Light in the dark

(Also one of the latest, hardest cuts from the book ...)

Out in the desert in remote west Texas, Austin Rios, Davidson Class of 1999 and an Episcopal priest, sat looking at the Chisos Mountains.

He came to Big Bend National Park as often as he could because the sparseness of the landscape helped him see. Color and beauty became that much more clear.

A couple days in the desert, he said, and he started to notice the flowers on a cactus.

This trip had started two days earlier. He and a friend had seen the final score of the Wisconsin game on his cell phone in Junction, Texas, before the signal started to fade as they drove in his old silver Land Cruiser down to Fort Stockton and then deeper into the desert.

They set up a tent at a primitive campsite. On Saturday and Sunday they saw wild hogs. They heard coyotes at night. They went to an abandoned mercury mine. They waded into the Rio Grande and climbed up to the tall spots on the banks and watched the birds ride the currents of air.

The sun started to set on Sunday.

Now Rios sat in the isolated quiet of the desert and thought about his college and wondered about what had happened in Detroit while watching the stars in the sky make light in the dark.