by Oliver Letz
Taylor had said his goodbye to Lilly Ann and their other newfound friends with a strange feeling of sadness. It wasn’t in his personality to abandon a mission or his responsibilities, but the experiences of the last few days stood in such exhilarating contrast to the only way of life he had ever known that it was hard for him to turn his back and face the path that he had chosen. He was determined to return to Irving Sector and help introduce the DNA samples they had collected into farms and ranches all over the Southern regions. The prospect of flying to the various deployment sites on a daily basis with full support of the Council spurred his desire to get back and deliver the rich treasure they had collected.
Packed with their personal gear and with an abundant food supply for their journey Taylor, Hunt, Spade and Farmer started to trace back their steps that had brought them to the mountain colony a little more than two weeks ago. This time though, they knew exactly where they were headed and how long it would take them to get there. Taylor hoped that the hike back to the airplane would take only two days since they would save the time they had used to explore the surrounding forest before.
The weather girls’ predictions of a change in conditions already showed promise to be accurate. Scattered low hanging, dark clouds were slowly wallowing through the valleys driven by a gusty southeastern wind. It was hard to predict for an outsider how rapidly these clouds would get bunched up against the rising terrain to form a solid shield of rain. The sun had warmed up the mountains considerably in the last few weeks so there was ample energy available to be burned off in electric storms.
Taylor was glad to be on his way. He had no desire to lose his airplane to the elements and get stranded in the mountains with no reasonable transportation back to their civilization. The looming weather situation was in all the conversations throughout their two-day hike. Farmer was forging plans of how to organize a separate department in Meyer’s research labs to have the resources and freedom to effectively utilize the genetic database they had created. His excitement and enthusiasm were infectious but every now and then one of them would cast a glance to the changing skies and they would be reminded of the precarious situation they might find themselves in if they did not get to the plane in time before the storms arrived. They were caught in small patches of rain several times during the first day, so when Hunt heard the growling of thunder hours before dawn on the second morning of their journey he urged the others to cut sleep short and take up the hike right away.
Lightheartedness from the days in the mountains gave way to urgency and determination. They upped their pace to get to the landing site as quickly as possible and by early afternoon it seemed as if they had come away only slightly inconvenienced by the few showers they had to cut across. The sight of the makeshift airstrip and the undisturbed airplane gave them new confidence in their timely departure before the storms would be a factor. Distant thunder had reminded them all morning of the things to come but it seemed that the weather was in no hurry to move up the mountain range.
Like the well-organized team they had become since they first met, the travelers prepared the airplane for flight. Covers were removed and stowed, equipment and personal effects loaded into the cargo bay behind the back seats and Taylor was busy checking fuel reserves, engine condition and the overall airworthiness of the plane.
It took them less than an hour until everyone was strapped into their seats, doors closed and Taylor and Hunt working through the preflight checklist. Taylor taxied the plane to the downwind end of the field to give them enough room to clear the tall trees on the southern side. He checked the engine instruments and the flight controls for one last time. “Hold on to something, this might get a bit bumpy,” he announced through the intercom before he pushed the throttle all the way forward to give them full engine power.
The plane gained speed reluctantly while hopping and bobbing over the various bumps in what was left of the once smooth tarmac. Steadily the small engine propelled them forward to a speed suitable for getting airborne. Taylor allowed the plane to leave the ground and kept it floating in ground effect while it rapidly gained speed. At the precise moment he smoothly pulled back the stick easing them into flight.
Pulling with all its might the engine managed to hurdle them over the trees at the end of the field. Once outside the protected pocket of air that the mountains had provided the plane bounced and rolled in the wind gusts and Taylor had his hands full keeping altitude and staying on course. They could see how the clouds continued to move up from the flatlands, gaining energy and turbulence along the way. From their front row seats in the sky the towering cumulus clouds all around them painted a clear picture of how close they had gotten to being held hostage on the mountain by the forces of nature.
Taylor chose a course that would keep his airplane the furthest away from the ominous clouds. No words were spoken in the cabin and every soul aboard tried to keep faith in their capable pilot and the untarnished record of the little airplane. Spade and Farmer had each other’s hands clenched in a tight grip to give support and comfort for the other in this for them unfamiliar situation. Hunt sat in the right front seat and stoically pointed out cloud developments for Taylor to be aware of. They had climbed through three thousand feet when the cloud density ahead seemed to decrease. The blue specks of sky blinking through the grey and white of the storm clouds were more frequent and the outside temperature was slowly rising to a more comfortable level. Just a few more cloud formations to pass and they would be clear of the threatening conditions.
There was no warning. Suddenly the airplane was engulfed in glistering sizzling white light and thunder exploded all around them. Two seconds later the show was over.
