Rhubarb (5 page)

“Wouldn’t miss it, Lee.”

“At the con you debuted your new book,
Lines of Sight: A
New Perspective on the Construction and Meaning of the Lines of Nazca, and What
It Means for Us Today.
How have you been received with these new theories?”

“Lee, the response has been overwhelming. I can’t tell you
how many letters, emails, tweets, and even telegrams I’ve gotten from
supporters.”

“Now, you spent a lot of time in the field while doing the
research for this book.”

“Six trips to Peru in as many years, Lee. I made thirty
flights over the lines and many overland visits. We’re still waiting to get special
dispensation from the Peruvian government and UNESCO to do more accurate
surveys.”

“For those who haven’t read the book, can you give us a
brief synopsis of your theories?”

“Absolutely. Reiche believes that the lines and figures were
entirely the creation of the Nazca people as a religious astronomical calendar.
And of course von Daniken theorizes that the lines were a landing field for
ancient astronauts. I fall somewhere in between. The problem, Lee, is that the
figures and lines don’t correlate with anything we know in our own sky, even
when we roll back the star positions a few thousand years. Nor do the figures
correlate well with the common religious imagery of the Andean tribes at that
time.”

“That leaves us with a bit of a mystery, doesn’t it?”

“I postulate that the lines are actually a map, created by
the Nazca people at the direction of extraterrestrial visitors. It’s not a map
reflecting the sky of Earth, but the sky of the visitors’ home world. The lines
are meant to orient and provide spatial coordinates. The figures are
constellations seen in that other sky, but rendered as local animals as a
mnemonic device.”

“So it’s your assertion that if we locate these
constellations, it will reveal the visitors’ home.”

“Exactly. I’m working on a computer program that will…”

~ * * * ~

Thank you for stopping at Lockwood Town Pump
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85.5 Regular Unleaded

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Step 5:
Begin fueling. No smoking. Do
not top off. Report spills to attendant.

A little after five in the morning a few weeks later, a
familiar Lincoln Town Car floated into the gas station. The driver’s-side
window rolled down. “Yo, Screw Man, I got one of your nails in my tire,”
Jeffrey called. He got out and swiped his card in the opposite pump.

“Morning, Jeffrey,” Martin said with a yawn.

Jeffrey set the nozzle in his ride. “You working Billings
today?” he asked.

“No, I gotta do Columbus, Absarokee, Red Lodge, Joliet,
Bridger, and maybe Laurel if I can get there.”

“That’s a lot for you, isn’t it?”

Martin rolled his eyes. “Company’s pushing me on expenses.”

“Sorry, man. Too bad. I’m heading up to Molt for lunch. That
café up there. Have you been?” Martin shook his head. “Great place. Hey, how’d
it go with that Brixton chick? You talk to her?” Martin gave Jeffrey a sour
look. “Sorry, I shouldn’t pry.”

Martin watched his expense dollars drain away into his deep
and thirsty tank. If he called a couple of accounts and arranged to come in
over the weekend, he could probably swing lunch with Jeffrey. And Rick could
bite him. “What time are you going to lunch?” he asked.

~ * * * ~

The waitress should have been pledging a sorority rather
than taking orders at a quaint café in an old general store with nothing but
high prairie for miles around. She set their meals down with a smile and spun
on the spot to take the order of a couple at the next table.

“Looks good, no?” asked Jeffrey. He indicated the waitress’s
jeans and winked.

“And here I planned to scarf down a Subway sandwich on the
road,” said Martin, keeping his eyes on his food.

Martin was about halfway through his meal when Jeffrey
asked, “Why don’t you tell me what’s on your mind?”

“Is it that obvious?” asked Martin.

“You look like you’ve been carrying that truck around on
your back,” said Jeffrey.

“I’m thinking of getting out. Company’s pushing for more and
more with less and less. I work seven days a week. I spend more than forty
hours a week in that truck.”

“I thought you enjoyed it, especially with Lee Danvers there
all the time,” said Jeffrey.

