Mine: The Arrival

by Brett Battles

  “Toby!” She dropped down next to him and tried to keep him from rolling, but he pushed her away. “What is it? What’s wrong?”

  “M-m-my head,” he managed.

  “A headache?”

  He cringed and rocked again. “Godawful.”

  “I’ll be right back.”

  She ran into the bedroom, where she kept some headache powder in the dresser. Back in the kitchen, she filled a glass with water, poured the powder into it, and stirred it up.

  “Drink this,” she said, kneeling next to him.

  She tilted his head up and pressed the glass against his lips.

  At first he refused to open his mouth, but when she said, “It’ll help,” he let the liquid slip inside.

  She held him in her lap, willing the medicine to take effect.

  “What happened?” she asked after a few minutes. “Did you hit your head on something?”

  His look seemed even more pained than it had been when she’d first found him on the floor, and she wasn’t sure he’d heard her question.

  When his condition didn’t improve ten minutes later, she gently moved him to the side and hurried to the phone. Picking up the receiver, she could hear Doris Kearns talking to someone on the party line.

  “Please,” Mary interrupted. “I need to call the doctor.”

  “What happened?” Doris asked. “Is everything all right?”

  “Toby’s sick.”

  “The flu? That’s going around, from what I hear.”

  “Doris, please. I need to call Dr. Fisher.”

  “If you’d like, I can contact him for you.”

  “Yes, actually that would be great.”

  “I’ll have him head right out. Don’t you worry about it.”

  Mary hung up and returned to the kitchen. In addition to the agony still plaguing her husband, much of the color had drained from his face. With considerable effort, she was able to get him onto his feet and guide him to their bedroom. She had him lie on the bed and then covered him with every blanket they had. As far as she could tell, he wasn’t running a temperature, but Doris’s comment about the flu scared Mary enough that she didn’t want to take any chances.

  Though he finally fell asleep, his face remained strained. Periodically, he had bouts of rapid breaths that made it seem he was running in terror.

  Outside, the storm continued to pick up strength, wind howling as it pelted the house with snow. It was so loud that she didn’t even realize the doctor had driven up until he knocked on the front door.

  “This way,” she said, and then explained what had happened as she led him through the house.

  When they reached the bedroom, he asked her to remain outside while he examined Toby. She didn’t want to, but Dr. Fisher insisted, so she busied herself in the kitchen making him coffee and heating up the soup in case he was hungry. But when she finished, the bedroom door was still closed. She tried sewing again, but every stitch or two she would pause and look toward the hallway. She finally gave up and stoked the fire and then stared out the window at the snow gathering on the doctor’s car.

  It was another full half hour more before he finally reemerged, closing the door behind him.

  She hurried to him. “How is he?”

  There was a slight hesitation before he said, “Resting.”

  “I should go sit with him.”

  She started for the door, but Dr. Fisher put a hand on her arm. “I think it would be better if he were alone for a while.”

  “I won’t make a noise.”

  “Let’s leave him be for now.”

  Reluctantly, she nodded. “I’ve made some coffee. And if you’re hungry, there’s soup.”

  “Actually, I’d like to use your phone if you don’t mind.”

  “Of course.” She gestured to the box hanging on the wall.

  He walked over to it, but after picking up the receiver, he looked back at her. “Perhaps some coffee and soup would be nice.”

  “Let me get it for you.”

  THREE

  DEPUTY SHERIFF JACKSON Lamar knew full well when the snow began to fall that it was going to be a long day. There was always some jackass who thought he was above the weather and would get himself stuck in a ravine or wrap his vehicle around a tree, leaving Lamar to sort out the mess.

  What he hadn’t expected was to get a call from Dr. Fisher requesting his presence at the Gaineses’ house out on the north county road. He knew who Toby Gaines was, mainly because of Toby’s father, and had seen Mary Gaines in town on occasion, but he had no recollection of ever sharing more than a nod with either. As for why Lamar’s presence was needed, the good doctor had been evasive, only saying in a whispered voice, “The sooner you can get here, the better.”

