On the Right Side of a Dream Read Online Free PDF Page B

fide, real, genuine living cactus. Probably a hundred years old or more, which means it’s one of the few things older than Millie Tilson.” She grinned at her joke. “It’s a Saguaro. Pretty neat, huh?”
    “Neat” was an all right word but it wasn’t enough to describe the cactus. Not nearly enough. There were hundreds of them, all different, something you had to see up close, not ten feet up in the truck cab. When Peaches stopped for gas, I got out to get a better look. There were skinny ones with spidery branches and short fat stubby ones. Some of them looked like little cabbage heads with spikes and others were small and delicate with tiny orange and gold flowers that were too delicate for such a spiky, sharp, little plant. There was also a spindly one with thin branches and lots of spikes. Sometimes, it looked as if it had . . . well, as if it had
moved.
Or, maybe I’d been in the heat too long and was seeing things. When I mentioned this to Peaches, though, she didn’t seem surprised.
    “Jumping cholla,” she said, matter-of-factly. “Folklore says that the plants
can
move but I wouldn’t put much in that.”
    I hopped away just in case. Didn’t want any souvenirs in my butt.
    And then, of course, there were the Saguaro, fifty feet tall. Old and majestic with arms raised toward a sun that always shines. I studied each one as we flew by, trying to keep the images branded on my brain. I wondered what dramas these strange giants had seen in their two-hundred-year life spans. The world has surely changed since they first lifted their branches skyward. They watched without expression as folks rode by on horseback, then, in wagons. They watch now as little metal containers whiz by; their expressions still haven’t changed. But some of them look gray near the bottom of their trunks. I wonder if we are making them sick. But a hundred years is a long time. Maybe they’ll survive us, too.
    Thought I’d make myself a cactus garden when I got back to Paper Moon. I would set it up in the south-facing window of the diner. No way was that as much sun as they would get in the desert but cacti are no quitters. They have faith, those plants. They believe in living life in whatever soil or sunshine you find.
    When you first see the Sonoran Desert, you think to yourself, “I’m on the moon!” The land seems drab and stark. And empty. It is none of those things. And I didn’t expect to like it so much.
    It was more colorful than I could have imagined, considering that most of the colors were shades of each other. It was light brown and light tan and dark tan and gold. It was beige and the few spots of fauna were the shade of evergreens and some of the rocks looked white in the sun that never stopped shining. There were pockets of deep mustard yellow and slate gray. Up close, there were dots of white: tiny little flowers that had the nerve to open their faces to heat that could scramble eggs on asphalt. And all of this beauty was set off by a sky that was bluer than turquoise and as bright as a sapphire. The countryside was flat up close and nearly as far as my eyes could see but way off in the distance, I saw a mountain, Humphrey’s Peak, it’s called, wearing a white cap accessorized by wispy clouds. It looked so cool. I could feel the frost even though I was miles away and it was a hundred degrees in the shade. If there had been any shade. The heat was incredible. Five minutes in this 400-degree oven and I was done.
    “It’s a dry heat.” Peaches repeated the sentiments of every fool I’d ever met who had been in the southwest.
    “Dry, my ass,” I snapped back. “I don’t care how
dry
it is, Peaches, it’s
hot
!”
    Every drop of moisture in my body was gone; even my tear ducts were empty. You don’t sweat in Arizona. You just turn into a pillar of salt like Lot’s wife. The water is sucked out of your body the second you step outside. That’s why everyone carries a water bottle around. You have to;