Spider Lines

by Terry Trafton

  Ten minutes later a bowl of chili was placed in front of him by Mack, who asked if he wanted crackers. Across the room, the girl with the forced smile was busy clearing a window table for customers standing nearby and anxious for her to finish. Her lethargic efforts were beginning to wear thin on the two men and two women, so Mack came around from behind the bar to help.

  A few minutes later, “You’re not from these parts, are you?” Mack asked.

  “Just passing through.”

  “I know most all these good folks . . . mostly locals.”

  “Charming town,” Charlie told him.

  “And it’s a good town full of hardworking people.”

  Chase nodded, “Got quite a history I imagine.”

  “No more than any other town,” Mack replied. “I remember the big paddle wheelers and the excitement they caused each time they came in down at the docks. Now it’s barges pushing freight from Cincinnati to St. Louis and back. The only paddle wheeler I’ve seen in ages is The City of Evansville.”

  “A city with its own paddle wheeler, I suppose that brings back plenty of memories.”

  “It’s been dry-docked for years anchored in several tons of concrete. The only wheel turning now is the roulette wheel.”

  “It’s a gambling casino?”

  “That’s right, three or four decks of slots, crap tables, roulette wheels, bars, and restaurants.”

  “Mack,” a man called from the other end of the bar.

  After Mack had drawn a couple more drafts, he returned to continue his conversation with Chase. “Many small towns around here have folded, overnight it seems. Kids are moving to bigger cities where the jobs are, and small business can’t compete with the big discount chains. It’s a shame to watch the old ways disappear.”

  “They call that progress, I think.”

  Mack laughed, “Isn’t that the truth.” Then, after a pause, he asked, “Where you from anyway?”

  “Here and there. I’ve moved around a lot. Living in Vincennes now.”

  “How about another beer—on the house?”

  “Thank you, Mack. Can I get you something?”

  “No thanks,” he smiled. “I’ve been riding the wagon these past ten years. Fell off a couple times but managed to climb back on.”

  “Good for you, sir.” After taking a couple bites of chili, with Mack watching, Charlie nodded and smiled.

  “You like it?” Mack asked.

  “It’s excellent—much spicier than the canned chili I usually eat.”

  “Made right back there in the kitchen by Marge Curtis who has been here longer than I have, maybe longer than any of us.”

  “Give her my compliments, will you, Mack?”

  “You bet,” Mack assured.

  “There sure are a lot of people coming in the door,” observed Charlie.

  “And probably just as many waiting outside.”

  “So, business is good,” smiled Chase.

  “And has been for as long as I can remember. This is a nuts-and-bolts kind of place. Nothing fancy about folks around here.”

  Charlie decided he’d better ask the questions that brought him here before Mack got too busy. “I’ve been in a lot of small towns, and it seems they all have something unique in their histories.”

  “I’m sure that’s true. We got our own oddball stories, but most go back several years.”

  “Isn’t Newburgh where the military dug up something, in 1947 I think it was?”

  Mack looked at him somewhat suspiciously, before asking, “You work for the government, sir?”

  “No, not anymore, just mentioning one of those stories like that Roswell event.”

  “It was kind of crazy around here . . . never quite knew what was really taken away. Nobody saw anything as far as I know. You can imagine all the wacky talk that went on for months.”

  Chase nodded.

  The long frown moved slowly toward the bar with drink orders, and Mack saw her coming. “It’s time to pop the caps on some long necks. The mixed-drink crowd usually shows up later, around ten o’clock.” Mack walked over to meet Long Face.

  The man whose mouth was lost in a mound of whiskers had finished his fiddlers and snapped his overall straps a couple of times as though this was his way of complementing the chef. Without so much as a word, Long Face came up and took away his empty plate. The bearded man looked over at Charlie, who sipped the draft beer Mack had set up for him.

  “Name’s Keith—Keith Owen,” he said, reaching out to shake Charlie’s hand.

  “Charlie Chase,” smiled Charlie.

  “That was a long time ago. Most people have all but forgotten it.”

  “It must have been a huge thing for a small town?”

  “For a few months, but it was hushed up good. None of us ever knew what really happened out there. In those days, government’s word was good enough. Not like today.”

  “I guess even the military changes over time,” Chase suggested.

  “Whatever it was they found was loaded on a flatbed truck and taken away expeditiously as the military is prone to say. That’s the way the story went by most of those who saw it happen.”

  Walking Einstein was suddenly thinking back, to a time long before 1947, and was quick to perceive reasons why the military had taken so long to retrieve whatever they had discovered. The United States had been in two world wars, experienced a stock market crash, and was heavily invested in postwar reconstruction and development programs. Though the Space Race was on, there were no eyes in the sky—no surveillance or reconnaissance satellites until 1957, the year The Soviet Union successfully launched Sputnik into a low earth orbit.

  With these reasons considered, Chase was amazed that the thing was found as early as it was and thought it could have gone unnoticed for several more years. He’d managed to find only a couple of reports that mentioned the Newburgh event, and they were in local newspapers. Though it was all beginning to acquire a chronology, there was one other possibility that needed to be checked out.

