The Flight
by Jim Foreman


CHAPTER SIXTEEN

                 Two years had passed since that fateful night in Sanger but the memories of it still haunted me. Memories of that night didn't come to me very often during the day, but those frightening hours kept creeping into my dreams when I was asleep. At times, it would be for only a few fleeting moments, but on other occasions those dreams became as vivid and real as it had been when it was happening all over again. Often, I would be jolted from a deep sleep to find myself gasping for breath and covered with sweat.

                 The worst problem was the fact that I still wasn't certain whether those memories were real or just products of my mind. There seemed to be no way to make the dreams go away and I knew that one day I would have to return to Sanger if I was to ever know any peace of mind. At one point, I even considered seeking professional help but doing so would force me to admit that there was possibly something wrong with my mind. The only solution was to return to Sanger and see for myself if it was true.

                 I needed to make a trip back east and would normally have taken Interstate 70 in order to avoid the congestion found along interstate 80 between Chicago and Cleveland. No matter how much I might have wanted to avoid the congestion, I had to take the northern route through Nebraska so I could return to Sanger. There are certain things which a person must do and this was one of them for me.

                 Even while rolling through the lush farmland around Kearney, I was still having my doubts as to the wisdom of going anywhere near that town. What would I find there? Would there be a warrant for my arrest for breaking out of jail? Would it be 1988 there or would the place still be stuck 40 years behind the rest of the world? Questions, questions, questions, but no answers came to me as I drove along the Interstate. When I came to the exit which would take me to Sanger, I pulled off but it took me several minutes before I could make up my mind whether to make the turn left or pull back onto the Interstate and go about my business. No matter how many times I asked the question, the answer was always the same: I had to go.

                 I began to look for the airport as I approached Sanger from the east but it was no longer there. The area where the runway had been was covered by tall green corn. The only indication that there had been an airport there was the pole with the metal frame that held the wind sock and the old metal hangar where I had parked the Cub. The outriggers for the door tracks were still there but the doors were missing. A couple tractors were parked inside of it. The other hangar, the office building and all other signs of what it had been were all gone. The roof was gone from the deserted farm house next to the airport and what was left of the walls was leaning askew, appearing ready to tumble into a pile of old lumber. I could see no evidence of where the barn had been. It had obviously burned completely to the ground and weeds had grown up to hide the ashes.

                 A huge white grain elevator now stood in the space between the road and the railroad tracks where the old elevator and the tractor dealership had once been. It stretched nearly for an eighth of a mile in length and stood hundreds of feet into the air. Wheat crops must have been good over the years as this elevator would hold thousands of times the amount of grain as the old one.

                 A half dozen pickup trucks were parked around the Dairy Queen which now occupied the spot where the Studebaker place once stood. A sign in the window advertised the Hungerbuster for 99 cents. I parked between two of the pickups, went inside and ordered a cup of coffee. As I sipped the coffee, I listened to the conversation going on among the occupants of two of the booths. They all wore those adjustable baseball caps with advertising printed across the front. Most of them dealt with brands of seeds or John Deere tractors. All that the men seemed to be able to talk about was the weather and how much money the government would cheat them out of this year. One of them said that if the government didn't come through with drought aid soon, it would probably rain and ruin their chances of getting that money. Obviously, the place was now firmly entrenched in the current time period.

                 Leaving the Dairy Queen, I drove along the main street toward the center of town. I noticed that the building which had been the City Cafe was now a used clothing store called Kathy's Kloset. The bank now has a new stainless steel face covering the old brick front and their drive-in tellers occupy the area across the street where the hotel once stood. The drug store had been completely remodeled and the soda fountain had been replaced with a cosmetics counter. The flashing neon sign advertised that it was one of the Revco chain of stores.

                 The old water tower bearing the name of the town was gone, replaced by a new one which looks like a giant golf ball on a tee. It was snow white and didn't even have the town's name on it. I parked in front of the courthouse and sat there for a considerable length of time, debating whether I should go in or use my better judgment and drive away. The sheriff, if he is still alive, would have to be at least ninety years old by now and probably can't remember the time of day, much less something that happened over forty years ago.

