The Third Hour

by Richard Devin

  With their task complete, the centurions gathered the clothing they had torn away from Christ as he lay upon the ground, and made their way through the crowd toward the rocky point that Pilate had occupied.

  Bill followed them for a short distance, eager to catch any of the words that history could never have recorded, staying as close to them as he dared. The centurions came to rest on the rocky point, they tossed off the satchels of tools and picked up skins of wine to quench their thirst, and then tore into stacks of bread and fruit.

  Bill stood at a distance halfway between the centurions and the crosses, mesmerized by all that was taking place. He turned back to the three crosses staggered only feet apart in a crude line, just as Christ brought his head up. Christ stared at the centurions as they drank the wine and ate the bread. A slight smile formed at the edges of Christ’s lips. Then, he turned his gaze away from the centurions and looked through the crowd. His eyes swept and touched upon every face that had gathered here. And every man, woman and child grew silent. All tormenting had stopped. The children laughing and playing on the outskirts of the rocky hill ceased in their antics. The vendors hawking wares shuttered their cries. The Roman centurions put down the skins of wine and loafs of bread. All turned their eyes to the crosses. On the hilltop, above the rock called Golgotha, there was silence. Not even the breeze dared to rustle a branch. And the ravens’ ever-present call went silent. Christ’s gaze hesitated on each face of every man, woman and child. Until there was only one man left. One man whose eyes the gaze of Christ had not touched.

  His eyes met Bill’s. The intensity of Christ’s gaze made Bill want to turn away, but he could not. He was transfixed.

  It was the third hour when Christ spoke, still staring directly into the eyes of Bill and no other. “Abbas, indulgeo lemma; pro haud non quis operor.” His voice was soft and dry. His words in Latin, not Aramaic, and they were directed to one man and one man only. “Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do.”

  FIFTY NINE

  “AN ENTIRE SQUADRON disappeared.” Senator Scott raised his hands into the air, then snapped his fingers. “Gone. Just gone.”

  “And none were ever found?” Dominic cocked his head.

  “Not a trace. Not one. There were radio transmissions from the flight leader to the bases in Miami and Fort Lauderdale. Search and rescue ships and planes were sent out, but nothing from any of the missing planes was ever located.”

  Tonita sighed. “Completely vanished?”

  “Too many people were involved to try to cover the missing squadron up, so the Defense department—the Department of War at the time—began to plant misleading information about the strange happenings in the waters off Florida and the Bermuda Islands. They did a pretty good job of it, too, wouldn’t you say?” The Senator concluded.

  “So, how does Roswell fit into all of this?” Dominic took a seat directly across from the Senator.

  “As I mentioned before, Roswell is not the beginning of something. It was actually the end.”

  “It is really a crash site?” Tonita asked, disbelief evident in her tone.

  “Yes,” Senator Scott started, “It was a crash site. But not a crash of what you may think. No it was not aliens or beings from another planet,” he said with a bit of a laugh. “It is a crash site for an experiment in time travel, one that we thought had gone terribly wrong. But one that we found out later, may have gone just the way He wanted it.”

  Dominic looked to Tonita who shook her head. Then he turned his quizzical gaze to the Senator. “He? Senator?”

  Senator Scott shrugged his shoulders, “God.” Senator Scott leaned forward nearly whispering, “It was the way God wanted it to be.”

  SIXTY

  SUDDENLY, THE AIR SPLIT, as a crack of lightning struck so close that Bill instinctively covered his head with his arms. The night sky was intermittently lit by the lightning, and then plunged back into total blackness, just as a wave of thunder-pulsed air hit, shaking the ground and rocks that Bill was cowering under.

  He wasn’t sure where he was. It was only moments ago that Christ had uttered the words, Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do, directly to him. In a crowd of hundreds, Christ had sought out each face, each set of eyes, until Christ’s own eyes had fallen upon Bill and the remained. Unmoving, not blinking and the words had been spoken. Words that now repeated in his mind in Christ’s own voice, pitched low, dry and gruff, with an odd accent unknown to Bill’s ears. Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do. A statement recorded in the Bible by Luke, but said not to the Roman centurions, or the priests, or those gathered as Luke would have us believe. But said to one man and one man only.

