by Milo Abrams
was the mecca for all things country out in Monroe. Every farmer and country bumpkin within an hour of the hardware store was a regular customer. Sam Cray had lived in Monroe his whole life, and knowing what the people needed, he opened a store that had everything from typical hardware store stock to animal feed and lumber. The outside of the building looked as old and cracked as the old man behind the register. For Will, Cray’s was his farm’s lifeline. As always, Sam was standing behind the counter when he walked inside.
“Hey Sam,” he said waving.
Sam looked up from the register, the grumpy resting frown that he had acquired over the last seventy years forcefully pushed up his saggy skin into a smile. “Hey Mr. McAllister. Haven’t seen you in while.”
“I was just in here a couple days ago, Sam.”
Sam laughed and walked around the counter to shake Will’s hand. He did it with everyone, making them feel like an old friend he hadn’t seen in ages. “I was just teasing. So, what can I do you for?”
A man in a large straw hat and faded overalls carried a bag past them and out the door to the parking lot. Ruby watched him from the front seat as he set the bag in the back of the shiny truck next to her.
“Actually, I’m looking for that goat feed you have, the expensive stuff.”
Sam’s smile quickly softened to his natural frown. “Ah I’m sorry Will, I’m fresh out. Probably get some in a couple days. I never thought that stuff would sell but this rich fella came in yesterday and cleaned me out. Said something about these new goat milk products they were making for something, I don’t know.” He smiled again and looked up at Will. “Honestly, I wasn’t listening.”
Will sucked in his lips in disappointment. He didn’t want to go back to the truck empty-handed. It was then that he got an idea. Sam walked back around the counter to the register and the man with the straw hat came back inside and stepped in front of Will just as he was about to speak.
“Thanks Sam,” the man said. “I’ll probably be back tomorrow for some other stuff. Lumber and such.”
“Not a problem, Dell. Clean me out, I can always get more,” he said smiling.
Dell pulled a small stack of bills from his wallet and put them on the counter then headed for the door.
“Say Sam, did you see that fireball last night?” Will finally managed to ask.
Sam seemed surprised at what Will had asked him. “Fireball? What do you mean?”
Will noticed Dell stopping at the door.
“I was sitting on the porch with Ruby watching the sunset, and this huge fireball came ripping across the sky above the woods behind my property. Lit everything up. You didn’t see it?”
Sam shrugged. “Nope. Last night I was here doing inventory with my grandson, Charlie. He’s been begging for a summer job and we were quite busy.”
“Oh,” Will sank in disappointment. His hopes of getting some sort of answer to what he believed triggered Ruby’s anxiety were fading fast. “You haven’t heard anything on the news then either, huh?”
Sam shook his head. “This is the first I’ve heard of it.”
“That’s actually interesting,” Dell said walking up to the counter silently. Will looked at him strangely but Sam wasn’t fazed. “My animals have been acting weird ever since last night. That’s what the cement and stuff is for. I have to restructure a whole section of my barn because three of my horses had such a fit that they smashed their gates. I found them wandering around in the field in the middle of the night.”
This intrigued Will. “I have some goats, but that’s it. They seem to be okay. Did you see anything?”
Dell shook his head. “Was inside all night taking care of my wife, she’s…sick.”
Will’s shoulders sank. His search for answers wasn’t going very well. No one but Ruby and him seemed to have seen it.
“You don’t know anyone else that saw it?”
Dell shook his head. “Makes me wonder though if that’s what got my animals all in an uproar. I haven’t even seen any cops or anything out here either. You said it fell into the woods?”
“That’s what it looked like. I went back there a bit and looked around but didn’t see anything. I was concerned it was going to start a fire.”
“That’s a legitimate concern!” Sam chimed in.
“Where do you live, is it close to here?”
Will pointed out the window toward his house. “See those trees across the street? I think they are the same woods that connect behind my house. I’m at the end of Eagle over there.”
Dell sniffed as he thought. “Yeah, I think those woods run around across the street from my farm. I didn’t see any smoke or anything. You said it was on fire?”
Will nodded. “Bright, burning fireball. Just like a meteor or something.”
