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this early one that had made him famous. Now would be my chance.
    On the way back, Ray drove. I tried enjoying the silence. Before me, the domed sky was even larger than the sage lands below it. As we passed under the shade of high clouds, I turned to face Ray across the seat. “Do you know much about the history of this land we’re driving through?”
    He shrugged and kept his eyes focused on the empty road ahead. “Can’t say that I do.”
    â€œI found it in this book.” I spread my fingers over the wrinkled leather cover. “It was once part of a huge land grant belonging to Mexican citizens.”
    He shook his head. “Didn’t know that.”
    â€œThe grant covered four million acres, but U.S. courts threw out Mexican claims for lack of written proof, and the lands were opened up for homesteading, for example, to your family.” I only wanted to share a conversation, but as the words came out of my mouth, I realized they sounded like a school report.
    â€œThat so?” Ray said. He glanced over his shoulder at the things he’d piled in the truck bed. Clearly he wasn’t interested in what I was saying.
    â€œWhat about your family, Ray? How did they come here and why?”
    He crunched himself deeper into the driver’s seat. “Well. They came out here and started farming.”
    â€œIn what year? Where did they live?”
    Again, he focused straight ahead. “Don’t rightly know the details. Better ask Martha,” he said. “Our grandma used to tell us all about that stuff, but I’m sorry to say I’ve gone and forgot it.”
    Now I looked straight ahead, too. Shimmering distances on the horizon never came closer. After we passed a train going in the opposite direction, I waited until the high whine of the steam whistle left the still air, then I pointed to the tracks. “In some places the ruts are so deep you can still see the old Santa Fe Trail. Right there, between the tracks and this road.”
    â€œSure enough?” he said, but that was all.
    Afterward, I tried reading my book but had to stop because it was making me motion sick. And the only other thing Ray told me was the name of the high point along the road, Jack’s Point, a grazing spot for mules. When we stopped for groceries in La Junta, I couldn’t think of anything to talk to him about as we walked the few aisles picking out canned goods and produce together.
    Before we left town I bought a copy of the other La Junta newspaper, the Democrat, and looked over copies of both the Rocky Mountain News and the Denver Post, all of which I found out were available for mail delivery. I decided to subscribe to the Denver Post. Reading about events a day late was better than not reading about them at all.
    The following morning, I got up out of a sound sleep to make Ray breakfast. He shoveled it down and headed out the door, then I returned to my room and napped until a more reasonable time for awakening. The next two days, however, Ray started staying around later in the mornings. I heard him up before dawn, just as before, but then he’d be shuffling around the house instead of leaving it. When I got up, there he was, waiting around in the kitchen for breakfast and drinking down coffee.
    One morning I told him, “You don’t have to stay in because of me.”
    He had continued sipping out of his mug and didn’t look up. “I just been more tired, is all.”
    I opened my mouth, just about to do it, to correct his English. Most of the time Ray spoke correctly, but every so often he slipped up. He reminded me of fellow students I’d known who had grown up without proper English having been spoken in their households. They knew the correct ways from schooling, but sometimes what they heard at home accidentally sneaked out of them, and how those errors embarrassed them, especially around students such as me, who rarely even slumped to slang.