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Show 133. "Well, it was just like JD said," Chic rubbed his injured knee while he talked. "Funny, though, little green shoots are coming up all over the clearing now, but there's no new growth in that spot. The ground's still depressed there. We measured it at thirty-two feet across and took several pictures of it. It's a true circle, all right. Something had to have been there. And it must have generated tremendous heat." "Why do you think so?" Chic glanced first at Stephanie, then turned back to Mr. Crawford. "Take a look at what we found," he said. Stephanie carefully extracted something from the brown sack, a bundle wrapped in a terry cloth towel. She opened it with fingertips, gingerly, the way you'd handle a live grenade. "There," she said, straightening up. "It's JD's camera that he lost at Skull Mountain in October." Tom Crawford stood to his feet. "Holy Mackerel!" he exclaimed, staring at Stephanie's offering like it might go off. "That's sure enough a camera, or was!" "We didn't know if we should touch it without gloves or something," Stephanie said. "Do you mind if I_ look at it?" Tom reached across the table. "A man my age can afford to be reckless." He turned it over in his hands. It was grotesque, like a surrealistic art object, the plastic case stretched smooth across the back with one fold nearly hiding the range finder. "The amazing thing is," Chic said, "the shutter still works." "No film could survive this. What a pity. Where'd you end up finding it?" "It was a couple feet inside the perimeter," Chic said. "Buried. We uncovered it poking around with a stick." "It was Chic's idea to search inside the landing place. He told me all the way to the Gorge that we'd find the camera if it was still there, but we didn't dream we'd find it where it was. Gol, how'd it get under the UFO, anyway?" Tom Crawford pulled a cigar from his pocket but didn't bother to light it. He rolled it from one side of his mouth to another, shaking |