Bard desperately needed the Internet.
He decided Santa Fe was far enough away from last night’s shenanigans, and probably not the direction those jackwagons would be based out of, if they were even real.
Ernie’s cell phone was still sitting there when Bard woke up.
He still hadn’t decided exactly what to do with it. But there was a little boy missing who might need his help, and Bard was damn sure going to do what he could to find him.
He hadn’t slept well.
The rain had turned into a tremendous thunderstorm sometime during the night, and Bard kept dreaming about the boy out there somewhere.
He woke up almost crying.
But there was strength in planning. Something about having a problem in front of him, something he could actually work on, cut through the emotion.
Bard skipped breakfast.
He skipped coffee.
He threw on some freshish clothes, collected his things, grabbed Ernie’s phone and stepped outside before the sun had completely come up. The air still smelled heavily of ozone from the storm.
He even skipped his morning cigarette.
Then he got in the Civic and left.
He made it to Santa Fe quicker than he would have liked to admit, except for a stop for fuel.
There were libraries closer to home, sure, but Bard needed to get away for a minute. Santa Fe also had enough libraries that, if he needed multiple references for something, he could usually find them somewhere.
He decided to start at the one off Llano Street.
It was pretty relaxed that early in the morning.
Bard made a quick pass through the shelves, collected several books, and carried them over to the computers.
Then he got online.
He started with the missing boy.
Several hours disappeared that way.
Bard wasn’t having much luck, but what he did find bothered him.
According to the articles, the boy had disappeared from his home. His parents had since been taken into custody under suspicion of collusion. Neighbors supposedly described them as unfit and aggressive and claimed they had raised concerns before the disappearance.
Bard leaned back from the computer.
That wasn’t how he remembered Edna describing them.
Protective, maybe.
Kept to themselves.
Not particularly friendly.
But Bard had gotten the impression people basically liked them.
He printed the articles and went to the desk to see whether the library had physical copies of yesterday’s and today’s papers.
“Guess not,” the elderly clerk told him. “Seems to be missing.”
“Oh. Okay. Thanks.”
Bard returned to the computer.
He made a few more printouts from sites describing UFO sightings similar to what Edna had seen. There had actually been several recent reports around the United States that sounded remarkably close.
Orbs.
Changing colors.
Strange movement.
He printed several pages about older police vehicles, too, hoping he might be able to identify the vintage car the two officers were driving.
Finally, he searched for anything resembling the little windowless building in the woods.
Garage door.
Blue light.
No other entrance.
Nothing useful came up.
“Seems like an original gimmick.”
On his way out, Bard stopped for coffee and bought a newspaper. He was lucky enough to find a copy from the day before as well.
He tossed them in the trunk of his car on a pile of old print.
“Sort those out later.”
Then he headed home.
He had enough for now.
More than anything, he needed some rest.
And supplies.
And food.
He had been putting those last two off for a while.
“I guess I’m gonna have to go back to that trailer park as soon as possible and do another sweep.”
Maybe he could leave the Civic somewhere away from it.
He wasn’t sure how exactly he was going to manage that.
He also needed to check whether he still had Edna’s number when he got home.
Bard had gotten into the habit of writing people’s names and phone numbers down instead of saving them in his phone. When he called, he restricted his own number.
Call him paranoid.
He just didn’t particularly want anyone having his number.
Of course, this somehow made telemarketers impossibly terrifying.
By the time Bard got home, it was early evening.
The day had gotten hot, but the camper stayed surprisingly cool beneath the trees. Keeping it dark inside helped.
Bard put on some music using the battery-powered CD player, then checked his battery bank. The solar panel had done pretty well despite the storm. There was enough charge to plug in his laptop and cell phone.
Outside, he started a small fire.
He took the tiny cast-iron pan he used for his eggs down to the stream and scraped it out, rinsing it as well as he could before eventually placing it directly into the fire to clean it.
Bard stood there for a while, staring into the flames.
He thought about the dream from the night before.
There had been some elaborate river system that seemed to begin inside an amusement park before carrying him halfway across the country. The dream ended with Bard driving a car up an immense road that climbed toward the sky.
Thinking about it gave him an uncomfortable feeling somewhere deep in his stomach.
A short time later, he cooked his last few eggs over the embers.
Bard liked doing it this way every now and then. There was something satisfying about the whole process. Making the fire. Waiting for it to burn down. Setting the little cast-iron pan over the coals on the small tripod he kept for exactly this purpose.
Nothing complicated.
Just eggs.
“Yum. Lunch.”
Bard sat outside eating directly from the hot pan with a pair of metal chopsticks, gripping the handle through an oven mitt burned nearly to hell.
A steak would be nice.
Soon.