Max Collins - Majic Man

That was not the end of it, not of the threats anyway. Joyce told me that his boss, the owner of the station, had received a call from “someone in Washington, D.C.,” who made it clear that if KGFL aired an uncensored story about Brazel’s two differing accounts “the station’s license would be in jeopardy.”

“So you never aired the story,” I said.

“No. And whenever I run into Mac Brazel, here in town, we don’t speak.”

The Roswell Fire Department was a new buff-brick building with room for three trucks in as many stalls, but only two were taken up. I checked in at the front office with the receptionist, who fetched fireman Dan Dwyer for me.

Dwyer, a big brown-haired man in his thirties, asked me what I wanted and I suggested we talk outside; he didn’t object, and when I brought Major Marcel’s name up, he responded warmly.

“Jesse’s a nice fella,” the husky fireman said, hands in the pockets of his jumpsuit. “How’s he like Washington?”

“I think he’s happy. But I’m pretty sure he feels his reputation at SAC is tainted, because of the ridicule heaped on him, in that ‘saucer’ incident.”

The fireman’s friendliness evaporated. He studied me through slitted eyes. “Is that what this is about? Who are you?”

I told him, was showing him my i.d., when he held up a hand in a stop fashion.

“I have nothing to say about that situation.”

“Jesse seems to think you witnessed something, Mr. Dwyer. Didn’t you respond to a call in early July of ’47? Was there wreckage of some kind of flying craft, possibly bodies of-”

“Stop. I told you, already. I’m not talking.”

“We can keep it discreet. Your name won’t be used. We’re just trying to determine what happened, and whether the military got out of line in the way they-”

“I’ll tell you about the military getting out of line. How about threatening to stick my wife and kid and me in Orchard Park?”

“What’s Orchard Park?”

He threw his hands up. “That’s all I got to say, mister. And anybody asks me, I didn’t say that.”

Then turned and all but ran into the station.

The Clover Cafe made no attempt to serve the native cuisine; its Blue Plate Special was meat loaf, peas and gravy, and worth every bit of fifty cents. At two o’clock, the lunch crowd was gone; you could have fired a cannon off in the place and not hit anybody. I sat in a back booth, finished off the wholesome fare, and waited to see if Deputy Reynolds would show. He did, about two-fifteen. We spoke over Cokes and a radio’s country-western music.

“Sorry I’m late,” the slender deputy said. “We were bookin’ a guy.”

“What happened to your low crime rate?”

“This drifter tried to rob the Conoco station in broad daylight. Wanted everything in the cash drawer.” He laughed. “Manager’s an ex-Marine who gave him a wrench alongside the head, instead.”

“Stopped his drifting, anyway. Say, Deputy-what’s Orchard Park?”

“Former POW camp, for the Japs, out in the desert-why?”

“Nothing important.”

“Look, Mr. Heller, we need to make this quick. This joint is pretty dead after lunch hour, so it’s safe enough. But I don’t want to take any chances.”

“Why are you?”

“What, taking a chance? Because it pisses me off how the strongarm’s been put on a lot of good citizens by their own goddamn government. In particular, pisses me off, what the sheriff’s been subjected to.”

“Like what?”

“You wouldn’t know it, from talkin’ to him today, but Sheriff Wilcox is an easygoing, even gregarious fella. Progressive, too-he was the first one in the state to separate juvenile offenders from adults.”

“He wasn’t oozing warmth and compassion this morning.”

“Not after what he’s been put through. Do you know he’s talking about not running again? Best sheriff we ever had, best boss I ever had. He hardly says anything about what happened, though I have heard him say he’s furious with himself for bringing the military in. Once they showed up, and claimed jurisdiction, we got completely cut off. I heard him say, if he had it to do over again, he’d call in the press, first. Give ’em carte blanche.”

“Deputy … what’s your first name, anyway?”

“Tommy.”

“Tommy, call me Nate. Listen, were you there from the beginning?”

“From when Mac Brazel stumbled inta the office, just a cowboy in faded jeans and scuffed boots and a week’s worth of dirt and dust caked on him, yes I was.”

“Then you saw the saucer debris?”

“Yes-but not the bodies.”

“Bodies?”

“I’m gettin’ ahead of myself. Look, I saw that thin metal you’d crumple that’d then uncrumple itself; and I saw some little I-beams with hieroglyphics. Saw samples of all that stuff. Sheriff sent me and Pete Crawford out to the ranch-”

“Wait a minute … this was before Major Marcel went out there?”

“Yes, sir. We didn’t see the debris, but we saw this patch of blackened ground; it looked like somethin’ big and round and hot had sat itself down. We come back and reported in to the sheriff, and he called the air base, and there was no new news, and then things settled down for a bit.”

The next morning, Tuesday, things got unsettled, and unsettling, in a hurry. Deputies Reynolds and Crawford drove back out to the ranch and found it had been cordoned off by the Army; they were not allowed passage, lawmen or not. Armed sentries and Army vehicles were stationed at ranch roads, crossroads, everywhere. Annoyed and frustrated, the deputies returned to the sheriff’s office, where Wilcox was fielding phone calls from all over the world.

“We still had a little box of that strange debris,” Reynolds said, “off in our side room. Day or so later, just when things had kinda gone back to normal-the weather balloon story had calmed things down-the military landed on us like fuckin’ D day, excuse my French.”

“Landed, how?”

“Two MP trucks showed up and they came in and demanded the box of wreckage, and the sheriff handed it over, with no protest. But they were belligerent as hell, anyway. These MPs gathered all of us, deputies and Sheriff Wilcox, and told us to keep quiet about recent events and direct all inquiries to the base. The sheriff said, well, that’s what he’d been doing. And the MP, a colored sergeant, real menacin’ fella, said, well, if any of us had any other ideas, there’d be ‘grave consequences,’ was what he said. I didn’t take kindly to that, and said something to the effect, what do you guys think you’re doing, threatening officers of the law like that? And this black bastard, he says, cold as ice, he says, ‘We’ll kill you all, and your families, and your goddamn dogs, too.’”

“Sounds like you’re taking a hell of a chance, telling me this.”

“I don’t like being threatened. And … look, there’s something I haven’t told you.”

“What’s that, Tommy?”

“I kinda got a personal stake in this. I date the sheriff’s daughter, have been, off and on, for a couple years. Threatening me is one thing; threatening my girl’s life, well those guys can go fuck themselves!”

We listened to a staticky Hank Williams singing about a cheating heart, then I asked, “You said something about bodies?”

“I didn’t see anything, but I think the sheriff did. I think it’s part of why he’s so shook up, why his health has failed and everything else. My girl, her father wouldn’t answer any of her questions, and her mother told her to stop asking him … but that night she heard him talking to her mom, heard the sheriff say that three little bodies had been found, little guys with big heads in silver suits. Found ’em in a burned area with metallic debris and the crashed saucer.”