An Unmarked Grave (32 page)

"Don't know, Gus. My cousin here and me saw the fire
and pulled in.

"Same here, Gus," Mabel put in.

Perry shook his head. "Bums. Transients probably tried
to spend the night and started a fire. You folks can go on
home. I'll take care of it."

Gabe and Mabel started to turn around, but Ford said,
"That's all right, Gus. We'd like to watch for a while if you
don't mind" He chuckled. "After all, the only thing around
here we ever see exciting is TV."

Momentarily flustered, Perry shrugged. "Have it your
way. Don't blame me if you get burned or something."

The fire slowly burned down. Once, Gabe turned to leave,
but Ford shook his head behind the sheriff's back. Gabe
frowned, then whispered to his wife. They both remained.

Soon the barn was nothing but smoking embers lit by the
beams of a few flashlights.

Perry shrugged and turned to the others. "Looks like that's
it, folks. We might as well head back home"

"What about the transients, Sheriff? You want me to help
you look through the ashes? We got flashlights, and we can
all turn on our headlights."

Perry stammered. "Oh, I-I can do that tomorrow, when
it's light."

Gabe Hooker spoke up. "I kinda hate to leave anybody
out here on a night like this, Sheriff, even if he is dead. You
know what I mean? It don't seem Christian"

The sheriff gave in. "Well, let me do it. I don't want none
of you burned"

I heard Buck Ford whisper to Gabe and Mabel, "Watch
him go straight to where the seed room was"

Sheriff Perry went directly to the seed room. After a few
moments, he searched the rest of the ashes. Ten minutes
later, he returned, clearly puzzled. "Looks like I was wrong.
I didn't see no one in there"

Jack and I rose from the underbrush. "Does that surprise
you, Sheriff Perry?"

His flashlight beam hit us. "You! But-"

Holding a hand before my eyes to block the light, I
sloshed through the snow. "But what? You figured we'd be
where you left us, in the seed room?"

Sharp gasps came from the Hookers and Newt Gibons.

The sheriff puffed up. Belligerently, he responded, "I
don't know what you're talking about, Boudreaux"

"Come on, Sheriff. It's over. Buck Ford knows about it.
His cousin knows. I know. Jack knows. In two minutes, the
Hookers and Newt Gibons will know. What are you going
to do, kill us all like you and Marvin Lewis killed Jim Bob
Houston twenty years ago and Justin Chester a couple weeks
back? It's over."

Keeping my eyes on him, I retold the story for Newt and
the Hookers. I added, "Justin had no idea Houston's body
was in the spaceman's grave. All he wanted to do was dig it
up to see if the spaceman was there or not, but the sheriff
and Lewis had to stop him. Jack and I figured it out, and that's why the sheriff and Lewis locked us in the seed room
and tried to murder us"

Perry's eyes blazed. His nostrils flared. "That's a lie"

"Is it?"

"Yeah"

"Then suppose you empty your pockets"

Taken aback by my request, he frowned. "Huh? What for?"

"What's the matter, Sheriff? Afraid?"

I kept my fingers crossed, hoping the sheriff was as dumb
as I thought.

He snorted. "All right." He jammed his hand into his left
pocket and pulled out a rumpled handkerchief. "Satisfied?"

"The other one"

He switched his flashlight to his left and angrily jammed
his hand into his pocket and froze.

I leaped forward, grabbing his wrist, holding his hand in
his pocket. He slammed the flashlight onto my back twice
before Buck grabbed his arm. Together we threw the struggling sheriff to the ground.

"Put the light on his right hand," I said, pulling his hand
out. I had to force his fingers open. There lay the Case knife
my grandfather had given me. "Recognize that, Buck?"

He picked up the knife and studied it, spotting the missing shield on the handle. "That's your knife, the one from
your grandpa"

"Yeah. The one Perry took from my pocket before setting the barn on fire"

Suddenly, Sheriff Perry went limp.

I rose.

Ford leaned over and pulled Perry's service revolver from
his holster. "I don't know if this is legal or not," he said, rising to his feet, "but now that we don't have a sheriff, I figure a
citizen can take his place until things are straightened out.
My cousin and me are going to lock the sheriff in his jail,
then go up and get Marv Lewis. Gabe, you and Mabel drive
over to the sheriff in Reuben and tell him what's going on. I
suppose he'll have to tell us what to do next"

We spent the remainder of the night at the sheriff's office, telling our story half a dozen times and then repeating
it once again to the Texas Ranger assigned to the area.

I had forgotten all about the UFO nonsense until I overheard Gabe Hooker tell one of the officers that the fire was
so hot that it even melted some of the seed bins on the seed
drill. Later, I asked Gabe what he meant by seed bin. He
explained. "Some folks call them hoppers, some call them
bins. You know, they're shaped like a funnel with a large
top. That's what they put the seed in to plant it"

Jack and I looked at each other, both remembering Barton's claim that he had hidden the items on the inventory
list in a seed bin. We figured he meant the seed room, but I
remembered seeing all of the old rusty farm implements
on one side of the barn, and there in the middle was a seed
drill with a dozen hoppers across the back.

