Frost crunched under his feet as Richard Simpson stepped onto the station platform. He scattered sand from a bucket and glanced down the steel rails that glistened in the moonlight. A horn’s wail drifted in from the east, the train from Edmonton was rounding the bend at Glen Valley. Right on time.
At the far end of the platform a man tugged at the flaps of his tweed cap and craned his neck. He rocked slowly inside a long overcoat. Clusters of people stamped their feet. Mr Simpson rolled the cart out from the baggage room, its wheels screeched like angry blackbirds. The oil can could wait until tomorrow. Christmas Day, 1919.
A wreath made from cedar, salal and red ribbon hung on the waiting room door. Inside, Mary Simpson sat behind the ticket counter studying her seed catalogue and dreaming of spring. It couldn’t come soon enough. This was the coldest December she could remember. Families had already been skating on the channel. The coal supply for the station stove was disappearing faster than sunflower seeds in the bird feeder. The newspaper spread out beside her blared more warnings about the killer flu. Mary wrapped her shawl tighter and sipped her tea. Maybe she would try growing the hardy Hibiscus.
A bell clanged from inside clouds of steam erupting from the engine — a volcano on wheels. The iron horse pulled to a stop, exhaled beside the platform, while the engineer gave a familiar wave. With a sharp snap followed by a grunt, the baggage car door slid open. “Ahoy, Richard!”
A small mountain of freight quickly formed at the baggage car door. Mr Simpson stacked it all neatly onto his cart: mailbags, trunks, even a box of newly hatched chicks. He wrapped the box with a woollen blanket that muffled the frantic chirps inside. The man wearing the tweed cap was now making his way down the platform.
“‘Scuse me sir…have you seen a Red Rocket?”
The station agent glanced at the man’s boots. Military. Scuffed and well worn.
“Is this what you’re looking for?” A child’s wooden sleigh with chipped paint and a slightly bent handle sat on the platform. “That sure has some history”, remarked Mr Simpson. The man in the tweed cap nodded. “I used to fly down the coulee on it. Right behind our barn. It’s for my niece — her father will pick it up.” Mr Simpson took mental note and said, “It’s arrived just in the nick of time then.”
“And could you please give him this.” The man handed Mr Simpson a patch of leather that had been fashioned into the shape of a star. It was soft to the touch. Carved onto its surface was the word, HOPE. The other side read, FAMILY.
A truck engine roared to life, someone was singing the Wexford Carol. “In Bethlehem, upon that morn…” Other voices lifted into the night, high above the station’s peaked roof. Mr Simpson turned to the man in the tweed cap. He vanished into a swirl of steam. The station agent drew another breath of icy air and whispered, “Merry Christmas, stranger.”
– Mark Forsythe
