That evening they took Highway 25 out of Santa Fe, south. It brought them out of the mountains and junipers and into the plains. Around ten that night they hit Albuquerque. They set up in another motel, a small one this time, some kind of 50s mom-and-pop place called the Sagebrush. Thirty years ago it had catered to the road trade, to the big Airstream trailers and the chromed station wagons. But the town had sprawled out around it, and the airlines had taken its road trade, and now it was a place where sad married drunks could cheat on each other. Dust coated the rustic frames of cowboy paintings, and the old color TV would not turn down below a hissing, squeaking mutter.