The Witness

"You mean... you actually saw one? First hand?"

The old man shrugged like it was no big deal, then bent over and balanced the pool queue between two hairy knuckles. Two seconds later there was one less ball on the table. I took another sip of my beer, wondering if I needed to get my hearing checked.

"You're joking, right?"

"No. No joke."

He had a tired dullness about his eyes, like he actually didn't give a fart what I thought. I decided then and there that he was either perfectly crazy or one of the greatest liars I had ever met. Perhaps both.

"C'mon, what happened? I mean... how did you..."

"See an alien?" He glanced toward me to take stock of my expression, then lined-up his next shot with the calm ease of a man who knows he's got plenty of time. "Not much to tell, really. Besides... it was awhile back."

"When?"

He took his shot, sunk it with ease. The game was ending up pretty lopsided.

"Summer before last. Oh... about thirty miles north." He nodded toward one of the walls, like he knew which way north was without even having to think about it. "All I can say is that it was, without a doubt, the weirdest day of my life." He circled the table toward his next shot, glancing up at me as he lined-up for the kill. "Eight ball, corner pocket."

I nodded, and five seconds later the game was done.

"You want to play again?" He looked up.

"How about we sit down and you tell me this story."

He made a weary expression. "What's the point? You're not gonna believe me anyway."

I laughed, "Sure I will. I'll buy you a beer, okay? What'd you say your name was?"

"Hank," he shrugged, finding his way to the closest table. When I finally brought him a bottle and he'd had a chance to down a sizable gulp, he wiped his whiskers with the back of his sleeve and stared at me, as though the story he had in mind was one he had a hard time telling.

"You sure you want to hear this?"

"Absolutely."

"I don't want you to call me a liar."

"I'm not going to call you a liar."

"I don't care if you think it. I just don't like being called it. You understand?"

I nodded. He sighed.

"What happened... it was like something out of one of those old H.G. Wells novels. It was so unbelievable, so weird, that nobody... and I mean nobody... has ever believed me." He took another gulp, setting the bottle down a moment later. "You know at night... sometimes you can hear a chopper around here... going up and down the canyon? The night before it happened... actually, I guess it was the morning... there must have been a dozen of those things right in the area around my trailer. I mean, they were buzzing around like crazy, big searchlights blazing down, and if that ain't weird enough, this is in the middle of a thunderstorm, okay? I thought there was some fugitive running around outside. You know?"

I nodded, not really knowing what to say.

"It must have been around four in the morning. My dog, Harley... he was going nuts. He'd must've figured we were under attack or something, cause he kept running outside and barking up at the sky and then running 'round and 'round. I went out to drag him back inside, but I figure he got spooked or something, 'cause he went hightailing it into the stream bed which runs by my place. It goes right down into the canyon and branches off all over the place, and when it rains, which ain't too often, it's a mess. A big muddy mess. Harley would go down there all the time, but he was so spooked, I didn't like the idea of him racing off with some weirdo out there. I know it was dumb for me to do. I probably should've just stayed home, but the rain was pretty much dying down, so I grabbed my shotgun and went out to have a look."

"Yeah?"

Hank took another long sip from the bottle, wiping his lips again. "So there I was, out in the middle of the canyon soaking wet, screaming for my dog, right? And I hear the son-of-a-bitch barking, and it sounds like he's... oh... I dunno... maybe a quarter mile or so. By this time, the sun is starting to come up a little. Not to where you can see it, but where there's just some blue off in the east. So I hike through the brush up this hill, just basically making a beeline for the noise, when I see this long piece of metal on the ground."

He made a motion with his hands to indicate the size.

"It was about three feet, I suppose, but only about an two inches thin. You know? And I look around, and there's a whole bunch of these things, and when I finally get to the top of the hill, I can see this big metal... I mean... what else can I call it? It was a flying saucer, all smashed up against the rocks down toward the other side. I shit you not. I mean, at first, yeah... I wasn't sure what it was, really. But when I saw the two little..."

"Aliens?"

"Exactly. There were two of 'em. They were huddled against the saucer, or really what was left of it, and I as I got closer, I could see that Harley was just ready to go to town on these guys. I mean, he was one very upset dog. He didn't know what these things were, but he sure as hell didn't like 'em. Y'know?"

"So what happened?"

"Well, one of 'em was hurt. I could see that by the way he was bending over holding his side, and I figured I might have gotten there too late. So I called Harley over. I had to hike halfway down the hill before he'd listen to me. The two aliens... they were watching me, just staring at me."

"What did they look like?"

