El Camino del Diablo runs across the driest corner of the Sonoran Desert, and for centuries the only reliable water on it was Tinajas Altas — a stack of natural rock basins in a granite ravine, filled by the rare rain and holding it in the shade. Everybody who crossed depended on those tanks: O’odham, Spanish soldiers, Forty-Niners headed for California gold, surveyors, smugglers, and today migrants and the Border Patrol. The authors bring archaeology, hydrology, and the historical record together on one small place, count how much water it actually holds and how often, and read the graves below it.
Last Water on the Devil’s Highway