Book Launch: The Lost Flight

BOOK LAUNCH!

The Lost Flight

by Gregory E. Larson

How can a plane and its occupants disappear for seven months? The author shares the true story of a 1970 camping and hiking trip with his brother and two friends that turns into a horrific discovery. He later connects with the family of two of the victims and provides  the reader with a heartwarming story of the baby-boomer families that were linked by the tragic event occurring on a remote ridge in the Sangre de Cristo mountains of southern Colorado.

Excerpt from Chapter One:

Chapter One:

Maybe it was fate

  

June 2013 – January, 2014

Kansas City metro area and trip to California

A blast from the horn announced it was time for us to get onboard the train. Outside, the diesel fumes hung in the air and the late-night heat blanketed Union Station in Kansas City. The car shuddered and began to move forward with clacks and creaks. My wife, Gretta and I stood with our luggage in the narrow aisle of the sleeper car, waiting to gain access to our berth.

After we stood several minutes in the aisle, a porter scurried around us with a stack of folded white linen in his arms. “Sorry I’m late in getting the sheets. We’ve been booked solid, and the folks that were in your compartments just got off the train.”

We were on Amtrak’s Southwest Chief, bound for Los Angeles on a June night in 2013. The cars began to rock as it picked up speed through the West Bottoms, past gravel lots where stockyards once stood. The start of a vacation always excited me. Untold adventures lay ahead. I brimmed with anticipation of a fun time in L.A. and Santa Barbara. The thought of being able to relax in a sleeping berth, something we’d never tried, also added to the excitement.

While the porter hurried to make our beds, Gretta and I looked at another couple who were in the same predicament — standing in the aisle on the moving train while waiting for their berth.

We stepped closer to the couple in the hallway and introduced ourselves. The husband, Alejandro, said they were retired and had visited relatives in the East. They were getting off the train in Albuquerque, to go to their home in Belen.

“Belen?” I blurted out the town’s name. Simultaneously, memories of a decades-old adventure rushed into my brain. What were the chances that I would cross paths with someone from Belen, a small town about thirty miles south of Albuquerque?

“Yes,” said Alejandro, “It’s always nice to get back home.”

It was possible he knew of a story from my past, so I leaned closer to ask him an important question.

“Do you know the Torres family . . . Nolbert Torres?”

He tilted his head with a look of surprise and said, “Yes, I see him in church and sometimes at the grocery store.”

I couldn’t believe it. “You may not be aware of this, but Nolbert’s brother and dad died in a plane crash, back in 1969.”

Alejandro’s eyes widened and he responded, “Yes, I remember. The plane was lost. No one knew where it crashed.”

I took a deep breath to gather my thoughts. “Well, the reason I know about that crash, is that my brother and I discovered it in the mountains of southern Colorado, seven months after it disappeared. We were teenagers on a camping trip with two friends, and we stumbled onto it while hiking in the melting snow.”

We stared at each other for several seconds. How could two people randomly cross paths — two people who remembered a tragedy from over forty years ago?

I told Alejandro I had unsuccessfully tried to contact Nolbert, and that I’d always wanted to meet him and his family.

 “I need to give you my contact information to pass on to Nolbert,” I said as I grabbed for a pen.

Gretta tapped me on the shoulder. “Just give him one of your cards. Remember, I told you to bring some along.” She laughed because I had scoffed at the idea. We were going on vacation, so I stuffed a couple of the cards in my wallet. They were printed with my name and contact information, ending with a line that stated:  Architect, Writer and Creative Thinker.

I gave him the card and begged him to pass it onto Nolbert. Maybe someday we could meet. I always wondered about the family I never met. How could they have endured seven months of not knowing what happened to their brother, dad, and two other men? How did the family move on from the tragedy?

As we moved into our respective berths, I heard Alejandro talking to other folks he knew on the train . . . “You’re not going to believe who I just met.” 

