Killing Floor

I settled back and got comfortable behind the pillar. I had a pretty good vantage point. Maybe two hundred yards distant, maybe thirty feet of elevation. The whole place was laid out below me like a diagram. The field glasses I’d bought were clear and powerful. There were actually four separate warehouses. All identical, built in a tight line, ru

The first compound was totally i

Same went for the second and third. Their gates stood open, their doors were up. All their activity was a cheerful swarm on their forecourts. Nothing secret. All in plain view. Different type of trucks, but all local. Couldn’t see what they were hauling. Wholesale stuff for the little country stores, maybe. Possibly manufactured goods going somewhere. Some kind of oil drums in the third shed. But nothing to get excited about.

The fourth warehouse was the one I was looking for. The one at the end of the row. No doubt about it. It was a smart location. Made a lot of sense. It was screened by the chaos on the first three forecourts. But because it was the last in line, none of the local farmers or merchants would ever need to pass it by. Nobody would get a look at it. A smart location. It was definitely the one. Beyond it, maybe seventy-five yards away in a field, was the blasted tree. The one Roscoe had picked out of the photograph of Stoller and Hubble and the yellow truck. A camera on the forecourt would pick up the tree just beyond the far corner of the structure. I could see that. This was the place, no doubt about it.

The big roller door across the front was closed. The gate was closed. There were two gatemen hanging around on the forecourt. Even from two hundred yards, the field glasses picked up their alert glances and the wary tension in their walks. Some kind of a security role. I watched them for a while. They strode around, but nothing was happening. So I shifted around to watch the road. Waited for a truck bound for the fourth compound.

IT WAS A GOOD LONG WAIT. I WAS UPTIGHT ABOUT THE TIME ticking away, so I sang to myself. I went through every version of “Rambling on My Mind” that I knew. Everybody has a version. It’s always listed as a traditional song. Nobody knows whose it was. Nobody knows where it came from. Probably from way back in the Delta. It’s a song for people who can’t stay around. Even though maybe there’s a good reason to. People like me. I’d been around Margrave practically a week. Longest I’d ever stayed anywhere voluntarily. I should stay forever. With Roscoe, because she was good for me. I was begi

But there were going to be problems. When Kliner’s dirty money was taken out, the whole town was going to fall apart. There wouldn’t be anyplace left to stay around in. And I had to wander. Like the song I was singing in my head. I had to ramble. A traditional song. A song that could have been written for me. In my heart, I believed Blind Blake had made it up. He had wandered. He had walked right by this place, when the concrete pillars were old shade trees. Sixty years ago, he had walked down the road I was watching, maybe singing the song I was singing.

Joe and I used to sing that old song. We’d sing it as an ironic comment on army family life. We’d stumble off a plane somewhere and ride to an airless empty base house. Twenty minutes after moving in, we’d start up singing that song. Like we’d been there long enough and we were ready to move on again. So I leaned back on the concrete pillar and sang it for him, as well as for me.

Took me thirty-five minutes to run through every version of that old song, once for me and once for Joe. During that time I saw maybe a half dozen trucks pull into the warehouse approach. All local guys. All little dusty Georgia trucks. Nothing with long-haul grime blasted all over it. Nothing headed for the end building. I sang softly for thirty-five minutes and picked up no information at all.

But I did get some applause. I finished the last song and heard a slow ironic hand clap coming out of the darkness behind me. I whipped around the broad concrete pillar and stared into the gloom. The clapping stopped and I heard a shuffling sound. Picked up the vague shape of a man crawling toward me. The shape firmed up. Some kind of a hobo. Long gray matted hair and layers of heavy clothing. Bright eyes burning in a seamed and dirty face. The guy stopped out of reach.

“Who the hell are you?” I asked him.

He swiped his curtain of hair aside and gri

“Who the hell are you?” he said. “Coming to my place and bawling like that?”

“This is your place?” I said. “You live under here?”

He settled on his haunches and shrugged at me.

“Temporarily,” he said. “Been here a month. You got a problem with that?”

I shook my head. I had no problem with that. The guy had to live somewhere.

“Sorry to disturb you,” I said. “I’ll be out of here by tonight.”

His smell was drifting over to me. Wasn’t pleasant. This guy smelled like he’d been on the road all his life.

“Stay as long as you like,” he said. “We just decided to move on. We’re vacating the premises.”

“We?” I said. “There’s somebody else here?”

The guy looked at me oddly. Turned and pointed to the air beside him. There was nobody there. My eyes had adjusted to the gloom. I could see all the way back to the concrete cantilever under the elevated road. Just empty space.

“My family,” he said. “We’re pleased to meet you. But we got to go. Time to move on.”

He reached behind him and dragged a canvas kit bag out of the gloom. Army issue. There was a faint stencil on it. Pfc something, with a serial number and a unit designation. He pulled it up close and shuffled away.

“Wait up,” I said. “Were you here last week? Thursday?”

The guy stopped and half-turned back.

“Been here a month,” he said. “Didn’t see anything last Thursday.”

I looked at him and his kit bag. A soldier. Soldiers don’t volunteer anything. Their basic rule. So I eased off the concrete and pulled a candy bar out of my pocket. Wrapped it in a hundred dollar bill. Tossed it over to him. He caught it and put it in his coat. Nodded to me, silently.

“So what didn’t you see last Thursday?” I asked him.

He shrugged.

“I didn’t see anything,” he said. “That’s the honest truth. But my wife did. She saw plenty of things.”

“OK,” I said, slowly. “Will you ask her what things she saw?”

He nodded. Turned and had a whispered conversation with the air beside him. Turned back to me.

“She saw aliens,” he said. “An enemy starship, disguised like a shiny black truck. Two aliens disguised like regular earth guys in it. She saw lights in the sky. Smoke. Spaceship comes down, turns into a big car, starfleet commander comes out dressed as a cop, short fat guy. Then a white car comes off the highway, but it’s really a starfighter landing, two guys in it, earth guys, pilot and copilot. They all do a dance, right there by the gate, because they come from another galaxy. She said it was exciting. She loves that stuff. Sees it everywhere she goes.”