far to the south , if south that was , many miles at least away , the mountain yawned again and gerald could now see , through the dust-free dusk , how the snake , this endless stringeach pearl , each vertebra a soulreturned into air , coughed up by the mountain , then threaded its way into the desert and out over the rim of a different horizon , only to return , he realized , only to return , he realized , only to return , only to return , return , return , like an immense , slowlyvery slowlyspinning wheel .