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When we left the interstate in Baker to buy gas at a Shell station—incidently owned and operated by a man called Failing Heron—no thoughts occurred except for a feeling that the consequences of my life would be splendid, often raw with an obvious flippancy of divine excellence, and occasionally impaired to the point of having no consequence in my search for a daily contentment. It was not something to think about. I was more engrossed with being two blocks away from the turn-off to Death Valley, and in trying to imagine the ambiance of that highway known as the 127. But the real issue, the pressing cause or motive, was what we suspected we desired—that internal allurement which would inevitably lead us on.

I took it for granted that we were a different sort of pilgrim. Obviously not Conestoga, yet exactly what sort I took for granted we weren't to know—surmise, maybe. It was winter and the desert was all the more beautiful, seeming confused in its own seasons.

Two hours later I was feeling more fragile than I normally do. Sitting in the back seat of a patrol car, unable to realize a comfortable position, I was thinking about deadlines and the little bag of buds we got busted with. On the outskirts of Victorville, a river and aqueduct nearby, taunted by the arms of Joshua trees in the landscape we were suddenly cast as partners in crime—as if somewhere or someplace we had somehow tripped that invisible line.

But I found a way, an open space—my charge and protectorate—sentimental fool that I am. What kind of women could inhabit the jails around here. What could they do and be so deserving. What astral strangeness could be so elemental in their fate? I, of course, would much rather face the men—even for a few timid hours. Unequivocally, separation was at hand.

So I felt the need to look at you, and caught a relaxed profile with your back against the seat—glassy-eyed, a soft blush of rouge defining the bone beneath your cheek. How beautiful you were.

And the San Bernardino Mountains.