We stopped. Put the car in park. We walked along the dusty road. The curtains in the old house across the field didn’t move. The prairie grass was dry. Around us was immense silence.
The clouds were the only hint at the rain coming from the North. The lone tracks split off the paved highway as we left the mesa and slanted horizons of plains country and steadily climbed into Flagstaff. The dust on the horizon laying like a veil over far away mountains and artifacts of geological upheaval. Summer was officially gone. The only warmth now was from the colors of the earth out here. Certainly this would be covered in snow, but for now I pictured the wild horse, the dark night, and the infinity at the end of the trail as the sun began to fall.
