Qwilleran wanted to believe his friend, but he found it difficult. He said, “You once told me about some kind of incident when you were out fishing.”
“Yeah, it was my old boat. I was on the lake all by myself, fishing for bass. All at once I had a strange feeling I wasn’t alone. I looked up, and there was a silver disc with portholes! I had my camera case with me, but before I could get out my camera, the thing disappeared in a flash. Their speed, you know, has been clocked at seventeen hundred miles per hour.”
Qwilleran listened with his usual skepticism, although he tried not to show it. He thought, Here I am in the middle of the lake with a crazy guy! Watch it!
Soberly, he asked, “Do they accelerate from zero to seventeen hundred in the blink of an eye? Or do you think they have a technology that makes them invisible at will?”
“That’s the mystery,” Bushy said. “Obviously they’re far ahead of us technologically. I also have a current theory. Would you like to hear it?”
“By all means.”
“You know how the beach has changed this summer - not just in front of your cabin but for miles along the north shore? The loose sand has blown up into a ridge, all the way from Fishport to Purple Point. Okay… Now flash back to the time when the spacecraft was right over my head; when it zoomed away, there was a rush of air more powerful than anything I’ve experienced in a hurricane! It was a single mechanically produced blast that lasted only a second or two.”
“Are you suggesting that one or more spacecraft followed the line of the shore, rolling up sand like a carpet?”
“You’ve got it! I wrote a letter to the paper about my theory, but it wasn’t printed.”
Qwilleran threw in a handy platitude that seemed appropriate and noncommittal. “We all tend to deny what we don’t understand and don’t want to believe.”
“Exactly,” Bushy said with a look of triumph that was followed by silent indecision. Qwilleran waited for the next revelation. “I don’t know whether I should tell you this,” the young man finally ventured. “It’s confidential, but… Roger won’t mind if I let you in on it.”
Qwilleran agreed. The three of them had surely bonded during the Three Tree Island ordeal.
“Well, Roger has access to the sheriff’s office, you know… and there was something unusual about the backpacker’s body when it was found. It was sent to the state pathologist, but they don’t have any answers. Naturally they won’t admit it, so they’re saying the case is closed… Now, here’s my point: The body was found in the rolled-up hill of sand, so … you can put two and two together.”
“I see what you mean,” Qwilleran said, meaning just that and nothing more. He could have revealed who found the body in the hill of sand. Instead he said, “Bushy, this has been a great outing! Thanks for inviting me. You’ve got a gem of a boat.”
The two men were pensive as The Viewfinder skimmed across the miles to shore. At the Pirate Shoals, the Suncatcher and Fast Mama had concluded their tryst and departed. The Sunday-afternoon skippers were swarming over the lake. Qwilleran was thankful to be back on dry land.
Driving back to the cabin, he looked forward to the serenity and sanity of the domestic scene, and he received a tail-waving, ankle-rubbing welcome. Koko had been on the bookshelves, sniffing titles, and had dislodged a book as a subtle reminder that they were entitled to a Sunday-afternoon reading session. It was a Mark Twain novella, A Horse’s Tale, about an army horse named Soldier Boy, who saved a young girl from wolves. It was a good choice, lending itself to the sound effects that would excite the Siamese: neighing, whinnying, snorting, stomping, and, of course, the howling of a wolf pack. Qwilleran could do them all well, and they gave realism to the melodramatic narrative.
-9-
On Monday morning Qwilleran faxed his theater review for that day’s edition and the “Qwill Pen” for Tuesday, and he started thinking about the “Qwill Pen” for Friday. For him the treadmill effect was the challenge and fascination of journalism. The job was never finished. There was always another deadline. He remembered the newsdesks in metropolitan papers Down Below, where there was always another scandal, another war, another ballgame, another fire, another murder, another election, another court trial, another hero, another obituary, another Fourth of July.
Now, 400 miles north of everywhere, he was seriously considering such topics as the number of pressed-back chairs in the county and the possibility of spinning cat hair into yarn. His old friends at the Press Clubs around the country would never believe it … What matter? He was enjoying his life, and when Polly returned from Canada, he would enjoy it more.
First thing Monday morning, knowing that farmers rise with the sun, Qwilleran called Alice Ogilvie at the sheep ranch. He remembered her as the demure pioneer woman on the float, in a long dress with a wisp of white kerchief at the neckline and a modest white cap on severely drawn-back hair.
The woman who answered the phone had a vigorous voice and outgoing personality. “That’ll be fun!” she said. “Why don’t you come this morning? Bring some cat hair with you if you want to. From one pound of angora rabbit hair you can spin about forty thousand yards, so … who knows?”
Then and there Qwilleran forgot about Arch’s Christmas gift; it would take forty years to accumulate even a half-pound of the weightless stuff that Koko and Yum Yum were in the habit of shedding. He accepted her invitation to come for coffee and doughnuts, however, and drove to the ranch directly after faxing his copy. It was on Sandpit Road, two miles south of the shore. Having written about sheepkeeping in the past, he knew what to expect: hilly, rocky land unsuitable for crops… fences dividing it into pastures… ewes grazing peacefully… border collies herding
flocks from one pasture to another. It was like a game of musical chairs that gave the sheep a change of diet or a rest period with shade, water, and the necessary salt. Lazy rams occupied one enclosure; hyperactive lambs were in another.
Furthermore, Qwilleran knew that the pastoral scene was being managed by computer in the farmhouse. It not only dictated the movement of the flocks but kept records of the animals by number. Instantly available was information on breeding and lambing history, weaning, growth, quality of fleece, genetic background, and even individual eccentricities such as fence jumping.
“What impresses me most,” he had written in his column, “is the magic of wooclass="underline" how a roly-poly sheep can emerge from the shearing shed as skinny as a rail and then grow it all back in the cold months.”
The Ogilvies’ sprawling old farmhouse gave no sign of being on-line. When Qwilleran drove up, he was met by Alice, in jeans and a western shirt. She ushered him through the side door into a large kitchen with a ten-foot table and a fleet of tall, stately, shiny pressed-back chairs.
“Handsome chairs!” he said. “It was an inspiration to use them on the float.”
“It was my daughter’s idea. These belonged to my husband’s grandparents, back in the days when farmers had large families and lots of hired hands to feed. I don’t know how many times they’ve been varnished and recaned, and they’re still on duty, always standing at attention.”
“And where did you find a shepherd who can play the flute like Rampal?”
“Wasn’t he good? He’s head of music at Mooseland High and loved doing it. Why does everyone like to be in a parade?”
They sat around a corner of the big table for coffee and doughnuts. They were real fried-cakes, prepared that morning because Alice was taking them to a coffee hour at the church. Qwilleran had to control his enthusiasm and downright greed.