As he lies there on his back with that throbbing pain in the middle of his face, he realizes that the town is leaving him and taking the day with it. The claims office, the jailhouse ruins, and steepled church are already some distance off, their long shadows darkening the desert. The bank follows, dragging its doors. The stables and dry goods store. He touches the card in his pocket to be sure it’s still there, estimating that it represents all that he has earned from his lonely travails, all else a figment and a haunting, and it but a sign of them. The saloon is the last to go, as though overseeing the general retreat, and when it, too, is some distance away, the lace curtain in the upstairs window flutters briefly as though waving goodbye. And then it is night, and there is nothing to be seen except the black sky riddled with star holes overhead.