The Quiet Man

Written by David Carrico


The spaceship settled on the Washington Mall, nose pointed toward the Capitol. The crowds seemed to coalesce around the police barricades almost immediately. Despite the risk, no one wanted to miss out on the first visit from extra-terrestrials.

Every news channel world-wide was devoting 100% of its time to this event. There were cameras all around the perimeter of the mall. The feeds were competing with each other for the eye of the viewing public. The news anchors, cool, controlled manners notwithstanding, seemed somewhat strained while they discussed the import of the event.

The craft was lean and rakish. It looked dangerous, whether or not it really was. The Secret Service and other security agencies didn't miss the import of the orientation of the nose. The Capitol and nearby buildings were evacuated immediately.

The crowds continued to swell. Banners with all the UFO cult labels began to appear. The police perimeter lines were being pushed in by the inexorable pressure of the people gathering.

Clang!

The noise echoed between the buildings. The lower half of the spaceship nose split into clamshell doors and began to open. The crowd recoiled for a moment, then pressed forward when a ramp descended to ground level. A figure strode down the ramp into the sunlight and was greeted by a collective “Aah.”

Leonine was the only word that described him. Tall, somewhat cat-like, with a blocky head and a huge mane of reddish-gold hair, he was impressive. The TV anchors were uniformly silent, unable to muster words to capture and frame the moment. He moved out away from the craft, until even the shadow of it was some distance behind him. Everyone watched while he reached up and touched something on his collar.

“I am Commander Khuran.” No speakers were in sight, but his voice resonated and reverberated throughout the space. “We are the Sha’Chá. These are our children.” Six giant holograms sprang into being above the Mall, rotating and circling so that all could see them clearly. If the commander was leonine, these were more feline. Different colors, different patterns, different clothing. “We have tracked them here. Take us to them, bring them here, or tell us what happened. We await them.” With that, he touched his collar again, clasped his hands behind his back, and settled in to wait.

When the response came, it was not from the government. A man in a black uniform pushed his way to the front of the crowd. People got out of his way as quickly as they could. The rather large rifle he was carrying may have had something to do with that. Before the nearest policemen could get to him, he ducked under the tape and jumped the barricade. When the cops tried to follow him, they found themselves blocked by something no one could see.

Everyone watched while he strode across the grass toward Commander Khuran. The news anchors broke into almost apoplectic commentaries.

The man stopped when he was perhaps twenty feet from the commander. He laid the rifle down on the ground, dropped his pistol belt on top of it, then unfastened and shrugged off his body armor and equipment vest. He discarded the cap, so that he stood bareheaded in the sunlight, blond hair stirring in the breeze. He gave a bow to the commander, then assumed a similar posture.

Commander Khuran beckoned to the man. He straightened. When he spoke, his voice was heard as well as the commander’s had been previously.

“I can tell you what has happened to them. I will tell you what has happened to them.”

At that, the crowd went nuts. The police had their hands full dealing with the crowd, but they were pushed back until they encountered an unseen barrier around the craft, the commander and the man in black.

Slowly, the noise began to die down. Cameras began to turn again to the two figures standing facing each other within the cleared area. Commander Khuran beckoned again, waving a hand at the ship in obvious invitation. The figure in black stood still for a moment, then began walking, almost marching, toward the ramp. The commander fell in beside him, and together they entered the spaceship. The ramp retracted. The doors closed. And everyone in the world was left wondering.


**** 


Ten years later


Rowf was doing his dog thing, sniffing everything in sight and watering every tree and bush we passed by. I swear, that dog’s bladder proved that the outside of something can be smaller than the inside. 

I was walking along and looking at the stars, something I do a lot of. The sky was really black, and the stars just glittered in it. Beautiful. One of the things that makes me believe God is an artist. I find that a calming thought.

Rowf stopped so suddenly I just about fell over him. “What’s up, dog?” I laid my hand on his neck, feeling the hair rise. His ears were perked forward. I could hear the slow rumble of a warning growl coming from his throat. After a moment, I could hear what he heard—someone crashing through the brush.

I like my privacy—I have my reasons for that—so my property is very clearly posted No Trespassing. The fact that someone was blundering around on it in the dark lifted my hackles along with Rowf’s. It also stirred some memories that had lain quiet for a lot of years. I headed in the direction of the noise, Rowf trailing along behind.

The crashing grew closer and closer. Someone with no woods sense was running hard in the dark, risking a fall and a broken limb or worse. I stopped where I was, waiting. After a moment, I could see her. Light clothing, long hair, looking back over her shoulder when she burst through the brush and ran headlong into my chest with an “Oof”. 

Now I freely admit that I’m a big man, and right then I still had my winter beard on and was dressed in some rather grungy working clothes. I’m not sure I would have wanted to run into someone who looked like me on a dark night. But she clung to my shoulders, panting.

“Please . . . please . . . don’t let them get me.”

“Don’t let who get you?”

“Three men . . . kidnapped me . . . tried to rape me . . .” 

Okay, this was a bit more serious than trespassing. 

“They . . . have guns . . .” she continued. 

Yeah, a lot more serious than trespassing. 

“Can you run some more?” I looked at her standing there, panting and trembling. “Right. Stupid question.” Fortunately, she was a little bit of a thing. I scooped her up and started back down the hill to my place. Rowf followed along, looking back and whining every few steps.

