Rhubarb (23 page)

Hank met them at his gate and swung it aside for Martin to
roll the Screwmobile into the tight quarters of the parking yard outside his
house and Quonset hut shop. Hank greeted them with a Thermos lid of coffee in
one hand and a lip full of chew. He was an old-timer, but healthier than
Stewart, less curmudgeonly than Lester, and seemed, all in all, content with
his life of fixing cars and tractors and chewing the fat with anyone who came a-scavenging
in his junkyard.

He rambled past his shop to a wide gate in a high, crooked
slatted fence. A few glassed cabs of harvesters and the yellow dome of a school
bus were the only occupants tall enough to see the sunrise. Hank held the
Thermos cup in his teeth as he unlocked the massive padlock and shoved the gate
sideways.

Martin felt like he’d wandered into some secret elephant
burial ground. Decades, if not centuries, of rusting hulks had fallen and died
in the few fenced acres of tall, dewy grass. He pitied the farmer who might
still need parts for these ancient machines. His heart ached for the young kid
desperate enough to have to hack his way through this caged metal prairie for a
cheap part to get his hand-me-down car running. He mourned the accounts in
Havre that he would have to call soon and beg for a later appointment.

They had almost reached the back fence when Hank said, “Here
she is.” He nodded at a tumbleweed-tangled, car-shaped tarp sandwiched between
a sun-bleached, windowless Wagoneer, and a hoodless Firebird, and then ejected
a brown splat of tobacco spit into the dust.

Martin frowned at the tarp until he realized that the old
men were staring at him. “What?” he asked.

“That tarp ain’t gonna move itself,” said Hank.

A quarter-century of dust and bird poop awaited Martin as he
found the edge of the tarp in the weeds. Stagnant water had pooled in the
folds, and something rustled in the grass, but he struggled the tarp back over
the hood, the roof, and off the back of the trunk. He let it fall and brushed
off his hands.

“What a piece of junk,” Martin said.

“It’s a 1986 Lincoln Town Car,” said Stewart. “Only got
about a thousand miles on it, too.” The corroded paint sketched an odd map of
weathered archipelagos on pristine seas. The delaminating vinyl on the rear of
the roof probably wouldn’t last past twenty miles per hour once the car got a
new set of tires.

“You’ve got to be kidding me. I had accounts scheduled,
Stewart.”

“Everything okay, Stew?” asked Hank.

“We’re fine. Can you give us a few minutes?”

“No problem. Just holler.”

“I thought you said…” said Martin.

“I said not to get your hopes up,” Stewart interrupted.
“Things aren’t always exactly what they seem.”

Martin checked over his shoulder to make sure Hank was out
of earshot. “How long has this been sitting here?”

“Hopefully everything still works,” said Stewart.

“Still works? Oh, that’s just great.”

The driver’s door opened with the creak of metal on metal.
Stewart produced a key and turned the ignition but got nothing. “Too much to
hope, I suppose,” said Stewart.

Martin’s stomach growled. All he’d had to eat was half a box
of powdered donuts from the gas station several hours ago. If his morning
appointments in Havre couldn’t be rescheduled, he’d have to think up a new
excuse for Rick. Death in the family? Overslept? Food poisoning? Or maybe
something positive this time.
Yep, I walked into the grocery store this
morning, and I was their millionth customer. Free shopping spree and
everything.

Stewart popped the hood. The engine looked surprisingly
clean. A few spider webs, but no visible corrosion or damage, except for a few
coral blossoms of acid around the battery terminals. Stewart poked around at
some of the hoses and cables.

“Run up to the garage and ask Hank to borrow his jumper,”
said Stewart. “Oh, grab a fire extinguisher, too. Hell, just get Hank back
here. He’ll know what to do.”

~ * * * ~

The good news was that Hank preferred to give them the bad
news over breakfast at Herbert’s Corner. He even drove them there in his
homemade tow truck.

“Well, bless me, it’s Stewart Campion,” said Lorie. “I ain’t
seen you in here in forever. How are you?”

“Hanging in there,” said Stewart.

“You’re lookin’ good. You heard from Cheryl at all?”

“Nope. Still no word,” said Stewart.

Lorie clicked her tongue and shook her head. “Such a shame.
After all you did for that girl. Anyway, what can I get you?”

“So what’s it going to take?” Stewart asked after Lorie had
left with their orders.

