Duxford Airfield (the band) Pt. 10

"Let's look in his bedroom now" Helen said abruptly and walking past us with purpose.

"Is there nothing that's sacred, to you news reporter types, Helen Lunsford? Entering a man's bedroom? Oh, the shame of it all!" I retorted sarcastically.

"You're the only man that's ever complained about me walking into the bedroom, Tim. - Oh, that's right, you're a cultured married man of status now, I guess I forgot" Helen snapped back at me, just as sarcastically.

Andrea and Kendall began laughing uproariously at Helen's quick sarcasm and I suddenly felt color coming to my cheeks.

"Knocked-out in the first round, Tim! I guess you'd better get up pretty early if you're going to get the better of Miss Helen Lunsford, my love" Andrea said, smiling widely and taking my arm as we began following Helen.

"...The day isn't over yet, Andrea Millhouse, I still have twelve more hours left in this day to redeem myself" I said with resolve.

"My name isn't Andrea Millhouse" Andrea replied...

"...Oh my God, I'm out numbered, three to one" I sighed.

We went inside the small bedroom and found a queen size bed covered with half an inch of house dust and a handmade blanket that was decorated with a cowboy riding a wild bronco. There were photographs of grandchildren adorning the walls and an, eight by ten, color photo of a very lovely brunette lady with long hair, on the bedstead. This photo was very old and had obviously been the man's wife.

"...This is all so sad, it looks like he was a widower of many years" Helen said, now seated on the bed as she carefully studied the picture of the girl.

"I'm guessing that his grandchildren and the horses were about the only things left in this old cowboy's life that meant anything to him at all. He'd probably long since given away everything that he'd ever owned, I haven't even seen an old saddle laying around anywhere" Andrea suddenly said.

"He must have been the one driving the old Ford truck, I'll bet" Kendall interjected.

...I began looking inside the bedroom's closet and managed to find some cardboard boxes which were each about the size of a car battery. I set the boxes on the bed and slowly began taking down the photographs and carefully placing them in the two boxes. Kendall found dozens of old postal letters tucked away in the nightstand which appeared to be correspondence between the gentleman and his wife, over the course of many years.

None of us looked at any of the letters that were inside the open envelopes, that would have been disrespectful...

The ladies put all of the personal items of Friday Epps, that they could find, into the two boxes. This included a wristwatch, a set of silver spurs and some rodeo memorabilia. Also included was a small photo album consisting of young kids on horses, possibly at some type of summer camp.

"OK, I think we were right, here's a photo of Jimmy when he was quite young, so Friday probably was his dad. Jimmy was probably around twenty-five here, and this other guy may be one of his brothers. I'll bet the Countess had a lot of these big ol' corn fed boys working for her in the oil fields" I said holding up a framed photograph of two big cowboys with straw hats and leaning against a Chevy pick up.

The ladies all glanced quickly at the photo and nodded.

I gently set the framed picture in the box with the others.

After we had stripped the walls of all the photographs and emptied the chest of drawers, there really wasn't much else in the small dwelling to indicate that the man, Friday Epps, had ever existed...

...Twenty minutes later the four of us took the two boxes of photos and the framed picture of the young Countess back out to the yellow crew cab.

"Let's tear into those roast beer sandwiches now, girls, and eat outside here" I said as I jumped up and sat down on the hood of the yellow pick up truck.

"That is a wonderful idea, Tim" Andrea replied.

...We ate our lunch, sitting on the hood of the yellow pick up truck and talked of horses as we stared at the huge corral. Kendall received word over her two-way radio that we were now allowed to return to the entryway foyer of Prominent House. Earl Billingsly was waiting to talk with us.

Jumping down from the truck's hood, I swigged the rest of my soda and gathered everyone's trash and threw it in the cargo bed of the truck. Andrea and Helen still had portions of their lunches left at this point, which I viewed with envy. The roast beef sandwiches were wonderful and I suddenly wished I had another one to eat later...

All of us then jumped into the cab as Kendall started the engine.

We were almost done with Prominent House, once and for all now. In celebration, I was planning on taking all of us out to a nice Valentine's Day dinner later, including Kendall and her boyfriend if they cared to join us.

Minutes later, Kendall drove onto the new pad and slowly took us past the idle B-70s and other construction equipment. The equipment operators were eating their own lunch as they sat at fold up card tables on the pad that was being constructed.