It didn’t take long to get back to my workshop. I opened the door and motioned her inside, then closed and locked the door after I flicked on the lights. The fluorescent shop lights came on, and we stood there blinking for a moment, and I got a good look at her. Short, maybe five foot two inches. Chestnut hair, a little longer than shoulder length, rather tousled at the moment. Jeans, a sweater, running shoes, all muddy—pretty light clothing for a spring night in northern Michigan. She didn’t look like much more than a kid.

“You’re safe, ma’am.” I kept my voice quiet and stood there. Like I said, I knew what I looked like. She’d been spooked enough. I wasn’t going to make any sudden moves around her.

I could see her trying to slow her breathing, trying to regain control. It took her a while, but she did it. She looked around the work shop, but always kept me in view from the corner of her eye. I gave her points for composure. Not too many women would be that strong after experiencing what she’d just gone through. At length, she turned and looked directly at me.

“Safe?” Now that she wasn’t gasping for every molecule of oxygen she could inhale, her voice was soft and sort of furry. I liked it. “So, just how safe am I?” Her expression was serious, her lips pursed.

“Well, unless those fools get lucky and stumble across us, I’d say very safe. You can clean up, and whenever you feel like it I’ll take you to where your car is and you can go home.”

She looked like she was going to say something, but was distracted by a large black nose that was sniffing her leg. “And who is this?”

“That’s Rowf.”

“Rowf? Seriously?” She didn’t quite laugh, but her voice danced with humor.

“What can I say? I liked Rowf the dog best of all the Muppets. So . . .” I spread my hands.

“Makes sense to me. Hey, Rowf.” She rubbed his ears. He leaned into it, evidence that she had good hands.

She straightened after a moment. Rowf looked at her, then turned and slowly made his way to his bed by the wood burning stove. She cocked her head at me. “Something wrong with him?”

“Partly years, partly he’s pretty sick. Cancer.”

“Oh, that’s too bad. He seems like a good dog.”

“Yep.” It hurt that I was going to lose him soon. I was closer to that dog than anyone since my dad died. 

She looked at me full on for a moment, then turned her green eyes toward my latest project, standing revealed in the open shipping case. “Wow.” 

Serious, but reverent. I liked that. Not for my ego’s sake, understand. Just knowing that somebody felt the impact of the work was enough. She looked at it for a long moment, then looked over her shoulder at me. “That yours?”

“Yep.”

“If that’s a Reidinger statue, then you must be Reidinger.”

“Call me John.” Okay, she wasn’t a kid. I was pleased that she recognized my work.

“Okay . . . John.” She shook her head. “I can’t believe I’ve found the very reclusive and mysterious J. Reidinger. You know,” she looked at me from the corner of her eye, “you don’t look anything like the only photo of you I’ve seen.”

“That publicity photo? The one with the slicked back hair, the sunglasses and the leather trench coat?”

“That’s the one. You look . . . older.”

“The beard.” She looked confused. “The beard’s prematurely gray. Without it I look younger.”

Rowf’s ears perked up and he started growling again. I held a hand up. “Looks like they got lucky and we didn’t.” 

I walked over to the work bench and pressed a button under the edge. A door popped open in what had moments before been only a blank wall. “You’ll be safe in there.”

“What is it?” She looked at it with distrust.

“An old bomb shelter that I’ve updated some. There’s a bathroom and some old clothes if you want to change. The door’s steel, and the only lock is on the inside. Hide in there until I tell you to come out.” She still didn’t look too certain about it. “Go on! They’re going to be here in a minute and you need to be out of sight.” 

She slipped through the doorway and closed the door. The deadbolts snicked into place a moment later.

I reached over and hit the garage door button. I decided when I designed the shop that I’d best make allowances for a wide range of equipment, so the shop ceiling is very high and the garage door is almost tall enough to let a semi tractor in. It takes a while for the door to open all the way, so while it was rolling up I stuck a couple of screwdrivers into each hip pocket and stuffed the handle of a six pound sledge through the back of my belt. I didn’t want to hurt anyone, but I didn’t want to be without options if they had other ideas. It’s amazing how innocuous a screwdriver seems, but in the right hands . . .

There were three of them, all right, standing there blinking in the light like we had a few minutes earlier. I recognized them right off. Oh, I don’t mean I knew them, or knew who they were. But I knew what they were. What my dad used to call punks. Wannabe bad guys . . . the type who will hurt anyone weaker than they are just because they can, but who don’t have enough brains or enough steel in their spirit to do any more than that. These guys were wearing cowboy boots and jeans. It could just as well have been sweatpants or dungarees hung so low that the only thing that kept them up was the muscles of their butts. It doesn’t matter who they are, where they are, the color of their skin—they all look the same to me. My dad told me to have nothing to do with people like that. I’ve found that to be good advice.

I spoke while they were still blinking, taking the advantage and putting them on the defensive. “You guys know you’re trespassin’?” I also used the urban Italian accent I learned from Joey Delvecchio back during a time I’d spent the last few years trying to forget existed.

The two outside guys looked to the one in the center. Good. If there was only one set of brains in this operation, that would make it simpler. I hoped. 

“Uh, yeah, we know,” the brains said. “My girlfriend got lost and we’re trying to find her.”

I started moving toward them. “Lost, huh? Don’cha think you’d be better off out looking by the highway? That is where she got lost, ain’t it?”

“We, uh, we started out there, but we think she came this way.”

“Well, guys . . .” I pursed my lips, “. . . I don’t see why anyone would do that, but you can see there ain’t no girlfriend here.” I stopped a couple of feet away.

“You sure, mister?” Brains looked at me with what he thought was a hard expression. His bulky friends—who I’d tagged Muscles One and Muscles Two—started edging around me. “’Cause we chased—I mean we followed her here.”

