Another Place Another Time
Book Two
Luke and Traveler
Episode Thirty-Seven
I looked in the outside rearview mirror and watched the lights of Tucson disappear behind low sand dunes. I looked ahead toward the west and could see only more sand and darkness. Highway 50 was deserted; the interstate had taken all of its traffic and left it alone and empty in the desert.
The heat of the day had long gone. The sky was a solid wall of blackness. Though I knew there was a high-flying cloud layer obscuring the stars, it was still strange looking at a sky that had no sign of light. I shivered despite the warmth in the cab of the Kenworth.
I gave up my search of the empty night sky and settled back in the seat. I checked the gauges. Everything was in the green. I flipped the button on the gearshift and at the same time eased off the accelerator. There was a soft smack from inside the Roadranger transmission case, and I knew the shift to thirteenth gear was complete. I pushed the accelerator to the floor and gave the big CAT diesel its head.
********
Two weeks to the day had passed since the afternoon that Rick Parker hijacked Traveler and me. I thought again of the two hours after the Greyhounds left. I had thought of that morning often in the past two weeks.
As soon as the helicopters left, Charlie gave us the second present he had promised. I’m amazed that it only took a couple of minutes for him to do that. Then he said good-bye to the Parker’s, promising us that he would be back in a year.
He turned to me and asked me to walk with him to his aircraft. He, Traveler, and I turned away from the Parkers and began moving to the ship. We took a few steps in silence, and then Charlie said, “Luke, this is what I started to tell you before the Greyhounds showed up. When I told you and the Parker’s about the conditions on earth in my time I didn’t tell you everything. I didn’t tell you the worst part.”
He started walking again as he considered his words. “We are replanting the forests and we have discovered ways to speed the growth of the trees that you would find unbelievable. It appears the new forests will have the atmosphere clean within the next eight years; and I don’t mean just livable. I mean as clean as it was a ten thousand years ago. We had to do that, and do it quickly, or else we would have died. However, I didn’t tell you about another problem. It doesn’t threaten our lives, but it has had a marked affect on the emotional health of everyone on the planet.”
We walked in silence for a few steps then stopped. Traveler sat beside me looking straight at Charlie. I knew I was about to learn the cause of the deep sadness that I could feel in Charlie, even in moments when he smiled or laughed.
“All the mammals on the planet have died.” I must have gasped.
Charlie continued, “We still don’t know exactly why it happened. When we realized that no new mammals were being born, scientists began working to restore what they called the “way things had always been.” They tried everything from hormones to artificial insemination. Nothing worked. After the death of the last known mammal, the psychologists theorized that after being abused by humans since the beginning of time, the mammal, and I mean every mammal on the planet, including whales, stopped reproducing. Every effort made to reverse the situation, failed. The last one, an elephant at the San Diego Zoo died.” There were tears in Charlie’s eyes, and for a moment, he couldn’t speak.
We began walking again. At the foot of the ramp, we stopped and Charlie turned to me. It still wasn’t easy for him to talk; he was so choked with emotion. “Traveler is only the second live mammal I’ve ever seen or touched; Whispers was the first. I cannot tell you how great it has been to see him, to pet him, just to be close to him. That brings me to the favor I want to ask.” He paused; I knew he was thinking about his next words, making sure they were exactly right. “Luke, I want to take Traveler with me.” Before I could interrupt, he held up his hand and added, “Just for visit, a short visit. Two weeks, that’s all. I’ll bring him back two weeks from tonight and meet you anywhere you say. You have my word on it.”
He looked at me with such intensity; I could barely maintain the eye contact. Then he added, “Luke, there is no way I can tell you how much it would mean to the people of my day to see Traveler.
I broke the eye contact with Charlie and looked at Traveler. I had a lump in my throat, but I still managed to say, “What do you think about it, Big Guy?”
Traveler looked at me and then at Charlie. He barked sharply one time and turned toward the ship the way he turns toward the truck when he’s ready to go. I looked at Charlie and said, “I guess that answers your question.” A rare smile lit Charlie’s face. We quickly made plans for our meeting in two weeks, and then Charlie and Traveler disappeared up the ramp. A moment later the ramp retracted, and silently the aircraft rose straight up, accelerating rapidly as it climbed. Quickly, it was gone from sight leaving the Parkers and me alone in the middle of the hay field.
As I walked toward the Parkers, Lois ran to my side, took my hand, and asked, “When is Traveler coming back?”
