The Train
Chapter One
Bitter wind ripped steam from an idle locomotive in a wispy cloud, a storm that plagued towns to the west had arrived with artic fury. Telegraph messages from the west spoke of twenty-foot-deep snowdrifts. It isolated people in whatever shelter they could find and stock froze to death under the snow. They had lost most of the westward telegraph offices as the snow covered the telegraph lines. This was a storm of epic proportions, a killer heading towards people already savaged by the rough wilderness.
The iron beast sitting upon tracks panting steam was huge; two lead wheels followed by eight drive wheels, then two trailing wheels on a pivoting truck. It was a Baldwin mallet engine, fully fifty feet long, eighty feet with the coal car attached, and capable of brute force with ease. Steam hissed from the drive cylinders to keep the pistons heated and ready for use. The vented steam sounded like the breathing of a magnificent beast with an impatient desire to charge forward on the steel tracks.
Ice covered the heat shields of the locomotive, giving an impression nature had painted the train white. Even the train number under the frozen cab window lay hidden; a phantom train waiting on a Siberian piece of the Midwest to haul cargo to desperate people.
Weak electric light from the station office window competed with oil fed lanterns hanging in the wind and flickering to the storm. The thermometer on the wall of the station house registered twenty degrees below zero, close to the lowest limit of the gauge.
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Once or twice a winter artic cold would claim the Midwest in its grip for a few days, but this was different; with the cold came snow, all of it sweeping down from the Rockies and gathering speed as it crossed grasslands heading for the Great Lakes.
The storm had been lashing the area for the better part of the day. The men of Branch hurried to load the provisions carried in seven cars. They loaded wood into four additional cars to be pulled north; the wind driving the snow to drifts and clearing the station platform until evening had set and workers numb with cold had gone home. The drifts grew unattended; it was time to leave or never get away.
Dressed head to toe in thick woolen clothing; a coat that stretched to his feet, and a scarf wrapped around his head, the Station Master stepped to the locomotive cab ladder and looked up at the engineer. Pulling down the scarf to speak, his voice almost lost in the wind, the huge handlebar mustache he sported froze immediately.
“The telegraph lines are down between here and Rush City.” Handing up two huge enamel ware coffee jugs, the Station master swung the coffee to the assistant. “The last word from Superior is they have cleared the track for you. No other trains on the route but the one at Cloquet.”
“Good, we’ll play hell seeing out the windows tonight,” the heavy boom of the engineer’s voice cut through the storm easily, thick with a Swedish accent. The man paid no attention to the quickly forming ice in his hair and beard. His only concession to the cold, the leather gloves worn to grasp the steel handrails of the ladder while leaning out from the cab.
The fire-man took the coffee jugs and ducked back inside the locomotive cab, returning only to pull tight the thick canvas tarp barring the cold from the cab. “Ready?”
The Swede looked at his fire-man with open distaste, then redirected his angry gaze at the stationmaster. “No one else for me?”
“Silas is a good man, the best for this run. You thank God Silas is with you tonight.” The stationmaster retorted with equal anger. There was a time for this behavior, but it was not now. “Would you rather wait till morning?”
The insult was plain to the engineer. He ignored the words and gestured to the bag near the stationmaster’s feet. “You have John’s supplies?”
“I’ll wait and pass them up to him,” the stationmaster waved assurance with a gloved hand, “God speed. They are all depending on you.”
Glancing at the ice-covered wood of the platform, the engineer nodded. “The best men for the job tonight. I’ll go slowly till the caboose clears the station.”
Without waiting for a reply, the engineer ducked under a tarp stretched across the open rear wall and entered the warm confines of the locomotive cab, his home.