Sample Chapter For A WINDOW IN TIME by Carolyn Lampman

Time is a point caged within a circle

To be released in the end by man,
Striking onward toward the future,
Only to come ’round again.

July 16, 2005

“All right, Chuck, let her go.”

“Oh, God,” Brianna whispered as she closed her eyes and swallowed nervously. How in heaven’s name had Linda talked her into going up in a hot air balloon?

“Heights bother you?” the balloonist asked with hint of amusement in his voice.

“No.”

“Then open your eyes, or you’ll miss the best part.”

“I’ll wait until we’re in the air.”

“We already are.”

“What?” Brianna cautiously lifted one eyelid and peeked over the side of the basket. There had been no feeling of lift-off, but the crowd below on the soccer field already looked more doll-like than human.

“See, it isn’t so bad, now is it?”

She gave him a weak smile. “I—I guess not.”

“Are you sure you’re not afraid of heights?” the balloonist asked, raising an eyebrow.

“Not usually. In fact, that’s why I’m here. My friend Linda was supposed to be your passenger, but she got cold feet at the last minute.” Brianna glanced uneasily at the ground again. “Actually my toes aren’t feeling exactly toasty right now either.”

He chuckled. “Then don’t look down. The view is better in the sky anyway.”

Obediently, she lifted her gaze to the other balloons that had risen with them. “Oh!”

Bobbing along like so many magic bubbles, their jewel-like colors were bright against the early morning sky. Brianna’s fear left as suddenly as it had come. The wind brushed her cheek in a caress as exhilarating as a lover’s kiss, and she felt a peculiar rush of euphoria.

“Beautiful isn’t it?”

“It’s incredible,” she said in an awestruck voice. She jumped in alarm a moment later as the propane burner roared to life right next to her, and a huge flame shot upward into the balloon.

“Sorry,” he said. “I forgot to warn you. This darn thing can scare the pants off of you if you aren’t expecting it.”

Brianna looked at the burner accusingly. “How often do you have to do that?”

“It depends. Don’t worry, you’ll get use to it.”

“I wouldn’t count on it.”

He grinned and bent to adjust a gauge on one of the tanks on the floor. “I’m surprised your friend decided not to come along. She seemed really excited about the whole idea at the rally dinner last night.”

“Oh, she was, right up until she thought about actually going up in a balloon. Since it’s the 25th anniversary of the Riverton Balloon Rally, her boss figured sponsoring a balloon and sending along one of his employees would be a great publicity stunt. When he offered to pay over-time for it, Linda volunteered. The actual logistics of it didn’t hit her until she tried to go to sleep last night.”

Brianna risked a glance over the edge of the basket. The soccer field was behind them, the crowd reduced to tiny ant-like creatures in the distance. “I never realized balloons moved so fast.”
“When you’re standing on the ground they don’t. It’s a matter of perspective, I think.”

“I suppose.” Brianna looked at the pilot curiously. Though the man was a total stranger he reminded her a little of her favorite cousin, with all that curly red hair. “You know, in all the excitement, I’m afraid I didn’t catch your name.”

“Thomas Shaffer, aeronaut extraordinaire at your service ma’am,” he said, extending his hand. “My friends call me Tom.”

She returned his smile as they shook hands. “Brianna Daniels.”

The balloon gave a sudden jerk, then shot straight up and veered off to the left. Tom reached up to adjust the rigging, but the balloon continued on its wayward course. “Damn, we’re caught in an up-draft. I really thought I had a chance of winning today.”

Brianna looked at the other balloons huddled together in the distance and suddenly felt very alone. “I thought you could steer this thing. Can’t you adjust the flaps or something?”

“I have some control, but we’re pretty much at the mercy of the wind.”

“I guess that’s the whole idea isn’t it?”

Though his disappointment was obvious, he didn’t look angry. “Oh well, might as well try for distance then,” he said cheerfully.

“Is it always this warm?” Brianna asked as she took off her windbreaker.

“That’s just the hot air from the balloon. Relax and enjoy the flight. If we’re lucky, it’ll be a long one.”

“I’m not sure I want it to be. What if we get lost?”

