Dinner was PB&J David smeared together using the hood of the ‘bru as a table at deepest dusk in Long Hollow. Long Hollow, an east-west passway through to the Alvord–the eastern, desert side of the Steens–in the narrow notch between Steens and Pueblo Mountains, takes all of the loneliness of the Alvord, all the vastness of the Catlow Valley, and channels between them. It is a haunting place.

We stood there and ate and bats flew near us. We heard: a horned owl hoot-hooing, distant coyotes lamenting.

Driving again, it took both of us the entirety of our efforts to scan the road. Wildlife, everywhere. Eyes glowing on the side of the road.

David drove over a stick in the road.

“Oh, crap! I think that was a snake!” he yelled, when the report of the wheels was soft rather than hard.

Half a mile on there was another stick in the road, so we stopped and backed up and pointed our headlights at it.

It was a sinuous, handsome snake, lethargic, absorbing the heat of the day out of the blacktop of the road. Slender, tawny, with complex black markings. We looked at it for a bit and then felt very bad about the snake we’d ended. Poor snake. It stuck with me.