Dirigo

The year his mother died there was a flash flood, leaving behind dirt, dead cows and a strange deer-like animal that Saul had ever seen before. The water must have been traveling in a long way, she’d said to him as they watched the men shovel stinking mud from the front porch of the saloon, to carry in a creature like that. It had curled horns and a bushy white tail. Doc Andrews called it an antelope, but Saul knew they didn’t have anything like that around here. The land was too dry, too dead for such an animal.

( The Sunday after the flood, Reverend Thomas told the story of Noah and the Ark. )