by Alan James
As the three turned and walked out of the hangar, Cory turned and walked backwards, “Give ’em hell Kellerman,” he yelled as he gave Kelly a sharp military salute. The three walked around the east end of the building and down the taxiway. He watched through the front windows until they vanished into the darkness.
***
Kelly reached into the cockpit and grabbed the piece of plywood covering the broken spring. With a quick snap of his damaged wrist, he sent it sailing to the dark recesses of the hangar. He listened as it clanged off the far wall. The cloth rap the doctor had applied to his wound had loosened and it fell with the quick motion of his toss. As he reached to pick it up, he noticed that the lacerations, that just minutes before were a crusty clump of scabs, were now clean. He held his wrist to a column of moonlight coming in through an upper window. It looked, almost translucent … new … shiny.
“Thank you,” he said, without thinking.
He stepped into the cockpit and lowered himself into the seat. Without hesitation, he pushed his back against the lumbar support. Surprised, he felt only a mild sting. His vision, however was changing rapidly. The rose color was all around him, like before, but this time he stayed in the hangar. No great canyon in front of him, no tall spired city in the distance, the two dying suns were gone this time.
(Almost before he thought) the canopy was closed. (Almost before he thought) he could feel, and hear, the hum of the gravity drive beneath and behind him. He could see windows to each side of the hole in front of him. They began to vibrate more and more as the drive came up to power. Shards began to fall as the glass could no longer stand the strain.
Closing the canopy and starting the drive, those were simple commands, he thought. Making Him maneuver once He’s in the air shouldn’t be too much of a problem either, just simple movements of the stick, but, how do I get Him to rise straight up off the ground? With that thought, the drive unit, in a split second, had whined to full power. Most of the windows that still held glass, exploded outward, showering the ground outside with a million tiny moonlit sparklers as the disc shot to the top of the hangar. “Stop!” was the only thing he could think of (he yelled it out loud) and the disc came to a screeching halt, wobbling slightly on its central axis within a few feet from the ceiling. He had ducked his head, fully expecting to be thrown up into the top of the canopy, but instead, it felt like the inside of the cockpit had closed in on him from all directions, holding him in his seat. He could move his arms and legs, turn his head in all direction, but, this gentle but firm pressure held him securely in place, and, now that the sudden deceleration was over, the pressure subsided.
There he sat, forty feet off the concrete floor of the hangar, afraid to think, afraid that the slightest wrong thought might lead to disaster. There had to be a way to get Him back on the ground, he thought, and with that, he saw the empty window frames in front of the canopy, start to rise as the plane slowly descended, touching down gently on the spot where it had started.
Kelly knew he was going to have to become a little more proficient than just up and down. Hell, the plane could do better on its own. He had to get it outside and get a little air time under his belt.
The drive unit was idling again and as he thought about moving outside, it seemed to anticipate. The whine increased again, slower this time as Kelly tried to reign in his enthusiasm. The plane lifted slowly and began to slide forward, entering the hole in the wall, dead center. Once he was completely outside of the hangar, Kelly used his stop thought again, with a little less gusto this time, and the plane hovered as the whine of the gravity drive indicated it had slowed to a speed commensurate with the energy needed to, just, hold it in place.
He remembered watching earlier as the craft had slewed back and forth, eventually shooting down the little chopper with Arnell aboard. ‘A valuable skill,’ he thought. He envisioned himself looking back into the open hole in the hangar wall behind him and the disc spun at lightening speed to the right. He tried to stop it at the opening but overshot by a full quarter circle. He tried again, this time leading with his head, much like a ballet dancer pirouetting on point. This time he snapped to a stop looking directly into the dark ruins of the hangar.
Putting slight pressure on the joy stick to the right, he began to slide the ship sideways above the ground, and as he passed in front of one of the few whole panes of glass still holding its place in a dangling frame, he stopped. The moon was reflecting off the chrome with a brilliance that surprised him. ‘No sneakin’ up on anybody in this thing,’ he thought. Then, puzzled by the vision in front of him, he slid the craft closer to the window. Near enough now to make out some detail, he could see that the canopy was, like before when they first saw it, solidly chromed.
