Taurus symbol with watercolour splash on forearm

The man at the Coyote Wells fuel stop says the road ahead floods once a year and this is the year, so I am writing this on the bonnet of the Corolla while I wait for the water to drop. Your letter came with me in the glovebox, folded so many times the creases have gone soft as cloth. Yes, I still have the blue enamel bowl. No, I am not coming back for it.

Yesterday I passed a bull standing alone at the edge of a dry wash, a big brown beast with one horn chipped short, staring at the road as if it had been waiting a long while for someone to explain the rules. I stopped the car. We looked at each other for some time. Then the sky over the mesa turned the colour of a bruise going off, lilac first, then a green-blue I have no proper word for, and the first fat drops hit the windscreen like someone flicking paint off a brush.

The bull walked down into the wash without hurrying, its hooves kicking up a little cloud of red that the rain pressed flat before it could rise. I sat with the wipers going and watched the dust turn to mud and the mud turn to a sheen of pink and yellow spreading out across the cracked ground. Nobody told me the desert kept its colours folded away until it was wet enough to show them.

The water is up to the wheel arches now, so I will post this from Tenaya if the bridge holds. Come in spring, Joan. Bring the bowl. I want to see what you put in it when the road is dry.