Son said, when they arrived, "See, I tol' ya."
"Oh, God, it is you!" Mom said.
Tandy had been getting a lot of glances. A lot of people here recognized her right away. They'd whisper to their mate and mate would turn and look over here and a little explosion of recognition could be seen in his eyes.
"Tandy! I love your show!"
Tandy blushed. It was a real, true, little-girl blush, too. Sweet. "Thanks," she said.
"My husband isn't going to believe this. He loves your show, too!"
"Well, tell him thank-you for me."
People were watching us now. I was self-conscious suddenly, embarrassed. I hate being the center of attention, or even anywhere near it.
"In fact, a friend of his was abducted last summer and was going to call your show to see if you'd like to do a bit on him. He said the inside of the mother ship was different from what he'd expected. He said it looked more like the inside of this big huge tavern than anything else."
"Well, you can just call the eight-hundred number at the end of the show and talk to one of our scheduling staff about it."
The woman leaned forward. She was prairie stock, hardworking skin-and-bones at fifty sharp angles, and mad, lonely eyes. Whatever she'd spent her life looking for, she hadn't been able to find. Religion had likely failed her, so now she turned to UFOs. She wore a faded western shirt and faded Levi's. The camera was a small ancient Polaroid. Son, who was tubby in his western getup, said, "Could I get my picture taken with you so I can bring it to fourth grade show-and-tell?"
"Sure, honey," Tandy said. "We'll take one with you and your mom and me and then one with just you and me. How's that?" I took the pictures.
People watched, whispered, pointed, smiled, smirked.
This was my one and only brush with celebrity and I hated it.
I snapped the photos Tandy told me to and then finally Mom and Son were gone, after belatedly cadging an autograph on a napkin.
"I'm sorry," she said. "God, you looked mortified."
"I hate having people stare at me."
Then, in light of the fact that her first reaction to the fans had been to blush, she said, "I actually like it, Robert. I always feel a little funny at first, but then I really get into it."
The food came. We ate. It was good. I had breakfast, the best-tasting meal of the day. Pancakes and eggs and hash browns. You can't go wrong with such a meal. Ever.
She said, "You know what this is all about?"
"What what's all about?"
"My powers and the show and everything? So I won't feel so inadequate around Laura. She got the beauty and the brains."
"I think you're going to owe me five bucks. I think you're trying to sneak an apology for yourself past me."
"It's true, Robert. God, look at her. Listen to her. She's gorgeous and she's brilliant."
"This one may cost you ten bucks."
"So my power and my celebrity-when I have those things I don't feel so inadequate around her. And I can appreciate the fact that she's always taken care of me. Loved me and protected me and tried to help me. Which she has."
"And maybe exploited you a little, too."
"Yes, true. But if she hadn't, I'd never have gotten my own television show."
Or lost your power, I thought.
But I sure wasn't going to say that. I sure as hell wasn't.
SIX
The last trestle was deep in the woods and spanned a dry creek bed. A coyote on the rim of a small hill watched us approach, its scrawny and patchy body aglow with moonlight. I'd cadged a small shovel from the motel office and brought it along.
The woods were heavy, thick, noisy with night.
Steep day and shale cliffs rose sharply in the air, lending the area an isolated sense. Fir and pine stretched deep to the west. To the east was the grassy barren hill where the coyote crouched.
"My last hope," she said. And gave my hand a squeeze.
"I'll leave you alone. In fact, I think I'll climb the trestle."
"Second childhood?"
"Exactly."
So I climbed the trestle. Which was not as easy as it sounds. The brace I used was at a seventy-degree angle. Tandy watched me for a time. "God, be careful."
"You're talking to Tarzan."
"Yeah, right. I can see that. The way you slipped just a minute ago."
I didn't know she'd noticed. So much for my Tarzan image.
I reached the chord, stood up, dusted my hands off on my pants, and took my first good look out at the night. King of the hill. Untouchable. Impregnable. Velvet dark blue sky. Crisp silver moon. A big commercial jet far away, probably heading for Cedar Rapids. The autumn air, cool and melancholy and erotically inspiring. I hoped she'd be beneath my covers tonight, snuggling against the jack-o'-lantern chill, all warm and silky and sexy and still a little sad-faced even in sleep, our bodies entangled and her sweet little mouth against my shoulder, lover and daughter and friend and mystery.
She went about her business and I went about mine.
I'd been up on the chord ten, fifteen minutes, walking back and forth like the ten-year-old I'd always be, when I felt the train coming.
Didn't see it. Didn't hear it. Felt it.
There's a story about Genghis Khan that has always stayed with me. How villages miles from his thundering horseback army, sometimes numbering in the thousands, would literally feel the ground shake with his approach.
And this would give them time to flee before his terrible horsemen reached them.
The train was sort of like that. I had a straight look down maybe a half mile of shining silver track in the vast prairie shadows…and I still couldn't see it. Or hear it.
But feel it, yes.
There was still plenty of time for me to climb down, and I just assumed that's what I'd do as soon as the train came into sight.
As for Tandy, she had suddenly vanished. That didn't trouble me. She might be forming images, and the images leading her somewhere down the creek bed. I sure didn't have to worry about her drowning.
Then the train was sliding around the distant bend, and it was an imposing ghostly figure in the Iowa night, a long freight of jerking rumbling boxcars and tanker cars and lumber cars, and one big golden boogeyman eye scanning the countryside for anything that displeased it. Roaring, rushing toward me.
There were all kinds of stories about people who stood on trestles when the heavy trains came through. How they fell to their deaths and were ground to bloody fatty hamburger after several train cars had passed over them. So the sensible man would quickly work his way down the brace and stand in the dry creek bed and watch the train go by.
But as Tandy had hinted, I was having a second childhood experience. So I decided to stay right where I was.
You could smell the train coming. The hot oily engine. The friction of steel wheel and steel track. The taint of the various products the train was carrying.
And the whistle. I always thought of Jack London and Jack Kerouac when I heard train whistles like that, so lonely and longing in the Midwestern night those whistles, both men rushing their whole lives to a haven they never lived long enough to find, and probably wouldn't have found anyway no matter how long they'd lived.
And then the train was crashing through the tunnel the trestle had created. And the steel bridge jerked and swayed and bobbled as the roaring train seemed to explode beneath my feet. The noise of engine and steel and speed obliterated everything else.
I stuck my arms out for balance, the way I would on a surfboard. But it didn't help much.
I was being tipped off the chord.