“Goodness, I’ll call him now. It should take about an hour for him to get to your place. Can you wait at the house for him?”
“I’ll be waiting,” Mac said as he hung up.
He didn’t want to say what he thought he had just seen. Everyone would think he was crazy or worse yet, all come out to the ranch and start tromping around. Mac liked people, as long as they stayed away from his space. He ate a tasteless sandwich and sat on the porch waiting for Sheriff Wilcox.
“Bonnie, I don’t have time to just stop what I’m doing and take off to the Foster Ranch,” the Sheriff said.
“He said he thought he found an airplane wreck. People could be dead or hurt,” she said.
“We have no reports of missing aircraft. Look, tell him I’ll get out to his place as soon as I can. It may be a couple of hours.”
She called Mac.
“The Sheriff is really busy right now. He is trying to break away and plans to get to your place as quickly as he can. We have a lot of damage from the storm last night. He will try to get to the Foster ranch within the next hour or two,” she said.
“Well, I’ll be here,” was all he said as he hung up.
What the hell could be more important than a plane crash, he thought to himself. He examined the piece of metal he had picked up at the crash site. It was incredibly light weight but no matter how hard he tried, he just could not bend it. He went out to the tool shed and placed the metal in a vice on the worktable. He lit the cutting torch and adjusted the flame. As he pressed the oxygen lever the flame grew intensely hot.
He started heating the metal first before trying to cut it. He played the flame back and forth across the metal but it didn’t glow red like other metals. He increased the temperature but the metal still didn’t heat up. It looked exactly the same.
He tried cutting through the metal but had no success whatsoever. He turned off the torch, flipped up his shield, and scratched his head. He reached over and got some water on his hands and flicked it on the metal. Nothing. No sizzle, no steam vapor, no sound. He placed his hand near the metal but could not feel any heat coming off of it. Using just the tip of his finger he quickly touched the metal. It was not the least bit hot. He scratched his head again.
Next he picked up an eight pound sledge hammer and took a hard swing at the metal but all the hammer did was bounce off. It hardly made a noise, almost like the blow was absorbed. He looked at the spot he had hit and not even a mark was visible on it. Whatever this metal was, it wasn’t anything he had ever run across before. He was just about to try something else when he heard a car coming up the road. It was Sheriff Wilcox.
“Hi Mac.”
“Sheriff,” Mac said, shaking the officer’s hand.
“What’s going on? Bonnie said you found an airplane wreck,” the Sheriff said.
“I think so. I’m not really sure what I found.”
“Now Mac,” he said, placing his hands on his hips, “You would know it if you found an airplane crash.”
“Well, why don’t we just take a ride and I’ll show you what I’m talking about,” Mac replied.
“Can’t we just drive? You know I don’t exactly have a deep love for animals bigger than me,” he said.
“You’re welcome to give it a try but I think you will get bogged down. The ground is really soft right now.”
“Oh hell. All right, let’s get this over with,” the Sheriff said, resigned to the fact that he was going to have to get on a horse if he was going to see this alleged plane crash.
Mac already had the horses saddled up and within minutes the Sheriff was seated uncomfortably on a large grey Arabian. Mac led the Sheriff back down the path to the spot where he first saw the trench.
“See there,” he said, pointing to where the ground had been dug up.
“Where does it go?”
“About three quarters of a mile through there,” he said pointing.
“Let’s go,” the Sheriff said. They rode in silence until the Sheriff finally said, “Lot of metal around. You could be right. It sure looks like something crashed around here.”
“There,” Mac said, “Pointing to the wreckage.”
“What in God’s name?” the Sheriff said, his mouth hanging open.
“That’s why I called,” Mac said. The two men dismounted and walked toward the wreckage. Debris was spread all over the area.
“What the hell is this thing?” the Sheriff asked.
“Your guess is as good as mine,” Mac replied.
The two men stood looking at the crumpled craft.
“No way,” the Sheriff finally muttered.
“I know. That’s what I said.”
“Did you look inside?”
“Nope. I didn’t know what the damn thing was and I wasn’t about to poke my head inside of something I couldn't identify. Let me show you something else,” he said walking around the strange looking aircraft.
Mac pulled back a crop of tangled brush and showed him a body.
“Holy Mother of God!” the Sheriff exclaimed stepping back. “What the hell is it?”
“Sheriff, I have no idea but I think we are looking at the future.”
