The red dust turned the setting sun an oxidised red like old blood and betrayals. A coyote howled out his dusk song, wild and uncomplicated, and Armando shivered for a moment. His hand slipped from the trunk and he walked out into the night with stars to guide him. Armando knew where he was going, maps are measurements and measurements are numbers; Armando thought in numbers. Ashes caught in wind – almost as suffocating as the dusty secrets – in the swimming pool behind an abandoned brothel as it dropped into the gas-sodden pyre.