138 comments/ 71686 views/ 43 favorites Heart of the Prairie By: FrancisMacomber I'd been reading the day's news on the computer when I heard pounding at the front door. Because I'm still a city boy at heart, I'd locked the door when I'd come home earlier, so it took me a minute to get it open. The sheriff was standing there panting as though he'd run from his car to my porch. "There's been an accident, Doc," he gasped out. You'd think that with the population so low and the roads so straight out here in Oklahoma that there'd be very few auto accidents, but you'd be wrong. Once you get away from the big cities and off the interstates, our highways tend to be narrow two-lane blacktop strips, and too many of our bridges are in need of repair. But people still drive like they were on an interstate highway and, as a result, getting called to go to a crash site was not an uncommon event for the only doctor in four counties. "I'll be right there, George, just let me grab my bag," I said, and started to turn away. "No, Doc," he said, and it was the strange tone in his voice rather than his words that made me jerk back around. "It's Bonnie," he said in a choked tone, and suddenly I noticed the tears on his cheeks. I felt epinephrine pump through my nervous system, and I immediately began to pant. "Oh, God, where is she?" I demanded. "We've got to get there . . ." George just stood there, and now he couldn't look at me. "She's gone, Doc. She didn't make it." I've treated a fair number of gunshot patients. They always told me the same thing: there's no pain when you're first hit, your body just goes numb. At that instant I felt as though I had been shot in the thorax, and I staggered, trying to regain my balance as I went numb all over. "No, that can't be right," I yelled. "I can save her if I can get there in time!" But as I tried to get by him to run to the police car, George grabbed me and held me. "You can't go, Doc. You can't see her. It was bad, Doc, real bad. I'm so sorry," he said through his tears. The rest of that night was pretty much a blur: phone calls, hushed voices, people coming and going, terse conversations over static-filled radios. One thing I do remember was the nervous deputy who stayed with me after George had to leave. I also remember that, just like with a gunshot wound, once the numbness began to wear off, the pain was unbearable. Somewhere along the way during that terrible night, when the agony got to be too much, I went to my medical bag and pulled out a vial of morphine. When the deputy wasn't looking I administered the injection and then lay down on my bed. Oblivion came swiftly and mercifully, as I'd hoped. I know it was cowardly of me, but I just couldn't bear to be conscious any more that night. When I awoke, I immediately smelled food, and when I stumbled out of the bedroom I stared in amazement at the array of chafing dishes and plastic containers on the kitchen counters. Then my brain threw off the last of the morphine and I suddenly realized why my neighbors had brought so much to eat. "Oh, Bonnie!" I cried, collapsing into the nearest chair. I'd only postponed the pain; now there was no relief. George returned later that morning and tried to answer the questions he knew I had. "She was on State Route 296, coming back from the office in Arrowpoint after work," he told me. "We think she must have fallen asleep at the wheel because her Honda crossed the center line and hit an oncoming truck head on. The driver of the truck didn't make it either." I tried desperately not to imagine what the accident scene had looked like. The next few days were an incoherent blur of emotional pain punctuated only by a few memories that stuck with me. Perhaps the worst of those was my encounter with Bonnie's father at the funeral home. He was a big man, as tall as I am and remarkably fit from working on the ranch, even in his sixties. But when I saw him that day, he appeared to have aged ten years. As he walked into the parlor he was hunched over, taking small, feeble steps. When he caught sight of me he came over and threw his arms around me. "I'm so sorry," he managed to get out before he broke down in tears. I clung to him tightly, my own tears wetting the shoulder of his suit. Everyone around us stopped, awkward and embarrassed, unsure what to do. Finally, he led me over to her coffin. I've seen hundreds of corpses, of course, but I dreaded seeing my wife now. The casket was partially closed so that only her face was visible. We all knew why, but no one wanted to speak of it. "That's not Bonnie," I thought to myself as I gazed at her embalmed face. The Bonnie I knew was filled with laughter and an excitement about life. The face lying there looked like a poorly painted portrait. "Oh, Bonnie," I thought as I fumbled for my handkerchief, "why did you have to go? Why couldn't it have been me instead?" I'd been a bachelor when I'd first moved to Millersville, and it seemed like every family in town was determined to introduce me to their eligible daughters at the earliest opportunity. I was invited to so many Sunday dinners, church socials, family picnics and high school football games until I could hardly keep them all straight. And at every one, somewhere along the way I'd be introduced to one or more daughters, ranging from as old as forty (I'd guess) to as young as sixteen (God forbid!). It would be nice to think that my good looks and winning personality made me such a desirable catch, but anyone who's been to medical school knows that doctors have an inside track when it comes to the opposite sex. The combination of strong earnings potential, a comfortable lifestyle and a respected position in society makes us hot matrimonial prospects. They used to say that a doctor who can't get a spouse is a doctor who doesn't want one. What all those eager potential spouses may not know is that we doctors have been warned about the pursuit and cautioned to avoid getting trapped, at least until we've found "Mr. or Ms. Right." So I was polite and friendly with Millersville's nubile ladies, and even went out a few times with some of them. But I made it a point to be very proper and to control my animal urges, even when a few of the young ladies rather blatantly offered their charms to me. The last thing I wanted was an angry parent on my hands in a town where the number one accessory for trucks was a gun rack. I was so cautious, in fact, that one of my patients told me he'd heard one frustrated young lady say she thought I was gay. I just smiled, assured him that wasn't the case and bided my time. And then I met Bonnie. I'd driven the fifty miles to Arrowpoint to visit the government office there. When I walked into the waiting area, she was working behind the reception desk. Have you ever been walking under a sky heavy with clouds and suddenly been bathed in sunlight? That's how I felt when I saw her. I don't think I stumbled when I walked over to the desk, but I'm not positive because my brain was definitely not in control of my body or, as quickly became apparent, my mouth. "Er, um, I'm here to see Mr. Rogers. I'm, uh . . ." I babbled. "I know who you are," she snapped at me. Then she swiveled around in her chair and rudely walked away from me. I had no idea what I could have done to offend her, but I was determined to find out and correct it. So I made another appointment with Mr. Rogers a week later. When I walked into the lobby, she actually rolled her eyes in disgust when she saw me. When I reappeared the following week, she looked up at me with surprise. "Why are you here? Mr. Rogers is off today," she said. "I didn't come here to see him," I told her, "I was hoping you'd have lunch with me." "You drove fifty