Justification For Killing (24 page)

He had been right - the
people were so stricken with panic they hardly paid any attention
to the cars following the Presidential parade. He grabbed the door
handle and like an acrobat had swung into the passenger’s seat
before Clem came to a complete stop, “Let’s go Clem - pull back
into the traffic and let’s get the heck out of Dallas.” As Clem
navigated the traffic, the Captain spotted the brown raincoat again
and began feverously rolling down his car window.

Sticking his head out he
frantically waved his arm and yelled, “Hey Anhur, hey Anhur!” The
diminutive man Captain Scarburg saw in the brown raincoat with the
large black umbrella must have recognized him for he immediately
pointed his finger at their Nash Rambler and opened and closed his
umbrella, swiftly, a couple of times. It was just long enough for
the Captain to get one final snapshot before leaving the scene of
one of America’s greatest tragedies.

Just a few hundred yards
west down Elm was the triple overpass. Immediately past the
railroad overpass the highway makes a right turn onto the on-ramp
leading to the Stemmons Freeway. Two miles north they will take the
Dallas Freeway and finally head back to Celina - and
safety.

Approaching the overpass
Captain Scarburg stole one last backward look at the clock on top
the Texas School Book Depository, and one final photo.

The time was
12:34.

Four minutes ago the
Captain had been fighting with the assassin on top of that very
building - four minutes! He could not fathom it in his mind - it
seemed more like four days. Surely, he thought, it must have been
much, much longer! Four minutes! This cannot be right??

For the next thirty
minutes or so Clem drove northward back toward Celina. Neither man
spoke. The Captain was the first, “Clem, now that my heart has
resumed beating again I have a couple of questions.”

“
Yeah, John I know’d you
do and I’m sure sorrie.”

“
Sorry? Sorry? Clem what
on earth do you have to be sorry about. Everything worked out just
as we planned.”

“
No, it were my fault that
you had to spent the hole gall-durn night in the jailhouse. You see
John you gimme your watch to go sell. I know’d it were gold and
even with that broke face it sure was worth a lot of money,
anyways, I ain’t got no permit, so I couldn’t sell it here in
Dallas.”

“
Wait... hold on Clem.
What permit do you need to sell a watch in a pawnshop?”

“
You know John. One of
them picture cards that you use to drive with.”

“
Drivers license? A
drivers license, is that the ‘permit’ you’re talking about
Clem?”

“
Yeah, drivers license,
that’s the permit I don’t got. Never had one John, I sure am
sorrie.”

“
Okay Clem now backup,
what did you do since you did not have a drivers
license?”

“
I drove back to Celina
and seen Penelope and told her what had happened. She give me the
bail money from some money we had saved up.” Reaching into his
pocket, he handed Captain Scarburg back his broken Rolex. “That’s
what done took me so long John. Course once I got home I had to
feed the livestock and such and by then it was gettin’ dark. John,
I barely could find my way home in the daylight. There shore warnt
no way I could of got back to your jailhouse in the dark. I sure am
sorrie John.”

“
By-ned Clem - I believe I
have heard it all now.”

“
So your ill at me, huh
John?”

“
Ill? Ill? Oh... mad...
heck no Clem I believe that’s about as much as any person has even
done for me. With your effort, Clem you changed the future - if I
had the power I would give you a medal.”

“
Shucks John, yer gonna
make my eyes water up. Well I’m glad we had our talk John, cause my
turning off road is comin’ up and I wanted to clear the air afore
you left.”

“
Clem, it is clear - I
don’t believe I have ever had a more loyal friend than
you.”

Chapter
Eighteen

RETURN TO THE
PONDEROSA

Turning once again into
the driveway of the Ponderosa Captain Scarburg requested Clem stop
the car for a moment. When the car had stopped the Captain held the
Iphone out the window and snapped a beautiful picture of Clem and
Penelope’s Ponderosa. “Okay Clem, drive on up to the house.”
Walking in the front door, Clem yelled, “Penelope... Penelope... I
got’em back, jest like I said I would. I brought John back with
me.”