“He’ll be back two weeks from today. He and Charlie are going to meet me just outside Tucson.”
She smiled and said, “That’s not bad. Now we’ll just have think of something to keep your mind off Traveler, until he gets back.”
She dropped my hand and started running toward her tractor, as she called over her shoulder, “Just follow me, and we’ll figure it out.”
I followed the Parker’s across the field. It was quite a parade, three John Deere tractors, followed by a Kenworth pulling a World War II water wagon.
As we pulled into the barnyard, General Cavanaugh returned and made a slow pass over the field, then the house. He turned, and as he passed over us, he gave us a thumbs up. We watched until his helicopter disappeared in the direction from which he had come.
The Parkers drove their tractors into the shed, and I backed the water wagon into its stall. Andy and Lois went into the house to prepare breakfast. Rick and I removed the wheels and tires from the tanker and put them back on my trailer. In less than an hour, the task was complete. I hooked up my trailer, and then moved the rig up the driveway under the cover of the ancient oaks that surrounded the house, where I was confident that it would be invisible from the air.
Rick and I washed up in the shed, and then walked up the path to the house. As we stepped onto the back porch, two jet fighters, flying low over the house, shattered the stillness of the morning. They were quickly gone beyond the trees without giving any sign that they had seen anything suspicious in the hay field. Rick and I looked at each other and grinned.
********
When we walked into the kitchen, Lois, who had been talking to Andy immediately hushed. Rick said, “Don’t let us stop you. What were you talking about?”
Andy turned toward us, a grin on his face, “Oh, it wasn’t very important, Lois has decided that….”
Before he could say another word, Lois slapped him smartly in the back of the head with her open palm. “I’ll tell it, thank you very much.” Then she stopped talking, and I realized that she was blushing.”
Andy, more serious than I had seen him, said, “Okay, everybody, sit down; and I’ll get the coffee, and Lois can tell her story her way.” He pointed to the chair at the head of the table, “Luke you sit there.”
Lois, looking straight ahead, sat beside me. Rick sat at the opposite end of the breakfast table, and Andy poured the coffee. With all the cups full, Andy sat down, looked at Lois and said softly, “Do you want me to tell them?”
“No you nut, I’ll tell it. Just don’t rush me.” There was a long pause, and no one tried to break it. My left hand was touching my coffee cup; my right hand was lying on the table. Lois turned toward me, covered my right hand with her left, looked directly in my eyes and said, “Luke, I love you. In my whole life, I have only loved these two guys, our parents, and our grandparents, but that’s enough for me to know what love is, and I know that I love you. I’ve always said that I believed in love at first sight, but since it had never happened to me, I wasn’t totally sure about it, until you walked in the house yesterday. Then, I knew that I believed in it, because it had happened to me. I don’t know how you feel, but I think you feel the same way.”
I didn’t trust myself to speak, but I knew I had to. I managed to say, “I do.”
Andy quickly returned to his lighthearted self and chimed in, “Then by the power vested in me by the great state of Tennessee, I pronounce you husband and wife.”
That broke us all up. When the laughter finally died away, Lois said, “Luke, if you’ll let me, I want to go with you.”
I didn’t have any trouble talking that time, “Let you? I’d already been planning a way to kidnap you.”
We finished breakfast, at least I think we finished, while Lois, Rick, and Andy made hurried arrangements about Lois’s chores, local commitments, and other logistical matters. Then she looked at me and said, “Give me ten minutes.” She jumped up and ran for the stairs.
Rick said, “Well, Luke, we Parkers are nothing if we aren’t unconventional.”
I laughed and said, “I noticed that when you climbed in my rig yesterday.” We talked for ten or fifteen minutes without saying much of anything. Just three guys getting to know one another. Then Lois came bounding down the stairs and burst into the kitchen. She held a large red gym bag, straining at the seams, in her left hand and a smaller one in her right hand. There was a pair of running shoes, laces tied together, slung over her shoulder, and she was slightly out of breath. She was the most beautiful woman I had ever seen in my life, and she still is.
I jumped up and took the large red bag from her as I said, “Let me get that.”
Andy said, “Luke, she’s stronger than you.”
Lois gave me the large bag, but when I reached for the smaller one she laughed and said, “One is enough Luke. I can carry my share.”
Rick said, “She’s not kidding there Luke.”
*********
Tucson was behind us. I looked at my watch for the hundredth time since we had left the city. Just then, I felt a touch on my right shoulder. I covered Lois’s hand with mine as she said, “Stop worrying, Luke. They’ll be there. And slow down, or else we’ll be in California instead of at the meeting place.”