miles just to have lunch with me?" she asked in astonishment. Blushing, I nodded. She rolled her eyes again. "Well, all right," she said reluctantly. That was how it started. I was surprised when I learned that she was Richard Miller's daughter. I would have thought that the head of the County Commission would have wanted to show off his only daughter like the other leading lights of the county, and perhaps he had. But Bonnie had an independent streak, as I'd already learned, and changing her mind was no easy task. I know because I courted her over six months just to get her to begin dating me in any serious way. Similarly, even after we were married she refused to give up her job in Arrowpoint. She'd gotten her position on her own without her father's influence, she informed me, and she was proud of that accomplishment. I'd assented (as though I'd had a choice!) but now I wished with all my heart that she hadn't had to make that daily fifty-mile commute. For all her independence, once we became engaged Bonnie proved to be surprisingly conservative, sexually speaking. She was not shy about her body and she had no hesitation about necking and petting, but intercourse was off the table until marriage, she informed me in no uncertain terms. I thought her attitude seemed terribly old-fashioned, even for rural Oklahoma, but I could do nothing to change her mind. And I was so deeply in love with her by then that it ceased to matter. Once she was convinced that I would respect her wishes, Bonnie had no trouble acceding to oral sex. I found it somewhat touching that she obviously had had little if any experience in that area. I'll never forget the first time I ventured between her thighs with my kisses. She was lying on her back with her eyes closed, enjoying the touch of my fingers. When I first kissed her vagina, I don't think she realized what I'd done. But when I licked her labia minora, her head shot up and her eyes popped open. "What are you doing?" she demanded. But with a little explanation and a lot of demonstration on my part, she first accepted my ministrations and then began to enjoy them immensely. When I drove her wailing to an orgasm, she took a long time to recover. Then she raised her head and looked at me. "I'm going to want a lot more of that," she said with a big grin. If she was hesitant about cunnilingus, she was even more so about fellatio. But I coached her through it, going slowly and carefully, explaining what was happening at every stage and warning her about what to expect. The taste of my pre-ejaculate did not repulse her as I had feared, and, to my happy surprise, she proceeded to bring me off in her mouth and even swallow. She was so pleased to learn how to give a man so much pleasure that she wanted to practice it almost every time we were together. For our honeymoon, I took her to the Virgin Islands, and in a secluded hotel on Saint Croix we had intercourse for the first time. Bonnie was not a virgin, which surprised me, but I decided not to ask and she never volunteered an explanation. What was clear, however, was that she was not very experienced in the art of love, as Ovid called it. She knew nothing beyond the missionary position, and I took great delight in educating her in some of the many other options. All I can say is that she was an apt and eager student. I remember the last night before we were to leave the island. We'd made love, and afterwards she went out on the balcony to stare at the ocean. When I came up beside her, the moonlight revealed tears in her eyes. "Is everything all right?" I asked anxiously. She turned and buried her face against my chest. "All this has been so overwhelming to me," she whispered. "I'll never forget it as long as I live." I think I may have gotten a few happy tears in my own eyes. Now at the funeral home, memories like that kept coming to me and I was helpless to shut them off, even though they caused so much pain. In medical school they teach you to be sympathetic with your patients, but never empathetic. It's important to feel sympathy, they said, but if you begin to share your patients' emotions, your effectiveness as a physician will suffer. You're also likely to go insane carrying around all that grief. As one person after another came through the receiving line to express his or her sympathy, I was acutely aware of how little comfort their words afforded me. "We're so sorry for your loss," I'd hear, and know that their sorrow was nothing compared to my own. "She was such a devoted wife," they'd say, and I knew they had no idea just how devoted she was. "She's in a better place," someone opined, but all I could think was that it certainly wasn't better for me. Finally, we all stood at the gravesite as the Baptist preacher intoned the final words before her coffin was lowered into the rich brown earth forever. Trying to stifle my tears, I glanced around at the other mourners. Of them all, I thought, the only one who feels her loss as much as I is her father. The old man was being supported by Richard Junior; his reddened eyes never left the resting site of his only daughter's last remains. Once the interment was finished, the crowd began to dissipate slowly. I heard one of the county commissioners say, "I hope Richard is going to be okay. Bonnie was a real 'daddy's girl.' She'd do anything for him, and he wanted everything for her. Losing her like this could kill him." I looked back at her father as he shuffled from the gravesite and I thought that the commissioner's fear might well prove accurate. Given my own agony, I just wondered if her loss was going to kill me as well. An older lady came up to me to pat my hand. "I just hope you're not going to leave us now," she added. Before I could speak, her husband hushed her. "Martha, what a thing to say! Of course Dr. Robertson isn't going to leave Millersville." I hadn't even considered leaving; then again, I hadn't considered anything except trying to survive Bonnie's burial. In any case, it seemed like a strange comment to make, especially at a time like this. But it reminded me of how I came to be in Millersville in the first place. I'd always wanted to be a doctor. It's funny: I can't remember what originally prompted me to take an interest in medicine, but whenever anyone asked me what I wanted to be when I grew up, I'd always say "doctor." When you're young, all jobs seem equal, and all careers seem equally achievable. Over time you begin to comprehend the complex weave of intelligence, skills, interest, aptitude and a dozen other factors that are required for a successful career in any given type of work. And after all those factors get sorted out, one final barrier rears its ugly head: the cost of preparation. There are few if any careers more expensive to pursue than medicine. After I put pencil to paper, I figured I would be roughly a quarter of a million dollars in debt by the time I would be ready to go into practice. As if that wasn't daunting enough, my Dad's heart attack while I was an undergraduate dealt my hopes for a medical career what appeared to be a fatal blow. But this is a great country and it has a great program to address this conundrum: the National Health Service Corps. The NHSC was created to solve two problems. The first is over-specialization. Every medical student knows that the really big bucks are to be had in the specialties. Accordingly, we have a shortage of physicians in the less lucrative general areas such as internal medicine, family practice, pediatrics and the like. The second and in some ways even more pressing problem is the dearth of physicians in underserved rural areas of the country. Go to Manhattan and it's hard to walk a block without tripping