Maya had planned to follow the switchbacks down to the ranger station by sunset. But a heat-cracked sky bruised into thunder, and the first hard drops hammered the dusty trail into slippery paste. Below, the creek, a narrow ribbon an hour ago, fanned into brown muscle, slapping at the lower bridge. Lightning stitched the far rim. Luis pointed to a shallow cave carved high into the sandstone. "We can ride it out there," he shouted. Maya hesitated, staring at the red pack wedged under a piñon; the bridge and the pickup point lay beyond it. Another flash, closer, sent a metallic taste through her mouth. A boulder she'd stepped over earlier slid with a wet sigh. "Leave it," she said, and they scrambled along a ledge barely wider than her boot, sideways into the cave's dry dark. When the storm finally slackened, the sun had already fallen. The creek still roared, the bridge gone. Maya hugged her knees and listened for the ranger's truck that never came; their ride had left, and the canyon would keep them overnight.

Which choice best explains how the canyon storm setting influences Maya's decisions and the events in this scene?

By August, the stock tanks on Abuela's South Texas ranch had sunk into cracked bowls. Dust lifted from the cattle like smoke each time they moved. Joaquin had planned to spend the fall training his best heifer for the county show, but the grass went to straw, and feed prices climbed. At dawn he and Abuela rattled down the fenceline with a trailer full of blue barrels, doling water where they could. The county posted a burn ban; even the wind felt brittle. When they reached the north pasture, the shallow tank was a dish of baked clay. Joaquin stared at the leaning windmill above the old well. "If we get it turning, we can keep this side going," he said. It would mean selling the calves early to buy pipe and skipping football practice to help Abuela. He swallowed, then nodded to himself. That afternoon, he listed the calves and pulled the seized tail of the windmill with both hands until it groaned and, finally, spun. The decision changed everything about his week—and the heifer would have to wait.

Which statement best explains how the drought setting influences Joaquin's behavior and the plot?

Night in the boomtown didn't feel like night. Flares burned along the horizon, and the white of the food truck's aluminum skin glowed faintly in their light. Lila's aunt handed over foil-wrapped tacos as roughnecks lined up between shifts, steel-toe boots dusted with caliche. When the wind swung, the smell of crude rolled across the gravel lot, and the flame tips bent sideways. A man at the window mentioned a valve acting "touchy" on the south pad. Lila glanced at the windsock above the portable lights, its tail snapping toward their parking spot. "Tía, upwind," she said quietly. They had planned to close in ten, but Lila slid into the driver's seat and eased the truck to the lot's far edge, away from the flare stack. They reopened the window, and minutes later, a puff of sooty smoke burped from the south pad and drifted over the space they'd just left. The line of customers shuffled forward, coughing once, then laughing it off. Lila's heart thumped, and she handed out extra napkins with a steady smile.

How does the oilfield setting directly shape Lila's decision and the event that follows?