“Don’t worry. My brother is on the chase crew. He’ll follow us through a swamp if he has to. See, there they are.”

He pointed to a bright yellow pickup driving along the highway beneath them. “He loves the challenge of the chase. Hey, is that a road block up ahead?”

“Must be,” Brianna said. “Look at all those fire trucks. I wonder what happened.”

“I don’t know, but they seem to be headed toward that odd looking building over there. Do you know what it is?” A veritable army of men and trucks swarmed around the metal structure.

“It has to do with crude oil,” Brianna said. “I think it might be a sour gas plant, but I’m not sure.”

As they drew closer, Tom pulled a pair of binoculars out of his backpack on the floor. “Uh oh,” he said, training them on the building below. “Everyone down there is wearing air packs and face masks.”

“Maybe there’s a leak somewhere. I don’t know exactly what sour gas is, but I do know it’s poisonous.”

“I’m not taking any chances. Let’s see if we can gain some altitude.”

For the first time Brianna was glad when the propane burner roared to life. As they lifted higher into the air, the wind caught the balloon and carried it south at an even faster rate. “Do we have enough propane to keep us going?” she asked nervously.

“Sure hope so. I always carry two tanks just in case I have a chance to go for the distance record.”

“How far can we go?”

“Today, probably not much more than forty miles, but you never can tell. One day last winter we flew almost two hundred. Good Lord,” he said, gazing off into the distance. “Am I seeing things? Those cliffs must be seven hundred feet high.”

“That’s Beaver Rim.” Brianna looked at the familiar landform with new eyes. It stretched for miles in either direction and looked incredibly high. “A-are we going over it or should we just land?”

Tom picked up the binoculars again and looked back toward the gas plant. “I don’t know. It doesn’t look like the chase crew is going to get around that roadblock. Is there another road somewhere?”

“Well...they could go around through Riverton and Lander then backtrack to us from Sweetwater Station.”

“How long will that take?”

“An hour and a half or so.”

“Where does this other road come in at?”

“Over there.” She pointed toward a ribbon of highway snaking down off the rim to the east.

Tom turned his binoculars that way. “Uh oh. Looks like there’s a road block there, too.” He scanned the cliffs ahead. “Wow, I’ll bet the thermals are wild this time of year. Anybody ever do any hang gliding off it?”

“I used to have a friend who did,” Brianna said. “He said it was one of the best places he’d ever been. Are we going over?”

“I don’t think we have much choice.” Tom reached up and fired the propane burner. “Chuck can’t get to us if we set down here. We’ll have to land on top somewhere.”

“Do you think it’s safe?”

“We’ll be fine. The air currents off the face of those cliffs will probably lift us up and over without any help from me. Better put on one of these just in case,” Tom said, handing her a crash helmet.

To Brianna’s anxious mind, they were moving toward Beaver Rim frighteningly fast. Though it was actually almost ten minutes, it seemed like much less before the cliffs loomed menacingly above them.

Suddenly, the balloon jerked and danced crazily for several seconds. When it righted itself, the wind seemed to double in velocity and they headed up at an alarming rate of speed.

“Hang on,” Tom yelled.

Brianna felt like she was on a wild carnival ride as they zoomed upward. Her stomach turned cartwheels and a sensation of vertigo made her light-headed. Tom’s whoop of exultation was a good indication that she was alone in her distress.

Their speed diminished immediately as they popped over the top of the rim a few seconds later. Brianna spared a glance for her companion and was unsurprised to see his eyes sparkling with excitement.

“Wow!” he said. “That was great.”

“If you say so.”

A wide grin split his face. “Do I detect a note of disagreement there?”

“Let’s just say I didn’t inherit my great-grandfather’s love for balloons.”

“Your great-grandfather?”

Brianna nodded. “Great-great, actually. He was a balloonist during the Civil War. That’s really why I let Linda talk me into this. I wanted to see what ballooning was like.” She looked back at the edge of Beaver Rim ruefully. “I don’t think there’s much of my Grandfather Daniels in me.”

“Not Lucas Daniels!”

“Yes, as a matter of fact. You’ve heard of him?”

