Suddenly, a warning was shouted into the night sky. It was Indiana, standing directly in front of me, leaning out of the locomotive cab, as I was, and staring straight ahead. I strained to see what had alarmed him, and then I had it – the silhouette of a beast, a longhorn cow right in front of us. We were almost upon it. The unsuspecting cow was standing across the tracks, apparently not yet even slightly alarmed. I could see the animal in the dark, not thanks to the locomotive’s single headlight, which didn’t illuminate much at all, but rather because my eyes had adjusted. Then the cow was staring in shock at the train and, in its sudden terror, reared up and started to run. I inhaled sharply …
Bio:
Ian Birch taught business and finance at universities in British Columbia and Ontario before retiring onto a wooded acreage in the Township of Leeds and the Thousand Islands to pursue diverse projects. This article is an excerpt from the author’s book The Last Train through the Heart of the Americas: By Rail and Road across Two Hemispheres for which he is currently seeking an agent/publisher (ianbbirch@hotmail.com).