Quinn River Crossing, Nevada shook off the slights.
Rather than listen to the wind and the thrash of boughs, the thin rustle of leaves and punches landed by gusts, an unknown woman listened to the sky itself.
What she heard were echoes.
She fancied they were answers to questions asked by ancestors.
These answers had once been gathered into tiny bundles and swept aloft by determined dust devils.
They ascended in unison.
And because they were true, these answers to ancestors’ questions could fly up off the ground while falsehoods crashed back down.
The unknown woman heard the sky rattle with echoes of good and evil.
Across the horizon in Quinn River Crossing, Nevada, the echoes were hidden by clouds that stretched up to Riley, Oregon.
All the answers to ancestors’ questions were spirited off, splintered by rogue wind.
Some were blanched by the sun. Others crouched behind fogbanks.
