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"This is not my handwriting!" Abigail said insistently, staring at the two notes Wilbur and Orville had handed her..
Orville sputtered, "Then who in tarnation....."
"Look!" Abigail pointed at the sky.
The brothers looked up. They saw the glider, dipping and turning, hundreds of feet up in the air.
"That's who wrote the notes!" Abigail said.
"Who?" Wilbur yelled.
"Michael!" Abigail said, holding her hands near her heart. Then, quoting from his note to her, she added softly...."waiting to prove my soaring love for you!"
"The glider!" Orville gasped. "Will, that's our glider!"
"And it's really flying!" Will shrieked.
Wilbur and Orville turned their horses and took off across the field. Abigail followed slowly in her carriage. Bruce, in the wagon, reached the hill's bottom and followed Abigail.600Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡeKgtgOjevT
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High in the sky, Michael decided he'd proved his point. It was time to get this thing on the ground. But that proved to be a lot harder than he'd expected it to be.
Even after so short a flight, Michael had a good sense of how to make the glider go left or right. The wind gusts had sent it up three or four times already. Down was a horse of a different color.
He tried moving his body into every angle he could manage. He did manage to dip once, but it turned out to be just the beginning of a long, slow rise.
"Doesn't this thing every go down?" Michael screamed.
As if answering him, the wind suddenly died.
"As if I had to ask," he muttered.
The glider was indeed on its way down. Michael wasn't plummeting headfirst, as he had at the start of the flight. But he was moving even faster, and he was headed straight for a clump of trees.600Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡRglFWh5Lpz
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On the ground, his audience was assembled. There was nothing any of them could do but wait and see how it would turn out.
Orville cupped his hands and hollered, "Get your weight back!"
"Michael!" Abigail yelled. "Be careful!"
"Hang on, Michael," Bruce called.
But they all knew that Michael couldn't hear a word they were saying. And all they could do was watch and wait.
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The glider was moving even faster now. Michael realized he'd completely lost control. When the trees were less than 50 yards away, he readied himself for the worst.
"Shazbot!" he said, as if it somehow summed up his whole life.
The glider crashed into the trees, pieces of wing flying off in all directions. There were loud sounds of ripping and crunching. Rushing to the scene, Bruce prayed that was only canvas and wood he'd heard, not flesh and bone.
They all ran to the trees. Bruce got there first. He saw canvas and broken struts in the trees and all over the ground. Then he spotted the pilot, sprawled over a big piece of wing.
"Michael!" Bruce ran over to him, as Abigail and the brothers approached the clearing. "No, Michael! You can't die!" Bruce cried, fighting his way through the wreckage.
Michael still had the straps around his arms and waist, but they'd been torn loose from the glider itself. Bruce pushed his way to Michael, tears running down his face.
He grabbed the man's feet and tried to pull him free of the wreckage.
"You can't die!" he kept repeating. "You can't die!"
He tugged at the feet. Michael's head fell to the ground.
"Yeeoww!"
Bruce quit tugging. "Michael?" he said tentatively.
Michael moaned. Bruce let go of his feet, sending them thumping to the ground.
"Easy, kid," Michael mumbled. "Do you always treat your friends like this?"
Bruce threw himself over Michael's body and hugged him. Michael intended to return the hug. The best he could do was lift one arm and let it fall over Bruce's back.
"Michael?" Bruce sobbed. "I saw you crash! I thought...."
"I know, kid, I know," Michael whispered. "I'm glad to see you, too."
"Michael!" Abigail said lovingly.
Michael opened his eyes. There was Abigail, standing over him.
Bruce got up and helped Michael get slowly to his feet. The Wright Brothers stood by, trying to make some sense out of what was going on.
When Michael was standing, Abigail threw her arms around his neck and splattered his face with kisses.
"Michael," she said between kisses. "It was wonderful....your soaring love....are you all right?"
Michael freed himself from her clutches. "A little worse for wear, darling," he said. "But now I know more than ever that I want to marry you."
She stepped back, eyes wide with astonishment. "Marry me!" she said.
"We'll grow old together," Michael said. "You and me and the ten children."
"The....ten.....children?" Abigail said uncertainly.
"We'll be deliriously happy," Michael went on. "Traveling all over the country...."
"Traveling?" she said weakly.600Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡf6DZR33GQR
"Of course," Michael said. "I'm going to take this glider show to every town in the U.S. of A!"
He turned and winked at Bruce, as Abigail backed off in the direction of her carriage. Wilbur and Orville, who had watched the whole scene, stepped up to him.
"First you steal our glider," Wilbur said angrily, "and wreck it! Then you steal our girl!"
"We ought to shoot you right here!" Orville threatened.
Michael looked from Wilbur to Orville, then back to Wilbur again. His eyes crinkled. His mouth began to turn up. Then his face broke into a grin. Orville and Wilbur grinned, too.
"Dang!" Wilbur said, extending his hand. "That was beautiful!"600Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡFTvv2Y0U7T
"Thanks," Michael said, shaking hands with him.
"We owe you a lot," Orville said, offering his hand. Michael shook it.
"You know," Wilbur said, "the problem you had up there was lift."
Orville picked up a piece of the broken wing. "We have to make the elevators a little bigger," he said.
"And mount them further forward," Wilbur added. "Don't you think so?"
They were examining pieces of the wreckage now. Bruce and Michael---and Abigail apparently---were completely forgotten.
"I was thinking," Orville said, "If we stacked the wings.....maybe extended them a bit...."
"But we can't test it here," Wilbur said. "We'll need a longer run and steady winds."
"There's that place Chanute recommended," Orville said. "In North Carolina. Kitty Hawk, wasn't it?"
They drifted away, carrying pieces of the wreckage with them. Bruce and Michael looked at each other. They both smiled. Then Michael checked the Omni.
"Green light, kid," he said happily.
Bruce's smile faded. He looked upset. "We can't leave now," he said.
"We have to, kid. We're due back in France, 1918. Remember?"
"But they're about to invent the airplane, Michael! We can be there! We can help!"
"The light's green, kid. We've given them all the help they need."
Bruce looked after the brothers, riding away on their horses. He sat on the ground, very close to tears.
"Look, I know it's hard," Michael said tenderly, sitting next to him. "Nobody knows it better than I do. But when you feel this way, you have to think of all the interesting people and places in front of you, who really need your help."
He stood up. He offered his hand to help Bruce stand up along with him.
"We're Voyagers, kid. We've got responsibilities."
Bruce gave him a fake smile and nodded.
"Besides," Michael said brightly. "aren't you curious to see what all this has done for history?"
The sadness slowly gave way to curiosity. "Yeah," Bruce said. "Yeah, I do."
"Michael?" They turned to see Abigail sitting in the carriage. She was facing off to the side, unwilling to look him in the eye with the bad news.
"Michael," she repeated. "I thought this thing over. I'm not sure that I'm ready for marriage."
She turned to face her daring suitor. There was no one there. She ran her eyes over the whole scene of the wreckage.
The man and the boy had disappeared. "Well! I never....!" Abigail said out loud.
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