“Might be easier to tell you what don’t need fixin’,” said
Hank. But he rattled off a list of nearly every major engine component anyway.
Apparently a car, even a new one, shouldn’t sit under a tarp for a
quarter-century. The fluids leak out or turn to sludge. Parts freeze up. Hoses
and lines clog with gunk.

“What was that smell?” asked Martin.

“Think some raccoons been birthing a quiverfull up under
there somewhere,” said Hank.

“How long?” asked Stewart.

“Three weeks minimum,” said Hank. “Longer if Billings don’t
have all the parts.”

Martin shook his head at Stewart, and stirred more sugar
into his coffee.

“I don’t know what to tell you,” said Hank. “Gordon brought
his Dodge in yesterday, and he’s got all those cattle to water. Sheriff’s got a
couple vehicles need work. I won’t take it personal if you do the work
yourself.”

“Don’t look at me,” said Martin. “I can barely change the
wiper blades.”

“I ain’t worked up any costs, but….” Hank shook his head.
“It’s a tough call. She’d be a good car if you can clean her up. Told you
twenty years ago she shouldn’t sit like that.”

~ * * * ~

Back at the junkyard, Stewart insisted on one last look at
the Lincoln. “Help yourself,” Hank said and sauntered to his shop.

“Can I officially call this a dead end?” Martin asked. “We
don’t have time to futz around. Can’t we steal another semi? Force our way on
board the facility?”

“Won’t work,” said Stewart. “It needed to be this one.”

“Maybe we could get Hank to tow us up there,” said Martin.

“We’d still need to get the battery and alternator and all
that electrical stuff working,” said Stewart. “And I don’t even know if the
portal would work if we weren’t moving. I’ve only ever traveled through it at
speed. And I don’t know how we’d get off the facility without a working car.
But, hell, it’s all moot now.”

Martin hated this weed-grown altar to futility. Screw the
tarp, he thought. Roll down the windows and let the weather in. Let the
raccoons make themselves at home. Let it rust and crumble. Maybe someday some
squiddy archeologist will dig it up. Its V8 engine might prove that humans were
sentient. Whatever’s left of its dated but stylish design would declare that we
didn’t deserve extermination. What will they make of their own technology
embedded within this hunk of junk? Will that indict our executioners for their
crimes? Maybe they’ll erect a monument right here to the sentient species lost
to hubris and greed. Or maybe they’ll throw their tentacles up in ambivalence.

“It’s a shame we can’t just pull out those devices and put
them in another car,” said Martin.

Stewart nodded, and then said, “What did you say?”

“I said it’s a shame we can’t just pull…”

“You got a toolbox back in that truck of yours?” Stewart
asked.

“Really?” asked Martin. “That’s all it takes?”

“Yeah,” said Stewart. “Sorry.”

“You’re here from another solar system. You’d think you
could be the one thinking outside the box,” said Martin.

A few minutes later, three chunks of black plastic rested on
the dusty upholstery of the front seat. Two were identical, cylindrical things
with a pair of long wires trailing out of one end. The other resembled a Wi-Fi
hub, but without the blinking lights and RJ-45 jacks. It, too, had a pair of
wires, but it also had a set of flexible arms that Martin assumed were
antennas.

“That’s the communicator?” Martin asked, as Stewart touched
the wires of the hub to the handle of his little glass pingpong paddle non-iPad.

“And these two make the bubble,” Stewart said and tested
their wires. “They all seem to work.”

“And these wires connect into a car’s electrical system,
like they were here? Or do we have to do something special?”

“Should work on any 12-volt system. They made it all simple
enough for guys like me to set up,” said Stewart. “Thought maybe we’d put ’em
in my Skylark.”

“We’re not going to the Kuiper Belt in your Skylark,” said
Martin. “My Subaru’s a 2009. If I’m going to die in space, I’d rather do it in
a car built in this century.” He picked up one of the pieces. “It’s so light,”
he said.

“Everything my people build is light,” said Stewart. “Less
mass, less energy to get it off a planet, less energy to move it. You’ll see
when we get up to the production facility. It’s not just us. Parts of your
Apollo moon landers were foil thick.”

“Didn’t know that,” said Martin.

Martin found a cardboard box in the back of his truck and
secured the alien parts in a drawer emptied of its staples. When he hopped out,
Hank was there. “Decided not to buy her?” he asked Martin.

“Nah, too much work,” said Martin.

“I tried,” said Stewart.

“Real shame,” said Hank.

