Littlefield

She is sitting back, old as time, a shotgun across her lap, her eyes as narrow as the barrel transversing her legs. She is shady on the porch. She is at rest. She leans back, some old Appalachian soul, regarding your approach. From her perch, on the incline of the hill, she can see you from a long way off.

Beyond this guard dog, a mountain pass, rising. God she is so suspicious of you. You feel every untoward impulse exposed and you are scrawny and shamed, driving in that mountain pass. Beyond a white spire, a canyon's cut in the red red rocks, a wonder curving through a mountain, mountains that look like a cup, holding you in, well below the rim. From her porch, you'd think it impenetrable.

The moon rose nine times tonight, over the variable horizon of red rock cliffs. We came into Utah, and I thanked God that for religious fundamentalism. It's helped keep the wreckage of us out of the state.