Rumor had it that the reason she never married either was that the old flame in her heart hadn't completely died either, but still we both tended to avoid each other. At our last random meeting about six years ago outside of Jillian's, my local watering hole, I'd bumped into her on the street and the reunion had not been pleasant. Memorable, unfortunately yes. She'd had a drink or three as well that Saturday night at a different club, and used a lot of extremely sharp language to blame me for all of the troubles in her life.
"Go to Hell!" and "I never want to see you ever again in my life!" pretty much ended any attempt I could make at conversation with her. She had meant those words... and they had really hurt me deeply enough that I did make every possible effort at avoiding her from that point onwards. She always did her shopping at the Maxi-Mart on Tuesday mornings, so I made darned sure that kept myself busy at the other end of the county so that our paths wouldn't accidentally cross.
My friends tend to talk to some of her friends, but I think they're all under orders not to mention either of us to the other... although a few of them keep trying to get us back together.
Other than crossing about five miles of Rayburn farmland in the dark, the best and shortest path to that dried up old riverbed was through the Wilson's land. Out of politeness, since I really didn't want to get a warrant for this search, I would need their permission.
I really considered passing the mission off to someone else, but they hated all of us in the Sheriff's office just about equally, so I'd just be passing the buck and the problem. Besides, I just had to know where the stolen chips were going... and if tonight a third truck was going to disappear as well!
*********
I couldn't think of a single peace offering I could make to help pave the path for me for meeting Jane again, after all these years. Flowers just didn't seem appropriate, nor did one of Dot's famous pies, let alone a bottle of wine or something stronger. Instead, I just put on my cleanest uniform, shined my boots, brushed my teeth twice, gargled with mouthwash until my face turned blue and prayed for the best.
The vision that greeted me at the door was worth all the years of yearning and waiting. Oh, yeah... I wanted her just as badly now as I did those years ago and for just a moment I thought I saw that same exact longing and pain in her eyes as well. As ever, her mouth was much faster off the draw than mine was, and I quietly let her tongue scald me for the next minute or so, until I could get a word or two in edgewise. The old pain was still there, and once again like cream it had risen to the surface of her face. Any old feelings of love, if they still existed, were once again quite buried.
"Fuck you and the horse you rode in on!" she repeated, even more loudly, as I quietly stood there. The tears in her eyes were clear and reflected brightly off of her sky blue eyes that hot summer evening just as the sun was beginning to set.
"Just as quickly as I can," I calmly promised her, "but first, I'd like your permission to cross your farm to take a look at the riverbed that borders the Rayburn property. The brothers are up to something over there, definitely weird and possibly dangerous, so it really needs to be done. I wouldn't have bothered you or your brother if it wasn't absolutely necessary. Then, as quickly as I can, I'll 'toddle back to Hell' and leave you two alone. I promise."
Jane remained quiet, uncertain how to answer me, when I heard her brother's voice calling at her from somewhere inside the farmhouse.
"Jane, go ahead and let him go. I heard a loud crash or boom over towards their farm the other night, so those weirdos are up to something... they always are. Marty, if you'll push my chair, I'd kind of like to see what they're up to as well, so I'll go with you."
Skip (he never used his given name of Clark), hadn't called me Marty since we were pals together in high school. He was two years younger than me but he got along well with my other friends and we got to be pretty good buddies before I left for college, and not just because I already loved his sister. The next year, the new sheriff brought in his thugs and cronies and our nice little county turned into a criminal pit of vipers. The year after that, his dream of a college football scholarship disappeared in a flurry of baton blows when a thug of a deputy beat Skip permanently into a wheelchair when he tried in vain to prevent the drunk and abusive officer from assaulting his then girlfriend.
Perhaps Skip had found forgiveness for me in his heart, but from the anger still plainly visible on Jane's face, her heart had remained firmly closed to me. I'd heard vague rumors that Roscoe, the former thug who had crippled Skip, had completed his family collection by raping Jane as well, but I'd never really heard this story confirmed, and I certainly hadn't asked her. The sheer malice with which she regarded my uniform really ought to have given me more than a bit of confirmation for that rumor.
"Bastard!" She muttered, lost in clear indecision. "Alright, I'll come along too... and I'll push Skip! Then, afterwards, you can go fuck yourself for all I care!"
