The Visitors (v1.0)

11. LONE PINE

Jerry was across the river and waiting when Kathy came down the hill back of the motel He was sitting at the edge of a clump of plum trees that screened him from sight of the bridge a quarter mile or so upriver.

Kathy came around the clump of plums and saw him there. She tossed the pair of shoes she was carrying at him.

"You can get rid of the waders now," she said. "I hope I got the right size."

"I wear eights," said Jerry.

"These are eights and a half. I couldn't remember. Maybe I never knew. Better too big than too small. Sightseers are walking in, getting past the troopers. Without the waders, no one will take a second look at you."

"Thanks," said Jerry. "I was worried about the waders."

She came over and sat down beside him. He put an arm around her and pulled her close, bent down to kiss her.

"This is a nice place you have," she said. "Let's stay here for a while and talk. I have a lot of questions. Back there this morning, you never gave me a chance to ask any. Now go ahead and tell me.

"Well, I told you I was inside that thing. I wasn't the only one. There was a fish, a rabbit, a coon and a muskrat."

"You said they wanted to look you over. Did they want to look over the rest of them, too?"

"I think so. You're an alien, say, and you land on another planet. You would want to find out real quick what kind of life there is."

"Why don't you just begin at the beginning and tell me in detail all that happened."

"You'll interrupt me, ask questions."

"No, I won't. I'll just stay quiet and listen."

"And you won't write me up? You won't write a story about me?"

"Depends on how good the story is. And if it can be written. But if you say no, I won't. I may argue with you about it, but if you still say no, I won't."

"That's fair enough. I drove out of my way yesterday to get to this place because I'd been told about the big rainbow in the pool below the bridge. When I got here, I knew I could spend no more than half an hour because there was this concert you wanted to go to and.

"So you did remember the concert?"

"How could I forget it? You'd bullied me and threatened me.

"All right, go on and tell the rest of it."

He went on and told her, with only a few interruptions.

"Why didn't you come back to Lone Pine last night?" she asked when he was finished. "You knew about this place where you could wade the river."

"Not then," he said. "Not until later. Not until this morning. I was lost last night—all night. When the thing threw me out, I lost all sense of direction and it was dark. I couldn't even find that thing you call the visitor. So I found what seemed to be a path. The only way I could follow it was on my hands and knees. When I tried to walk, I kept blundering into trees. Crawling, I could feel the path with my hands. I followed the path because I thought it might lead me somewhere. But it didn't; it finally petered out. ‘When that happened, I knew I had to wait for morning. So I crawled under a small conifer. Its branches hung down to the ground and sheltered me from the wind. But, even so, it was cold. I had no matches to start a fire.

"And you stayed until it was light?"

"That's right. Then I heard trees falling and that growling sound the visitor makes when it chews them up. I didn't know, of course, that it was the visitor doing it. I didn't know what was going on. This is a primitive wilderness area and no one is supposed to be chopping down trees. But I didn't think about that at the time. I only knew there'd be someone who could tell me how to get to Lone Pine.~~

"Then you saw the troopers at the bridge and got scared off?"

"Exactly. So I scouted down the river and found this place where I could cross. Then I heard people on this side of the river and went back to have a look. That's when I spotted you."

"I still don't entirely understand," she said, "why you don't want anyone to know you were inside the visitor."

"Don't you see? I haven't a shred of proof to back up my story. I'd just be another jerk trying to capitalize on a flying saucer landing. The country must be all stirred up by now."

"It is," said Kathy. "Washington, perhaps, the worst of all. I told you about the FBI who are here. A team of scientific observers got in this afternoon."

"If anyone suspected I had been inside that thing," said Jerry, "they'd snatch me up and question me. I could tell them with a good conscience, of course, but I couldn't prove my story. I'd feel like a fool and they probably wouldn't believe me and sooner or later, I would get into the news and half the people would think I was lying and what is worse, the other half would believe me

"Yes, I see your point," said Kathy.

"What I have to tell wouldn't help much," he said, "but once they got me, they wouldn't let loose. They'd keep on pestering me and questioning me, trying to trap me in lies. Like as not they'd drag me off to Washington and I have my thesis that I am working on

"Yes, you're right," said Kathy. "I don't know. I think just possibly you made the right decision."

"You mean, then, that you're not going to argue about making a story out of me."