over a doctor. Go to the heartland and you may have to drive a day or more to find one. The NHSC told me that if I'd agree to become a primary care physician and be willing to relocate to an underserved location, Uncle Sam would forgive the mountain of debt I'd accumulate, assuming I stayed in that location long enough. Accordingly, I made an early commitment that enabled me to get the support I needed all the way through medical school, internship and residency. In effect, I sold my first few years of practice to the NHSC in return for my tuition and expenses. It was a trade-off I was perfectly willing to make. I wouldn't get rich but I would be able to pursue my dream in a place that truly needed my services. I was happy to sign up. It was in my second year of residency that Oklahoma arose as a likely destination for my service. I had never been to Oklahoma before, and the idea seemed somehow romantic. How hard could it be to spend the next few years seeing patients amid waving wheat, corn as high as an elephant's eye and the prairie where the pioneers bravely made their homes? And that's how I wound up in Millersville. When I met Richard Miller, the head of the Miller County Commission, he made it clear that his town was hoping for a lot more than four years from me. His family had lived there in north-central Oklahoma ever since the great Land Run of 1889, which explained the name of both the county and the town. Richard wanted to make sure that the town would still be there for his son and grandchildren. Apparently, Millersville had had another NHSC doctor a few years ago, but he didn't stick around long. To the leaders of Millersville, that was a catastrophe. "A town without a doctor is a town that's dying," Richard told me. "Couples are afraid to start families, the people start to drift off and the town slowly wastes away. We don't want that to happen here." They certainly made it easy. They had an office waiting for me, and I was surprised at how well it was appointed. But before I could be too impressed by my new office, Richard topped that by showing me the house I was to live in at no cost to me. It was a beautiful two-story Victorian newly renovated, and when I protested that it was much too large for my needs, Richard just smiled and said I'd grow into it over time. It wasn't just the big perquisites they provided that were so attractive, it was all the little ways they made me feel wanted. The day I committed to Millersville I became a celebrity. Everyone in town knew me and loved me, so it seemed, and everyone made a point to nod and smile whenever they passed me on the street. The county commissioners began to consult with me on various issues, and they were quick to praise my meager words of advice. I had gone from being a struggling med student to a very important person overnight. Of course I knew what they were attempting to do: provide every possible inducement to keep me there beyond my commitment to the NHSC. So when I began to be introduced to their daughters, I was under no illusions. The good parents of Millersville knew that the bonds of matrimony would be far stronger than any other inducements they could offer to make me stay. But despite how obvious it all was, I couldn't help but be swayed by the sincerity of the people and their apparent warmth, trust and affection. Sure they needed me to stay, but I also believed they were genuinely glad it was me and not someone else, and that felt good. Then, when I encountered Bonnie, all other considerations fell by the wayside. The fact that I'd fallen for the only young woman in town who hadn't thrown herself at me somehow reassured me. Her reservations convinced me that when she finally agreed to go steady with me, I had truly won her over. When she finally consented to be my bride, any doubts I might have had about remaining in Millersville were swept aside. When we were finally married, I knew that life could not get any better for me. Until that night when it all went to hell. Over the next week after the funeral, food continued to show up at my house. I knew it was a traditional way of expressing concern, but I was touched nevertheless. It was as if my friends and neighbors wanted me to have the sustenance they feared I might be unable to provide for myself in my time of grieving. That simple act meant much more than the ritual words of condolence. Heart of the Prairie I took off the week after the funeral, and all my appointments seemed magically to be rescheduled. That was fortunate because I was in no condition to deal with patients. But I wasn't idle. I learned that death brings an unexpectedly long list of details which must be attended to, and I applied myself to them diligently. Every item was excruciatingly painful, but I wanted to eliminate these razor-sharp reminders as quickly as possible so they wouldn't keep torturing me. One of the last items on my list was a visit to the Sheriff's office. I could tell George wasn't happy to see me, but he motioned me to the chair across from his desk. "Dr. Robertson -- Mark -- are you sure you want to go through all this? The more details you know, the harder it's going to be on you." "Thank you, George, but I have to find out what happened. I won't be able to heal until I know." He shifted in his chair uncomfortably and steepled his hands together. "Like I told you, it's impossible to know exactly what happened. We're guessing that she must have dozed off at the wheel because the road where the accident happened is straight and level. Her car crossed the center line and never slowed down. She never hit the brakes because here were no skid marks on the highway at all. We estimate that they were both going about 65 miles per hour." I shuddered -- the kinetic energy of such a collision would have been catastrophic. "Go on," I said. "What about Bonnie?" He wouldn't look up from his papers. "She had her seatbelt on and the airbag deployed just like it was supposed to. But at the speed they were going, the passenger area was partially crushed and she was pinned in the wreckage." I tried desperately not to think about what that must have looked like: my beautiful wife broken like a bird that had flown into a plate glass window. But I had to know. "So she was pinned in the car with multiple injuries. Do we know what killed her? Was it shock?" I asked in a whisper. George's head sank even lower. "Somehow during the wreck her left arm was severed. She bled out, Doc." He paused. "If it helps any, it must have been pretty quick." Unbidden, a diagram from my anatomy class came to mind, and I could see the brachial artery branching off from the carotid and running down the arm. "No," I thought, "it wouldn't have taken long at all." "What about the other vehicle?" I asked. "It was a Dodge pick-up truck. The driver must have died instantly; he wasn't wearing a seat belt." "Who was he?" I asked. "His name was Taylor Johnson. He was a rancher from over in Noble County east of here. His wife said he'd been hunting for white-tails in the Black Kettle Wildlife Management Area. He must have been driving home when the accident happened." I shook my head. The name meant nothing to me. "One last thing, George," I said. "I'd like to see the autopsy report." "Doc, are you sure?" "Please," I said. "I'm a doctor. It's the only way I can get closure." He stood up and went to an old metal filing cabinet. Automation hadn't made many inroads in this part of Oklahoma. "It's just a partial, Doc," he explained. "There wasn't much question about the cause of death." I looked at the report. George was right: the coroner had only done a visual on the body. The loss of the left arm was there, as I'd expected. But it hurt to learn