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City, a pimple of yawns on a bare white butt. Where were the saloons and the gunslingers and the professional card sharks? Where was Wyatt Earp? Whatever Wichita had been in the past, its present incarnation was a sober, joyless muddle of shops and houses, a town built so lowto the ground that your elbow knocked against the sky whenever you paused to scratch your head. I’d figured I’d get some scam going for myself, hang around for a few days while I built up my nest egg, and then travel back to Saint Louis in style. A quick tour of the streets convinced me to bag that notion, and half an hour after I’d arrived, I was already looking for a train to get me out of there.
    I felt so glum and dejected, I didn’t even notice that it had started to snow. March was the worst season for storms in that country, but the day had dawned so bright and clear, it hadn’t even occurred to me to think the weather might change. It began with a small flurry, a few sprinkles of whiteness slithering through the clouds, but as I continued my walk across town in search of the rail depot, the flakes grew thicker and more intense, and when I stopped to check my bearings five or ten minutes later, I was already up to my ankles in the stuff. Snow was falling by the bucketful. Before I could say the word
blizzard
, the wind kicked up and started whirling the snow around in all directions at once. It was uncanny how fast it happened. One minute, I’d been walking through the streets of downtown Wichita, and the next minute I was lost, stumbling blindly through a white tempest. I had no clue as to where I was anymore. I was shivering under my wet clothes, the wind was in a frenzy, and I was smack in the middle of it, turning around in circles.
    I’m not sure how long I blundered through that glop. No less than three hours, I would think, perhaps as many as five or six. I had reached town in the late afternoon, and I was still on my feet after’ nightfall, pushing my way through the mountainous drifts, hemmed in up to my knees, then up to my waist, then up to my neck, frantically looking for shelter before the snow swallowed my entire body. I had to keep moving. The slightest pause would bury me, and before I could fight my way out, I’d eitherfreeze to death or suffocate. So I kept on struggling forward, even though I knew it was hopeless, even though I knew that each step was carrying me closer to my end. Where are the lights? I kept asking myself. I was wandering farther and farther away from town, out into the countryside where no one lived, and yet every time I shifted course, I found myself in the same darkness, surrounded by unbroken night and cold.
    After a while, nothing felt real to me anymore. My mind had stopped working, and if my body was still dragging me along, it was only because it didn’t know any better. When I saw the faint glow of light in the distance, it scarcely registered with me. I staggered toward it, no more conscious of what I was doing than a moth is when it zeroes in on a candle. At most I took it for a dream, an illusion cast before me by the shadows of death, and even though I kept it in front of me the whole time, I sensed it would be gone before I got there.
    I don’t remember crawling up the steps of the house or standing on the front porch, but I can still see my hand reaching out for the white porcelain doorknob, and I recall my surprise when I felt the knob turn and the latch clicked open. I stepped into the hallway, and everything was so bright in there, so intolerably radiant, that I was forced to shut my eyes. When I opened them again, a woman was standing in front of me—a beautiful woman with red hair. She was wearing a long white dress, and her blue eyes were looking at me with such wonder, such an expression of alarm, that I almost burst into tears. For a second or two, it crossed my mind that she was my mother, and then, when I remembered that my mother was dead, I realized that I must be dead