“Well, I’m tellin’ you she ain’t here. And you’re still trespassin’, so either beat it or I call the cops.” This was sounding more and more like a bad movie.

Brains stuck his hand in his jacket pocket, which must have been the signal to his muscles, because they each grabbed one of my arms. Dumb and dumber, on cue.

“Okay, old man.” The punks thought they were dealing with someone on the other side of young, which to them meant weak. Dumb, like I said.

“Where’s the girl? If you don’t tell me, I’m gonna . . .”

I waited for Brains to finish spouting all the threats and profanity. I never have figured out why anyone thinks either is impressive. It’s all just words, worth nothing until someone acts.

“. . . so you better open up and tell me where she is!” 

“You done?” I sneered. That got under his skin. He yanked a Saturday Night Special out of that jacket pocket and tried to insert it up my left nostril. From the smell of it, it hadn’t been cleaned in a while. He’d be lucky if it didn’t blow his hand off the next time he used it. Before he could start blustering again, Rowf came up out of his blanket by the stove.

Rowf’s papers say he’s a Labrador Retriever, but if I didn’t know better I’d swear there’s some Scottish Deerhound in his ancestry. Big dog. Coal black hair, with not a speck of white on him. Even at the age of nine and a half, his teeth were big and white and gleaming. Big bark. And when he lunged up out of that dark shadow barking for all he was worth with his lips curled back from his fangs, all three of the punks jumped. Brains turned and pointed his gun at Rowf. 

“Down, Rowf!”

The punk pulled the trigger. Rowf yelped and fell over. 

"Kid, you shouldn't have done that." 

He turned to snarl something at me, and I introduced him to the steel reinforced toe of my size 13 work boot—kneecap first, then chin. A moment later, his two friends were on the ground alongside him.

Last man standing. I stood there flexing my hands for a moment, then I checked the three punks. Muscles One and Two were going to be out for a while. So was Brains. I turned to Rowf.

I went down on my knees by him. He was panting, eyes filled with pain. A large pool of blood told me there was nothing I could do for him. So I sat down on the concrete, placed his head on my lap and stroked him. He struggled to hook one leg over mine, then laid back. I don’t remember what I whispered to him. Probably something stupid like “good dog.” 

It would have come to this anyway, but that didn’t make it any easier to deal with. It seemed like it took forever, but I’m sure it wasn’t very long before the panting and trembling ceased. I know I sat there, tears running down my face while I stroked him, until one of the punks started moaning.

It took a moment to realize what the sound was. When I did, a haze of hate clouded my vision. I wanted to kill someone . . . preferably the punks in front of me. I fought the feeling, and after a minute or so it drained away. That wasn’t who I was anymore. 

I slid out from under Rowf’s head and laid it down gently. Then I went over to my work bench, put on my work gloves and picked up several items.

Muscles One was just starting to stir when I rolled him over on his stomach and pulled his arms behind him. Moments later, white plastic zip fasteners had his ankles and wrists tied to each other, then another tie looped between those fasteners to pull his feet and wrists together. Black duct tape looped around his eyes and head two or three times. Muscles Two didn’t take any longer to secure. 

Then I moved to Brains, and looped his feet and hands together. Duct tape across the eyes. I was pretty sure that I broke his jaw, but although some of the teeth were cracked, I didn’t see any broken. I wiped the blood off of his chin before I slapped the duct tape across his mouth. The rag went into the wood stove, flaring for a moment before I shut the stove door. Last thing I did was wipe off the barrel of the Saturday Night Special and tuck it back into his jacket pocket. I wasn’t sure yet what I was going to do with these punks, but I was pretty certain I didn’t want traces of my DNA found on that toy.

I fished my keys out of my pocket and backed my pickup to the doorway. The punks weren’t light, but I picked them up anyway and threw them into the truck bed. I could see them struggling with the restraints, and snorted as I slammed the camper shell door. They weren’t getting out of those anytime soon. 

Gunny Hackett would have given me points for the takedown and cleanup. I pushed that thought away ruthlessly. 

There was a snick. I looked up to see the shelter door open a crack with a green eye staring through it. I motioned, and she opened the door all the way. “It’s all right, uh . . .” I stopped when I realized I didn’t know her name.

“Sharon. Sharon Talbot. So where are they?”

“Tied up in the back of my truck. They’re not going anywhere until we want them to.”

“Great! Now we can . . .” Sharon’s face changed. “What happened here?” I followed her gaze to where Rowf was still lying.

“One of them shot Rowf.”

Her face was aghast. “And you didn’t kill him? What did you do to him?”

“Nothing,” I sighed. “Barely. But I didn’t do anything to him.” Sharon’s expression now bordered on bewilderment. “In a very weird way, he did me a favor. I’ve spent the last two days trying to work up the nerve to put Rowf down. The cancer is wrapped around his intestines and the vet says to operate would kill him. I’ve let him live as long as he was enjoying life, but he was starting to hurt and just picking at his food.” My eyes misted, and I wiped them clear. “I got the drugs yesterday, and dug his grave this afternoon. I was going to do it tonight, after we got back from our walk. But then we met you.”

“And I brought all this trouble on you.” She laid her hand on my arm. “I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be.”

After a moment of quiet, I said, “I have to take care of Rowf. Will you be okay waiting?” She nodded. 

I picked up Rowf’s blanket from his place by the stove. His rope chew toy fell out of it. It took me a couple of minutes to get the blanket wrapped around him well enough that I could pick him up without stumbling over blanket ends, but I managed. I nodded to the chew toy. “Would you pick that up and hand it to me, please?”

