Down its sides, the earth had been stripped and carved bare. There were layers of dirt and clay and rock in shades of every color, it seemed: black, yellow, blue, brown, orange, pink, and red. They flamed in the sun like a vast open wound, one that was not meant to heal. But even more bewildering than what had been done to the land—what had been done to his country—was how many hundreds of men were participating in it.
