Lion Head Mesa pull up the intruder by the root of the weed

The midday sun left no shelter for the boy. He lay in the center of the pit with his mouth open, his dry tongue lolling out; dust coated him almost entirely. The spot where he'd pissed along the wall and beneath the visitor's plinth had dried up as if nothing had happened at all; and the Tiger Woman never returned.

He was delirious. Squinting beneath the spotlight of summer sun, suffering the effects of sunstroke—he thought he heard a skittering sound but did not have the energy to even shift an ear.