  Bill.

  Bill stood up as the sky above lit with a bolt of lightning that fingered out as though it was searching the land, feeling its way around. “He knew. He knew. He knew!” Bill screamed out to the pouring rain.

  And as if in confirmation to his statement, the sky split apart again, as a bolt of electrically charged current hit the ground not three feet to the side of him. Dirt and small pebbles, picked up from the impact, pelted him, and then the sound of thunder, low at first, then, rumbling so much so, that the bones in Bill’s body shook. It hit him hard and he fell back, crumbling to the ground, losing all conscious thought. His eyes closed and his body went limp, as the rain in the desert continued to fall...that night in Roswell.

  SIXTY ONE

  THE LANDING WAS SO smooth Dominic hardly noticed they had touched down. His eyes opened and closed in that sleepy, slow motion movement that starts to awake the senses. His sleep had been heavy. After learning from Senator Scott of Roswell and the Bermuda Triangle...and God only knows what other experiments that the government had conducted and that the Senator had not talked about. He laughed at the unintended pun.

  Yes. God only knows, he thought, and opened his eyes fully, as the engines revved down and the plane slowed, nearing the end of the runway.

  Tonita and the Senator were up and walking toward the door to the aircraft as soon as the plane had come to a complete stop. Well ingrained, commercial flight rules of remaining seated with your seat belt fastened until the plane has come to a complete stop, were obeyed even in secret government planes with no one on board to enforce them.

  A grounds crewmember knocked on the outside of the aircraft, and a moment later the airplane’s cockpit side door popped open. It slid on hydraulic hinges with a slight hissing sound until it stopped, clicking into a latch on the side of the plane.

  The scent of jet fuel and burning rubber swept into the cabin, rousing Dominic from the final moments of slumber.

  “Welcome to Roswell,” Senator Scott said, looking back at Dominic, still slouched in the leather, swivel chair.

  Dominic stood, rubbed his face, brushed back his hair, grabbed a bottle of water and headed for the door. “Let’s go,” he said, as he stepped between Tonita and the Senator and out onto the stairs leading to the tarmac below.

  “The Senator won’t be joining us,” Tonita said, stopping Dominic in his tracks about halfway down the rolling stairs that had been butted up against the plane.

  Dominic took hold of the handrail and turned back. “Why? You’ve come this far?”

  “I’m an old man, Dominic. I’m good for a story or two, but I wouldn’t do you any good out there.” The Senator gestured to the desert that lay beyond the Industrial Air Center.

  Dominic opened his mouth ready to debate the Senator on the merits of coming along with Tonita and himself, then, dismissed the thought. “Thanks for the ride, Senator.” Dominic had to shout over the engines of the aircraft that were now revving up. Then he turned away and continued down the steps to the hot pavement below. He and Tonita had barely made it to the shadow of the terminal building, when the aircraft they had just arrived in began to taxi away.

  “What now?” Tonita asked, quickening her pace to keep up with Dominic.

  Dominic held the door to the terminal o
pen, allowing Tonita to enter first. “Rent a car and head out to the desert, I guess,” he said, stepping into the building just behind Tonita. Despite the one hundred plus degrees outside, he shivered as he hit the wall of cooled air inside the terminal that contrasted sharply with the hot dry air from the tarmac.

  He looked around at the few people who lingered inside the compact Industrial Air Center terminal, safe from the scorching sun outside. Waiting, he assumed, for their flight, or the arrival of someone, or maybe they were just here to get out of the heat, his thoughts concluded. A twenty something-woman wearing an unrecognizable airline uniform stood at a counter that looked more like it belonged to a fast-food restaurant than the ticketing counter of an airline.

  “Excuse me.” Dominic stepped up to the counter. “Could you please tell me where I might go to rent a car?”

  The twenty-something woman looked up at Dominic, smiled. “Sure. Just follow the signs.” She pointed to the overhead signage that had arrows embossed upon them, pointing in every direction with captions that read: Restroom, Ticketing, Ground Transportation, Baggage Claim, Auto Rental.