"I don't think I would dare to," she said. "It would sound like sheer hogwash, pure sensationalism. No evidence at all to document the story. Just your unsupported word for it. I can imagine what Al Lathrop would say."

"Who is Lathrop?"

"Our managing editor. He's a bear for documentation. Such a story would never get past him. Probably it wouldn't even get by Johnny. Johnny would be drooling over it, but he'd know that Lathrop.

"That eases my mind," said Jerry. "I thought maybe I'd have to fight you off."

"It's a damn shame," said Kathy. "It would make a nice story.

God, what a story it would make! It would go out over the wires.

Every paper would publish it. Millions of people would read it.

You'd be an instant hero

"Or an instant bum."

"That, too," she said.

She settled back into the crook of his arm. It was nice here, she told herself. The sun, halfway down the western sky, was warm; there was not a cloud in sight. In front of them, the shallow water gurgled as it chattered along its rocky bed. Across the river, an aspen grove shouted the goldness of its autumn leaves against the somber greenery of the pines.

"You realize, of course," she said, "that eventually they will catch up with you. As soon as they unscramble that car enough to get at a license plate. Or when they have the engine number."

"Yes, I know," he said. "I need some time before they do. I have to think about it more. Get my feet under me. Know what I have to do. Maybe by that time the question of who the car belongs to won't seem important."

"Even when they know you are the one," said Kathy, "there's no reason to mention that you were ever inside the visitor. They'll never ask. No one would suspect that it possibly could happen. All you have to do is let the incident blow over to some extent. I would imagine that as time goes on, the visitor may give them a lot more to think about. Within the next few days, you should file an insurance claim on the car. By that time, well probably know who hauled it off and why."

"That can wait. I have one problem, though. I should be getting back to the university."

"Chet will be driving into Bemidji in another hour or so with some rolls of film to put on a plane to Minneapolis. One of the kids who hang around the gas station walked out this morning and brought in the car for Chet. It had been stranded in the traffic jam when the troopers closed roads into Lone Pine and has been sitting there ever since. You can ride with Chet to Bemidji and take the plane from there."

"Kathy, I haven't the price of a plane ticket on me."

"That's all right. I have. I picked up a wad of expense money before I left the Tribune."

"I'll pay you back later on. You may have to wait."

"No need. I can work it into my expense account somehow. If not all this trip, the rest of it on the next."

"I hate to leave," he said. "It's so peaceful up here. Once I get back, I'll sit hunched over waiting for the phone to ring or for someone to tap me on the shoulder."

"It may take a while. They may not move too fast. There'll be other things for them to do."

"When will Chet be leaving?"

"Not for a while. We still have a while."

"When will you be back at the Tribune?"

"I have no idea. Not too long, I hope. I've been thinking about one thing you said. The thought of home you said the visitor projected into your mind—if that is what it did. What do you make of it?"

"I've thought and thought of it," he said. "It was a curious thing to happen. Not something one would expect. All I do is think around in circles. I can't seem to get a handle on it."

"It does seem strange."

"It all seems strange. If it hadn't happened to me, I'd say it couldn't happen."

"Any overall impressions? Any idea of the kind of thing this visitor could be?"

"It was all so confusing," he said. "I've tried to figure out if it is some sort of machine controlled by an intelligence or if it is actually a live creature. Sometimes I think one way, sometimes another. It all stays confused. Yet, I'm haunted by it. Maybe if I could tell it all, describe exactly what I saw and felt, to some scientist, an exobiologist perhaps, he might see something that I missed."

"Talking to someone about it is exactly what you are trying to dodge," she reminded him.

"What I'm trying to dodge," he said, "is public exposure, questioning by governmental agencies, being sneered at or treated like an over-imaginative child, beaten to death by people who have no imagination, no concept of what may be involved."

Kathy said, trying to comfort him, "Maybe in another day or two, our visitor will just fly off and leave. We may never see its like again. It may have dropped by only for a visit, a short rest before it goes on to wherever it is going."

"I don't think so," said Jerry. "I don't know why I think this, but I do."

"There's a man at the university," said Kathy. "Dr. Albert Barr. An exobiologist. Not widely known, but he has published a few papers. Maybe you should talk with him. Jay wrote a story a year or so ago about him. He sounded like a good guy."

"Maybe I'll look him up," said Jerry.