Another Place Episode 33

Another Place Another Time

Book Two

Luke and Traveler

Episode Thirty-Three

There was silence in the large, warm kitchen. I guessed that they were giving me some time to digest everything I’d heard. I looked at Rick and said, “I love an adventure as much as anybody. As far out as it sounds, I believe everything all of you have told me.”

Rick said, “Boy, you got it quick. Frankly, if I were you, I would have probably shot somebody by now.”

I laughed, “Trust me. I considered it, but I got so caught up in Charlie’s story, I was afraid I would miss something if I started shooting.”

Andy raised his hand and everyone looked at him. His eyes twinkled then he glanced at Lois, seated beside him, and across the table at me, “I don’t think Charlie’s story is everything that you believe…”

Before he could say anything else, Lois swatted him on the back of the head, something that I suspected happened often in any given day. Then all three Parkers laughed. Charlie joined in and Traveler barked. I was blushing when I joined in the laughter.

When some order returned to the room, Rick said to me, “I was sure lucky when I picked you to stop. I let the first two rigs go past.”

“Why did you let them go? And more important, why did you pick me?”

“That’s easy; we need you to get the water to Charlie’s airplane. We have an old Army water trailer in the barn. Daddy used it to haul water to cattle on the backside of the farm during the summer. It’ll hold 6,000 gallons. The problem is we don’t have a truck to pull it.”

“How did your Daddy pull it?” I asked.

“He had a truck just for the job, but we don’t raise cattle anymore so we sold it.”

Andy added, “it’s fortunate there wasn’t a market for the trailer or we would have sold it when we sold the truck.”

“Okay, but why me? You said you let two rigs pass through before you stopped me. Why did you do that?”

“Well, the first rig that came by was a van line. That guy was driving a single axle tractor. I’m not sure a single axle will pull a loaded water wagon into the field. The second truck through was a Roadway truck. Roadway is a regular freight carrier. I don’t know a lot about your business, but I figured somebody, somewhere, keeps close tabs on where that rig is, all the time. Then you came along. There’s never been a regular truck line in the world willing to invest their money in a truck like yours.”

I laughed.

“I figured you must be the owner.”

I nodded, admiring his logic, “Not bad reasoning for somebody not in the business.”

He grinned, and for just a moment he looked like a ten-year-old who had hit his first little league home run. That expression remained on his face for a moment, and then he quickly returned to his explanation.

“A couple of other things clinched it. It sounds like you have power to burn, maybe a big CAT engine?” He raised his eyebrows.

I nodded, “That’s right, 450 horsepower. Is that all? If there’s more, I need to know right now.”

Lois, Andy, and Rick looked at one another for a moment. Then Lois said, “There is something else, Luke. We figure we don’t have long to get Charlie moving. If we can believe half of what we hear about the government and UFO’s, we know they are looking now and looking hard.”

She paused and Rick picked up the conversation, “I had to pick a truck as quickly as I could. You were the first one who had everything I was looking for.”

I thought about what I had heard in the past twenty minutes. “You know, if the Army, the Air force, the FBI, or CIA or whoever handles this comes swooping down on us before we get Charlie back in the sky, there is no telling what will happen…to all of us.”

There was a moment’s silence then Rick said, “We talked about that and realized that whatever happened if they caught us, would probably happen even if we called them. So, we have a major problem whether we call or don’t call, and the only way to avoid that problem is to get Charlie back in the air before we’re caught. Let’s face it; we have nothing to lose and everything to gain by giving this a shot.”

He was silent for a few seconds, and then he continued, “On the other hand, Luke, we live here. This is our farm, our land. We are here and we can’t change that, in fact, we wouldn’t if we could, but you are here by invitation, so to speak. We need you, but if you want to avoid the risk of a memorable meeting with the feds…well, now is the time to leave.”

You may think I’m the dumbest guy that ever walked, but I never even considered the possibility of leaving. In fact, I was a bit ticked that Rick would suggest it. I said, “I wasn’t trying to pull out. I only wanted to make sure you had thought everything out. Now, let’s take a look at the water wagon.”

A lot of tension left the room. Rick smiled, “There’s a little problem with the trailer.”

“Problem?” I said, “It is here, isn’t it?”

Already up and heading for the door, he said without stopping or turning, “Yeah, it’s here, it just doesn’t have any tires.”

I jumped up so quickly my chair fell over, “What do you mean no tires?” I shouted at the open porch door.

********

I caught Rick halfway between the house and the equipment shed. “What do you mean there are no tires?” I shouted again, this time at his back, as he continued toward the shed.

He stopped, turned toward me and said, “Calm down, Luke. The tires were rotten, so we scrapped them a couple of years ago. I’m sure it won’t be a problem.”

“No problem! How am I going to pull a trailer with no tires? Just explain that one to me.”

“We’ll just take the tires off your trailer and put them on the water wagon. Simple.”

I couldn’t believe my ears, “Rick, do you know how many tire sizes there are on the road? Not to mention wheel types?” I asked, as he opened the door and disappeared inside the shed.

I was hard on his heels when he said, “That’s another item I checked when I picked you for the job. I can’t be sure, because I didn’t have time to check closely when you pulled up to the stop sign, but I’m almost positive your trailer wheels and tires will fit the water wagon. I guess you could say that’s an educated guess, you see, I used to work summers and part-time changing tires and fixing flats at a truck stop.”