"Grey skin... eyes like a cat's but darker. At the time, though, it was hard to see much of anything. It was still real dark. I could tell they were kinda small. For a minute I thought they might be Japanese or something. I didn't like that very much. I mean, we just got done kicking their ass in the Pacific. What the hell were they doing in New Mexico? But I had my shotgun, remember, and as I got a little closer, I could see their faces, even though the light was dim, and I could tell these guys were definitely not human."

He took another sip from his bottle, then set it back on the table. For a moment, I thought the story was over. It was sort of a let down, to be honest. My girlfriend works for the Times in Santa Fe, and it sounded to me like a story she might be willing to cover, but without any sort of evidence save for this man's word and no other witnesses...

"Did you get any other witnesses?"

He made a gloomy face, shaking his head. "What I did, in retrospect, was about the dumbest thing I could have done."

"Which was?"

"I took Harley back to the trailer and locked him in. Believe me, it was a struggle every step of the way, but I couldn't very well try talking to these guys with him barking like crazy. Then I went to the market and called the police on a pay phone. Told them what I found. By the time I returned to the saucer, the sun was up, and there were some people there... mainly young people... about ten or so."

"Then there are other witnesses. Did you get their names?"

"Names?" He shook his head like it was a stupid question. "Listen, we weren't exactly exchanging pleasantries, you understand? I know I should have, but with everything happening so fast..."

"What were they doing?"

He shook his head, this time glumly. "By the time I made it back, that one feller who'd been hurt was dead. The other one was just sitting there in a state of shock while these kids were trying to talk to him."

"I don't suppose it spoke English," I winced.

"They were even trying Spanish, but nothing was working. I got there just a few minutes before some MPs showed up. They took the alien into protective custody... their term, not mine... and then they stuck us all in a couple jeeps and drove us up to Holloman. We got yakked at for a couple hours, basically a stern warning not to say nothin' to nobody or else."

"Or else what?"

"Or else nothing. How the heck should I know? Look, they were all acting like a bunch of headless hens. They didn't have any idea what they were gonna do, but they sure as hell didn't want a thousand reporters descending from every city in the nation. They basically told us all to just pretend it never happened."

"Pretend it never happened?"

"For the sake of national security," he shrugged. "They kept saying that over and over again. Let our elected leaders figure out what to do. Until then, this is classified. Yada yada yada. You get the gist."

I smiled, scarcely able to believe a shred of what I'd heard. "So how many people have you told?"

"Lots. Hell, I wasn't gonna listen to that bunk. I even went back there that same day. They had a bunch of dump trucks out there in the canyon, and there were choppers flying around, and I pretty much figured they were cleaning up the whole place. Some more MPs stopped me and turned me around. Said that a plane had crashed. A plane, for Christ's sake. Anyway, that was pretty much the end of it."

"Nobody got any pictures?"

"Not that I know of."

"No evidence whatsoever."

He shrugged, "I had some evidence, but my place was broken into about a year back. They ransacked it. Y'know?"

"What did they take?"

"One of those metal shards, you remember?" He motioned with his hands again. "I was showing it to all my friends, but I don't have it no more."

I sighed, "That's too bad. My girlfriend... you remember how I was telling you she's a reporter?"

"Oh... newspapers won't touch this. Don't you think I've tried?"

"She might, but not without hard evidence."

"Even with evidence, somebody will come out and say it's some new material the military is working on and confiscate it. That happened with another shard I had. That was before the break-in, by the way."

I stared at him, eyes narrowing, "How many shards did you take?"

"A couple. That was the one and only smart thing I did that whole morning."

"And they're all gone?"

"Well... you sure you can get this in the papers?"

Based on a hunk of metal, no I wasn't, but I wasn't about to tell him that.

"Sure. This could make front page. But I've got to see the evidence first, just so I know you're not pulling my leg."

I ended up following Hank out to his trailer and helped him dig up what he said was the last remaining shard. It looked to me more like a long piece of silver colored glass than anything else, but it was very thin, about the width of aluminum foil, and very light, like picking up a piece of plastic. Hank's dog came out and growled at me for a little while as he leaned the shard against the mounting lock on his trailer and handed me a crowbar, "Now whack the hell out of it. Don't worry. You can't break it." And he was right. It was tough as hell. I shook my head, wondering what it could possibly be made of.

"Now, when you leave, I'm gonna bury this somewhere else, so don't you bother trying to sneak back out here and dig it up, because if you do, I'll shoot you full of holes, and don't think I won't."

"Don't worry. When I come back out here, I'll bring my girlfriend and another witness. If there's anything that'll make people believe your story, it'll be this thing."