After the amazement of what had just transpired, Gretta and I settled into our compartment. I looked out the windows at the moon and a shadowy rural scene that unfolded while the train rolled across the Kansas prairie. I wanted to meet Nolbert and give him a big hug. Maybe, it just might happen.

The train began to rock me to sleep while pieces of Simon and Garfunkel’s song, America, tumbled in my head . . . “They’ve all gone to look for America . . . and the moon rolls over an open field.”

Sunrise and clear skies greeted us the next morning, with the sand hills and the irrigation fields of western Kansas rushing by our big window. Satisfied with a generous breakfast in the dining car, and being fully rested, I was convinced that train travel with a sleeping berth was the way to vacation. We had acres of space as compared to a passenger seat on a plane, and it was much more relaxing than being part of the rat race of the workaday world. Up in the observation car, we found seats that looked out upon the semi-arid countryside of eastern Colorado. A thin blue line of the approaching mountains appeared on the horizon. We spied some antelope standing among the mesquite and piñon trees near the tracks, and watched them quickly bound away in fear as the giant monster passed them by.

The two Spanish Peaks, or “breasts of the earth” as the Ute Indians called them, loomed before us like a postcard image, with the Sangre de Cristo Mountains coming into focus beyond the peaks. I squinted at a point on the horizon where the mountains met the sky. The memories in the far reaches of my mind surfaced again. Somewhere up there on the opposite side of a ridge at an elevation of 12,000 feet, the Torres plane slammed into a rocky slope during a snowstorm, setting off a chain of events that affected so many families.

The chance encounter last night with Alejandro resurfaced from my subconscious. I had no idea that a vacation to California would bring the events of decades past back into focus.

I also thought about why Gretta and I were taking this vacation. We had booked the trip months in advance to have an adventurous train ride to California. Just two weeks before our trip she was diagnosed with cancer and the oncologist said she needed surgery — soon. We told him of our plans to go to California and asked if we should cancel. He said, “No. Take the trip. It is the best thing you can do to get the surgery off your minds. I’m not able to do the surgery for a couple of weeks anyway.”

We felt like honeymooners rolling through the southwestern landscapes of New Mexico and Arizona, holding hands while looking at the scenery, and planning what we would see once we arrived in L.A.

After a second night in the sleeping berth, we woke up as the train rolled into Los Angeles. From that point on, we rented a car and immersed ourselves in West Coast points of interest, from San Simeon and the Hearst Castle, to the Getty Museum and other architectural treats. In between the sightseeing, we found the perfect solution for relaxing: spending time doing nothing on the beach in Santa Barbara.

With our bed and breakfast inn located just two blocks from the ocean, Gretta and I strapped beach towels to the handlebars of the hotel-provided beach-cruisers and pedaled along the coastal path, rolling between the warm sand and the groves of palms and eucalyptus trees, out past the crowds to a place where we had 100 yards of empty beach on either side of us.

Sun hats rested on top of our faces as we lay on the beach towels, soaking up the warm sun, letting the cool breeze and the sound of the surf wash over us. My daydreams were interrupted with worry about Gretta and her upcoming cancer surgery.

I touched her toes with mine and said, “I’m your guy — always. You just tell me what you need and consider it done. I’ll take care of it.” We were so in tune with each other’s thoughts, she didn’t have to answer. She touched her toes on mine, and that told me all I needed to know.

The surf kept pounding the shore and I took a short catnap. When I awoke, my mind drifted back to the chance meeting with Alejandro, the possible link to the Torres family.

I punctuated the silence, “Can you believe we met someone on the train, at the very beginning of our trip, someone who knows Nolbert Torres?”

More silence was followed by Gretta’s reply, “What are the odds? Maybe it’s fate. Maybe it was meant to be.”

Here’s the link to Amazon Kindle where the complete book is available in paperback and ebook:
https://www.amazon.com/Lost-Flight-Gregory-Larson/dp/B086G11XH7/ref=sr_1_fkmr0_1?keywords=the+last+flight+gregory+larson&qid=1585837983&s=books&sr=1-1-fkmr0