They both shared desert characteristics, both shared the dry, clean air that Thomas had so forgotten about in humid Boston, but they were different pages from the same book. For one thing, Thomas had never seen saguaro cactus before. They were a species unknown to West Texas, and, indeed, he was told, by a crusty Negro miner named Coleman he had shared last leg of his interminable train trip into Tucson on the Southern Pacific Railroad with, unknown to the rest of the world. Saguaro climbed up hillsides in ranks, stood like sentries at the sides of roads, and indeed seemed to grow wherever they wished in the arid climate of Tucson. The mountains, too, were different here. The Fort Davis area had been dominated by two ranges, the Eagle and Davis mountains, small chains that lay like dropped strings upon a table. Tucson itself lay at the curling bowl of a low mountain, and the area immediately surrounding was dotted by small peaks; it wasn't until one rode thirty to forty miles of flat territory through Indian reservation land that the real mountains began.
