Duxford Airfield (the Band)

____________(8)____________

MARY WICKERSHAM:

I stared at my shiny-new, rubber black boots as I sat in the back seat of the rental car, beside Andrea. I hadn't had a pair of these types of boots since I was seven years old and I suddenly remembered how proud I'd been of my last pair. They were still being made in America and were said to be completely waterproof.

...Ricky and I had still been playing with Tonka trucks the last time I'd had on a pair of these boots. Andrea and Helen were also wearing a pair identical to mine and all of us had on bright new orange raincoats now too. I suspected that the three of us probably looked like we were all going clam digging somewhere on the Turnagain Arm in Alaska...

At my feet now, on the floorboard of the truck, was a bright red metal box with a brand new cordless Milwaukee drill in it and an assortment of hole saws. The battery had charged throughout the night and we were ready to go.

I sipped more of my coffee.

...Looking out the passenger's window again, I stared out at the rain swept city of Odessa as Helen continued driving the rental car. She remained silent, just listening to the periodic conversation between Andrea and me as we discussed the money we'd just recently been paid for Danny Wickersham's mansion, Prominent House...

There was a stony silence inside the car now as I fought internally with myself.

After several long minutes, I finally spoke again.

" (sigh) - I wish I'd kept my mouth shut and just let you do your job, Andrea, I'm sorry, I'll never doubt you again, wife. We probably each, Helen and us, left a hundred grand on the table and there may even have been royalties that we could have laid claim to" I said wistfully in reference to Parcel 134.

"Tim, you're being a Monday morning quarterback now - or in this case, Tuesday morning quarterback. The oil company is in business to make money, not give it away, we did just fine for ourselves. Herb told me that the oil company would most likely have a three hundred thousand dollar threshold; before they brought out the big guns, Lomberg & Peck. As for royalties, Parcel 134 hasn't had an active wellhead on it since nineteen-fifty-six. All the wells on Parcel 134 are dry holes now" Andrea explained patiently.

"They're dry holes?" I asked incredulously.

"Yes, at least on Parcel 134, that information is public knowledge" Andrea nodded.

"We looked at the tax returns, Tim" Helen interjected in confirmation.

"Lomberg & Peck, who are they?" I asked, ignoring Helen for the moment.

"Those two gentlemen sitting beside Earl Billingsly, yesterday morning, were each representative of the law firm Lomberg & Peck. Those two suits were probably each getting paid thirty-five hundred dollars an hour, starting when their alarm clocks rang, that morning. Undoubtedly we could have gotten more money for Parcel 134 but we would have had to start fighting for it then, and that isn't why we're here, to begin with. You're also forgetting that we wanted something else from the oil company, Tim, - permission to go back to Prominent House, which we were granted" Andrea said, waving her hand at the interior of the car, to prove her point.

"OK" I nodded as I closed my eyes, slightly relieved by Andrea's logic.

"Consider our new swimming pool as a gift from Danny Wickersham, Tim. We've also got a big pile of money for toys and travel now, that we didn't have a few days ago" Andrea said.

"You really believe that Danny envisioned that all this would happen?" I asked, making eye contact with my wife.

"Danny was an extremely intelligent man, Tim, and he was in love with Helen and me both. I believe that he knew all of this would transpire, yes, but only if we played Danny's game" my wife said confidently.

"Absolutely, I just wish he were here with us right now" Helen affirmed with a nod of her head.

"Me too, honey," Andrea said softly.

"Who was that third guy in the room then, - at the meeting, yesterday?" I asked.

"A Fed, they've got interest in this lease deal also, Tim, and he was there to make sure the Feds got their say in things too" Andrea explained.

"Uh, money brings everyone to the table, doesn't it?" I replied.

"We'll be there in a few minutes, Tim. Please try not to think so much" Andrea said, squeezing my hand.

"Prominent House, my God, what a wild ride all of this has been, Andrea" I mumbled, shaking my head and closing my eyes.

My wife squeezed my hand again, in confirmation.

...After taxes, we were likely to clear well over a hundred grand, and so was Helen Lunsford. Because of my fears, concerning demolition costs or unknown back taxes, I had wanted to give back Parcel 134 to the oil company, for absolutely nothing, but Andrea had gotten us well over a hundred grand, after taxes...

...My God, it took me a long time to make that much money but my wife had seemingly pulled it out of thin air.