Dell removed his hat and wiped the sweat from his forehead. “Hmm. I’m going to have to ask around about that one.”
“Well if you hear anything, please let me know.” Will sounded desperate, and he was. He hated to come off sounding that way but watching the fireball come down seemed to flip a switch in Ruby in a way that he hadn’t seen since they first got together.
“I will,” Dell nodded, then turned and left.
Will waved at Sam awkwardly as he walked for the door. “Thanks again, Sam. I’ll check back on that goat feed.”
Ruby watched him walk back to the truck empty-handed. He felt bad for coming back with nothing but there was nothing he could do. He couldn’t force Sam to just shit out the stuff. All he wanted to do was make Ruby happy.
“They didn’t have any?” she asked.
He shook his head. “No, I’m sorry. But I’ll get some.”
“It’s okay,” she said, “you don’t have to. They’ll be fine.”
“Interesting thing though,” he said starting the truck and backing up. “That guy in the truck next to us, I guess his name is Dell. I asked Sam if he had seen or heard anything about that fireball that we saw and he hadn’t. But Dell said that ever since last night his animals have been acting weird.”
This didn’t exactly make Ruby feel any better. “Did he say what it was?”
“Not a clue. I just thought it was weird.” He frowned as he pulled onto their road and the truck bounced up in down with every pot hole he hit.
“Maybe the animals saw it,” she suggested. “They are very sensitive you know. More so than people.”
“Yeah.” Will pulled into the driveway and shut off the truck. In front of him their large barn sat across from the house with Ruby’s little “people” inside. “It’s just weird. If it was like a meteorite or something, wouldn’t there be like cops or FBI or something? Surely we would hear something out here?”
“Maybe,” Ruby said biting her nails. “Unless they don’t want anyone to know.”
Will’s expression changed to concern. “What do you mean?”
“Think about it. If something fell from space, there has to be someone that knows about it, right? I mean, aren’t there people who watch the sky for a living? And they would tell the authorities, so of course they would investigate it. The police wouldn’t come blazing out here with their sirens and lights on unless it was something that they wanted to alert everyone about, right? Like a fire. When there’s a fire we always hear the firetrucks screaming. But did you hear anything?”
Will shook his head. “Not a thing.”
“Me either,” Ruby finished chewing the nails from one hand and moved to the other. “So, to me that says that maybe there was someone out here, but they don’t want anyone else to know about it.”
The thought of it made Will shudder. He knew that it scared Ruby and she was upset enough as it was. He quickly changed the subject to avoid her anxiety snowballing from this new revelation.
“I’m sure everything is fine,” he said. That was his default answer for when he didn’t know what to say. “I’m going to keep checking back at Cray’s though and get you that fancy feed for your goats.”
Ruby smiled.
“Thank you. Maybe it’ll help with Tucker’s gas.”
5
The lightheartedness of her joke made everything feel alright for a moment. But as soon as they stepped out of the truck to go into the house, everything that had been alright between them and everything that they had reestablished since the long ride home from the psychiatrist seemed to blow away in the wind. The smile on Ruby’s face instantly disintegrated as soon as she heard the sound. Will didn’t immediately pick up on it, but it was the sort of thing that he didn’t exactly care enough to listen for. It was the sound of distress.
Ruby froze in place which threw Will into a complete panic.
“What’s wrong? Are you okay?”
Ruby’s lips barely moved, as if she were the one in danger. “You don’t hear that?”
Will put his ear to the wind, but heard nothing but the sound of moving air. “No? What is it?”
As soon as he had finished the question, a distressed bleating echoed from within the barn in a long whine like the increasing tone of a fire engine. The panic cry was the sound of terror.
“My goats!” Ruby screamed as she charged forward around the front of the truck. But Will was faster, and grabbed her before she could reach the barn and held her back.
“Wait!” he screamed as she struggled against his grip.
“Let go of me Will, I have to help them!”
He pulled harder, dragging her away from the barn and back toward the front of the truck.
“You don’t know what’s in there,” he said. Immediately his mind began to run with possibilities as Dell’s words re-entered