Snow on the mountains ahead of her. They weren’t great big mountains—nothing like the Rockies when you saw them from Denver—and didn’t look as if they ought to have snow so far down them. This was only a little north of the Mexican border, after all, and it was allegedly spring. No matter what the season, they had snow halfway down them. On the other half, streaked and patchy now but still there, lay the gray-brown of volcanic ash, a color she knew much too well and hated much too much. A red light on her dashboard flashed to life. Alarm flamed in her—flamed and then faded. This one was shaped like a gas pump, and warned her of nothing worse than that she was getting low. She already knew that. She’d been sending the fuel gauge baleful looks since well before she rolled through Las Cruces. Here came an offramp, with a truck stop by it. Vanessa pulled off I-10. She’d get gas for the car. And she’d buy some lunch.
