Here the train went through a cut in the hills, the broken face of the rock on the other side of the window within inches of his face, the stories of millennia -- lithic, petrified -- archived safer than any librarian could hope, the stone rippling in the dim light cast out into the darkness through the windows of the train car. Watching them, Dietz understood what it was to be a phonograph needle, to ride the bumps and jagged edges of the universe and turn them into sound, into song, into something you could take with you when you crossed over. He studied the blur of the face of the rock until it gave way a bridge that ran low across a wide river. With each change of space the sounds that reached his ears changed. You leave something behind every time you cross a bridge, Dietz remembered her telling him that, remembered their surprise at the statement, at the truth of it. She was right again, if there is a right, Dietz thought. And there is, he remembered.

The train tunneled into woods again, and the fat man snorted and woke up, embarrassed by his snoring. Dietz pretended to ignore him. The fat man pretended he thought no one noticed. Dietz watched the trunks of the trees flash by, irregular but not irregular, their rhythm hypnotic.

"I see men, walking as trees." Why would a man say that? Trees don't walk, trees stay where they're born. Trees know their neighbors. Trees know about the rest of the world only by what they learn from their neighbors. Tree gossip. Dietz's lips twisted as he tried to imagine what it was the trees told each other. Every tree has a secret; she had told him that too. They had been standing in a basin of land, near a stream, at the base of a cliff where a tall and ancient sycamore stretched toward the sky, curving white in the sunlight like the bones of the earth. He had put his hand on the smooth trunk of the tree and watched the smile play across her face -- her lips did not know how to fight a smile -- his palm exactly fitting the curved surface of the trunk of the tree, fingerprint to flaking bark, and she told him about the trees and their secrets. What secrets? he asked her. Trees never tell, she said, pressing her ear to the trunk, smiling her slanty smile and watching his eyes, her eyebrows full of invitation, her hair teasing the wind. The water in the river was cold that day and they had carried their shoes across the gravel back to the car.

The night trees flowed past the window and Dietz thought about the two trees he had planted once, moved from a nursery near his grandfather's house to the sunlight in the back yard near the trellis, near the well. Dietz had been worried that the trees would not be turned facing the right way to the sun, the way they had grown, and would be condemned to a life with their back to the sun, or a life spent twisting to face the right way. When he told his grandmother about his concern, she had laughed, and she told the story every Thanksgiving after that, can you believe the things that boy comes up with? she would say shaking her head, looking at his parents, at his aunts and uncles. What she never learned was that his grandfather had shown him how to make sure they face the way they should, and together they had made sure the job was done right, facing the trees to the sun, to the view that would nourish them. And they had agreed, his grandfather and he, that it would be their secret. It was a secret that had burned inside his chest and ignited his tongue when they were sitting at the family table and his grandmother was telling the story, rolling her eyes and patting her breast. But the flicker of the wink from his grandfather's wrinkled face kept him silent again and again, and kept the secret secret. Tonight on the train, Dietz wondered how many trees there were. Alive right now. And he thought that all the trees in all the ages could never be enough to keep all the secrets that needed keeping.

Across the aisle, the fat man was nodding off, drawing long rasping breaths. Dietz was thirsty. Memphis was two days away and Nashville one more. He looked across the aisle, above the fat man, checking his guitar in the overhead bin. The case was still there, still where he put it, right where it was the last time he had checked, the jagged silver duct tape striping the black leatherette like a camouflaged destroyer. John was in Memphis and Steve and Nick were in Nashville, and Dietz knew in his bones that the tracks they were going to lay down next week were significant. Significant, he thought. With a capital S. And as he thought it he knew the CD would be called Capital S.

A chubby blonde walked up the aisle, resting her hands on alternate seatbacks, steadying herself as she walked. The dialogue between her jeans and her ass was straight out of Shakespeare, and Dietz was a connoisseur. She wore earphones. She slid the silver metal door to the bathroom open and went in, closing it behind her. Something inside Dietz wanted to be reassured that she turned the music off, or took the earphones off, or at least paused the input while she was in that little room; but something stronger inside him smirked at his musician's vanity, and he turned his eyes to the window again, filling his own ears with the music of the rails; on his left hand his thumb was rubbing the smooth familiar calluses on his fingers. He wanted something cool and wet to drink. A cold glass of milk. Lemonade.

The landscape outside the window opened up, glowing orange in the night. Heat lightning flickered in the clouds beyond the rise of the mountains and revealed a brown reef of chimneys standing up against the lavender of the night sky. Giant storage tanks squatted against the gouges chiseled in the hills and three malevolent cylinders of cooling towers stood out against the encrusted cubes of the power plant, light-barnacled and seething. It's nuclear, not nookular; the thought was automatic, Dietz knew it well. Everywhere I look, the chorus, he thought. Those fucking Greeks, everywhere I go they've already been, he thought for the thousandth time. Three tractor-trailer trucks sistered on the concrete highway, keeping each other awake, making time to Memphis.

The silver door slid open and the blonde came out of the bathroom, the earphones still on her ears, her eyes set on the distance. All the Shakespeare was inside her shirt now. She drifted past and away, as accessible to Dietz as Andromeda.

And the train ran smoothly through the night, clicking steel swaying and rocking through the Kentucky darkness. Kentucky and then Indiana. Maybe touching Ohio. Dietz breathed deep through his nose and leaned back in his seat and closed his eyes, and the song came back to him, easy in the rushing night. Testify.

she'll look at you and know you
   she don't need to see you twice
      she'll look at you and know you
         she don't need to see you twice
her eyes will pierce the darkness
   and her heart will melt the coldest ice

she's a river in the mountains
   an island in the sea
      she's a river in the mountains
         an island in the sea
I asked her for a blanket
   she told me -- you've got me

she can make soup out of a boulder
   she can spin gold from straw
      she can make soup out of a boulder
         she can spin gold from straw
and when she lets her hair down
   she makes magic beyond the law

her tears they shine like diamonds
   her sorrows hide the stars
      her tears they shine like diamonds
         her sorrows hide the stars
but when you hear her laughter
   you forget you knew the dark

when the sun comes up she rises
   and all day long she sings
      when the sun comes up she rises
         and all day long she sings
at night she wraps her arms around you
   and in the moonlight, she spreads her wings

she dances like an angel
   kisses like the devil's mistress
      she dances like an angel
         kisses like the devil's mistress
and when she wants to make you happy
   she shows you what bliss is

her poetry will cut you
   her words will break your heart
      her poetry will cut you
         her words will break your heart
one thousand and one stories
   to her is just a start

if I live to be a hundred
   if the sky stays blue
      if I live to be a hundred
         if the sky stays blue
I'll testify this woman
   is the best I ever knew

The train ran smoothly through the night. Memphis. And then Nashville. The fat man was snoring again. Dietz was thirsty.

The train went over a bridge.

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