She meant it. For the next half hour she rolled Skip along towards the riverbed and made damn sure that I never got close enough to lay a single finger on either of them. Skip wanly attempted to play peacemaker, but Jane was having none of it, so the three of us strolled along in the gathering gloom more or less in silence.
***************
Reaching the southern edge of the dry riverbed at the western corner of their property, we didn't notice anything notable either up or down the long ravine and soon, as we headed north, the tree covered ground soon became too rugged for Skip's wheelchair to travel... at least at any sort of tolerable speed. For a minute I thought Jane was going to turn Skip's chair around and return back to the house, but he stopped her.
Marty, you're pretty big and strong... lift me up and support me up under your arm. Jane, if you'll support my other side, I'm pretty sure we can make it through the brush and get close to the riverbed. If you'll both help lift me together?"
Skip had lost a lot of weight being trapped in his wheelchair prison. He'd always been lean and muscular and now his legs were little more than sticks. I could have carried him alone, easily, but Jane would have none of it. She grabbed her arm under Skip's shoulder and tried hard to pretend that I wasn't doing the same on his other side. As we lifted Skip up, our fingers and forearms touched and she darted back away from contact with me, but as our burden became heavier she pretended not to notice when my arm fell over hers as I tried to grasp Skip more securely. I didn't dare look at her face for fear of starting another scene with her.
Fortunately, we didn't have to carry Skip for more than another ten minutes until we found what I thought we were looking for. Looking through the trees I could see something poking out of the deep ravine. Tilted at an angle, with its nose slightly buried in the dried up riverbed, was a roundish oval metallic something or another. It wasn't round, it wasn't square, and it wasn't even particularly oval. From the looks of it, it had scraped a deep furrow across the Rayburn side of the farmland and had fallen into the ravine, which was about ten feet deep at this spot. Even Jane forgot to be pissed at me long enough to give me a suitable, non-malevolent 'What the fuck?' look.
I didn't have any answers either. Since nothing seemed to be happening down in the riverbed or at the Rayburn's farm, we decided to have a sit and wait until it was completely dark. After sitting in the growing gloom for well over a half hour, Jane was just muttering something about going down to look it over when we finally saw car lights approaching from the Rayburn farm, and so we waited a while longer.
Yep, the crazy brothers had done it yet again! Yet another, third stolen Frito-Lay Doritos truck now appeared as close to the tree line and riverbed as they could park the truck, and in the gloom of red truck taillights they slowly, as if in a drunken stupor began to unload their pilfered cargo.
Within the metallic spherical object in the riverbed, some sort of hatch opened and the brothers laboriously began to open packages of chips and then dump them into the hopper. I had to assume that the crazy twisted brothers had indeed found some weird chemical still design on the internet and were now using the junk food to make... well, something. Now it was time to go down there and find out what!
After I found out what, I decided that I would have much, much rather remained entirely ignorant. The loony, often stoned and even more frequently drunk brothers were fueling a alien spaceship! Slowly, one load of junk food at a time!
Worse still, the ship was now complete with a four foot tall grey almond-eyed alien straight out of Hollywood central casting who seemed rather disappointed to discover Skip, Jane and myself intruding upon his crash landing site. When his unearthly eyes met mine, I knew then that we were all in serious trouble.
It wasn't quite like we had all joined together into a group mind, but I could feel his (was the alien a he, she, or it?) thoughts entering mine, rummaging around inside my brain and making himself quite at home. I did sense a feeling of relief though. I had no doubt that spending several days rooting about in the Rayburn brothers heads would have been trying and irritating for anyone.
I never got quite the exact sense of what he wanted or really needed, but my feeble knowledge of college chemistry did seem to provide him some satisfaction. Indeed, nearly a sense of relief! Doritos might have been all fine and well, but the vital ingredient 'it' needed (our visitor was a neuter, neither male or female) was only a trace element in most of the snack foods gathered.
The crash hadn't apparently damaged anything mechanical or critical, but an internal systems leak had released a vitally necessary secondary fuel used for maneuvering. An internal replicator onboard the ship could alter certain close chemical compounds into the desired fuel, neither our most common petrochemicals or pure corn oil seemed to have the right trace ingredients. With the brother's very limited ability to scavenge suitable raw materials, the alien was gathering only a tiny fraction of what it really needed. Now, as his mind performed a comprehensive overview of my knowledge of biochemistry (one lone semester in college as one of my science prerequisites), it beamed happily in sudden enlightenment as it realized what earthly corn-based substance it could use... and with much greater efficiency.
