They took the long way from Taos down to Albuquerque, back roads the whole trip. She felt high, though neither of them had anything. The sky was so much bigger here than back east, and you just can’t explain that to anyone who hasn’t ever seen it.

Las Vegas was empty, except for stray dogs wandering the dusty streets. They got out and walked around. The church in town looked like all the other low adobe buildings, except for the stained glass. Through the window, they saw a crowd of people kneeling down to God. They got out fast.

Later as the sun was going down, they stopped at a place selling bones on the side of the road. Cow skulls, rams’ heads, beaver skeletons. They were in big piles spread out on wooden tables and all over the ground. Chickens ran around in and out of coops. There was a beat up house trailer in the middle of all this that she took it they lived in. She eyed a huge buffalo skull with horns intact, put out of her head how it got there, and asked the one guy about it. We ship anywhere! She asked, how much to New York? He balked, Oh no! Nowhere east of the Mississippi! She bought a pair of buffalo jawbones, smooth with shiny teeth intact. Back to being a little girl running through wooden silage troughs in the barnyard. Looking for the occasional cow’s tooth knocked loose with furious chewing.

They couldn’t find a motel until they were almost to Albuquerque. They were just too tired to drive anymore. It was four in the morning. Only truckers around. She knew as soon as she lay down, she wouldn’t be able to sleep. That’s the way she always was. Too tired to sleep. The window in their motel room had a hole in it. Several cracks spread outward like a spider web around it. Just like when a stone flies up and hits your windshield. She didn’t sleep. Just stared at that hole in the glass. It was an opening.