Arriving at the entryway foyer of Prominent House, I quickly noticed that all of the white Sprinter vans were now gone, having whisked away the valuable paintings. Kendall quickly parked in front of the entryway steps and all of us went inside, Andrea, Helen, and myself wearing our backpacks.

From behind me, I now heard diesel engines snorting back to life again as the crews began work again on the new pad. Looking back from the open cathedral doors of the mansion, I noted twelve B-70s, two D-10 Caterpillars, and no less than six large compactors as they slowly rolled along the new pad. The vibrations from these massive machines were actually vibrating the floor of the entryway foyer, feeling like a small earthquake beneath our feet.

Walking into the main foyer, I saw that the oval tintype of the Countess was right where I'd left it, two days prior. It would go with us when we left today. I'd see that it went to a proper museum somewhere.

"Hello sir, good to see you again" I said extending my hand toward Earl Billingsly as I walked up to the mantle where the man was standing.

"Mister Donavan, good to see you again. Ladies, a pleasure as always." Earl said, firmly shaking hands with all of us.

Earl was wearing the same safety equipment that the rest of us were and he looked a lot more comfortable in a hard hat and orange safety vest than he did a suit and tie.

I could understand this...

"Well what are your first impressions of Prominent House, sir?" Andrea asked.

"You know, Andrea, I've flown over this place hundreds of times in our choppers, and I've always wondered what it would be like in here. For the first time, in a very long time, I'm completely at a loss for words. I've never seen anything like this" Earl said, looking upward at the cathedral ceiling and shaking his head in disbelief.

"Neither have we, sir" I replied.

"Mister Donovan, I stopped being 'sir' when I was discharged from the Army" Earl replied, with a nod.

"Well then Earl, 'Tim' works for me then" I answered.

"Fair enough" Earl nodded.

"Miss Lunsford, you'll be happy to know that all of the paintings were handled by the proper authorities, I can give you written confirmation of that, if you'd like.

"Thank you, Earl, I would really appreciate that. Thank you for taking the paintings seriously" Helen answered, relief, obviously in her voice.

"I'm an art lover also, Miss Lunsford" Earl nodded.

"Call me Helen, please, Earl" Helen responded.

"Yes ma'am" Earl replied.

"What are the plans now, for Prominent House, Earl?" I asked curiously.

"The answer to that question is way above my pay grade, Tim, I really have no idea, to be honest" Earl replied.

"Earl, we would like to make one more sweep of a couple bedrooms, belonging to the Countess and one of her trusted maids, who was a nanny. There's nothing of any real value in either of those two rooms but we may have missed something that would be beneficial to my book" Helen said.

"Kendall mentioned that, Helen, please be my guest. May I come with you? Maybe you could give me a guided tour along the way" Earl said.

"We'd like that, Earl!" Andrea said, interjecting herself into the conversation.

"We still have one more room to open, you guys, 441, remember? We never got around to opening that one room" Kendall said, leading us up the grand staircase.

"You did bring the key, right, Andrea?" Helen suddenly asked, slightly alarmed.

"Woe ye, of little faith, of course I brought it, Helen" Andrea said.

We opened room 441 and gasped at its size.

"LOOK AT THAT!" I said, looking upward.

"...Is that, is that a British B-24 Liberator, Tim?" Andrea asked, looking upward with me.

"Its a Lanc', just look at the size of that model!" I answered in awe.

"Its a what?" Helen asked.

"Its an Avro Lancaster, otherwise known as a Lanc' - they were a British four engine bomber with four Rolls-Royce Merlin engines. They could carry the eleven ton 'Tall Boy' bomb, they were one hell of a machine. My God, this model was completely built from scratch by a master tinsmith." I answered, still staring up at the suspended model, which had a six foot wingspan.

"Johnnie's Girl" was painted at a jaunting angle on each side of the bomber's nose and the amount of detail in the model was incredible. The left inboard engine had been made to look as if it had been shot out, complete with real holes in the cowling, oil stains, and a feathered propeller. All three of the other engines had propellers' which were actually pieces of circular shaped glass, making the engines appear as if they were running.

"...Earl, if I take this down, can we haul it in one of the company pick ups? This must go to a museum, it just has to" I said, still peering upward.