about the multiple broken ribs and cracked sternum. Although the report didn't mention them, I knew without question that she had to have suffered massive internal injuries. Then there was the fractured cranium. The broken femurs and cracked pelvis were incidental. All in all, there were half a dozen potentially fatal wounds. But the severed brachial artery guaranteed that by the time the volunteer EMT reached her she was already gone. Strangely, I felt a little better after reading the report. I thought it was highly likely that she'd been knocked unconscious by the blow to her skull and had bled out quickly while she was unconscious. If that was true, then she hadn't suffered at all. That was a small blessing. The other comfort was the knowledge that I could have done nothing for her even if I could have gotten to the wreck site. I doubt she would have survived if she'd had the accident in front of a major metropolitan hospital. I returned the sheet to George and went home. In a strange way, the autopsy report gave me a greater sense of closure than her funeral. The next week I started back to work. There was nothing more I could do for Bonnie, so I felt it was time for me to start trying to do something for the living. My schedule was open late on Thursday afternoon, so I was startled when my nurse came to tell me that a Hillary Johnson was in the waiting room and wanted to see me. A quick check of our files showed that she hadn't been in before, so I pulled out a clean form in readiness to examine her. A rather attractive woman about my age entered the office. Although I motioned her to the chair beside the examining table, she continued to stand there with her arms crossed, staring at me intently. I found her manner a little disturbing, but I tried to get the examination started. "What can I do for you today, Mrs. Johnson?" I asked in my normal bedside manner. She dropped her arms and clenched her fists, and her face began to redden. "You can tell me why your wife killed my husband!" she burst out, and then covered her face and began to weep. "Oh my God!" I thought, "This must be the wife of the man who was driving the pick-up truck." A part of me wanted to come around my desk and comfort her, while another part wanted to hide in the face of her obvious pain. But her words brought back all my own pain, and I could do nothing but sit there as though paralyzed. After a long couple of minutes, she seemed to regain some control of herself about the same time that I came out of the fog of memories that had enveloped me. I was the first to speak. "I'm so sorry about your husband, Mrs. Johnson. I'm still struggling to comprehend my own loss." Her expression relaxed a little as she seemed to realize that I too was suffering. But she was clearly still tormented. "I just don't understand how she could have been so careless. If she'd just pulled over and napped, just stopped for a little while to get some rest . . ." "I don't understand it either," I told her sincerely. "She made that drive every evening at the same time. I keep thinking about it, wishing she'd called me to come get her, anything but what happened." I tried, but I was unable to keep the anguish out of my voice. I think Mrs. Johnson must have picked up on that because her tone softened further. "I know it wasn't your fault. If I'm honest with myself, it probably wasn't her fault either. It's just that it hurts so bad, and I felt like I had to come. Now I wish I hadn't done that -- I can see how much you're suffering too." "It's alright, Mrs. Johnson," I said. "We're both searching for answers where there are only questions. We're both groping for some way to reverse what's happened, even though we know we can't do that. It's only human nature to become angry with any others involved, even if he or she were helpless to prevent the tragedy." Then my professional training took over. "Have you been able to sleep since the accident?" I asked her gently. When she shook her head, I quickly wrote out a prescription for her. "If you want you can take one of these before bedtime. Just be sure not to have any alcohol with them." She thanked me and rose to leave after I handed her the prescription. Before she departed I asked her, "Please stay in touch, Mrs. Johnson. I'd like to know how you're doing." She nodded gratefully, and after she'd gone I felt better that I'd been able to help, even if just a little. But over the next few days her visit kept coming to mind. Her questions had troubled me, even though I knew there were no answers. Sometimes bad things just happen to good people for no reason. But knowing that was not the same as accepting it, and the fact that I couldn't answer any of Mrs. Johnson's questions made acceptance just that much more difficult. If nothing further had happened, I believe time would slowly have begun to heal me. But I was not to be afforded that luxury. A week later, a Ms. Nicole Claiborne from some insurance company in Oklahoma City made an appointment to see me. She made it clear that her visit was not a sales call, but she would not disclose her purpose in advance. All she would say was that she needed to speak with me in regard to my late wife. I reluctantly agreed to see her, steeling myself to have my wounds reopened yet again. When Ms. Claiborne arrived at the appointed time, I saw an attractive young woman dressed in a business suit that would have been considered conservative except for a slit up the side of the skirt that rose higher than I would have expected. I found it somewhat offensive that she would wear such attire to see a man still in mourning for his wife, and I made it a point to keep my focus at eye level. "Dr. Robertson," she began, "I'm here because your wife was covered by a life insurance policy that her father had purchased for her. You are listed as the beneficiary. Were you aware of that?" "No," I told her, "I had no idea." Ms. Claiborne nodded. "The policy had a double indemnity clause that comes into play in the event of an accidental death. In this particular case, the face value of the policy was $100,000, so the payout, assuming the claim is approved, will be $200,000." She looked at me carefully as she spoke. When I didn't react, she went on. "Naturally, as part of our normal procedure in such cases, we routinely look into any untimely demise before we pay a claim." "I don't see what there is to investigate," I told her coldly. "The police told me that she must have fallen asleep at the wheel before the crash. I don't see how it could be much more straightforward than that." She sat there for a few moments, then she rather ostentatiously crossed her legs, allowing the material of her skirt to fall open. I ignored her display. "$200,000 is a lot of money. What are you planning to do with it?" she asked abruptly. I was angry at the woman for her inappropriate display and for the tone of her questions. I was also angry with myself for the tears that came to my eyes despite my efforts to retain my composure. "Ms. Claiborne, the woman I loved died horribly in an accident only a few weeks ago! Money is the last thing I care about. Now if you don't have any further questions, can you just leave me alone?" She uncrossed her legs and sat upright in her chair, carefully adjusting her skirt to hide what she'd so readily displayed only a moment before. Her whole demeanor changed, and an apologetic look came over her face. "Dr. Robertson, I'm very sorry for my questions and the attitude I adopted. Please accept my sincere apology." She must have seen the confusion on my face because she hurried on. "Dr. Robertson, I've been doing insurance investigations for longer than you might guess. During that time I've