The Place Where It Happened

On a March morning recently I was following the S-turns of Golden Gate Road, ascending its ridges and sliding a little on its soft sand as it dipped into washes. I was just over the Tucson Mountains in Saguaro National Park. In my early college years at the University of Arizona, my friends and I would speed along these roads—all of them dirt then except the road to Ajo, joyriding in the middle of the night, hugging the inside of turns regardless of the possibility of oncoming traffic, sliding on sand and scree. We knew our young reflexes would save us from harm; in fact the practically deserted roads were the reason we survived.
  This morning I was watching the roadside for . . .
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