The night before Elena and I leave Van Horn, Texas, we stay up through the night. The fire is out just before sunrise. Spare wood is on the side of the house. I pick up several blocks and drop them near the dead fire. Elena runs inside. She comes out a moment later, something gleaming over her shoulder. She walks closer. There's an axe in her hand. She's smiling. I set up a block next to the fire. Elena heaves the axe up into Texas dawn, brings it down with a thud. The thing about Texas is it's big-sky country. The sky there is lower than other places. If you jumped high enough you might never come down. Elena's axe jumped pretty high. I was scared it might never come down. I was scared she'd get dragged off with it. Then, two smaller blocks where the larger one used to be. The wood makes a high-pitched hollow sound and the two blocks jump off and away from each other and thrash and bellow and writhe and die, ringing, on the ground. Elena heaves the axe up again, rests it over her shoulder. Elena looks at me. I look at Elena. She's still smiling.