Warm sweat slid through the damp hair plastered to her cheeks and drizzled down the valley between her breasts. She sopped the moisture from her shoulders and throat with the crumpled white shirtwaist she'd ripped in half at lunch. Her tired gaze lifted to the immense, twisting river of rock-hard black lava laid out before her. Here and there, clumps of hardy green grass grew in the cracks and crevices, but otherwise, the land between these sand-hued mesas was desolate and dead. Only Esteban and Diego remembered this place. They had forged a path through the wasteland and found water along the way. And from the grave, they'd pointed the way. "Look!" Larence said suddenly. Emma squinted into the brilliant yellow sunlight. The cracked, lifeless landscape shimmied before her eyes, waved like a length of black silk in a light breeze. On her right the huge mesa called Cebollita weaved side to side.