learned to use certain 'distractions' -- she reached down and smoothed the slit in her skirt -- to help me evaluate the people with whom I deal. Some of those people were not what they purported to be, and their responses to my distractions helped me to uncover the truth. In your case, I'm satisfied now that you are a grieving widower who truly loved his late wife, and I'm genuinely sorry for your loss." "I suppose I understand," I said slowly, "but why even bother to put me through all that in the first place? Surely there can't be any questions about what happened." Even as I spoke, I flashed back to Hillary Johnson's visit and I felt a twinge of uneasiness. The investigator leaned toward me. "Dr. Robertson, another thing I've learned in this job is to rely on my instincts. My gut is telling me that you're a good man who wants to know the truth about what happened to his wife, so I'm going to be very candid with you. But before I do, let me caution you. By necessity I have to consider possibilities that are disturbing. If I suggest something that offends you, please hear me out. I didn't know your wife, so my questions are those I might ask anyone in such circumstances. Please don't take any of it personally." I nodded doubtfully. It made sense that an investigator would have to look at a situation from every angle, but I still couldn't see more than one angle in this case. She quickly showed me how wrong I was. "Dr. Robertson, I told you I listen to my gut. My gut keeps asking how your late wife could have fallen asleep at the wheel before the accident. I don't think she did." I was shocked. "If she didn't fall asleep, what else could make her swerve into an oncoming truck? Are you suggesting that she might have been drugged?" I asked incredulously. "Absolutely not," she replied quickly. "On the contrary, I don't think she was impaired in any way." I looked at her curiously. "How can you know that?" I asked. "Perhaps she had a really tough day at work and was unusually worn out. Maybe she didn't have anything to eat for lunch and her blood sugar suddenly dropped. There are lots of things that could have caused her to drop off just before the accident." "When was the last time you made the drive to Arrowpoint?" she asked. "It's been quite a while," I said, "several months at least. I'm not really sure." She nodded. "Two months ago, Miller County undertook repairs to the bridge over the river between Arrowpoint and Millersville. The repair work means that any vehicle crossing the bridge has to slow down to 35 mph and then make a sharp lane change in the middle of the bridge. Your wife would have had to be both awake and alert to drive over that bridge." "That doesn't mean that she couldn't have fallen asleep after crossing the bridge," I protested. "It's not impossible," she admitted, "but the accident occurred only about a mile past the bridge. At the speed she was traveling, that would have been only about sixty seconds later. It doesn't seem likely that she would have dropped off to sleep only a minute after she had successfully made a major speed change and steering correction." I sat there in silence. Bonnie made that drive every evening after work. She'd have been used to driving under those conditions, and I'd wondered again what could have gone wrong after all these years. What Nicole Claiborne told me was extremely troubling. "What about a mechanical failure?" I asked finally. "Couldn't something like a blow-out or a steering problem cause her car to veer into the other lane?" "Yes, it could," she said quietly, "but I've already been out to the salvage yard to examine your wife's car. The tires were intact, and the damage to the suspension and steering mechanism all appeared to be related to the accident." "But maybe . . ." I started, when she raised her hand. "More importantly," she went on, "we were able to retrieve the onboard computer from her car, which captured exactly what happened in the last few seconds before impact. As her Honda was traveling at 64.8 mph, the steering wheel was rotated to the left, causing the car to steer into the other lane. The wheel was then straightened. The brakes were never applied." I sat back in my chair with my mouth open. It sounded as though Bonnie had deliberately steered her Honda into the oncoming truck. How could that have been an accident? But if it wasn't, the only other possibility seemed to be suicide. She didn't have any reason to commit suicide, at least I didn't think so. Ms. Claiborne's voice broke through my thoughts. "Did you or your wife know Taylor Johnson?" she asked gently. "I never heard of him before the accident," I told her, "and I never heard Bonnie speak of him. Besides, I understand he lived over in Noble County, way east of here, so it's not likely she'd ever met him. Why would you ask?" Her face looked tired now. "You're not going to like this, but there are other possibilities I have to consider. What if the accident wasn't an accident? What if she deliberately tried to kill Jason Taylor as well as herself?" The thought took my breath away. "That's not possible!" I gasped. "Why would she do such a thing?" "I can think of at least three possibilities," she said quietly. She held up her hand and grasped her index finger. "The first is that Taylor Johnson was a mortal enemy, and she felt that she had to give up her own life in order to protect her family from that threat." She touched her middle finger. "A second possibility is that she and Mr. Johnson were lovers, and she killed him and herself in a jealous rage." Holding her ring finger and looking away from me, she added, "Or, if they were lovers, she could have been trying to prevent anyone from learning that she was pregnant with his child." I'd tried to be cool and rational, but her last suggestion was too much. "Goddamit, that's not true! Bonnie loved me and she wasn't pregnant. What do you want: to exhume her body and do a full autopsy? I won't have it!" She quickly came over and knelt in front of me, taking my hands. "I'm so sorry; I didn't mean to upset you. I'm not your enemy, and I hate it that I have to be so cynical and suspicious about people. Please forgive me." Even though her suggestions were outrageous, her apology tempered my anger. "Alright, Ms. Claiborne, I guess you're just doing your job." Still contrite, she looked up at me searchingly. "Please call me Nicole. And may I call you Mark? If we're going to find out what really happened, it would help." "Alright, Nicole," I said, "but I still think you're all wrong about Bonnie." "For what it's worth, I agree: I don't think any of those three scenarios is true. In the first place, all three would have required that Bonnie know Taylor Johnson would be on that highway at just that time. Yet Mrs. Taylor told me she had no idea when her husband would be home from his hunting trip. As for Bonnie, she left Arrowpoint at her regular time, so she obviously didn't make any special adjustment to meet up with Johnson. Moreover, I checked her cellphone records, and she neither made nor received any calls in the last few hours before the accident, so I can't see how she could have coordinated their meeting." "So it was just a coincidence, a chance encounter?" I asked. "It's possible," Nicole admitted, "but that still leaves us with what appears to be a deliberate attempt to crash into Johnson's truck." "Maybe we're thinking about it the wrong way. Could Taylor Johnson have wanted to kill Bonnie?" I asked. "I've considered it," she told me, "but how could he have induced her to steer her car into his lane?" She stood up. "Mark, I know I've upset you, and I apologize again. The thing is, nothing about this case makes sense to me, and I