Desert Night Ride
I stood beside the highway watching the hot sun go down beyond the hot horizon of central New Mexico. The road stretched westward after the sun, but they had both left me behind. The day’s rides had been good till I landed here.
I turned and looked eastward. The highway was gray and empty. Well, so was my future, unless I saw the keilin again.
Anyhow, I would see less traffic now that Labor Day was past. At the moment, I was alone for as far as I could see in any direction. The vacationers had gone home. The Chinese unicorn I had been following had been trotting west down I-40 the last time I’d seen it, and all I could do was keep thumbing rides after it.
I looked around. The desert here was a hard-packed tan powder on the other side of the culvert, beyond a barbed-wi
