To the north, spans a light blue sky, out of which this miles wide bowl of carved land receives a brisk, sinking breeze rushing down over a higher tier of striated stone.

To the west, stands a notched mountain peak, black in the afternoon sun.

To the east, rise beaten humps of sage-dressed clay, carved into sunken gulches—bad lands, they say.

To the south, in a sunlit valley, occupied by a town called Cody, white wisps of cloud gather, streaked with beams from the sun.

Above, the big vaulted sky broods a deep, cobalt blue, absolutely, opaquely clear.

To the southwest, broods a broad, dully-pointed hump of a bleak-stone mountain. Against this mountain the cold northern air rushes out of its cloudless quarter, through the earthen bowl, to roil against the base of the bleak mountain and rush up its brooding face. Just before the dull black peak the upward rushing air meets clouds that have apparently scaled the back side of the mountain. The sky about the mountain rumbles and a plume of smoky cloud seems to spew from its top, outward, northward, spreading to a dull brownish-gray, muting, then shrouding, then blotting out the sun.

The dull-pointed mountain of darkness seems a volcano spewing ash, as the notched mountain to the west bathes in bright sun under a halo of gathering white clouds, while the murdered mountains to the east squat brownishily under a clear, baby-blue sky.