“Heard of him! He’s from my hometown in Missouri. The library had a copy of his journal, and I’ve read it so many times I practically have it memorized. I named this balloon Dream Chaser after his.”

“You’re kidding.”

“Nope. He mostly wrote about his spy missions for the Union army. It was uncanny the way he seemed to know how a battle was going to turn out before it was even fought. I used to want to grow up and be just like him. I already had the hair,” he said with a grin as he ran his fingers through his coppery locks.

“He was a redhead?”

“According to his journal he was. Seemed to think it was important for some reason.”

“I should have known. In my family we call red hair the Daniels’ curse.” She touched the blonde French braid that hung down beyond the bottom of the helmet. “In the right light you can even see red in mine. Have you ever seen a picture of Lucas?”

“No, do you have one?”

Brianna shook her head. “Not yet but a distant cousin of my father’s and I have been trading genealogy information. She’s sending me his wedding picture. If you’ll leave your address with me, I’ll mail you a copy.”

“Hey, that’d be great. Thanks. Have you ever read his journal?”

Brianna shook her head. “I never even knew he had one.”

“The only place I’ve ever seen it is the library at home. He donated the money to have the place built and set up a trust to keep it going. His only stipulation was that people be allowed to read his journal. They’ve made copies now to preserve the original.”

“Really? I’d love to read it sometime.”

“Maybe I can get you a copy. I can’t believe you’re actually his descendant.”

“It’s a weird coincidence isn’t it? I was named after his wife Brianna.”

“Lucas called her Anna,” Tom said with a faraway look. “He loved her, you know. It was obvious even to a kid like me who was more interested in spies and balloons than girls.”

Brianna smiled as she touched the antique locket at her throat. “This was hers. I wore it today for luck.”

“Seems to have worked. This is the best flight I’ve had in a long time.” Tom glanced around as he reached up and fired the burner. “Do you have any idea where we are?”

“That’s Split Rock over there,” Brianna said, pointing to a granite mountain to the south. A V-shaped notch in the top was obvious even from this distance. “Are we going to land?”

“No reason to yet. We have a great tail wind and plenty of altitude. I’d like to stay in the air as long as possible so Chuck can find us. Where’s the highway?”

Brianna pointed to the west. “Somewhere over there I think.”

“Hmm.” Tom pulled a map out of his backpack and studied it intently. “That puts us about here then.” He looked at the instruments in front of him. “If this wind keeps up we should intersect with the highway just about the time we run out of fuel.”

“How convenient.”

He flashed her an impudent grin. “Of course. I planned it that way. Want a granola bar?”

“Sure.” Brianna watched as he once again delved into the backpack near her feet at the bottom of the gondola. “What else do you have in that thing?”

“A little of everything. You never know what you’ll run into on...now that’s weird. The barometer is going wacko.” All at once the balloon shuddered and took off at an alarming rate of speed. “What the hell?” Tom reached up and pulled on a rope. It seemed to have little effect.

“Wh-what’s happening?” Brianna couldn’t help the quaver of uncertainty that entered her voice.

“I don’t know. I’ve never seen anything like this befo— Jesus, what’s that?”

Brianna gasped in horror. A huge black cloud roiled in the distance. As she watched a giant vortex appeared in the center, and a nightmare shrieking filled the air. Inexorably they were pulled toward the ghastly thing. A hysterical bubble of laughter rose in Brianna’s throat. Linda’s boss was going to have to pay her double overtime and a half for this.

“Hang on tight,” Tom yelled, pulling on the rigging attached to the main valve. “I’m going to try to drop below that thing.”

Brianna grabbed the support with one hand and the edge of the gondola with the other. The hiss of escaping air was lost in the horrible screeching like a thousand tormented souls. The balloon swayed sickeningly as Tom tried to wrench it free of the mighty force that drew them relentlessly forward.

The bright silk balloon abruptly disappeared into an odd blue mist and a scream of pure terror burst from Brianna’s mouth. A sudden bolt of brilliant white light surrounded them, and the world became a crackling eternity of burning pain. She tried to back away, but her feet became tangled in something, and she felt herself falling backward. Spots of vermilion swam before her eyes as she slipped into blessed darkness.