Chapter Text
It was an ordinary day.
Jonathan drove them into town that morning. He wanted to pick up a part for the tractor and she had a meeting at the library. The women’s auxiliary had yet another meeting.
The road home from town was a straight fifty-five minutes of corn fields and nothing else. Just like every other time they’d taken the road home; Jonathan had the truck on cruise control. The radio was on and he was singing along. One hand sat on the steering wheel and the other around her shoulders. Her head was leaned against his chest as she listened to his chest rumble along as he sang in his deep voice.
It was the kind of moment where they could simply enjoy being together.
They heard the sound over the music. She had just enough time to pick her head up. Then a fireball landed in the south field on their right. In a flash fire exploded on the road ahead of them and then traveled just as quickly into the north field on the left creating an impenetrable wall of fire. Jonathan swerved the truck hard sending them into a ditch as fire erupted everywhere at once.
The truck came to a drastic stop as fire flared up filling their vision. They ducked down. Martha screamed.
As the moment passed, so did the flames. Then, smoke filled the truck.
“Out!” Jonathan screamed as he turned off the ignition.
The truck was tilted on an angle. Martha pulled on the door latch as she jerked the weight of her body against it without success. She finally got it opened only to have the door close back on her.
“Come,” he shouted at her from his side. He was already out of the truck and reaching for her.
Martha scooted back on her butt along the bench seat till her husband could reach her. He pulled her out into his arms. The corn filed was on fire and the heat was immediate. He carried her up out onto the road and away from the truck. She could feel the heat coming from both the north and south field.
Jonathan put her down saying, “Stay away from the truck!”
She watched him run back towards the truck as he removed his jacket. He ran towards the south corn field to put out the fire that was surrounding their truck.
The corn fields were mostly dry, just enough that they were catching fast. The fire was spreading fast. She stood helpless she watched it. It was only a matter of time.
She turned towards their farm which wasn’t far. They had installed a brand-new water pump not more than a year ago. It was a quarter of mile closer to their house and just off the roadside.
The fire on the dirt road ahead of her had mostly died down. She began to run before they lost either the north or south field.
She ran because she knew her husband. He’d get himself killed fighting a fire in a half-dried field with no tools in his hands. Batting at it with a denim jacket would only do so much.
She was hurting when she got to the water pump. The knee replacement had happened, healed, and she had use of it. But, her version of a run was at best a light jog.
The control panel was locked. She remembered the extra key that they hid after the last time they couldn’t find Jonathan’s keys. She found the fake rock sitting on the ground near the concrete pad that the pump sat on. She found it, opened it, and used the key.
She turned the pump on and gave it a moment. Once she was sure that the water was flowing, she turned the water on to the south field.
She saw the black smoke as the water did its work. Jonathan walked out of the south field. Even from a distance she could see that he was wet and dirty from soot.
His attention seemed to be drawn to the north field. He quickly began to wave his hands at her and pointed to the north field.
She stopped the water flow to the south field and turned the water on to the north field.
She put the key back while she waited for the water to do its work.
She turned the water off with a smile.
She began to walk back towards her husband. It took a few steps to realize that something was wrong. He was standing in the middle of road rooted to the spot staring off into the north field. He seemed to be mesmerized.
She began running again because her instincts started screaming at her. She moved as fast as her sometimes-not-so-great knee would allow.
She didn’t stop until she was at his side, holding his arm.
She was breathing heavy.
He was still mesmerized.
That’s when she turned her head and froze.
In the north field, surrounded by smoldering corn stalks and dirt was a metal ship. At it’s landing it had dragged its way across the filed and come to a stop in a mound of churned earth and corn plants. All of it still so hot that they could feel the heat on their faces.
“At first I thought maybe it might have been a satellite or maybe even a plane.” He shook his head as he quietly said, “It can’t be. It has to be the government. An experimental ship maybe.”
“It’s someone’s ship.”
A moment later, the metal ship made a big hiss making them both jump back. Steam vented from the sides and Jonathan grabbed his wife and pulled her close to his body.
A section of the ship popped up and pulled away, opening itself up. And then, for a long moment nothing happened.
“I thought little green men were going to jump out. I was going to shit myself.”
