[updated:LAST EDITED ON 13-Jan-02 AT 10:35 PM (EST)](I dunno if y'all are ready for this one. -Wolf)


With a few last taps of the "Clinker Hammer" Joe was satisfied. He had laid three beads of metal on the join, and built it all up by criss-crossing in an even pattern so as to not only keep the underlying metal close to plasticity, but at the same time depositing the new metal while the previous layers were already hot and didn't need much convincing in order to bond with it....

The seam looked pretty solid.

Joe put away his tools, and checked to see how many rods were left. There was a lot of nickle-silver. The blue flux coating was hard to mistake. The bronze rods were in good supply, but he would need more honest to god steel soon...

Lights came on in Bobs trailer, as he rolled the dolly with the two gas bottles he used earlier back into the shed. Not a bad day, even though the old rusty trailer had given him a few moments.


Far away, and several weeks earlier - the cars were running under the third yellow flag so far... The Firecracker 50 was an annual event, set at about the fourth of July, and they were running into lap 40 at idle. Lots of rookies had joined late in the season, a normal thing because they got a look at what they were getting into that way.

Car 51 had a youngster in it who seemed real full of himself to the seasoned drivers - a classic jock fresh from school who's parents had never allowed him to be a failure at anything. To listen to him, everything that went wrong was someone elses fault...
But he himself was the answer to it all...

It looked like the up-ended cars in turn two's exit had been removed, the track officials were dumping sand on the oil spills, so it would open up again soon. Several cars were weaving back and forth to grind the mess into the clay as fast as possible. Veterans, all of them.

The fans read the signs, and began to stand up again.....

For almost six laps, Fred Somers had been given time to reflect on where he was in the overall scheme of things. Piloting the 99 around in a lazy oval, he thought over the aches in his bones and was finally willing to hand over his personally built baby to another driver.

Yep, he thought. It's time. Maybe then they would see some closer finishes....

When the flag dropped, he drove in a spirit of pure joy and release, as if a burden had been lifted right off of him. People later said he was driving with a shear mastery that they had not seen from him in several years, he brought the fans to their feet cheering!

In five short laps, he came within challenging distance of the third place runner and it looked like he was gaining on the leaders - almost half a lap ahead.

One of the advantages of a caution flag, is that it let's the cars that are a lap down catch back up...

And then it happened.

Just ahead of the pack, and nearly about to be lapped, the 51 car spun and stopped dead, in between turns three and four. It was facing backwards, and the young driver didn't know to cut the wheel so that he would roll backwards into the infield before he stopped...

Fred was stuck in a pack of cars, closing in at 80 miles an hour with nowhere to go, and no way to see what was up ahead when the 14 car ahead of him went into a wild sliding evasion move...

Directly in front of him was the youngster in 51, and there was nothing he could do about it.....


The fans could only watch in dread. 99 plowed straight into the front of the 51 car, and like a four wheeled Evel Knievel on a ramp launched up into the air. The front of the car went right through the 51's roll bars, but the truly horrifying part was yet to come.

Outside the boards and the chainlink fence in the turn stood a man and his two sons, John and Nick. Like Fred, all he could do was watch it coming.

The car cleared the boards, plunged through the chain link, and the three spectators were gone.

It rolled a few times....

Sandra was looking back along the end of the bleachers, to see where her sister and her boyfriend were. They came around the back from the refreshment stands - and Joan put her hands to her mouth, frozen...

Sandra felt nothing, as the tumbling wreck crushed her into the end of the stands, and finally came to rest beneath it.

Above, the stands shuddered. Several people fell -

And then the screams of shock and disbelief began to fill the evening air...

 

To say your writing style is intense would be a understatment. I never saw it coming. And I'm still reading.

 

You've tempted me to give away part of the plot, but I'm trying hard not to....

I'll give you the option - should I send you an FTE-MAIL?

 

Thanks for the offer, but I'll just sit here and quietly chew my nails.

But seriously, I have faith in your skills and will eagerly await the next release.

 

Trust me -
It's worth it!


~ And thanks for the vote of confidence!

 

[updated:LAST EDITED ON 13-Jan-02 AT 11:36 PM (EST)]It was early on a monday when Bobby finally got a ring back on the phone. With all of the other stuff going on, he had almost forgotten about the Henry J.....

The Lady at the far end sounded very young, and Bobby was at his most courteous as he agreed to meet her around noon, and asked for directions. They made the customary jokes about "Country Directions" too....

Quote: "Now, Y'all go down there about a few mile, an' when you see a ol' bustid up wagon you go on annuther hunnerd yard till you spy a lightnin' strick oak tree..." And so on.

They both got a laugh out of it.

Bobby grinned, as he walked out of the trailers door. Joe was feeding the cats over at the Airstream, and he wondered about that a little. For a city boy, the animals around the place seemed to take right to him....

He walked up, with a hearty "Chew doin', boy?" and Joe set down the Orange Tabby kitten that seemed to be his personal nuisance....

"Hey! How we lookin' so far?"

"Dang good, actually. I hope to tell ya- having a real metal smith around here has attracted more attention than a chimpanzee with a hand grenade!"

They shook hands and looked around at the desert morning. It was cool, if not chilly. But by noon it would be close to a hundred degrees.

