Chapter Three
Clark leaned back in the front passenger seat of the four-by-four as Walter drove them at a comfortable clip down the straight country road. He closed his eyes, and tried to count the different smells of the farm country through which they were driving. He had named several species of wildflower and field weed to himself, when they passed a field where a number of cattle were grazing. The odor was overpowering. He opened an eye, to see a farmer working with shovel and pitchfork to make a high manure pile even higher. Whew! It was...
"Mmm-mmm. Smell that dairy air!" said Walter.
Clark stared at him, and then dissolved into mirth. "*You*," he said between chuckles, "were obviously raised on a farm. Talk about a phrase with a double-meaning..."
Walter grinned back at him. "Nah. But I was raised in a country town, and there were a lot of farms nearby. I enjoy the smells of the outdoors."
"So do I," said Clark. "But there *are* limits!"
"So. You from the country?"
"I was raised in Kansas. In a town called Smallville, which earned its name. My folks have a farm there. We usually had one or two cows, a horse, some pigs and chickens; but mostly we farmed hay, and seed crops. My dad's getting along in years, so my folks lease the land out now, and live off the proceeds."
"Krypton to Metropolis by way of Kansas. That's quite a side trip. I remember Emma telling about it. How old were you when Krypton was destroyed?"
"Of course Mom and Dad don't know my exact birthday; but I was only a few months old when they found my spaceship, and pulled some strings to have me adopted." He heaved a deep sigh. "Walter, I couldn't have happened across a more wonderful set of parents, not if I'd planned it."
"Did you come straight to Metropolis after high school?"
"Oh, no. I spent a summer working for the Smallville Press, then attended Midwestern U. After a journalism degree from there, I traveled a lot; decided to see the world."
"A wanderlust, hmm?"
"Well, it started out that way, but during my teenage years I had discovered my superpowers, and I always tried to help out if there was trouble. Problem was, my super-helping would get noticed, and then I'd have to move on to avoid being recognized."
"You must have gotten around a *lot*."
"Suffice to say, I can order dinner in three hundred forty-seven dialects." He grinned as Walter's eyebrows went up. "I even worked at newspapers here and there. But I didn't find what I was looking for until I followed my old college professor's advice and visited Metropolis. There I found my perfect job, at The Daily Planet...and my soul-mate: Lois Lane."
"And a way to help without being recognized. You know, the tights and cape really are the perfect disguise for you."
"Yeah. It was Lois who gave me the idea, though she didn't realize it at the time. I got my business suit dirty trying to rescue a guy from a maintenance tunnel. She saw how messy I looked, and suggested that I keep a change of clothes at work. That gave me the idea for the costume. Mom developed the design, and she provides the suits for me; and so far, nobody except Perry has caught on that Clark Kent, in a 'change of clothes,' is really the guy from Krypton." Then he looked at Walter. "Nobody, that is, until you."
"Yeah, but that was due to a slip that even you couldn't have foreseen. If I hadn't seen my 'guardian angel' disappear over that little hill, and then *you* disappear over that same hill immediately after, I would never have picked up on it."
"Don't belittle your abilities. You're a sharp guy, Walter, or Lois and I would never have recommended you to Perry."
"Well, you..." Walter paused, and then pointed ahead. "Hey, isn't that the sign that Perry said to watch for? It's not very big, is it?"
"Nope, but that's definitely it. I wish he'd found one that wasn't inside a farmer's fence. It's kinda hard to see through the rails." Clark dragged out the instructions. "It says we turn right at the end of the field that the sign's in, and then go eight miles further. He says there's another sign saying 'White' tacked on a tree at that point; we just turn down the drive, and a few minutes later it takes us right to the cabin. He says that his cabin's the only one around there."
"Sounds easy enough. I expect Lois and Karen won't have a problem."
"They won't. Lois's ability to navigate around Metropolis can rival any cab driver's; she won't have any trouble out here."