“I’m being serious,” said Martin. “I don’t know if I can
keep doing this, but I also don’t know what else I’d do. I’d love to get on
with a bigger company, something with a little more recognition than FastNCo.,
but the job market now scares me to death. And this whole thing with Cheryl up
in Brixton has gotten me thinking. I don’t even have time in my life for her.
All I have time to do is work. And for what? To pay for the crappy apartment I
never sleep in? To afford the two-week vacation I don’t take so I can make
bonus? To make the payment on the Subaru I never drive? What can I offer her
that’s anything like a normal relationship?”

“You own a Subaru?” asked Jeffrey.

“How do you do it?”

“Who says I do?” said Jeffrey. “Maybe I’m just as
angst-ridden as you.”

“You seem to have it all together,” said Martin.

“It’s my naturally cool demeanor,” said Jeffrey. “Plus, I’m
a workaholic.”

“Have you heard of any openings anywhere?”

“What makes you think another company is going to be any
better?” Jeffrey asked. “I’m getting all kinds of pressure from the head office
now. The grass isn’t going to be greener anywhere else, just a different shade
of brown.”

Martin sighed. “I gotta do something. One of these days I’m
going to hit a deer, or go sliding off in a snowstorm, and I’m going to die out
on these roads. And for what? So FastNCo. can meet analyst expectations for the
third quarter earnings reports?”

“You’re not going to die,” said Jeffrey. “Stop being
depressing. I’m trying to enjoy my catfish.”

“Sorry. I’m definitely going to start searching for a new
job.”

“I’ll keep my ear to the ground for you,” said Jeffrey.

Martin shifted in his seat. He couldn’t believe he’d poured
all that out in front of Jeffrey. How did it come to be that his best friend in
the world, his only confidante, was a smarmy candy salesman he met around the
state a couple of times a month? He didn’t know his neighbors. All his high
school and college friends were off having lives with wives and kids, at least
according to Facebook. I can’t even get a dog, he thought. I’d be hunted by the
ASPCA.

“You still jogging?” Jeffrey asked.

“Not really,” said Martin.

“I suppose we make the time for the stuff we really want to
do.”

“Is that meant to be insightful?”

“It’s meant to be an excuse to get dessert,” said Jeffrey,
waving to their waitress.

“But how can we trust the CIA about what’s really going on
over in Iran? You know they lied to us about the assassination attempt on the
pope in ’83.”

“Did they?”

“Of course they did, Lee. They wanted Pope John Paul II dead
because he was reaching out to the Eastern Bloc. The CIA was actively trying to
start World War III. That was their job. They couldn’t have the pope preaching
peace and understanding to the commies.”

“Do you agree with that, Colonel? Was the CIA involved with
the attempt to assassinate the pope?”

“That’s a new one to me, Lee. As far as I’m aware, the CIA
never had any active operations targeted against the Vatican or the pope. The
pope was an outspoken critic of the communists and their treatment of the
church in his native Poland. I doubt the CIA would have wanted to do anything
to hinder him getting his message out.”

“Thank you, caller. Next up, Charleston, West Virginia.
You’re on with Colonel Timothy Mumford, author of
The Secret History of the
CIA
.”

“Wow. Hi, Lee. Longtime sleeper, first time awake.”

“Glad to wake you up. What’s your question for Colonel
Mumford?”

“Sure. Um, Colonel, I was wondering about the fact that the
Reptoids of the Babylonian Brotherhood have taken control of the CIA in order
to bring the United States into the New World Order, and if your access to the
archives gave you any additional insight into this?”

A car had pulled over on the side of the road, hood open,
with its flashers blinking red into the night. Martin moved into the other lane
to pass, as FastNCo. policy forbid him from offering roadside assistance in the
company truck. Then he caught a glimpse of a red hoodie by the front bumper. He
slammed on the brakes and caught his makeshift radio before it slid off the
seat. In the back, the full load of fasteners shifted noisily.

“…when George H. W. Bush became president, but that didn’t
materialize. The archive referenced several documents, but I wasn’t able to
loc…” Martin turned off the radio. The person in his side mirror was definitely
wearing a red sweatshirt, but was it her? Now that he’d stopped, he couldn’t
just drive off. He levered his truck into reverse.

