Comps: Moana in tone, and Rango in settings, though not a “typical” western.

Why this story now: The once great Colorado River is nearly dead. In 1905 land speculators built a make-shift canal to make the worthless desert land bloom. The river had other ideas. A 1000-year flood destroyed the canal and used its channel to flood the Salton Sink creating the Salton Sea. Newspapers said it was the fault of greedy speculators, but the real story is only known by desert rats and by some, like me, who have traveled, walked, rafted, and flown the canyons of the Colorado.

Desert Rat is about Duster, a young spring rat who lives by a vast white salt flat. He loves his family, friends and food. Mom tells a story of rain falling on the day of Duster’s birth that made his life possible. Then a snake takes his mom and brother. Duster escapes by hiding in the shell of Puck, an old desert tortoise. Longing for his lost life Duster invents a sail-craft from a roller skate, and pink bloomers, and sets ‘sail’ across the dry lakebed chasing a mirage. A dust-devil drops him and Puck at a black pipeline they believe to be the snake that drank all the water in Duster’s world. Duster is abducted by two ‘giants’ i.e. humans fixing a leak.

Duster awakes in a new world. He escapes his captors and falls off a cliff into the Colorado River. Lily, a river rat fishes him out of the ‘kiddie stream’. Duster explains he’s from a white desert, where the water was drunk-up by a giant black snake. Alarmed that this might happen to her world, Lily takes Duster to her huge family and grandfather, Chief of the Clan of the Turquoise Pools.

Duster tries to escape, but unwittingly passes the “Trial of Fire and Water.” Impressed, the Chief tasks Duster with the quest to destroy the great snake. Duster reluctantly agrees to go. Lily insists on going as ‘baby-sitter’.

After a hero’s send-off for Duster, Lily starts the trip by shoving Duster over a waterfall and into the Colorado river. On the river Lily shows Duster the sometimes fun, and sometimes dangerous life of a river rat. A near miss of a rifle shot reveals that the ‘giants’ who abducted him are also on the river.

Duster and Lily camp at the cave of the Spider Woman, weaver of clouds and prophecy. Duster is bitten. His vision-quest shows the destruction of stone pillars down river. The next day, while trying to stop the destruction, Duster causes the explosion that topples the stone pillars, flinging Duster and Lily into the main river, their raft destroyed.
Duster and Lily try to steal the boat of the ‘giants’. When the men return Lily and Duster stow away. They are discovered but escape in a flying pie tin. They are shot down. A duck saves them. The duck is a spirit guide who shows Lily that her family is about to drown in an epic flood. It shows Duster that his tortoise friend may soon die on the white desert. Duster must save his friend, and Lily must warn her family, but there’s only one Duck. Duster takes the duck and leaves Lily but reconsiders and turns around. A detour to see the Great Snake reveals it’s just a canal draining the river. It can be destroyed.

Duster flies back to get Lily but the duck is shot down by the ‘giants.’ Now they must leave the river for Duster’s world. Duster’s old nemesis, the rattle snake, who ate his mom and brother, catches their scent and pursues them.

Duster and Lily find a boulder perched atop a narrow neck of rock. It could be sent rolling down to block the canal. Just as the two leap onto a lever to dislodge the boulder the snake strikes and misses. The boulder rolls. Its capstone lands on the lever launching the two. The boulder falls short, but Duster and Lily land by a wagon with two sticks of dynamite. One stick is for a final push of the boulder. It fails. Duster grabs the other dynamite and lures the snake into a hole in the river’s earth-berm. Boom! Snake and Duster are gone, but the boulder remains.

Lily stands defeated as Duster, still alive, emerges from the water. They failed. The canal remains. Lily sings “The River Free.” Lily’s family arrives on rafts. The ‘giants’, arrive shooting.
Duster runs and plants the Chief’s metal-tipped staff on the shooter’s hat. Lightning takes him out. Duster is triumphant until a cataclysmic flood bursts from the canyon. Everyone boards their rafts. Duster is caught up in the deluge. He joins them as they are all swept into Duster’s White Desert, making it a water world where Duster, his friend Puck, and his enormous new family can forever enjoy days at the beach.