I eased off the throttle, as she slipped from the sleeper into the passenger seat. We searched the sky though the windshield and in the mirrors. Charlie had to cover a lot of time and miles to find us. I have to admit, I was a little concerned that he might miss us. A tractor-trailer looks big on the highway, but when you’re coming from another place in time, it might not be so easy to find.
I looked at my watch; it was midnight. The time we had agreed to meet. I glanced in the mirror again, and all of my concerns faded away as a dark shadow slipped from the sky, and turned into more lights than I could count. The ship sailed noiselessly over the rig and hovered over the highway a quarter of mile in front of us. I began to gear down. When I was within a hundred yards, Charlie turned off the lights and moved the aircraft to the shoulder of the road. I pulled off the highway about fifty feet behind the hovering ship. The ramp began to drop from its belly.
By the time I got out of the truck, Charlie had extended the ramp to the ground and Traveler was covering the distance between us in great long bounds, accented with loud barks. Then, he was standing on his hind legs, front paws resting on my shoulders, licking my face. Charlie walked up just as Lois moved up beside me, a large cardboard box in her arms. Charlie didn’t seem at all surprised to see her.
Lois put the box down and grabbed Traveler, who quickly began licking her face. Then she stood, and we both shook hands with, and then hugged Charlie, who said, “You cannot imagine what a hit Traveler was. He is a superstar in my time.” Traveler barked.
“I have to be honest with you, Luke. Bringing him back to you is one the hardest jobs I’ve ever had to do.”
“Maybe this will make the job a little easier,” I said as I picked up the cardboard box and handed it to him.
“What’s this?”
Lois laughed, “Well open it and see.”
Charlie put the box on the ground and opened it. Traveler peered in and began wagging his tail. Charlie said, “I can’t see.” The box whined just as Lois turned on a small flashlight, revealing its contents – two small puppies, one a miniature of Traveler, the other a replica of their mother, a golden Lab.
Charlie finally took his gaze off the puppies. There were tears streaming down his face when he said, “The black one looks just like Traveler.”
“What a coincidence,” I said. Traveler barked sharply.
Lois said, “The puppies are a gift to you from Traveler’s vet in Rocky Top, Tennessee. Of course, he didn’t know they would be going to the future. We thought about it, and frankly, we don’t believe that moving these two puppies from here to there will have a major impact on the course of events, but then who knows, maybe it already has.”
Charlie, said, “To quote Luke, ‘I’m willing to risk it.’”
*******
The highway was deserted as far as we could see in each direction, but we knew we couldn’t stay there much longer. We hugged again, and Charlie reminded us that he would see us at the farm in a year. With the cardboard box held securely in both arms, Charlie headed up the ramp and entered his time machine.
The three of us stood beside the highway for a while after the lights of the ship disappeared through the clouds. Finally, we turned toward the rig. I put my arm around Lois and marveled at how well she fit there. As we walked, I looked at Traveler and asked, “Well, Big Guy, are you ready to go back to work?” He barked. “We have a new driver to train, you know?” He barked again as he ran ahead to the tractor.
A few minutes later, I slipped the Roadranger into thirteenth gear, and glanced at the gauges, assuring myself they were all in their normal operating range. I listened to the engine and knew that it wasn’t my imagination; it was running smoother than it had ever run…and it was running on water.
That was Charlie’s second gift to us. He told us how to convert gas and diesel powered engines to run on water. I couldn’t believe how simple it was. We agreed to keep it our secret. It would change history far too much if we “discovered” the process before it’s time.
I have to dummy fuel tickets so my CPA doesn’t get wise, and then I pay fuel tax on the fuel I didn’t buy, but I’m still way ahead of the game. Not to mention the extra revenue that has come from having a new co-driver; who happens to be my best friend and my wife.
*********
After Charlie and the puppies left, we continued west on Highway 50. Traveler was sitting in the passenger seat staring through the windshield. Pavarotti was singing, softly, so as not to wake Lois. We hadn’t seen any traffic since leaving Tucson when the headlights picked up a sign that read, “Four Way Stop Ahead.” I began to brake and gear down. Just before I came to a full stop, I reached across the cab and locked the passenger door.
As I straightened, I patted Traveler’s head. “I don’t know about you, Big Guy, but I’m just not ready for someone else to come crawling in here with us.”
The End
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