I was out the front door like a shot. Away from the neon signs of the storefront, it was dark. I could hear shoes scuffling in the dark, heavy breathing, and men slipping and falling in the gravel as they raced to the tracks. I had fallen twice and my knees and palms stung with abrasions. My lower lip was swollen and bleeding, and I had chipped a tooth, but I got up running both times. Suddenly the Burlington rounded a curve as it crossed the Lake Street viaduct and straightened out. At that point the train’s mighty spotlight picked up Jack Buffmeir, who had laid himself directly on the main rails. He had walked north toward the curve so the engineer would have little time to see him, let alone stop. I bolted down the track bed in the direction of the blinding light. The train’s horn was blaring and the iron wheels started screeching as the engineer hit the brakes. Jack was now on his hands and knees trying to push Oyster away from him. For once the dog refused to obey—he seemed to realize that his master was bent on suicide and he couldn’t let that happen. I didn’t care about Jack Buffmeir, but I had come to think of Oyster as my dog. I ran the tracks as fast as possible and could hear heavy breathing behind me. Just as the train hit Buffmeir one of the factory workers grabbed me and pulled me to safety. I heard two quick thunks and saw Oyster flying through the air like he was shot from a cannon. It was a freight train with over seventy cars.

I ran down to the viaduct, crossed underneath it, and came back to the point of the collision and began searching for the dog. I found Buffmeir’s right forearm and hand severed almost bloodlessly. Then at the bottom of a sloping grass hill, I spotted Oyster. He was unmarked, but dead just the same. I lifted his head to my lap and talked to him, but his body was limp. I thought that maybe if I could get him back to the store, somebody there could do something to revive him. As I said, he seemed unmarked. I tried to lift him but he weighed more than eighty pounds. I tried pulling him up the grassy slope by his rear feet, but I kept slipping and falling down. I dragged him for a ways across the gravel, but that was undignified and unbefitting to such a fine animal.