“What the...” cursed Taylor into the panicked screams of his travel mates. The cabin was filled with the smell of gasoline and a moment later flames began to lick out under the instrument cluster. “Lightning strike! Everyone out!” he exclaimed into the intercom, “Jump, count to three and pull the D-ring!”
“The DNA recorder!” Farmer complained, “I can’t leave without it.” He climbed over the back seat into the cargo compartment and started digging for his prized equipment.
“Make quick, I don’t know how long the engine will keep running,” replied Taylor while he motioned to the others to get out of the plane right away. Relieved he saw the first two parachutes open to guide Hunt and Spade safely to the ground.
Precious moments were lost while Farmer pulled the recorder unit out of their luggage to return triumphantly to the passenger cabin. With horror on his face he saw the pilot seat engulfed in flames and Taylor without his parachute sitting in the right front seat trying to will a few more seconds of flight out of the laboring aircraft. “Jump!” he shouted, “I will try to make it back to the landing site!” He pushed Farmer out the door with his left hand while holding on to the control stick with his right. Seeing that Farmer’s chute had safely deployed he turned the plane around ever so slowly to fly it back to where they had come from.
Farmer, Spade and Hunt floated safely to the ground while they helplessly watched the damaged plane descend steeply in a Northeastern direction. It disappeared behind a mountain ridge out of their sight leaving a dark billowing trail of smoke in the sky. They could not see when the engine finally gave up with a last sputter and a loud bang with Taylor trying to get closer to the ground in controlled flight. He was still about 300 feet above ground when the intense heat became too much to bear and he decided to bail out of the airplane. He opened the door and turned his head for one last look onto the place that had brought so many hours of joy for him. The reflection of flames on a polished piece of metal suddenly reminded him of a life motto that he had placed there. It read, “Life is not a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in one pretty and well preserved piece, but to skid across the line broadside, thoroughly used up, worn out, leaking oil, shouting ‘Geronimo!’ (unknown author).”
A satisfied smile claimed Taylor
’s face as he stepped out of the cabin.
“Did all that,” he thought with a feeling of peace overflowing inside him, “did all that and more.”
He let go of the door handle and while he was plummeting in free fall towards the pine trees below, the mountain ridge echoed back the exclamation mark to his life, “Geronimooooo!!!”
Hunt had kept an eye on the other two parachutes and tried to identify and remember landmarks and reference points on the horizon in the direction of their landing sites so he would be able to meet up with his two surviving travel companions after they were safely on the ground. It took him over two hours of shouting their names and fighting his way through thick underbrush before he found Helen Spade who was trying to free herself from the parachute that had been tangled up in the dense branches of a batch of pine trees. Together they were able to cut her free and get her safely to the ground.
“Did you see the plane go down?” Spade asked afraid of the answer that she knew already. Hunt was not in the mood to let worry about the fate of his friend diminish his drive to get all of them out of this mess and safely back to the central camps.
“I didn’t see Taylor jump, I’m sure he had his reasons. He can take care of himself,” he barked, “we came out of situations much worse than this all right before. I’m not going to write off this old raccoon before I danced at his funeral. Let’s go find Farmer, I bet we’ll find him about three miles from here in this direction.” He pointed at a distinct mountain peak in the distance. It was all they could do at the moment anyway and he did not want to lose precious time.
After about half a mile of tracking through dense brushwork they reached a stretch of lighter vegetation with tall pine trees spaced farther apart and not much vegetation in-between. They were able to increase their pace and reached the spot where Hunt had thought they would find Farmer some two hours later. It did not take much shouting for them to hear Farmer’s answer back. He came running down a steep slope towards them almost knocking over Helen Spade as he embraced her.
“I got the recorder but Mr. Taylor’s parachute was on fire so he couldn’t jump. He was trying to fly back to where we came from. When I lost sight of him the plane was still flying.” His words flooded out of his mouth, as he wanted to say everything at the same time. “Are you guys all right? I can’t believe it, lightning for crying out loud! Do you think Mr. Taylor is ok?” He just could not stop to talk.
“Get a grip Farmer,” Spade whispered and kissed him softly on the lips to stop the stream of words. “It’s all right.”
They both turned to Cody Hunt who was processing what he had just heard.
“It makes no sense to try to find Taylor,” he finally concluded, “If he made it let’s pray that someone from the colony will find him. They seem to have a way of knowing what they can’t know and of doing the impossible.”
He looked the others in the eyes and added, “We now have a legacy to fulfill. For all we know Taylor gave his life saving the DNA data. Let’s make sure we make good use of it.”
The three of them sat down to figure out where they were and what the quickest way would be to make it back to Irving Sector. They had to be wary of any contact with locals as long as they were outside the protective reach of the Council. Their passports would give them freedom to travel through any area that acknowledged the authority of the Council and the seize fire agreements but it was uncertain how far north these had any merit.
