There is a spectre that roams my town.

The first time I encountered The Engineer, it was a blistering summer day about six years ago. I was driving down by the old train trestle, where the cement arches leading beneath are often used as backdrops for photo shoots. Every day the trains rumble on overhead, and I rarely glance at people using the covered sidewalk to go beneath. Rarely, that is...until *he* caught my eye.

A thin spindle of a man was walking with a black cane toward the underpass. That in itself would not have captured my attention, but the fact that he was dressed head to toe in what seemed to be 1930's formal attire did. He wore a black bowler derby perched atop beautiful silver hair. A slim neck was encased in a stiff starched collar, a snow white dress shirt in contrast to the black vest he wore over the top, shining like only satin can. His pants were pressed to perfection, not a wrinkle to be seen...and his shoes looked like the wingtips I had seen in old picture albums at my grandmother's house.

I know I slowed down when I went past him, but by that time he had faded into the shadows of the underpass. I saw one brief flash of him through an archway... spying a meticuously groomed mustache, his proud gate with his walking stick grasped firmly.... and a black bowtie to complete the picture.

I drove on, completely dumbfounded by what I had just seen. The temperature that day was in the 90's - the sort of dry heat that the valley is famous for. Surely that slim man, in his 80's? 90's? was going to sweat himself into a puddle before he got to his destination??

Thoughts of The Engineer remained for some days afterward, but soon faded away with the routine of work and life. The year did not pass away though....until I found myself driving down that same stretch of road, and recognizing a familiar figure walking alongside the road.

As I drove by, I craned my head and looked. It was him, dressed in the same dapper suit...with the same handlebar mustache, the same bowtie, and the walking stick still gripped with a firm hand. He didn't look at me... he didn't look at the ground. He looked straight ahead, with an assured purpose in his eyes that most people would envy.

Engulfed in curiosity, I brought the subject up to my husband. He knew immediately who I was speaking of. "The old man in the suit...yes! I've seen him too!! It's like looking at something straight out of a Mark Twain book." And I could do nothing but agree. He went on to tell me he had seen the old man once, down by the park where there was a miniature train set up. Kids in the summer could go for rides on it, but it was small enough that an adult could pull it along with a rope if they wished... and that's where my husband had seen him. Pulling the train along the tiny track, in his formal dress clothes. I remember wishing with all my heart that I had been there with my Nikon, to photograph such a sight.

Glimpses of The Engineer came throughout the following years. The only change brought on by summer was the removal of the black suit jacket, to expose the vest beneath. Winter only brought the jacket back around him, and a pair of black gloves to match. He was always by the railroad... walking along the tracks that cut away from the main line and zag through the industrial section of town. He was always walking along these with that same purposeful step.

One day, however... something new happened. I was driving between two old cold storage buildings, where the train tracks come to an end, and I saw The Engineer hunched over them. It was such a startling sight that I almost stopped to see if he was alright - but then I noticed him lurching. Shoveling. He had a shovel in his hands, and he was digging gravel away from the train tracks. His black suit jacket was slung over one shoulder, his white shirt sleeves rolled up to the elbows, exposing pale arms. He was digging as if the train was on it's way, and it was up to him alone to keep it from derailing.

I wanted to stop... I wanted to get out of my Jeep and ask him what he was doing. Ask him his name... ask him where he was from. Prove to myself that he was in fact flesh and blood!! But I didn't. I kept driving, looking in my rear view mirror at the figure shoveling and swinging... shoveling and swinging.

The last time I saw the Engineer was this summer. My husband and I were sitting in the park by the river, which parallels the train tracks. As we got up from our impromptu picnic, I glanced down the trail and there...coming up the slope....was the old man. He looked no different from the first day I saw him, all those years ago. He had on his bowler derby, his vest...his pin stripe pants. His walking stick tapped the ground with a steady cadence. I realized for the first time...that he had a pair of very small wire rimmed glasses on. They were so silvery and small, they nearly disappeared into his face. I had never stood so close to him.

He walked past us, never giving even a flicker of a glance. He just stared straight ahead.... walking down the trail with his slim shoulders back, his head held high. The epitome of a very fine butler from a royal household.

I still don't know who he is. But, in a strange coincedence... four months ago I started a new job in one of the old brick buildings in town. It is located directly across the street from the main hub of the train line. My first day on the job, I walked up the steps, and was about to head on into the main hall, when my husband spotted something.

"Hey...take a look at this...." he said. He was pointing to something on the very corner of the building, by the door. I leaned in to look. There, rusted and weathered over years of exposure... a tiny metal sign in the brick, above a doorbell that had seen decades since it's last use. It said; 'Ring bell for Engineer'.

The building is the site of the old trainyard station...

....and I halfway wonder if The Engineer would appear at the door, if I were to press that old, silent bell.

(... and for those who are wondering - this story is true...)