OCR Text |
Show 36. Why am I trying to talk him into it? Garth thought, letting the regular beat of the windshield wiper mesmerize him. He tried to remember what it was like being seventeen, if he'd have done any better than JD-stammering around, trying to convince someone that the impossible had just happened. Garth was ready to suggest that they go on home when JD spoke up ahead of him. "Okay. I'll do it. If one other person saw that UFO, you know, along the highway someplace . . . maybe printing our story would bring theirs out," "Right," Garth said with more enthusiasm than he actually felt. "Someone has to be first. I sure wish I'd been there with you, JD. I'd like to see that circle where you say it landed." "Could we get back up there before everything's snowed in?" JD suggested, "Would you want to go?" Garth hated to squelch JD's hopes, but the rain they were having was probably the snow base for sixty inches that would accumulate on the mountains this winter. Garth squinted out of the windshield, "It's snowing up there now, I'd say, and likely won't melt off 'til spring." It was Mrs. Crawford who came to the door and asked themin, waiting politely while they wiped their feet on the mat a decent number of times, Mae Crawford had been Garth's principal at the old Red Butte High School and he admitted she still had a formidable presence, "He's relaxing with the ten o'clock news," she said with a tight smile, "but I'll tell him you're here. Please sit down." They stood just inside the French doors of what might have been an elegant parlor at one time. Finally, they heard footsteps coming from the back of the big house. Tom Crawford, his bony frame showing through an old sweater, came into the room with about twice the cordiality his wife had mustered, "Well, well, hello there," he shook hands with Garth and gestured the two to sit down. "Imagine having company on a blustery night like this," He looked pleased, Garth thought, to have his relaxing interrupted. Crawford was a canny old bastard, carrying on with the Times long after most small town papers had gone |