"Absolutely, Tim, I'll help you get it down. There has to be a ladder around here someplace" Earl replied, looking all around us.

"Wait, you guys, maybe this lets it down" Andrea said, pointing to a crank handle which led into the wall.

I walked over and slowly turned the crank, and the Lancaster began to descend on an intricate set of pulleys which were hidden within the paneling of the wall and ceiling. I continued turning the crank until the bomber was only six feet from the floor. I then began looking underneath the model.

I gently extracted each side of the landing gear, locking each of the struts into their downward position with a solid clicking sound. I was truly amazed by the craftsmanship of this one of a kind model.

I now studied the model intently for several seconds.

"...OK, I think I see what's going on now. I think we can detach the wings by removing a single hairclip pin, one, inside each of the wheel wells" I said, shining my flashlight upward into the wheel wells.

Earl now handed me his Leatherman and I quickly removed the two hairclip pins beneath the wings. I then held the wings in place, onto the fuselage, with both hands.

"Andrea, crank'er down slowly now. Earl, Kendall, each of you grab a wing but don't pull on anything, just keep the wings from falling onto the floor." I instructed.

When Andrea had lowered the model to be within five feet from above the floor, I got out from beneath the bomber but kept my hold on the center sections of each wing.

"OK, hang on to them wings, you guys. Let'er down slowly again, Andrea" I said as I gently separated the wing halves from the fuselage by a half inch.

"Hang on to 'those' wings, you mean, Tim" Helen corrected my English.

"Uh huh" I nodded to Helen as the two wing halves now slipped completely off the main body of the model and into my hands. Earl was now standing with the starboard wing and Kendall was holding the port wing while I held the two center sections.

I slowly released my hold on the two halves.

"Guys, those propeller arcs are glass, so try not to break them" I said as I unhooked the main fuselage from the lifting hook and held it under my arm.

I was now holding the main portion of the bomber.

The four of us slowly hauled the three sections of the bomber down the grand staircase and loaded it into the bed of Kendall's truck. I then ran back upstairs and grabbed some old blankets from inside the bedroom of the Countess to use as cushioning for the bomber.

Ten minutes later I had the Lancaster padded safely on all sides within the truck bed and was confident that the elaborate model wouldn't become damaged during transport. Tomorrow I would get with Helen and see if we could send the bomber home to Arizona City with the same courier service that had transported the memoirs of Mary Wickersham and the Countess.

Standing beside the truck bed now, the Avro Lancaster looked even more stunning in the daylight. The model was covered with considerable house dust, but even so, the craftsman's attention to detail was remarkable.

"I wonder how long it took for the builder to create this piece?" I asked aloud, staring at the three main sections of the aircraft, in total amazement.

"Let's go back to room 441 again, Tim" Andrea said, taking my hand as we followed the others.

We entered the room again and I now noticed a single bed by the window and also a work bench. Bothe surfaces were covered with several decades of house dust.

Atop the work bench was another model, obviously created by the same tinsmith. This aircraft was a P-40E of the same scale as the Lancaster, yet it only appeared to be ninety five percent completed. This model was built with the same extremely high quality of craftsmanship as the Avro Lancaster bomber. I was incredulous that someone was even capable of creating such a beautiful piece of work with nothing more than seemingly common everyday tools...

At the far end of the bench were what appeared to be hand crafted tools, there was an English-wheel in miniature size, several small hammers that looked like tiny body and fender hammers for a car, and three rolling benches for various gauges of metal.

"...This guy even made his own tools, just look at these, you guys!" I said excitedly.

...I spent the next twenty minutes gathering all the tinsmith tools and transferring them, as well as the P-40E, to the back of Kendall's truck. Andrea and Helen made a final walk through of Mary Wickersham's bedroom and also that of the Countess, with Earl Billingsly in tow.

Andrea and Helen also took down the large photographs of Danny, his father David, and uncle Philip. I carried these framed photographs down the grand staircase and carefully loaded them into the cargo bed of the truck, next to the Avro Lancaster.

The large cathedral doors of the entryway foyer were wide open now and the glorious sunshine was illuminating the entire front section of the mansion. The large earth moving machines could be seen and heard clearly through the open door now and their heavy reverberations could be felt throughout the entire open foyer.

