vacation (1)

14 SABINE HILDING
A JACK RABBIT SPED from under a golden blooming rabbitbrush. A beige,
half-buried horny toad moved just enough to show the little brown tips of its horny
horns. A collared lizard sat in the shadow of a boulder. A faintly rustling rattle
snake. Wild bees zipped between yellow sage flowers. A hawk sailed overhead.
High up and far away swirled some black buzzards. He counted fifteen. The breeze
carried a faint smell of carrion. “Something large and recently dead,” he breathed
the wind the way he had seen one of the graduate students of the group, and another
member of the expedition, sniff—quick, shallow inhalations.