From "Ghost Child Alana" a story within "Tips for Tailoring Spacetime Fabric" by Roger Bourke White Jr.

Humans have found many places on Earth that they can live and thrive.
The west desert of Utah is not one of them.

For thousands of years the sun has arched over that land of flat muddy soil, too alkaline for grass or cow, man, or horse.

But the west desert of Utah is between two places where humans thrive nicely: St. Joseph, Missouri, and Sacramento, California. So when the Pony Express businessmen of 1859 wanted the fastest route across the Untamed West, they chose to lay their route over that otherwise worthless chunk of land.

The Pony Express lasted only eighteen months … replaced by the telegraph. And the land was once more completely barren of humans for nearly a hundred years.

But memorials to the Pony Express were built along its route to keep people busy during the Great Depression, and a dirt road was built to connect the abandoned way stations so tourists could come see.

A few do … and this is the story of two of them.