Martha turned to her husband. The regular streaks in is underwear came to her mind. She opened her mouth and took a breath in when she heard it.
A baby cried.
“No!” she howled as she charged forwards towards the opened little ship.
Jonathan ran after her. He caught her and grabbed her securely.
“Let me!” he growled. “It’s too hot! Let me do it!”
She fought him till he said, “You could hurt the baby! Let me!”
Finally, she stopped because her knee hurt. She reached back and pushed him forwards.
He didn’t hesitate to run over the hot ground towards the opening.
She got as close as she could, twenty feet or so. The metal of the ship was so hot that heat waves were rolling off its surface.
Jonathan got close and quickly peaked to look inside. He pulled away and held his already burnt jacket in front of him. He dashed forwards in a quick move, he threw the jacket against the ship, leaned against it, and reached inside. The jacket caught on fire just as he pulled away with a red bundle in his hands.
He ran back towards Martha, as the hot earth underfoot became too much. As he got closer, she realized that red bundle really was a blanket wrapped baby.
She took the baby from him the moment she could.
Jonathan put and arm around them both as she looked down at the baby’s face. He moved them all towards the safety of the road. She moved mechanically as she stared down into the baby’s perfect little face. Even over the smoke she could smell the soft, sweet baby smell of him.
“I feel like I just burnt the soles off my boots!”
“Jonathan?”
“What?”
“I think I’ve fallen in love again with another man.” As soon as the words were out of her mouth she realized. She pulled aside the cool, silken red cloth that the baby was wrapped in. “Yeah, it’s a boy.”
“Martha,” Jonathan said shaking his head.
“He’s perfect,” she marveled.
The light caught the baby’s eyes just so. For a moment they looked like the lake water when she stood on the mountain on bright sunny days.
“He’s our protector. This is the warrior we’ve been waiting for.”
“Martha aliens don’t look like us. This poor kid was probably put in there by NASA or the Air Force. Maybe the Ruskies. They’ll be here any minute.”
She smiled down at the beautiful angel in his arms. “No one is coming. There aren’t any markings on that ship. And if I was going to put my baby in a space ship and send it somewhere, it would be to a populated area so that I knew that my baby would be found.”
She looked into Jonathan’s face as she again said, “No one is coming.”
“Martha,” he said in that tone that said that she was winning but he wasn’t all the way there yet.
“Let’s get home,” she insisted. “You can come back with a tarp and the tractor. Fetch the ship and then the truck.”
“Martha what if….
She turned and met him directly. She didn’t hesitate to say, “We don’t live that far out. Someone always drives down this road, at least once a day. Exactly how long do you think we have?”
He shook his head. His emotions played out on his face as he ground his teeth and then finally laughed a little.
She patted his chest saying, “I just don’t understand why your first instinct is to always argue. You know you aren’t going to win. The wife. Is. Always. Right.”
“Yes, wife,” he said dutifully.
She began walking towards their home. It was only half a mile to their front door.
“So,” Jonathan said, “What should we do with the space ship in the corn field?”
“Water it again and throw a tarp over it.”
“I could bury it out in the back forty.”
“No, we need to keep it close. One day, Clark might ask questions.”
“Really? Clark? Not John Clark?”
“John Clark was the name of a warrior needed during a long and brutal war. And, Clark will guide us down the path of peace.”
She smiled down at her son. “It’s a good name. Our son will be a good warrior. We just have to teach him the right things.”
“What do we tell people? We didn’t exactly find him in the cabbage patch.”
She thought for a moment and said, “I have a cousin. Maybe she was careless. Unmarried. Can’t raise him on her own.”
“You’re scary good at this.”
“Thinking fast keeps you out of jail.”
“Also, a scary response.”
Jonathan put his arm around his wife. “Maybe it’s best if little Clark doesn’t find out about all the handcuffs in our past.”
“We’re thinking of former Sheriff Harding or our private fun times in the bedroom? Or, both?”
“Yes, my smart-ass wife, both. He doesn’t need to know everything about us.”
She looked down at little Clark.
So happy.
So innocent.
“I’m going to be a good mom,” she promised her son.
Jonathan laughed a little. “There was never any doubt. Never a single doubt.”
Fin.