Burying Sheila Cassidy

Abstract

Chico awakens to the whirr of crow wings flapped once in a glide, black shadows circling on blacker gravel. Rising stiffly on one elbow, he turns to see Angelina’s shock of ebony hair, a brushstroke above her sleeping bag. A feeble warmth clings to the remains of the fire and cactus wrens are rummaging through the charred sticks and ashes, poking at hidden bugs. Cartoon-quick, a squirrel creeps down to the edge of the camp, only to twist around and scamper straight up the rocks to his hidden burrow. Everything is in its burrow. The floor of the desert broken by a thousand holes: the size of an acorn, the size of a fist, the size of a football. On the surface nothing stirs. But delicate prints reveal the business of the night, a restless traffic of cats crisscrossing every open space.