I rode away kind of pissed off that I had to miss it. I guess I could have stayed, but following my gut feelings had kept me safe so far. I wasn't about to get careless now, so I rode on to the Cowboy Museum, to the hanging judge Roy Bean's town, and to Seminol Canyon, where I saw pictograms and petroglyphs much like the ones at Canada's Milk River. It was all very interesting, but I was sorry not to be in Lukenbach and participating in something, instead of just observing. The morning desert is fresh with dew shining on sage the color of dust and lavender, and the road is peppered with the warm bodies of road kill, mostly deer, surrounded by buzzards.
Buzzards are efficient creatures.
At first light, they began with the small animals and the rear legs of the deer. Even the heads were gone, probably scavenged by some larger creature. At the sound of my engine the buzzards looked up, stretching wrinkled necks as red as the blood that dripped from their beaks. Poised over their kill, the buzzards resented traffic interrupting their meal. At the sound of my engine they looked up, stretching wrinkled necks as red as the blood that dripped from their beaks.