The sun slunk over the horizon, blood-orange and violet flame, flooding the sandstone formations with morning majesty. Wind whispered across the still-grey canyon floor, rustling through dead grasses, around cactus silhouettes.
Jake never tired of the desert sunrise—O’Keeffe, come to life.
It’s gonna get so hot, though.
“Yeah, but it’s a dry heat,” said the cow skull, in a slow, Texas twang. It stared at Jake with its bleached eye sockets, half-buried in the sand. Jake laughed hoarsely, through cracked lips. “Good one,” he croaked.
Chucking his empty canteen, he left the weathered sentinel to trudge east this time.
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alt="Harbinger of Death by Jonathan L. Tolstedt"
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alt="Famine Man by Deborah Tapper"
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alt="The Price of Belief by Andreas Flögel"
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alt="The Abhartach's Thirst by Andrew Kurtz"
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