They came in droves. Thousands, tens of thousands, gently, almost accidentally pried, like a child afraid to pull out a loose tooth that’s later discovered in a marshmallow, or a bird leaving the nest for the first time that not so much flies as falls, the seeds of death valley shaken loose from their future, arrived, some crossing international borders to get there, travelling the air currents sweeping over the land. They parachuted in, as if ejected out of tiny airplanes; descending like ballerinas or helicopters with no gas, armies of determination and stamina, spinning into death valley, settling into the formidable landscape, destined to decades of quiescence, invisible to the naked eye, they alight softly, they disturb nothing