Desert Farewell Gift

In 2015, on our last night in Dos Cabezas, we went for an evening drive east toward Chiricahua. We had to make our way slowly and carefully down the driveway, because the yard was absolutely full of cows and calves, more than had ever before visited us at once. It was as if the cattle had come to bid us farewell, performing the rite on behalf of the spirits of the ghost town, and we were properly grateful.

This year, on the last morning before our day of departure, I looked down in the wash behind the cabin and saw, finally, a group of mule deer. I've been wanting to see mule deer for a long time, and here they were, practically at our doorstep, grazing on scanty ground vegetation and reaching up for tender new leaves of netleaf hackberry, guarded over by the mountain to our north.

Nothing could have pleased me more than to make the acquaintance at last of these black-tailed wild neighbors with their enormous ears. Once again, the ghost town has come through with a perfect, unexpected moment.