“I’ve got it.” She bent to retrieve it. “Go on, I’ll bring it.”

“You sure? It’s going to be a ways, and it’s dark.”

“I’m sure. Just get going.”

The place I had prepared wasn’t that far away; maybe two hundred yards to a flat bit of a clearing slightly uphill from the house and workshop. The full moon had risen, so there was plenty of light. Sharon followed in my footsteps, until we stood beside the hole.

It wasn’t the full six feet deep, but it was deep enough. I laid Rowf on the ground beside it, jumped in and then picked him up and laid him down one last time. The blanket had come loose by then, so that he looked less like a mummy and more like he was just covered by it. I pulled the corner back so I could see him one last time, then looked to where Sharon crouched by the edge and held out my hand. She gave me the chew toy and I knelt to place it between his front feet. I knew it didn’t make any difference. Rowf wasn’t going to play with it any more. I could have thrown it in the trash. But Rowf had played with that since he was a puppy. I remembered endless hours of toss and tug-of-war. In my mind, it was part of him. There was just something right about it being with him here.

It took a minute for me to make the final move, to smooth his head one last time and pull the blanket back over his form. I jumped and levered myself out of the hole, reached out and took the shovel standing in the dirt pile.

“This will take a little while, if you want to go back in.”

“No, I’ll wait.” Sharon’s voice was soft, but I noticed her arms were crossed. I took my jacket off and handed it to her before I began the work. It doesn’t take nearly as much time to fill up a hole as to dig it. We walked back to the work shop in silence.

“So,” Sharon said when we came in the door, “do we call the cops now?”

I walked over to the work bench, tossed my cap on it and ran my hands through my hair. “I really don’t want to do that.” 

“Why not?” I could tell Sharon was pretty upset. She walked around to where she could see my face where I was leaning on my hands on the bench. I almost laughed to see her swallowed in my jacket, arms crossed but sleeve ends flapping empty. “Are you trying to protect those . . . those animals?”

I turned and looked out into the dark. There were reasons I’d lived alone for years. Some heavy memories. Some secrets with sharp edges. One came forward and filled my mind with a vision of another face. One with green eyes. One that wasn’t human. One that I should have protected a long time ago, but had failed. I knew I should keep my silence, but tonight the walls in my mind were very thin. I was so tired of carrying secrets, even those that were just mine.

It takes time to tear down walls, even thin ones. I don’t know how long I stood there, staring blindly into the night, wrestling with myself. I had hidden myself for so long and so well that I wasn’t sure I could demolish those barriers. And what was perhaps worse, I wasn’t sure I wanted to. You live a certain way long enough, after a while it becomes the right way just because that’s the way you do it.

I won’t say it was the hardest struggle of my life. I will say it’s one I don’t want to repeat. And it took a voice from the past to make the breakthrough. I was pretty much raised by my dad, after my mom died of cancer. Dad wasn’t what most people would consider well educated, but he understood people very well. He told me two things, once; one of which I remembered and one of which I forgot until that night. The one I remembered was, “Son, there will always be people who don’t like you. Make sure it’s for the right reasons.” The one I forgot was, “And if you don’t want your life to be poisoned bitterness, you have to open up to people and take the chance that they might hurt you.” Did I mention that Dad was pretty wise?

Hearing Dad’s voice in my mind was the decision point. I had been a recluse for the last nine plus years. Now it dawned on me that I was well on the way to becoming a hermit. A sudden resolve filled me to change that. 

I came back from wherever I was wandering. Sharon was still there, wide-eyed, so maybe I hadn’t been gone too long. “You want to know why I don’t want to call the cops?”

“Yes, please.”

I pointed to a stool near the stove. “Take a seat.” She stared at me for a moment, then sat. “You’re old enough to remember. What was the big news story ten years ago?”

Sharon’s eyes widened. “The Sha’Chá!”

I could hear the capital letters in her voice. “Yeah, the Sha’Chá.”

“Did you have something to do with that?” She was excited. 

I wasn’t. I held up a hand to hold her back. “Just listen, okay?” I guess I was more gruff than I thought I was, because she shrank back on the stool. “Sorry. I just . . . sorry. Just bear with me . . . this isn’t easy, and I’ve got to tell it right.” She gave a slow nod.

“Yeah, I had something to do with that. Did you see the video of the day the ship landed in Washington?”

“Yes!”

“You remember the guy who came out of the crowd and entered the ship, who told the Sha’Chá what they wanted to know?”

She nodded.

“That was me.”

Now her jaw dropped to match the widened eyes. “You’re . . .”

“Justin Reynolds.” I nodded to her. “The one and only.”

“Wow.” Her voice was soft. I noticed that she didn’t move away from me. That pleased me.

“I’ve always wanted to know . . .” Her voice was diffident.

“Why I did it?” She nodded. “You remember what I said on the Mall, before I went in the ship?” Another nod in response. “That wasn’t the first time I’d met Sha’Chá. I was the one who found their kids.”

Sharon’s eyes were wide again, and she took a deep breath. “So you were the one who . . .”

“I made the first contact. Or ‘First Contact’, as the newsies called it.”

“Wow.” She leaned back, put her feet on a higher rung and wrapped her arms around her knees. “So, what was it like?”

