Shovel and Shotgun

The winds are coming down off the Colorado Plateau in cool, sweeping gusts. Desert sand cyclones around the campfire, and the moon is a thumbnail in the west. We are surrounded by organ-pipe, giant saguaro, and cholla. The smell of sweet cactus blossom fills the midnight air. The lights of Sedona twinkle below us, down in Oak Creek Canyon. Loweman is digging a grave, four feet deep. He finishes, and looks up at me, tired and exasperated from my shouted instructions. Loweman throws the shovel up onto the desert sand, and starts to crawl out of the hole. I tell him to stop. He does.

I pour sand over the fire.

I aim the Mossburg 500 at his face.

Loweman: No, please don--

After: People appear from the shadows and do the rest, burying him, erasing him.


I Uber back to Los Angeles.