They were coming to the end of the field; Walter slowed and turned onto the gravel road they found there, and they continued for a while in comfortable silence.
* * *
Chapter Four
"So you're Gracie, hmm?" asked Karen over her shoulder. She noticed that Emma, who was sitting behind her mother, was staring out the window, pointedly ignoring this conversation.
"Yup," said Gracie. "I'm five," she added.
"Do you have a middle name?" asked Karen, wondering if she were about to hear another Kryptonian name.
"It's 'Martha.' I'm Gracie Martha Kent." She said it with an air of dignity and pride that made Karen smile.
"Well, I'm happy to meet you, Gracie Martha Kent. Didn't I hear that your grandma is named Martha? Your daddy's mom?"
"Yuh. She lives in *Kansas*. With my grampa."
"I guess Clark and I will be in a lot of trouble if we don't have another girl," Lois interjected. "My mom definitely wants a granddaughter named after her."
"Are she and your kids close?"
"Not really; Mom doesn't usually have time for young people." She started to explain further, and then realized that Karen didn't need to hear all about her dysfunctional parents. She added, "Actually, she's only tended them a few times; one of those times, coincidentally, was when Walter introduced you to us and Emma. That's why you haven't met Gracie before now."
"Well, Gracie, that's..."
"Never mind," said Emma. "She's *asleep*. She goes to sleep in cars all the time!" Her voice reflected disdain.
Karen turned to Lois and grinned. "Sounds like you have a typical family, with typical kids..." Then she realized who she was talking to, and blushed. "Boy, did I ever get *that* wrong..."
Lois grinned back at her. "No, you got it right. Except for a few 'optional extras,' we *are* pretty typical. It's just that Clark and I have these really strenuous jobs, at The Daily Planet; they take a lot of time. And, of course, Clark's second job is *really* strenuous..."
"How do you cope with that, anyway? Doesn't that put a strain on your home life?"
"Yes, of course it does. But we both recognize that we're an unusual family, with unusual responsibilities. And we love each other, and we figure that nothing's worth risking that. So we adapt."
"You guys are amazing. Walter and I have only been married for a couple of months, and we're already having difficulties 'adapting.'"
"Oh?" Lois glanced at Karen, genuinely interested.
"Well, Walter has this need to take care of me. He's worked hard to keep his folks' home neat and in good repair, so I'd be comfortable in it once we were married. He told me he was really hesitant at first about taking the job with the Planet, since it represented an initial cut in pay, and he wanted to make sure that his income would cover our needs..."
"But what about your income? I presume you'll be getting a job, now that you've finished school -- at least until children come along..."
"But that's just *it*!" said Karen, obviously frustrated. "I just spent four years training for a career in nursing -- and I'm a *good* nurse; I'm really good at what I do. I *want* to have that training pay off for me! And, if the income from it helps out our family, well, fine! But Walter's set against it." Lois turned to stare at her.
They were driving past a large, open field; but they were so earnestly engaged in this conversation that they failed to notice a sign, which was partially obscured by fence rails anyway. They drove on.
* * *
"It seem like we should have seen it by now," said Lois worriedly sometime later. "We've been on this road a long time..."
"What's that ahead? There on the right..."
"Well, it definitely *was* a sign. Once." The sign, just inside a field, had been held up by two posts; one post had been sheared off, and it and the sign were now lying face down on the plowed ground.
"I don't know about you, but I'm not walking through all that plowed dirt to try and turn over an old sign. If this is the right place, there'll be a road leading to the right at the end of this field." She sped up.
Sure enough, there was a dirt road leading parallel to the fence at the end of the field. Lois slowed down, and turned onto it.
* * *
They had been driving for nearly half an hour on the dirt road, and it was getting narrower and less well-maintained. They had searched in vain for the sign marking Perry's driveway. Finally, it appeared that the track had degraded into an old logging road cut into the side of a hill, leaving them no hope of turning the Jeep around until the road widened, or until the terrain leveled out more. The sun was nearly down and, shaded as they were by the hills around them, Lois was about ready to turn on the headlights.