"You're an amazing woman, Andrea Millhouse," I said in genuine awe of her.

"You ready to go back?" Andrea asked with a smile and ring of excitement in her voice.

"...Yeah, - yeah I think I am, Andrea. What about you, Miss Lunsford, are you ready to go back there again now?" I answered as I picked up one of the massive flashlights that we'd just purchased and studied it as I quickly clicked it on and then off again.

"As you always say, cowboy, Let's get'er done!" Helen replied, making brief eye contact with me in the mirror.

I now realized that I really did want to go back to Prominent House and help Andrea and Helen begin searching for clues again, in regard to Danny Wickersham's life.

I sipped more of my McDonald's coffee and stared out the passenger's window again.

"...Do you think that the Countess actually knew Danny?" I suddenly asked aloud, without turning from the passenger's window.

"I've thought a lot about that, Tim, ever since Herb mentioned that she had willed the place to Danny, herself. The Countess was lonely for a good portion of her life, at least according to the online dictionary, and she may well have been a rockstar groupie of some sort too. Rockstar groupies have been known to do some very strange and extravagant things. Who knows what the story is? That's what we're here to find out!" Helen answered enthusiastically.

"Is this what being a live T.V. reporter is like, Helen?" I asked.

"Oh no, this is much better, Tim. This is almost like being police detectives!" Helen said energetically.

I nodded my head in reply, not quite sure yet, what to think and there was a long silence that followed.

"Incidentally, I interviewed several police detectives during my career as a reporter" Helen informed us proudly.

...Helen was obviously stoked about going back to Prominent House now and I wasn't going to do anything to rain on her parade today, I liked the lady. In a way, her excitement was contagious and I was starting to feel excited myself.

Another question now abruptly came to me.

"If the girl in the tintype is The Countess of Knoff, who then, is the Duchess that Danny mentions in his safe deposit box clue? And why is Duchess spelled with the letter 'T' in it?" I again; asked aloud.

"Maybe because the Countess was Dutch" Helen said flippantly as we pulled into the office parking lot of Prominent Energy.

I rolled my eyes at this oversimplified reply but remained silent. Writing Danny's story was Helen's dream of thirty years and I wasn't going to rain on her parade today, I reminded myself again. It was already raining enough outside the car, as it was...

"Dutchess," I said aloud, incorporating the letter - T"

"What about, Duchess, Tim?" my wife asked, looking at me quizzically.

"Duchess and Dutchess sound the same to me, with or without the - T" I said.

Neither Andrea nor Helen replied.

Helen pulled into the paved parking lot for the offices of Prominent Energy and parked the car. She then shut off the engine and the heavy sound of rain tapping on the car's roof became blatantly evident.

Looking through the windshield now, I could already see Kendall Ludus standing in her own raincoat as she stood beside the bright yellow pickup truck, waiting for us. The lower half of the bright yellow crew-cab pickup was completely caked in West Texas mud now.

We greeted Kendall warmly and then loaded all of our personal stuff into the yellow pickup truck. We had sandwiches, cans of soup, two thermos bottles of McDonald's coffee, soda pop, water jugs, and three large flashlights, with six batteries in each of them. Everything was neatly packed inside three backpacks. On a spur of the moment's inspiration, I'd also brought a sixty-foot coil of rope along with us too.

Andrea and Helen also had their cameras with them today.

Within a few minutes, we had been signed in and were underway, enroute to Prominent House, with Helen in the front seat beside Kendall, and Andrea and me in the rear seat of the yellow pickup. The rain wasn't going to let up any time soon, it didn't appear.

I sat quietly beside my wife and stared out at all of the huge cricket pumps which were standing in the drizzling rain as they slowly and methodically continued pumping the black gold as always. The mechanical giants didn't care if it was raining or not.

They didn't care, one way or the other...

"It's going to take us a while to get there this morning, folks, the rain has turned Oilwell road into a horrible mess, I'm afraid" Kendall explained to us as we drove along with the sounds of the windshield wipers and periodic bits of conversation coming over her two-way-radio.

We soon discovered that Kendall was right, the dirt road was now a mud-soaked washboard, reducing our speed to a jiggling twenty miles an hour.

"I would imagine that it's either dust or mud out here, Kendall, one or the other," I said as I sipped more of my coffee.

