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." |