Plain opened out of plain in endless rotation, rings of sun-scorched
earth brushed up about the horizon in a low ridge like the raised rim on
a plate. In the distance the thin skein of a water course drew an
intricate pattern that made them think of the thread of slime left by a
wandering snail. In depressions where the soil was webbed with cracks, a
livid scurf broke out as if the face of the earth were scarred with the
traces of inextinguishable foulness. An even subdual of tint marked it
all. White had been mixed on the palette whence the colors were drawn.
The sky was opaque with it; it had thickened the red-browns and yellows
to ocher and pale shades of putty. Nothing moved and there were no
sounds, only the wheeling sun changed the course of the shadows. In the
morning they slanted from the hills behind, eagerly stretching after the
train, straining to overtake and hold it, a living plaything in this
abandoned land. At midday a blot of black lay at the root of every sage
brush. At evening each filigreed ridge, each solitary cone rising
detached in the sealike circle of its loneliness, showed a slant of
amethyst at its base, growing longer and finer, tapering prodigiously,
and turning purple as the earth turned orange.
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