Calgary, Alberta 1920
The steam from the locomotive engines dissipated through the air as the sound of the train's whistle sounded and cut through the bone chilling November air. For young Constable Thomas Wilson, he was quite used to the cold prairie Autumns and the utterly frigid winters that were to follow.
Thomas was born and raised in Fir Creek, as a kid he'd walked to his single room schoolhouse as a child, trudging through the snow in snowshoes and bundled up in a parka, toque, and gloves. But now that he's twenty seven years old and a Constable with the Royal North West Mounted Police, Thomas' life was quite different from that child who trudged through the snow in a fur lined coat.
He came from a small, close knit family; just him and his older sister Sarah raised by their loving parents who'd emigrated from England before the children were born. They didn't have much as a family, but they had one another and that was all that mattered to him. His father was a quiet man who worked hard, toiling away in the town's coal mine to give the children whatever luxuries they could, which was a fraction of what he himself had during his youth. Nonetheless he toiled just as Thomas' mother had as a seamstress; but like many immigrants who struggled in a new land they always tried their best to provide as much as they could for their beloved children even if it meant sacrificing their own happiness in the process.
"Hello there, Constable." Thomas heard a familiar voice, glancing up past the rim of his brown Mountie hat to see Mr Terrence, the station master nodding politely at him.
"Hello there, Mr Terrence, I trust you're well." Thomas said with a smile as the older man reciprocated.
"Oh, not too bad. Bit of a busy day." Mr. Terrence said sarcastically, glancing around the nearly empty railway platform. "So what brings you to Calgary today, Constable?"
"Ah yes, the new doctor is coming in on the afternoon Canada Pacific from Montréal." Thomas pursed his lips with a nod.
"I heard what happened to the last doctor." Mr. Terrence raised his eyebrows, suppressing a chuckle; it'd been quite the scandal and clearly news had travelled to Calgary from the little town of Fir Creek.
When the old town doctor tragically passed away during the Spanish Flu outbreak that'd swept through and decimated much of the world's population the year prior and in his place, the Alberta Ministry of Health sent a replacement doctor; a young strapping city lad from Toronto who often flirted more than was good for him. Though many of Fir Creek's girls found him charming, it was the mayor's wife who ultimately ran off with him, leaving the town steeped in scandal and without a doctor. But all that was to change very soon as Constable Thomas, the young handsome mountie in Fir Lake received a telegram from the Ministry of Health in Edmonton telling him that a new doctor was arriving.
"I feel at this rate half the country will have heard about him." Thomas flashed the man a knowing look with a cheeky smile as the distant sound of a train whistle as it travelled steadily towards the station...
And on that train was none other than young Henry, or as he was now known, "Dr Henry Dunmurry"; the new doctor in a small Alberta mining community called Fir Creek. Adrien asked around and within a week it'd been sorted that Henry would be able to commence work in the small underserved community as soon as humanly possible. Adrien tried to keep Henry in town, he was so terribly fond of him; but ultimately the idea of being nothing more than a dirty little secret waiting for his 'lover' to pay him mind whilst away from his wife and kids wasn't exactly how he'd hoped to live.
Henry didn't know much about the town, though then again he didn't know much about Canada in general. He knew that it was a part of the Empire, but that the people sounded almost American though from the few he'd encountered thus far they seemed like polite and agreeable people. And the beauty of the landscape he watched rolling past mesmerised him to no end as he gazed out the train window at the fleeting views of the golden steppe and burning autumn colours dotting the horizon. He leant over the table before him, resting his elbow on the table as his hand tugged at a handful of his dark hair, smiling as he remembered his little niece whilst his hand grazed over a blank page of his leather-bound diary; the red silk ribbon tucked neatly into the gutter.
7 October 1920
Dear Diary,
One can't help but feel an uncertainty bubbling deep within at the stage of life one find's oneself. Off to a distant corner of a foreign land where one knows nobody. At least I had Adrien in Québec, but now in this distant corner of the country I'll find myself utterly alone.
I'm afraid Adrien wasn't of much help on the matter of getting me acquainted with the concept of Alberta. All he could really tell me was that it got jolly cold in the winter, especially in the bit where I was going. A small coal mining hamlet tucked in the prairies called Fir Creek, which a ways out of Calgary. In a way I feel it might be rather like Aldringham, a small town with a church, a pub, and a quaint cottage hospital. One imagines it'll be worlds away from the ever metropolitan London, but I reckon I'll survive.
On the topic of Adrien, I find myself at a rather peculiar emotional crossroads. On the one hand I was rather fond of Adrien; our relation during the war were something I doubt I'd forget but at the same time I'm not sure that I would say that I love him; or him me for that matter. To be quite honest I'm not entirely sure I've ever been truly in love. I've had momentary infatuations, childhood crushes, feelings of deep lust one might confuse with love; but actual, unmistakeable Love? No.
Perhaps love simply isn't written in my future; and shan't hope to find it so long as I'm destined to stay in this small mining village of sorts. At times I wonder if men like me ever feel love; do I know anyone who truly loves another of the same sex? Could it perhaps be that such love is so taboo and so hopeless to maintain in a world where it's deemed a perversion by society, that we simply never speak of it? It might could. Or perhaps such love simply doesn't exist? Perhaps God has forsaken my kind with the inability to feel love. One can't help but wonder at times if this is His punishment for me 'sinful behaviour'; to never feel love.
One need not lose my mind thinking of such things for one finds no gain from it barring sadness and utter depression. For now, one only hopes to survive the winter and perhaps one day one might be able to return home where one truly belong. And until then, I'll entrust my future to God; clearly He's fated me to see more of this beautiful country...
