Another Place Episode 36

Another Place Another Time

Book Two

Episode Thirty-Six

Ben Cavanaugh

We finished our first pass over the primary search area without seeing anything out of the ordinary, and then we turned and began our second run. About twenty minutes into it, I radioed Colonel Sprague, “One, I’m going to take it up a couple of hundred feet just to get a better look.” Sprague responded by clicking his transmit button twice.

I pulled the Cobra off the treetops. I hadn’t climbed fifty feet when a reflection caught my eye. I looked closer and almost had a Vietnam flashback. In the middle of a newly cut hay field, I saw Charlie Evans’s aircraft. There were five people and a big black dog standing beside the time machine, looking toward me. I recognized Charlie’s distinctive uniform and blonde hair and, though I knew it couldn’t be possible, the dog, even at that distance, looked exactly like Whispers.

I began a tight turn toward the ship, and in the same motion, radioed the flight on their intercom frequency, “Go to our secure frequency and do it now.” I dialed in the secure frequency and heard Sprague say, “One,” followed by “Two, Three, Four…” until the entire flight had checked in on the secure frequency. Then I keyed my transmitter, “Gentlemen, do not acknowledge or respond to this message. As soon as I sign off maintain total radio silence until further notice, and I mean no talk whatever, no intercom, nothing. Circle and form on me. We are landing here. You’ll see as soon as you get off the trees that we are about to join an old friend from another place and another time.”

********

I knew that it was my duty to immediately report to NASA that we had found the UFO. I grinned, thinking, ‘I didn’t report it before, and I’m not going to report it now.’

Luke and Traveler

It was a sunrise I’ll never forget, and I suspect that is equally true for the forty-nine men, one woman, and one dog who witnessed it with me.

I shook hands with every one of the Greyhounds, all forty-six of them. We told a few stories and got to know one another as best we could in our short time together. For Charlie, it was simply recalling something that happened less than two weeks before. For the Greyhounds, Charlie’s mishap had happened more than thirty years before.

General Cavanaugh said, “We were lucky that we didn’t crash into you that day, Charlie.”

Charlie laughed, and said, “You think you were lucky. I came so close to dropping into the river I don’t even like to think about it. I stopped the water pickup, reeled in the filler pipe and began to climb. I don’t think the aircraft gained more than a hundred feet of altitude before the engine stopped running. Almost immediately, it started again, but I knew I was in trouble. I forgot about making the mind computer link and headed toward a cleared space beside a rice paddy at the edge of the river. I did a better landing there than I did last night in the hay field. I guess a crash landing from 70,000 feet involves a more finesse than a crash landing from seventy feet.”

Charlie looked around at everyone standing in the hay field. “That day in Vietnam, we looked a lot like we look here today…”

One of the Greyhound pilots called out, “Only some of us were a whole lot younger.”

Charlie laughed, “Speak for yourself. For me it was only ten days ago.” Everyone laughed again.

General Cavanaugh looked pointedly at his watch and said, “We are going to leave now and continue our search as if nothing happened. I’ll radio NASA, report our progress, and give the details of the area we’ve searched. I’m going to tell them we’ve found nothing, but, though I’m a believable character, even when I’m lying, I suspect Colonel Atkins of NASA is going to send his fighters over for a final look, so Charlie, you need to be gone soon. When the Greyhounds are back in search formation, say in ten minutes or so, I’ll come back, fly over the field to see if there are any signs of your having been here that you might have overlooked. If there is anything at all, I’ll land and tell you. If I don’t land, it will be because there is nothing to report.”

General Cavanaugh shook hands with Charlie and each of the Parkers. Then he directed the Greyhounds back to their ships and told Captain Shultz to get the Cobra started. Then he turned toward me, signaling that he would like to talk. We moved a few feet away from Charlie’s aircraft and stopped. The General nodded toward Traveler and asked, “Luke, where did you get Traveler?” That wasn’t what I expected, so I stuttered a moment, then quickly blurted out the story of finding Traveler on Mont Eagle over a year earlier.

“Here’s why I ask, Luke. I know it’s been thirty years, and you might think my mind is slipping, but I can assure you that it isn’t. Traveler is a dead ringer for a Scout Dog I knew well in Vietnam. His name was Whispers, and I have some photos of him and his handler, Jake. Give me your address, and I’ll send them to you.”

I pulled a business card out of my wallet and gave it to him. I leaned close to hear him above the noise of the helicopters starting. “Luke, I could have seen Traveler anywhere else and not made the connection, but standing here beside Charlie’s aircraft, it came back to me like it was yesterday, because Jake and Whispers were with us the day we helped Charlie in Vietnam.” He glanced at the line of helicopters; I’ll explain it all in my letter.” He shook my hand, turned sharply on his right heel and walked away. I was still standing there as the Greyhounds lifted off.

As the sound of their engines began to fade, I realized that Charlie was standing beside me. “The General wanted to talk to you about Traveler didn’t he?”

“How did you know?” I asked.

“I’m not psychic, if that’s what you’re thinking. There was someone else with the Greyhounds that day in Vietnam, a scout dog and his handler. The handler’s name was Jake and the dog was Whispers. The reason the General mentioned it is simple, Traveler is Whispers’s twin….” He glanced at Traveler and added, “Luke, they are, identical, absolutely, perfectly identical.”

I stood there for a few seconds, lost in the idea that General Cavanaugh had planted, and Charlie had confirmed. Charlie snapped me out of it with a light slap on the back; “Let’s finish this up…” and he turned back to his aircraft.

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