by Larry Hunt
Chapter Nineteen
TO SADDLEHORN GULCH
“Right up here is that Saddlehorn Gulch turn-off road John. Hang on, when I said road, I might have mis-spoke a tetch, maybe I should’ve said trail. Anyways it’s purty rough. Jest grab ahold and I’ll git you to yer flyin’ machine.”
Clem wasn’t lying about the road. Trail might be giving it more importance than it deserved. It would have to come up a notch or two to qualify for that name. But after bouncing over gullies, rocks and sometime small trees they arrived at the place where the Captain left Pegasus. Unfortunately, they needed a big ole full moon to illuminate the whole area; however, that would be more than two weeks later. Tonight it was just a sliver of a crescent showing. It wasn’t bright enough to see without any other light. Fortunately, the headlights on Clem’s wrecker brighten the area considerably. ‘John’ found the stump right away. He did not see Pegasus. He walked up to the stump, reached his hand out almost expecting to touch something – nothing. He swung his hand back and forth across the stump. He still felt nothing, yet he knew his flying machine was right there in front of them both. He could not see anything, but the air felt different - something like a fresh rain in the summer time. You cannot see the rain, but the air feels and smells invigorating. This is the same sensation the Captain was observing standing on that stump in the middle of the cow pasture in nowhere Texas.
Clem stood watching, “what you doin’ John, thar ain’t nothin’ here.”
“Wrong Clem! She’s here all right. We just can’t see her yet. Do you smell that? She’ll appear, just wait.” The smell ‘John’ was referring to was the ozone Pegasus creates when she was arriving or leaving.
Before leaving the Ponderosa, Penelope had loaned her watch to John, or Captain Scarburg. She had wound it up real tight and set the hands while mentioning the watch kept perfect time. ‘I hope she is right’, thought ‘John’. According to her watch the time was 12:20. Even if Pegasus had been close enough to check the time on his Iphone it would be of no use - the Iphone was out of power and the Captain had forgotten his charger; however, once entry was gained to Pegasus a power adapter installed in the control console would allow for the charging of the Iphone.
“That’s cutting it fairly close Clem. The machine should reappear in about ten minutes. Have you got the wench on the wrecker ready? Okay... good... nothing to do now but wait. I hope whoever messed with the numbers in the computer did not, in some way, alter or change the time the five minute window would occur.”
“Got my fangers crossed John. Ever thangs goin’ to be okay.”
Captain Scarburg, leaning on the fender of Clem’s truck, watched the minutes pass. He was counting them down to Clem: “five minutes to go... four minutes... three minutes... two minutes... one minute. Get ready Clem she should be appearing any second now.”
Slowly the slight breeze picked up considerably. A hint of a glow could be seen in the vicinity of the old stump. What was being seen wasn’t actually a glow it was more like a vapor. A crackling similar to a fire in a fireplace began, a slight high-pitched hum could be heard along with the beautiful sound of Amazing Grace on the bagpipes, which seemed to be playing off in the distance. Gradually, something akin to a blurred picture began to appear. Suddenly without warning it instantly materialized. It was beautiful, all shiny and slick in the light of the waxing moon. Clem could not say anything. If a person had not known better, he would have thought Clem was in shock, standing up. His mouth had fallen open, and his eyes looked like a deer caught in a car’s headlights. “Well I’ll be,” he said. “Well I’ll be!
“Quickly Clem attach your winch. Pick that sucker up and sit it flat on the ground while we can still see it.” Clem, snapping out of his stunned state, and moved swiftly to attach the wench’s cable onto the lifting bar built into the front of Pegasus. Running around to the side of the wench he pushed the lever forward, and the slack in the steel cable tightened. The tension on the wench’s cable was tremendous...tighter and tighter the cable became. Could Clem’s small wrecker pick up this futuristic time machine? Slowly, slowly, straining under the heavy weight the wench began to lift the flying machine from the stump. Clem jumped into the cab of the wrecker and began expertly to lower the silver time machine a couple of feet onto the flat ground. “That’s perfect Clem let her down right there.”
Clem got the cable un-hooked just as a loud hissing noise began. Clem looked at his wrecker - he thought the time machine’s weight had blown a tire. Nothing was wrong with the tires. The escape hatch opening was causing pressurized air to escape from inside resulting in the hissing should. Slowly a section of the skin on the titanium body started to move. A round hatch appeared and slowly opened.
All Clem could utter was, ‘dadburn, dadburn.’
The hatch was wide open - we’ve got five minutes to get inside - want a look-see Clem?”
“Nah, I can see good from out here. Besides that thang might close with me inside.”
“Don’t worry Clem. Once inside I can open the hatch whenever I want. We just cannot get back inside until the appointed time. Come on Clem it won’t bite you!”
“Dadburn, I wish bite was all that thang could do to me. But okay I’ll take a peek.”
“Good, pull the truck alongside we’ll just use it as a ladder to reach the hatch.”
REPAIR PEGASUS
Once inside the craft the bank of lights on the instrument were blinking wildly. The three gages indicated the GPS coordinates were labeled, ‘DEPART’, ‘DESTINATION’ and ‘RETURN’. The Captain read the numbers out loud, ‘DE