“How on Earth?” he said, under his breath, as the twinkle of hundreds of pieces of broken glass filled his vision from below; from under the plane. With a wonder he hadn’t felt since he was a youngster and his parents had taken him to a local air show to see things he was sure were, at that time, quite impossible, he realized that he hadn’t been looking through the canopy at all. He had been looking through the disc in any direction he wanted. And then, as he blinked, the vision in front of him lingered. He closed his eyes and the sparkles from below remained, and as he gazed forward again, (his eyes still closed) there, reflecting in the unbroken window, was the disc. He rocked the wings, just to make sure he was seeing correctly, ‘or not seeing,’ he thought.
“The disc is seeing for me. He is seeing for me, and then feeding the information through the connection. ‘The connection!’ he thought loudly, as if yelling to himself. Leaning forward, he ran his left hand down his lower back, only thinking afterwards what unexpected results might occur should he suddenly pull the broken spring from his flesh. Feeling no sudden movement in the disc, he felt for the torn upholstery and the sharp spring in the seat. He felt neither.
‘The seat is smooth.’ Twisting to look behind him, he found that it too, like everything else in the disc, was now chromed. It had changed since he left the hangar. The disc now seemed complete, except for the F-eighty-six fuselage married down its center. As a disturbing thought struck him, he raised his right hand to eye level. Looking at his palm and backhand, he whispered, “Thank God, still flesh and blood.”
***
Kelly played right on the stick then slewed to the right to face the direction he was moving, then pulled back on the stick while thinking up. The nose came up and he rose quickly as the hangars grew smaller below him. He took a course east by north; the last direction he had seen his three friends moving when they had left him earlier.
As he leveled the disc he kept watch forward through the bottom of the cockpit. They hadn’t made very good time, he thought, as he found them struggling through some tall brush about a mile ahead of him. He had strained to see them at first, but, once he caught their movement, the center of his field of view seemed to move toward him, as if being magnified. “Must be how the hawk homes in on his prey,” he smiled.
They had no idea he was coming as he pushed the stick forward to begin a surprise military “Howdy”. He leveled at the treetops and increased to what he thought might be about three-fifty or four hundred miles per hour. As he passed over their heads he put the disc in a forty-five degree climb and laid hard left on the stick. The chrome wing tips sparkled like diamonds in the clear desert air, as the barrel roll brought each around in turn to reflect the moonlight back on the men below. At about five thousand feet he stopped the roll abruptly in a steep bank to the left. Pulling back gently on the stick, to start a long graceful climbing turn, he looked back over his left shoulder to see the three below him, waving him on. Knowing full well they couldn’t see him in the cockpit, he reached across his body with his right hand and gave them a thumbs-up and a final word: “Watch your six, my friends.”
SAINT STUCKEY
Kelly leveled the disc at what he guessed was
twelve to fifteen thousand feet. He was surprised, as he looked around, how much he could see in the moonlight. ‘The disc can see much better than these human eyes,’ he thought.
The highway below was only intermittently painted by headlights from what little traffic there was at this time of morning. ‘Not many people looking up,’ he hoped. To the southeast the dark ribbon led back to Tucson, and to the northwest, to Phoenix, ‘But,’ he thought, after the little town of Eloy, he would make the turn to the west at the junction, and head toward Gila Bend, and then Yuma. He remembered the little towns along this stretch of highway as stops for the call of nature, or a quick breakfast, lunch or dinner, on the vacations he used to take with his parents. It seemed like nearly every year, they would pack the old thirty-six Ford, (with much more camping gear than they needed, and never enough food), say a temporary goodbye to the little town of Beatrice (in the extreme southeast corner of Nebraska) and head out for New Mexico, Arizona, or anywhere near the four-corners area to explore the Ancient Indian ruins that intrigued his Father so much.
