“Lately I been runnin around on the inside and spendin the day pushin between rocks.” He looked at her and said nothing else.
The dunes were bright and stacked to the horizon. Colossal silhouettes she had no name for moved like liquid fast on its edge. Burnt earth branched into enough colors behind the stampede that she felt less real on the butte than the dust rising under it. Water lapped at the base of the piling of stone and hundreds of miles of tunnel vision came to rest as she gathered the tarp, cord, and reeds around her.
It was easy to think she belonged there, the heat and wind got so deep. But looking at the struggle etched into the terrain, she felt the difference between being built in a place and being built for it. He was enough years ahead of her that only silence fit. Then again, he was tall and lean and young. Milda looked up at him. He looked down through her, holding so much of the landscape in his movement, she felt the need to apologize for what she’d thrown in the water. I didn’t always take up so much space, she wanted to say. She felt so small thinking it.
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The title and artwork started with Johnny Cash's rendition of Heart of Gold at 1:36; "It's such a fine line...that keeps me searching for a heart of gold." These series of relationships are pictured as human rock formations whose chests the cowboy has already ridden through. He keeps riding for the heart of gold.