"We have blowing sand storms on the menu too, Tim, which I like the least" Kendall replied.

"Why don't they just pave the road?" Helen asked.

"Because with the number of heavy trucks and equipment on this road, pavement would only last about a month. They tried paving it once, way back" Kendall said, holding up her empty palm and shrugging.

"Oh, that makes sense" Helen replied, nodding her head.

"I'm reading one of your books right now, Helen," Kendall suddenly said.

"Which one?" Helen quickly asked.

"Flagpole-Jimmy" Kendall answered.

Helen laughed good-naturedly.

"He's the real deal, Kendall. I'm really not sure why he's even still alive though, to be honest" Helen said.

"He's still alive, really? How old is he now?" Kendall asked, excitedly.

"Yes, he's still with us, he's seventy-six now. I talk with him and a few of the other band members of Delayed Hangover, about twice a year. It's all still an endless soap opera with all of them, even at their latter age" Helen replied, laughing again.

"Damn, Jimmy could play that guitar," Kendall said, in awe.

"He still can. He's sober now, got like seven years, I think" Helen said in reply and shrugging.

Helen's answer now made me ask a question that had been stuck in the back of my mind for weeks now.

"How did Danny come up with the name Duxford Airfield, Helen?" I asked, genuinely interested in knowing the answer.

"The same way Strawberry Alarm Clock and Jefferson Airplane came up with their names, Tim, - who knows? Every band has its own story, that's what makes writing about their lives so interesting" Helen answered, looking back at me and shrugging again.

"He never told you that story, on the origin of the band's name?" I asked incredulously.

"He would never talk about it, - it's all part of Danny's game, Tim" Helen shrugged again.

...Something within my mind told me that there was more to it than that, but I didn't know why I felt that way...

I nodded my head but made no verbal reply to Helen's answer.

"Did Jimmy really marry that cocktail waitress while he was drunk, that time?" Kendall asked incredulously.

"You'll have to read the book to find out, dahling" Helen answered, laughing again.

"Awww, come on, give me at least one spoiler, Helen" Kendall begged.

"That was the most fun I've ever had, writing a biography, Kendall. Jimmy is a great guy and brutally honest about himself, the good and the bad. He's a very humble person, believe it or not," Helen explained, without spoiling the book for Kendall.

...I knew who Flagpole Jimmy and Delayed Hangover were, they'd had a few big hits in the early seventies which were, even yet, still played over the radio occasionally. Delayed Hangover had come onto the music scene as an "Outlaw" band, their music catering largely to the biker crowd. My brother Ricky had collected several of their albums over the years, I suddenly recalled. The band's lead singer and guitarist, Jimmy Rale, got his nickname because of his surname and the fact that he was as thin as a flagpole...

My mother had never cared for the band, Delayed Hangover.

...The ladies and I continued to jiggle and bounce along over the washboard of a road enroute to Prominent House.

It suddenly dawned on me that when this field had first been discovered, in the early eighteen-nineties, all of the building materials for Prominent House, and the heavy oilfield equipment had most likely been hauled in by mule trains and then later, steam locomotives. Undoubtedly this brutal work had been carried out by a breed of large brutal men, working under appalling conditions. If a man had been killed or lost an arm during a day's work, then it was just tough shit for him, others were standing around ready to replace him, without so much as a moment's lull in the work.

Catastrophic boiler explosions weren't uncommon during that time either, sometimes sending shrapnel a full mile in any direction...

"Is there a company cemetery here, someplace, Kendall?" I asked.

"Sad Hill, there's probably about forty or so guys resting up there today, I'd say, I saw it once" Kendall replied.

"The Countess and her sons are buried here also, aren't they, Kendall?" Andrea asked.

''Yes, but not on Sad Hill" Kendall answered.

"I tried to Google Earth this place, over the weekend, but its blotted out; like a Military Base," Helen said.

"By design, Helen," Kendall said, nodding her head.

"Where are the Countess and her sons buried?" I asked.

"Behind the main house, I'll show you sometime, when it stops raining" Kendall replied.

"How in the world does Danny tie into all of this, I wonder?" Andrea asked, closing her eyes and rubbing her forehead.

"I know what you mean, Andrea. I've been asking myself the same thing, how did a kid from L.A. wind up affiliated with a countess from Texas, of all places?" Helen echoed.