As the sun rose, we pulled into Barton's drive and around
behind his old house. We hurried to the barn, sloshing
through snow made crisp by the freezing night. "There it is."
I pointed to the seed drill, which was nothing more than a
hulk of burned metal among the smoking timbers.

One of the large beams of the barn had fallen directly onto
the hoppers, smashing them. I kicked the charred remains off, then searched one shattered bin after the other. In the
mud beneath one, I discovered several chunks of metal, and
then, beneath the surface of the mud, my fingers touched a
small sheet of metal, four inches by five.

I wiped the mud from it. The fire had distorted the small
piece. When I bent it, it remained bent.

Jack looked over my shoulder. "Is that it? Huh, is it?"

Without answering I handed it to him. I stared at the
pieces of metal in my hand. I started to throw them away,
but then I realized, these were items Justin Chester had held
precious. I dropped them into my pocket, mud and all. Hey,
I could always clean the jacket.

We picked our way out of the barn to where we had lain
the night before. Jack exclaimed. "Hey, look! There's those
same tracks again"

I looked around to where Jack was pointing under a
canopy of elm trees. There, a couple of tadpole-shaped imprints were headed in the direction of the Diablo Canyons.
Then I noticed one of the odd imprints heading in a different direction, into the barn.

"What do you think they are, Tony, huh?"

Shaking my head, I grunted. "I told you. Tumbleweeds.
Something like that. That's all. Not tracks"

Jack retorted. "Naw. Those are spaceman tracks. The
spaceman is the one who pulled us from the fire"

All I could do was shake my head in frustration.

"No. It was either you or me that pulled us out, Jack.
That's all it could be"

A couple of days later, George McDaniel, the interim
sheriff, told us we could leave. As we packed, Jack grinned. "Hey, I can't wait to get back to Austin. You going to follow
me?"

I thought of all the good people in Elysian Hills I had
met. For some strange reason, I hated to leave. "No. You go
on. I want tell a few folks good-bye"

Sam Fuqua had tears in his eyes. I did too. Newt was his
usual reserved self. Mabel had to give me a hug and an invitation to come back anytime. Ford almost crushed my hand
when he shook it. Taggert had already pulled out, but Buck
told me that Taggart had overheard Perry telling Lewis he
had paid to have my brake line cut.

Fuqua had asked, "What do you think will happen to them,
Boudreaux? You're around this kind of thing all the time"

I laughed. "Anyone's guess. Jim Bob's so far in the past,
only a confession will nail them on that. Chester might be
a little different. Lewis has to explain how the setting of
his ring got into the wrecked truck. And, who knows? He
might explain that away" I offered him my hand. "I wish
I could say that justice will be done, but I can't. You take
care, you hear?"

He grinned. "You too. You ever back up around here,
I'll be sorely disappointed if you don't stop by for dinner."

Instead of heading straight back to the interstate, I took
Cemetery Road, knowing it would intersect the interstate a
few miles south. I slowed as I passed the winding creek and
stopped in front Barton's old house for one last look. A gust
of wind rattled the broken shutters against the weathered
clapboard. I felt as if I were leaving a good friend behind.

My last glimpse of Elysian Hills was the cemetery.

I drove into Austin in midafternoon. My first stop was Tricia Chester, where I dropped off Justin's belongings-all
except the items on the inventory list. She shed tears when
I told her that Justin had been murdered. I gave her the details, cautioning her that she would be getting calls from
various agencies in North Texas.

And, as I expected, a self-righteously chagrined Frank
Chester called that evening, demanding information. I told
him what I had told his sister. I hung up the receiver, wondering if he truly believed he was fooling anyone.

What a family. Justin deserved better.

Jack called me the next morning. He had cleaned the sheet
of metal, and on the bottom were the same characters Justin
had written on his notes. But the metal didn't respond as
Justin had claimed. Had the fire destroyed one of its qualities, or had Justin simply been mistaken? If he were mistaken, what about Sam Fuqua? What about Harlan Barton?
They had both seen the metal crumpled and returned to it
original shape.

"Do you want it, Tony?"

"What? The sheet of metal?"

"Yeah"

"No. You keep it. A memento of the alien spaceman"

He snorted. "Well, you can laugh if you want, but stop and
think. You didn't haul us out. I didn't, so who did? And what
about those tracks? Remember when we saw some a couple
of days before just like them, heading back to the canyon?"

"Come on, Jack. There's no such thing as aliens. I must
have done it and just don't remember."

"Well, you think what you want. I'll always believe it was that little spaceman who pulled us out of the fire" He paused,
then added in a low voice, "You know, Tony, I can't help
wondering what the little space guy will do now that Harlan Barton is gone"

I shook my head. I was tired of arguing with him. "See
you around, Jack. Tell Diane I said hi"

After we hung up, I looked at the other scraps of metal on
my kitchen snack bar. I knew as sure as I was sitting there, if
I gave them to the Chesters, within weeks they would be discarded, just as they had discarded Justin.

Instead, I washed them off, dropped them into a glass,
and set it on my bookcase. "There you are, Justin. You can
rest easy. Someone will always remember you and your little
alien."