Lady of the Lake was behind schedule as she finally puffed out of Union Station, billowing steam as she gathered momentum. She loved her summer beach runs, but today the blistering heat of the afternoon had given way to a sweltering, muggy night. Her train, affectionately nicknamed the 'Moonlight special' was packed with youngsters looking for a night out of the city. She could hear them carrying on even from her position up front and she rolled her eyes as she made for the city limits.
Winnipeg, Manitoba was the hub of the eastern prairies. Built around the meeting of two rivers and born of the fur trade that shaped the country, it was a meeting place and a crossroads. To the East, over 2000 miles of rugged wilderness, endless forest stretching out to the Atlantic coast. To the South lay the American international border and to the West, almost a thousand miles of wide open plains, sweeping up to the eastern fringe of the Rocky mountains like a great blanket of green and gold.
And to the North? Great swaths of water, limestone lakes to rival Superior, Huron and their sisters. Lake Winnipeg was aptly named. Her waters were brown as mud and cloudy as milk, but that stopped no one.
Lady whistled as she left the city, gold-orange light dropping away behind her to be met with black dark farmland. The only light, beyond her own lamp, came from distant farmhouses and small, outlying towns.
It came to her first as a cool breeze in the otherwise suffocatingly still air. It was barely noticeable as she whistled through Selkirk, but as she followed her northerly heading, it seemed to breathe life into the world around her as it picked up, rustling the tall stalks of corn and sunflower that grew in the fields along the tracks.
Sporadic stands of trees whispered warnings as she passed them by, their leaves ruffled by gathering wind. The sky to the north rumbled ominously and she looked up, for the first time noticing the lack of stars, the lack of moon.
Lady pressed on. She had heard tales from the big transcontinental engines of the oceans, and the Great Lakes with their wicked tempers, but none of those engines had believed her when she'd said that Lake Winnipeg was a fury in herself.
She passed through Clandeboye and on into the interlake. Distant lightning flashed across the sky to the northeast, a telltale sign.
There was a storm brewing over the big lake.
As the line curved in toward the shoreline, her coaches were battered by ever more furious gusts of wind. In Matlock, she was met by a spray of rain as she came within sight of the lake. Waves crashed against the shore and water frothed up the beach, nearly to the grass.
"She's in a foul mood tonight, Frank." She vaguely heard her driver call to her fireman. She did not catch his reply.
The rain never left them as they left the lake shore again. Instead, it rose from a bothersome spray to driving within minutes. No stranger to the big lake's storms, she blinked the water from her eyes and powered on. Her wheels slipped on the tracks slick with rain, emitting screeches that were drowned by the rolling thunder.
"Sand, driver!" She called.
The man was already on it. Her wheels bit back and with a huff, she pushed onward.
The wind was howling now, bending the trees and breaking off their branches, sending them scudding across the tracks ahead. She cried out as one of particular size and weight thunked against the side of her smoke box and shattered her headlamp, knocking it from its holdings. It flew off, bumping her side before disappearing into the night. Her brakes squealed on as she was plunged into black dark, close as the wind and thick as ink.
The train came to a stop on the line, buffeted by wind and rain from all sides. A moment later, Lady was met with the shadowy outlines of her crew.
"What happened?" One of them asked. "Why is your lamp out?"
Lady blinked rainwater from her eyes and spoke above the wind. "A branch hit me, knocked my lamp off. I felt it fly off behind us." She explained.
"Shit." The driver swore. "We can't go on without it, it's too dangerous."
"Well, we can't stay here." Said the fireman. "I'll run down the train and see if I can find it."
"It's probably broken, mate." The driver pointed out. "That was quite the bang we heard."
"Still."
As the fireman left, the guard ran up from the back of the train. A handheld oil lamp gripped in his hand.
"What's going on?" He called, clutching the hood of his coat against the wind.
"Lost the lamp." The driver shook his head helplessly. "We'll have to go back to Matlock. They might have a spare there."
"But we're closer to Winnipeg Beach now." Lady protested. "We're already late, it would be better to continue."
"Without a headlamp? Lady, we can't -"
"There's no guarantee that Matlock will have a lamp, and they certainly won't have another engine there. They'd have to send one up from the city." She argued. "We have a train full of passengers here that are relying on us!"
Thunder cracked across the sky as if to enunciate her point.
"Let me have a look." The guard spoke. He climbed up onto the engine's running board and inspected her lamp irons. He fiddled about for a moment before looking up. "Do we have anything I can use to tie this down?" He said, indicating his lantern.
The driver and fireman looked around and shrugged. "Will one of our boot laces work?"
"If it's all we've got, it'll have to. I'll use mine." The guard replied, and started unlacing one of his boots.
Soon, the small lantern was fixed to Lady's lamp iron. It did not emit much light and was the wrong code, but it would serve. If nothing else, they would at least be visible to bystanders.
Her crew back aboard, Lady eased cautiously forward. She ran slowly the rest of the way to Winnipeg Beach. On arrival, the boardwalk was suitably deserted, but the dancehall was clearly packed. Her passengers piled off the train, screaming and grabbing for their hats as the wind howled in off the lake, and though she couldn't see it, she could hear the waves crashing over the beach.
This was Lady's favorite part of running beach trains - the thrill of the lake itself, her own inland sea. She could admire its fury, while staying safely back from the edge.
