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leaned away so that her frail hand fell to the seat, then he looked back out the window again.
    They reached an approach that led into the sandhills. The sergeant turned the car onto an old trail and asked, "Do you see tracks?"
    Robert gripped the edge of the seat to keep from sliding down when they hit a bump. He saw two lines in the sand. Fresh tire tracks.
    The sergeant turned down the approach and followed the trail. Soon the grass became sparse and the bushes short and leafless, as though they didn't want to get too close to the sun. The wind had torn open the tops of the hills, exposing sand. It reminded Robert of Moses and the pharaoh and how God had turned Moses's staff into a snake. First the plague of locusts. Then the frogs. Then the wrath of God. That was the order in the Bible. Next the flood. But here, under the wide blue skies, the wind was the flood. Everyone drowned in it.
    He thought of Matthew alone on that road, the wind swirling around, lifting him into the air, taking him away. It felt like that was what had happened.
    The road lost definition, but they could still make out the tire tracks, obscured slightly by drifting sand. The sergeant inched the vehicle ahead.
    Robert wondered if the sand would continue to spread like the ice once had thousands of years ago, slowly taking over the soil. A sand age. Or like the way the cancer had spread through the old milk cow's eye and into her brain.
    Suddenly, the car stopped.
    The sergeant craned his neck and squinted. "Hmmm. The tracks end, just like that." He used the steering wheel to pull himself up and get closer to the windshield.
    "To the right, go ... go there," a voice said. Robert gawked around for the source, but then noticed everyone was looking at him. Had he said it?
    "What was that?" the sergeant asked.
    Robert kept his mouth shut.
    The sergeant's eyes were gentle again. He clunked the car into gear and steered right. Moments later he found the tracks again, which ran between two low hills.
    Robert swallowed. His stomach churned, as if there were worms wriggling through it. Was this apprehension again? He saw a brown, ancient truck. Sun glinted off the chrome, blinding him. A shadow moved beside it, then the truck vanished.
    His head ached, knowing somehow, in his gut, that he'd seen the past. Matthew's past.
    A semicircular ridge of hills provided little protection from the wind. The tracks ended again and the sergeant stopped the car. He lifted his hat, rubbed at his bristly hair.
    "Mr. Steelgate, please come with me," the sergeant said as he got out, the door squeaking in protest. Robert's dad pushed open his own door, sand grinding in its hinges. The wind whistled in, playing a soft note. Then they shoved the doors closed, silencing the song.
    His mother moaned and rocked herself back and forth, her lips slightly parted, her eyes dull.
    "Nooohhh."
    He grasped her hand and she closed her eyes, lowered her voice, and began humming a soft hymn. He recognized it from church.
    The sergeant and his dad crept into the gully. Ramsden examined an object on the ground. Tire tracks? Robert pulled himself up higher, keeping one hand on his mother. No, it was a red clay jar about six inches high. It looked broken.
    He felt the need to touch it. He let go of his mom and yanked on the door handle.
    "Noooohhh," she moaned louder.
    He swallowed and quietly said, "Sorry, I have to go." He pushed open the door and a squadron of grasshoppers leaped away. They were here too, even though the grass was mostly dead. Their dark eyes were so much larger than the rest of their heads, like little black pearls. They hopped skyward as he walked.
    His mother's moaning grew softer with each step. The object was indeed a broken jar. There was a dried orange residue on the inside. The jar looked as though it had come out of a pharaoh's tomb, with images on the side that seemed like drawings and writing at the same time. Hieroglyphs—he'd read about them in a book lent to him by