As usual Penelope was in
the kitchen. Coming into the living room, “Lands sake John, when
Clem left this mornin’ he told me he was goin’ to brang you home.
When I heard you wuz in jail for robbin’ ole man Simpson, well
swanny that ole grouch ain’t worth a plug nickel, but he likes
money. So this mornin’ bright and early I sent Clem over to his
place and paid him fer your clothes you ‘borrowed’. Like I said, he
liked the money more’en them clothes. Clem got him to call the
police and drop them charges agin you.”

“
Well I’ll be - you two
never cease to amaze me.”

“
Clem,
Penelope you both have been really decent to me. But you will never
know how much better your future lives will be for the action we
three took today. History will never know your names, but you can
rest assured I will never forget you. But I have until 12:30
tomorrow, Saturday, and my
Pegasus
machine and I will return home to the year 2012.
I must be inside, or she will leave without me. And,” Captain
Scarburg said laughing, “you’ll be stuck with me from now on. Clem
I’m going to need your help.”

“
Anythang I can do to help
John, you know that.”

“
Let me take a minute and
try to explain my predicament. You see, I was supposed to leave the
year 2012 and land on the roof top of the School Book building in
Dallas just a few seconds before the sniper fired his first shot at
the President of the United States. After I had knocked him out, or
whatever, I was to crawl back into my time machine. I only had five
minutes then it would disappear. It would appear again in twelve
hours, but only for another five minutes. Twelve hours later, on
the dot, the bag of bolts leaves 1963 and returns to 2012. It is
automatically programmed to remain for only twenty-four hours and
then it was to return. That is, unless it was programmed to remain
longer. In my case, I was to arrive at 12:30 on Friday and I was
supposed to leave at 12:30 Saturday.

“
Dadburn John why’d y’all
fix it that away?”

“
Because we build it
according to the instruction book we used.”

“
Why didn’t y’all git them
fellers who wrote the book to change it?”

“
Clem, the next clear
night go out into the yard and gaze up into the sky, what will you
see?”

“
Stars... John, I’ll see
millions of beautiful, sparkling, stars.”

“
Right you are Clem. Pick
out one, anyone of them, that’s where we would have to go to ask
‘the fellers that wrote the book’. But back to our discussion, at
exactly half past twelve noon tomorrow my time machine is adios,
gone, out of here. If I am not inside, too bad, it’s so long sucker
she’ll leave anyway.”

“
What would keep you from
bein’ in it John?”

“
To begin with, I landed
in the wrong place. I missed Dallas by forty miles. Next, the
machine must be almost perfectly level for takeoff; one end of my
flying machine is hung up on a stump. Finally, to make matters
worse someone back in 2012 tried to sabotage my mission by
inputting the wrong place to land and the wrong date.”

Captain Scarburg explained
he was surprised he was not fighting alongside King Arthur in some
remote part of England at that very minute.

He believed if the
correct data had been programmed his time machine would have landed
in the right place and at the correct time, but the worst part: he
could not change the data in the computer to return home. If
someone messed with the information when he came here, they sure as
heck messed it up for his return. Even if he could get
Pegasus
to ‘blast off’,
there was no way of knowing where he would land, or in what
century. Explaining this to Clem and Penelope he told them even
though someone was trying to kill him he considered himself a lucky
man.

“
Lucky! John how can you
say that? You may never get back to your home, and you call this
lucky?”

“
Yes... I got to meet you
two!!”

“
We don’t know what to
say... except John, tonight we will be at your time-flyin’ machine
at exactly the time the door opens, and you can git inside. I’ll
take my wrecker truck - it’s got a wench on back that we can move
your machine with, how’s that?”

“
Sounds good, uh... uh...
speaking of good, Penelope, I got a whiff of something that smells
delicious - you wouldn’t have anything going on in the kitchen
would you?”