  “Oh.” Dominic shrugged. “Thanks.”

  He glanced at Tonita, who had remained by the door, shaking her head at him

  “So, you saw the signs?”

  “Yeah.” Tonita said the word as though it was a verse to a song. “I’ve seen them all along.” She paused, giving Dominic an odd look. “A little hard to miss, I’d say.”

  “Really?” Dominic said, and walked away. “Come on,” he shouted over his shoulder.

  Tonita looked back at the twenty-something airline agent, rolled her eyes, and followed after Dominic.

  “Thank you for flying with us,” the twenty-something woman called out and waved.

  Tonita smiled back, nodding.

  Twenty minutes later, Dominic and Tonita were pulling out of the airport connector road in the rented automobile, following the signs that would lead them to route 285 north. “After this road, we need to take 54 south. It’s not the most expeditious route,” Tonita noted. “But this map from the car rental agency doesn’t give much detail.”

  Out of Roswell, the highway followed a flat, arid landscape. Only the occasional small rocky bumps in the land or washes gave the land texture. Several signs along the highway pointed to the alleged location of an Unidentified Flying Object crash site.

  “I had no idea that so many UFO’s had crashed in Roswell,” Dominic said, then added, “and they’re not even in Roswell. Wasn’t that where it all was supposed to have happened?”

  “Here, listen to this.” Tonita flipped the map over. “There are actually six alleged UFO crash sites in and around Roswell, New Mexico,” she said, reading from the text on the back of the map.

  “Six?”

  “Six,” Tonita continued reading. “The most popular of crash site legends is the ranch site outside of Corona, New Mexico.” Tonita looked up. “Not Roswell. Corona is about ninety miles from here.” She pointed to a spot on the map, then flipped back to the text and continued to read, “It is from there, that rancher Mac Brazel reported a crash to the authorities on July 6, 1947. Brazel told the sheriff in Roswell that he heard a loud explosion on the night of July 2, and found thin, shiny, metal-like foil scattered around the ranch land near where he suspected the explosion or crash took place. The next day, while exploring the area, he said that he had come across a figure on a hilltop near what he believed was a crash site. He told authorities that the sheep on the ranch would not go anywhere near the crash site, and asked them to come out and see the area for themselves. Brazel returned to the ranch and on the 8th of July,” Tonita paused, “He was taken into custody...”

  “They arrested him?” Dominic said, as he passed a semi-truck crawling in the left lane of the highway.

  “Not by the police.” Tonita turned back to the story printed on the reverse of the map, and finding her place continued, “The military arrested him or took him into custody, if that’s any different?”

  Dominic eased back into the left lane, leaving the semi far behind. He glanced quickly at Tonita. “The military took a civilian into custody because he thought he heard an explosion?” Dominic asked. “That doesn’t seem right.”

  “And get this,” Tonita traced a finger along the text on the back of the map. “When Brazel returned to the ranch after the military had taken him into custody, he told a newspaper reporter that the debris he had seen scattered all over the crash site was gone. Every bit of it had been picked up, and not a trace of the crash remained. He’s reported as saying. And then, years later when Brazel was interviewed by a television reporter for a story on the Roswell incident, he said, ‘After they took me away and held me for a couple of days, they brought me back to the ranch. When I got back to the ranch, it looked like no one and no animal had ever stepped foot on that land where the crash was. It had been swept clean. I even think they planted new scrub brush just to cover this crash up.’”

  SIXTY TWO

  AN ODD SOUND GREETED Bill as he began to come to. His first thought was that he was dreaming...dreaming he was awake and that the noise was part of that dream, or some hallucinogenic side effect of time travel. He opened his eyes fully, then immediately closed them again, as the full burst of light caused his pupils to dilate too rapidly. He could feel the heat of the sun on his arm and began to take note of the aching pain in his legs and the small of his back. He wasn’t dreaming, he thought, and opened his eyes again, more slowly this time, allowing his sight to adjust to the light of morning.

  Then the noise again. The sound came intermittently and then together, as though a choir director had singled out a voice or two and then had the whole choir join in.

  Fully awake, his brain clicked in and gave the sound an identity. He jumped up.

