Fine line sprig on a forearm

The bus dropped me at the crossroads outside Tonopah at half past five, which is the only time of day this road looks like it means well. I've been walking since. The asphalt gives way to packed grit about ten miles back, and somewhere past the cattle guard the fence posts stopped having wire on them, as if whoever strung them ran out of heart.

There is one thing growing out here I haven't been able to stop looking at. A sprig of something feathery, grey-green in the low light, bent over the shoulder of the road where the runoff gathers. Mum would have known its name straight off. I only know that it holds its shape when everything else has given up, and that the stem is thin as a hair and stubborn as a nail.

I took a cutting of it this morning, wrapped it in my spare vest and tucked it against my wrist where the pulse is. It is absurd, I know. A bit of scrub with no roots to speak of. But you always said I'd never get anywhere carrying nothing, and I finally agree with you.

If the petrol station at Goldfield still has its sign lit, I'll be there by dusk. If it doesn't, I'll keep going to the place where the road bends and the pines start, the ones that have been on the postcard you sent me since you left. I want to see whether that sprig and those trees are kin.

Don't wait up. Just leave the porch light on, and I'll find it.

Lou