In 100 words (from the Places I’d Like to Visit file) … And if you don’t know, the devil’s rope is what barbed wire is known as.

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The Devil’s Rope Museum, McLean, Texas

I waited for the plain girl to move ahead. She lingered.

“Look at this,” she said, as if she already knew me.

She stared, fixated. Under glass was a six-inch brown thing made of rusted metal wires, each snaking tightly around the other. Every few inches, ragged torturous barbs wrapped twisted wire.

The label read, “Crandal’s Sawtooth, Wyoming, 1884”.

“It looks like a fossil,” I said.

“Or a rusty strand of DNA,” she said, “snipped from cowboy Crandal’s intestines.”

Suddenly, to me, her hair smelled of wild lavender.

My hands raised, fingers reaching, wanting to weave a tight twisted braid.

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