  Lamar left his official sheriff’s car at the office and took his personal truck. Before leaving home that morning, he’d enlisted his neighbor’s help to mount the detachable snow blade to the front bumper in anticipation of the afternoon storm. So far the accumulation wasn’t enough for the blade to be effective, but he figured by the time he’d head back to town, that would change. The problems were the patches of black ice that forced him to keep his speed slow, and turned what should have been a twenty-minute trip into an hour-long ordeal.

  Dr. Fisher must have been watching for him, because he opened the front door before Lamar had even turned off his engine. As the sheriff approached the porch, the doctor said something into the house and then stepped outside, closing the door behind him.

  “Thanks for coming out,” Dr. Fisher said as Lamar made his way up the porch steps.

  They shook hands.

  “Afraid I’m not going to be able to stay too long,” Lamar told him. “Betty just radioed that some idiot slid his sedan right through the front door of Mill’s Market.”

  “Anyone hurt?”

  “From what I understand, the driver banged his head but that’s about it. Since you were out here, I told her to get ahold of Dr. Pooler.” Dr. Pooler had been retired for a decade but was always happy to jump in when needed. “So what was so important that I needed to come all the way out here?”

  Dr. Fisher lowered his voice. “Toby’s dead.”

  Lamar dipped his head and sighed. “I’m sorry to hear that. He wasn’t even thirty yet, was he?”

  “Twenty-seven.”

  “Damn.” The sheriff took a breath. “Accident?”

  “Illness.”

  A sad shake of the head. “How did Mary take it?”

  “She doesn’t know yet.”

  Lamar stared at him. “She doesn’t know? How can she not know?”

  “I told her that Toby needed some rest so she’s stayed out of his bedroom. I called my wife and she got here about twenty minutes ago. They’re in the kitchen making up some dinner, I think.”

  “Please tell me you didn’t call me out here to deliver the news. I think that’s your job.”

  “No, I’ll deal with that.” He glanced back at the house and then at the sheriff again. “You need to see something.”

  He led Lamar inside. As they crossed the living room, they could hear the women working in the kitchen. Lamar shot a look toward the doorway and caught a glimpse of Katherine, the doctor’s wife, and Mary standing at a stove. Neither noticed him.

  The bedroom was down a short hall. Just outside it, the doctor removed two cloth face masks from his pocket and handed one to Lamar. “Put this on.”

  “Is he contagious?”

  “My gut tells me no, but better if we don’t take any chances.”

  Lamar wasn’t sure he wanted to enter the room at all, but he was a public servant and doing things he didn’t want to do was part of his job. He put on the mask and they entered.

  In the semidarkness of the stormy day, the sheriff could make out little until the doctor turned on a nightstand lamp.

  “Jesus,” Lamar said. His wife would not have been pleased to hear him take the Lord’s name in vain, but he couldn’t help it.

 
; Toby lay on the mattress, the covers pulled up to his chin. There was something over his chest making the blankets bulge upward, but Lamar barely registered this. His attention was drawn to the dead man’s head.

  It was tilted back on the pillow, Toby’s chin jutting toward the ceiling. Plastered on his face was a look of sheer agony—eyes squeezed shut, lips pulled back from clenched teeth, every muscle tense.

  Lamar said, “You told me he was dead.”

  “He is dead.”

  “Bullshit. Look at his face. I’ve seen plenty of dead. They can’t hold that kind of expression.”

  “I’ve never seen anything like it myself.” The doctor stepped over to the bed and pulled the blanket down to the man’s waist.

  The protrusion turned out to be Toby’s arms lying over his chest, his hands hovering near his collarbone like he was about to grab his head.

  “Is it rigor?” Lamar asked.

  The doctor shook his head. “He hasn’t been dead long enough.”

  Lamar approached the bed for a better look. In addition to the frozen posture, the man’s skin looked. “Have you tried to reposition him?”