That took some steam out of me. “Oh, well, why didn’t you say so?”

Rick stepped into the equipment shed without bothering to answer my question. He flipped a switch beside the door and a triple row of overhead fluorescent lights lit every nook and cranny of the shed. The building was as well-equipped as any mechanic’s shop I’d ever seen. It had a concrete floor, insulation between each wall stud and two large gas heaters suspended from the ceiling. There were three huge John Deere tractors parked in the first three bays, and two other pieces of mechanical equipment that I couldn’t identify in the next two bays, followed by the final bay where I saw the “water wagon.”

The wheels and tires were gone, replaced by stands under the rear suspension. I looked at the front dollies and noted they were heavy-duty, built to hold the trailer even when fully loaded. I walked to the rear of the trailer, stopped beside the hubs and noted that Rick had been right. My trailer tires would fit.

“You’re right. They are the same size and wheel type. However, let’s talk about the next issue….”

Before I could continue Rick said, “Do you mean the fact that your trailer is loaded?”

“That’s it exactly.”

“That’s going to be easy. First, you drop your dollies and then pull out from under the trailer. We’ll use two of our tractors to lift the rear of the trailer and then we’ll put four jacks under the rear suspension. We have air impact wrenches and a dual wheel tire jack to lift and move each set of wheels and tires. Then all we have to do is move each set into the shed and put them on the trailer.”

“You make it sound easy.”

Rick grinned, “It will be.”

Just then, Andy, Charlie, and Lois came into the shed. In the brightest most optimistic voice, I had heard since meeting Charlie and the Parker’s, Lois said, “Well, guys, what are you standing around for? Let’s get this show on the road.”

I wasn’t fully aware of it then, but looking back, I’m sure that was the moment I fell hopelessly in love with her. However, there was no time to dwell on that right then, but I knew there would be.

*********

I lowered the dollies, released the kingpin, unhooked the brake and air lines, and then drove the tractor out from under the trailer. The Parkers immediately went to work with Charlie, Traveler, and me standing to one side watching. Like a well-coached team, with minimum conversation between them, they lifted the back of the trailer, placed four heavy-duty truck jacks under each end of both axles and then lowered the trailer onto the jacks.

Lois and Andy backed their tractors away and in seconds, they were moving down the pathway to hook-up their haybines before cutting the field to hide any evidence of Charlie’s landing.

Less than an hour later, Rick and I had finished transferring the wheels and tires from my trailer to the water wagon, and I was backing my tractor under the old tanker. The kingpin locked into position, and I jumped out of the cab. Rick was standing beside the dolly crank.

I said, “Rick, cross your fingers the brakes will work all right.”

He laughed, “I’ve thought of that. If for some reason they don’t, it won’t take but a few minutes to release them and we’ll move it without trailer brakes.”

I connected the airlines and heard the long unused brakes activate, and called out, “No need for plan B, it’s our lucky night.”

With Traveler in the sleeper box and Charlie in the passenger seat, I had a moment of recollection to the time, three hours earlier when Rick had climbed, uninvited, into the cab.

Rick climbed up on the running board beside my open window and said, “I’m going to get my tractor out of the shed. When I come past you, follow me. I’ll go the way Andy and Lois went. About a hundred feet down the drive, you’ll see a drive that goes back to the right toward the barn. I’ll turn there, you follow me and stop the water wagon under the overhead pipe, and you’ll see the spigot to line up with.”

In a minute or so, I was lining the tanker up with a four-inch overhead water spigot. Rick climbed up on the trailer, dropped the filler hose in the front compartment and opened the spigot. As he rinsed down the compartment he explained, “This is the main water line from a deep artesian well. The water is so pure that we use it for everything on the farm. Although I’ve never measured it, I suspect the flow rate is better than 2 gallons a second.”

The trailer had three compartments. The capacity of each one was 2,000 gallons. Even with a quick wash down of the first two compartments, the only ones that we used, and moving the fill hose from one to another, we finished loading in a little over an hour.

I didn’t look at my watch, but I guessed it was after midnight. In the distance, I could hear Andy and Lois cutting the hay field.

We still had to get the water from the trailer into Charlie’s aircraft and though there was plenty of darkness left, the storm had stopped raging, and I suspected it wouldn’t be long before the fog lifted and search planes or helicopters could easily spot us. A shiver ran through me at the thought.

Charlie, Traveler and I, followed Rick’s John Deere to Charlie’s aircraft. I shut down, and Rick pulled up beside me and shouted down from the cab of the massive John Deere, “I’m going to go and help Andy and Lois finish cutting the hay field. Give us a blast on your horn when you two finish.”

I waved and he drove away.

Charlie drained the polluted water out of his aircraft, and we rigged the old pump mounted on the rear of the water wagon to Charlie’s water filler pipe. That was the only way to get the water into the aircraft, since Charlie’s internal pump relied on power from his engines, which weren’t running. We’d tested the pump at the shed, but I still held my breath when I pulled the starter cord. The pump came to life on the first pull, and I breathed again.

I post two episodes of Another Place Another Time every week

For info on receiving each episode directly on your Kindle click here
Or, if you don’t want to wait, click here to purchase the complete Kindle version of the book.

Currently I’m working on The Mystic Trilogy – the first volume – The Sages – it is posted weekly – click here to read the first and all subsequent episodes.