by Gary Striker
“Tossed around by what”, Steve asked again”?
Ron looked totally confused. “Nothing! He was just being tossed around and then landed on the ground next to the tree. That’s when Adam tried to help him. Adam got a mini version of the same treatment before we were able to pull him away”.
“Away from what”, Steve asked in a stern voice?
“We pulled Adam away from nothing that we could see, but we all felt a pressure sensation, kind of like standing next to a hot rod with a big block engine. Do you know what I mean? It was a pulsing sensation”.
Jim stepped into the conversation.
“Ron, we need to talk as soon as we get this under control. Let’s get those two transported now. Did anybody else get it”?
“No, we’re ok”, Ron said, “but some of the equipment got beat up. Adam’s A.T.V. ended up in the lake, I think. We got out of there in a hurry”.
Cheyenne looked down the access way at an approaching Land Rover.
“Here comes Jane”, he said.
Jane pulled into the lot and parked out of the way. She surveyed the scene and headed over to one of the transport stretchers. After examining the victim, she stood erect and walked about in a circle with her hand on her head.
“Jane got notified via text message by the paramedic team in Fort Kent”, Jim explained to Steve.
“Jim, let me make a suggestion”, Steve requested.
“Sure, what do you have in mind”, Jim asked?
Steve peered at Ron and Jim as Jane walked over to meet them. The professionalism of a seventeen year veteran in crime scene investigations was showing through. They all gazed at Steve with the hope of finally hearing something sensible. Jim looked pointedly at Steve.
“If you have something constructive to add that would help us make sense out of this, let’s have it with the bark on”, was Jim’s request, while showing his logger roots.
Steve surveyed an even larger group of inquisitive ears as the paramedic vans departed the scene.
“Jim, could we reassemble at your office in a few minutes”, Steve asked?
Everyone shook their heads positively and made for their own vehicles. The temperature was dropping and a light snowfall began. It was a calming scene.
“I’ll ride with Jane, Steve said. Cheyenne, do you need a lift?
“No thanks, me and Max will see you over there”, he said with an Acadian flare while pointing to his truck with a huge German Shepard peering out of the open window.
“He’s as big as a moose”, Steve observed, “Are you sure that’s a dog”?
Cheyenne grinned and headed over to Max, who was now visibly excited at Cheyenne’s approach.
“Max never goes anywhere without Cheyenne”, Jane said as she put the relationship into perspective. We’ll see you guys in a few minutes. The parking area emptied with all but two trucks being secured and equipment loaded.
Steve felt weird as he was now a passenger. Jane sensed the moment and smiled.
“Ya wanna drive, lover boy”, she asked with an exceptional amount of added sarcasm?
“Don’t you ever shut up”, Steve asked with a straight face?
Jane erupted in a laugh that she couldn’t control.
“Touché”, was all that came out of her mouth.
Jim was pulling some chairs about and rearranging the floor plan of his office to accommodate the half-dozen visitors. They were all anticipating Steve’s arrival.
“Gentlemen, I just finished a preliminary police report. It looks like things are starting to come unraveled”, Jim said as Steve and Jane entered the premises. Jim brought the forum together with introductions and handed Steve the lead.
“As you know, I’m a stranger in a strange land up here”, he said as he paraphrased a popular novel of the science fiction period, “I don’t know the territory and I certainly don’t know the woods. But what I do know is that we have a serious situation on our hands. A close friend of yours has been killed and others are injured and missing. Our job is to see that nobody else joins them”.
The audience looked at each other with nodding heads and focused attention. Jane smiled at her new found partner and acknowledged that he was indeed good for something. Max was huddled in next to Cheyenne.
“I’m sure that you all have heard of our encounter down at the sawmill last night”? Everyone nodded again. Steve stared at the group.
“Nobody’s going to the asylum. We have all witnessed unexplainable things and no psychiatrist or law enforcement agency is going to change that”.
The group responded with ‘here, here’! Jane observed that Steve was on a roll, knew how to command an audience, and was just as interested to see where this was going.
“For right now, the events of the past month are nothing more than unfortunate circumstances. Anything else will surely get us locked up”.
“Steve, I’m Gary Voisine. We haven’t met yet. I was with the group when we lost Mike back at the lake. What do you make of all this and do you have a plan”?
All eyes focused on Steve”.
“Yes, in two parts, but it’s risky”, Steve said as nobody seemed to be too concerned about that little detail, considering what they had been through already.
“What do you have, Steve”, Gary asked?
“What we have is evidence. What we don’t have is anybody that would consider us sane, despite the evidence. But here’s what we do have in the works”.
Steve’s audience was turning blue as they held their breath in anticipation.
“Consider this confidential for now. As we speak, a certain package is in route to a private contact at the L.A.P.D. Crime Lab. Jane, could you show everybody your photo of the contents, please”?
