Free The Silver Bridge by Gray Barker Page A

about some kind of racial memory—about where they may have come from…”
    I turned up the car radio and automatically jabbed at the button which would identify my friends from the Clarksburg radio station. I had got up very early and hoped to make it back home by the time the office opened. John Peters was just finishing the news, and was ready to go into his short “Whistle Stop” segment. I wondered if he had dreamed up another fantasy for today. I really hoped the train would stop again, and that I would hear another imaginative drama.
    The train noises grew in the distance, welled into a loud whistling and clanking of wheels. The railroad cars sped by, with a click-click-click as they depressed the rail joints.
    “Well,” said John, “she went right on by…”
    Then he added the climatic touch he had always employed, even before the advent of Mothman.
    “…LIKE A BIG FAT BIRD THIS MORNING!”

CHAPTER 5
    MR. UNIVERSE
     
    M r. Universe toiled among the eternal fires. His muscles rippled and glistened with sweat. His handsome countenance reflected the red light from the forges and furnaces, and his demeanor grew almost jolly.
    From the fires he withdrew the ball, red hot and smoking. As it cooled, the base metal grew black and ugly.
    Then he added a gleaming outer covering.
    When it had cooled, he looked at it and saw that his work was good.
    As Mr. Universe balanced his golden ball in one muscular hand, he was particularly proud of this accomplishment. This was a concession to his inner nature, a hiatus from routine.
    On the outside there raged fires of even greater dimensions, and within them terror, for they were the furnaces of Hell—as beings struggled madly with each other in unconscionable and inexplicable acts of physical and mental violence. Oftimes his physical forges raged and burned to contribute to that diabolic outside scene.
    Today, however, he had rebelled at those things he loathed, and forged a golden ball for the children of the world.

CHAPTER 6
    THE SEARCHERS
     
    O n the evening of Nov. 2, 1966, Woodrow Derenberger was in a good mood. It was just as his boss had told him many times—now it had come true.
    “Don’t be discouraged, Woody. You’re new at selling. There’s nothing so bad for a salesman as working for a few days without a sale. But there’s also nothing so good for him as making that big sale.”
    That day Woody Derenberger had struck pay dirt. In his pocket was a signed order for a color TV set, a $500 stereo, and some appliances. The hard sales ground work he had done was beginning to pay off.
    Woody had taken the sales job as a temporary measure to support his family, a wife and two children. The plant where he had been a long-term employee had been on strike for six weeks, and his savings were diminishing. Somewhat shy at meeting people, he had experienced misgivings about the job when it was offered; but he had tried unsuccessfully to obtain others. It seemed no employers wanted to take on striking employees, who would work only temporarily until the wage dispute was settled.
    The job had been less painful than anticipated. After a few calls he gained confidence, and began to enjoy meeting the people whom he called on, door-to-door.
    The fruition of his past three weeks’ effort added to his confidence and feelings of well-being. He could hardly resist telephoning his wife before he got home, for she would be happy to hear the good news. She had been encouraging him, day to day.
    “I think you’re a masterful salesman, Woody,” she would tell him. “It just takes a while to get started.'’
    As soon as the time payment contracts were bought by the bank he would get the commissions. He would pay off his most urgent bills and then take the family out to dinner.
    Derenberger had swung off the local streets of Marietta, onto a short, newly completed section of Interstate 77, which would end at Mineral Wells, south of Parkersburg, where he rented a large, somewhat