“It’s just a word. A very versatile word. Even though we know this is shit, and we’ve just found this shit, we can still say, ‘What is this shit?’ By the way, this shit is very warm.”

“What’s that mean?”

“It means it’s not that old,” I said in a loud voice.

I could sense Sarah’s alarm.

“Don’t worry,” I told her. “We just want to be sure that we’re heard. They’re more afraid of us than we are of them.”

“I don’t think that’s true,” Sarah said.

“Well, don’t worry anyway. Want to head back?”

“No way.”

“That’s my girl.”

We continued on. “Let’s sing.”

“Sing what?”

“What about ‘Lydia’? From the Marx Brothers movie. Lydia, oh Lydia, that encyclopedia, queen of the tattooed ladies.”

We sang.

Lydia, oh Lydia, say have you met Lydia?

Oh, Lydia, the tattooed lady.

She has eyes that folks adore so

And a torso even more so.

Lydia, oh Lydia, that encyclopedia.

Oh Lydia, the queen of tattoo.

On her back is the battle of Waterloo

Beside it the Wreck of the Hesperus too

And proudly above waves the red, white, and blue.

You can learn a lot from Lydia.

“Why do you know that song?” Sarah asked.

“At the Circus was my favorite movie when I was a kid.”

“I like it too.”

“Watch the ridge over there. Maybe we can get a distant peek. Maybe see the white tip of its tail.”

“Why didn’t you name me Lydia?”

“Good question. We liked the name Sarah better.”

“And it was Grandma’s name.”

“There was that.”

We walked on another quarter mile. I asked Sarah how she was holding up, and she said she was fine. “A lot of people say that we have no seasons. That’s because they don’t look. Look around. These are our autumn colors. Look at the ochre of the redshank on that slope. And the buckwheat is that rusty color, not as dark as the brown of the laurel sumac.”

Sarah studied the landscape.

“The world is around us. It’s always changing. Sometimes it takes millions of years to see it. Sometimes seconds.”

“Us too?” Sarah asked.

“Us too.”

Bxb7 Qxb7

Bxd6 Qxc6