The Cactus Heart

The first time I set foot in the Badlands, it was on a whim. I’d driven from the coast, chasing a vague rumor of ancient petroglyphs, and found myself at the edge of a vast, pockmarked desert. The sky was a bruised purple, and the wind bit at my skin as I stepped out near the northern rim. The moment my boots touched the cracked earth, a wave of grief hit me so hard I stumbled. It was as if the land itself mourned, and I was drowning in its sorrow. Every breath tasted of dust and regret, and my mind filled with images of things I’d never seen: a child’s shoe half-buried, a marriage certificate burning, a prayer flag snapping in a storm. I couldn’t understand it. I’ve always been level-headed, but this was primal, visceral. I had to leave.

I drove south, following a washboard road to the other side of the mesas. There, at a lookout called ‘Desert’s Veil,’ the air changed. The weight lifted. I could breathe. I spent an hour watching ravens wheel over the monoliths, and a strange calm settled over me. That night, I pitched my tent in a small campground near a dry riverbed. My dog, a brindle mutt named Gita, was restless. She’d been whining since sundown, her ears twitching at sounds I couldn’t hear. I sat at the scarred picnic table, writing by lantern light, trying to make sense of the day. Gita suddenly lunged, her leash—wrapped around my wrist—yanking me so hard I nearly fell. She pulled toward the car, her low growl vibrating through the nylon. I soothed her, stroked her flanks, and she settled at my feet. But when I began to write again, she did it again, more frantic. Her eyes were fixed on the darkness beyond the firelight. I whispered, ‘I know, girl. I feel it too.’ We slept in the car with the doors locked.

That was four years ago. I’d sworn I’d never return. But when my birding group planned a trip to the southern deserts and then up to a monastery in New Mexico, our route took us right through the Badlands. I rationalized it: different season, different people, maybe the land had healed. And I was co-leader; I couldn’t back out. The other two women, Janelle and Ruth, were seasoned outdoorswomen, all enthusiasm and field guides. I didn’t tell them about my previous visit. I didn’t want them to think I was superstitious.

We drove into the Badlands on a Tuesday. The sky was a hard, white blue, and the rock formations looked like ancient cathedrals. We stopped at the same southern overlook, and I braced for the dread. It didn’t come. Instead, I felt a strange nostalgia, as if the land were greeting an old acquaintance. Janelle laughed at a cactus that looked like a gnome. Ruth snapped photos. We set up camp at a spot called ‘Whispering Flats,’ a misnomer if there ever was one—it was dead silent. That evening, as we sat around a small fire, Gita—I’d brought her again—began to stare at the ground beneath us. Not growl, just stare. Her hackles were up, and her lip quivered.

Ruth said, ‘She’s probably sensing the packrats.’

I nodded, but my skin prickled. I remembered the tug toward the car, the desperate urge to leave. Now, there was nothing. Just a heavy silence that seemed to press down on the tent. We slept in our own tents, maybe ten feet apart. In the middle of the night, I woke to Gita’s low moan. She was pressed against my side, her whole body trembling. I heard a sound like a stone scraping across rock. Then another. Then a whisper, as if the wind had a voice, but it wasn’t wind—it was a woman’s voice, thin and dry, saying something I couldn’t quite catch. I sat up, and the tent flap was open. I hadn’t opened it. Gita bolted out into the dark.

I tore out after her. The moon was a sliver, and the shadows were absolute. I heard her yelp, then silence. I called her name, my voice swallowed by the vastness. Janelle and Ruth emerged from their tents, flashlights in hand. We searched for hours, until the sky turned peach. We found Gita at dawn, sitting calmly at the edge of a deep, dry wash. Her tail wagged. But her muzzle was covered in a dark, gritty substance that wasn’t dirt—it looked like dried blood, yet it smelled of copper and sage. I wiped it off, but it left a stain. Ruth said it was probably from a dead animal. I didn’t believe her.

Later that day, we stopped at a ranger station. I asked a lanky, leather-skinned ranger about any recent incidents in the area. He glanced at Gita and said, ‘You’re the one with the dog, huh? There were reports of a woman in a white dress walking the flats at night. But no one walks those flats. They just… appear.’ He told me the story of the ‘Heart of the Desert,’ a stone formation shaped like a cracked heart, where a wife had died in the 1800s, waiting for her husband who never returned. Locals said her grief soaked into the soil, and any sensitive soul could feel it. The north rim was her sorrow; the south rim, her acceptance. But she still walked, looking for something—maybe her dog, which they’d buried with her.

I stared at the ranger, my pulse hammering. He shrugged. ‘Maybe your dog just found a bone. But if I were you, I’d leave a flower at the heart.’

We left that afternoon. As we drove away, I saw Gita looking out the back window, her ears forward, as if listening to something behind us. I couldn’t shake the feeling that she wasn’t looking back at the desert—she was looking back at someone standing on the ridge. I haven’t spoken of it since. But that night, in a motel room, I dreamt of a woman in white, kneeling at a heart-shaped stone, and Gita sitting beside her, not tied, not running, just waiting. When I woke, Gita was gone. The motel door was ajar. I found her outside, sitting in the gravel, facing west, toward the Badlands. She didn’t turn to me. She just whined, low and long, and I knew—whatever that place held, it had claimed a piece of us both. I crossed the Badlands off my maps. But some maps, you can’t erase.