6 Miles With Courage (10 page)

Out towards the edge of blackness that makes up Rob’s comatose world a towering thunderstorm rapidly builds to an enormous height. Lightning flashes from within revealing a face, a bearded face amidst the clouds. It is a face that Rob had seen once, many years before.

The end to Ryan’s moment with the sound-of-silence came not with a splash or with the rustle of the breeze, but it was ushered away with a metal “click.”’ It was the cocking of the hammer of a gun! Ryan turned around to find himself staring down the barrel of a rifle, a very long rifle.

The end of the barrel was mere inch
es from his forehead. At the other end of the barrel was a scruffy face.

“Who you scouting for?” said the
man from behind a beard.

Ryan was taken by surprise. He did not know whether to feel joy or fear. He felt nothing as the
seconds dragged by.

“I said, who you scouting for?”
came an angry growl from the bearded stranger.

Ryan shuffled his feet to the left and then he shuffled them to the right trying to escape t
he aim of the long rifle barrel but it was no use. He started to speak but the man cut him off.

“I’m only going to ask you one more time and then I’m going to blow
your brains out! Who, are you scouting for, boy?”

“Hold on a minute! I’m not scouting for anybody! I don’t
even know what you’re talking about!” Ryan managed to blurt out a quick sentence as he raised his hands into the air—realizing that in just a matter of seconds the situation had become deadly.

Ryan
—shuffling his feet back and forth—continued to speak, “I am trying to get some help mister, my father and I were out flying around when we—”

“Shut-up, just shut-up with your crazy talk!” the man
came close to pressing the end of the barrel against Ryan’s forehead. Ryan stood perfectly still his eyes and ears told him this was not the gentle spirited man in the row boat with Red.

“The only reason for you to be out here now, right
now
is for you to be scouting. Nobody fools the likes of a Sykes boy!”  The man snapped down the long barrel.

“Wait a minute, what did you say?”
Ryan asked.

“I said the only reason—”

“Yes I know I heard that, I mean what was the last thing you said?”

“I said nobody fools the likes of a Sykes!” he repeated.

“What? Why, that’s
my name
!” Ryan said lowering his hands.

The man
took several steps backward and slowly lowered the rifle.

There they stood
together, on the fog shrouded banks of the Oklawaha River, a young man with a compass in his pocket and a scruffy bearded man in grey wool clothes, a rifle in his grasp. For a moment, and just for a moment, there were no words to say.

It was midmorning when Bob Mallory pulled into Brown’s Airfield. The fog had lifted and the sky was grey. There was a smell of rain in the air as the weatherman predicted a light rain by the afternoon.

The gravel
popped off the tires of the police cruiser as it made its way down the long entrance road to the hangers and the grass airstrip. The popping sound sent waves of tiny toads scurrying from the road, back into the safety of the tall grass. It was a peculiar sight.

What was even more peculiar was the fact that there
was
a police cruiser heading into Browne’s Airfield. It had been ten years since Bob Mallory was called out to the airfield to write a report on a stolen airplane. The sheriffs’ helicopter operations are not based at this private air strip. The sight of the cruiser rolling down the entrance road and turning down the row of hangers had turned a few heads, but just a few, as there never were a lot of people out at the airstrip at any given time.

Wilson
—the grounds keeper—was mowing the grass airstrip with his tractor and he was watching Bob. He kept an eye on him as he came down the driveway and noticed as he got out of his car at Rob’s truck. He drove over to greet the sheriff, but by the time he got there the sheriff was already pacing around the truck.

“Good Morning sheriff,” Wilson said.

“Good morning sir,” Bob Mallory answered, “It is, Mr. Wilson I presume?”

“Yes sir, that’s me alright, and you must be th
e sheriff who called about the truck.”

“
It is,” Bob said, and after a firm hand shake they both removed their hats in a mutual jester of southern respect. They both turned to look at the truck as Bob continued, “You said you heard cell phones ringing in the glove box is that correct?”

“Yes sir, if you listen
, you can hear them now.”

They stood still over by the passenger side window and sure enough every so often you could hear the message
-alerts on Rob and Ryan’s cell phones. Bob put his hands on his hips and stood motionless staring at the door.

“Something wrong Sherriff?” Wilson asked.

“Frankly I’m a little concerned about their safety. You see this fellow has a reputation for getting into trouble in the wilderness and now he has his son with him.” Bob turned towards Mr. Wilson, “Did you notice anything peculiar when they left yesterday morning?”

