by Sam Shepard
I follow her trail. Again. There are remnants caught on cactus. Shreds from her shorts, pieces of hair. I get excited. I can feel that throbbing high in the throat. Something in the head booms. The chase maybe? The breath quickens. An impression of bare legs churning. Powerful thighs. Tan. Never slacking pace. Young. Tan. What is she thinking? Why has she come back? The mind won’t stop. No matter what. The thought tripping over itself. Appearing, disappearing. Her future. Must be. She’s so young it’s got to be her future. Why would she ever take a dip into the scary past? Something she sees up ahead. Tangible. A picture. Maybe more men. She has no idea I’m right behind her. Or does she? Did she plan this out? Is she actually leading me to my own disaster? Am I? (Don’t get paranoid. It’s midday, for Christ’s sake.) Maybe that’s her muddy step, right there. But it hasn’t rained for thirty days.
I went back there to the place where that investigator guy said they’d found her—swinging by the neck, from a bluegum. I walked up and down that whole stretch of dust looking up into the millions of skinny leaves clattering around in the highway wind. Traffic on 5 poured past me on the left and the right. She was nowhere to be found, of course. No sign of her. Not even the black purse strap that seemed to have held up so well. Nothing. They’d taken her away—everything. Probably in one of those body bags. Probably ashes by now. I did find the tree though. I’m sure it was. It seemed to be much older than the rest. Tired. It was like it had seen too much. Rooted in the same spot for all those years. Branches all gnarled up like goat knees.
There was one branch that had little desperate scratches on it—almost like something might have chewed it in the night. Some rodent or bat. Tiny little teeth marks the size of a child’s, just cutting molars. Whatever it was, it was after something sweet. Something under the bark. Eucalyptus and Vaseline? I remember my mother coating my chest with that. It made your eyes water.
A Note About the Author
Sam Shepard is the Pulitzer Prize–winning author of more than fifty-five plays and three story collections. As an actor, he has appeared in more than sixty films, and received an Oscar nomination in 1984 for The Right Stuff. He was a finalist for the W. H. Smith Literary Award for his story collection Great Dream of Heaven. In 2012 he was awarded an honorary degree from Trinity College, Dublin, Ireland. He is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters, received the Gold Medal for Drama from the Academy, and has been inducted into the Theater Hall of Fame.
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