That’s how I found myself telling her the whole story; how the radar nets tracked something from outer space in to where it crashed in western Kentucky that night. I worked on an action team for one of the alphabet agencies: FBI, CIA, NSA, and others that you’ve probably never heard of. It doesn’t matter which one. It so happened that my team was the closest to the site. With a fast chopper and exact GPS coordinates, we managed to beat the local law enforcement there. We found a door or hatch sprung open. Gunny Hackett, our team lead, sent me in. 



I was starting to sweat, the recollection of that night was so vivid. My shoulders moved in echo of how I stood when I stepped through that door, night vision goggles in place and turning everything a monochrome green. Even my feet were shuffling under the table, itching to move in the same patterns I stepped down that dark, twisted and half-collapsed corridor. I remember the adrenaline pumping, the hearing so acute it seemed like I could hear a fly’s heartbeat. I remembered moving past that final angle of bent hallway wall and finally seeing the occupants . . . passengers . . . saucer people . . . whatever they were. 

There were six of them in the control cabin, but only two were still alive. Two of the most beautiful creatures I’d ever seen. Imagine five foot tall bipedal house cats. No, that’s not what they looked like, but that’s as close as I can come to describing them. I was so . . . so shocked at what I saw that my gun slipped and clanked against my harness. That was when she looked up and saw me.

Pf’t’ka. Even ten years later that memory gave me a thrill. Green eyes meeting mine, wide set in that silver furred face. The other one looked something like a Burmese cat. Pf’t’ka was working with what looked to be a medical kit straight out of Star Trek, trying to save him. I distracted her for a moment, but she kept right on working, until one of her devices just gave a solid tone beep for several seconds. I remember her hands freezing, her gaze slashing to that device. I recognized the slump that came to her shoulders. I also recognized the yowling wail that poured from her the moment after that, the despair it signaled.

“So there was only the one left alive?” Sharon asked.

“Yes. Her name was Pf’t’ka.”

“I never knew that.” Sharon’s voice was subdued. “I don’t remember that being in the news stories.”

“It wasn’t. I found out . . . afterwards.”

Sharon didn’t say anything for a minute. That was good. I needed a bit of a break. Old feelings were coming back to me, old memories were surfacing—things I had stored away for a lot of years, things I had worked at suppressing. My head was starting to hurt. But since I had made it this far, I wasn’t about to stop now. I walked over to the work bench and leaned against it. She looked over at me.

“What happened after that?”

“I remember beckoning her to follow me to the door out of the craft. Gunny had a hooded coat that we threw over her. Joey Delvecchio and I hustled Pf’t’ka to the chopper and got her away.” Flashes of sitting in the chopper, watching Pf’t’ka’s face lit by the instrument panel lights. “Only to deliver her to her death.”

“Did you know that then?”

“No. We just took her to the closest secure facilities and turned her over to the science johnnies. Same difference.” I stared at Sharon, but I was seeing her face again—the face that still gave me nightmares.

The next part came out slowly. It took some effort to talk about the lab complex, because that’s where I failed. 

My team got assigned to internal security, since we already knew what was going on. The lab teams were working 24/7. I usually took the night shift. I could see that lights were on and people were busy all over the place, except in the room where the glass isolation chamber was. Welcome to Earth, Pf’t’ka.

They were running her ragged. She wasn’t doing well. I overheard more than one conversation between doctors, techs and analysts. They all boiled down to two things. Even after the autopsies of the other bodies, they still didn’t know enough to be able to help her. Worse, orders came from the highest levels that no attempts to contact her people were to be made.

They called her “It.” I think it was then that the anger began. They knew her name by then. The least they could have done was have the courtesy to use it. She was a person. She deserved that much dignity.

I could see her getting weaker and weaker. Nobody could figure out why, if she was injured, or sick, or not able to metabolize the food we gave her. But every night I would spend time at the wall of the isolation chamber, looking in. And sometimes she would come out and look at me. Haggard as she was, she still resembled a silver Persian cat, one of the really elegant ones.

It didn’t take too long for me to arrive at Pf’t’ka’s final night.

“One night she walked over to the wall and put her hand up on the glass. After a moment, I matched it with my hand on my side of the wall. I don’t know how long we stood there, hand to hand, looking at each other, but I felt close to her. After a time, she dropped her hand, gave a funny little bow, and shuffled back to her bed behind the so-called privacy curtains.

“The next day they told me that Pf’t’ka died in the night. So we packed up and went home.” With what seemed to be a void in my spirit, one that my growing anger bid fair to fill. 

“I’m sorry,” Sharon said. 

“I was angry—enraged—with the people who allowed her to die and who prevented attempts to signal to the Sha’Chá.”

“And perhaps a little bit with yourself?”

I froze for a moment. That question lanced straight to the heart of the issue. "Yeah. Somewhere along the line I felt Pf’t’ka had a claim on me, one that I failed. And I was probably more angry with myself than anyone.”

“I know what happened next. Landing Day—the Mother Ship came to Washington.” 

I could hear the capitals in her voice again, and winced. 

She picked up on it. “What did I say?”

“That bit of UFO-speak just really grates on me. The ship that landed on the mall was no such thing. They have some big ships, true, but that one wasn’t much more than a Coast Guard cutter in their scheme of things. They picked it because it was large enough to have defensive screens and small enough to fit in the space of the Mall.”

“And you were there.” Sharon’s voice was a lot calmer than I felt.

“Yes. I was there.” I remembered sprinting to a building, riding the elevator to the top, then climbing stairs to access the roof. “We were on oversight, split between two buildings. Joey and I were on one, Gunny and Tarl were on the other. We were there when the ship set down.” Watching the crowd through scopes, looking for weapons or bombs. “We were there when the ship opened up and the commander came out.” I still remember the sheer impact of seeing what a grown Sha’Chá looked like. The grace, the carriage, the form and beauty. And I remember how my anger flared.