"How would you feel about a small field trip this mornin'?"

Joe thought about it. "The more stuff you show me around here..." Joe began "and don't let your head get real big!" he added - "the more I truly LIKE this place. What ya got goin' on?"

"I have to go look at an old car. I've wanted one like it for a long time. And this one is dirt cheap..."

They discussed it over coffee, and around ten were on the road.

 

[updated:LAST EDITED ON 14-Jan-02 AT 01:58 PM (EST)]Ann Howard still went by her married name, although the divorce was final six months ago. Like so many other painful memories, it would be a while yet before she finished dealing with all of the details and got everything sorted back out in her world. In the meantime, the bills came to the right address.

Just before noon, she was waiting on the porch of her Dads house. When Bobbies F-100 drove up with the car trailer, she greeted the two men and showed them around to the 4 car garage and found the light switch from long familiarity...

The 'J' was on the far side, dusty from sitting. But the original engine was in it, about half restored. She popped the hood, gingerly avoiding most of the dirt.

"There's a few trim pieces for it, mostly inside the car. They didn't use much back then."

Bobby nodded understanding. Most things built around the time of the war were pretty spartan. In the corner of the garage was a lumpy shape under a tarp. It looked oddly familiar...

"Was your Dad into racing?" He asked.

Ann followed his eyes, and a look of unfathomable sadness came over her. "Look, I... I'll be back." She rushed out of the garage, as if suddenly needing air badly.

Joe and Bob looked at eachother, questioningly.

"I wonder what that's about?" said Joe.

"I don't know." said Bobby "Maybe one of us should go see if she's okay..."

"Yeah, I think you're right" Joe followed her out.

In the dusty garage, Bobby thought for a moment. And then he went over to the tarpaulin draped lump in the corner, and lifted up the edge of it just enough to see if it was what he thought it was.

When he saw what was painted on the front of it, the breath whistled through his teeth.

"Dear Lord," he whispered "no wonder..."

 

[updated:LAST EDITED ON 14-Jan-02 AT 02:19 PM (EST)]When Bobby came outside, Joe was standing near Ms Howard talking quietly to her. She had both arms folded across her chest as if holding herself together. Body language like that was unmistakeable, and Bob knew exactly why it was. He vaguely remembered seeing her in the infield now, late one saturday night over toward Yuma. She had seemed much younger then...

As he walked over, she was saying "I know it's something I have to do something about. But I don't think anyone wants it" A tremble momentarily came to her lip, but she took a short, deep breath. She swore inwardly that she wouldn't fall apart in front of these gentlemen. They probably thought she was a nut-case already.

Abruptly, she came to a decision.

"Listen, this probably sounds like I have no idea what's in there..."
She looked back and forth between the two men "I have to do something about the race car too. If..."

She took another breath, realising the looks of concern on the two mens faces - especially the younger man. And then she went ahead and said what was on her mind, crazy or no. It would solve her problem, and she would never have to go near the car that had taken so much from her.

"If you will take the race car with you" she said, carefully "you can have the ford for doing me a huge favor that I can't even describe."

And at that point, she covered her face with her hands because the tears were finally getting away from her...

Joe put a hand out, and touched her shoulder. And stranger or not, she clung to him. He held her, knowing that words were no good for whatever was going on inside her.

Beside them, Bobby was dumbfounded..

 

[updated:LAST EDITED ON 14-Jan-02 AT 02:55 PM (EST)]Bob and Joe talked it over.

Ann had gone into the house, maybe to seek what comfort she could find but mostly to not have to watch when the car her father built was loaded up.

In a way, it didn't seem right. And Joe still didn't know the whole story - but Bob wasn't going to mention it until they were on the road back to "The Ranch". He felt bad for the young lady, and promised himself that if ever there was any way he could do anything for her it would be done!

But he also understood what she must be going through, and maybe this was the best way to handle it for her.

Joe had an overwhelming sense that if they took the cars like this, it was somehow taking advantage of someone in distress. But Bob told him quietly that they would talk about it after the race car was on it's way to it's new home.

It took a lot to get it on the trailer. The front suspension was all but gone entirely, and the rear axle wasn't in all that great shape either. Fortunately there was a chain hoist in the garage, and a floor jack. They dragged the front end around to where they could hook on and lift it, and then ran the trailer up under it.

An hour or so later, they had it chained down, and it's other scattered parts were in the bed of the truck.

Out of respect for Ms Ann, they tied the tarp back over it before pulling the trailer out of the garage.

Once they got onto interstate 40, Bobby began to tell Joe about the summer night that had hit all of the local newspapers like a firestorm.


"First of all" he told him "Her maiden name is 'Somers'. She must have got married, I guess. I don't know..."

He gestured over his shoulder "Her Dad built that car all the way from the ground up. It was one of those 'local hero' kinds of things, and the whole family used to travel around and race on the weekends."

By the time the turn off for Gila Bend came up, Joe was up to date on the whole story. And now he realised why Bob had quietly just said "Okay." when Ann had repeated her startling request...

 

 

Story up to this point is now on my member page.
Any comments welcome...


[a href="http://www.clubfte.com/users/greywolf/old99.htm"]http://www.clubfte.com/users/greywolf/sprinter.jpg[/a]