Soul Stories: Safari to Mara and Aria of the Horned Toad

prints by Jackie Mims Hopkins illustrated by Michael Austin question of the week what can we discover in the landscape of the southwest Reba Joe loved to twang her guitar and sing while the Prairie wind whistled through the thirsty sagebrush singing with the wind was one of the ways Reba Joe entertained herself on the lonesome Prairie sometimes she amused herself by racing her horse flash against a tumbleweed cart wheeling across her daddy's land but her favorite pastime of all was roping she lassoed cacti water buckets fence posts and any unlucky critter that crossed her path you one blustery morning as she was riding the range looking for something to lasso Reba Joe came upon a dry riverbed her daddy had warned her to stay away from these arroyos he'd told her that a prairie storm could blow in quicker than a rattlesnake strike causing a flash flood to rip through the riverbed the swi