Sublime

Together, they are the backdrop to a vanishing way of life.

Across the road from where she’s parked, aspens tumble down the basin toward Fish Lake, where five years earlier a Chinese refugee engineer took his three daughters camping on the way to visiting Yellowstone.

“Moroland”—the islands of Mindanao, Palawan, and Basilan plus the Sulu Archipelago—comprised the less-populated bottom third of the Philippines. It was like a different country. Inhabited mainly by Muslims (called “Moros”) rather than Catholics and governed by a system of sultans and datus, it adhered to Islamic law and practiced both polygamy and

cicerone

ponderous,

Richard Welden

craton,

mercenary,

“We went to a Sizzler, where I filled him up with steak and lobster,” Franz recalls, “and then we drove back to Salton City.”