“Across the immense plain of night lay the first Texas town, Dalhart, which I’d crossed in 1947. It lay glimmering on the dark floor of the earth, fifty miles away. The land by moonlight was all mesquites and wastes. On the horizon was the moon. She fattened, she grew huge and rusty, she mellowed and rolled, til the morning star contended and dews began to blow in our windows-and still we rolled.”
