Chapter 28

The next morning, David and Fingers were up with the sun, and grabbed a breakfast burrito at Mamma’s. They drove the scant few miles to the airport.

By mid-morning, Cap came by and told us that he’d arranged to lease a jet from a leasing company in Denver. It was a Gulfstream 2 or a G4 or a G17 or something. It came with a pair of pilots who would check out our guys and make sure they knew what they were doing. It would be at the Casper, Wyoming, main airport sometime in the early afternoon.

We could eventually buy the Gulfstream when we were satisfied it would meet with our needs. And, of course, that the leasing company would be satisfied that our pilots, Cap and Rob, wouldn’t ram the plane into the mountainside.

The plane couldn’t land at Whirlwind North Airport, of course, since there was a large debris field on the runway.

The cost for a leased Gulfstream, delivered almost immediately, with two pilots put a serious dent on my Black Amex card. The card wouldn’t break into small pieces, but it got dented. But hell, what was money for, anyhow, if not to get you from here to there when you needed to be THERE?

Jim insisted on staying with David and Fingers. He wanted to see what they all were doing, and ‘seeing it’ mentally would not be enough.

That was fine, he’d be surrounded by squads of Shoshone warriors and there’d be David and Fingers, too.

’Mom,’ the call came from our favorite eight-year-old veterinarian. ’I don’t want to stay up here. I want to go back and visit the Wokita in the Naabeehó Bináhásdzo.’

’Well, I guess you can go. RockDad will go with you and... ‘

’Moooooooommmmmm. That’s soooo uncool. J. gets to stay up here by himself, but I have to have RockDad with me?!’

’She’ll have just as many Navajo guards there as I have Shoshone guards here,’ Jim chipped in.

I conferenced in the Dads. ’Guys, the twins want to split up. Jim wants to stay in Wyoming and Alex wants to see the dogs in Burnside North. And I have to get back to Irving, Texas. I think they’ll be safe in both places. They’ll have Shoshone and Navajo to look after them. Not to mention Hunter and Snow. And their Wokitas. What do you think?’

Almost immediately, Rock said, ’What the hey. We’ve got people hunting us down everywhere. Why not split up and give them more of a chance of getting one of the kids?’ He had a point.

’Actually,’ said Bear, our usual voice of sanity, ’It makes a kinda sense. One, I think the Indians will take extra care of them. Two, nobody would ever expect it. And, most importantly, three, I think they can actually take care of any bad guys who’d ever come around.’

’And I’ll still be able to keep a watch on them. I say, we do it.’ That was my two cents. ’Lets give ‘em each an Apple phone. One of the new ones that will let you get on the internet.’

[Lexi, I was just about to suggest that.]

Red, your suggestion must have leaked into my brain a microsecond early.

Rock agreed to the plan, but added, ’Kids. I do not want to see any big internet charges on those phones. If you can agree to that, I’ll go along.’

’Sure RockDad,’ they said together.

...

So we got some elevenses at Mamma’s and the Whirlwind Crew headed off in different directions. Well, not exactly. Jim was going to stay here and ‘help’ Fingers and David at the local airport. Alex, the Dads, and I headed down to Casper, where we’d meet Cap and Rob and see our new airplane.

“I’m gonna miss that ol’ Dassault. We put a lot of miles on that old plane.” Cap was reminiscing.

“Yeah but the new Whirlwind Two is gonna be so much neater to fly,” said Rob Yar, his co-pilot.

“IF we get approved for it. I’m checked out on anything that’ll fly, but you’re not,” Cap said.

“Not yet,” countered Rob.

We agreed to fly a lop-sided triangle route. Casper, WY to Burnside North Interstellar (why not?) Airport, AZ to Irving, TX and then back to Denver CO. That final leg was dependent on Cap convincing the two ‘young whippersnappers’ (that was the borrowed pilots) that he could avoid the mountains. It rained all the way down to Navajo-land and we had to go around or over some large clouds. No problem.

Red filled me in on things while we were airborne.

[Lexi, the Saudi Oil Minister is coming to Washington in two weeks according to the Washington Post of the future. He’s going to meet with the whole crowd: all the major oil and gas producers, even the ones from Pemex in Mexico and Petroleos de Venezuela. I think you can get Zoot from Exxon to sneak you in the side door – even though you should be running the company these days. I mean ... you ARE going to be voted in at the next stockholder meeting. Not to mention people from the US Government the Oil Minister will be meeting.]