The Epic Of Battle Mountain

We are gunning across Nevada, cruising at a hundred miles an hour on a thin grey river of asphalt. With the sun behind us and the plains ahead of us we are awash in gold. It soaks into our skin and gleams off our smiles. And it is at this point, were everything is beautiful and nothing hurts, that we see the sign: white letters on green metal, it says simply: Battle Mountain, 12 miles.

Well that sounds cool.

As we head over a small hill the freeway stretches out in front of us and in the distance, the sky darkens. Clouds have gathered, blotting out the sky like a jar of spilled ink, and their shadows form a rapidly approaching jagged line that rips the earth into light and dark. On the sides of the road are skulking black things, the frayed remains of tires, arranged like the skulls of dead foes. Go back, they say. Go back or join us.

Suddenly, lightning. There's a flash, and then a white chain strings itself across the sky. It's arc is parabolic: does it remember what ground is? As if in answer, another jolt of lightning slams into the earth, then another. Pillars of energy light our way in the now black landscape, soundless in the confines our car.

Traffic slows down, slightly, and our neighbors crowd in. Though we drive two ton metal monsters some deep part of our brain whispers that there is safety in numbers. And then, the rain. It's scattered and sparse, but unfelt winds drive it into the windows like a jack hammer. TAP TAP TAP it screams, trying to get inside, and soon it is pouring, smashing into us in side sweeping sheets, a windborne torrent. The whispers are defeated and futile; it feels like driving underwater.

Meanwhile the slope steepens. Mountains seem to rise around us, primal and raw from the earth, the howling winds their birth screams. Behind us the sun shine a furious crimson from a gap in the dark clouds. And in front of us, shrouded in winds and rain, wreathed in lightning, and burning red from the gaze of an angry god, looms Battle Mountain.

It is the most metal thing I've ever fucking seen.