                 The courthouse hadn't changed a bit from the way that I remembered it. Still an ugly building with the odd spelling of all words which contained the letter U. The statue of liberty still guarded the right side of the sidewalk and the cannon the other. The only changes that I could see was that Miss Liberty was now missing her arm and a piece of steel rebar had been welded across the muzzle to prevent anyone from shoving something down the barrel.

                 I'd come this far, so I might as well plunge on. I walked up the front steps, between the Gothic columns and pulled on the brass handle on the huge oak door. My footsteps echoed as I walked across the tiled floor. I knew that the room in the basement where I had been held was nothing more than a holding cell and that the sheriff's office was located elsewhere in the building, probably on the third floor with the jail.   

                 I looked around for a directory of the offices and finding none, stepped into the County Clerk's office which happened to be the one nearest the door. There was only one person in the office, a lady who was pecking away at a computer terminal. Several huge books were was lying on a table with a green top.

                 "Pardon me, could you tell me where the sheriff's office is located?" I asked.

                 She looked up, smiled and answered, "In the new building across the street." She pointed toward the back of the courthouse and returned her attention to the computer screen.

                 I was surprised to find that the road machinery which had been parked behind the courthouse was gone, the chain link fence was missing and the area was now paved for a parking lot. Across the street stood a squat, gray brick building with a small sign which identified it as the Hulsey County Sheriff's Department.

                 The reception area was clean and smelled of new paint. Immediately to the left of the entrance was a gray steel door with a window less than a foot square. The glass in the window was the type with chicken wire in it. Above the door was a sign stating that visiting hours for the jail were between 2:00 and 4:00 PM on Mondays and Thursdays and that all packages and handbags would be searched. Three more doors opened into the reception area. A young lady dressed in a khaki uniform and wearing a badge was working at a computer terminal behind a glass partition. There were two telephones on the desk and a stack of two-way radios against the wall.

                 "May I see the sheriff?" I asked the lady.

                 She picked up one of the phones, pressed a button and I heard the sound of a buzzer come from behind one of the office doors. "Someone here to see you, Sheriff Nester," she said.

                 She listened for a second, hung up the phone, pointed and said, "Last door on the left."

            Sheriff Nester! What was this, Groundhog Day all over again? Was this one of those days that you lived over and over again and could not escape? Was this the short, red haired Sheriff that came so close to getting me killed?

                 I wasn't sure why I was doing this and what I was going to say to the sheriff, but since I had come this far, there was no backing out now. My heart was in my throat as I walked to the door which opened before I could knock or reach for the knob.

                 "I'm Sheriff Nester," said a man who appeared to be around forty years of age as he held out his hand. He was dressed in a neat business suit and looked nothing like what I had expected. He wasn't wearing a badge and if he was carrying a pistol under his coat, it wasn't obvious. I suppose that I had prejudged him to be more or less like the other sheriff.

                 "Thanks for seeing me. My name is Jim Foreman," I replied and instantly wished that I had given him some other name.

                 I couldn't be sure if it was only my anticipation or if he reacted to the mention of my name. He smiled, invited me in, closed the door and motioned me to one of the two leather chairs in front of his desk.

                 "What can I do for you Mr. Foreman?"

                 I didn't want to plunge right into my questions about something which might have happened before he was even born. In fact, I still wasn't sure whether I should approach the subject or not. After all, he was the sheriff and there might still be a warrant for my arrest laying around in his files. I had no idea what the statue of limitations would be on escaping from jail or if there even was one. I wished that I had contacted a lawyer before I came here and had him determine what the situation was. He clasped his hands behind his head, leaned back in his chair and studied me carefully. It was obvious that since he had asked what he could do for me, he was waiting for me to say something.

                 "I seem to remember that the man who was sheriff here back in 1946 had the same name as yours. Are you any relation?"

