Horned Toad Lizard
Personal memory by k. b.
1958 • Sells, AZ
As a child on an Indian reservation, I remember holding a horned toad lizard in my hand and gazing intently at its small body and sharp spikes surrounding the back of its head. It was a baby, no larger than a fifty-cent coin, but an exact replica of the adult variety. I watched it as it lay quietly in my hand, probably playing dead. Then I laid it back on the rock where it had been hiding. Its mottled brown skin blended in with the desert sand. In a flash, it scurried away, but the memory of that small reptile stays with me still.
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