  “Give it a shot.”

  Lamar hesitated a moment, and then pulled on his winter gloves and grabbed Toby’s right arm. Pulling on it only succeeded in moving Toby’s entire body. It was as if he were a sculpture made from a single piece of solid material.

  “What the hell happened?”

  “When I arrived, he was already in bed. Mary said he’d complained about a headache and then collapsed. He was asleep when I started my examination, but it wasn’t long before he started…mumbling.”

  “About what?”

  “I don’t know. It sounded like words but I didn’t understand it.” He paused. “He did eventually wake for a few minutes. He seemed confused as to why I was here. When I asked what was wrong, he said he felt like his head was in a vise. Then his head suddenly thrust back and he started moving his hands toward it. That’s when he froze. I was taken so off guard, I didn’t realize for probably half a minute that he wasn’t breathing anymore. But even if I had noticed right away, I’m positive I couldn’t have done anything to save him.”

  Lamar let that soak in for a moment before he asked, “Did he tell you anything that might have explained what happened?”

  “That’s why I called you.”

  Dr. Fisher moved around the end of the bed to the dresser and picked up a baby-sized bundle.

  Walking over to Lamar, he said, “Mary told me he came back from a hunting trip this morning all excited about this.”

  The doctor opened the bundle to reveal a piece of oddly shaped metal, kind of like a curtain rod with branches sticking out all over the place.

  “What is it?”

  “I haven’t the slightest. Here.” He handed it to Lamar.

  The sheriff expected it to be heavy, but it was so light he almost dropped it. “I would have sworn this was metal.”

  Dr. Fisher raised an eyebrow and removed a coin from his pocket. “Hold it out.”

  The sheriff did as asked. Dr. Fisher tapped the coin on one end. The clink it made was metallic.

  The sheriff’s brow creased as he looked at the rod.

  The doctor told him what Toby had said to Mary about an airplane riding a flame that had landed on Edgar Beasley’s land.

  “Sounds to me like he was already sick and having delusions,” Lamar said.

  “Maybe, but Mary said he was fine when he first got home. And how do you explain that?” The doctor nodded at the rod. “I’m pretty sure there’s something out there, but I knew well and good that if I told you over the party line, there’d already be a dozen people heading that way to check it out. In this storm, who knows how many could get lost or hurt.”

  The doctor was right. The last thing Lamar needed was some ill-prepared treasure seekers heading into the woods right now. He wrapped the cloth back around the object and picked up the bundle. “I’ll give it some thought. In the meantime, let’s just keep this between ourselves.”

  “Don’t worry, I won’t tell anyone. And I’ll make sure Mary knows she shouldn’t, either.”

  The sheriff raised the bundle a few inches. “You mind if I hold on to this?”

  “I already assumed you would.”

  “How are you going to handle him?” Lamar asked, gesturing toward Toby.

  “As far as I’m concerned, he died of complications from the flu he caught while hunting. Katherine and I will assist Mary with the funeral arrangements, and make sure there aren’t any unnecessary questions.”

  “Thanks, Doc.” Lamar hesitated. “Do you want me to hang around while you break the news to her?”

  Dr. Fisher shook his head. “Thanks for the offer, but we’ll be fine.”

  __________

  FOUR FENDER BENDERS, one vehicle flipped in a storm ditch, a bus bound for Missoula stuck on the highway, and Kenny Dogan’s mishap at Mills Market kept Lamar and his deputies busy over the next two days. When the storm finally passed and the plows were able to get out and clear the main roads, they located three additional stranded cars with their occupants huddled inside. Thankfully no one died, though Mrs. Boyer, who was probably pushing seventy, would likely lose a couple of toes to frostbite.

  Lamar had forgotten all about Toby Gaines and the mysterious object until he read the man’s obituary in the Billings Gazette. When he finished, he glanced at the filing cabinet where he’d stuffed Toby’s object.

