The map showed a few towns strung out along the highway, but a quick glance gave no indication of comparative size. He’d just have to take his chances.
No one exited behind him. At the bottom of the off-ramp a sign pointed toward Safford, 35 miles. Turning right, he headed up a signless, structureless country highway. Away from the interstate it was black as the intestines of an abandoned coal mine. A good place to stage an ambush or an abduction, but first they had to find him.
“What d’you think I should do, Jed?” Leaning back against the still-plush leather seat, the stiff-necked, limp-armed alien did not reply. “I wish I knew how you’re doin’ all this. How’d you make those rocks fall from the sky? How’d you help me come up with all those jokes back in El Paso? Oh, I know you are responsible for that. See, I’m smart enough to understand I ain’t smart enough to figure it all out on my own.”
Jed did not respond, his lifeless eyes contemplating the dark road before them, his tiny, oddly formed mouth eternally mute. Neither did he offer comment on the nocturnal inhabitants of this little-populated region when one happened to skitter madly across the pavement, or remark on the brilliance of the stars overhead. The ideal passenger, he was content simply to ride.
His vacation sure had grown complicated, Ross Ed mused as he drove. Of course, it didn’t have to be. All he had to do was stop and make one phone call and within an hour the burden of worrying about Jed would be lifted from him. They might even fly him out to the Pacific. He badly wished to know what the alien wanted him to do, but Jed was dead, all judgment fled.
So it was up to him. When in doubt, keep driving, which is what he did.
One thing he was pretty certain of by now: as long as he remained close to the alien, the circle of protection that shielded it would enclose him as well. Lordsburg was proof of that, with the events of the rest stop offering additional confirmation. What if he walked a mile away? Would he still be protected? He decided to stick close to Jed at all times. They were going to see the sea, and no one was going to stop them.
While laudable, such resolution did nothing to mollify his stomach, which rumbled incessantly.
It wasn’t a Texas truck stop, but the homey restaurant whose neon signature proclaimed it the Saguaro Café had the one sign in its window he’d been looking for: OPEN 24 HOURS. Beneath this was the smaller legend, We Never Close (Well, Hardly Ever).
Lights within indicating that tonight was not the proverbial Hardly Ever, he pulled into the dirt lot and cut the engine. Around the café, the town slumbered. Farther down the highway/main street a convenience store cast garish lights on grateful moths. Aerosmith whispered from a pickup parked out from, doing sonic battle with crickets. While the music was louder, the insects had the advantage of numbers.
Upon leaving the interstate, the highway had climbed steadily. It was nice to see trees again instead of just low desert scrub. Pausing thoughtfully for a moment, Ross Ed walked around the front of the Fleetwood and opened the passenger-side door. There was no response to this overture, but he didn’t care.
“You know, Jed, I bet you’re pretty tired of sittin’ in the car. How’d you like to see how humans eat?”
Reaching in, he hefted the corpse and tucked it sideways under his right arm. After locking the car, he turned and entered the café.
The long front room faced the parking lot and the highway beyond. There, were hints of a back room, closed at this hour for lack of customers. Booths beneath windows looked out on the lot, while stools fronted a counter like so many mushrooms standing at attention. The café boasted the usual accessories: stainless-steel milk dispenser, multiple milkshake mixer, display rack of miniature cereal boxes, glass-fronted cooler holding pies and cakes on white doilies, all common to countless such establishments from sea to shining sea.
There were the expected local touches: deer heads high up on the walls, one nice elk, a javelina, cheap paintings of regional scenery by local would-be artists, a glass souvenir case beneath the cash register offering a desultory selection of Genuine Indian Jewelry! for sale. No black velvet paintings, which boded well for the food. Like an ancient hunter stalking game, Ross Ed knew from experience what spoor to look for in a small-town restaurant. So far, the Saguaro Café measured up.
In the farthest booth, a young man and woman were sharing piles of bacon, pancakes, and syrupy kisses. They were as oblivious to Ross Ed’s arrival as they were to the rest of the nonedible, nonkissable cosmos. The tall, broad-shouldered man seated at the counter wore a battered cowboy hat and beard along with an air of general indifference. He did take a moment to glance toward the entrance, but Ross was careful not to meet his eyes and the diner silently went back to his meal. Her back to the booths, a statuesque woman in shapeless clothes sat at the far end of the counter and sipped coffee.
Choosing a booth, he was delighted to discover that it was big enough for him to relax in without having to stick his legs out into the aisle. Uncommonly, his knees didn’t scrape the gum-encrusted underside of the table. Taking the laminated menu from its metal holder, he squinted out at the car. The cafe’s blinds were down, which didn’t make much sense given the hour. Probably lowered in expectation of early-morning sunshine, he decided. Occasionally (very occasionally) the lights of a passing car or truck could be seen making their patient way up or down the strip of highway outside the restaurant.