“No sir, they fueled up and then I remember the older fell
a ran back to his truck and grabbed a duffel bag. They ran down their checklist and then took off down the runway. They headed due north I believe.”

“I believe they headed north
too and they did not file a flight plan.” Bob said.

“One thing that is peculiar,”
added Wilson.

“What’s that?”

“Well maybe it’s nothing but most pilots when they leave for a cross country flight or if they stay somewhere overnight tend to leave their vehicles in the hanger rather than leave them outside. It’s just a thought,” said Wilson.

“What hanger was Rob’s plane in?” Bob asked.

“The last one on the left,” Wilson pointed to the closest hanger to Rob’s truck.

“Well Mr. Wilson I’m going to pop the lock on Rob’s truck and then I’m going to have a look around that hanger if you don’t mind. Maybe I can figure out what Rob had on his mind when he left out of here. Does that sound alright to you?”

“Sounds ok to me,” Wilson said, “when you go into the hanger please don’t touch any of the tools on the bench. Our mechanic knows when people have touched his tools and it makes him very upset. I stay out of his hanger at all cost!”

“So, is that Robs hanger or
—”

“No sir, actually that’s the mechanics hanger. He was doing
some checks on Rob’s plane early yesterday morning and then he flew out of here. I don’t think he will be back for at least a few days.”

“So then, which hanger is Rob’s hanger?”

“It’s actually the hanger right next to the mechanics,” Wilson said.

“I’ll have a look around both hangers if you don’t mind of course?” Bob said.

“Not at all sheriff, take your time and I sure hope everything is alright,” Wilson said as he replaced his hat and turned to get back on his tractor. “Just flag me down if there is anything else I can do for you. I have to get back to mowing.” Wilson gave a short wave and hopped up on his tractor and headed back to the airstrip. Bob returned a
good-bye wave and walked over to his police cruiser to retrieve his Slim-Jim.

The Slim
-Jim is a device for popping locks on car doors. Most policemen carry one for helping motorists who lock their keys in their car. It is a long, flat, thin piece of metal that you slide down between a rolled up car window and the weather stripping at the top of the car door. Once down inside the door you feel for the locking mechanism. A good thief (or policeman) can pop a door open in seconds. That’s all it took Sheriff Bob Mallory, just a matter of seconds and he had the passenger door open on Rob’s truck. The first order of business was to get the cell phones out of the glove box—play the messages—and listen for any clues as to their whereabouts. 

Getting into the glove box was a
bit trickier than opening the truck door but he managed. Now with a cell phone in each hand, and not knowing which one belonged to Rob and which one was Ryan’s, he picked one and started to play the messages. It was Ryan’s phone.

“
Hi Ryan honey, its mom, Brent called and wanted to know what time you’re coming home I told him that you were out scouting a job.”
Bob moved on to the previous message
.

“Hey Rye-Rye, its Brent, man you missed an awesome civil war reenactment today, it was crazy good! It felt as if you were really there! And yesterday the
American Indian war reenactments were just as good! Anyway hope you get back soon.”
Bob put the phone down.

There were no more messages on Ryan’s phone, he moved on to Rob’s.

“
Hello Mr. Sykes, you made reservations with us for dinner, however you failed to mention the number in your party.
” Bob moved on through several insignificant messages until he finally reached the last message. It came thirty minutes after he and Ryan departed from the airport.

“
Rob this is Phil, the mechanic out at the air strip. Listen I know you wanted to take your plane out today, but I felt a strange shudder when I ran it up to full power so I’m asking you to leave it in my hanger until I get back sometime around mid-week OK? I put a note on the pilot seat as well. Have a nice day and I’ll see you when I get back, bye-bye then.”
Then Phil hung up. Bob was speechless.

Bob played the message back again and again, but it never changed, and Bob was left to face the reality that something got lost in the lines of communications. He put the cell phones back in the glove box and stood there looking at the hangers trying to put the facts together.

Rob missed the mechanics call by thirty minutes. The mechanic thought he gave Rob plenty of notice having placed the call and by leaving a note. But what happened to that note on the pilot seat?  Did Rob ignore it, or did he not find it? Bob headed over to the mechanics hanger to see if he could find out.

It did not take long for Bob to find it. Right there, smack in the middle of the hanger floor was the note.

“
Rob, do not fly this plane, until I return—Phillip
.”             

Did it just blow out of the plane unseen on the crisp breeze of the late morning air? Or did Rob see it and ignore it? Did Ryan see it and ignore it? It really did not matter. Bob folded the note and put it in his shirt pocket and walked out of the hanger with a renewed sense of urgency. He simply could not and would not tell Judy that Rob flew away in anything but an airworthy plane.