Jane popped up the picture on her iPhone and passed it about the group. Everyone was trying to make sense out of what didn’t”.
“Let that settle in for a moment”, Steve requested, I can’t tell you anymore than what you can see for yourselves, other than the fact that I removed that thing from some kind of creature that I shot twice with no seemingly effect”.
A low roar circulated among the audience members.
“Let him continue”, Jim instructed, as everyone returned to silence.
“For now, let’s keep the F.B.I. out of the picture”, Steve continued, “We can’t trust those bastards considering what they have done to you folks already, and to a case that brings me up here”.
Everyone knew why Steve was among them. Nobody expected that he would be so quickly integrated and relied upon.
“So what do we need to do, Steve”, Bob asked as he introduced himself, Clayton payed the price and I want some butt”! The group responded vigorously.
“For right now we need to keep this whole mess in perspective and only between ourselves”, Steve cautioned, “The best thing that we can do without getting anybody else killed or locked up would be to let the authorities find out for themselves. Bob, that rifle stock that you guys brought back as well as that piece of Martian hide that Cheyenne chopped off were sent to the State Crime Lab. With the F.B.I. monitoring this case, I’ll assure you that we have seen the last of those items.”
The group maintained a hard focus in Steve’s direction. Jane’s smile got broader as she knew she had what she wanted.
“What the F.B.I. doesn’t know is that later this afternoon, a scientific analysis of that object you saw in the picture will begin. What the F.B.I. will have to do is explain how this analysis by the L.A.P.D. Crime Lab took place without their knowledge. Based on the extent of findings, this could get very embarrassing. We’ll know more as the night progresses”.
Everyone nodded their approval as Jane decided she was also madly in love.
“What else did you have in mind, Steve”, Gary asked, “You said that you had a solution in two parts and that it could get risky”?
The group snapped to attention!
“We have two former fleet Marines in this room, an Army Infantryman, an Army
Ranger and an Air Force Pilot, all combat trained. Gentlemen, I am proposing a recon patrol to examine the site at Ben Lake”.
Everyone stared at each other in a moment of disbelief and wondered how a perfect stranger could know so much about them.
“Don’t worry guys”, Steve said as he sensed the surprise, “I always do my homework. I like what I see here”.
“He’s right”, Gary said as he stood up and looked over the group, “We need facts and circumstantial evidence. We want to know what happened to our friends. They would do the same for us. All we have now is bullshit and illusions of questionable sanity along with dead, injured, and missing people. I’m in”!
The group unanimously signed up for the mission, realizing all too well the risk involved. They also realized that the choices were slim. It was an all or nothing kind of game.
Jane took a deep breath as she uttered the sole thought in her mind, “Whoa”!
Aliens in the Allagash
Chapter 11
Fiddleheads for Dinner
Jane and Steve headed back to the Town of Eagle Lake once again. Steve was getting used to being chauffeured.
“This isn’t a bad gig”, Steve commented, “I might even overlook a common fact that most people seem to identify with woman drivers”.
Steve took another belt to the midsection as Jane drove on without a glance in his direction.
“I’m sorry, Steve”, Jane said while staying focused on the road, ”It’s a reflex action. I hate when it does that”.
“Since I met you, I have been lambasted, castigated, and excoriated by you on an incessant basis”.
“Oh my, I’m thoroughly impressed”, Jane said sarcastically with a glance toward Steve, “Where on earth did you learn all those college words? Around here we would just say, ‘you got beat to shit’”.
Steve couldn’t help smile at the hands of a master from which he was taking a pasting, but also decided he wasn’t rolling over.
“Does this mean that I get to have my way with you”, Steve asked innocently?
“If you keep this up, you can have anything you want”, Jane said with a smile.
“I knew I had you whipped into submission”, Steve analyzed.
Jane did not refute the last comment as she rolled into her drive.
“Steve, sweetheart, honey-do, love of my life, can I ask a teensy weensy favor of you, Jane asked with a most innocent smile while flapping her eyelashes”?
“If you weren’t one of Santa’s elves, I would…”, Steve paused mid-sentence as he thought about having another superb home cooked meal, “…yes, dearest, anything for Santa’s elf”.
“Can I get you to pull the garage door open, you great big strong hunk of masculinity?
Steve thought about the accolades.
“Where I come from, we would just say, ‘open the goddamn door’”.
Jane broke out in a fit of laughter and tapped Steve on the shoulder.
“You’re irreparably incorrigible and you had better stay that way”!
Jane did not want to be interfered with as she put her mind into the culinary arts ahead. She had changed into a very enticing evening gown, which more approximated lingerie. She set the kitchen fireplace ablaze and was positioning the last glassware on the dining table. She lit several candles and turned down the light dimmer as the aromas from the wood fired oven and cook top came to life.
“Now this is what I had in mind”, she smiled to herself and attended to the tasks at hand.
