Evidence of Life

Chapter 17



The old man led his mule through the cedar brake toward the bank of the creek where he’d make camp for the night. The sound of the water laced with the breeze was welcome and familiar. If he was lucky, he’d have a fat catfish on the hook before dinner, and if he wasn’t, he’d eat the apples he’d filched off those trees a while back. They were his trees anyway, he reckoned. His own granddaddy had planted them. Didn’t mean squat to him if the land had new owners.

Blue shambled behind him, head bobbing low, ready to be somewhere settled in for the night.

When they reached the water’s edge, the man stood looking its length up and down, and he sighed. The cobble-filled channel was spring-fed and running at a good pace. Sometimes she flooded bad, like last spring. That flood had put water over damn near four counties, the worst in Hill Country history. Lives had been lost; some folks had never been found.

“An’ we think we got problems, huh, Blue?” The old man dropped the mule’s reins and patted his neck absently.

He lifted his battered ball cap and resettled it, walked a little way beside the water thinking how she’d never had a name that he ever heard of. Somehow that seemed a shame now. His granddaddy’d just called it “the crick”. He’d come haul him out of bed of a mornin’ and say, “Let’s go fishin’ down to the crick, kid.”

Man, those had been the days. He’d learnt to swim here, too, and spent many a night camping on this very bank. This was his place, his water. He knew every inch of this land and this stream as if it was his own skin.

He bent and picked up a flat pebble, examined the layers of reddish brown and soft yellow, and then side-armed it, watching it skip the water’s surface before it sank in a nest of ripples. The bank on the other side was a wall of limestone cut into cliffs that rose sharply from a litter of rock. Seemed to him as if the face was always shedding its skin, shooting off flakes, creating tables or bridges at its feet, the darker mystery of caves.

Somehow the look of the rock face, the way it cracked and buckled, put the old man in mind of himself, how age was breaking him. Rock or flesh or dirt, in the end, time would have its way. In the end everything breaks. Everything dies.

He squinted up at the sun perched in the high reach of the trees that capped the ridge to his left. Wouldn’t be long, time would have its way with the last of the daylight, too. He turned to Blue standing behind him and slid his bedroll and a leather satchel that held his gear off the mule’s back. Blue flicked his tail and gave a snort of pleasure, then ambled upstream a little way and a few yards inland to a small, protected cove where the grass grew thick and green.

“That’s right, old Blue,” the man said. And he knew they were both happy.

He gathered driftwood for a fire later, and pretty quick after that had his hook in the water and his back settled against a good-sized log. He dozed some, and when he came to, it was dark. He checked his line. The empty hook dangled. Some varmint had likely got his dinner, the old man thought. He rose stiffly and lit the fire, ate the apples and some of the cornbread he’d used for bait, and when Blue came begging, he fed him some of his meal, too.

“Worse’n a old bitch dog,” he said, petting the long mottled gray nose.

Before he turned in, he gathered a few more good-size pieces of driftwood. He’d be up again in the night. Couldn’t go ’til morning no more without needing to take a piss.

* * *

He woke with a start and for a moment had no idea what had wakened him or where he was. Then he heard the sound of the water running in the creek nearby and remembered. He turned his head until he caught sight of his campfire burned down to embers now, and there was Blue’s slumbering hulk asleep on the other side. Danged mule was twitching and snuffling as if he was having some kind of dream. Was it the mule’s racket that had wakened him?

He turned his face up, staring into the black bowl of the sky, and caught a flicker of light from the corner of his eye.

Flashlight?

He levered up on one elbow and peered out over the water, unmoving, unsure whether to be afraid. But his heart wasn’t waiting around for orders. He could feel it thumping in his chest like the hind leg of a jackrabbit. There it was again, coming from up in one of them caves on the other side of the stream. Two bright beams, bigger than from a flashlight. More like car headlights. Seemed as if they were pushed back pretty far, wedged at a slant in the rocks. They kept blinking at regular intervals—on, then off—on, then off.

Nearby, Blue stirred again, and the man glanced at him quick-like. He didn’t appear more addled or disturbed than before. But what the hell did a mule know?

The man sat up cautiously and cocked his knees, staring intently across the narrow expanse of swiftly moving water. He scoured his eyes, pinched himself. The lights continued to blink. For real, not a dream—he was pinching himself, wasn’t he?

But he couldn’t make out what they were attached to. Had to be a car. What else?

Spaceship?

He glanced at the sky. No sign of anything, not even the moon. It would be daylight soon. He looked back across the water. His mind said it had to be a car stuck up in that cliff face somehow. But how could that be? Wasn’t no way for a car to get over there. Not even a four-wheel drive could ride over them rocks. Wasn’t a road around even on this side of the crick, and besides, the cedar trees grew thicker than old Blue’s winter coat, never mind the boulders.

The man studied the flickering lights. Was somebody signaling trouble? He’d been a radioman in the Navy, stationed at Pearl in WWII. What the hell was the sequence for SOS—three dashes, three dots? Or the other way? Shitfire if he could remember. He huddled in his bedroll. Wasn’t no way he could get over there to investigate anyway.

* * *

It was full light, and he was stretched out flat on his back inside his bedroll when he opened his eyes again. First thing in his mind was that he’d never got up to take a piss, then the next thing he remembered was the mystery lights. He sat up, rubbing his face, feeling the growth of stubble on his thin cheeks. He squinted across the water. Dream, he thought. Wasn’t nothing more than—

The old man bent sharply forward. When Blue nudged him, asking for breakfast, he said, “Looky there, Blue. Somethin’s catching the sun. See it?”

He scooped up his cap, shed his blankets and walked to the water’s edge. He studied the cliff face until his eyes teared. But he couldn’t make out anything but the pale yellow stone. It was his imagination, he told himself, turning away, rapidly blinking. His eyesight wasn’t too good anyway. He hooked his fingers into Blue’s scruffy mane and thought about his daughter, how mad she’d be if she found out he was here. Marcy’d say this wasn’t his place no more, that his home was with her. He was trespassing, and besides, hadn’t he told her he was camping up on the Guadalupe?

The old man rubbed Blue’s neck. “Can you imagine what Marcy’d say if we was to tell her what we seen?”

Blue brayed and showed his big yellow teeth.

“Yeah, that’s right, you old shit bird. She’d laugh her ass off sure as anything.”

* * *

He fished till after lunch when the sun dropped behind the cliffs, then packed his gear. He hadn’t intended to leave, not for a couple more days anyway. He’d meant to stay as long as the weather was fine, as long as he wasn’t discovered and dragged off the place. But somehow that business last night had left him feeling spooked. There was no peace in the breeze, no music in the sound of the water, and he hadn’t caught a damned thing. He loaded his bedroll and satchel onto Blue’s back and headed into the trees.

But then, before they completely closed the stream from view, he turned and saw it. The car was wedged a little ways up and pretty far back in the rocks and near as he could tell, looked to be about the same color. Only reason it stood out now was from the light being exactly right.

He dropped Blue’s lead, walked back to the bank and stood near enough to the water that it lapped at the toes of his boots. He pushed his hat back on his head and stared. No sign of blinking lights now; maybe he had dreamed that part, but it was a car, he’d swear it. He raised his hat and resettled it.

On the way home, he told Blue: “God strike me dead if I open my mouth about it and don’t you say nothin’ either. Marcy’d have us both in the fruit farm for sure.”