I had been to this cabin before. I liked to come here when things at home got too difficult, or, conversely, too monotonous. The cabin was down a dirt road that looked like a sandy wash, unincorporated and largely forgotten, save for a few cinder-block houses and chain-link fencing keeping the sagebrush in. It was near a house with bunnies.

I had first seen it when Bobby and I had come here on a desert house search a few years before. We had passed from asphalt to dirt road and a final street sign—Wonderland, it said.

Well past that was a burned-out trailer, recently charred, and all I could think of was meth, but we pressed on anyway, until we came to the bunny house. The bunny house had a razor-wire fence around it and a sign assuring anyone lost on their journey that the inhabitants had guns and would use them. What they were protecting was not their desert-bleached double-wide but the hundreds of rabbits in their yard. I slowed the car and watched them in awe as they hopped around in the sand, or sat in unmoving clumps of brown-and-white fur. These weren’t jackrabbits, which I was accustomed to seeing bobbing around the desert. These were rabbits being prepped for sale. When I first came out here with Bobby, he had suggested we turn around when we saw the bunny house, but I said no. I liked it out here. Rain clouds formed in the distance dramatically, and you could see lightning storms dozens of miles away. There was nothing to stop the wind or water out here.

Now I found myself here again, but this time I was alone. I couldn’t deny that it was eerie to be here by myself. I remembered a Realtor had told us about the hillbillies in the desert. How you needed at least two guns, because the police wouldn’t arrive for at least an hour after you called. Bobby had said he didn’t want to live someplace where he’d be forced to shoot someone.

I let myself into the cabin and arranged my things. The owner had left me a binder full of “Fun Things to Do in the Desert,” and it included some places to take a walk. When I looked out the back window, I saw ATV trails lining the sand and decided to explore. There was a break in the razor fence that surrounded the property, as if the wire could really stop anyone or anything wandering the hundreds of acres of desert. A line of tumbleweeds had tangled themselves along one side, and, past them, sagebrush and scurrying lizards scattered across the land.