just can't let it drop without looking a little deeper." I slumped in my chair. "Ms. Claiborne -- Nicole -- I have to admit that I've been dithering about this myself ever since the accident. I need to know what happened too." She handed me a business card. "If you think of anything that might shed light on all this, please give me a call at any time." She looked at me sympathetically. "Give me a call even if you just want someone to talk to." Then she turned and left my office. I thought I'd been in turmoil before; now the idea that my late wife had taken some mysterious secret with her to the grave was a new wound before the old ones had begun to heal. It was bad enough that Bonnie had died in a tragic accident. The questions that Nicole had raised filled my mind with insidious suspicions. Surely none of those scenarios could be true, yet the many unanswered questions were enough to incite paranoia. Heart of the Prairie I took one of my own sleeping pills before going to bed that night. The next day was Saturday, and my office was closed on Saturday afternoons. After I'd seen my last patient for the day, I got in my car and began the drive to Arrowpoint. I'd avoided it up to now because I couldn't bear to see the site where my beautiful Bonnie's life had ended. Now I felt I had no choice but to check it out for myself and try to understand what had happened as best I could. Although I'd now lived in Oklahoma almost two years, I still wasn't used to the distances. Bonnie had thought nothing of driving to work every day from Millersville to Arrowpoint and back again. To her it was nothing unusual; to me it would have been a real burden. I guess when you grow up on the prairie your perspective is different. But if this commute was so normal for her, I thought, why was that terrible night different? What could have possibly led her to her death on this long straight stretch of highway? I consciously ignored the spot where I estimated the accident had taken place and drove on into Arrowpoint. I wanted to experience the return trip the way she had, so I went to Bonnie's office, made a u-turn in the parking lot and headed back out onto the highway. After a while I came to the bridge and immediately saw Nicole's point. There was no way anyone could speed through the repairs safely. If you weren't fully awake and alert, you were likely to wind up hitting one of the concrete barriers that enforced the lane change. As soon as I cleared the bridge I stepped on the accelerator and sped up to 65. I checked my watch and made a note of the odometer when 60 seconds had elapsed. Then I pulled over, checked to make sure the road was clear and made another u-turn to go back to the site of the accident. It seemed to me that it would have been very difficult to drift off to sleep in such a short time. Pulling onto the roadside, I got out and began looking around. Apparently the wrecker crew had done a good job: the only evidence of the accident I could find were some shards of broken glass and plastic, and a few strips of chrome body molding. Then something caught my eye in the grass, and when I walked over I found a small wooden cross inscribed "Bonnie Miller, RIP" and the date. I don't know who had placed the marker, but when I saw it all I could think of was the young woman I'd met in Arrowpoint. Once again, tears burned my eyes. After a while I composed myself and started the rest of the drive back to Millersville with a heavy heart. After seeing the wreck site, I missed Bonnie more than ever, yet at the same time I was more disturbed than ever. I was now convinced that much of what I'd believed about her accident could not be true. "Oh, Bonnie, what happened?" I asked helplessly. Over the next two weeks I found myself compulsively repeating the drive to Arrowpoint and back. I wasn't sure whether I was paying homage to my wife's memory or searching for clues to solve the mystery, but I didn't find anything to help with either quest. After a number of fruitless trips, I decided I had to do something different. Accordingly, when I reached the office where Bonnie had worked, I parked, went in and asked to speak to Mr. Rogers, her supervisor. When I gave them my name, he showed up very quickly. I guess being the only doctor in a four-county area has its privileges. Mr. Rogers offered his condolences and then sat chatting with me over a cup of bad coffee about Bonnie and her work. I guess he was trying to suck up to me because he kept praising her as an employee. "She was great," he enthused, "we would have loved to have kept her full-time, but I guess a doctor's wife doesn't need the hours," he added fulsomely. I gaped at him. I'd thought Bonnie had a full-time job! Trying to cover my astonishment, I asked him, "Refresh my memory, Mr. Rogers, how many hours a week was she putting in here?" "Monday through Friday, 1:00 p.m. to 5:00 every night, twenty hours a week," he rattled off the data. "She cut back her hours to half time just before you two got married. I guess she wanted a little extra together time in the morning with you," he said with a wink. Then he remembered he was talking about a dead woman, and he stammered and apologized. I waved off his apology, thanked him for his help, and then headed on home with a sick feeling in the pit of my stomach. Bonnie had always been protective of her job. I'd told her repeatedly that she didn't need to work, but she'd insisted. "I need my own money in case you kick me out," she'd say with a laugh, and I saw that as just another example of how strong her independent streak was. Now it seemed like something else, but what I wasn't sure. When I got home I went straight to the box where her bank statements were stored. She'd kept her own checking account and used it for gasoline, meals at work and other incidental expenses. I'd always admired the fact that she wanted to be at least partially financially independent of me; now I thought there must be more to the story. Her bank statements verified what Rogers had told me. Every month, I could see where her paychecks had been automatically deposited into her account. I checked back over the last two years. Bonnie's paychecks had been cut in half shortly before we were married. She'd never said anything about it to me. I thought I would find some explanation when I looked through her cancelled checks, I saw nothing out of the ordinary. What had been going on? I felt very tired as I walked back to my desk. When I found her business card, I called Nicole's cell phone. "It's Mark Robertson, Nicole. I don't understand what's going on, but I think you're onto something." I told her what I'd found and she promised to return to Millersville as quickly as she could. Before she hung up, she said, "Don't do anything rash, Mark. Wait till I get there, please." I now had even more questions than before and no one besides Nicole with whom I felt comfortable discussing them. All I knew for sure was that Bonnie had been keeping secrets from me, and while I didn't know what they were or, none of my guesses was very pretty. The next day after my last appointment I found myself back in my car heading toward Arrowpoint. I had no idea what I hoped to accomplish, but I felt like I had to do something. The news I'd learned the day before was like a worm in my brain, and I simply couldn't sit still and let its aimless burrowing drive me mad. The drive over to Arrowpoint was unexceptional, but while I was stopped at an intersection getting ready to head back to Millersville I heard someone calling my name. "Hey, Doc! Doc Robertson, can you give me a lift?" I turned in my seat to see Jared Porter waving his arms and running in my direction. Jared was one of my patients, a