They agreed to travel the back roads and live off the land as much as possible. With Hunt’s and Farmer’s skills to procure food and water from the wild they would not have any trouble surviving. They would have to cover a distance of about four hundred miles, which they should be able to cross within about three to four weeks. If they were able to arrange for some form of transportation it might be less.
In the end they were lucky. After only two weeks of hiking Arkansas’ back roads they spotted a South Central military convoy close to the Texas border. Hunt made secretly contact with one of the drivers and after revealing his credentials they were offered a ride to Irving Sector. Fifteen days after that fateful lightning strike the trio was back in their familiar surroundings ready to start their new lives.
The implementation of the Taylor Gene Pool was an unprecedented success. It took many months of preparations and small-scale trials before a wide spread organized distribution was approved by the different governing bodies of several regions. The prospect of substantially improved food resources though, instilled hope throughout the fabric of society that by far surpassed the initial scope of the project. Food brings people together, an old European saying, proved true in many ways unimaginable without the foresight and determination of one man in search for a better steak. Taylor DNA became a trademark throughout the Western hemisphere for superior breeding stock of all kinds of farm animals and vegetables. Farmer, Spade and Hunt stayed together as a team for many years successfully improving upon the original set of genetic data without losing the primary goal of purity and originality out of sight.
Taylor pigs make better pork - who would have thought?
Jack and Joe Jack lived in the woods. They were men of burly build, dressed in rough denim pants, colorful flannel shirts and thick woolen jackets. They looked alike, thought alike, dreamed alike and when they talked they talked alike. They were brothers, not by birth but in spirit. They spent most of their days cutting down trees. You could say they were lumberjacks, what a coincidence.
They not only cut down trees, they also cleaned the branches off the trunks, debarked them and piled them up in elaborate ten feet high clusters to dry the wood for many years. Every year in spring they rebuilt these piles so the moisture would escape the logs evenly without compromising the integrity of the wood grain. You see, these were no ordinary logs and Jack and Joe Jack were no ordinary lumberjacks. Jack and Joe Jack were artists. They carved blissfully inspired symbols of faith out of the best-cured and oldest logs. Their artwork was on display on almost every street corner and public place in Flugerton and the surrounding areas.
One day in spring Jack and Joe Jack saw a big shiny bird come down from the sky with and angry scream, sail across an opening in the forest, lift up high again just to return and land on the grass. Four people they had never seen before climbed out of the bird and after some clowning around started to march towards Flugerton. Jack and Jo Jack did not have any quarrels with strangers but they also were not in the mood to converse with anyone but each other or about anything than the woods and the carvings. So they sent off a message to the good people of Flugerton that visitors were on their way and went about their business with the trees and the logs.
Two Sundays and then some later the strange folks came back the same way they had traveled up the valley just in time before the great storms would engulf the mountains. Jack and Joe Jack observed them climb back into the metal bird and hoppedihop across the meadow before taking to the air into the stormy clouds. Jack and Joe Jack looked at each other incredulously. Why would someone be flying into the storm? They watched the bird grow smaller and smaller as it bounced on the wind gusts and fell into air pockets. It was almost out of sight when the first lightning of the season struck. It was a big one too. A huge beam of light span from one cloud tower to another followed by a mighty thunder roar.
When the lightning ended there was a small back cloud wobbling where the bird had been before. The black cloud grew bigger and so did the bird. It was flying slowly and its movements were unsure as if it had tried too much of Joe Jack’s good stuff. The metal bird sank lower and lower with its scream hoarse and coughing. When the scream of the bird went quiet it was close enough that Jack and Joe Jack could see flames of fire licking inside and out. The bird was flying about twice the height of the tallest trees when the door on one side opened and a man fell out.
His scream echoed through the valley, “Geronimo!” He must be an old native of the land to conjure up the spirit of the great warrior.
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br /> Jack and Joe Jack looked at each other and without words started to hurry in the direction where the man had fallen. Maybe Geronimo was still alive.
“Make haste,” Joe Jack said as the first raindrops fell.
“All in good time,” said Jack while scurrying down the slopes just as quickly, “the rain will cool his blood. If he survived the fall he’ll live.”
Not minding the thorns and branches whipping their faces and tearing their clothes, the two men ran through the woods that they called home. Years of life in the forest had tuned their instincts to the spirit of all things in the wild, living or not. Direction and distance were sharp in their minds, a knowing as old as the trees and rocks themselves. They both heard the plane slowly settling onto the trees, breaking through the crowns with great fanfare and slicing to the ground. Rain had squelched the fires. They knew they were close, just a few more minutes of pressing on.
“There!” it was Jack who pointed uphill where an olive green suit laid on top of a tall pile of pine branches and bark. They both knew too well who had left them there, discarded after the trunk had been cleaned to a log and then hauled away.
