Morningstar/Alignment by Keith Trimm (people reading books txt) 📕

From behind, he heard the unmistakable sounds of police sirens and turned to see two vehicles passing through the pasture gate. An overwhelming feeling of relief struck him, knowing help was on its way. Sheriffs’ car was followed by his neighbors’ red grain truck, which was more suited to the muddy ground with its wide tires.

Just then, the bottom gave way in the sinkhole, and the rear of the tractor fell in leaving the entire support of its weight on the chain. The pickup truck jolted, quickly picked up momentum and slid towards the hole. The closer it slid, the quicker the pace picked up, and the more terrified the boy became.

Grasping the door handle, he lifted it and shoved out. He was too late to get out, and the truck was pulled into the hole disappearing from view. Jesse’s mother, riding in the patrol car, could hear the sound of metal on metal as tears welled up in her eyes again.

Part 2

Two hours passed until the sheriff could locate a construction crane and transport it out to the accident scene. The rural fire fighters did not have the type of heavy equipment necessary to retrieve such a heavy object from so far below, and had to scramble to find something suited for a job of this nature. The pickup truck had come to rest on top of the submerged tractor; the truck half buried in the soft mud.

By this time the rain had slowed to a drizzle and the scene was a mess of emergency vehicles, emergency personnel, and horrified bystanders. The hole receded twenty-five feet and the vehicles at the bottom came to a final rest, no longer sinking deeper into the Earth. The crane was belching black smoke and the operator swung it into position over the pickup truck. A hook was attached to the cable, and a man hung from a strap attached to the hook, dangling precariously above the hole. Jesse’s mother cried as she watched the man descend into the hole to retrieve her son.

"Ten more feet!" a fireman yelled to the crane operator. The cable slowed its descent and everyone watched the action unfold. "Hold it!" he yelled and the cable came to a halt. The man on the cable unhooked himself and balanced on the drivers’ side of the truck cab. He bent over and wiped mud away from the window trying to see the boy inside.

A moment later he yelled, "He’s alive!" to the amazement of the crowd. The man tried in vain to open the door, which was jammed shut in the crash.

"We have to take the whole thing out!" he yelled to the sheriff standing watch over the entire operation. Hearing this, the sheriff ran to the crane operator and spoke with him briefly. The operator nodded his head and the sheriff returned to his post alongside the sinkhole.

"Can you tie the cable around the axle?" the sheriff yelled to the man in the hole.

"Yes," he replied and he returned to the task at hand.

Minutes later the rescuer gave the ok and he climbed back up onto the cable, keeping his feet on the steel ball above the hook. The sheriff gave the signal and the submerged truck jerked hard almost knocking off the man on the cable. A moment later the truck gave out a groan as it lifted out of the pool. Mud poured out from the bed and cab as it slowly rose from the depths below.

"Hold it!" yelled the sheriff to the crane operator, noticing the chain was still attached to the bumper of the pickup truck and sunken tractor. The sheriff gave the signal to lower the truck again and stopped it when the chain went slack. The rescuer then leaned out over the hood and disconnected the chain letting it disappear into the mud below. The crane lifted again taking up cable, until the truck was clear of the hole. It then slowly swung to the left, hovering over solid ground. The sheriff waved his hand and the crane operator gently set the truck down.

The firemen and sheriff’s deputies rushed to the vehicle and tried in vain to open the doors that were jammed shut from the force of impact. One of the firemen, axe in tow, broke out the glass on the passenger side window allowing the firemen to extract Jesse to safety. The boy was laid to the ground conscious and lucid.

"Mother!" he yelled to the crowd wiping mud from his eyes.

"Jesse!" his mother shouted back as she pushed through the crowd. She knelt down; her heart filled with relief as a huge weight was lifted from her spirits.

"I’m sorry," he cried. "I tried to get him out."

"I know," his mother replied, tears streamed down her face.

The boy was set on a stretcher and placed into the ambulance. His mother watched as the ambulance drove away with her son. She wandered back over to the sinkhole and looked down into the pool knowing her husband was still under the tractor beneath the pool of muddy brown water.

It was getting late and the gray skies had started to turn red. It was difficult to see anything now and she asked for a ride to the hospital. Over the horizon the sun, hidden behind the clouds, was setting for the evening. The task of body recovery would have to wait until morning. The crowd dispersed and night set in.

Part 3

The next morning an attempt was made to recover the dead man’s body. The skies were now clear and the storm had blown over the night before. The sun, rising over the horizon, reflected in the pool at the bottom of the sinkhole shooting a shimmer of red light against the side of the pit. The water was still.

