Day Three by Kristin Lennox

The sun slunk over the horizon, blood-orange and violet flame, flooding the sandstone formations with morning majesty. Wind whispered across the still-grey canyon floor, rustling through dead grasses, around cactus silhouettes.

Jake never tired of the desert sunrise—O’Keeffe, come to life.

It’s gonna get so hot, though.

“Yeah, but it’s a dry heat,” said the cow skull, in a slow, Texas twang. It stared at Jake with its bleached eye sockets, half-buried in the sand. Jake laughed hoarsely, through cracked lips. “Good one,” he croaked.

Chucking his empty canteen, he left the weathered sentinel to trudge east this time.