Rippled Iron and Quartz

I lowered my trailing limbs down into the sunken culvert mouth where the driveway meets the ditch. The corrugated steel tube arched overhead, cold, dark, and still. I did not rush into the shadows. I set my front claws upon the first raised ridge, testing the metal under my full mass until the hollow echo died away. Wedged tightly in a dry trough between two steel folds lay a pale quartz pebble, rounded smooth by old rains. I pressed one claw firmly into the silt beside it, wedging the stone loose with a low scrape. Cradling its cool weight in the groove, I rested deep within the quiet pipe.