Well, we were home again. We were back on the rails, soothed by the gentle rumbling of the engine, healed by the infinite scope of untouched nature that surrounded us in all directions. The four of us and our guiding force, this great Steel Snake, were alone with mother nature in all of her entirety.
The mountains slowly melted away into mundane plains as our home province submitted itself to the ferociously boring plains of Alberta.
Regardless, we didn't get much of a chance to enjoy the sights, because we were all highly irritable. We'd been together for too long, and now we were stuck together in tight quarters with hardly a few feet to move around in. The ride passed quietly.
We rode through the plains for a few boring hours. The lack of excitement sedated us into a lethargy and we soon found ourselves asleep.
Bad idea.
We awoke to the sound of the knock on the unit's door. Scrib hollered to us.
"Fuck. Get up. There's cops." The words serrated my mind like a sawblade and I jumped up, muttering curses. I stepped downstairs and looked up into the glowering eyes of a cop. We tossed our bags off the train and jumped off. I accepted the handcuffs dutifully - no sense arguing, nowhere to run. I hoped they wouldn't read up about my charges for train hopping last year.
They told us there had been a bunch of grass fires and they'd had to stop the train for safety. In doing that, they also decided to check for train hoppers. (Suspicious? Somewhat...)
The cops didn't seem too angry with us. We hadn't messed up the unit or vandalized anything, so they had no reason to be upset besides the fact that we were trespassing. "I don't give a fuck if you steal a car. I don't give a fuck if you do a BNE. Just stay the fuck off the rails, because this is my department."
They ticketed us and gave me a bit of a break. They did, indeed, look up my charges from last year, and heard that this was my third time getting caught hopping a train in Alberta (which is bullshit and tremendously confusing.) They initially planned to give me a charge and a court date for which a Canada-wide warrant would be issued, but they decided to give me the same ticket as the other hoppers (which still resulted in a court date, though only an Alberta wide warrant.)
So, here we were stuck on the side of the highway with no train to take into downtown. We charmed the cops into giving us a ride back into town, and were thus introduced to Officer Swass.
"Alright kids. As long as you don't have swass, you can get in the back of my car."
We burst out laughing and hopped into Officer Swass's car, and he drove us into town. That was an easy break. At least we'd made it into Calgary.
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