healthy teenager from a good family. "What are you doing in Arrowpoint, Jared," I asked as he climbed into the front seat beside me, "and where's your car?" He gave me big grin. "I'm dating a girl who lives here in Arrowpoint. My car's in the shop and she called to say she was lonely, so I hitched a ride. You know how it is when you miss your woman," he said with a leer. Then he suddenly realized what he'd said and his face turned pale. "Oh, gosh, Doc, I'm sorry. I was talking about my girlfriend. I wasn't thinking about Mrs. . . ." He lapsed into an abashed silence. "It's okay, Jared," I said gently. "I'm just glad I could give you a lift. Your mother would be worried if you were stuck out on the highway." He gave me an awkward nod, grateful to be spared further embarrassment. As I drove we chatted about school and his plans for the future. He made it clear that he wanted to get out of Millersville at the first opportunity. "There's nothing here for me," he declared. "I'm hoping to get into OU and then live in Norman or Oke City after I graduate." "You wouldn't consider coming back to Millersville?" I asked. "No way," he said with certainty. "All my friends feel the same way." As we'd been talking, I'd been checking my rearview mirror and had spotted a truck that was rapidly overtaking me. Soon enough I saw it pull into the left lane to pass me. The teenaged boy behind the wheel looked to be Jared's age, and he gave a friendly wave as he pulled past us. I didn't feel so friendly. I'd had my car pegged at 10 mph above the speed limit, and the other truck still passed me easily. The thing about Oklahoma roads is that there are a lot of stretches where you can see for miles, and I could see another car coming toward us in the distance. As I watched, to my horror the truck that had just passed us suddenly pulled into the oncoming lane. A moment later, the oncoming car did the same thing, pulling into my lane so that the two of them passed each other in the wrong lanes at 70 mph. Then the car pulled back into the proper lane, and as it whizzed by me on my left, I saw the grinning face of a teenage girl. As I'd watched the incident develop, I'd instinctively let off on the gas and hit the brakes. Now, with my heart pounding in my chest, I pulled over to the side of the road. I heard Jared laughing beside me, and I turned angrily to face him. "What the fuck was that?" I demanded. "Hooo-eee!" he exclaimed. "Heart of the Prairie!" "What are you talking about, Jared? Those two kids just missed getting killed!" "Naw, they were fine. Didn't you see them stick their arms out the window?" he asked. He held his left arm up over his head in an arc, with the hand bent at the wrist and pointing down toward his head at a 45 degree angle. I looked at him blankly. "Don't you get it?" he asked. He traced it out on the dashboard. "One driver's left arm goes this way, the other driver's arm does the same thing. Put 'em together and they make a heart -- heart of the prairie!" I looked at him in astonishment. "Do all the kids do that every time they pass each other on the highway?" "Oh, no," he said, quickly, "not all the kids, just the sweethearts. It's a way to say 'I love you.'" I said nothing more to Jared for the rest of the drive. I couldn't -- I was in shock. It was late when II dropped Jared off at his parents' house. When I got to my home, a rental car was parked out front, and Nicole Claiborne was waiting inside with the window rolled down. When she saw me, she gave a big smile, held up a bag and said, "I brought dinner with me." Then she saw the expression on my face and her smile vanished. Once she'd spread the food out on the dining room table and we'd begun to pick at our plates, I started to describe what I'd witnessed that afternoon and what Jared had told me. She shook her head in disgust. "Never underestimate how stupid teenagers can be," she said. Then the light bulb went off in her head. "Oh my God, that's what happened to Bonnie!" she exclaimed. "She deliberately pulled into the other lane, expecting the oncoming driver to make the same maneuver!" "Exactly," I said, "only the other driver didn't know the game." "Because he wasn't the right person," she finished my thought. Then she shuddered. "That explains what happened to Bonnie's arm," she said, and I couldn't help but picture what would happen to an arm stuck out the window in an accident at that speed. I shook off the image and went on. "But if Taylor Johnson wasn't the right person, who was?" I asked. Nicole was way ahead of me. "That's the wrong question," she said. "The real question is: why did Bonnie think it was the right person?" We stared at each other. "The truck!" we shouted simultaneously. "Taylor Johnson was driving a truck that Bonnie thought she recognized," Nicole went on breathlessly. "She wanted to give her lover a sign: the heart of the prairie. Only it wasn't him." She shook her head sadly. "It was all just a terrible mistake, a stupid accident that didn't have to happen." When Nicole used the term "lover," I felt the hurt again, but now a new emotion began to grow: anger. But I choked it back because there was more I needed to know. "So how can we find out who Bonnie knew that drove a truck like Taylor Johnson's?" I asked. "I should be able to find that out on line from the Department of Motor Vehicles," she said, and went to get her IPad. When she returned she was already checking the database. "Okay," she said, "I found the registration for Taylor Johnson's truck. Now all I have to do is see if its specs match any other trucks in the area." "Good luck with that," I said cynically. "Everybody and his brother has a pick-up truck out here." "That's true," she said, "but we're looking for one that Bonnie would have been able to recognize from a distance. So what would have been the distinguishing characteristic that would have made her think she was passing her lover's truck?" I tried to think logically rather than emotionally. "It would have had to be color," I said. She smiled at me like I was a bright pupil in her classroom. "Exactly," she said, "and guess what: Taylor Johnson's truck was painted yellow, not a color you see very often these days. In fact, according to the DMV there's only one yellow pick-up truck of that make and model in Miller County and it's registered to one Holden Calloway." "Who's that?" I asked dumbly. "Let me check another database and I may be able to tell you," she said. After a minute she looked up at me with triumph. "According to this he's a 28 year-old male who lives in Arrowpoint." "Shit, that's the same age as Bonnie" I said. "Give me a minute -- I think I know where to find something that may help us." I disappeared into the attic, and after rooting around a while, I returned with a book in my hand. I gave it to Nicole. "It's Bonnie's high school yearbook," I said quietly. As she held it in her lap, I turned the pages to the senior class photos and went down the list until I found Holden Calloway's photo. We were looking at a nice-looking, slender boy with a goofy haircut and an ill-fitting suit. "So?" she asked after she'd looked at the picture. I flipped over another page and ran my finger down it until I came to Bonnie's picture. Even though she looked so young, I could still see the woman she was to become. But that wasn't what I pointed out to Nicole. Underneath her picture were the following words scrawled in ballpoint pen: Heart of the Prairie I yanked the wheel sharply and then headed back towards Millersville. Once we were under way I turned to look at him. "When did it start?" I demanded. "When did you and she first . . ." He looked at me as though I was an idiot. "Start? We'd always been in