At the time, he wasn’t into the history behind the old mud and adobe brick buildings, but he had relished in the pure joy of climbing over and through them, especially the cliff dwellings. Not many had keep-out signs back then and the occasional arrow point that he would find was framed by his Mother and hung on his bedroom wall.
‘Simpler times,’ he thought, ‘much simpler times.’
A faint orange glow below him caught his eye. At least he thought it was one shade of orange, or another. He was still getting used to the rose color that the disc imparted on his vision. As he concentrated on the image below, it leapt toward him and snapped into focus … ‘Ah,’ he thought, ‘hawk eyes again.’
Now the colors became more apparent. It was a blue and white building with an oversized and very steep pitched roof that was cantilevered over its front. There was a somewhat lighted dirt parking lot out front, and across that huge roof, the bright red letters suddenly called to him: “Stuckey’s”.
He could remember, riding in the package tray of the old Ford, looking up out of the slanted rear window, at the stars at night, or the clouds during the day. Seeing one of the roadside stores, his Father would say, with the most serious face he could muster, “Did you know Son, that Mr. Stuckey is the Patron Saint of forlorn vacationers.” And as I turned to him and smiled, he would continue, “No, no, it’s true Son, the Pope canonized him back in twenty-eight, right after he tasted his pecan divinity.”
A smile came to Kelly’s lips, “Pecan divinity, from Saint Stuckey.” As his mouthed watered, he tried to remember the last time he had eaten. It was back in Tucson; a bowl of ham and beans drawn from a huge pot that was delivered to the recruiting station by one of the local restaurants; that and an RC Cola. No wonder he was starving.
‘What would it hurt,’ he thought; it was still dark outside. Banking to the right he kicked a little right rudder while pushing forward on the stick. He would approach the store from the north, well out of sight of the highway.
As he maneuvered to cactus-top altitude, he pointed the nose at the store, now just a faint glow over the top of the sage brush, a mile or so ahead. He felt the nearly imperceptible shudder below his feet as he thought the landing struts down. He slid the disc to the left a few feet and set it down in a shallow dry wash. The lights of the store were now hidden from view. That was good. If he couldn’t see them, then they couldn’t see him.
***
The walk to the store would be less than a mile. As he jumped from the wing of the disc, the first thing that struck him was the heat. It was now early morning and the breeze that had earlier refreshed him in Marana, had faded to a quiet and sticky calmness. The desert sand was now giving up the heat that it had stored from the previous day. As he began to sweat, he looked himself over. He hadn’t time earlier to notice what terrible shape he was in. His coat and shirt were torn at the right armpit, stretched beyond resistance while dangling from the Sikorsky. The sleeves were bloodied to stiffness. His pant-legs were covered in blood, grease, grass stains and assorted smudges of dirt and a bit of something he wasn’t sure of.
“How in hell do I explain all this to the store-keep when he asks, “What on Earth happened to you?” He laughed to himself as he jumped sideways, startled, as a jack-rabbit darted from the opening of its warren. “Easy there little fella,” he offered, as the two ears, zigzagging in frightened retreat, disappeared over the next rise.
With a deep breath he pressed on, circling wide to the side of the store to make it look like he was coming in from the west, just in case anyone was looking.
The gravel, spread near the gas pumps out front, crunched beneath his feet as he made his way to the door. He stopped before entering, looking around as best he could, inside and out. He saw just one man, a young man, working the counter, his head buried in a paperback. As he pushed through the door, the bell suspended above, announced his entry. When the attendants head rose from the book, Kelly could see that it wasn’t a young man after all. She was tall, he thought, maybe five-nine, and twenty, maybe twenty-one years old. Her hair was cut page-boy and she wore a blue ball cap, pushed back on her head, the bill reaching for the ceiling. It had a big red ‘N’ stitched on the front.
“Ah, a fellow Cornhusker,” he said to himself.
As he approached the counter her look became stern. She finally raised a hand, palm forward. She looked scared, and Kelly stopped as he saw her eyes move to a spot behind and below the counter. He thought she might go for the gun he knew would be there.
“I’ve had an accident … up the road a ways.”