Two men were lowered into the hole on the crane wearing fishing waders and rubber boots. Attached to the giant hook on the end of the cable were several heavy-duty construction chains capable of supporting the weight of the tractor.

Penetrating the surface of the mud, the men felt around in the slime for key places to attach the chains to the frame securing it as best they could. They signaled the crane to lift, and it groaned and whined as it pulled the massive beast out of the sucking mud, into daylight.

The tractor rose out of the hole dripping mud and water back into the pit from whence it came. It was swung out of the hole and was placed next to the smashed pickup truck. The truck was still covered with drying mud and dents covered its surface. Frustrated, the sheriff stood alongside the rim of the hole with his hands on his hips, shaking his head in dismay. He stared blankly down at the muddy pool below where the tractor once was.

On the left bank of the hole something caught his eye. It looked like a cavern carved into the north bank of the crater. The cavern was revealed when the mud level dropped after the tractor was removed from the pool. The tunnel was a graceful half-moon shape penetrating into the side extending less then ten feet above the surface. Mud had entered into the cavern, and it was slowly draining back into the main sinkhole. "Was this the reason for the sinkhole?" the sheriff thought to himself. "An underground cavern?" This required more investigation than he was capable of.

A bucket attachment originally designed to haul concrete was connected to the crane and dropped into the mud below with a splash. They found it useful in removing the sediments one cubic yard at a time quickening the pace of recovery considerably. The bucket took out large bites reducing the quantities of mud very quickly, draining the cavern even faster, and revealing how massive it actually was.

It wasn’t long before the bucket found pay dirt grabbing the dead man’s leg in its steel jaws. The sheriff gave a signal and the body was hauled from its Earthly grave, dripping and lifeless. Its arms dangled down like a rag doll in a dog’s mouth shaking back and forth with the motion of the crane. The long arm swung to the right and hovered above solid ground, releasing the body, letting it crumple to the ground. The sheriff called the ambulance to pick up the body, meanwhile covering it with a tarp so bystanders and family members would not see it.

With the remains recovered, the situation was now officially over as far as the law was concerned. The sheriff though had a personal curiosity as to the nature of the cavern carved into the side of the hole. The amount of mud extracted from it led him to believe it was of a massive size needing to be investigated by someone with knowledge of geology.

A call was made to the University of Kansas geology department to see if he could contact an interested party.

Part 4

Two days later a car with Kansas State plates and a university logo painted on the side pulled up to the farmhouse to meet the sheriff. Two men exited the vehicle and approached the sheriff who was standing alone in his brown and black uniform. One man put out his hand.

"Dr. Stan West," he stated shaking the officer’s hand.

"Chad Hine, grad assistant," the other man said. He did not offer his hand.

"I’m glad you decided to come out," the sheriff told them, "This is a long way from Manhattan."

"No problem," Dr. West replied, "This is my favorite part of the job," he said with a smile.

The men walked to the sheriff’s car, which was parked in front of the farmhouse and crawled inside. The sheriff started the car and pulled away from the farmhouse, driving down the narrow gravel road. The tires made a grinding sound as the passed over the rocks and gravel.

"I don’t suppose you guys get to many calls like this?" the sheriff asked as he drove past the hay-barn.

"We get calls on all sorts of things," the grad student replied, "Usually someone thinking they have struck oil or gold, looking for confirmation,"

"This is no gold," the officer said laughing, "But damn peculiar!"

"This cavern you mentioned. Is there anything out of the ordinary about it?" the grad student asked.

"Two things," The sheriff replied extending his first two fingers on his right hand. " First you don’t get many sinkholes in good pasture land, and two, the cavern is too symmetrical."

The two teachers from the university were quite impressed with the backwater sheriff’s scientific curiosity and judgment.

"Symmetrical?" the doctor asked.

"Shaped like a thirty foot pear, skinny on the top and wide at the bottom," he replied, keeping his eyes on the pasture ahead through the windshield. They had just past through the cattle gate and were on the last leg of the journey to the work site.

All that remained at the accident scene were the crane, and a backhoe. The backhoe was equipped with a front mount blade that aided in dispersing the extracted mud across the pastureland. The only sounds they could hear as they approached the scene were the clanking of metal machines and the rumble of the engines on the wind swept prairie.

"What a mess," the doctor thought to himself as they parked alongside the crane. The men exited the car and the sheriff walked to the rear of the vehicle, popping the trunk, revealing three sets of waders and boots inside piled in a heap.

"You’ll want to grab a pair," he said to the men and they