He stopped twenty yards away. The truck’s exhaust billowed
into the dim extent of the stranded car’s headlights. The roadside at night
felt like an alien world, something meant to be streamed by at seventy-five miles
per hour. He shouldn’t have been walking along the corroding edge of the
asphalt. He shouldn’t have been able to see individual tufts of grass. He
shouldn’t have been able to touch a reflector post. The insects should have
been splats on his windshield, not noisy, living things, drawn by the light.

“You need help?” he called.

“There’s no cell coverage out here,” she called back.
Cheryl. Not at the store, not at the motel. But out here. Martin checked his
own phone. Not only were there no bars, but the phone helpfully added, “No
Service.”

“Me neither,” said Martin.

“It’d been making a funny noise for a while,” said Cheryl.
“Then I came around the curve there, and it made this horrible sound, then just
stopped wanting to go. The engine revs, but it doesn’t drive.”

“Hate to say it, but it sounds like a transmission problem,”
said Martin, wondering if he’d oversold his masculinity. “But you probably
shouldn’t take my word for it.”

Cheryl sighed. She lifted the hood, took out the brace, and
snapped it carefully back into place. Then she let the hood down easily,
letting it drop only the last couple of inches. “Poor little thing,” she said,
putting a hand on her white Pontiac Grand Am. “I suppose I need a ride. Do you
mind?”

Martin thought in mumbles and sputters but somehow managed
to say, “No problem.”

“I need to bring a few things,” she said. She popped the
trunk. A dozen green oxygen tanks had been laid out on towels. “I have to go to
the clinic over in Lewistown to have them filled every couple of weeks,” she
said. They loaded them into the back of his truck.

Martin invited Cheryl into the cab, in flagrant violation of
FastNCo.’s policy. Only the plywood radio box separated them. If he drove his
usual five miles over the speed limit, they’d be in Brixton in twenty minutes.
He set the cruise control for a safe and legal pace.

“I’m glad it was you, and not some stranger,” said Cheryl.
“Are you staying in Brixton tonight?”

“Yeah.”

“You can just take me to the motel, then.”

“I’ll take you home,” said Martin. “It’s no problem. How’s
your stepfather?”

Cheryl sighed. “So stubborn. I’ve tried everything to get
him to go down to Billings and get checked out by real doctors.”

“But he won’t go?”

“Says it won’t do any good,” said Cheryl. “I’ve spent so
much time on WebMD, they should give me a medical degree.”

“He’s lucky to have you around,” Martin said, instantly
regretting it. But Cheryl didn’t seem to take it as any sort of double
entendre.

“Yes. He is,” she said.

“How’s Lester doing? Has he upgraded that mechanical till to
a computer yet?”

“Are you kidding?” said Cheryl. She began to dig in her
purse, a cloth thing hung around her neck and shoulder. Oh my god, she’s
looking for pepper spray, Martin thought. Or a taser. Cheryl popped the lid off
a tube of ChapStick and quickly smeared a bit on both lips. She snapped the lid
back on and zipped her purse closed. Martin felt as if she had tased him, but
he had no time to sort out the implications of her lip moisture. She poked at
the plywood box with her elbow. “What’s this thing?”

“Satellite radio,” said Martin. “Company won’t let me
install the upgrade, so I had to make do.” Don’t ask me what I listen to,
Martin prayed. Don’t ask me what I listen to.

“What do you listen to?”

“Talk, mostly.”

“Stewart listens to
Beyond Insomnia
religiously,”
said Cheryl.

“Who? Oh, your stepfather?”

“You ever listen to it?”

“Will you hold it against me if I say yes?” asked Martin.

“As long as you don’t believe all the crap.”

“I take it you don’t.”

“If even half of the stuff were true, we’d all be neck deep
in weirdness. And that Lee Danvers, you can tell he’s laughing all the way to
the bank.”

“He’s always said he’s a skeptic,” said Martin.

“Skeptic. Don’t give me that,” said Cheryl. “And Stewart
buys anything that man advertises, like a sucker.”

Garmin GPS, national sponsor. The caffeine pills in the
ashtray, frequent advertiser. The wind-up emergency radio behind the passenger
seat, Lee Danvers recommended. The shake-up LED flashlight in the glove
compartment, no Waker should be without one. Had she noticed? “It’s a funny
show,” Martin offered. “And Lee’s one of the last guys who really knows how to
do radio, you know?”