A Geography of Blood. Candace Savage

in a circle around the rock, intent as children. There, protruding from the dry underside of a dry rock in a prairie gulch was a perfect fossilized clam. The hills had begun to show us their secrets.

      {four} Ravenscrag Road

      “No frontier is marked between the Western landscape and a country of fable.”

      BERNARD DEVOTO, Mark Twain’s America, 1932

      Although Keith and I usually traveled to Eastend on our own, with our rabble of pets, we were always glad when friends or family paid us a visit. The pleasures of these hills were so abundant that there was plenty to go around, and we were eager to share our house with like-minded souls. Our most frequent guests were our daughters, one of whom had stood in the magic circle around the fossil shell, and the other of whom joined the party whenever she was able. It was this second daughter—a bright, practical soul, not given to morbid thoughts—who made an observation that ever since has echoed through my mind. She came into the house one morning, after a walk with the dogs, and said that the hills seemed sad to her. “It feels like something bad must have happened here.”