The waitress must have been in her sixties, at least. Her skin was burned by the sun and wrinkled with experience, but her eyes were young. Thin, parchment-hued arms seemed held together by steel wires laid in just under the skin.
“What’ll it be, hon? You need a minute to look at the menu?” Ever so slightly, her eyes strayed to the alien shape seated across from the big customer. Obviously dying to ask about Jed, she was too professional to do so. At least, not until she’d brought Ross some food.
He knew women like this, who’d been waitressing all their lives and couldn’t imagine doing anything else. Forty years of waiting on tables taught one when to ask questions and when to hold off. Her restrained curiosity tickled him.
“Coffee.” His eyes ran down the menu. “Denver omelette, pancakes on the side, maple syrup, whole-wheat toast … no, make that a bagel and cream cheese.”
Her eyebrows lifted slightly as she scribbled. “Didn’t figure you for the bagel type.”
He grinned. “One of the first thing you learn if you do a lot of traveling is that when you’re hungry, one bagel can fill you up near as much as a fourteen-ounce porterhouse. They both take up about the same amount of space in your stomach. Once worked with a Jewish guy on a rig near Odessa who told me that’s how the Jews got through the forty days and the forty nights. Forget all that stuff about manna, he said.”
Without missing a beat, she aimed her pencil at Jed. “Nothing for your friend?”
Ross kept calm. It was unlikely this woman held down a second career with U.S. Army Intelligence. “You hear him ordering?”
That brought forth a grin that took twenty years off her overworked face. “I guess not.”
He watched while she walked back behind the counter and stuck the ticket into a clip on the revolving order take. The cook swung it around and inspected it mechanically. He looked relatively awake, so maybe the omelette wouldn’t be too greasy. It was the only order up.
She came back with the coffee and left the pot on his table. About the time his food arrived, the midnight cowboy rose from his stool, paid his bill, and left. Ross Ed attacked the dripping platter with enthusiasm.
The waitress wasn’t surprised when he ordered apple pie â la mode. “Pull pie, or just a slice? You look like you could handle a whole pie.”
He patted himself in the general vicinity of his belt. “Not after that omelette. Just a slice, please.”
The pie proved the equal of the rest of his meal. He was half-done, the ice cream melting faster than he could finish it, when he happened to glance through the blinds. Another car had pulled in. No surprise there, except that with the entire lot to choose from, it ended up right next to the Caddy. When the headlights dimmed he was able to see the faint, irregular outlines of two or three people within. He took another mouthful of pie and vanilla.
Before he could swallow, a second car drew up on the other side of the Fleetwood. Observing this, Ross Ed began to linger over his food. It might be quite a while before the opportunity arose again to eat in a country café. When no one emerged from either car to enter the restaurant and do something normal like order food, he was sure of it.
He could only nurse the dessert and coffee for so long. Wanting to keep everything quiet, they’d wait awhile for him to emerge. From their standpoint it would be better that way. No noise, no fuss. No witnesses. Two large trucks pulled into the parking lot of the motel across the street, one behind the other. There were no markings on their sides and no one emerged from them, either.
He wanted to urge Jed to slump lower on the other side of the table. Actually, the alien’s helmeted head was below the window line and probably invisible from outside. The blinds obscured the diners from view anyway, he suspected.
“Well, Jed, I reckon this is it. Unless you got more tricks up your sleeve. You got an extra sleeve, anyway.”
They sure had found him fast, he thought, despite his leaving the interstate. Apparently even state country highways were too easy to cover. Had some cop waiting silently for speeders noted the Caddy’s description and license and called it in? It was unlikely he’d ever know.
Probably ought to have turned around and headed back toward El Paso, he decided. Well, it was too late for recriminations. They wanted him and Jed awfully bad, and it looked like they were going to have them.
He recalled what he’d read about the Roswell Incident. Was Jed about to be reunited with his lost shipmates? Were there three-armed and three-legged frozen alien bodies lying in cold storage far beneath some super-secret military base? He didn’t think they’d allow him to go on the talk-show circuit and discuss
The restaurant entrance stayed closed. No need for them to hurry, he knew. They had the Caddy hemmed in, figuring he had to be inside. When he stepped out to reclaim his vehicle, they’d grab him. Silently and with a minimum of fuss, but they’d grab him. Not did he think they’d wait forever. Certainly not until morning, when the before-work breakfast crowd would start to trickle in.
“Got a problem?”
