A predictably calm, purple-hued dusk in Socorro, New Mexico, a predictably rollicking ride over undulating tracks through rural neighborhoods, on a southbound train typical of many I'll continue to ride these next twenty years, the comfort of home and hearth and a late night cheeseburger in the paradise of far east El Paso, Texas.
A handsome, evidently well-suited and loving young couple, well-dressed and happy, comfortably astride their respective ponies on an evening trot along the sandy embankment that parallels our track, she on her gray paint, he on his of caramel brown.
We roll through one of a hundred road crossings, blowing the locomotive horn in established pattern whether the crossings are private or public, though often throughout our territory they're equally isolated and free of traffic, day or night, winter and summer, except of course on honky-tonkin' Saturday nights in Las Cruces and Anthony.
This particularly usual evening, at this particularly usual time, however, the horn surprises the horses, the girl's gray one especially, and the startled animal rears up, throwing her rider through the air before springing into a hasty gallop alongside our iron horse, down the dusty path they were just enjoying the evening on. Not even the cloud of dust and the commotion caused by what happened could conceal from my fellow crew member the image of the young girl falling onto the ground, meeting it with her head and neck. The young man on horseback gave chase to the bolting horse, with her saddle loose and flapping under her, endeavoring to overtake her and bring her under control. Just as he catches up, nearly alongside, his own horse jerks suddenly as if to avoid colliding with his gray partner, which throws his rider directly into the dirt, landing on his side and tumbling, the two horses together but still running indirectly and about each other in that same area, two police cars serendipitously approaching at high speed on the street not far away.
A series of images my engineer and I witnessed the evening before last, though not at all like the typical images we share on such a ride during such an evening. The quickness of it, the terror so quickly kindled in an instant and the madness that follows just as instantly in the seconds that follow, but that burns so slowly for what seemed like minutes at the time, and what repeats slow motion-like in my memory now, impervious to dousing, immune from just taking deep breaths and hoping the handsome, happy, young couple are alright, that their lives aren't irrevocably changed by the path their ride took them on that tranquil evening in their home, that becomes one of the more frightening even tragic moments during my time on the road.
