Rhubarb (14 page)

“Amazing. Quentin, what’s your question for Dick
Cunningham?”

“Sure. Mr. Cunningham, I wanted your opinion of the theory
floating around the web that the Cydonia site structures are actually a better
analog to the constellation Lyra, rather than the Pleiades, as previously
thought. I’ll hang up and listen to the answer.”

“Thanks, Roseburg. Dick, has the Lyra-Pleiades controversy
figured into your recent research?”

“Not to disappoint the caller, Lee, but I find the
constellation analog far less interesting than the analogs we find here on
Earth. Overlay the schematic of the Cydonia site on an area map of the Avebury
Stone Circle in England. Or compare the shield volcanoes on Mars’s Tharsis
Bulge—perfect alignment with the Giza pyramids and Orion’s Belt. Or the
Teotihuacan pyramids. We’re finding parallels with ancient Peruvian ruins,
Native American burial sites, and even sites now underwater, near Australia and
in the Mediterranean. With every one of these discoveries, it becomes more and
more undeniable that an ancient civilization capable of great feats of
engineering, and who revered the stars, lived on Earth and Mars. Were they
human or alien? It’s impossible to say. But it’s clear that a certain part of
their knowledge and will to construct monuments has passed down to us. We are
driven to build bigger and bigger structures and public works, often for little
reason. Could it be some of this racial memory that drives us? It’s the goal of
my research to try to connect those dots.”

~ * * * ~

Why had the Montana Department of Transportation cut Highway
360 through the eastern slope of this unnamed bluff? Was it simply a civil
engineering decision? Or were the engineers influenced to make something
perfect for an alien purpose? Or were they aliens themselves? Martin waited for
answers in a folding chair on a hillside, reeking of bug spray. At sundown,
Martin had parked his Subaru about a mile to the south on a rough gate-access
track, well out of view from the highway. He hoped it wouldn’t annoy the
rancher whose land he’d trekked across.

Martin dug a Snickers out of his backpack, and as he took
his first bite, headlights appeared from the north. Binoculars. An SUV. A Chevy
Suburban, maybe. The headlights blinked out of view at about the moment that
the sound of the car reached Martin. The SUV appeared again on the hill. Then,
as it entered the Gap, its high beams lit up the ragged rock to an unnatural
brightness. And then it was gone.

Martin strained, listening. Did it disappear? He held his
breath until the slashes of white light, chased by red, reappeared over the
hill, continuing south.

Martin took another bite of candy and slapped at an insect
on his elbow.

A tuft of grass rustled a few dark yards away, and Martin
felt a bit of adrenaline. The incessant wing fluttering and leg rubbing of the
insects he could deal with, but not the other noises. A prairie dog might as
well be a mastodon. Was that a wren landing on some sagebrush or a herd of
pissed-off pronghorn? Worse were the things he would never hear. His primate
brain conjured up wolves or a stalking lion. Get to a tree, it urged. Get in
the car and shut the doors. Nothing will get you in that little nest of leaves
you call an apartment. But as no attacks materialized, fear soon subsided into
complacence.

A few cars passed through the Gap. And fewer trucks. Martin
took video with the camera he’d picked up at a pawnshop a few days ago—a pretty
good one, a Sony. He hoped it hadn’t been stolen. Martin stuffed the Snickers
wrapper into his backpack. Pack it in, pack it out. Two cars, a Volvo and a
Saturn, rolled through in quick succession. Martin cracked open his bottle of
Diet Mountain Dew, took a swig, and as he settled it into the chair’s cup
holder, he felt the effect of all the liquid he’d had on the road up here.

He scanned north and south. Empty road. The nearest tree was
probably a cottonwood a mile away down along Deaver Creek, but it wouldn’t be
needed. The spattering under a future tumbleweed sounded unnaturally loud in
this immense dome of nature. He felt at once large and insignificant. The stars
didn’t care. Nor did the Earth. He was simply another little part of the fresh
water cycle.

A bright light and a truck filled the Gap. Martin swore as
he dribbled the last of his business on his pants. As he zipped up, he glimpsed
a sky-blue sleeper cab and a trailer from a company called Cal-Can Trucking,
with a red maple leaf in the logo. Where had it come from? Martin froze,
unsure, as it headed north toward Brixton. When it was out of sight, he grabbed
up all his gear as if his body had made up his mind without him. He snatched up
his chair and ran to his car, faster than he should have for his cardiovascular
health, his ankles, and his minuscule flashlight.

