I lie listening to the emptiness in my chest, like wind wailing through canyons.
These days the doctor comes in often to chat with me.
One day he tells me a story: “You know, when your mother died, we managed to save your heart. It was still healthy. We thought about giving it back to you. But there was a little girl here, about eight years old, and she needed a new heart, too. Cute little blond girl. One time a basketball star came here to visit her and there were TV cameras and photographers and everything. She was in the papers a lot. Kids were always sending her cards. Anyway, we decided to give her your heart. She’s only a kid, after all; she’s got a whole life ahead of her. Why should we deny her that? I’m sure your mother would have wanted it that way. She was such a caring, selfless woman. I’m sure deep down you want her to have it, too, don’t you?”
Of course I do.
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The woman lies spread-eagled across the tracks, beneath the noonday sun in the middle of the prairie. The sage ripples in the breeze. Her breasts heave; the sweat trickles down between them. Her dress is lace-trimmed, scattered with flowers. The skirt rises, and falls, and flaps in the wind. A bleached steer skull leers in the grass nearby. Above, a vulture circles and stares with red eyes, cocking his bald head. His shadow passes over her face. Her eyes are closed; she doesn’t notice.
The land fades into the distance, rolling and overlapping, like giant tangled bodies under bedclothes. The sky: baked, hazy. Thunder rumbles far away. It rolls like smoke, thick and uncoiling. A mosquito buzzes and lands, drawing a perfect drop of blood from the smooth inside of her arm.
I should add, I suppose, that her hair is golden, her cheeks are flushed, and her eyes are blue. But I think you know that; you have seen this picture before. You know already the way her hair blows, and her neck arches, and her body writhes against the tracks.
The metal of the tracks is warm against her wrists and ankles. The tracks stretch out unbroken on either side of her; they lie snugly against the ground’s curve, a belt holding the earth’s fat belly.
The splintery wooden ties prick through her petticoats. Her mouth is firm and resolute, but her brows are drawn and her lashes tremble. Flowing tresses, trickling sweat, relentless sun, woman trussed to the tracks. And finally a tremor, the slightest sizzle in the hot metal touching her wrists.
There. In the distance the column of smoke appears, like a tornado leashed and dragged forward by the great engine. There are whistles and snorts, the grind and pulse of machinery, metallic thunder and lightning. She hears the noise and raises her head.
The train approaches; its cowcatcher and round one-eyed face loom ever larger. The noise engulfs her; the tracks rattle beneath her. The engine man, with mustache, striped cap, and bandanna, peers ahead and spots the obstruction. Heavens! Word spreads quickly through the passenger cars. Frantic heads pop from windows on both sides; the news even reaches the heaving, bleating livestock car, where one cow is groaning in labor, a calf’s hoof dangling between her hind legs, swaying with the motion of the train.
The train hurtles forward at breakneck pace. She stretches her neck in silent entreaty, but everyone knows brakes are useless at such a speed. The train roars onward. The engine man throws up his hands, then hides his face in his bandanna. The passengers must look on helplessly as the train approaches its doomed target. She stares up at the sky, resigned, expectant. Children kneel on the train seats to see better. The monstrous engine snorts and squeals and rears. Grisly death is moments away. The wind again lifts her skirts; her fair legs flash in the sun.
But wait! Far in the distance, there is an answering flash of white!
The passengers shade their eyes and hold their breath.
Here he comes, on his silver steed, galloping twice as fast as the train. He emerges from clouds of dust: broad-shouldered, graceful, impeccably dressed. Tanned cheeks, strong chin, a smooth shave. Bright teeth flashing—they fill his mouth neatly as bathroom tile. The eyes are far-seeing, surrounded by squint lines. Thick curls show between the buttons of his shirt; he is blessed with a full head of hair and none on his back. His boots are expensive, his gun large. These qualities are apparent even from a distance; all the spectators murmur in relief. The circling vulture spots him, sighs, and flaps away.
He gallops hard to the lucky damsel. The show is nearly over now. He leaps from his loyal horse; he bends over her and drizzles her with manly sweat. The train passengers are treated to a view of his muscular hindquarters in tight leather pants. He snips her bonds and tears her limp body from the tracks in the nick of time. The engine screams past with a defeated roar. She reaches for his face; he cradles her in his protective arms; they share a hearty but tasteful kiss.
And they are surrounded suddenly by hundreds of cheering spectators. It is uncertain whether they jumped from the train or sprang spontaneously from the empty grasslands, but it does not matter. There is much cheering and cap tossing and backslapping. The man is borne aloft as a hero. The woman in the flowered dress is borne to the marriage altar. She is speechless, seems bewildered by her good fortune.
So they are married right there with much fanfare, amid the jostling good-natured crowd. He holds her tightly—a bit too tightly, actually, making it difficult to breathe—and his gun digs into her side. But everyone tells her how lucky she is, and what a handsome couple they make, and many pictures are taken. In the pictures her head hangs down, hair hiding her face. His smile is dazzling. What big teeth he has.
People find the whole affair so fine and romantic that they try to imitate it. All over the country, women are tied to every available stretch of track, usually by an obliging gentleman in black with a curling mustache. Then, in quick succession: sunset, train, white horse and rider, fade-out. The scene appears in novels and on movie screens, and all the viewers relish the heroine’s horizontal wiggle, the train’s shuddering approach, the happy union drenched in surging music, kisses for everyone.
Everyone knows the ending of this scenario. The funny thing is that almost no one knows the beginning of the story.
The beginning—you can imagine it if you retrace your steps through the story, rewind the film so that horses gallop backward, the sun rises in the west, and people’s mouths open and close as they swallow their words. Backward to the time before she came to be lying on the tracks.
Our woman with the flowered dress and golden hair lives in a small town. She wears an apron. She cooks; she sews. She makes butter. You’ve seen pictures of this in your history books: the butter churn, and the heavy dasher, which the woman holds in both hands and jerks up and down until the cream breaks. She knits socks; she quilts. She smells clean. She is wonderfully domestic. Her mother has trained her well.
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