The wind stirred first. A dry whisper through the sagebrush, threading past the broken ribs of an old cattle fence and the flap of a canvas tent pitched under a groaning cottonwood tree. Claude Blanchard lay inside, one arm across his eyes, the other dangling toward the floor, fingertips brushing the brittle edge of a script page he had given up rewriting hours earlier. The light of the campfire cast shadows on the walls of his tent.

He was in New Mexico to assist Étienne Lallier, the unflappable French film producer who enjoyed fine wines.

“Come to New Mexico,” Étienne had said. “The light is extraordinary. The Americans will finance the whole thing.” And Claude, weary of damp cafés and impossible lovers, thought, why not? A little sand, a little sun. A little cinema.

What he had not bargained for was this.

A click. A scratch. Something ... tapping? No. Tick-tick. The rhythm was wrong for the wind. Claude stirred. His mind, still sticky with dreams, struggled to file the sound into something benign. A figment, perhaps. A loose thread from the slapping canvas wall. But then came the weight. Soft. Furry. Alive.

It pressed against the side of his cheek—delicate, as if laying claim.

His eyes flew open.

A tarantula the size of his fist was perched beside his ear, its eyes glinting like ink drops in the dark. He felt its leg twitch.

“Non,” Claude whispered. “Non non non non non...”

He flung himself sideways, erupting from his cot like a man jolted by electrocution. The blanket tangled around his knees. He slapped his face and stumbled into his overturned typewriter.

“PUTAIN!” he howled.

The spider landed with an audible plop and began a slow, sinuous crawl towards his boot.

Panting, Claude backed into the corner of his tent. Then he saw it—another one—scaling the wall like an acrobat in a velvet leotard. Then another. A procession.

“Merde,” he muttered, his voice rising. “There’s a convention! They’ve sent for backup!”

They were on his pages. His pages! One eight-legged horror tiptoed smugly across the title sheet: “Terre Rouge: A Love Story in the Dust.”

“This is not love!” Claude shouted. “This is an invasion!”

He fled the tent, horrified, barefoot, shirt half-buttoned, waving his blanket like a white flag of surrender. The high desert air bit at his skin. He didn’t care.

Étienne sat by the campfire, his wine glass, crystal, absurd for the setting, shimmering in his hand. Miguel, his sleepy assistant, was slumped beside a crate of film reels.

Claude stormed into view, wild-eyed, waving a spoon like a saber.

Étienne glanced up with regal calm. “Claude ... mon ami. Is it the coyotes again?”

“No! It is a hairy spider revolution! They are in my bed! They are on my typewriter! One of them tried to edit my script with its mandibles!”

Étienne sighed and sipped. “Ah, yes. The tarantulas. Very persistent this time of year.”

Claude jabbed a finger at him. “This is not cinéma. This is purgatoire avec araignées! I did not survive Verdun for this!”

Étienne remained perfectly still. “But the light, Claude. The light is divine.”

Claude paused. The sky was extraordinary. Black-blue, spangled with stars too numerous to count. A warm moon hanging low like a peeled fruit. Still—

“The light is fine,” he said. “But the residents—non!”

He collapsed onto a wooden crate, his breath catching, hair askew.

“I am a journalist,” he said finally. “A prankster. A poet of print. Not a man who negotiates lodging with arthropods.”

Étienne, ever tranquil, shrugged. “You are quitting?”

Claude nodded solemnly. “I resign. Let the spiders finish the film.”

After packing his things, Claude slept in the back seat of the prop truck with a pistol under his pillow and a bottle of brandy clutched like a relic. The next morning, he left the desert behind—dusty and disgusted.

In his memoir, he would later write: “Some deserts are beautiful. Others are full of spiders who want to direct.”