Evan

He pointed out a line of darker rock in the distance and said there was an old dwelling up there.

Anasazi stuff, he said, using the old word people still use even though it's not the right one.

He said sometimes you'd find pottery shards and arrowheads if you didn't know what you were looking at.

And he'd seen guys take them like souvenirs.

He said the elders didn't like that.

I didn't press.

You don't fix cultural history in a camp conversation.

Around 9.30 we heard coyotes.

That was normal.

They yipped in a loose chorus, then went quiet.

A few minutes later, the same chorus rose again, but it sounded closer.

Not closer in distance.

Closer in your ear.

Like someone had moved the sound from the horizon to the edge of the camp.

Wes stopped chewing.

He stared into the dark beyond the firelight, toward the wash.

I listened.

The yips cut off again, abrupt.

Then, from the same direction, we heard a single vocalization that I can only describe as a dog trying to imitate a person laughing.

It had the rhythm of laughter, the breathiness, but the pitch was wrong and the syllables didn't land right.