Lucien Bradley pushed his toe into the path of one of the large beetles and watched it stand on its head. He glanced up at the shriek of a chat-little and noticed the pink in the sky. Although it didn’t show promise of rain, he walked up to the high ground near his truck to settle in for the night. He remembered how quickly desert floods could occur, how his father would not drive across a dip in the road if there was water standing in its trough. The chill of evening was already upon him, pushing his shoulders tight into his body and his palms flat together. He built a fire, ate a sandwich that he had bought some miles back outside of Las Cruces, and then rolled out his sleeping bag. He warmed his hands before the flame one last time and arranged sticks by the fire before slipping into his sleeping bag. Lying under the moon he noticed a saguaro cactus standing beyond the glow of his fire. He tried to recall the last time he had been able to sleep in the desert. The desert he and his father had shared was not like this one.
