We live just far enough from town, town being a few streets and an old fort, that we don't go in but a couple of times a week, and hardly ever at night. It's a treat when we do. We say to the animals, "Do you want to go to town?" and the animals start jumping and flapping. (We really should get out more.) Because we aren't in town every night, Fort Davis at dusk always seems a little magical to us. Darkness. Silence. History.
 
Darkness around here means Very Dark. There are no street lights. Most Fort Davis streets are two lanes of packed dirt past dwellings that house people who know precisely where they live. So why would anybody need lights to find their way?  And because McDonald Observatory is just around the corner, pointing to the skies over Mount Locke, astronomically astute residents take every measure to keep our skies the darkest in North America. Also, as the sun sets behind old Blue and Livermore and Sawtooth and the western Davis Mountains, light bounces and tints our volcanic rock formations with an inner glow. It's hard to describe. You have to see it. Think, lava lamp.

Added to this absence of artificial light and glowing rock is the Silence. This is not a place where traffic roars above the sound of crickets. If a cricket chirps within a hundred yards and if you're not munching potato chips or sitting on the porch, talking, you'll hear that cricket. If this town were a novel, Silence would be a leading character.

Then there's the history. There's so much history around here you must be selective in what you want to remember. History is especially haunting in and around the old restored fort. At dusk, if you stand just past the parking lot and toward the faintly rutted old road linking San Antone to El Paso, you can feel a sense of the past. 
"SOFT SUMMER NIGHT IN FORT DAVIS"   4" x 6' pastel on Wallis museum grade paper  by Lindy C Severns 2007
                 
It isn't just reminders of the cavalry troops, the Buffalo soldiers that once manned this frontier outpost...Indians roamed that land long before the Old Spanish Trail ran past the rocks beneath Sleeping Lion Mountain. Then came the settlers. The ranchers. The preachers (our historic Presbyterian Church is just around the corner behind the mountain overlooking the fort). The Butterfield/Overland Stage route ran through there. And now Baeza's Grocery, the old Caboose (think: ice cream), Along the Trail Antiques flank the fort grounds. Of course, at dusk and after, you have to know they're there—they, too, respect the astronomers and don't advertise in bold neon lights. (And if you need groceries much past dark, you aren't much of a planner, are you?)

But what I notice most about Fort Davis at nightfall is the sweeping sky. Sky here is always dramatic. Davis Mountain skies are always bigger than life, but especially magnificent at dusk.

I painted this view from the old fort in miniature. A large canvas would never hold it in, anyway.
And now, I think we'll pack up the animals and head to town. If we start right now, we'll be there for dusk.