Steve`s Country
For a smile as wide as a country sunrise
The Investigators, Inc. The Search. Chapter 1.
I checked the cockpit, but that man was obviously our pilot and there was no co-pilot on board. The guards had the parachutes out and were putting them on us quickly and soon all 5 of us were jumping from the jet. Well, okay, Kat had to push me out and she followed, each of us holding a cat, or more precisely, the cats were holding onto us, tightly! Fortunately the jet was going to crash far from where we would land, which is on the side of a mountain. Not really the best place to be and I’m wondering how this landing is going to affect my back. Even with the parachute the landing will be a hard one.
Unless I hit a tree, which wouldn’t be so good either. Suddenly my parachute gets caught in the trees, but I still hit the ground, trying not to flatten Muffin in the tumble. But we all survived, Kat came over to me as quickly as she could, I was just lying on the ground. The cats trackers are on so they won’t have trouble finding us. Kat and I left our phones on the jet and for some reason the guards phones are not working at all. Maybe it’s because of where we are.
Meanwhile…Calanthe got the distress call we sent from the jet and she has our position fixed from the cats trackers. “There in a bad spot,” Calanthe said to Baldwin. She was visiting him in the hospital. He was able to get things going for our rescue however. But they were not able to send a message through the cats, their receivers were not working, but at least the distress signal was going out. “They must be out of range,” said Baldwin, “we’ll have to get that changed when they get back.” “If they get back,” said Calanthe, “I just have a bad feeling about all of this.”
“Hey, don’t worry Calanthe,” said Jennifer, who was with her at the hospital, “we’ll find them, we have to find them.” Calanthe looked at Jennifer with tears in her eyes, “yes, you’re right, we have to find them and we will do it.” Jennifer started crying too at that point. “Okay you two,” said Baldwin, “enough with the tears now, there’s work to be done, and it needs to be done quickly. Those tracking signals won’t last too long, so hopefully they will be smart enough to stay put so we can find them easily. Now stop worrying and get back home.” So off they went.
Back to us… Well, we are all okay and checking out the area a bit. It looks like rain so maybe we can find a cave for some shelter, the small tent we have is only big enough for two people and these guards need shelter too. “Hey, here’s a cave,” one of the guards called out. He certainly found that fast, that’s good. We all go over there and that guard who found the cave goes in ahead of us. It’s actually quite a large cave after going through a narrow opening for about 20 feet. Then it opened to a fairly large room. Suddenly a light goes on.
“Welcome Steve,” said a man’s voice. That voice! It’s Baldwin! Then Baldwin’s same boisterous laugh came loudly through to us. “Surprised you didn’t I?”, he said, “things are working out just perfectly. One of your guards actually brought you here, he works for me.” The guard, being in front of us, turned around pointing his gun at us. Kat quickly reacted kicking the gun out of his hands, then another kick to his stomach, then one of the other guards grabbed him and tossed him head first against the wall of the cave.
“Oh come now Steve,” said Baldwin, “do you think you can escape me?” “Let’s go,” I said to everyone and back out of the cave we went. We started back the way we came since it was too steep to climb along the way past the cave entrance. “Be careful everyone,” I said, “that sniper might be around here somewhere.” “Here, you two take these, they can shoot a lot further than your hand guns,” said one of the guards, “and he will likely shoot us first, then you might lose these guns down the mountainside.” He had a point, so Kat and I took the guns and we all watched carefully.
The sun came out briefly and there was a gunshot. One of the guards fell. I looked up the mountain and saw a glimpse of something so I shot several times and the sniper’s body fell over the edge. Just then we ended up being surrounded by men and were brought back to Baldwin. “First, I want you to know I mean business,” said Baldwin. Two men took the cats and gave them to our guard, took them to the edge of the cliff and pushed him over. “That’s a 500 foot drop,” said Baldwin, “not even your cats can survive that fall. Now, I need you for one more thing, then you and your wife can go free, I promise.”
To Be Continued.
©2021 Steve McLeod.
Fantastical Friday! #22.
Good morning and Happy October everyone!! The time is going by so fast, we are into the end of fall now, soon the trees will be bare waiting for the next season to arrive. And Thanksgiving Day is fast approaching, which for us in Canada is the second Monday of October, which is the 11th this year. Although I always maintain that we should be thankful every day, not just once a year. Still, it is nice to have that day each year. Sometimes we need reminders. It is a beautiful sunny morning, the sky is a rich blue again, the leaves are glowing in their various colors. The blue jays are busy filling themselves with peanuts, with a few “discussions” among the dominant males.
The chipmunks were quite late getting here this morning but there are now 4 of them eagerly filling their cheeks with sunflower seeds and peanuts. So interesting to see the chipmunks and blue jays together. The chipmunks don’t back down, even when chased by the blue jays, but they do stay on guard around them. But with some blue jays they are very relaxed and will sit there quite peacefully next to the blue jay as they both fill up with the sunflower seeds. In between the white-throated sparrows, there are lots of them now, will try to get in there and grab a sunflower seed or even a partially broken open peanut.
Everyone loves peanuts around here. The crows just showed up cawing excitedly about something. But as usual I couldn’t see anything, but likely it was a roaming cat from the next street. He comes around quite a bit and I’m wondering if that’s why I lost some chipmunks so early this fall. Autumn is a beautiful time of the year, but the colorful part is so very short, maybe a week at the most for us. The leaves are already falling in large numbers, many trees are already bare, the last of the trees, which are the aspens for us, are now changing color quickly and dropping their leaves as fast as they change color it seems.
Looks like I will miss getting any really good pictures this year again, that will be 2 years in a row. So sad. That’s what happens when we don’t get a frost to get those leaves changing color all at the same time. That’s when we really get a spectacular show. But it’s still beautiful out there and I’m enjoying it, even without many pictures. Time to put out more food for the birds and chipmunks, and get more coffee too. I hope you all have a most wonderful day and God bless!
Steve and Muffin.
©2021 Steve McLeod.
Steve`s Country 