Laughing, “You rascal you
know’d I got supper almost ready. I reckoned you boys would be
hungry if you got back. Come on let’s eat.”

“
What do you mean “if?”
Never a doubt, right Clem?”

Clem rolled his eyes and
laughed. “Yeah right, John!”

Sitting down at the dining
room table, Penelope emerged from the kitchen carrying a large,
black pot of steaming hot food. Sitting the pot in the center of
the table the Captain’s nose got the whiff of the most tantalizing
aroma he had smelled in a long time.

“
No! Don’t tell me my nose
is lying, Penelope... not... not... rutabaga turnips and pork
chops?”

“
Yeah, thought you might
want a good meal afore you go.”

After Clem had said the
blessing for the meal, Captain Scarburg grabbed his plate and began
shoveling a massive portion of turnips and meat onto his plate.
Penelope passed him a piece of cornbread and without another word,
he began devouring the savory southern dish.

“
My, oh my, Penelope...
you outdid yourself - this is mighty good eating. What’s your
secret?”

“
My secret? Oh, if I have
one it would be a spoon or two of sugar I add to the turnips as
they are cooking – gives’em a sweeter taste - what you
think?”

“
I think? What do I think?
I think they are ‘musty’.”

“
Musty? Why I never!”
Penelope said, taking aback.

“
I
‘musty’ need another helping, if you don’t mind.” The Captain said
laughing as he passed his empty plate to Penelope. Penelope was
serving the Captain another heaping plate of turnips and pork chops
when he noticed a handsome, cross-stitched sampler beautifully
framed hanging on the dining room wall. The stitched lettering
handsomely read:
“Home Sweet Home”
and along the bottom was the name and
date:
“Minnie Coker Three December In the
Year of Our Lord Nineteen Hundred and One”.
“Penelope I believe that is one of the most beautiful
stitched samplers I have ever seen.”

“
Well thank ya John, that
was did by my Granny Coker when she was jest a young
girl.”

“
Well, Penelope, you can
be proud of your Grandmother, she accomplished a work of art with
her needlepoint. And it’s nice you have kept it to remember her
by.”

As they continued eating
Clem looked at John, “John, do you know whar you left yer
machine?”

“
Actually Clem no... no I
do not know exactly... I figure I can get within the vicinity. I’d
been walking a couple of miles before you picked me up.”

“
Okay John, I’ve been coon
huntin’ back in them thar woods and fields fer years tell me what
you seed when you got out of yer flying thang.”

“
Alright, well there was a
huge stand of hardwoods and pines towards the west; some old,
outdated, rusty oil pumps off in the distance to the north and oh
yeah, an old shed-looking building; a highway a couple of miles
toward the south, and there was a pond. Well really there were two
ponds. Looked as if a beaver dam had been built between them. That
is about it. Hold on just a second,” the Captain said pulling his
Iphone out, “I’ve got a couple pictures of the area.” Clem took the
Iphone from him, and looked at the pictures of the cow pasture the
Captain had taken when he first landed.

“
I know exactly whar you
wuz at... Double Pond Lake, been coon huntin’ all around thar. Your
right, beavers built that second pond. Larry Brock the man that
owns that thar piece of dirt lives in Dallas, just keeps a small
herd of cows on hit, somethin’ like maybe three or four thousand
head. He won’t be around to bother us none. If you’d know’d it
John, he had a ole ‘53 green, flat-bed, Ford truck that he leaves
in that thar shed building. The keys are in it. He uses it when he
comes up to check out his spread. Hits jest a small ranch believe
hes only got 4,500 hundred acres. He’s what we around here call a
‘gentleman rancher’. You could’ve borried the truck, he wouldn’t
have never minded. Back off behind all that hay is an ol’ army
Jeep. It runs too, don’t need no key fer it. Jest fire’er up. You
could’ve used either one of them.”