We wander farther to find shade in the shadow of a westward dune , where I wait until the dogs stop panting . Silos full of frac sand rise above the desert to the northwest . The same place I started my search for the horse three years ago .

I can still hear the train . The growing , rumbling engine and shattering horn . The same monster that spooked my horse during the night , sending him out into this wasteland . Lost for two days . You can disappear in the dunes here , and he has . I wonder if he remembers . I do . I remember stepping into the nothing where solid ground should have been . An empty pen , scattered hay and hoofprints to nowhere , the only proof there had been a horse there the night before . I remember driving these dusty backroads , dodging pump jacks and cacti , focused on only one thing : finding my horse .

In West Texas , the summer never knows it ’ s over , and September of 2020 was no exception . For two years , I ’ d carried a Texas State Park brochure in the glovebox of my truck like a good luck charm , all the horse friendly parks highlighted . I had finally made the leap , going a month on the road to travel Texas , New Mexico and Colorado . I was a bit lost in the beginning , reeling from COVID and pending divorce . But this horse propped me up and then , after 2,100 miles together , I found myself casing the desert and dusting for prints like a crime scene investigator .

Resting on the border of the great Chihuahuan Desert , the town of Monahans is best known for two things : oil and sand , both found in abundance . A once prosperous ranching land , the original settlement was taken over by oil in the 1920s and is now the center of the Permian Basin , the most productive oil field in the United States .

The workday seems to never end for many here . On the outskirts of town , trucks and machinery run all night under the watchful eye of sweating spotlights . A giant blight in the distant desert sky . But Monahans is a proud town , one of roughnecks and ranch hands , oil fields and sand plants . A mix of past and present where locals greet each other with a one or two fingered casual wave , the grocery store serves as social hour , and the lights of nearby Odessa and Midland wink from the northeast horizon .

We camped that September at Sandhills State Park , surrounded by its ever-changing embankments . Part of a vast series of dunes 20 miles wide and 70 miles long that stretch through West Texas into southern New Mexico . A world held in place by the occasional shin oak and scrub grass , where the ground leaks back the day ’ s heat , and the sky reaches down to reclaim it .

You ’ ve got to have a little stick-to-itiveness here . To survive in this parched ocean . Navigating the waves of it all . The thorns and traps . The vast expanses of directionless earth , only the scorching sun to guide you .

Searching for my horse Dex , a one-night stop turned into three . That first day , drones , helicopters , and ATVs worked in tandem following his prints , large , soft and hollow in the shifting desert sand . Threatening to disappear each time the wind changed direction .

I spent my second day enveloped in the white dust of caliche roads , the blistering sun and 100-degree temperatures , searching for signs among the pump jacks and sand traps . Water and feed in the truck bed , dog riding shotgun . Pistol on my hip .

I followed that horse at least nine miles northwest of the park , stopping at every intersection in that empty land . Scanning the dirt for tracks and readjusting my path . Afraid I would be going home alone yet determined not to , keeping an eye out for circling buzzards along the way . Finally , his northward journey to where I don ’ t know ended . His trail blocked by fencing . My composure fell like a heavy jacket , and a trembling moved through us both . I looked into his drawn , hollow eyes , gaunt from two days in the desert . “ I ’ m here ,” I said , and bowed my head to his . “ I ’ ve got you .”

The town came together for me that day , local landowners and public servants alike . Law enforcement , park rangers , ranchers and game wardens . Not a soul accepting a dime in return .

Sitting here in these dunes now , it ’ s hard to shift my gaze from those silos standing so tall in the distance . But I rise , brush the sand from my legs , and follow the sunset back to camp , sinking with each step as if the ground beneath me has no end . The dogs run ahead , fading into the desert glow , and I follow behind . Walking my own path . Making my own way as I always do . As I am blessed to do . The only one I really know .

In life it often seems that looking in the mirror is harder than looking through a window . Sometimes the flaws and mistakes don ' t want to be seen , don ’ t want to be realized and brought to life . I return to the sandhills at times for strength and forgiveness , and I lose myself there in the dunes . In this place where I learned what I am made of .

But I find myself , too , and I remember : that I am the girl who can track a horse through the desert . And I love him even more for showing me that . �