"Run a river through dirt, and you got a marsh." And the cluster of life around it. Breadbasket of the country. "Ain't no rivers where I'm from."

Just boom or bust on the winter rains. A crater's good for one thing, and that's a reservoir. Keeps enough graze for the goats. Talin's smiling like he's won something, and hell, not knowing the Hills has gotta be first prize.

Still, nostalgia in the telling. Place is better as a story. Somewhere he can close the cover.

"Old name for it's Orthlands."