To this day I can’t think of that picture without getting angry. Seeing what Pf’t’ka could have grown into. Seeing her picture in the sky, along with the others. Knowing that someone had been and was still looking for her, still missed her, still wanted her . . . I have never felt more like a weapon than I did that day. A weapon that turned in the hand of those who had loosed it. If I had known the price I would pay . . . I hope I would have had the courage to still do what I did.

“I knew what our government would try to do, how they would try to hide everything. And I just couldn’t let that happen. The face of Pf’t’ka, her green eyes shining, her hand on the glass, drove me off that roof, out into the crowd and through them to the barricade.” I shrugged. “And we all know what happened after that.”

There was another long moment of silence. “I thought you went with them.” Sharon’s voice was quiet, but her eyes never left my face.

“I did for a while. When I left I thought I would never come back. I expected to end my life out among the stars, among the Sha’Chá.”

“Why?”

I stared at her. “Don’t you remember what it was like? The polls showed that 90% of Americans felt I had betrayed the US. Every other day the news channels had stories about how assassins had attempted to kill me.” That was just the ones the newsies found out about. There were others that didn’t make the records. “And the people who didn’t think I was a traitor blamed me for everything else that happened.”

The almost universal condemnation of the US for allowing Pf’t’ka to die without attempting to communicate with the Sha’Chá. The most unusual experience for the US of having widespread support among the Islamic countries for seeing to it that the “demons” were dead. The impeachment of the President and Vice-President of the United States. The “cleaning house” of Congress, where fewer than 5% of the incumbents were re-elected.

The almost unanimous vote of the United Nations to relocate to Australia. 

And, oh, how the dynamic in the Middle East changed. The treaty between Israel and the Sha’Chá, which allowed the Israelis to deploy sensors and force-fields in defensive modes. Weapons and explosives couldn’t enter the country. When suicide bombers tried to use stuff that had been put in place before the fields went up, they found that personal sized force-fields existed. The CNN shot of a suicide bomber blowing himself up inside one was disturbing, to say the least—all the force of the blast concentrated on one body inside the force field produced purée of person. And when the Arabic countries and terrorist organizations tried to scream about how the bomber’s human rights had been violated, the Israeli defense minister’s response had been classic. “We have violated no one’s human rights. We did not force this man to do this. If he wants to blow himself up, that’s his business. We simply insured that he would not blow anyone else up when he did it.” After a few more of those incidents—all captured on video, thanks to the advanced sensors—the suicide bombers stopped . . . in Israel, anyway. And the rabbis ceased their muttering . . . about the treaty, anyway.

The turmoil in the science crowd was almost as bad. Most of the “Life started from spores from space” crowd merged with most of the evolutionists. At the same time the “Intelligent Design” crowd picked up support. Some of the arguments about the similarities between humans and the Sha’Chá got pretty intense. As far as I was concerned, it just proved that God used the same template more than once.

Oh, yeah, I almost forgot. The US economy sank like a rock. It was years before it recovered.

I hadn’t planned any of that. I suppose that most or all of it would have happened anyway. But they happened because of something I did. And I remember the bitterness I felt when it seemed that no one—no one—thought that I did the right thing.

“This was all your fault?” Sharon asked.

“Say my responsibility, rather. I did what I did.”

“So why did you come back?” For the first time I noticed that Sharon’s voice was calm, that she was asking questions like she was interested in the answers. I looked at her, and she looked back at me with a raised eyebrow.

“I really did mean to never come back. But after a while . . . I just didn’t fit. I never felt comfortable among the cats.” It was inevitable that the Sha’Chá would get that nickname. “So they brought me back and made arrangements.”

“Wait a minute,” Sharon interrupted. “I’ve seen the video of Landing Day dozens of times. The guy that went into the spaceship had blond hair. Yours is much darker.”

“I said they made some arrangements.” I shrugged. “For people who can fly between the stars faster than light, some things aren’t so hard. I used to be almost pure Nordic; now I look almost Italian.”

“What else?”

“Oh. Well, my teeth are perfect, now. No fillings or crowns. My fingerprints are different. And they tweaked my DNA a little, so that it doesn’t match what’s on record.”

“They . . . tweaked . . . your DNA.”

Another shrug. “What can I say? They feel like they owe me.”

Sharon cleared her throat. “You got Rowf when you came back, didn’t you?” She looked up at me.

“Yes.”

“And he was with you all this time.” That wasn’t a question. “Your only friend.”

“Yes.” My throat was tight.

“So you basically came back, crawled into a hole and pulled it in after yourself.”

I stood up straight. “Wait a minute! People were trying to kill me. If they knew I was back they’d come after me again.”

“How would they know you?”

“By . . .” My brain caught up with my voice.

“You don’t look like you did. How would they find you?”

I didn’t say anything. I couldn’t. I’d been hiding all these years for nothing.

Sharon had no pity. “If they’d really tried to find you, they could have. All they had to do was look for strangers. You keep to yourself, make no attempt to blend in, don’t talk to anyone. If you wanted to hide, you should have gone to Europe.”

Gunny Hackett would have my ears. 

It took me a minute to find my voice. “So I wasted all this time. Figures.”

“I said you didn’t hide very well. I didn’t say you wasted the time.” 

My turn to lift a sardonic eyebrow. 

