Not much is white

The distant blue wedge of the Apache Mountains is too far away to shelter a god-forsaken road, connecting what a tornado left behind in Saragosa and what Interstate commerce abandoned in Pecos. Out here, not much is white – still-standing whitewashed walls of a roofless house, blanched bones. Or crosses.

Planted in a mound of reddish sand, the back one stands on a flimsy wire tripod, a misdirected funeral offering. In front, on a more elaborate marker, new, red-white-blue flowers hide names, dates.

And this: a Christmas wreath hanging backward and a litter of tiny stuffed animals, road-dirty and gritty from wind-powered sand.

State Highway 17
Reeves County, Texas