Max Collins - Majic Man

“When was this supposed to’ve happened?”

“I don’t know. Hell, maybe my girl imagined all this, or heard snippets of conversation and wove ’em into somethin’. But I know the military got to Sheriff Wilcox, browbeat him, threatened him, maybe even took him for a stay in that same ‘guesthouse’ where they held Brazel.”

“What do you mean, ‘guesthouse’?”

“Some kind of place where they hold unofficial prisoners for questioning, out at the base. Brazel was there for a week, I hear. I don’t know, maybe you could ask him yourself. Maybe he’s ready to talk, after all this time has passed.”

“Yeah, I was thinking of driving out to his place, later today.”

“Hell, don’t bother-he’s in town!”

“What?”

“Yeah, Brazel comes in every now and then to sell some wool.”

“Where can I find him?”

“My guess is, if you park yourself at the bar next door, your man’ll come to you, before too very long.”

The bartender at the Trading Post Saloon knew Mac Brazel and-for the assurance I wasn’t a process server, and a consideration of one dollar-agreed to point him out to me, should the rancher decide to stop by for a drink.

On a bar stool, I nursed a beer and went over my notes, trying to decide what I made of all this; I wasn’t convinced that a flying saucer had really crashed, but the military’s misbehavior in these here parts seemed undeniable. My back was starting to hurt, and I was about to move to a booth, when the door opened, sunlight slashed in, and in strode a tall character in a beat-up Stetson, dirty faded jeans and an equally dirty, even more faded denim shirt.

The bartender gave me a barely perceptible nod, but I think I could have saved myself a dollar: who else could this long, tall New Mexican be but Mac Brazel? His face was spade-shaped, his eyes wary slits, mouth a wider slit, skin as dark and leathery as a saddle.

He settled onto a stool two over from me, and in a low voice requested a Blatz.

“Mr. Brazel?”

He glanced at me; his face was like something an Indian had carved out of wood. “Do I know you?”

“I’m a friend of Major Marcel.”

He turned away, but I caught him looking at me in the mirror behind the bar; I looked back at him in it, and said, “I’d like to talk to you about what happened out at your ranch July before last.”

His bottle of beer arrived, with a glass. “I don’t talk about that.”

“You know, you’re an American citizen, Mr. Brazel. The military can’t tell you what to do and what to say, or what not to say.”

Brazel was pouring the beer. “I’m not so sure about that.”

“What did you find, Mr. Brazel, out in that field?”

He sipped the beer, savored it, then-speaking so slowly it would have irritated Gary Cooper-said, “I’ll tell you one thing, mister. It sure as hell wasn’t a weather balloon.”

“What was it?”

Several swallows of beer later, he responded-sort of. “If I ever find anything else, it better be a bomb, or they’re gonna have a hard time gettin’ me to say anything about it.”

“Even if you find more little green men?”

He took a last swallow of his beer, and then that leather face split into a strange grin. “They wasn’t green.”

And he tossed a fifty-cent piece on the bar, climbed off his stool and ambled out.

I’d been running a tab, and had to take the time to pay for two beers before I could follow him, and by the time I got back out to Main Street, the rancher was climbing into a recent-model Ford pickup truck, across the way. I might have made it to him, before he pulled out, if that hand hadn’t settled on my shoulder.

“Mr. Heller,” a crisp young voice said in my ear. “Would you come with us, please? Colonel Blanchard would like to see you.”

Then a white-helmeted MP was at my side, a wide-shouldered kid of twenty or so, no bigger than your typical starting college fullback; he took me by an elbow and walked me to an open-topped jeep at the curb, where a second MP-a big colored sergeant-was behind the wheel.

I saw Brazel’s new pickup heading north, out of town, as we headed south.

Toward the air base.

Rustic Roswell slipped away and scrubby desolation took over, the two-lane ribbon of well-worn concrete stretching endlessly ahead. In the open-air jeep, jostling along, I held on to my hat, figuratively and literally. I didn’t ask any questions, because getting my ass hauled out to the former Roswell Army Air Field was about the only way I might hope to actually talk to Colonel William H. Blanchard. And the two white-helmeted MPs, both of whom sat in front, had nothing to say to each other, let alone me.

Five minutes outside of town, the base was signaled by a sign with the words WALKER AFB in a proud deco mushroom cloud that rose above its horizontal base, smaller letters spelling OUT HOME OF just below, with 509TH BOMB GROUP and 1ST AIR TRANS UNIT boldly emblazoned left and right, respectively. The field had been renamed after the Air Force had broken off from the Army into its own entity, something which Jim Forrestal had initially opposed, incidentally.

Then through heat shimmer, like a desert mirage, the sprawl of the air base revealed itself: first the tower, then hangars, one- and two- and three-story barracks and other buildings, fenced-off areas, far-flung tarmacs where planes were taxiing, taking off and landing, even green landscaped grounds complete with trees. The main gate wasn’t terribly impressive, however, sitting like a brick tollbooth in a vast, unfenced paved area, the words WALKER AIR FORCE BASE curving above, black letters on white. For all the talk of security, Walker seemed fairly accessible; I mean, hell-they let me in, without a pass, merely on the word of the two armed MPs who’d kidnapped me.

We pulled up to a two-story white clapboard building and, over the rumble of airplane engines and churning propellers, I was told to follow the colored MP while the white one trailed behind me. We trooped through a bustling bullpen where aides and secretaries were at work at desks, typewriters clattering, new notices getting pinned up on bulletin boards while old ones came down, maps taking up most of the wall space. At a modest glass-and-wood walled-off office, the MP in the lead knocked at a glass-and-wood door stenciled COLONEL W. BLANCHARD.

Pearson’s file had filled me in a little on Blanchard-nick-name “Butch”-who had a reputation as a “swashbuckling” pilot, rumored to have once returned from a Mexican jaunt in a trainer jet so loaded down with whiskey, the plane crashed to a fiery stop; legend had it he’d fled the scene, then returned to indignantly demand the mysterious pilot be tracked down and court-martialed. Blanchard had been next in line to drop “Fat Man” on Hiroshima, but history had seemed to pass him by-unless, of course, there was something to these flying saucer stories I’d been hearing all day.

Blanchard-husky, dark-haired, dashingly handsome, the “Old Man” as Haut had referred to him-was barely past thirty; he looked up from a desk cluttered with work, framed family photos, humidor, pipe rack and trio of telephones. He waved the MP inside.

“Leave Mr. Heller with me, Sergeant,” Blanchard said, in a crisp baritone, “and don’t wait around.”

“Yes, sir,” the colored MP said, and held the door open, nodding curtly for me to enter.

I did. Blanchard gave me half a smile, didn’t rise, gesturing to the waiting hardwood chair across from him. I sat, just as the MP was shutting, almost slamming, the door; it startled me, but I’m sure my reaction was no more obvious than Shemp Howard’s would have been.

The colonel had the casual look of a man who’d seen combat and didn’t suffer bullshit-no tie, sleeves rolled up, but with the authoritative touch of the pipe he was smoking. On the wall behind him were framed photos from the war, Blanchard posing with his plane, with his crew, at the front of a group shot of the 509th; and centrally displayed was an elaborate, and impressive, collection of medals. Also on exhibit, just behind him, was a Japanese ceremonial sword, sitting on a pedestal atop a low-slung bookcase. To his right stood an American flag.