"Kendall, you don't know anything more about this mansion or any of the people who once lived there?" I asked.

"No, Tim, in fact, most of the people working in this field aren't even aware that the mansion is here at all - you don't just go joy-riding around out here. When you're given a specific job, you're expected to go to that one location and nowhere else. All of our vehicles are electronically monitored and someone in security always knows exactly where everyone is, at all times. It's almost like being on a Military Base, they're very serious about knowing where we are at all times" Kendall answered.

"I would imagine the purpose for that is safety, as well as security, Kendall" I replied.

"Yes it is, Tim, and OSHA insists that you've always got a radio-equipped work partner to watch your back out here," Kendall said.

"That's just good common sense, Kendall" I nodded.

"...Tim works for OSHA," Helen said quietly and looking off into space.

"Are the two of you still talking, Helen?" Andrea asked, gently.

"Yes, he told me over the phone last night, that when we're done here with Prominent House he'd meet me in Casa Grande while I'm staying with the two of you. After I put this book to bed we're going to sit down and have a heart-to-heart talk" Maybe the two of you could meet him" Helen replied, quietly.

"Good, baby, give things a chance, OK?" Andrea encouraged.

"We'd love to meet him, honey," I said.

Helen nodded her head yet remained silent.

Kendall seemed to feel the weight of our conversation; and remained quiet.

There was a long silence now as we bumped along the rain-soaked dirt road. The only sounds inside the cab were the windshield wipers and snippets of conversation over Kendall's two-way radio.

After several more minutes, I broke the silence.

"...I really find it hard to believe that a lady born in eighteen-ninety would have been a rockstar groupie, Andrea" I suddenly blurted out as my mind shifted back to the Countess once more.

This abrupt switch in conversation seemed to throw all three of the ladies aback for a brief moment.

"...According to the online dictionary, the Countess was said to have been an extreme eccentric, Tim, this probably applied to every area of her life, including music, I would imagine," Helen said, looking back at me, from the front seat.

"...Maybe so," I replied, looking out the window again, somewhat unconvinced at Helen's logic.

"Maybe Danny actually did know the Countess" Andrea said, apparently having just thought of it.

"Why, would The Countess of Knoff have associated with someone like Danny Wickersham? She never left the property for, at least, thirty years. Danny must have been here in Texas; if the two had ever known each other" I reasoned.

"I'm not sure, Tim" Andrea answered.

"Maybe the Countess had something to do with the poker chips from the Dunes casino, that Danny left us in the safe deposit box, as a clue. Maybe it was her money that built that casino" I interjected wildly.

"The answers are there, waiting for us, in Prominent House, Tim" Helen replied soberly, looking forward through the windshield again.

"I wonder if it was French Nationalists that really did kill the old man?" I asked aloud, to no one in particular.

"Kelly and Diane said that there's really not much written about old man King, he probably liked it that way," Helen said in reply.

"He probably controlled the press, much like anything else that his money could buy," I said flippantly.

"Some reporters can't be bought, Tim," Helen said, obviously a little hurt by my comment.

"...I believe you, Helen," I said quietly.

After fifteen minutes, Kendall turned onto the narrow road leading to the mansion. She slipped the truck into four-wheel-drive now, I noticed.

"What's the actual name of this road, that we're on now, Kendall?" I asked.

"King's Court" Kendall replied.

"Thanks for driving us out here, on a day like today, Kendall" Andrea suddenly said in genuine gratitude.

"You're welcome, Andrea. By the way, we're going to have a seismic crew and some surveyors out here during the next few weeks but they won't bother us" Kendall said.

...After another twenty-five minutes of slow travel, we rounded the last bend in the road and Prominent House came into view once more. Mist and sheets of rain gave the darkened mansion a gloomy and mysterious appearance, almost as a foreboding warning to us.

"...There she is. My God, just look at the size of that house..." I said aloud, almost as if we'd driven upon a massive ocean liner, sitting within her berth.

No one replied to my comment.

"Ladies, I don't want any of you stepping into an elevator in this damn place. I'm sure there are elevators here but stay the hell out of them! This place is over a hundred years old and we don't know what degree of decay has taken place within the walls or main structure" I said sternly.

"Is that what the rope is for, Tim?" Helen asked.

"Yes, and God forbid, we need it," I said with a sigh.

"All of you have your cell phones?" Kendall asked.