Fifteen-year-old Kate Shelley pulled the sheets from the line. A terrible storm was coming. Kate could feel it in the air. A cold wind rose as she carried the heavy basket back to the house. Black clouds rolled in. The sky grew dark.
Kate stood at the kitchen window with her younger sisters and brother. They saw lightning flash. They heard thunder crack in the hills. Then the rain came.
As the rain poured down, they watched the water rising in Honey Creek. Soon it overflowed its banks and flooded part of the yard.
"I'm going to let the animals out of the barn," Kate said. "If the water keeps rising, they could drown."
"Be careful you don't slip in the water," her mother warned.
Kate ran down the hill. She waded through muddy water to the barn. She led out the two horses and shooed them off to higher ground. She drove the cows up the hill. Then she hurried back to the barn. She picked up some piglets and carried them to the house. By this time, she was soaked to the skin.
Kate put on dry clothes and went back to the window. The rain had not let up. The floodwater was coming closer to the house.
When lightning flashed, Kate could see the shining railroad tracks. They ran along the other side of Honey Creek.
Kate peered through the rain, trying to see the railroad bridge over Honey Creek.
How was it holding up in this storm?
After supper, the younger children went to bed. Nine-year-old Mayne wanted to stay awake with her mother and Kate. They sat at the kitchen table, talking about the dangers of the storm. They were worried about the men out working on the railroad.
At midnight, an express train would pass the Moingona station without stopping. It would cross the long bridge over the Des Moines River. Then it would cross the bridge over Honey Creek, near Kate's house.
Were the bridges safe?
Shortly after eleven o'clock, Kate and her mother heard an engine chugging slowly down the tracks. Railroad men were checking the tracks and bridges before the express came through. They were heading toward the bridge over Honey Creek.
Suddenly, the engine's bell rang wildly. The Kate heard a terrible crack. She knew at once that the bridge had broken.
Kate heard the hot engine hiss as it hit the cold water. She jumped to her feet.
"Oh, Mother," she cried. "They've gone down in Honey Creek. I must go help."
The crash woke the children. They watched silently as Kate pulled on a jacket and an old straw hat. Then she lit her father's railroad lantern.
"You can't go, Kate," her mother said. "It's too dangerous."
"I have to go, Mother," Kate answered. "Someone may still be alive in Honey Creek. And I have to stop the midnight express."
"Please, Kate," her mother cried. "Don't go. The floodwaters are almost at our door."
"If that were Father down there, wouldn't we want someone to help him?" asked Kate.
"You're right," her mother agreed. "Go ahead then, but be careful! We'll be praying for you."
Kate could not cross the flooded yard to get to the broken bridge. Instead, she started up a path behind her house. She would reach the tracks where they ran through the hills.
Water poured down the hillside. Kate climbed over the fallen trees. Her skirt caught in wet brambles. Her shoes sank in mud.
But she held her father's lantern before her and kept going.
At last she reached the tracks.
Kate ran along the tracks back to the broken bridge. She looked out over the dark waters of Honey Creek. She could not see the engine or any of the crew. Had they all drowned?
Then Kate though she heard a shout. In the roar of the storm, she was not sure. She listened again.
Yes. Someone was calling.
Lightning flashed. Kate saw someone holding on to the branches of a treetop just above the water. Thunder boomed. As it faded, Kate heard voices calling again.
She could hear two men's voices now, but she couldn't make out their words above the howl of the storm.
"Hang on! Hang on!" Kate shouted. "I'll get help."
Kate swung the lantern back and forth. Now the men would know she had heard them and was going for help.
Kate began to run toward Moingona station. There wasn't much time. She had to get to the station before midnight, before the express.
Kate ran along the tracks. Even before she reached the Des Moines River bridge, she could hear the rush of the floodwater.
She held up the lantern to light her way over the bridge. But as she did, a fierce wind blew out the lantern's small flame.
Kate stared into the darkness. To reach the Moingona station, she had to cross this river. The long wooden bridge stretched before her. Beside the tracks was a narrow walkway. Some of its boards were missing. There was no handrail to hold.
Kate was afraid to cross this bridge even in daylight. Could she do it now, in this storm, in the dark?
Kate thought of the men in Honey Creek. She thought of all the people on the train speeding toward the broken bridge. She got down on her hands and knees and began to crawl across.
Kate felt for gaps in the walkway so she would not fall through. Nails and splinters cut her hands and knees and tore her skirt. She gripped the steel rail of the tracks to keep the wind from sweeping her over the side.
Trees and logs in the flooded river crashed against the bridge, making it shake. When she reached the middle of the bridge, great flashes of lightning suddenly lit the night. She looked up. A huge tree was coming down straight toward her. Surely it would crash through the bridge. Kate closed her eyes and prayed.
In the next moment, the river pulled the tree down under the water. Kate felt the tree scrape beneath the walkway. Then it was gone.
Kate was shaking with fear, but she could not stop to rest. She knew it must be almost midnight. She had to reach the station before the midnight express.
At last, Kate's hand touched land. She had crossed the river. The Moingona station was less than a half mile ahead. She got to her feet and began to run. Her heart pounded. Her throat ached. But through the rain, she saw lights of the station.
Kate threw open the station house door. The men inside turned and stared. Kate's clothes were torn and muddy. Water dripped from her old straw hat.
She tried to speak, but no words came. At last she gasped, "The engine went down in Honey Creek. Stop the express." Then she sagged to the floor.
"The girl must be crazy," someone said.
But the station agent knew Kate. "She means a bridge is out," he shouted. "We must stop the express."
He rushed to the telegraph and tapped out a message to Ogden, the station before Moingona.
STOP EXPRESS...BRIDGE OUT...STOP EXPRESS
Another man grabbed a lantern. Then he ran out to the platform. He would flag down the express if the telegraph message was too late.
The express, with two hundred people aboard, was still speeding toward the broken bridge.
But Kate's warning had come on time. Railroad men stopped the train at Ogden. It was the last telegraph message sent or received that night. The storm knocked out telegraph service for 40 miles along the line.
Someone helped Kate to a chair. Someone gave her a glass of water.
"Two men are still alive in Honey Creek," Kate said. "I saw them holding on to trees in the water."
"Let's try to save them before they're washed away," a man said.
"Would you help us, Kate?" another man asked. "Would you show us where they are?"
Kate rode the engine with the rescue party. They crossed the Des Moines River on the same bridge Kate had crawled over. The engine stopped at the broken bridge on Honey Creek.
Everyone shouted, and the men in the water answered. They were still hanging on. But there was no way to reach them from that side of the flooded creek.
Kate led the rescue party into the hills behind her house. She led them through the woods to a bridge farther upstream.
There, they crossed Honey Creek and at last rescued the two exhausted men.