  Mack came over and stood by them. “How about another one, Keith?”

  “Not tonight, Mack. That’s it for me, got some work to finish.” He nodded to Charlie and disappeared into the night.

  “Keith Owen is one of those stand-up men who would help anybody and never expect a thing in return. He and his boy Tim own the hardware store downtown.”

  “Mack,” called a man toward the far end of the bar. “Set me up here, will you?”

  It all seemed to fit, even the 46 years that passed before the craft was recovered, if it had been recovered at all. Even if the ground was uncultivated and overgrown, there would still be indications that something had crashed. He had a hunch, which meant he’d have to do some nosing around at the site.

  He brought the subject up with Mack. “I guess that landscape has changed a lot since the military dug into it.”

  “Not as much as you’d think,” Mack answered.

  “Any ponds or lakes near there?”

  “The old Atwood house is still there, just recently purchased by a local artist. Several years ago, the Newland family built a place on property near the military dig site. There’s a large lake south of the house, used by the city as a reserve water reservoir. In fact, you can see the dam if you drive the French Island Trail east, about a mile past the Old Lock and Dam House.”

  “Thanks, Mack. It’s been a real pleasure.”

  “Stop in again when you’re this way.”

  “I’ll be sure and do that.”

  Instead of returning to Vincennes, Chase spent the night at a motel east of Evansville and about five miles from Newburgh. The craft might not have been dug out of the ground at all. From all the reports he’d found, the recovery had been during daylight hours. Was it possible that the craft had been submerged in the lake,
and what was recovered were only pieces broken off when it had struck the ground? After the Great War ended, a strong Nationalism had taken hold. It would have been anti–American to mention the words conspiracy or cover-up. The people of Newburgh could have been deceived and never even suspected it.

  Saturday morning at a few minutes before sunrise, Charlie Chase drove the French Island Trail east near the Old Lock and Dam House. He noticed the abrupt rise in the landscape ahead, where several expensive homes had been constructed along the summit. But after another mile, the expensive houses gave way to a heavy stand of trees that rose like the masts of sailing ships high into the morning sky. Refusing to dissipate, a sluggish mist clung tenaciously to hillsides and vegetation, as though it still had hours before sunshine rose high enough in the sky to burn it away.

  Like Mack had said, the dam, or what looked to be about 20 yards of dam, was visible at the top of a steep rocky incline. With woods from the road all the way to the top, Charlie could climb without being seen. Parking his car on the river side, in a small open space with a scenic view of the Ohio River, he got his camera and began to climb. It took nearly 30 minutes to get to the top. Pausing to catch his breath, he sat a few minutes on a rocky outcrop, looking back at the road below, and at the Kentucky side of the river that could be easily seen above the trees.

  There was a large lake at the crest of the hill with tall trees surrounding it on three sides. Looking at the size of the dam, he realized the water was probably more than 40 feet deep in the center. The only construction at the site was a brick pump house and two filtration tanks, built near a spillway that ran off toward a creek. On the far side, a long open field stretched north more than half a mile, ending at a broad expanse of trees, and near the place in the creek where he had found the strange pieces. The town of Newburgh had posted signs prohibiting swimming and boating. Shore fishing was by permit only. The Newland house, which would not have been there in 1947, was between the lake and the far woods. If something had crashed or even landed in 1947, it could certainly have ended up at the bottom of the lake, or for that matter, even in the Ohio River.

  After taking several pictures with his digital camera, he began the descent back down the hillside to his car, convinced that there was another more tenable storyline to the 1901 event, also to the military recovery of a possible craft 46 years later. The Ohio River was not more than 300 yards from where he was standing. Immediately, Chase realized the proximity of the river brought a whole new set of circumstances into play.

  Chapter 46

  The front door was unlocked and ajar when Liz and Jenna arrived at Atwood House. Nothing, not a sound came from inside. The first thought was that Ben was upstairs and hadn’t closed the door after coming in earlier in the morning. It was Liz who felt that something out of the ordinary had happened, and that it had occurred during the night.

  “He’s gone, Jenna,” she said evenly. “Ben is gone.”

  “What do you mean he’s gone?”

  They stood in the doorway to the library and both saw the new bouquet of flowers in the vase. “Anna has been here again, and he’s gone with her.”

  “I don’t believe that, Liz.”

  “You know it’s true. Something happened here last night, not a thing to speak of casually, but it did happen, nevertheless. If he’s not out there at the church site, or shopping in town, then he’s with Anna. I can’t explain it, but I do feel it—as sure as I’m standing here, Jenna.”

  “That woman is too much. Where does she get off doing such a thing? She shows up and works a spell on him and he’s too blind to see it happening.”

  “It might be more than that.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Maybe he wanted it to happen. You blame Anna for what Ben wanted all along.”

  “This whole thing is ridiculous,” scoffed Jenna.

  “Yes, but to deny it would be foolish.”

  “Maybe so. After all, the man doesn’t really have it all together anymore.”

  “Anna’s a tantalizing enticement.”

  “You might be right, but Ben is no pushover. I just don’t think he would be naïve enough to think that such a preposterous thing would be possible,” Jenna admitted.