love, even in high school. Her and me were gonna get married after college, as soon as we had enough money to settle down. But then you came along and started panting after her. And her old man said she had to be nice to you for the sake of the town." He stared at me defiantly. "She tried to refuse. She loved me, not you." Then his eyes lost their fire. "But she loved her old man too, and he kept after her, told her it was her duty, told her she had to do it if she loved him. She never could refuse Daddy," he said bitterly. "But she wouldn't give me up neither," he said proudly. "So her Daddy worked it all out. I had to live in Arrowpoint, so nobody would ever see Bonnie and me together. But he gave me a job on his place, and every morning I'd drive to the ranch real early. She'd head out of town like she was going to her job in Arrowpoint. Then she'd circle around back to the ranch to be with me." "But she did go to work in Arrowpoint," I protested. "I talked to her supervisor." "Well of course she did," Holder replied in exasperation. "She had to make it look real. But she only worked there in the afternoons; she spent the mornings with me." "I still don't understand. Why all the coming and going back and forth? Why didn't she just meet up with you in Arrowpoint?" He shook his head in disgust. "Her Daddy said we couldn't be together where folks might see us and start to gossip. But I think he just wanted to have us out there under his thumb." Then his face took on a look of disdain. "Her old man was a real hard-ass. Once Bonnie left for her job, he made me work like a dog on the ranch all afternoon. But when she was driving home to you at night in Millersville, I'd be driving back to Arrowpoint. We'd pass each other on the way and we'd always do the heart of the prairie thing to show we loved each other even when we were apart. I glanced over at him again and saw anguish warp his youthful expression. "The night she . . . the night of the accident, her Daddy made me work late, doin' some stupid chores. I thought I'd pass her closer to Millersville, but she wasn't there." He began to cry openly, the tears running down his cheeks like water over a spillway. "I came up on the accident just a mile or so this side of the river. At first I didn't know who it was, I just knew it was bad. But when I got close enough I recognized her Honda, or what was left of it. The front end was all stove in and she was pinned behind the wheel. Oh, God, Doc, her arm was gone and there was blood spewing everywhere! When I called her name she opened her eyes, looked at me and smiled. And then she died." He broke down then and began to sob. And though I hated him as my rival for Bonnie, I couldn't help but feel sorry for him. "I'll bet I'm the first person he's been able to tell his story to," I thought. "He's had to keep it inside him all this time, it's a wonder he could function at all." "You were the one who put that cross up on the highway," I said. He was too emotional to answer, but I knew it had to be the truth. "That's why it said 'Bonnie Miller,' not 'Bonnie Robertson,'" I said, more to myself than to him. After a while he regained a little of his composure, and he began talking again. It was almost as though he had to get it out. "I called 911, but I didn't stick around because I didn't want to screw things up for Bonnie." He looked up at me with haunted eyes. "When I walked back to my truck, Doc, oh, God, I found her arm." He began to sob again. After that, I couldn't get anything else out of him. We pulled into Millersville and I drove directly to the courthouse on the square. After I parked my car, I went around, opened the door and gently motioned for him to come with me. He offered no resistance; I'm not sure at that point he even knew where he was. The Council chamber door had a sign reading "In Session" on it, but I pushed it open anyway. Richard Miller looked up in surprise at my intrusion but quickly smiled at me. "Come in, Dr. Robertson. We were just discussing an important issue and we'd welcome your wise counsel." "No," I said, "I have an important issue that I want to discuss with you -- all of you." With that I turned and motioned Holden Calloway to come in. Miller turned pale when Holden walked through the door, and I thought it was particularly telling that the others around the table gasped as well. "They all knew," I thought, "they were all in on it." Miller was the first to recover. "Listen, Mark, I don't know what this boy has been telling you, but . . ." "Don't bother to lie to me, Richard," I said harshly. "I know the story now, the whole story. You were desperate to get a new physician in Millersville, one who'd stay this time. You were so desperate that you were willing to pimp out your own daughter." I paused to look at the rest of them. "And any one of you would have done the same thing with your own daughters." "That hardly seems fair," Miller shot back. "What father wouldn't want his daughter to be married to a fine doctor who's respected in the community and can offer her a comfortable lifestyle? I only wanted Bonnie's happiness." "If you'd really been concerned with Bonnie's happiness, you'd have let her marry the man she truly loved," I said angrily, jerking my thumb at Holden. "But no, you tried to force her to leave him for me. And when she didn't want to give him up, you set Holden up on the side. You turned him into some sort of male mistress, and turned me into an unwitting cuckold -- and all of you knew it." He held his hands up as if to calm me. "Mark, I know you're upset right now, but you've got to see it from a larger perspective. This town has over a century of history. We're trying to preserve the tradition of small-town America, a heritage to leave to the next generation . . ." "Bullshit!" I interrupted him. "You weren't interested in tradition or heritage. All you cared about was preserving the value of your ranch." I turned to look at the other commissioners, pointing at them one by one. "And you were worried about the value of your car dealership. And you just wanted to keep the assets growing in your bank. And you were worried about sales in your store." I shook my head. "None of you give a damn about your sons and daughters and their future. All you care about is your own net worth and how to keep it." "But a town without a doctor is a town that's dying," Miller said weakly. "You don't get it," I said harshly. "Your town is already dead. It's rotten to the core, just like the morals of its leaders. I can't wait to get out of here -- you all make me sick." "You can't go," Miller gasped. "If you leave now, you'll owe the government a ton of money." I sneered at him. "The money from that life insurance policy you bought for Bonnie ought to cover it," I told him. "And if there's any left over, Holden Calloway can have the rest. I don't want any of your blood money." I left them seated at the table, silent and staring at each other. I went out to my car and checked the trunk to be sure my bags hadn't shifted and I hadn't forgotten anything important. Then I started toward Arrowpoint. When I got to the site of the accident, I pulled over and got out to stand in front of the crude little cross one last time. I knew now Bonnie had never loved me, but I'd loved her and it takes a while to get over that. At the same time I hated her for cheating on me, but I pitied her for being forced to give up the one she'd truly loved. It would take a long time for me to work through all those conflicting emotions. "Maybe I can find some help with that in Oklahoma City," I thought. I pointed my car in that direction and headed out on the long narrow highway running straight through the heart of the prairie.