“The branches must have broken his fall,” the older one, Joe Jack, replied.
They climbed up the slope in a hurry and found the man still breathing. His head was wrapped in the leather jacket that he was wearing, protecting his face. There was no light in his eyes and his breath was labored and shallow but for having endured such a great fall he seemed hardly bent out of shape.
“Mister,” Joe Jack tried to evoke a response from the unmoving man, “Mister, can you hear me?”
He shook his head when his face lit up with an idea.
“Geronimo,” he whispered softly like a prayer.
John Taylor’s eyes flew open, “Geronimo?” he uttered in a blink of consciousness before his painful scream was stifled by a merciful darkness that reclaimed his mind.
“He’ll be all right,” Jack announced confidently, “let’s get him back to Flugerton, and ask Lilly what to do.”
They used the branches they had cut some days before to build a stretcher, strong but light and pillow soft. Joe Jack cradled Taylor like a baby and eased him onto the branches. He took off his jacket and covered the man to protect him from the rain. Without another word they picked up their load. They knew exactly where to cut through the woods to the wide road that led up the mountain. A day and a night and a day they walked without rest. Raindrops were their drink and hard bacon strips from their pockets were their meals. Not a single false step, not a stumble or a shake disturbed the peace of the dark that Taylor had settled in.
It was almost night when they reached the outskirts of town. Their steps sounded foreign to them on the cobble stone streets but they spoke of the end of their journey. Just a short stretch of road further and they would be able to relieve their aching arms and backs of their cargo.
In a brightly lit window on one of the first houses they passed a little girl’s face framed by a wild head of chestnut curls appeared. The odd sight of a man being carried by two let her gasp for words in excitement.
“This is Lilly Ann’s friend,” she exclaimed running back into the house, “Mommy, Lilly Ann’s friend is back. Jack and Joe Jack are carrying him, quick, I think he is hurt.”
The house door flew open and the little girl came running out dragging her mother along.
“He had a bad fall,” Joe Jack was an epitome of understatement, “Lilly, what shall we do with him?”
“He is Lilly Ann’s friend,” the girl repeated, “she’ll know what to do.”
“Go on, lead the way,” Jack requested.
Lilly grabbed his jacket and started to drag him down the street directing them to the house that she knew Lilly Ann lived in.
“Lilly Ann! Lilly Ann!” she started to shout half a street block away. “Your friend is back, Lilly Ann!”
The small wooden house was built of angles that were not quite right with windows and doors all of different sizes, not a straight line in sight. The rounded wall panels were decorated in colorful stucco reminiscent of gingerbread decorations. It looked as if one could just break off a piece and stick it into one’s mouth for a quick snack or desert. Lights came on behind sugar-glazed windows before the door swung open with a gentle creak. Lilly Ann stood in her slippers and robe to inquire about the tumult the little girl was causing.
She spotted the lifeless figure on the makeshift stretcher.
“Taylor? John Taylor?” the humor escaped her that she used the same words that she first heard from him to greet him back into her life.
“What happened?” she turned to Joe Jack while pushing them through the door into her house.
“He took a fall,” Joe Jack repeated his observation. “The metal bird was struck by lightning and caught fire. The other ones floated on sails to the ground but this one came back and fell out of the bird into the trees. He’ll be all right,” he added with the confidence of a child.
Lilly Ann had them lay Taylor on the guest bed and turned around to one of the people who had wandered into the house to see what the commotion was about.
“Send for Edie May and tell her that someone is hurt. She has a potion that will keep him asleep for a while.”
Edie May came and sent all the visitors home. She had a look at Taylor and expertly felt his pulse and temperature.
“He is strong,” she said to Lilly Ann looking for tell tale signs of how she was feeling, “he is going to be fine. Just try not to forget who you really are. Remember that all is well.”
She left a small flask with a strong herbal potion and instructions to wet Taylor’s lips with a few drops from it every few hours so he would stay asleep. Every eight or ten hours he was to be allowed to wake up so he would drink some water.
Lilly Ann sat at the guest bed all night remembering the time they had spent together after they had met that fateful day on the highway. She could not help to giggle every time she thought about his face when he saw her for the first time hanging upside down from the tree. She still felt the devilish fun she had had teasing him while guiding him and his friends in circles through the woods.
There was something about John Taylor that sat him apart from his travel mates. She did not know if he knew that he was different. Now he had come back, against his will, or so it seemed, and they would have plenty of time to find out.
The first time she did not re-administer the sleeping drugs so he would wake up to drink he opened his eyes and looked at her without recognition.
“Is this heaven?” he asked with a drug-induced smile.
“No, this is Flugerton,” Lilly Ann replied softly, brushed his hair out of his eyes and held his head to help him drink.
Chapter 7: Lilly Ann
