Solange Roberdeau

There was something beautiful about a ghost town with the name of a cat, chalked out across hills like a back’s slow arching into such a blue blanket. We had thought we would avoid the “ghost town” attractions in death valley, gravitating instead to the burnt-out campsites with charred VW buses slumped in snaking ravines, where the real ghosts were tangible. I had read about the miners and the towns that they had inhabited until almost all at once the silver was gone and entire communities up and left. I think their ghosts left with them. Stop the car for a sec. I got out and looked up into the hills that rose in languid hues – like a palette from a painter who had mixed her colors by the taste of this place – and took a picture. Some cat, some blanket and so many shades of dust. It is a palette I would like to remember.