Train Dreams

As Grainier ages, he still lives in his cabin every summer and fall. The area has regrown after the fire, but it is different. New plants sprout, the wolves are more distant while coyotes abound, and the trout are gone from the river. Despite this, about 10 years ago, a couple of days after Kootenai Bob’s death, he vowed to stay. On those cold November nights, once the train whistled, coyotes and wolves followed suit. The night of the full moon was especially noisy.

On edge, Grainier stood outside, watching the night sky. The howling wolves got closer until they burst into his yard and raced past. Then suddenly, they were gone. Only one remained: the wolf-girl. Terrified, Grainier observed what appeared to be a young girl whose arms and legs were bent. She squeaked, and Grainier realized that she was injured. After grabbing a weapon and a lamp, he re-emerged into silence. The only sounds were his footsteps and the wolf-girl’s labored breathing.

As he approached, she only moved her green wolf-like eyes. Instantly, Grainier knew that it was Kate. He moved closer and hoped she would recognize him, but she did not. Although human, she possessed an animalistic fear of being vulnerable, with her broken and bloody leg. Grainier bent above and asked what happened, but she only watched, with shallow breaths.

He carried her inside and placed her on his bed. After creating a splint, he pulled on her ankle to reset the bone. She fainted, and Grainier straightened the leg and mounted the splint. As she slept, Grainier studied Kate and thought of her as a “creature.” Then, he sat on a bench and fell asleep until just before dawn, when he heard the wolf-girl leap out the window. He watched her struggle with the splint and slowly make her way toward the river. Grainier intended to follow but never did.

The summer of 1935 is hot and dry. With ominous storm clouds overhead, Grainier experiences a heightened lust. He is also lonely because his dog had wandered off years ago to die alone. One Sunday, he goes to the county fair, where he plans to buy a dog. In town, the only sound is singing from the Methodist church, a place he visits less frequently because it reminds him of Gladys.

At the fair, he talks with two Kootenai women who are selling puppies and a bobcat. The puppies look like wolves. Suddenly, Grainier feels both fear and desire rise in him. When the older woman shows her calf and scratches it, Grainier flees without a dog. He finds himself in the town center with lust surging inside of him. All around, he sees theater advertisements promoting sexual films. Trying to calm himself but still thinking of the film Sins of Love, he hops on a train, noting that it is 11 days until the film shows.

At home, he dreams of the film and wakes himself with masturbation. For days, Grainier battles this constant lust, as dark clouds hang in the sky with no relief from the muggy heat in sight. He spends nights sleeping naked in his yard. Finally, on the day the film opens, he wakes to the sun. Blushing, Grainier begins to walk toward town but backtracks to wander his own property. He cannot watch the movie for fear others will see him and because he will go to hell. 

Grainier falls to the ground and loses his sense of time. Around noon, he rises and walks for hours, thinking only of the word “pulchritude.” By sunset, he stands on a cliff’s edge overlooking a lake. With the Canadian Rockies in the distance, Grainier realizes that the lust is gone. He sleeps at the edge of the lake.

Two weeks later, Grainier treks to town and purchases a dog who would live with him for many years. Grainier himself will live into his eighties. In his lifetime, he will have traveled all over the Northwest, but he will never see the Pacific Ocean. He will have only ever loved Gladys, never been drunk, never owned a gun, and never used a telephone. His travels will take him on many trains, a few cars, and only one airplane. At the time of his death, he will not know who his parents were and will have left no heirs. In November of 1968, Grainier will die in his sleep, only to be found by hikers months later. They will bury him near his cabin.

However, the day he buys the new dog, Grainier obtains tickets to a show about Theodore the Wonder Horse. That night, Grainer sits in a crowded theater and watches the horse. Then, a wolf-boy, who wears a furry mask, capers across the stage. The audience laughs. They quiet, though, when the boy begins to tremble, brings his head back, and roars in a way reminiscent of foghorn, ships, trains, opera, and bagpipes all at once. Then, the theater goes black, and everything is gone.