  After a moment, he retrieved the thing and put it on his desk. Given that it had been several days since Toby’s death and both Mary Gaines and Dr. Fisher were still breathing, Lamar thought it unlikely the item had anything to do with Toby’s illness. So when he unwrapped it, he picked it up with his bare hands.

  Despite how hard it was still to get his mind around the possibility, he now had little doubt that the object was made from some kind of metal.

  He frowned. Though he really didn’t want to take a drive up north, someone would have to check out Toby’s story, and if he started involving others, rumors would spread and the whole thing would likely get blown out of proportion.

  He wrapped the object back up, tucked it under his arm, and walked into the main room.

  Only three other deputies were on duty, and two of them were out in the field. The third, Frank Costa, was in the back keeping an eye on the holding cells, where a couple of prisoners were awaiting a hearing with the judge the next day. Betty Simmons, the receptionist-dispatcher, was the only one out front.

  “Betty,” Lamar called as he crossed the room, “we got anything going?”

  “Nothing at the moment, Sheriff.”

  After the chaos of the storm, it was nice that things had finally returned to normal. “I need to go out and follow up on something. I might be gone a few hours, maybe even out of radio range some of the time. If you need something but can’t reach me, Leo’s in charge.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  He went outside to his sheriff’s car, but stopped himself as he was opening the door. Though the main road had been cleared, some of the roads to the Beasley place would likely still be covered. He switched over to his truck and drove out of town.

  He wasn’t sure which way Toby had taken, so he decided his best bet was to start at the Beasley house. As expected, once he was off the county road, he had to plow his way down the private road to the home.

  The drive was nice and peaceful, though. The blanket of white, the trees, and the lack of anyone else around almost made him feel like he was on a hunting trip himself. When the Beasley home came into sight, he plowed a circle so he could go back out the way he’d come, and then climbed out. There were no other cars around, or any signs that any had been here since the storm. Hopefully that meant no one else had gotten wind of Toby’s story.

  He took a moment to get his bearings and determined that Craven Pond should be at his two o’clock. He was about to start out when he remembered the rod. He ducked back into the truc
k and pulled it out. He still didn’t believe the story of an aircraft shooting fire, but something might be out there that the broken end of the item would match up to. If he could find it, it might help explain what had happened to Toby.

  The Beasley property was a gently rolling mix of woods and clearings that had been in the family since the area was settled. Lamar cut a path through the trees straight toward where the pond should be. The air was crisp but not too cold, the sky blue from horizon to horizon. A beautiful day for a stroll through the country.

  As he emerged from the trees, he found himself only a hundred yards shy of the embankment that surrounded the pond. He decided to climb to the top for a better view, and soon crested the hill and looked down on the frozen water.

  According to Dr. Fisher, Toby had not told Mary exactly where he’d found the object, only that it had been near Craven Pond. The idea of a fire-breathing airplane landing anywhere in the area was ridiculous. There just wasn’t enough flat ground.

  Lamar scanned the shoreline and spotted no unusual mounds beneath the snow indicating the presence of an aircraft. He turned his attention to the undulating fields that surrounded the embankment, but other than the half-buried, deteriorating fence that served as the property line, nothing jumped out at him.

  He turned in a circle, giving himself a good, long look at the area.

  From the corner of his eye, he caught the wink of sunlight, but when he turned toward it the glint was gone. He wondered if the bright day was playing tricks on him, but then he saw it again. A bright flash, quickly gone.

  The wind was the culprit, he realized, moving the brush so that whatever was behind it was visible for only a moment.

  He headed down the slope toward the reflective object. The nearer he got, the more the thing revealed itself. It consisted of items in a variety of shapes sitting on what looked like a large rectangular…box or something or other, which looked to be floating above the ground. It had to be an illusion, but it was still unnerving.

  He was about a hundred and fifty feet away when he suddenly felt like someone tapped him on the shoulder. He whirled around, but the only things behind him were his tracks.