  “I don’t think there’s anything we can do, Jenna. If he is with Anna, I suppose we wait—and hope he finds his way back.”

  “So that’s it? Just wait until he shows up again? You know as well as I do that he might never show up again. Ben Manning might be gone forever.”

  Liz didn’t answer right away. Her eyes closed, both hands over her ears, she rocked back-and-forth on her heels, and was either putting herself into a trance or already in one. When she finally opened her eyes, she stared into the interior of the house, which was just now coming to life with sunlight through the eastern windows. At the end of the hallway were two rooms in the back of the house, one recently converted by Manning into an art studio, and the larger room, now a gallery where several of Ben’s paintings were already displayed. He and Jenna had painted the rooms more than a month before, but the only work done since was the addition of track lights, which Matt Jennings had installed. Liz started down the hallway, but stopped abruptly after only a few steps, as though she’d suddenly changed her mind.

  “What is it?” Jenna asked.

  “The great room—something happened there last night. I’m not sure yet, but something strange happened to Ben in that room.”

  Opening both doors wide enough to reveal a bright interior, Liz entered cautiously, Jenna following a few steps behind. Stopping in the center of the room, she again closed her eyes and began rocking deliberately. In seconds, shards of sunlight dissolved, leaving the great room in gray tones.

  Two images emerged.

  The moon was an enormous face peering through the windows, its mouth a twisted gaping hole, in which appeared the silhouettes of two people tightly embraced. For a few moments, these images floated rhythmically across the floor, before spinning absurdly inside the huge mouth that had no tongue, turning, twisting convulsively—two attenuated shapes quickly sucked into oblivion. The moon pushed closer to the windows, until nothing but a huge sardonic smile pressed against the glass.

  Lightning flashed. Walls in the great room disintegrated. A wide expanse of white appeared, as flashes of green ripped away the ceiling. With nothing beneath her feet, nothing to steady her, Liz Raymond sensed a tremendous force tugging, pulling her into a churning vortex.

  She opened her eyes abruptly, looked at Jenna as though she was seeing her for the first time. If she had put herself into a trance, or if some unseen force in the room had affected her, it was impossible for Jenna to determine what had occurred. She unbuttoned her jacket and drew the back of her hand across her forehead to wipe away light perspiration.

  “You okay?” Jenna asked with a note of concern.

  Without answering, she closed her eyes again, only to find the malicious smile replaced by a man standing in a mist at the edge of a pond or lake. His sandy hair was disheveled and slung over one shoulder was a canvas bag. Although she was sure she’d seen the man before, she didn’t remember where, only that he seemed familiar. When he sat down on a rocky outcrop and brushed the tops of his wingtips, she realized where they had met briefly.

  “Sorry, sometimes this thing takes hold of me, and I have to run with it, go wherever it takes me. Can you understand that, Jenna?”

  “Not exactly,” Jenna answered.

  “Somebody is putting the pieces together,” she assured Jenna.

  “What about Ben?”

  “Ben and Anna were in this room last night. She must have convinced him to go with her.”

  “Go where?”

  “I don’t know, but possibly through a gateway that opened here in this room.”

  Jenna quickly remembered the night in the dining room, the same night she had seen La
cey and Ben disappear. She had not revealed this to Liz, who was now suggesting the same thing had happened last night in the great room, and that Ben had gone voluntarily into another dimension. Sure that Anna was responsible for his disappearance, a shudder of disbelief went through her as she looked helplessly at Liz Raymond.

  “You must have faith, Jenna. We’ll find the answers.”

  Nodding, Jenna managed a slight smile. “I hope you’re right.”

  “I saw something else . . . a man I met briefly some months ago at the Abbey in Saint Meinrad. I don’t know who he is, but I do know he is in Newburgh.”

  “What?”

  “I’m sure this all sounds a bit improbable to you, but you’re going to have to trust me, Jenna.”

  “Where do we find him?”

  “He’ll find us,” Liz answered confidently.

  “I swear, if I didn’t know you, Liz, I’d think you were crazy.”

  “It wouldn’t be the first time someone thought that.” Liz put her arm on Jenna’s shoulder as she spoke, “Maybe we better go out to the site. Matt’s probably wondering where we are.”

  When they neared the site, they saw Lacey sitting in the seat of a white Bobcat parked a few yards away from one of the limestone slabs. She gave a slight wave when she saw them. Matt, who was kneeling at one end of the slab, was clearing dirt away, until one corner was entirely exposed. Waving, he got up and came over to meet them. Lacey climbed down from the Bobcat happy to see them.

  “I thought we’d look under at least one of these slabs,” he said. “Something’s down there, just can’t make out with the GPR what it is.”

  “It’s surely not a grave?” asked Jenna hesitantly.

  “Doesn’t look like a grave. Seems more of a void in which there appears to be steps.”

  “Where’s Ben?” Lacey asked.

  “Ben’s gone,” Jenna replied.

  “Gone? What do you mean he’s gone?”

  It was Liz who attempted to put Lacey’s curiosity at rest, at least for now. “We’re not sure, Lacey. It’s nothing to worry about. He’ll show up later.”