Shifting Sands

"Shifting Sands," a novelette by Eleanor M. Ingram, follows Beatrice Arden, the fiancée of illustrator Billy Graeme, traveling by train across the Mexican desert. When the train lurches unexpectedly, Beatrice is thrown from the observation platform and falls onto the desert floor with no memory of the incident. She is discovered by Larcian Carril, a rurales officer, who finds her confused and disoriented. Despite her amnesia, she retains fragments of memory, recalling only that she is engaged to someone named Billy. Carril, moved by her vulnerable state, agrees to help her. He rides her to safety at a remote Indian woman's hut, extracting her promise never to reveal his involvement to her rescuers, hinting at unnamed dangers and complications surrounding her rescue.