Martin rolled to a stop at the junction, and although the
crossing was clear, he waited. Herbert’s Corner waited. This might be it,
Martin thought.

All week, he’d thought about what he’d say.

“Hi, are you an alien?” No.

“Welcome to Earth, can I buy you a cup of coffee?” Maybe.

“Rhubarb pie?” Shudder.

“I know this may sound crazy, but…” Stop right there.

“So, where’re you from?” Gah. Should it be this hard?

Martin crossed Highway 15 and drove around the back of
Herbert’s Corner. He crawled to a halt on the far side of the truck lot, out of
reach of the lights. He turned off the engine. The truck had parked among the others.

Martin treaded as quietly as possible on the gravel. The
sky-blue Peterbilt had a chrome grille larger than his kitchen. The engine
popped and pinged as it cooled. The Cal-Can trailer had those aerodynamic flaps
hung between the front and rear sets of wheels. The back doors were padlocked.
Martin checked for anyone coming from the truck stop and then grabbed the
handhold and hoisted himself onto the cab’s footstep. In the dim parking lot
light, he couldn’t see much more than a steering wheel, a giant pack of
sunflower seeds on the dashboard, and a Burger King bag in the passenger seat.
A CB radio hung from the ceiling. The door was solid, the glass was glass. The
cab rocked under his weight.

“Hey,” called a voice, “what’re you doing?”

Martin stumbled down and scrambled toward the end of the
truck. The voice called again. Flight said to get back to his car as fast as
possible. Fight agreed and curled up into a little whimpering ball.

Martin sneaked around the next truck and crouched behind a
set of tires. The trucker checked the driver’s door, circled the rig, and then
jogged back to the building.

Martin got the hell out of there. About a quarter-mile south
on 360, he turned onto Birdbath Road, where his binoculars would provide a
pretty good view of the Corner.

About five minutes later, Martin watched as a sheriff’s
vehicle arrived and took a slow circuit around the gas station. A deputy got
out and strolled inside. He emerged a few moments later with Gary and the truck
driver. The driver indicated someone about Martin’s height lurking near his
rig. The deputy walked the perimeter with his giant Maglite flashlight and
returned to Gary and the driver with his verdict. They all shrugged, shook
their heads, and headed back inside.

~ * * * ~

The next afternoon, Martin reprovisioned himself and arrived
at the ranch access road near twilight. He followed his own foot tracks up the
hill to the vantage point and set down his chair. The western sky was a
tapestry of orange and yellow under wisps of clouds rarely seen off a canvas.
The first stars and planets twinkled in the east over the Gap, with a bright
quarter moon. The bugs buzzed around his cloud of Off! as if to welcome him.

Thank you, Subway, for making breakfast sandwiches all day
long, Martin thought as he munched his flatbread. He let the insects have the
lettuce that fell out. An offering.

Martin supposed that the relatively heavy northbound Sunday
evening traffic was people coming home from a day shopping in Billings. Not too
many people came south from Brixton. And few trucks came from either direction.
But after a couple of hours, even the northbound traffic slowed to a trickle.
He’d videoed only four trucks by the time he’d finished his second Diet
Mountain Dew and opened a third.

It cracked and hissed, and the insects fell quiet.

The hairs rose on the back of Martin’s neck. Diet Mountain
Dew overflowed the cap and ran over his hand. He felt something in his gut,
like when a car with a month’s salary worth of subwoofers in the trunk pulls up
next to you in traffic—but not audible, more ethereal. He missed the chair’s
cup holder, and the foaming bottle fell onto the dirt. He groped for his
camera, not taking his eyes off the Gap. He hurriedly pressed buttons until he
got it on. A single cricket chirped twice and stopped.

Martin awoke, his face in the dirt a few inches from an
ancient cow pie. He got to his feet to find the camera still wrapped around his
hand, still recording. With sticky fingers, he fumbled with the playback
controls. His whole life narrowed to that two-inch screen in the middle of the
dark Montana rangeland.