Sharon grinned for a moment, then continued with, “John, you had several severe shocks in relatively short order. You were hurt, wounded, damaged. I don’t blame you for hiding.” She reached out and patted my arm. “And not everything that happened was bad, you know. Even some of us hard-headed Yankees are starting to admit that.”

We sat in silence for another long moment before she spoke again. “So, when did you start doing Reidinger?”

“Ah, that. That comes under the heading of the three R’s.”

“Three R’s.” It wasn’t a question, and Sharon gave me a glare like my third grade teacher. She was good at it.

“Yep—reconciliation, rehabilitation and redemption. After a few weeks here, just me and Rowf, I was about to go nuts. I’ve been active all my life; I had to be doing something. I had done some work with metals in college, so I ordered in some welding and cutting equipment and started experimenting. In about a year, I did my first statue. I guess you could say the rest is history.”

“Oh, how ironic.” Sharon laughed. “J. Reidinger, the reclusive favorite of all the artsy crowd, is none other than Justin Reynolds, ostracized citizen of the USA.”

It took some effort, but I chuckled along with her. “That thought has occurred to me before. I’ve drawn more than a little comfort and satisfaction from it.”

She sobered quickly. “Okay, that’s the rehabilitation aspect. Redemption?”

“Even ignoring what I did that day, most of my adult life was spent doing things on the borderline, sometimes well over the line, of right and wrong. My work can’t make up for any of that, but maybe, just maybe, it can bring about some understanding, or at least provoke thought.”

“Oh, it does that.” Sharon gave a firm nod. “Dervish alone atones for any sins you might have committed. It’s beautiful, it’s disquieting, and no one who sees it can forget it.” I stored that comment away in my heart, where it brought no little warmth to me. “And reconciliation?”

“That’s the hardest one: to reconcile the Sha’Chá and humanity, to reconcile me and humanity.” I stopped for a moment. “To reconcile me with myself.” I clasped my hands in front of me. “To that end I offer up my work equally to the world and to the stars.”

“What do you mean?”

“For every Reidinger you know of, there is another among the Sha’Chá.”

“What? Does anyone else know this?”

“No, and I’d appreciate it if you don’t tell anyone.”

“Why?” Sharon was upset again.

“Because that’s the way I want it. There will come a time when my story will come out, when the Sha’Chá will tell it. Then my work will come together and everyone will see it. But not now.”

Sharon stared at me for a couple of minutes. I looked back at her, feeling shaken but purged and clean for the first time in a long time. I’d made my case, told my story. Now it was up to her. 

At length, she blew air through her lips. “Okay, I see why you don’t want to call the cops. And I guess if I was in your shoes I’d be the same way. It’s just hard for me to see scum like that get away with what they tried.”

“Well, if it helps any, you didn’t get hurt. Think of it like I backed them off of you in the parking lot.” She nodded—with some reluctance, I judged, but she nodded. “Besides, I never said they’d get away with anything.”

Sharon gave me another of those third grade teacher looks. “And just what do you mean by that?”

I looked at the clock and stood up. “Come on and I’ll show you.”

We went out into the driveway. Sharon stepped up beside me, still swallowed in my jacket, while I pulled the signal unit from my pocket and pressed the button. We waited. In a matter of moments something large, black and almost silent moved in and settled on the helipad out on the lawn with a slight whistling sound. She turned to me, eyes at their widest for the night. 

“Cargo lighter,” I said. “Just watch.”

The big door on the side opened up, spilling light somewhat yellower than my work shop fluorescents were flooding out the open shop door. A figure appeared in the door, dropped to the ground and strode toward us.

“Hai, friend John.” The big cat threw his arms around me. And he is big, at least two inches taller and a good fifty pounds heavier than I am.

“Hai, friend Asfet. Let go of me before you break me in two, you big lug.”

“So, who is this?” Asfet released me and turned to Sharon. “I am Asfet, what you would call, urrr, lieutenant.” He held out his hand to Sharon, who limply put hers out to be grasped. This shock had gotten to her more than anything else that had happened that evening. He turned back to me. “She is pretty, yes?”

“Yes, you old rogue, she is pretty.”

“That is good for you, then, friend John.” He clapped his hands together with a sound like a gunshot. “So, then, let us see what we have come for.”

“You know where it is.” 

Asfet almost bounded into the workshop. I leaned over to Sharon, whose mouth was standing open. “Asfet is a bit of a connoisseur. He always wangles these trips, so he can be the first one to see the new work.”

“I see.” Her voice was thin, like she was gasping. I looked over at her to make sure she was still breathing. She was. 

I chuckled. She hit my arm without looking. “Ow! What was that for?”

“For not telling me.” She looked at me with eyes blazing. “For springing this on me without warning.” Sharon was officially all right, crossed off the ‘concerned about’ list. 

By now we had walked up behind Asfet, where he was studying the statue in the open shipping case. He looked back over his shoulder, all seriousness now. “It is your best work, my friend. Do you have a name for it?”

“Nope. You know I never name the ones I give you. You will have to name it.”

“A challenge it will be.” Asfet stared at it for a moment longer, then closed and latched the shipping case door. “The arguments about who will be chosen to display it will echo among the stars.” He fingered his collar for a moment, hissing something in his native tongue. 

A moment later we were joined by three more crewmen and a floating dolly. While they took charge of loading the shipping case on the dolly, I pulled Asfet aside.

“Asfet, old friend, I need a favor.” Sharon was standing at my elbow. “In the back of my pickup are three men who have seriously annoyed my friend Sharon. I need them and their vehicle, a . . .” I looked to Sharon.