  Baying.

  All around him sheep stood huddled in groups, baying at him. Bill took a cautious step toward the herd, concerned that there might have been a wolf or coyote nearby. The sheep made no attempt to turn and run from him, or from any looming predator. Instead they stood their ground, watching him. In the distance, just beyond the flock of sheep, he could see what looked like a well. It was just twenty or thirty yards off, but the sheep were nowhere near it. They stood off to either side and along...Bill froze.

  Directly in front of him, stretching for many yards, was, what he could only think of as, an impact zone. His senses alerted, he turned slowly, looking beyond the sheep, taking in the whole area. Bits and pieces of the foil lay scattered all around. Foil that Bill immediately recognized as the same foil that had once lined the manmade ravine dug around the small metal building. Or more precisely—the capsule that transported him into time. A slight breeze kicked up and that same foil that had at one time, held back the water from the Great Salt Lake, and conducted the electromagnetic power from the generators to and through the metal building, now blew in the slight breeze. Like confetti after a parade had passed, Bill thought. The foil stuck to the brush and gathered in piles pushed up by the wind, and against the rocks and large chunks of metal that lay tossed about. They looked as though they had been torn, ripped in pieces and then bent into odd angles by some delusionary artist, creating an apocalyptic landscape.

  Bill took a few steps toward the impact zone, picked up a piece of the metal and examined it. It was lighter than he had expected. Smooth and even to the touch, where it had been ripped and torn by the impact. He ran a finger cautiously on the perimeter of the metal; it too remained smooth, despite its jagged edge. It took only a moment more before he placed the origins of the metal. Like the foil, the metal pieces had come from the small brown, camouflaged building that he, Lynda and Commander Kupovits had been in. The same building that Einstein and Von Braun, along with teams of scientists, had developed to serve as a time capsule. The metal was a combination of iron, copper, gold and platinum mixed in a perfect amalgamation that would conduct electromagnetic energy, while transporting and protecting the occupants. E
instein and Von Braun had worked together with a select team that could be trusted, or blackmailed, as in Von Braun’s case, into secrecy. It was evident, since the Eldridge disaster, that steel and iron were not the correct conductors for the massive amounts of electromagnetic energy that was required to boost the ship or capsule through time. Steel and iron too easily failed. Their molecular structure—under the tremendous pressures of time and energy—warped and melded together or disintegrated. The four metals of time, as Einstein dubbed it, were supposed to solve the problems incurred by the Eldridge and Project Rainbow. That did not appear to happen, Bill thought, as he tossed the piece of metal to the ground.

  He started off toward the circular metal well, calling out to Lynda and the commander. His voice was rough, dry, and he could not produce the volume he thought he needed. After a futile attempt, he abandoned the idea. Bill covered his eyes, using one hand as a visor, and scanned the horizon. There was nothing in the distance, except more horizon and more desert. He took another step toward the well. Thirst and survival were fast becoming his main concern. He could do without food, but without water, in the dry heat of the desert, he knew he wouldn’t last long.

  He took another step and winced in pain as a sharp rock cut into his foot. That’s when he noticed he was barefoot. His eyes followed his body from his feet up to the calves of his legs, and to the torn strips of cloth that covered him. The worn rags he had found tangled in the brush of Golgotha, still clung to him. If he had had any doubt about Golgotha and the crucifixion being a real or a dream, it disappeared in a flash of stark reality.

  The sheep began to bay again, this time louder. Their voices joined together in a song of unison. Their attention turned to the distance, opposite Bill.

  Bill turned quickly, peering off in the same direction as the sheep. Two people mounted on horseback were slowly approaching him. They were still far off, but Bill thought he could make out one figure as a man, and the other, a child. He started to bring both of his hands up to his mouth to cup it and channel his voice in their direction, when he noticed that one hand was empty. He had used it to shield his eyes only a moment ago, but the other hand remained clenched. He moved his arm up, bringing his hand closer to his face, and willed the clenched had to open. Slowly, Bill’s fingers splayed back, revealing his palm and the contents of his hand. What he saw there caused him to suck in his breath so quickly, that his lungs threatened to burst.