Steve stopped at the doorway to the most beautiful rustic setting he had ever seen. Jane was busy sampling the wares and fine tuning all elements of the superb Acadian cuisine in front of her.
“It is truly a scientific abnormality that a woman could create what I’m looking at without a man’s supervision”, Steve observed as he grinned and stood transfixed in the doorway. Jane said nothing as she removed the dish towel from her shoulder and tossed it at Steve.
“It would be more of an abnormality if a man could figure out how to dry those pots and pans without a woman’s supervision”, Jane said with a straight-laced expression while pointing to the sink, “Get to work!”
“Another romantic interlude. I am truly sanctified”, Steve said as he put the towel to use and envisioned a part time job that he once held, “What’s for supper? And by the way, you look gorgeous, baby. I assume that you are a menu selection? It must be a blessing for you to be associated with a man of such class distinction! How could a woman be so lucky”?
Jane sauntered over to Steve and laid a suffocating kiss right on his mouth.
“If you plan to use those lips for anything else, ever again”, can I make a suggestion?”
“Anything for you sweetheart”.
“First, press them together as hard as you can. Second, press harder. Third, keep them that way until you get permission to do otherwise. Did that register in that little cavity up there, ape-man”, Jane said without changing her expression as she poked at Steve’s head?
Steve grabbed his woman and wrestled her onto a butcher block table while planting the kiss of her lifetime and exploring her various body parts. Jane pulled him closer as Steve stood up and gazed around the kitchen.
“What’s for supper”, he asked again without so much as a smirk?
Jane got it together with a deep breath and fanned herself while again focusing her attention on all the creations in front of her.
“Fiddleheads”, she said without another word.
“Excuse me”, Steve asked”?
“Fiddleheads. You’re getting fiddleheads for dinner. Around here we say ‘dinner’”.
Steve looked perplexed and scratched the back of his neck.
“Are we going out”? Steve asked while peering through the window at the activities over at the Fiddleheads Restaurant.
“The only difference between you and Sasquatch is that he wears a bigger sweat shirt”.
Steve turned and started to defend himself, but got cut off at the pass.
“Lips”, Jane said with a stern glare!
Steve squeezed his lips together and stared intently.
“Down boy! Sit”, Jane commanded while pointing to a chair as Steve took a seat.
“Let me be of assistance with your higher education endeavors”, Jane said sarcastically, “I know that this may be challenging for you”.
Steve sat at attention!
“This is a fiddlehead”, she explained as she pulled a green leaf plant out of one of the salad dishes. “I picked these over at the Strikers before we left. This is the mantle of a baby fern common to this area. These expand and grow up to be the big ferns that you see as ground cover in the woods.
“You eat them”. Steve asked with squinty eyes?
“Yes, we eat them. We call them Fougères”, Jane emphasized, “With other garden greens and veggies, and my secret Acadian dressing, they are delicious”!
“Acadian what”, Steve asked again, realizing that his higher education credits were piling up.
“We are about ready to partake in a traditional French Acadian meal. You flatlanders might refer to it as Cajun cooking”.
“Are you kidding? For real”, Steve asked vigorously? “I LUV Cajun food, bring it on! My taste buds are about to explode”!
Jane smiled and set the salad bowls on the lavishly appointed dining room table.
“Don’t touch that, Jane ordered as Steve brought his bowl closer. “ Around here we give thanks for our good fortunes”.
Jane began the blessing in traditional Christian style, “Jesus, we thank you for what you have provided for us tonight in these beautiful surroundings, but I swear on my daddy’s grave to your father, that I will have you castrated if my new love life turns out to be a tease! Amen”.
Steve sat back from the table, looked straight at the ceiling, and exclaimed, “Goddamn, Amen, brother, don’t mess with me! I didn’t say anything”!
Jane explained a bit about Acadian cooking and how her ance
stors brought the recipes and traditions to this place. Steve was riveted to every word as he tried his first fiddlehead.
“Oh my God”, he gagged as he tried to speak with his first mouth full. “This is unbelievable! I don’t even like salads! This is extraordinarily delicious. Holy crap, how did you make this”?
“It’s an old family secret, starving pilgrim”, Jane answered without offering anything else.
“And just what else do you have brewing over there, madam”, Steve asked while peering at the range top?
Jane went over all of the other menu items for the evening with French translations. These included old style French fricasseed potatoes, Acadian meat pie with black pudding, salted herbs with traditional white sauce, and maple syrup dumplings for desert.
Dinner progressed without hardly a word. Steve couldn’t get enough with every mouthful. Future events of the evening evaporated as he succumbed to the enthralling effects of a meal as he never imagined”.
“Jane”, Steve began, “Let me explain something to you of a deep philosophical nature”!
Jane sat back and prepared for more Slattery words of wisdom.
“A way to a man’s stomach is through his mouth”, Steve said stupidly with conviction.