She relaxed when she finally recognized what was left of his uniform, “Hey, you’re Air Force, aren’t you?”
“Yes Ma’am,” he said with his finest Midwest etiquette, “got banged up a little.”
“Looks like more than a little,” she hesitated, recalling something, “hey,” she exclaimed again, “you’re plane crashed, didn’t it … I saw it. I was out back just a few minutes ago, emptyin’ the trash,” she pointed, “I saw you come down.”
She was out from behind the counter before he could answer, so he decided to let her keep talking.
“Here, come back here and sit down … Jeeze … you’ve got blood all over yourself … here, sit here,” it seemed she couldn’t stop, “ … I’ll get a towel and some water,” and then she was gone, but only for a moment.
She returned with an old ceramic water bowl (‘her dogs’ water dish,’ he thought) and set it beside him. She dunked the towel in the water, and leaving it there, pulled Kelly’s coat back over his shoulders. When he resisted she quickly said, “Look, I need to clean you up, heaven knows what kind of infections you’re gonna get with wounds-a-bleedin’ like that.” She finished pulling off his coat and rolled his right sleeve up to his elbow. She turned his wrist over and back, looked up his arm to his elbow, then rolled the sleeve on his left side and did the same.
“Where are you cut Mister, I don’t see anything … how ‘bout your legs?” she asked frantically, thinking Kelly was about to bleed to death right in front of her.
When he didn’t answer, she looked up, her gaze focusing on his eyes. Jumping to her feet, she knocked the water bowl to the floor.
“Jeeze, Mister, what’s wrong with your eyes?”
Staring at her, he saw nothing wrong with his vision. He reached up and touched his cheeks below each eye, “I don’t know, why, what’s wrong with them?”
“They’re all milky, kinda … shiny like.”
They continued to stare at one another as Kelly tried to come up with a plausible answer.
“You’re wearin’ those new contact things, aren’t you?” she said, bending over for a closer look.
“Yeah, must be my contacts. I got fuel in my eyes climbing out of the wreck … must’ve turned ‘em cloudy.”
Breathing a sigh of relief, she stepped forward again to pic
k up the water bowl. “You scared me there for a minute Mister. When I watched your plane come down earlier, I thought I was seein’ one of those flying saucers. You know we’ve had ‘em around here before. Your plane was shiny, and it made no noise, just like I was told about ‘em. Then, when I see you all covered in blood and no cuts anywhere, and then your eyes, well … you know … my imagination kinda went …” she stared, “Hey,” she said softly, as if almost afraid to ask, “you’re not an alien, are you?”
“No,” he smiled, “no, I’m not an alien, I’m a Cornhusker, like you.”
She smiled briefly, and then with a look of worry, “What about all that blood?” she asked.
He looked around, trying to feign embarrassment, “Look,” he said, lowering his eyes, “I am cut … but … it’s personal … know what I mean. I’d like to clean it up myself.”
“Oh, below the belt, you mean … yeah … sure.” She stood and pointed, “In there, use the bathroom.”
As he stood, “Do you sell clothing, pants, shirts; that sort of thing?”
“No, sorry, we’ve got a few tee-shirts, but that’s about it,” she apologized, shrugging her shoulders. “Hey wait,” she suddenly remembered, “ … in the garage around back. There should be a pair or two of clean coveralls. The mechanics usually leave them hanging in the parts locker. I’ll get the keys and fetch you a pair.”
“Thanks,” he said to her back as she rushed out the door, “I’m gonna grab a few things to eat.”
As she waved and kept running, he grabbed a large paper bag from behind the register and began tossing in anything that looked good (and as hungry as he was, that included just about anything on the shelves).
He had filled the bag and set it on the counter when she appeared at the door holding a pair of blue coveralls folded over her arm. He took them from her, and holding them by the collar, let them unfold to the floor. They looked at least one size too big and their previous owner’s name was embroidered over the front pocket. He wondered if “Lee Roy” would miss them in the morning. And, when he turned them around … there … emblazoned in big, bold red letters across the back was, of course, Stuckey’s.