I made one more dash up the grand staircase to room 441 for a valise full of more sheet metal working tools and a tiny lathe. Holding the valise in my right hand, and the small lathe in my left, I then spent a few minutes just glancing around the rest of the room. There were several pieces of antique exercise equipment and what appeared to be a small office for the Countess. I briefly looked inside her office but there was nothing of any real importance that I could see, at least not from a glance.

I took the valise and lathe down to Kendall's truck and then went back inside the foyer again to see Andrea, Helen, Kendall, and Earl as they stood talking in front of the huge mantle on the foyer floor. Andrea and Helen were in the process of getting approval for which exterior photographs that could be used in new Helen's book.

"Adam One, do you copy?" now came over the radios of Earl and Kendall.

"Affirmative, this is Adam One" Earl replied into his shoulder mounted mic.

"Earl, this is Craig, I need to take Rick over to the shop for a hose fitting, can I use this truck that's parked in front of the house, here? We'll only need it for about ten minutes" the voice said, in regard to Kendall's truck.

"Sure that's fine, Craig, just don't drive too fast, please, there are some very elaborate model airplanes in the bed that we want to preserve" Earl replied.

"Roger that, we'll be back in just a few minutes" came the quick reply.

"Honey, do you want the rest of your roast beef sandwich?" I asked Andrea as I sat on the ledge of the entryway windows and eyed the remainder of Andrea's lunch with envy.

"What?" Andrea asked incredulously, looking up from her camera.

"Do you want what's left of your roast beef sandwich?" I asked again.

"YES, I want it!" Andrea snapped, very annoyed for having been interrupted.

"K" I replied with a sigh.

"You can have the rest of mine, Tim" Helen quipped, also with annoyance.

"Thank you, Helen" I responded as I tore into Helen's lunch bag.

I now sat eating the last half of Helen's sandwich and suddenly noticed a dark blue hue that was very slowly crossing the blank wall at the top of the two grand staircases. The hue was in the shape of a sliver of moon. The sliver of moon seemed to be some kind of reflection from a prism, almost. By some fluke of nature, the sunlight was somehow reflecting off one of the windows and creating the colorful shape on the wall now.

How interesting, I sat thinking, as I continued to stare at the wall and chewing Helen's sandwich...

"Helen, did you want your raisins?" I called out after the sandwich half was gone.

"You can have them, Tim" Helen sighed without looking up from her camera. My wife simply shook her head and rolled her eyes at me.

Helen continued her conversation with Earl, Andrea, and Kendall, as the four of them stood in front of the mantle, discussing the photographs for several more minutes.

I sat eating Helen's raisins and watched the blue hue on the wall slowly transforming into a quarter moon as various colors were also becoming evident.

From the open foyer doors I suddenly heard male voices and two truck doors slamming. I then heard the sound of Kendall's truck start. A few seconds later I heard the vehicle slowly drive away.

...I still needed to load the large oval shaped tintype of the Countess, I reminded myself as I quickly glanced downward at the photograph on the floor beside me. I then peered further into Helen's lunch bag.

"Helen were you going to eat your barbeque chips?" I asked, holding up the bag.

"What, Tim?!" Helen snapped, highly irritated now.

"Don't eat the rest of her lunch, Tim! My God that's rude!" Andrea barked at me.

...I didn't hear either Helen or Andrea's reply.

I then dropped the bag of barbeque chips without even realizing it. I was in a complete state of shock now and transfixed by the wall up at the head of the two grand staircases, where I had just seen the strange blue and white hues a minute earlier.

Atop the two grand staircases, perfectly center, now stood the Countess in angelic form. Her arms and large cherub wings were held high above her head as she stood and peered down into the open grand foyer.

The Countess was attired with nothing more than a bronze crucifix hanging from a chained necklace...

With sudden relief quickly flooding over me, I abruptly realized that it wasn't actually the Countess herself, per se, but rather a large black and white image of her that had been incorporated into an elaborate mosaic of stained glasswork.

Somehow, this mosaic had mysteriously appeared from nowhere.

Looking closer, I quickly realized that the afternoon sunlight was inadvertently projecting this image of her upon the wall and that the large cherub wings had obviously been artificial, whenever the photograph had been taken.

"...You guys, come look at this, hurry!" I said, regaining my composure again and motioning the others with urgency.