Canada is a rather breathtaking country and one can't help but be thankful for this opportunity to see it's rolling plains mountains and lakes as one travels across its breadth. As I watch the landscapes change before my many eyes, I often feel overwhelmed but he beauty; the rolling prairies, the green hills, the rivers, and jagged snowcapped mountains far into the horizon. A part of me feels sadness that my journey should come to an end today, but at the same time excited for what the next page in my life has in store for me... In Fir Creek.
Love, Henry.
It wasn't long before the train pulled into Calgary station; it was rather new, just as everything else Henry noted many things to be. Everything in England seemed to have so much history, but so much that he'd seen in Western Canada seemed so new by comparison to the older Eastern Canada and England for that matter. In a way he felt as though this was a sign; him starting anew in a country that had so much new to offer him...
"You said the afternoon Canadian Pacific, eh?" The stationmaster asked watching Constable Wilson nodded to the older man. "Should be in any minute now." The older man said as he pulled his silver pocket watch out of his suit pocket, flipping open the intricate cover and glancing at the watch face. "Well, I've got to go tend to some things now, but it was a pleasure as always Constable."
"Same to you, Mr. Terence, enjoy the rest of your day." Thomas bid the man farewell as they both tipped their hats to each other; allowing for the older stationmaster to take his leave.
Thomas let out a huff as the man walked away; he'd always been rather an introvert, which is ironic considering he was a Mountie. Being the Constable of a tiny mining town meant that maintaining law and order weren't the sole responsibilities the young twenty seven year old carried on his shoulders; he was also the person people relied on, trusted, idolised as their town protecter and the one children looked up to and saw as a hero. Children would call him Mountie Thomas and ask to pet his horse Trooper while men would stop to shake his hand and many of the town's women would twirl their hair whenever the tall, muscular, handsome faced young Constable would flash them one of his signature friendly dimpled smiles; but much to their dismay Constable Wilson wasn't interested in any of them. All he cared about was his little family.
But being a Mountie wasn't all that was to Thomas; he was an excellent student as a child and when the time came he went off to study Law at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver. After graduating he went on to article in a small barrister's firm Calgary before the war broke out; prompting the dutiful young Thomas Wilson to then enlisting in the Canadian Light Infantry, fighting for King, Country and Empire in the North of France.
And though war took a toll on Thomas, especially after he'd been caught in an explosion and woke up hours later in a hospital tent. But it was when he returned that he truly found civilian life all the more difficult; at first there was a restlessness of sort he felt deep within his entrails, commonly known at the time as 'shell shock'. It was in that moment he that he enlisted to join the Royal Canadian Mounted Police and became a Constable and after his training he went on to be stationed in his very own home town of Fir Creek.
Thomas' attention was drawn out of deep thought as he heard the indelible sound of the train pulling into the station, the light cloud of steam from the engine adding the faintest haze to Thomas' surroundings; glancing up he noted the words "Canada Pacific" emblazoned in gold paint on the matte black sides of the metal train carriage. He often liked trains, the idea that one could get across the country in on simply with a ticket. When he was at university he enjoyed the train ride from Vancouver to Calgary; he found the monotonous sound of the wheel's coupling rods' to be oddly calming. He loved staring out the window at the beautiful British Columbia landscape turning into the mountains of the Canadian Rockies.
Standing up from his seat he adjusted the sleeves and hems of his red uniform jacket, glancing down to ensure the gilded buttons were all properly done before walking up to the platform and keeping a keen eye out for this mystery doctor who was arriving on the train from Montréal. He didn't know anything about him, only that his name was 'Dr Dunmurry' and he'd be arriving that afternoon; the telegram from Edmonton wasn't terribly specific. It only said that the man had no family in the area and required someone to pick him up from the railway station.
He glanced around, scanning as a few passengers that disembarked onto the platform; there was an elderly man who looked the part, but he was soon greeted by a family with children so he assumed that couldn't've been him. Another middle aged man who seemed to fit the build of what he expected of a general practitioner, but just as Thomas went to approach him a small girl ran up and hugged the man excitedly. And just as Thomas felt himself lose hope for the second time, that was when he saw him.
It was as though time itself seized to flow as it normally would. Thomas felt his breath hitch in the back of his throat as he watched the most beautiful boy in the back exit out of the train carriage. He had alabaster fair skin as white as snow, his face handsome and chiseled, but almost in a pretty way rather than Thomas' more rugged looks; his body was slender in his perfectly tailored three-piece suit. His hand grasping onto the bar, he glanced around the platform with eyes, eerily familiar dark blue like the English Channel before stepping down the metal stairs; his perfect wavy raven black hair bouncing ever so slightly as his black Italian leather shoes made contact with the brick platform.
The strong Prairie winds swept the beautiful young man's dark hair into his dark blue mysterious eyes; Thomas couldn't help but feel a smile perking up the corners of his eyes as he watched the boy run his hand through his windswept hair. He felt this strange itching within the depths of his entrails to simply march up and gently push the soft-looking hair out of the beautiful young lad's face. He was the most beautiful boy that Thomas had ever seen, and he didn't even realise that he'd walked straight up to him.
"Erm.. Hello?" Said the dark haired man, his eyes darting confusedly to the side as Thomas stood dumbfounded before him. The eyes and the voice on him sending chills down Thomas' spine as his mind travelled back. The boy's voice was as angelic as his beautiful face, an angelic voice with a glass clear English accent coming from an equally angelic looking boy. An angelic boy whom he recognised, but who clearly hadn't recognised him...