He had recorded his muttering efforts to find the Gap in the
view; then the camera had settled, shakily, onto the moonlit arc of crumbling
rock. Then the view blurred again, and stopped a moment later, tilted and
half-blocked by a tuft of grass and a rock. The autofocus ratcheted back and
forth, searching for something of significance. A minute later, a bright light
flared the screen white. The light turned blue, and the lens focused on a
yawning electric mouth. A uvula of light spat out a boxy form. The light sucked
away in an instant, leaving the blurred object and streaks of running lights.
It left the frame in a half-second. Martin rewound clumsily, failed to freeze
on the moment in the first attempt, but then got it: a blur of a red tractor
pulling a blank trailer.

Martin ran back to the Subaru and floored it to Brixton,
gasping, sweating, with his heart trying to claw its way out of his chest.

While last Sunday there had been three trucks in the
Herbert’s Corner lot, tonight there was only one. The One. It had to be. A red
Freightliner, its trailer blank on both sides. The only identifying markings
indicated that the load might be corrosive, and that both the truck and the
trailer were licensed in Kentucky.

Martin managed to get into the Herbert’s Corner restroom
without being seen. He washed his dirt-encrusted hand, then swiped at the
smudges on his face and clothes with a wet paper towel until he was relatively
presentable.

The man at the counter was about Martin’s height and size.
He sported a Freddie Mercury mustache and a pork pie hat. His shirt bragged
that he been to the Harley-Davidson store in Omaha. He had the heels of his
cowboy boots hooked over the stool’s footrest.

Martin took a stool a couple down, and they exchanged
friendly nods.

The driver had ordered a club sandwich, french fries, a
Pepsi, a pickle wedge, and a side of potato salad. Eileen emerged from the
kitchen and raised one eyebrow at Martin.

“What happened to you?” she asked, reluctantly pouring him a
cup of coffee.

“I was hiking,” said Martin. He flicked his eyes over to the
other diner, and she rolled her eyes. “Fell down.”

No,
she mouthed. “What can I get you?”

He nodded discretely. Yes. “You got any of that rhubarb
pie?” he asked.

Eileen eyed him coldly. Martin grinned and forced himself to
keep his gaze on her. In his peripheral vision, he thought he saw the driver
stop chewing.

“Now, you know we don’t have any of that,” said Eileen. “I
got peach, pecan, chocolate cream, banana cream, and I may still have a slice
of apple.”

“The peach sounds okay,” said Martin. “Warm, with a scoop of
ice cream.”

Martin stirred Sweet’N Low into his coffee. “They used to
have the best rhubarb pie in here,” he said. The driver acknowledged him with a
nod. “My dad used to bring me in here just for the pie. I was only a kid, but I
still miss it.” The driver chewed thoughtfully. Martin thought he might speak,
but he took another bite of his sandwich.

“You ever come here when they had that rhubarb pie?” Martin
asked.

The driver stared for a moment, then nodded slowly. A chill
rode up Martin’s back.

Eileen returned with a little white plate. She’d topped the
pie with Reddi-wip, but no ice cream. “You better eat quick and get home. Ain’t
you got work in the morning?”

Martin shrugged. “We were just talking about the rhubarb pie
you used to serve here. Long time ago. Seems…sorry, I didn’t get your name.”

“Glen,” the man said.

“Seems Glen remembers having it, too. Good stuff.”

“You ever getting that on the menu again?” Glen asked. He
spoke in a surprising accent. Texas, maybe? An odd choice for an alien, but so
was the hat.

“We get our pies from a big bakery over in Great Falls now.
Don’t think they do rhubarb,” said Eileen.

“That’s too bad,” said Glen. He turned back to his meal.

That’s enough,
Eileen mouthed to Martin. “Enjoy your
pie.”

Martin waited until Eileen returned to the kitchen. “Quiet
tonight.”

Glen nodded and chewed.

“Where you headed?” Martin asked.

“Wherever the company sends me,” Glen replied.

“I heard that,” said Martin.

Martin finished his pie at about the same time Glen scraped
the last of his fries through a swirl of ketchup. Glen took a long sip at the
dregs of his Pepsi, got up, and looked over the check Eileen had left tented on
the counter. He licked his teeth behind his lips as he dug in a back pocket for
a wallet.

“You heading out again?” Martin asked.