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Twenty-seven hoodoos stood like proud, twisted sentries on the Chastain's patch of bentonite and salt crust. They huddled in stiff clusters, odd, rounded and tall as an oil derrick, sandstone sculpted by moving sand. Once part of the ocean bottom, crumbled shell and bone, sand hardened, grew tree ferns, pterodactyls, jackrabbits. Then, as if the cycle would go on and on (though Marlene knew it wouldn't, not at the rate men were going) the sandstone crumbled, lying in wait for the swift fingers of the hoodoo artist to dance it against harder stone every night.
Difficult as it was, Marlene Chastain swept the sand off the pickup seat every morning that summer and went into the trucking company. Phones still had to be answered, bills of lading filled out, logs checked, gas paid. Grimy with age, greasy with use, the office could have used a cleansing sand-blast itself. Her brother raced stock cars, she was used to the grease, the dirty hands of everyone who worked there, the nails and creases that would never come clean. Used to it, yes, but not devoted. The boss thought she was devoted. Called her the cog of the place, the hub. Said they couldn't function without her. Maybe he saw the weariness in her eyes, the dry flaking skin of her hands after hanging out laundry to dry on the line. Maybe he thought Bob leaving her would give her itchy feet. But she was born here. She had no choice.
The June days stretched late into swallow-filled twilight. Marlene took the clothes off the line, towels that stood at attention. The water in the well was full of minerals. The air was full of distant smells of pine and river muck, from so far away she couldn't imagine them as she turned her face, shut her eyes, sighed.
She took to wandering and came upon the sod house unexpectedly. Marlene had never hiked in this part of the property, wasn't even sure she was still on their land. She still thought of it as hers and Bob's though Bob had freely given her his share and never looked back. Worthless, he called it. Who assigned worth anyway? Wasn't any land worthless to someone who didn't want it? Land just a piece of earth, no more, no less. No matter what it meant to you, you meant nothing to the land.
The sod house, half buried in sand below a shallow ledge of shale, lay inside the tall sage. Dried cow patties hid under the ledge. In its best years this land grew marginal clumps of native grass. Now, in a year of drought, the grass grew scrawny and brown, chewed to its roots. The antelope would throw themselves in front of the freight trains that whistled through on late winter nights.
The bottom half of the soddie was log, cottonwoods quartered lengthwise, split and rotten, soft wood chewed by beetles and deer, chinking carried off in dusty crumbles. Working on the sand drift with a hiking boot, she uncovered more logs, four deep on the outside. Above them the sod had been cut and laid in wide strips. It had weathered badly; sections were gone, others fallen in.
She moved around it, measuring it with her eyes: eight by ten, big enough for a man to sleep on one end, have a small kit of food and tin cup and water bucket on the other. She'd seen pictures of families living in tiny sod houses on the prairie. But this was was desert. Bob had wanted a family but the children hadn't come. Like the man in the soddie seasons ago, she slept on her pallet alone.
The back of the sod house stood tight against the shale ledge so she backtracked around the front again, pausing by the door. Sand drifting in the door had saved a scrap of weathered trim. Daylight came through the roof in blue-gray streaks. Satisfied the only odor was mouse, she stepped over the sand pile through the door.
A hush from the bird songs and faraway whisper of air rushing through the dry canyons. The sod insulated, keeping the soddie cool. And almost sound-proof: a danger on the frontier, to not hear the approach of bears or coyotes or strangers. She rubbed the goose bumps on her arms and kicked out one foot to ward off mice. Her eyes adjusted. One end of the soddie disappeared into shadow.
She took another step forward and made out the form. The eyes and one hand were gone; a sleeve hung empty. The skin was leathery and shrunken in the dry, desert air, the mouth drawn back to reveal a set of white teeth. Must have had a sour taste to the vultures, she thought. Marlene had seen desiccated birds in the desert, dried and mummified. How long had this person laid here? The clothes were tattered, dirty, a plaid flannel shirt, khaki pants. A man? He wasn't tall, no taller than Marlene.
She stepped closer. Longish hair, dull, graying. A necklace, gold still flashing around the neck, with a dark stone in prongs, a birthstone. Odd to wear a birthstone on the day you die, but somehow right. Had she been sick? There were no obvious wounds. Marlene pulled the shirt down carefully. Yes, a woman. There was no smell and the awful face lost its shock. The horrible grin, eyeless sockets. Marlene found herself strangely fascinated. The stillness, the peace. At last she tore her vision away, looked for cups, books, personal items. There were none. It was dark when she got home and reported her find to the sheriff.
The hoodoo artist came for a long visit that night, finding the loose shingles on the roof, moaning down the chimney, rattling garbage cans. Marlene lay awake, listening, wondering what new sculpture would emerge out of dull hard stone. She wanted the hoodoo artist to sculpt her too, to pummel her with grit until her core was revealed. The death mask came to her in flashes in the dark and she let the swift air snatch it away.