~ * * * ~

“Where are we going now?” asked Stewart, as Martin pointed
the Screwmobile back toward Brixton. “Your Subaru in Billings?”

“I’m heading back up to Havre. I’ve got work. But I’m taking
you home first,” said Martin. “We’re not in danger anymore, and besides, you
need to stay here and figure out how we’re going to steal a truck.”

“That’s just a matter of waiting for one to show up,” said
Stewart.

“It’s that easy?” asked Martin.

“You could’ve done it that night you got arrested.”

“Can you do it?”

“I’ll need my trinket back.”

“Your what? Oh,” Martin touched the staple gun, but he kept
it on his belt.

“You need to take me back to Billings anyway,” said Stewart.

“What? Why? I don’t have time,” said Martin.

“My car’s still at your place,” said Stewart.

Martin groaned. Rick was not going to be happy.

Two and a half hours later, Martin carried the oxygen
bottles, mostly empty, to the trunk of the Skylark. “You got someone to fill
these for you?” Martin asked.

“Milton and Laura will help me out,” said Stewart. He
grabbed his little duffel bag from the back of the truck and shuffled to his
car.

“Okay,” said Martin. “You got my numbers?” Stewart patted
the business card in his shirt pocket. “You call me the second a truck shows
up, and I’ll be on my way.”

Stewart nodded, and Martin took his bag. “Thanks,” said
Stewart. Martin dropped the bag in the trunk and closed it.

“Are we kidding ourselves?” Martin asked. “I mean, do we
have any hope? Are we already too late for Cheryl?”

“Can’t think like that,” said Stewart.

“I feel like I’m going to wake up any second. Probably in a
straightjacket.” Martin sighed. Then he forced himself to hand the staple gun
to Stewart. “Are you going to have to kill anyone?”

“I hope not,” said Stewart. “I’ll set it on stun.”

“I thought you said this wasn’t
Star Trek
.”

It was a quiet night in Shelby, Montana, after the hardware
stores had closed, but not as quiet as Martin’s cell phone. It had been two
days since he’d left Stewart to steal a truck. Martin would have welcomed a
call from anyone now, even Rick, to prove that his phone still worked and that
he still existed. In his motel room, Martin let a sitcom laugh track chip away
at him. Then the baseball highlights. Some strutting crime scene investigators
had their turn next. How many talking heads did one TV need?

The Sandra Bullock movie on HBO was the final straw. Martin
turned off the TV, but the soundtrack continued, muffled, on the other side of
the wall. He doubted that Neil Armstrong had ever felt this pathetically
unprepared, or Yuri Gagarin, or Alan Shepard, or even that Saudi prince who
went up on the space shuttle. Should he be training? Sitting in some mock-up
simulator of his Subaru? How many gees could he stand? Martin got off the bed,
peeked through the curtains, and considered jogging in the fading twilight.
Followed by a quick trip to the emergency room for resuscitation. Waiting for
Stewart to call was going to be worse than an eternity of Sandra Bullock
movies.

The uncertainty almost made Martin want to call Jeffrey and
make a deal. If the aliens shipped the two of them off to another world, Cheryl
need never know that he had traded her for the rest of humanity. Besides, what
could be more romantic?

He had to do something.

Out in the motel’s parking lot, the red and green neon of
the Mexican restaurant next door beckoned with the promise of one of those
Slurpee machines full of margarita. That was probably a better choice. But
Martin unlocked the back of his truck anyway, telling himself for the hundredth
time that he shouldn’t.

Nothing screamed “alien”—or even “foreign”—about the plastic
gadgets from Stewart’s Town Car. There were no markings, etchings, odd
protrusions, or a sense of anything living inside. None of them had any obvious
openings or fasteners, except for the rubbery nipples from which the wires
extruded. The fine-gauge wires appeared to be copper, not so different from the
ones he’d used to connect his XM radio to the truck’s electrical system.

Hoax. Fake. Setup. A camera crew was surely about to emerge
from a motel room doubled over with laughter. Martin enjoyed these few moments
of doubt. Cheryl really had moved to Boise. Jeffrey and Stewart, Doris and
Eileen—they had all concocted some small-town episode of
Punk’d
. The
video of the truck emerging from the Gap had been faked, and so had the
exploding trash can in Sidney. Even Lee Danvers must be in on it, providing the
fake history of Brixton and Big Thunder Valley. “Big Thunder Valley.” Someone
must have had a good laugh when they thought up that one.