                 "No, we just happen to have the same last name," he replied.

                 He didn't volunteer any more information and it was obvious that if I was going to learn anything, I would have to make the first move. The only problem was that I really had no idea of how to go about asking him to tell me about something which had happened more than 40 years ago. I decided to stick with questions which were relatively safe in nature.

                 "Have you lived here in Sanger very long?"

                 "Yes, all of my life," he replied.

                 This was getting me nowhere. He wasn't cutting me an inch of slack. It seemed that he was simply waiting for me to ask the wrong question or make a statement which he could use against me. I almost expected him to read me my Miranda warning that I had the right to remain silent. Since it would be impossible for me to remain silent at this point, perhaps the best thing for me to do would be to ask if he knew someone whom I was sure that had never been around Sanger and then get out of this place.

                 "I'm looking for a man by the name of Robert Benson," I said, using the name of my cousin. "He is supposed to live somewhere in this area and I wondered if you knew him."

                 "No, I don't believe that I know a Robert Benson, but I know who you are Mr. Foreman, and probably why you are here."

                 "How could you know me. I haven't been in this town but once in my life and that was many years ago," I replied, in a state of mind which alternated between shock and panic.

            "I know all about you and knew that one day you would come back here. I was just waiting for the day when you did."

                 He turned to a file cabinet, opened the bottom drawer and fingered through several folders before he found the one he wanted. He removed a photograph from the folder and held it up for me to see. It was a black and white photo of me holding a chalkboard with my name on it! It was the photo taken when I was here before.

                 "I knew who you were the second that you walked through the door," he said as he leafed through the other items in the folder. He opened a small white envelope and dumped five quarters on his desk. Then he pulled out a wrinkled and tattered warrant which showed signs that it had been handled many times. It had my name on it.

                 "Does this mean that you are going to arrest me?" I asked.

                 "Heavens no," he said with a laugh. "This thing was issued more than forty years ago and while it might still be legally valid, I would be the last person in the world to serve it on you. Besides that, I know that there was no basis for your original arrest."

                 "That's certainly a load off my mind. I was afraid for a moment that I was going to be back in jail and from the looks of things, it might be a lot harder to escape this time."

                 "I've just been playing a cat and mouse game with you and I apologize. Now what did you really want to know."

                 "Well, the first thing that I wanted to be sure of is whether I had really had been here or if it was just a bad dream. It would appear that I actually traveled back through time and spent a very tense night here in 1946."

                 "From what I have heard and read about it, you were lucky to have escaped," he said.

                 "What ever happened to that sheriff?"

                 "He kept telling the story about having captured a man from a flying saucer and sent warrants to Colorado and Texas. There is also a letter in the file from Sheriff Anderson in Texas that he wrote when he returned the warrant. He said that he knew you and since you were only 18 years old, you couldn't be the person who was wanted here."

                 "I knew Sheriff Anderson, but he never said anything about a warrant from here," I replied.

                 "The sheriff kept telling that wild story and searching for you until everyone figured that he had really gone off the deep end. Shortly after that, he and several of his so-called special deputies were indicted and tried for killing a prisoner. They were all convicted and sent to the penitentiary. The sheriff was stabbed to death by another inmate less than a month after he got there. It seems that an ex-sheriff doesn't live very long in prison."."

                 "There was a deputy by the name of Melvin. He tried to help me escape. What ever happened to him?"

                 "Melvin Simpson is another story. No one is sure how he made his money, but he is without a doubt the richest man in town. He owns the grain elevator, the bank and about half of the farms in the county. He was the other Sheriff Nester's nephew."

                 "While I was here, I met a lady who had been married to the sheriff at one time. Her name was Maggie. Did you happen to know her?"

                 "Yes, you might say that I knew Maggie very well. She lived here until she died about ten years ago. She was my mother and a few years before she died, she told me all about you. You see, the reason I know so much about you is because I was born on May 21st, 1947. You are my father."


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