, but… uh oh.
The crumpled roll of chicken wire below the roadrunner’s sleeping corner indicated something sizable had attacked. The footprints on the dusty work table were definitely cat.
Big cat.
I hoped it was just a scuffle and that my buddy got away—minus a few feathers but otherwise fine. After witnessing what tough motherfuckers roadrunners are, I figured the cat got more than it had bargained for—a classic case of “you oughta see the other guy.”
I told myself the roadrunner was likely spooked and hiding out, but would be back soon, following me around the yard, critiquing my gardening as usual.
Then, one evening, I found its stiff little body beneath the salt cedar tree—its weird prehistoric feet pointing heavenward.
At the time, I was on the phone with a friend, talking about another friend who’d died. As I dug a hole—by headlamp in the hot, windless night—grief welled up.
The exquisite tail feathers were too long to fit into the hole—and too beautiful to bury—so I broke them off and stuck them in the ground as a grave marker.
Later, I had a big cry for the first time in years—salty trails dried on the lenses of my glasses. Digging the roadrunner’s grave dredged up long-buried sadness, a stark reminder of our inevitable mortality.
Two days later, I was in the kitchen when I heard the familiar chirp of a roadrunner at the sliding glass door. The quiet sibling was looking in at me. Once it was sure I was watching, it walked across the yard to the grave. It chirped again, knocked the feathers over, looked at me, and walked away.
Let me tell you, you’ve never been called an asshole until a wild animal calls you an asshole.
I picked up the feathers and stowed them away.
A week later, I heard a mournful wail, like heartbreak itself, brought to life through sound. The scream stopped when I went outside, but resumed as I turned to go back into the house.
High in the treetop, the surviving roadrunner cried—a haunting song I’d never heard before and I hope to never hear again. As a cuckoo, roadrunners have a wide vocal range, which apparently includes horror movie sound effects.
“I didn’t do it,” I yelled up to the bird, feeling accused. “I miss him, too.” The bird fell silent, dropped from the tree and ran off.
Over time, I seem to have been forgiven for a crime I did not commit. Just as I’ve forgiven my own grandmother for the actual crime of giving me a pile of her best jewelry, then repossessing it when I went out for a bike ride. But that’s a story for another time.
The surviving roadrunner grandchild still visits the Yucca where it was born. I saw it just the other day. It still keeps its distance when it visits, but then, it was always more reserved than its gregarious sibling—who I’m sure we both still miss very much.
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