With his heart pounding Bob sat in his cruiser examining the aerial photo he took from Rob’s office. He was looking for a place, any place that someone could put an airplane down between here and the job that Rob went to scout. There was hardly a place at all except for the two grass strips that Bob had seen previously. The same ones he pointed out to Judy when he first found the map in Rob’s office. Everything in between was just wilderness.

Bob put the map away and slowly left the airstrip and headed-out down the long gravel driveway. He did not leave in a hurry. He did not want to raise any suspicion that something could be wrong just in case Judy was to call the airstrip looking for him. But down in his gut he never
felt this scared about losing his buddy Rob, and now his son too.

Once Bob hit the hard road and was out of sight of the people at the airstrip he put his flashing lights on and ran silently at a high rate of speed. He headed North up Highway 19 towards the new jobsite and to one of the grass airstrips where Rob may have landed. It was a long shot, but right now the only thing Bob had to go on was a long shot.
             

As he passed by Forest Road 77 he had no idea that if Rob was going to be saved, Ryan would have to be standing at
that
intersection in a scant four hours ready to wave down the forest ranger. Just a few moments later as he passed the boat ramp and crossed over the Oklawaha River, he again had no way of knowing that it would be at that very boat ramp the rescue party would have to launch from. Two miles and two minutes later Sheriff Mallory had no clue that out there to the east, out of the passenger side window of his cruiser. His friend lies in a comma in the broken wreckage of the very airplane he was searching for.

For now however Bob had to act on what he did know and that was that there is a remote possibility that Rob had safely landed on a grass air strip to the north.

As the police cruiser’s antennas whistled in the wind Bob continued up Highway 19 until he found the turnoff leading back to one of the grass airstrips. Bob took the turnoff. Behind him down the long ribbon of highway the sky was turning dark. The warm front was coming up from the south as the weatherman predicted. Soon the grey drizzle would be upon him.

The cruiser creaked and moaned with every bump and pothole on the long gravel road leading back to the first of the two grass airstrips. Bob stopped and looked at the aerial photo again. Yes, he was heading in the right direction and soon he should come upon the wide open expanse of the airstrip. It should be just a little farther down the road. Bob put the aerial down and slung some gravel as he stepped on the accelerator in anticipation of finding the field.

He broke out of the woods at a high rate of speed not even realizing he was into the grass airstrip. Things look different on an aerial photo than they do on the ground. Seeing that he had come to a wide open clearing he hit the brakes hard. Sliding sideways across the gravel he came to a stop looking down the long and narrow airstrip. It was then that he realized that he had found it.

Not willing to wait for the dust to settle Sergeant Mallory pulled his door handle and arose out of his cruiser to get a better look. He walked several feet away from the car to get clear of the dust and found himself staring west across the long expanse of the grassy airstrip. He strained his eyes to see an airplane in the distance but it was not to be. There were however many cows grazing in the distance and a lone oak tree near the far end of the runway, but no airplane. He quickly spun around and looked in the opposite direction hoping to see Rob’s airplane but it was not there either. More cows and some horses dotted the grassy landscape to the east as well.

He walked back over to his cruiser and
slapped
the hood of his car with an open palm—right next to the radio antenna—but it was not done out of desperation, oh-no not yet anyway. It was a mere slap to remind Bob that it was, “one down, and one to go” on searching runways. He fully expected to see Rob and Ryan putting out the remnants of a campfire and getting ready to take-off by the time he got to the next airfield.

He spun out of there quickly slinging gravel and throwing a ton of dust into the air. He was traveling too fast to safely negotiate every pothole and tree along the long gravel road to the highway. He was not in a panic, but he was very anxious to make the hard road. The darkening sky and the note he found in the hanger had him pushing the accelerator to the floor when he should have been riding his brakes.

By the time he came off the gravel road and slid out onto the pavement his cruiser had the markings of a demolition derby car. Complete with dented fenders, front bumper hanging to one side, and covered in mud from the ruts in the gravel road.

He again made his way north up Highway 19 at a high-rate of speed. He did leave one thing behind however. His right rear hubcap was rolling in circles in the middle of the highway in front of the gravel road. It was quickly flattened by a southbound eighteen-wheeler. Bob never knew it.  

As he raced up the highway his mind was racing with all kinds of thoughts, weird thoughts.

What if they crashed and they both have died? What then?

Would Judy blame me? How long will it take for her to warm up to me?

Losing your husband and son at the same time is just too much for
any woman to take. She will probably crack up and be an emotional basket case!