Anthony Adverse by Hervey Allen

Dust,--not only clouds of it,--but dust which flowed along the ground like liquid, that trickled into the hoofprints of the troop of horse as they trotted steadily into the southwest, that showered upon the sagebrush to either side of the trail like drops of dry water. Behind the scarves over their mouths the troopers coughed dust. The horses blew it out of their muddy noses. It clogged the corners of their eyes. Over the alkali plains dust-devils rose and twisted like waterspouts, dancing in the quivering heat. Lizards, twitching from stone to stone, left puffs of dust behind them. The long trail smoked with it for hours after the Spanish cavalry and their prisoners passed.

It was a silent land, leeched-out, bleached by the tremendous reverberations of white sunlight, with valleys like the floors of abandoned lime kilns and mountains flaunting dark ribbons of spiny lava along the sky. For Anthony, it was a country that did not remind him of any that he had ever seen before.