Reserve, New Mexico is where the volcanoes are so well-mannered they erupt only once.
She was an out of work geologist.
She grasped both the science and the mystery of those volcanoes. She appreciated the formations, what the textbooks referred to as monogenetic volcanic fields.
She poked around Catron County looking for steam seeping up out of the land, where maybe some of her wounds could heal. She found the places where Apaches used to heal in the steam of Burning Mountain. Then they would dance, their eyes rolling and their limbs locked into the sway of their gods.
They played flutes carved from river cane and they danced all through the night until the sun crept over the Tularosa Mountains.
Aside from matters of the heart, she considered herself fearless and formidable. Nothing about what she found in Reserve, New Mexico upset her. Nothing about the town came up short. She could sit still or drive around or hike through the mountains.
She liked the San Agustin Basin best, gazing into the gleam of the Tularosa Mountains. Sitting by the banana yucca watching red tailed hawks circle in the sky. Letting the soft breeze sweep off life’s grime.
Corporate politics had fried her to a crisp. They told her she was mistaken when she pointed out the inflated size of natural gas reserves recorded on quarterly reports.
Right after they paid her off with a paltry sum and made her sign a non-disclosure she met with an attorney. The attorney, a regal woman of defiance and grace, told her to lie low for sixty days.
South of Reserve, New Mexico she stumbled on a well-preserved ghost town. In Alma, New Mexico she learned Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid’s Wild Bunch gang worked for a while at the WS Ranch.
The ranch foreman loved the gang. There wasn’t a rustler in New Mexico who would consider hitting the WS while the gang was there.
Then her attorney called and told her to grab the next flight back to Houston.
