Describes the author's visit to the Namib Desert with a group of former poachers, now conservationists, in search of endangered black rhinos that were saved from extinction by human intervention and cutting-edge conservation techniques.

Roaming across the salt flats and skirting the salt lake Richard a geologist working for an oil company hunts for fossils under the spell of Clarissa the local beauty who plans to use her share of their plunder to get out of small dusty Midland for good. A generation earlier a Depression era couple Max and Marie Omo numbly mines for salt along the banks of the briny lake until the emotional terrain of their marriage is suddenly and irrevocably altered....

A novella and two stories. The title novella, set on a ranch in Texas, is on a woman's love of the land, Where the Sea Used to Be is on the rivalry of two oil men, while in The Myth of the Bears a mountain man tracks a runaway wife who seems to leave an unusual number of helpful clues.

Set in the south and west, these stories pursue themes of friendship, loyalty, and freedom, of escape, where valiant holdouts refuse to grow up, or grow old.

A romance in the wilds of Montana between an oil prospector and a woman who studies wolves. Together they face the forces of nature and the strong-willed Texan who is her father and his employer.

"A narration of short stories previously broadcast on public radio stations." --

"A selection of the best and most representative contemporary American short fiction from 1970 to 2020, including such authors as Ursula K. LeGuin, Toni Cade Bambara, Jhumpa Lahiri, Sandra Cisneros, and Ted Chiang, hand-selected by celebrated editor and anthologist John Freeman."--