“Cadillac Escalade.”

I shook my head. Of course that’s what these fools would be driving. “. . . that’s parked on the road that runs along the north side of this property; I need them deposited in the parking lot closest to the Marquette police department. I need it done tonight, quiet and sneaky. Can you do that?”

A most alarming grin split Asfet’s face, displaying plenty of evidence that his forebears had been carnivores. “Of course we can do that, for you and for the pretty Miss Sharon. Oh, the fun to be had around you, friend John.” He rubbed his hands together.

“Good.” I smiled back. “You should also notify the police somehow that they are there. And, ah,” I grinned at Sharon, “if you can think of some way to encourage them to be honest, that would be good, too. No damage, mind you.” I pointed a finger at the cat, whose grin threatened to cross the line to predatory.

It was the work of just a moment more to open the back of the camper and let the crewmen pluck the punks out and plop them on top of the shipping case. The dolly bobbed a little, then moved off smoothly toward the cargo lighter. Asfet shook our hands once again, exclaimed, “We will have fun tonight,” and bounded off after the crewmen. A minute later, the big door closed. That slight whistling sound built up, the lighter lifted off the helipad, and in a moment it was gone.

I looked at Sharon. She looked back at me somewhat wild-eyed. “Can you live with that?” I asked.

Sharon gave her head a violent shake. “I guess so. That’s not, ah, exactly what I thought you had in mind. Of course, now that I think of it, I’m not at all sure what I thought you had in mind.” She laughed. “But yeah, that will do.” She yawned. “I need to get home.”

“You could stay here,” I offered. “I’ve got extra bedrooms.”

“No, John. I’ve had a long day and night, and I want to sleep in my own bed. Can you take me to my car?” 

I opened the door of the truck in answer, and she climbed in.

It was only about a thirty minute drive to the restaurant’s parking lot where they had grabbed her. Just when I pulled up alongside her car, a lovingly maintained Trans Am, my comm buzzed. I popped it open after I parked the truck, read the brief text message and started howling with laughter. Sharon looked at me like I had just gone over the edge, so I passed her the comm. She started laughing even harder than I was.


Friend John –


Delivery made, pickup notice sent.


Have discovered that human urine is very noxious.


Aft cargo bay may never be the same.


A. 


“Okay, okay,” Sharon gasped. “That’s good enough.”

She opened the door and slid out. Just before she closed it, she leaned back in. “John. Just for the record, not everyone thinks you were a traitor.” 

I watched her taillights recede on the highway, then put the truck in gear and drove home.

After I pulled up in the driveway, I walked out on the lawn and just stared at the heavens for a while. I had been among them, for a time, but there was something about seeing them here that was just right. I said I think God is an artist. Certainly the beauty and elegance within creation must have come from an artist’s soul.

When I got cold, without thinking I said, “Come on, Rowf,” then stopped dead as the fresh pain knifed through me.

In human existence, great art often involves pain, suffering and grief; either as a subject or as a driver in the artist’s life. The fact that it can be expressed doesn’t mean it hurts any less.

I went into the house, alone.


****


Four days later


I looked up from where I was clearing out a flower bed to see a car coming up the driveway. I stood up, dusted off my knees and shoved my work gloves in my back pocket.

It was a Firebird. In fact, it was a Trans Am—a rather familiar Trans Am. It pulled to a stop not far from me. Sharon got out. Today she was wearing jeans and a bulky sweater. 

“You clean up pretty well,” she smiled, rubbing at her chin to mimic my newly shaved face.

“Do you know you’re trespassing?” I asked deadpan.

“No. Really?” We laughed together.

“It’s good to see you.” It was, I discovered with a bit of surprise.

“I would have come out sooner, but do you have any idea just how hard this place is to find, when you’ve only been here once and that was in the dark?”

“Yes.” We laughed again, and stood there smiling at each other.

“I brought you something.” Sharon toed the ground.

“Huh?” The very soul of articulation, that was me.

“To make up for the trouble of the other night.”

“You didn’t have to do anything.”

“I want to. And it helps someone else out, too.”

Sharon opened the passenger door to the Trans Am. Out jumped a Labrador puppy, about six months old. She grabbed at the leash as he lunged toward me. I knelt down just before he careened into me.

The puppy was all paws and tongue, bouncing like only a puppy can, happy and excited. I wrestled him around a little, and he bounced back to Sharon, almost tripping her as he tried to wrap her up in the leash. If he fulfilled the promise of his feet, he’d be a big dog when he matured.

“He belongs to a friend of mine. She thought she wanted a big dog, but he turned out to be more than she can handle.” Sharon looked almost shy, and her voice was quieter. “I know he’s not Rowf, he can never be Rowf, but I think he’d be good for you and you’d be good for him.”

I looked around at where the pup was just wriggling around on the dry grass. I laughed to see his antics, and a dark spot in my life lightened a little.

“What did she name him?”

“Jack.” 

I tried that in my mind. It sounded good. I knelt again. “Jack. Here, Jack.” The pup turned, tripped, and bumbled over to me, where he flopped on his back and waved all four feet in the air, begging for a belly scratch. I obliged him and he wriggled in delight.

“Thanks.” I stood and faced Sharon again. “Thanks for thinking of me.” It felt very odd, to know that someone was doing that.

She looked down at the ground, then back up at me with a very fierce expression on her face. “I just couldn’t stand to think of you here by yourself. You deserve better.”

A large smile broke out on my face when it dawned on me that maybe, just maybe, the next ten years would hold more for me than the last ten. 
****