The wobble in the steering was getting worse; the car seemed to shimmy after each bump and rut in the road. "Um, listen," said Lois, "would you mind taking a look in the glove box? I think there's a Forest Service map of this area in there somewhere." She reached up and switched on the map light.
There was a pause. "Unfortunately," said Karen, swallowing a few times, "I'm getting a little motion sick. Maybe if we could pull over for a minute..."
"Pull over where? This isn't any more than a dirt track, with steep slopes on both sides of us."
"Yeah, but the steep slope on my side goes *down*, not up. There's quite a hill over here. It's not a sheer drop by any means, but it's close enough for my taste."
Lois rolled her window part way down, hoping that some fresh air would be helpful. Meantime, feeling somewhat sick from looking out her window, Karen glanced out the windscreen to the upward slope on Lois's side of the vehicle -- and gasped in horror. An enormous boulder, more than two feet across, was bounding down the graded slope toward them. Its path would intersect theirs just as it reached the road. She screamed and pointed.
At the same moment Lois caught the movement out of the corner of her eye, slammed her foot on the brake, and started to reflexively turn the wheel to the right.
It was not enough. The boulder slammed into the side of the Jeep, just ahead of the driver's door, with a tremendous crash.
*BANG*! The driver's-side airbag suddenly inflated, pinning Lois to her seatback, her arms against her, and also pinning the steering wheel so that the Cherokee continued to drift to the right of the road. Instinctively, with the airbag pressing hard against her face and chest, Lois kept her foot jammed down on the brake pedal, but the car was going too fast to stop short of the edge.
Karen screamed again as the Jeep went over the embankment and started down the slope. The slight angle of the front wheels toward the downward side prevented the vehicle from rolling onto its side, but despite the pressure of Lois's foot on the brake the car was picking up speed. It suddenly began jouncing wildly as the hard, dry soil of the slope gave way to a rockslide. As the car pelted over the slide, Karen screamed a final time as she saw that they were headed directly toward two automobile-sized rocks jutting out of the ground, about five feet apart, fifty yards further down the rocky slope. The Jeep bore down on this target, clearing the bottom of the slide, and miraculously remaining upright. Instead of ploughing into one of the boulders, it neatly headed into the space between them; but the gap was not wide enough. There was a shriek of metal as the Jeep was jerked violently to a halt, wedged between the boulders. Karen's head was thrown forward, then sideways hard against her window, and in a flash of pain she descended into darkness.
* * *
Gracie had woken to Karen's first scream, and she and Emma were squealing in fright as the vehicle descended the slope, and were then slammed against their seatbelts and shoulder harnesses as the juggernaut was brought to an abrupt and painful halt between the two monoliths.
Suddenly, with the end of the plunge, the noise and chaos around them ceased, as -- from surprise -- did their wailing. They slowly turned to look at each other, ready to renew their wails. But there was a sudden resurgence of sound as the rockslide behind them, pounded by the Jeep's recent descent, abruptly broke loose from its tenuous grip on the hillside. Thousands of rocks, large and small, began slipping -- or bounding -- down the hill toward them. The largest of these ploughed into the two rocky supports, or into the back of the Jeep with repeated *bangs*, crushing its metal shell forward several inches. Amazingly, none made it all the way through the safety glass of the rear window. But these all gradually formed a dike, or barricade, behind the car so that when the main body of rubble caught up with them, it simply flowed up and over the roof and upper sides of the car, sliding into the spaces between it and the upright boulders, and producing a deafening screech of rock against metal as it slid forward over the roof, the windscreen, and the hood of the Cherokee until, its energy spent, the slide growled to a stop of its own accord. As the dust gradually drifted away in the slight breeze, there remained no sign that a car had ever been there.
* * *
